The Further Adventures of Batman (9 page)

Flying Phil stood up, grinning pleasantly, twirling his goldleaf encrusted hat in his hands in an awkward motion that he had studied with some care.

“As I understand it, this meeting is to decide the issue of the ARDC contract, docket number 123341-A-2.”

“That is correct,” Admiral Fenton said. “As you would know if you had attended yesterday’s meeting, those of us present weighed the pros and cons of the new ARDC system. Since we will be supplying these weapons to our own troops as well as our allies, I need hardly mention to you the seriousness of this contract.”

“I know the weapons are good,” said General Rohort, shifting his heavy body in an alert manner. “But can ARDC be relied upon to deliver?”

“I think we need have no doubts about that,” Fenton said. “But as a final witness, I have taken the liberty of calling in James Nelson, Deputy Director of the CIA.”

Fenton gestured and a yeoman opened the door to the outer office.

In walked a tall tan man dressed entirely in shades of tan. Even his fingernails were tan; an extremely light tan, but a tan nevertheless.

Only his teeth were white; his teeth, and the whites of his eyes.

General Kowalski wondered if it meant anything that the first thing he noticed about James Nelson was the whites of his eyes.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” Nelson said. “Please excuse my tan. I’m just back from Florida where I have been supervising our counterinsurgency program designed to bring Columbian cocaine dealers in line with current clandestine drug pricing policies.”

“Have they been undercutting the government drug-supply programs again?” General Rohort said, a frown on his tanklike face.

“Indeed they have,” Nelson said. “The loss of revenue for the government’s various clandestine services has been severe. And of course there is the loss of quality experienced by the end users.”

“That foreign stuff doesn’t meet FDA regulations,” Admiral Fenton growled. “There really ought to be a law against it.”

“The President believes in free trade,” Nelson said. “Within limits, of course.” He ignored the No Smoking sign and lit a cigarette. The faint yellow cast of the tan cigarette contrasted subtly with the faded rose tan of his lips.

“Well, never mind,” Kowalski said. “It’s none of our business what anyone does about drugs. We’re here to do something about this contract. I must say, Nelson, I’ve had my doubts about a few of the details.”

“Set your mind at rest,” Nelson said. “This is one of the best and most constructive contracts the U.S. government has ever entered into with a company from the private sector. What makes it even nicer is that several of our foreign allies will also profit from the contract and give this move a lot of good publicity.”

A copy of the contract was taken out and passed around. The Joint Chiefs peered at it and passed it around.

“Well, gee,” Kowalski said. “I’m still unsure.”

“Let me reassure you,” Nelson said. “The President himself wants this bill to be signed into law.”

“Then why doesn’t he tell us so?” Kowalski asked.

“Gentlemen, that is just what he is going to do. The President is coming here to witness your signatures and congratulate you on doing your patriotic duty.”

“The President? Coming here?” said Chuck Rohort.

“You got it, Chuck,” Fenton said.

“Then let me waste no further time,” Nelson said. “Gentlemen, the President!”

He nodded to the yeoman. The yeoman gulped and opened the door. In walked Marshall Seldon, the tall, stooped, gray-haired man with the lopsided grin known in every home around America.

The Joint Chiefs rose so as to crowd around the President. Nelson made them stay back.

The President held up a hand. Soon they heard his familiar tweedy tenor.

“Gentlemen, I have many important matters to attend to. Please sign the treaty, and let us get on with the business of confounding our enemies and comforting our friends.”

The Joint Chiefs crowded around, each pushing to be first. They were interrupted by a clear baritone voice as the door opened again, this time without any assistance from the yeoman.

“Before you sign that piece of paper, gentlemen, I’d like a word with you.”

They all fell silent. Even important men like generals and admirals were likely to give Batman a chance to speak.

Nelson was an exception to that rule, by virtue of his unique position. It was his duty not to be seduced by other men’s words. He knew that Batman did not belong there. He pretended to listen, but all the time his right hand was snaking toward his belt, where a two-shot derringer, disguised as a Hickok belt buckle, awaited his touch.

Batman had had no insurmountable difficulties scaling the Gaudi at first. He hadn’t been able to use the means that had gotten him over the ARDC fence. In that instance he had employed a whiz-bang, a simple enough contraption designed to make brilliant flashes of light and strange, unsettling noises, and to do so long enough to allow an attack to be launched from another quarter. The attacker had been Batman himself, climbing up and over the fence, protected from the electrical current by his insulated gloves and boots. For a moment he had blotted out the stars as he came over the fence and down the other side. During that brief time, Billy-Joe and Steve were blinking into the flash of the whiz-bang, blinded and deafened for critical moments necessary for Batman to land safely and secretly on the other side.

No such diversion could be used here. No distraction could be counted on to rivet the attention for the long minutes that would be needed to scale the Gaudi, and nothing in Batman’s bag of tricks could propel him to the fortieth floor.

Luckily, there was a brilliant gibbous moon that night. It bathed one face of the building in its cold white light, but left the other faces in darkness. Using spring-driven crampons of his own devising that permitted him to get footholds on granite, the Masked Man swarmed up the dark side of the building. When he reached the fifth floor, where there was a row of gargoyles, an expedient presented itself. The next level of gargoyles was on the tenth floor, and each five floors after that. The Batarang presented a feasible opportunity, tied to a light line on the end of a coiled line. Batman was an expert at throwing the curiously shaped Batarang, similar to a boomerang but infinitely more useful in terms of angles that it could be projected along.

Batman’s first cast was a few feet high. He retrieved the Batarang and threw again, cautioning himself not to overdo it—precision was called for, not brute strength.

This time the Batarang flew true and coiled around the neck of a stone devil.

To climb forty stories up a rope is, in its quiet way, a greater feat than many others the world deems more spectacular. Luckily, Batman had along a BatHoist to assist him on vertical assents by rope. The little device, powered by a miniature atomic motor, and operating through a cunning set of gears, was able to pull a man’s weight up a rope at a steady four miles an hour.

When Batman gained the fortieth floor, he used a handheld punch to take out the exterior window fasteners and let himself in. He took care not the drop the window, and refastened the fasteners again from the inside, reversing the hand-held punch and tapping the rivets in with great delicacy. After that, it was easy enough to skulk down the hall and find the main conference room where the Joint Chiefs were meeting.

“What is the meaning of this?” Admiral Fenton said. “I’ve heard of you, of course, Batman. It is said that you serve some good causes. But if you think your reputation is going to intimidate me, you’ve got another thing coming.”

“I had no such thought,” Batman said. “I merely wanted to present a few facts about the ARDC weapons systems with which you are proposing to arm our forces.”

“You’ve got a lot of nerve,” Fenton said, “trying to teach us our business. We’ve checked out those weapons to the hundredth decimal point. They’re the best I’ve ever seen.”

“Perhaps,” Batman said. “But have you also checked out their computer-supported operating systems?”

“It’s a new system,” General Rohort said. “Supposed to be the best the mind of man has come up with.”

“I’d advise that you look again,” Batman said. “I have some documents I think you’ll find interesting.”

“What are you getting at, Batman?” Fenton said. “You don’t expect to stop us, do you?”

The Masked Man did not answer.

“This place is filled with our men,” Fenton went on. “You can’t hope to delay us from signing for long. And to think you’d try something like this with the President here.”

President Marshall Seldon had been standing at the far end of the room throughout this exchange. Now, smiling slightly, he said, “Let him show us his documents. This will be amusing.”

Batman pulled his cloak close to him, and, from a pocket deep in its fold, he extracted a wad of computer printouts. They showed complex circuitry and were filled with tiny numbers and Greek letters.

“Gentlemen,” Batman said, “please take a look at these.”

Kowalski was the first to reach for one. “What are these?”

“Schematics for the main computer circuitry for the ARDC weapons.”

Kowalski looked through them, his curly blond hair tumbling boyishly over his forehead. “Yes . . . yes, it all looks all right so far . . . Yes, that’s a standard Sliger circuit . . . But what’s this, it’s tied into a resonator with a provision for switchable mirror reflectivity . . . Hell, I see what you mean!”

“What is it?” the other chiefs asked, not being as adept at computer schematics as was the tall, young Air Force general.

Kowalski looked up and his face was grim. “You tell them, Batman.”

Batman said, “I believe you’ve all heard of computer viruses.”

“Of course,” Fenton said. “They are those specially designed programs that some madmen or malcontents devise to feed into computers and so render them inoperative, sometimes for long periods of time, until a killer program can be devised and introduced to get rid of them again. Sometimes the computer virus program is so deeply ingrained that even the metals of the affected computers must be changed due to imprinting error. But nobody is going to introduce any viruses into these programs, Batman. This is a whole new generation of program and it is virus-resistant except to an as yet undevised new generation of computer viruses.”

“That is true,” Batman said. “But you miss the point.”

“Which is?”

“The software for the ARDC programs is designed to generate its own virus which will first pervert its functioning, then destroy it.”

“Create its own viruses?” General Rohort said. “Like tadpoles hatching out of mud?”

Kowalski nodded grimly. “It’s there in the specs, general. We just overlooked it—as we were intended to do.”

Rohort turned to Kowalski. “You understand these matters, Flying Phil. But I can hardly believe it. Can what the masked man is saying be true?”

“It’s true, all right.” Kowalski said, a note of iron underlying the lightness of his voice. “That’s exactly what it is.”

“Gentlemen!” It was the voice of President Seldon, and it brought every man in the room to attention—and the yeoman, too.

“Yes, Mr. President?” said Admiral Fenton.

“First of all, I want to thank Batman,” the President said, “for having brought this matter to our attention. As a matter of fact we have already corrected the design flaw, Batman, and now there is nothing standing in the way of the Joint Chiefs signing it.”

“That document must not be signed,” Batman said. “And these men must no longer take their orders from you.”

“Why do you say that?” the President asked. “Stop this senseless charade now, Batman, and I think we can arrange a medal for you. How would you like an official position in my cabinet? Presidential Advisor on Superheroes. How does that sound to you?”

“It’s fine, Mr. President,” Batman said. “Except for one thing.” He stepped forward suddenly, walking directly toward the President. Even Nelson of the CIA was caught off guard for a moment. He drew his sidearm quickly, not the beltbuckle derringer but a heavy Browning automatic that he reserved for dire emergencies. But by then Batman had stepped up to the President . . .