It was as if someone had thrown a switch. The transformation was nothing short of extraordinary. Hurley went from a raging, roaring behemoth to a gentle giant in an instant. He spied the general and with his new prize in hand walked over. Only the deluge of perspiration trickling out from beneath his curly black mop offered any testimony to the ferocity of his earlier behavior. From a few paces away, he threw a smart salute to Vaughn. “Good to see you again, sir.”
“Sergeant Major,” Vaughn nodded, returning the salute, then clasped Hurricane’s prodigiously large hand. “It’s been too long.”
“I’m surprised an old war horse like you hasn’t retired.”
“I’ve a few rides left in me before they put me out to pasture.” The general’s smile hardened to a look that was strictly business. “What happened here?”
Hurley shook his head. “I did my damnedest, but they had some kind of weapon… It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Dodge — that’s Mr. Dalton —”
“Dalton writes the…” Vaughn made a curious face that a mixture of displeasure and amusement.
Hurley needed no translation. “That’s right. He managed to grab one of them, but…” He shook his head again, this time with a sorrowful sigh.
“Any idea who we’re dealing with?”
Hurricane raised the silver plate. “This is made from the same metal as their ship and flying packs. It’s the only clue they left, and I’d say they wanted us to find it.”
Vaughn now saw that it was neither truly silver nor a plate at all, but a smooth disc eight inches in diameter and half an inch thick. As Hurley turned it over, it separated into two matching halves, and nested inside was a reel of film. He unwound a strip of celluloid and examined it. “It’s a Movietone reel.”
Vaughn turned to the Chief of Staff. “We need to see this. Do you have a projector?”
“In the theater. Follow me.”
Hurley and the general joined a procession of men moving into the halls of the Presidential mansion and entered the private movie theater. The film reel was given to the projectionist who threaded it onto a newsreel device. The Fox Movietone projector used a special film upon which was recorded not only visual images, but also a synchronized audio soundtrack. The quality was not as sharp as that used by feature motion pictures, which employed a separate soundtrack recorded on a vinyl album, but the advantage of the Movietone system was that it required only one piece of machinery to display both sound and moving pictures. The villain had no doubt taken this into account when choosing the medium in which to make his intentions known.
As everyone took their seats, Vaughn addressed the group: “This film is our only clue to the identity of the men who abducted the President. I don’t think I need to tell anyone that whatever you see stays in this room.”
There was a chorus of affirmatives, and then the lights went down and the screen filled with a scratchy pattern of light through dark film. This continued for a moment, and then resolved into a scene of almost total blackness. At the center, mostly hidden beneath the shadow of a dark cowl, was a lone human figure. Only his lower jaw and cryptic humorless mouth were visible, starkly white in contrast to the rest of the picture. For a long time the figure was motionless; the image was awkwardly static for a medium characterized by activity. Similarly, the strident musical score that most moviegoers had come to expect from weekly newsreels and serials was absent; there was only the soft hiss of film passing through the projector.
At last the dramatic silence was broken by a pronouncement even more profound: “People of America, I have your leader.”
A mournful exhalation rippled through the benighted room but no one spoke except the mysterious figure on the screen.
“By now you must realize that no weapon in your arsenal can vanquish me; no scheme of yours can hope to succeed. The fate of your leader is in my hands, and only by complete compliance with my demands can you hope to effect his release.
“The ransom for your leader cannot be paid with any coin in your treasury. I demand only one thing, and my demand is absolute.”
Vaughn held his breath. From the sudden hush, he knew he wasn’t the only one.
“I seek to prove myself in mortal combat with your greatest champion. I have studied your news journals and identified America’s greatest warrior; the only man who could hope to stand against me in battle: Captain Zane Falcon.”
The general felt as though all the blood had drained from his body. He slumped in his chair, almost deaf to the closing statement of the ultimatum. “I will give instructions to Captain Falcon in one week’s time; the location of his final battlefield, and the place where I have imprisoned your leader.
“Do not break faith with me. If you attempt any act of defiance, your leader will be the first victim of my wrath. He will not be the last. I await your pleasure, Captain Falcon.”
The reel ran out almost as soon as the final word was uttered, leaving the hushed room to ponder the threat to the rhythmic flapping of the loose end. Abruptly, the noise stopped and the interior lights came on.
Hurley let out a heavy sigh. “Falcon.”
Before anyone else could comment, the door opened and a Secret Service agent rushed in with a report. “The airship was spotted rendezvousing with a barge near the mouth of the bay. The… ah, hostage was transferred to a large amphibious airplane, which immediately took off.”
Vaughn rose to still the murmur that followed. “I sent up a squadron of P-36 Hawks from Baltimore before I came here. I will direct them to follow this plane.”
“They can’t shoot down the President,” gasped the Treasurer.
“The planes aren’t armed, but even if they were, I wouldn’t give that order. I will have them follow this boatplane. I’ve also called for a pair of B-10’s from Wright Field. They’re more than an hour out, but they are just about the fastest thing we got. They ought to be able to pick up the scent before those fighters have to turn back.”
“And what do we do if they run the plane to ground? We can’t risk the President’s life by defying this villain openly.”
“Mr. Secretary, I respectfully suggest that figuring that out is our most immediate course of action.”
“Sir,” interrupted the messenger. “There’s more. The spotters report that one of the flying men is coming back up the river.”
“Damnation,” rasped the Chief of Staff. “Do you suppose this fiend has another message for us? Or does he just want to gloat?”
Vaughn came to his feet, poised for action. “I’ll divert one of the planes to intercept and keep an extra eye on him. By God, I’ll be damned if I let him rain Hell twice in one day. We have enough artillery lining the river to ruin his day.”
“It won’t be enough.”
All eyes in the room turned to the source of the low rumble that was Hurricane Hurley’s thoughtful voice. He elaborated: “They use some kind of… invisible shield. Stops a bullet like a fly on the wind — shield of your car. When I tried to hit these guys, my fists never touched ‘em. This shield of theirs surrounds them like a turtle shell.”
The general wasn’t convinced. “But you were able to knock them around, right? Believe me, an anti-aircraft shell packs a lot more punch than even your fists, old friend.”
Hurley remained skeptical. “Sir, it almost seemed like the harder and faster I hit, the harder the shield got.”
Vaughn rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “These fellows used some kind of electrical weapon, right? I’m willing to bet that this fancy shield works off electricity as well. The fragmentation jacket on an ack-ack shell is made of steel, which conducts electricity a whole lot better than a lead slug from a Tommy gun… or your fists. If we put enough steel in the air over the river, it might be enough to short-circuit this device of his.”