The Origin of Volunteer and Raptor

Prologue:


Our story starts early on the morning of March 2, 1942. The whole East Cost is under high blackout alert - earlier in the evening, the defensive forces around Marble City Maryland reported opening fire on an unauthorized, unidentified aircraft. Though the War Department investigated a dozen further reports from later that night, only one was related to the Marble City incident... (You can read about the incident in Marble City here: Enter Dr. Lambda, (chapters 1-3))

Unidentified Crashing Object

It was the middle of the night, crisp and clear, the moon high and not a cloud in the sky. ‘Duke’ DuQuesne was seated in front of the panoramic window in the 3rd floor turret in his house, part way up Mt. Otojeonyos, intently studying the large, blacked out town in the valley below: Heathcote, NY, on the shore of Groton Reservoir. Directly below he could see the town, off to the right was the campus of Empire State Military Academy, where Duke was an instructor in Theoretical Strategy and Tactics, and just past both of them was the shore of the Reservoir. Not far to the west (the right, in Duke’s panorama) was the Croton Dam that blocked the Munsee River and a ways beyond that the Munsee emptied into the Hudson, not far south of West Point.

Not a light shone in the town below – which was a good thing; Duke was a ‘Blackout Monitor’ for the Civil Defense department, and tonight, the entire East Coast was on ‘High Alert’ blackout status. Earlier tonight, the Civil Defense forces around Marble City, Maryland, had reported shooting down an intruder aircraft. Civil Defense command had notified every radio station on the East Coast, and contacted all the Air Raid wardens they could reach via shortwave and telephone, and for the rest of this night, at least, the entire coast was as dark as it had been over the last hundred years or so.

Investigations in the Marble City area had so far turned up nothing; future news stories would report that an Axis sympathizer had stolen a small plane and been headed for Washington DC. with the intent of crashing the plane into the White House and it had been shot down and crashed into the Galileo Galilei Observatory, a few miles north of Marble City. The only fatality had been the pilot, who had died in the hospital after questioning. At least, that was the official story.

Something very hard to see was rapidly approaching in the air from the south, leaving behind a long, quickly dissipating finger of vapor, moving far faster than anything Duke had ever seen in the air before. The flight path was erratic; later, Duke would say that it looked like it was barely under control, but it was almost HERE already, and then it passed almost directly overhead, and there was some muffled crashing noises and for a few seconds the house shook and then… nothing else out of the ordinary.

“Whatever it was, It must have crashed!” Duke was already struggling up out of his observation chair. He limped into the small lift. On the ground floor he grabbed an electric torch, a hatchet, his crutch, and his pistol, and limped out into the dark. There was a well-tended trail leading up to the peak of the small mountain – students from the Academy tended it regularly during the warmer months, and would often visit for hiking and picnics. He hoped whatever it was hadn’t crashed far from the path. It had been unseasonably warm the past week or so and near his home, at least, the path was pretty clear of snow and ice, but it would be hell digging through the woods – something he normally wouldn’t attempt by himself even in full daylight.

He couldn’t see any indication of the crash – whatever it had been, it had not started a fire, and there had been no explosion… and then, he saw some faint wisps of vapor, not too far away, and he started slowly up the path, a cloth over the lens of his flashlight. A hundred yards or so farther, and it occurred to him – “I didn’t call in a report!” He should have been on the radio instantly, but he’d totally forgotten when he’d rushed out here – and he decided he didn’t want to go back to the house at this point. “I can’t be the only observer who saw it!” he insisted to himself. “And there might be somebody in the wreck who needs my help!” On he went…

Whatever it was, it had come down to the left of the path and skidded across the path into the woods on the right, taking down dozens of trees on each side and plowing a ditch. The trough was uneven and cluttered with the broken roots of trees, loose dirt and rocks, and other debris, but he doggedly dragged his way along.

“I barely heard it!” He was astounded. “A crash that took down dozens of trees and rips up the ground should have been loud enough to wake up the whole town!”

He was mostly crawling by now, dragging his left leg and his crutch behind, and he was reaching the end of his endurance. In the back of his mind, the old curses and rants about the unfairness of polio ruining his life played over and over, but in the forefront, there was only one loud chant that drove him to crawl stubbornly onward: “Someone may need my help!”

And there it was, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow – the crashed airship he had seen flash overhead… or was it just an airship? It was difficult to tell in the moonlight, and his muffled torch didn’t help much. Maybe as big as a couple of railroad cars, sitting next to each other, shaped like a rugby ball, perhaps, and a gash torn in the hull, out of which leaked flickering yellow light.

“Something’s on fire in there!” he exclaimed. “HELLO! Is anyone in there?” he yelled, but there was no response, just the faint crackling coming from the fire inside the vessel.

He struggled to the tear, climbed over debris and entered. This must be the control room… Seated in a chair which could clearly swivel, partially surrounded by control panels, was a very large being… and definitely not a human! The being was easily seven feet tall, wearing a gray full-body suit, covered by a brick-red tunic. The hands and head were bare; the hands were grayish green and scaly with three fingers per hand and a thumb, each ending in a claw. The most striking feature was the being’s head: It appeared to be a cross between a lizard and a wolf; greenish-gray scales covered most of the face and a spiny ridge ran from somewhere on the back of its head, between its canine-like ears, and down between its multifaceted eye, stopping at the bridge of its snout. And it was breathing – but not moving otherwise. And in a corridor opposite from where Duke had entered, he could see a fire in the next compartment. He had to get this being out of here!

It was held to the chair with 3 belts; two them ran from the shoulders, crossed at the middle of the chest, and back to the chair and one across the lap. There were some apparent buckles, but the mechanisms were not apparent. Leaning against the chair for support, Duke starting trying to figure out the buckle on the chest. There was a depression along the top edge – he touched it and the buckle split in half, and the remaining harnesses dropped to the sides. The belt across the lap opened the same way. Duke barely kept the wolf-lizard from falling out of the chair – the being must have weighted more than 300 pounds!

“Wolf / lizard… I wonder, should I call him a wozard?” the idle thought sneaked through his mind as he struggled to lower the wozard gently to the deck.

The bumping and twisting along the way to the floor must have hastened the wozard's revival, as he was starting to move slightly when Duke finally had him laid out on the deck with his arms pointed over his head towards the tear in the hull. Duke slid to the deck, his back to the outside, grabbed the wozard’s arms in his hands, and started squirming toward the tear, pushing with his good leg and pulling, and they started making progress. The fire was getting bigger and it was spreading, and Duke was certain they weren’t going to get out before it reached them when the wozard finally awakened fully. He pulled his arms free with a jerk and frantically raised his head, twisting it this way and that and once almost all the way around to stare momentarily directly into Duke’s eyes, and then the being pulled himself to his feet, staggered the one step back to the control chair, and pressed a single big button on one of the control panels – one that was twice as big as the others and set off by itself, isolated from all the rest of the controls. The fire was extinguished instantly! And Duke felt a strange sensation, as a wave of ‘something’ swept over and through his body, and then the sensation vanished.

The wozard returned to examine Duke, who wasn’t in very good shape – struggling through the woods and ice and snow without adequate light, and the effort of dragging the wozard, who weighed at least twice what he did, and then the adrenaline rush as he tried to escape the expanding fire that he KNEW was going to kill him, all combined to leave him exhausted and nearly motionless on the deck. The wozard extended an arm, and indicated the interior of the damaged vessel, and then pointed out through the tear.

Then it growgled for several seconds, a very complex set of noises (a combination between a growl and a gurgle, apparently the wozard language). A small box set into the gray coverall at its throat spoke in mechanical English. “Thank you for saving my life. As you see, my ship has been damaged. The automated emergency system didn’t turn on when I crashed, but it is working now.” It looked at the control panel, where unreadable symbols were streaming across a panel of flat black glass. “The ship should be ready to resume flight in only a few minutes. The damage from this crash was minor, but the system was still compensating for earlier damage.”

“You mean… this is the unidentified aircraft that Civil Defense shot down earlier tonight?” Duke was close to being dazed.

“Affirmed.” Several lights on the control panel flashed green. More growgling. “You must leave. Please accept again my thanks for awakening me!” The wozard picked him up easily, as well as his crutch, carried him outside and put him down gently, sitting up against a tree. As he put down the crutch, there was yet more growgling. “When you awaken, your healing will have begun.” He stepped back and before Duke could move, the wozard pulled a device from his belt and pointed it Duke. A green beam washed over him, and he fell asleep…

***

When Duke awakened, the alien vessel was gone. He couldn’t have been asleep very long; it was still dark and he was barely beginning to feel the chill. There was a unique hat resting on his lap – it was dull black, with a very wide rim, in the style of a ‘sailor hat’. He picked it up – it wasn’t cloth, but some kind of flexible plastic, perhaps. It was a perfect fit – and as soon as he put it on, he stopped feeling the cold around his head and neck!

Duke reached out to grab his crutch, and began to struggle to his feet – and was stunned to realize that the pain in his left leg – pain he had lived with for so long that he almost didn’t notice it any longer – was gone! He hurried back home and hesitated before calling the Civil Defense District Manager and reporting the story. He decided to leave out the part about the giant flying rugby ball and the wozard, and report only the things others could check and verify.

“Something crashed on the mountain side above my home! I didn’t see it clearly coming in – and I went up and investigated, and something definitely crashed and knocked down a lot of trees and made an impact crater – but there’s nothing there now!”

No one believed his story, but when War Department investigators arrived the next day, no one could dispute the evidence. Some jackass floated the idea that it was a prank or practical joke of some kind – but who could possibly knock down a hundred yards worth of trees and dig a furrow that long in the ground, and very recently, without heavy equipment? But there was no evidence of heavy equipment – that kind of stuff would have ripped up the path almost as badly as whatever had crashed. Eventually, the War Department classified the whole incident and told everyone to forget it. Officially, nothing unusual had occurred that night in Heathcote!

***

Duke had been doing special exercises for his leg for years, and occasionally had noted incremental improvements, though every doctor he had ever consulted with had told him that once nerves had been killed, there was no way to restore them. But now he started to notice slow, steady improvements. It didn’t happen overnight, but by the time summer vacation came around, he had added running and other training activities to his regimen, and there was no trace of paralysis remaining in his leg.

Interlude: A Secret Meeting

A secret meeting near West Point, NY, July 2nd, 1942. 3 men in off-the-rack business suits sat around a folding card table in a small, poorly finished room.

“Agent Belpaese, report on the target activities!” a tall blonde man ordered preemptively.

“As you demand, Agent Saksama.” The second man, a bit shorter and very handsome with black hair and a mustache, replied. He didn’t bother to hide the annoyance in his sarcastic answer – theoretically the three men held the same rank. “As our superiors have asked us to confirm, there have been a number of secret meetings at West Point recently. While we have been unable to infiltrate the actual meetings, what we have been able to ascertain is that a major Army offensive, with massive sea and air support, is being planned in Africa for later this year. We are unable to capture or suborn any of the regular military officers involved in the planning, but they have also been consulting with civilian experts. One such expert lives locally; this information has been passed to Agent Yamato.”

Both men turned their attention to Yamato, the shortest man in the room, an Asian. “The local expert is named Duke DuQuesne, and he lives in Heathcote, which is south of here, also very close to the Hudson River.” The others nodded; neither was very familiar with the local geography. “He lives alone – we should be able to take him easily.”

“We will take him and someone he cares about,” Belpaese modified the plan instantly. “That way we can torture the hostage to get him to talk – and then kill them both!”

“Tomorrow the people of Heathcote gather to celebrate the accursed Yankee holiday 4th of July!” Yamato operated under a false identity as a Chinese immigrant, now making a living as a merchant in Peaksville, a few miles north of Heathcote. The ID wasn’t actually false, but the former owner hadn’t lived long enough to object to being impersonated. His location was conveniently close to West Point and close enough to Heathcote to gather news and gossip. A lot of his customers were going to Heathcote for the 4th celebrations; due to gasoline rationing they had chartered a couple of buses. “DuQuesne is one of the organizers of the events and is sure to participate. There will be many people from out of town. No one will note our presence; we should be able to watch him closely and choose the proper moment to act.”

“Perfect! And after we recover the secret military plans, we will deliver them to our superiors and this will be the last so-called Independence Day ever celebrated in America!” Belpaese tried to take control of the meeting.

“I accept this plan,” Saksama approved slowly. If things went wrong, he could blame Belpaese; if things went right, he would take the credit. “We will move our gear into Heathcote today!”

July 4th Celebration, Heathcote, NY, 1942

“It has been a wonderful day so far, Duke!” Trudy Carter, the girl on Duke’s arm said joyfully, laughter in her voice. “You are unbelievably good at these carnival games of skill!”

Her vivacious smiling face was cutely framed by her curly brown hair, and her free arm wasn’t really free: she was carrying 2 large stuffed brown teddy bears. Duke was carrying a box of chocolates and a lei made of cloth flowers. Like many other celebrants at the carnival, they were wearing homemade clothing in ‘colonial’ style – at least, what the local amateur tailors and seamstresses had imagined was colonial style. They hadn’t purchased any of the prizes; Duke had won them at the ring toss, air rifle target shooting, and coin toss games, and then by ringing the bell on the high striker tower. They could have had more prizes, but he’d stopped playing after he’d won at 4 straight games – it was so easy it felt like cheating, and besides, it was getting difficult to carry everything he’d won!

“I never really won at any games before, even before my… you know…” he replied. “I guess I’m just lucky today. Which anybody can see, when they see the beautiful girl on my arm!” He knew it wasn’t just luck. He’d tried each game twice. The first time on each game, he hadn’t won, and the second time, he couldn’t lose. That alien ray had done more than just heal him!

“You sure did a great job planning today’s events!” Trudy praised him. “Even though we all know there’s a war going on, everyone is having a great time!”

“Not just me,” he protested. “I’m just part of the 4th Committee.”

Ever since ‘that night’, Duke had been getting better physically. He was now well enough to join the military – but for some reason, he was still classified as 4F and they wouldn’t take him, even after he passed the physical with flying colors - repeatedly. The local recruiters thought maybe there was some kind of foul up with the punch card data storage machines in Washington – but nothing they could do. So he was trying to do what he could as a civilian – and being part of the organizing committee for the Independence Day celebration in Heathcote was one of the things he could do. He’d even managed to convince the administrators at his school, the Empire State Military Academy, to join in the preparations – and to open the dorms for a couple of days for any students on summer break who didn’t live locally and wanted to attend.

Fireworks weren’t allowed this year – the military was using all the gunpowder that could be produced. So there was scheduled to be a short play in the evening followed by a concert and group sing-along by some of the local marching bands and musical organizations. The play, named Independence Aborning, had been written by a group of students, and Duke was playing ‘The Spirit of America’, while Trudy was going to be Betsy Ross. No one but Trudy, who had helped him make it, had seen Duke’s costume yet.

The sing-along ended about an hour before sunset and people started heading home – they had to be home before the mandatory blackout began. All the media outlets had been stressing the importance of Coastal blackout on Independence Day – a successful strike along either Coast on Independence Day would be a tremendous propaganda victory for the Axis as well as destructive to United States morale. Duke and Trudy were part of the clean-up crew; they were among the stragglers when they finished. “We can do the rest tomorrow,” Duke reminded the team, and they all headed home.

Interlude: Imminent Enemy Action

The enemy agents were huddled in a small open area behind the arcade tents – they still wanted to avoid notice and they’d had to hustle to avoid the clean up teams. Their quarry had remained with groups of people this whole time. They were getting ready to call of today’s mission and try again tomorrow.

“Well, THIS was a wasted day!” Saksama complained to his fellow agents. They had shadowed Duke and Trudy through the day, and the pair had always been surrounded by dozens of other people. “Whose idiotic idea was it, anyway? We will take them tomorrow, separately.” The others bristled; Saksama had been as enthusiastic about this plan as any of them.

“Not so! DuQuesne must take his woman home; we will take them then!” Belpaese countered in an angry whisper.

Yamato agreed with a nod. “They are now headed in the direction of their car,” he replied. “We will have one more chance tonight!” Other than not yet having completed their mission, he was quite satisfied with the day. He’d proven adept at several of the carnival games and was toting a bag stuffed with prizes. Saksama tried to insist on his alternate plan, but he was outvoted.

Battle of the Parking Lot

Still in costume, Duke and Trudy walked to the far end of the grassy lot where everyone had parked, which was by now mostly empty, and he handed her into his perfectly maintained ‘32 Ford Model 18 Roadster. As he opened the driver door, she leaned across the seat and spoke urgently.

“Duke, there are three men with guns following us! I think they have been following us all day! Every place we went, at least one of them was there!” It hadn’t been alarming when she noticed each of these out-of-town men several times during the day; there had been a lot of people she’d noticed more than once. But now these three were together, they were moving quickly, and most tellingly, they had pistols in hand.

“I see them,” Duke agreed. “You get outta here and go for help!” His voice was urgent as he handed her the key to the ignition lock, then closed the door and moved away. Well to the side of the car so Trudy would be out of the line of fire, he struck a pose with his hands on his hips, his head high. During the play, he’d realized that he cut an imposing figure in his ‘Spirit of Liberty’ costume – blue colonial jacket with white stars, white trousers, gold belt, and the wide-brimmed ‘round hat’ the alien had left him with cocked low over his face to give his character an air of mystery. Maybe he could spook them a little?

“Who are you two and why have you been following us all day?!?” he demanded loudly. “You better beat it or you’ll be sorry!”

“You are the one who will be sorry, American!” Saksama barked back. “Surrender to us or be shot!”



Trudy had never been planning on abandoning her date; she skidded to a halt, stalling the car, then jumped out and grabbed Saksama’s gun from where she’d seen Duke kick it. Belpaese was now scrabbling to recover his own pistol; Trudy unleashed a shot into the ground in front of him. “Don’t move or the next one hits you!” she ordered him. He stopped moving and collapsed to the ground, moaning a little. She was glad he stopped – the pistol had more of a recoil than she was used to and it took her an couple extra instants to fight it back down and take aim again.

Duke had been a good amateur boxer in his mid-teens, but he hadn’t been in a serious match since his bout with polio, about 7 years ago. He ‘put up his dukes’, uncertain how to deal with a martial artist in one of the Asian fighting styles. Yamoto feinted with his left and threw a punch with his right; Duke was amazed when he knocked the blow away with ease. Yamoto used the momentum of Duke’s block to spin and threw a kick at Duke’s head. Again, Duke was amazed at how easily he ducked, then saw an opening, stepped in and slammed a short right to the side of the smaller man’s jaw – dropping him instantly to the grass, unconscious.

He turned and surveyed the scene. Trudy stood a safe distance from Belpaese, covering him, and he wasn’t moving. He started to relax – he’d knocked out two of them and Trudy was covering the third, and then he realized that Saksama wasn’t lying where Duke had kicked him! He spun his head frantically to try and locate him, but he was too late. Saksama stepped from behind a car near Trudy, holding another pistol, twin to the one Trudy was holding, grabbed her around the neck from behind and put the pistol to the side of her head.

“If you continue to resist, she will die! The two of you will come with us; when we have what we want we will release you.” Duke froze instantly. “Belpaese, you sniveling fool, cease your wailing and restrain him. We will take his car; when Yamoto recovers he can follow in our car!” A few members of the cleaning crew, who had heard the pistol shots, had come to investigate. Saksama forced Trudy to turn so she was between him and the cautious watchers, so they would risk hitting her if they shot at him. “Warn those others away,” he growled an order to Duke. “Or we will kill you and the girl and start shooting them! We have nothing to lose! And they had better not attempt to interfere or follow us.”

“You folks go back to the park!” Duke yelled. “We’ll give them whatever they want and they’ll let us go.” Probably nobody believed that… “Warn the police not to follow us, Trudy’s life depends on it!”

Belpaese was limping towards Duke, pulling a pair of handcuffs from a pocket. At the mention of the police, he grunted and attempted to punch Duke in the jaw. Duke ducked his head and the punch hit his hat.

“AAAIIIEEE!” Belpaese screamed and took two staggering steps backward. Trudy acted instantly, slamming the heel of her foot down on Saksama’s toes and then twisting away, running for the cover of the nearest parked car. Duke’s reaction was even faster, he spun and slammed a right cross to the side of Belpaese’s head, then raced at Saksama, again knocking him to the ground, and again kicking him in the head, almost before the man knew that Trudy had escaped. He turned away to check Trudy's safety; when he turned back, Saksama was already trying to roll over.

“Boy, you sure recover in a hurry! Bet you’re getting tired of your head being used as a football, huh?” he  quipped. “Anyway, we’re not giving you a another chance to get away!” He delivered still another kick, then hurried back to Belpaese and found the cuffs, and soon Saksama’s hands were securely bound behind him, the cuffs wrapped around the sturdy bumper of his car. “Hope one of you guys has the key,” he told the agent. “I’m driving home later tonight and you might be uncomfortable getting dragged along the street!”



Belpease was twisting and mumbling even though unconscious. “Cosit aliena… proteggere… aliena…” Finally he was silent. About then, the police arrived…

Postlogue: Volunteering

“So, you captured the head of an Axis spy ring that had been spying on West Point,” Trudy summarized the news a couple of days later. “What did they want with you?”

“It wasn’t just me,” Duke countered. “You had a lot to do with it!” He paused, unsure of how much of what the FBI had told him, he could tell her. “You know I occasionally head up to the Point to visit with some of my old instructors?” Two veterans who had been retired and teaching at the Empire State Military Academy had been recalled to Active Duty and were now instructors at West Point. Trudy nodded. “They thought I might be part of some secret Strategy sessions going on there, and they were planning to torture you until I talked, and then kill us both.”

Trudy shivered. “And were you?”

“That’s not the kind of things the military shares with civilians!” he retorted. “You shouldn’t even need to ask.”

She noted that he hadn’t actually answered her question, and changed the subject. “You were wonderful, Duke! It was really all you, just like one of those new mystery heroes are supposed to be! Even Major Power or Dr. Lambda couldn’t have done better!”

He chuckled, “Those guys wouldn’t have let themselves get caught in the first place!” Then he grew rather thoughtful. “I WAS surprised at how easily I beat that little guy in a fight. The FBI says he has multiple black belts in several different styles of fighting. And yet, I easily avoided his blows and knocked him out with a single punch!” Another pause. “I wonder if that alien healing ray had anything to do with it? I’m stronger and faster than I ever was as a kid, and when I work out at school, nobody can keep up with me any more.”

“You know…” Trudy was thoughtful too. “You keep complaining that you can’t get into the military, at least until they fix the records foul-up in D. C. Maybe… you could do some more good as a new mystery hero…” She stopped and watched him, suddenly worried that he might laugh at her suggestion. But he nodded slowly.





Interlude: Relocation

Mid-August, 1942

One of the first things Duke learned as the Volunteer was that the alien hat not only provided some protection against heat, cold, and impact. He’d recruited Trudy for some cautious experimentation, and discovered that she couldn’t slap or punch him; her hand was stopped inches from his face, and she couldn’t hit him in the head with small, hand-held weapons such as a rolling pin. She’d balked at trying a baseball bat and absolutely refused to even consider shooting at him with a pistol, but the small impact he felt from the rolling pin reminded him of the slap he’d taken when Yamato had unleashed his wild shot during the encounter in the parking lot, and convinced him that the hat had somehow protected him from the bullet. And it even disguised his features to some extent; Trudy couldn’t recognize him when he wore the hat, though the effects vanished instantly when he removed it.

The Volunteer used Duke’s connections to turn the three spies over to the military, and the brass was very appreciative – although there was some puzzlement and some secret concern over how this brand new ‘mystery hero’ had known the correct officers at West Point to take charge of prisoners. But the appreciation of the brass seemed less sincere when the Volunteer busted up another cell only days later. After the meeting a junior lieutenant pulled him aside.

“The brass think you’re making MIS (Military Intelligence Service) look bad, by busting Axis agents they don't know about. But we were aware of all of them, just hadn't decided to take action yet. Sometimes we fed them false information,” Lt. Jamie Ball confided. “They wish you would turn your attention to civilian crime. And, they don’t like that you don’t take your hat off inside. They think you have poor manners…” He seemed a little uncomfortable with providing this ‘inside information’.

Duke had known Jamie when he attended Norwich University, though Jame didn't recognize him; he suspected that the junior officer had been ordered to give this ‘confidential advice’ to the Volunteer. “I just want to serve my country,” he’d replied. “I’ll concentrate on these so-called ‘civilian criminals’ as you suggest, but if I find evidence of Axis activity, I’m going to follow up. Anyway, thanks for the tip.”

***

Within a month, the Volunteer had busted up another cell of Axis agents. All three cells had been related, and he could find no indications that there were any other related cells close to West Point. The day after he’d turned this group over to MIS, Duke received a visit – 2 Colonels, Navy and Army. They made it clear that they knew Duke was the Volunteer, and they made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. If he accepted, he would relocate to Brooklyn and go to work for the War Information Office, working in an office in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and the Volunteer would focus primarily on the ‘civilian criminal activity’ in New York City. MIS would provide him with a contact, and that contact would occasionally ask him to follow up on some illicit Axis activity in or near New York, and he would keep his contact informed if he encountered Axis activity independently. The job was already set up, and MIS had already bought him a place to live, a large house close to the Brooklyn Navy Yard. It was made clear to him, without actually saying the words, that Empire State Military Academy would release him if he didn’t accept, and that he would have a hard time finding a job locally.

Within 2 weeks, Duke had relocated to Brooklyn, and begun working for the War Information Office… and Duke and the Volunteer began to acquaint themselves with both the daytime and nighttime activities in New York.





The platforms at the 125th Street Station on the IRT were very crowded today – maybe they were every day, Duke had no way of knowing. But right after his train pulled out, a woman began screaming!

“Help! He’s on the tracks!” She continued to scream, and a lot of people in the crowd began screaming as well, but he was already moving – scanning the tracks on this side both ways, then pushing across the platform to the other side. And there, about fifty yards down the track, he could see a child lying on the tracks, just starting to roll over and sit up. A lot of people were yelling at the boy to not move, but Duke jumped down to the tracks and started racing that way. As he jumped he could see the headlight of the next southbound train, just pulling into the station. The train might not be able to stop in time and another immediate danger was that the young boy would touch the live rail! Running on train tracks (and avoiding the live rail himself) was harder than he had expected; he couldn’t tell if there was time! The wheels of the approaching train were now screaming and screeching as the engineer applied full emergency brakes. It never crossed Duke’s mind that it was probably too late to save himself – the train would crush him if he tried to scrabble onto the platform now – he pushed himself to run even faster!

A few steps before he reached the kid, someone jumped onto the tracks right next to the youngster, picked him up and literally threw him back onto the platform, then turned and saw Duke, almost there by this time, and the train looming large behind him. The horn was blowing and the brakes were screeching and people on the platforms were screaming and the guy on the tracks was yelling at Duke but he couldn’t make out the words over the utter cacophony in the tunnel. The other man was waiting for him, and then when he arrived, they both turned and sprinted for the tunnel. Duke stumbled once, the other caught him, and then behind them the brake noises and horn ceased and people started cheering. They dared to turn and look and the train had finally stopped – but almost a car length past where the boy had fallen.

Duke boosted the other man into the arms of dozens of people standing on the platform and then climbed out himself, assisted by the crowd. There was a knot of people around the mother and her child, and another crowd surrounded Duke. He looked for the man who had risked his own life to rescue the child and aid Duke, but the man wasn’t nearby.

“Where’s the other guy go?” he asked the folks around him, and from the babble of responses he gathered that the other man had instantly pushed his way toward the nearest exit. ‘Guess we’ll never know who that hero is?’ he thought, a bit sadly. After he’d added comforting words to the woman and her son, he headed off to his appointment at the Amsterdam News plant.

The Robin Hood of Harlem

After a long discussion with the publishing staff of the paper about the War Information Office, Duke’s role, and their relationship, Duke asked to talk with Betsy Blake, who turned out to be a vivacious black woman in her early 20s. She was pleased to discuss the robberies. She had a theory that everyone in authority dismissed – maybe someone from ‘the government’ could ‘do something’? Duke protested that he wasn’t really part of ‘the government’ and it was a job for the police, but she insisted that he must know ‘somebody who knows somebody who can do something,’ He promised to do what he could. “So, tell me about these robberies.”

“The robberies started several weeks ago. They seemed to be just robberies, so as the newest reporter, I got the assignment to cover them. After the third one, I started to notice a pattern. All the places being robbed are new in Harlem – none has been here more than 18 months, and they are all owned by people who don’t live in Harlem The next two also fit, so I started investigating further. My editor thought it was a waste of my time – ‘You’re a reporter, not a detective, just report the stories!’ and assigned me to write some human interest, morale building stuff. Someone was donating a lot of money to the local charities, and they were using these donations to help the people in Harlem. A real feel-good story, and we need those right now.”

He nodded; with the constant stream of war news, everyone needed a reminder that there was still good news! “It’s great to hear stories like that, Miss Blake. In fact, encouraging papers to do more stories like that is part of my job with the War Information Office.”

“Thank you, Mr. DuQuesne. You might imagine how stunned I was when I noticed a relation between the robberies and the donations?” He nodded, but wasn’t too surprised; she wouldn’t have told him about the human interest stories if there wasn’t some relation. “The amount donated anonymously closely matches the amount stolen!”

“So you think someone at the charities is performing the robberies?” he asked.

She seemed somewhat taken aback by the question. “Why, no… honestly that never occurred to me. I think the thief lives in the neighborhood, that he resents intruders from outside Harlem and is trying to punish them and help his neighbors at the same time!” She hesitated. “Privately, I call him ‘the Robin Hood of Harlem’. The police think I’m just some silly colored woman seeing ghosts behind every closed door. So I stopped talking about it.” This was pretty bitter. Then… “The next two robberies fit the pattern – and here we are today.” Then, cautiously, “There’s only a few more places that fit the pattern; I think I know who’s next.”

That was something the Volunteer could use! She told him; a chemist located only a couple of blocks from the Amsterdam News offices. Eventually he wrapped up his meeting with Betsy Blake. “I’m new with the War Information Office, Miss Blake, but I’m sure we must have some way of passing information to the Military Information Service. When I get back, I’ll report your theory. It there’s any enemy involvement, or even ties to one of the New York mobs, that’s something MIS would want to follow up on.” ‘And the Volunteer won’t wait until I get back to the office!” he thought privately.

Interlude: Müller the Chemist

Duke stood out like a sore thumb amongst all the other people in the Müller Chemist store, except the chemist. Müller had given Duke preferential treatment even over customers who had entered before he had, and was rude and dismissive to the others, who appeared to be resigned to such treatment. ‘After all, there are no other chemists within easy walking distance – they have to take what they can get,’ Duke thought – he’d looked up chemists in the Yellow Pages earlier. ‘The prices are very high here – with that kind of treatment and those prices, I certainly wouldn’t buy here if I had a choice!’ He sort of regretted that he’d bought the soda earlier. ‘This guy doesn’t deserve to get paid for anything!’

However, he didn’t see anything illegal. Like the other places that ‘fit the pattern’, Müller had opened his store less than 2 years ago, and for almost a year, his prices were too low for any of the locally owned chemists to match. Pretty soon everyone was buying from Müller and not much later, the locals, who all operated on shoestring budgets, had to close up shop. And shortly after that, Müller had jacked his prices up higher than his competitors had ever charged. ‘It seems unethical, but as the police told Betsy, there was nothing illegal about first lowering, then raising prices.’ He was starting to sympathize with the ‘Robin Hood of Harlem’ though… but ‘Robin’, no matter how good his intentions, was still committing robberies and breaking the law.


Hours later, the Volunteer was wondering if he’d wasted a night. He was sitting on a rooftop where he could see the side and rear entrances to Müller Chemist; he’d watched Müller close up shop earlier and cased the building for other entrances. The chemist had left a night-light on; it glowed softly in the window of the side door Duke was watching. The front of the store was well-lit – all the street lights on this block were working, which wasn’t the case on most of the other blocks nearby, where maintenance seemed to be far more lax.

But about 3 AM, his surveillance paid off. The side door went dark – something had cut the power… ‘Or someone!’ he thought with satisfaction. He moved so he had a better view of the street and sure enough, there was a man climbing down one of the utility poles. He went to the back of his surveillance building and hurried down the fire escape, dropping the last story to avoid the squealing of deploying the ladder, then cautiously peeked into the alley between his building and Müller Chemist.

There was a man hurrying down the side alley, in such a hurry that when he reached the back alley he turned to the back door of the Chemist shop without even a glance Duke’s way. He was wearing dark gray clothing that covered his body completely, and his face was covered except for holes for his eyes and nose.

‘This should be even easier than I expected!’ Duke thought easily. The man was paying so much attention to picking the lock, using a muffled electric torch for light, that he didn’t notice the Volunteer approaching.

“The Robin Hood of Harlem, I presume?” he announced himself. The other man turned, startled, then instantly leaped to the attack! He tackled the Volunteer around the knees, knocking him down, and then swarmed upward, punching as he moved, seemingly at random. Duke had seldom been hit harder than some of these blows. He was glad he'd included extra protection in some areas of his costume, as the strike of a knee between the legs that probably would have ended the fight instantly otherwise was blunted. Duke arched his back and rolled over until the other was off him, then pushed the burglar away and scrambled backward to his feet.

He settled into a boxing stance and was surprised when the other did as well, and for some long seconds, the men sparred. Almost Marquis de Queensbury rules! Duke was a good boxer; the other was better, and Duke quickly found himself on the defensive. He was a bit faster, and able to block most of the other's blows, but he was also taking some painful hits. He thought he was likely stronger, but his strength advantage didn't matter when he couldn't land any of his own punches! He was about to change the character of the fight when the other landed a strong right to his chin and he staggered backward, and the burglar beat him to the punch. Before he was quite recovered, his foe dropped his shoulder and charged, trying to hit the Volunteer in the solar plexus, and once again, the two fell to the pavement with the burglar on top.

As far as Duke knew, there weren't ANY good fighting styles for lying down face-up under an attacking foe. He squirmed to get out, get on top, anything different than where he was. And suddenly the opportunity presented itself. A blow Duke wouldn't normally use - but he normally wasn't at a disadvantage in a fight as he was now. He jerked his knee upward in a blow similar to what the opponent had used earlier and the man screamed (muffled by the mask over his face), and rolled away, bunched up into a ball. He put up little resistance when the Volunteer pulled his hands behind his back and snapped on a pair of handcuffs. Then Duke pulled off the mask... and was stunned at what he found:

A young black man, probably 15, and as Duke used the man’s own electric torch to examine his face, he realized that he recognized the other. “You’re the guy that saved that kid at the subway station this morning!” Then: “You’re younger than I noticed back then… but you sure can fight!”

“Never lost a fight before!” the kid boasted, then added sullenly, “…until tonight.” Then, grudgingly, “You’re pretty good. But I could take you in the ring!”

“You probably could at that, youngster,” the Volunteer agreed. “So you’re a hero and a fighter – what are you doing, robbing a chemist?”

“Guy’s gotta eat… who the hell are you, anyway?” The answer was sullen, the question, more of a snarl.

“I’m the Volunteer,” he replied slowly. He still wasn’t used to saying that. “The newspapers call me a ‘mystery hero.”

“Never heard of you.” That was kind of a sneer. Then, cautiously, “Have you ever met Major Power? He’s what I call a hero!”

“I haven’t met the Major yet,” Duke replied. He’d read a lot of stories about the man, and it was hard to believe that any human could be capable of the feats that had been reported. It seemed more like some mythical god or demi-god. But there were enough stories that proved he could fly, and if a man could fly, who knew what else he might be capable of? “He’s pretty incredible, seems like. I hope to, some day!” Then he got back to the matter at hand.

“You’re not just stealing to eat, youngster, I know that. I’ve learned that you give everything away to charities in Harlem, who use the money to do good works for the residents?” He made that statement a question.

“I’m not stealing at all!” the young man said defiantly. “They’re the thieves! I’m just trying to get the money back to the people they stole it from!” He paused for a second. “You can check with all the places I hit… I took exactly half of the money I found…”

“DON”T MOVE!” a third voice interrupted them loudly. “I have you covered!”

Duke started to turn toward the speaker. The lad sprang out off the ground and tackled him, there was a pistol shot, and instantly the sound of a bullet smashing into the brick wall of the building and by the time Duke recovered his balance, the youngster was sitting on Müller, the chemist, who had the wind knocked out of him. From where he was sitting, where Müller had been standing, and the hole in the wall, Duke quickly realized HE had been the target of that shot. The youngster had saved him from injury, at best.