The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2 page)

The tank just sat there, throbbing, pressed up against the thick vault door.
It seemed to be defeated… or simply gathering its breath, preparing to strike
again.

The shaken soldiers arose and, together with the constables, encircled the
machine. Dunning edged closer, peering at one of the scraped plates on the front
of the tank. "What is it doing?" he asked, not expecting an answer.

With a loud clang, a panel opened and two human eyes stared out through the
narrow slot. Dunning sprang back with a yelp. The slot slammed shut. "There're
men inside that thing!"

Clanking, winding, slotting sounds began to emanate from within the
mechanical beast. A panel
thwacked
open on top of the machine, and a
fat cylinder extended, swiveled about in search of a target, then locked into
place. It was aimed at the vault door.

Everyone there could recognize a cannon barrel when they saw it.

"Get back!" shouted Dunning. He clapped his hands over his ears, but many of
the others didn't react quickly enough.

The weapon fired with a deafening sound as if all the heavens had cracked
asunder. The shock wave in the enclosed vault room threw constables and soldiers
to the ground. The merciless cannon fired again, and then a third time.

Finally, the massive, dented vault door teetered, slumped, and at last fell
inward. It crashed to the stone floor with a sound as deafening as the artillery
explosions.

The air inside the ruined bank was thick with choking dust. The men's ears
were bleeding. Dunning shook his head to clear it; with the back of one hand, he
wiped powder and sweat from his eyes.

A thick metal hatch opened high on the juggernaut's flank and a step ladder
cantilevered down. Men wearing easily recognizable German army uniforms emerged,
led by a pale-eyed man who wore cruelty on his face as naturally as another man
might wear a moustache. The uniformed men carried sleek, modern-looking
snub-nosed firearms and boxy radio sets on their hips.

Constable Dunning had never seen anything like it. He had heard, though, the
Kaiser had been stepping up his war effort, planning against the British Empire.
And here was the proof!

The foremost invader turned back to the dark interior of the massive ironclad
machine. He spoke in clipped German. "We are ready, Herr Fantom."

Only then did their leader step into the open, emerging from the infernal
machine. Dramatically garbed in black clothes and a sweeping cape, the man cut a
formidable presence. He wore gleaming black boots, crisp gloves—and a
frightening silver mask that hid most of his features. Dunning caught only a
partial glimpse of a terribly disfigured face.

Dunning stared, burning the Fantom's face into his memory. He had read
something about a similar murderous villain who had terrorized the Paris Opera
House, not many years ago. But that Fantom had supposedly been killed…

Now the man in the metal mask gazed around the room, ignoring the astonished
constables and soldiers as if they were no more relevant than insects.

"Ah, I love a night out in London," the leader said in German. "Lieutenant
Dante, instruct our men to go about their work. We have other appointments to
keep."

The cruel-faced Dante dispatched a team of German soldiers who scrambled out
of the land ironclad and into the vault. Others, brandishing their futuristic
snub-nosed weapons, held the intimidated bank soldiers and constables at
bay.

When the invaders marched brazenly into the ruins of the Bank of England
vault, one of the British guards broke free. "Here now, you can't be—"

With a flourish, the Fantom pulled out a snub-nosed gun and callously shot
the outspoken British guard between the eyes. As the guard crumpled, the masked
leader tossed his gun to Lieutenant Dante. "Leave one of them alive to tell the
tale. Only one. What you do with the rest… I leave to your vivid
imagination."

Striding through the debris, his cape flowing behind him as if no dust would
dare cling to his black clothes, the Fantom entered the vault, leaving Dante and
the others to their given tasks.

As the ruthless executions began, Constable Dunning squeezed his eyes shut
and thought of his children.

As the crack of gunfire and pleading screams resounded from outside the
vault, the Fantom's Germans used crowbars and the butts of their weapons to
break open security boxes of all sizes. The men spilled the contents onto the
floor—bank notes, gold, jewelry, bonds—but they were searching for something in
particular.

An eager henchman picked up a gold brick and could not help admiring it.
"Such treasures."

"Treasure, yes," the Fantom agreed, hardly sparing a glance for the chunk of
precious metal. "Some worth more than others."

With a gloved hand, the masked man snapped the latch of a mahogany plan-chest
and reverently drew open the long drawer to reveal a sheaf of fragile parchment.
He lifted one sheet, then another. Behind the metal mask his eyes darted back
and forth.

The pages of age-yellowed paper bore hand-drawn architectural plans of a city
on water, its deep foundations crumbling and cavernous. In spite of the faded
ink, the detail was incredible, drawn by a genius centuries ago.

"Ah, here is the key to our labyrinth." The horribly scarred lips, barely
visible beneath the silver mask, smiled. The Fantom snatched up the pages and
swept out of the vault, ignoring the rest of the gold and treasure. "Time to go.
We have what we need."

Outside, Constable Dunning huddled in horror and misery, his face spattered
with blood. As relieved as he was to be alive, he felt a piercing guilt at being
the only survivor among dozens of slaughtered policemen and soldier guards. The
German henchmen ignored him as they climbed back aboard the land ironclad.

The Fantom also vanished inside the vehicle, while his lieutenant spared a
final glance for the surviving constable, who seemed oblivious to the departing
soldiers. Dante said to him, "Count your blessings."

Then he swung the hatch shut, and the land ironclad roared back off the way
it had come.

Like gigantic inflatable whales, six zeppelins floated inside a construction
hangar that was large enough to swallow a small town. Spotlights shone on the
graceful curved sides of the hydrogen-swollen dirigibles.

Atop the hangar, red wind socks extended parallel to snapping giant flags
that displayed the colors of the German Empire. In the cool breezes that swept
across the grassy lowlands off the Elbe River, the zeppelins strained against
their tethers, as if restless.

Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin had designed these huge airships, supported
internally by a light skeletal framework and guided by rudders and propellers.
Zeppelin himself had envisioned the military uses of these giant and silent
craft after ascending in observation balloons with Union forces during the
American Civil War. After retiring from military service, Zeppelin had spent
most of his life's savings on independent aeronautics research—until finally the
Kaiser himself had become interested enough in the work to provide much-needed
financial backing.

In the past several years, Kaiser Wilhelm II had invested a fortune in the
secret Valkyrie Zeppelin Works. The graceful, yet intimidating airships would be
Germany's pride, drifting across the skies in fearsome formation. They looked
silent and peaceful, like slumbering giants of the north.

The first gunshot rang out even before shouted orders launched the sneak
attack. A German guard screamed as he died. Others scrambled for their weapons,
taken completely by surprise. But no matter what they did, it was too late for
them.

The Valkyrie Works were destined to fall this night.

"Forward, men! Tallyho! For Queen Victoria!" Heavily armed men wearing
British military uniforms let out a simultaneous yell and rushed forward into
the zeppelin factory:

Ratcheting sirens blared like prehistoric beasts in the cavernous
construction hangar. Warning shouts rang out above the din, a mixture of German
and English.

Straight-backed and grimly satisfied with how the operation had proceeded so
far, Lieutenant Dante emerged from a workers' room. Tonight, for this second
phase of the Fantoms plan, he was dressed as a British commander, even sporting
a pencil-thin moustache. He directed squads of "British" soldiers as they
roughly herded frightened German factory workers down iron steps from the
catwalks and construction platforms above.

The radio box at Dante's hip squawked. He grabbed it, pressed it to his ear,
and listened to the report from his scouts outside the factory perimeter. He
scowled. "Fantom! We won't have the time we expected. The Germans are already
arriving in force."

With his gleaming silver mask affixed to his mysteriously malformed face, the
gaunt Fantom waited at the bottom of the metal stairs. "I expected the Kaiser to
respond without delay."

Both of them spoke in richly accented English this time. The German
workers—anyone who survived, that was—would hear him and remember who had
attacked the extravagant new zeppelin factories in Hamburg. The Kaiser wasn't
likely to be very forgiving of the British Empire.

Brandishing their modern snub-nosed weapons and shoving, the Fantom's men
drove the other prisoners away. The sounds of fighting echoed intermittently
through the hangar, screams, gunshots. Although the resistance was dwindling,
the Kaiser's troops would arrive before long.

The Fantom turned, swirling his black cape. "But that is not relevant, Dante.
Do we have the man we came for?"

The Fantoms lieutenant snapped his fingers, and one of the henchmen shoved a
meek academic scientist forward. "As you requested, Fantom. This is Karl Draper,
at your service, whether or not he bloody well likes it."

The Fantom regarded the cringing man before him. The German scientist wore
spectacles and work overalls; from one pocket protruded a wad of cloth with
which he had frequently mopped beads of perspiration from his forehead. Karl
Draper looked into the bright, demonic eyes behind the silver mask; he swallowed
hard at what he saw there.

"W-what do you want?" Draper asked in German, the tension of terror
modulating his voice to a higher pitch.

"The
world
, Herr Draper. I want the world." Barely visible beneath
the lower curve of his mask, the Fantoms' lips curled in a sinister smile. "And
you will help give it to me."

The scientist looked as confused as he was frightened. "But… but I have no
secret knowledge! I am just an architectural engineer."

The Fantom looked at Draper as if he were only a mildly interesting specimen
in a very large collection. "Yes. I know."

Dante checked his boxy radio and frowned. "The Kaiser's troops have reached
the gate, Fantom. They will be inside in a matter of moments, and they seem to
be surprisingly well armed."

Below the mask, the Fantoms' twisted lips smiled. "Yes, the Kaiser has been
gearing up for war for many years now."

Dante stood, waiting for more detailed orders. "Should I tell the men to
prepare for a pitched firefight?"

"Nothing so troublesome, Lieutenant. I'll provide a distraction to cover our
exit. I think it will be rather impressive."

The Fantom glanced up to the hangar's next level and gestured to one of his
loyal henchmen who stood on the iron steps above. The soldier tossed down a
sleek and complicated rocket-launching weapon. The masked leader shrugged his
cape out of the way, shouldered the weapon, and cocked the firing pin.

"Are you mad?" the German scientist cried upon seeing the rocket launcher.
"This place is full of hydrogen gas!"

"Exactly." He turned to Dante. "Get Herr Draper to safety please."

Shouting into his radio box, Dante sounded the retreat. Leaving the corralled
factory prisoners waiting for rescue from the incensed German army, the invading
soldiers in British uniforms beat an orderly withdrawal from the main work
area.

The masked leader swung the weapon to bear on the space behind them, where
the six enormous zeppelins hovered by the yawning open doors of the hangar.
Shouting curses at the English, the Kaiser's reinforcements swarmed through the
front doorway, demanding that the British troops surrender.

When the oncoming German soldiers were halfway across the hangar, running
directly under the dirigibles, the Fantom fired the heavy rocket launcher.

"Nein!" Karl Draper shouted, his face filled with horror. Dante pushed him
impatiently ahead.

Whistling, sputtering, and buzzing as it flew, the rocket trailed a control
wire behind it. The Fantom studied the trajectory like an expert skeet shooter
and adjusted his aim to put the nearest zeppelin in the crosshairs. He couldn't
possibly miss.

The wire-controlled rocket angled up and tore through the side of the
gas-filled airship, then detonated. Though a single spark would have been
sufficient, the Fantom found this extravagant method more dramatic and
satisfying.

Contained within baffled chambers of the huge lighter-than-air dirigible, the
rich hydrogen gas erupted in incinerating flames. The explosion sent out shock
waves powerful enough to knock the rushing German soldiers flat. Many of them
caught fire, like living candles, screaming as they burned and fell to the
hangar floor. The trapped factory workers and defeated guards tried to escape,
but the flames rolled forward like fiery floodwaters from a burst dam.

A wave of flame spewed from the first dying zeppelin and ignited its nearest
counterpart, triggering a catastrophic chain reaction that leaped from one
zeppelin to the next. Soon, the entire Valkyrie Works were in flames.

The Fantoms' silver mask caught and reflected the dazzling firestorm. He
admired the holocaust he had triggered. Quite impressive.