Tomas Thomas, P.I.

Not long ago, Tomas Thomas was a student in nuclear engineering at Chicago University (see: The Further Adventures of Kid Lambda). In his junior year, he was exposed to deadly radiation, and to save his life, his best friend Cody Mason gave him a vial of alien medicine. This not only allowed Tomas to recover from radiation poisoning, it gave him some superhuman abilities. He is now super strong, his coordination is beyond extraordinary, his ability to heal is far superior to normal, and his reflexes and body speed are also superhuman. Along with these physical abilities, his memory is beyond photographic. By combining he super speed with his perfect recall, Tomas was able to graduate a year early from college. His near-death experience with radiation has turned his interests away from nuclear engineering, at least for the time, and he is now working as a rookie Private Investigator for the Chicago firm Dewey, Ketchum and Howe Detective Agency – the Best Detectives in Chicago!



From the professional journal of Tomas Thomas, Private Investigator Trainee at Dewey, Ketchum, and Howe — October 26, 1953:

I was in the basement shooting range, doing a little maintenance and getting in some target practice with some unusual guns, when the intercom interrupted me.

“Yes, Bonnie?”

“Chief, there is a woman in the office who wants to hire us — right now, this instant. Problem is, she wants one of the partners!”

Bonnie Marlow is our secretary. When I first started with the firm, I used to get upset when she called me “Chief,” but I soon realized that if she liked you, she gave you a nickname. Anyway, I’d been called worse things.

“C’mon, beautiful, you know the answer to that one. Dewey is retired. Ketchum’s in San Francisco on a case, and Howe is on vacation in the U.S. Virgin Islands. She either gets me or nada.”

“That’s what I told her. She said she’ll at least talk to you.”

“How nice of her. OK, send her down!” I have a nice office, and I usually don’t meet prospective clients in the shooting range, but someone coming in and then barely deigning to see me rubbed me the wrong way.

“Are you sure?” Bonnie was always worried about propriety.

“She wants someone in a hurry, right? I’ve been cleaning and oiling guns, and I’m sort of a mess. We could make her wait until I get cleaned up. But why not let her see what it is she’ll be paying for?”

“OK, Chief, she’s on her way. Her name is Ida Autumn. Try not to shoot her, OK? It’s not like we’re turning them away in droves, you know!”

I grabbed some rags and got the worst of the grease off, and put most of the guns back in the cabinet before the red lights came on. The red lights meant that someone wanted to enter the range. Rule one on the range was that, when you were shooting, the door must be locked from the inside. I unloaded the pistol I had been shooting, wiped my hands one more time, then walked over and opened the door.

This lady was a knockout! I shouldn’t have been surprised. Bonnie hadn’t said a word about her appearance, and the only women that got off that hook were the ones who dressed better than she did — which wasn’t a lot of women, take it from me! But I’d been in too much of a snit to pay attention to subtle nuances.

Not very big — almost petite, in fact, but she didn’t look fragile. She looked like an artist’s conception of Sif, one of the goddesses in the Norse religion — a stunning face, strong more than beautiful. Not a hint of makeup. Long, golden hair in two braids, trim pleated royal blue slacks, what appeared to be deck shoes, and an open-collared white blouse over a Kelly green turtleneck. Instead of a belt she wore a red sash. Everything expensive and well put together, as she was herself. She was carrying an expensive bag, and I thought there just might be an expensive gun in that bag.

My curiosity had overwhelmed my snit. She didn’t seem to be the type to waste time or run for help with trivial problems.

“Please come in, Miss Autumn! I’m Tomas Thomas. What can Dewey, Ketchum, and Howe do for you?” I gave a slight bow and smiled at her. She walked into the room, turned slowly to take in the entire range, and then turned back to me.

“Please call me Ida.” She held out her hand, and I shook it. She had a firm grip.

“I am happy to meet you, Mr. Thomas, although I would have preferred to meet one of the partners.”

“Thank you, Miss Autumn…” She frowned at that. “…er… Ida. If you would, please call me Tomas. Actually, I could arrange for you to meet Mr. Dewey, but it probably wouldn’t be of much help to you. He’s retired. I’m sure Bonnie must have told you that Ketchum and Howe are out of town at the moment. Sorry, but I’m all we have available at the moment.”

She glanced at my targets, and then back to me. “Well, are you worth hiring? I don’t want to buy a pig in a poke.”

I wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that, and I was once again starting to get a little bit annoyed at her tone.

“It won’t be my first solo case, if that’s what you’re asking.” At just that instant, the arrival indicator on the pneumatic tube from the office above dinged. Good old Bonnie! I opened it and pulled out two folders. “Here are summaries from my last two cases–” My only two solo cases, since I’d only been working here since after my graduation in August, but she didn’t have to know that. “–and recommendations from our satisfied customers. And it’s our policy — if you don’t like our results, we’ll give you a refund. Far as I know, we’ve never given a refund, even on my cases.”

I handed her the folders; she set them down without even looking at them.

“Well, you sound pretty tough when you are talking to a woman. How do you stand up to other men, though?”

Some of my annoyance had come through in my tone, and she had definitely picked up on it. It seemed as if she were deliberately trying to make me mad. And, before I realized this, she had come close to succeeding. Now my martial arts training kicked in. In some circumstances, controlled anger can make you stronger, but your uncontrolled anger can easily be used as a weapon against you by a trained opponent. I didn’t know why she was trying to make me mad, but I would play along and see what I could learn.

I grabbed the clothesline and started pulling in my most recent target, then unclipped the target and held it out to her. “I don’t normally carry this pistol, Miss Autumn, because I don’t like the balance. But I think you’ll agree that you wouldn’t want me shooting at you, would you?”

We used targets that displayed a life-size silhouette of a thug pointing a gun at the target shooter. I’d been practicing shots that would quickly stop a man, and I’m afraid I’ve never been delicate. I had shot three clips of six shots each at this target, at one hundred feet, and two shots from each clip went into the chest, the head, and (sorry to be so graphic) the groin.

Still, she wasn’t finished with me. I think she was impressed, but all she said was, “Shooting a target is easy. Have you ever shot a man?”

“Not in this job, no. Company policy to keep the shooting to a minimum. But I was in the Marines for four years, and I saw some action.”

Now it was my turn for a little heat. “So you think target shooting is easy, eh? Do you have time to shoot a couple of clips?” I opened the cabinet. “As you can see, we have all kinds of pistols to choose from. Even a couple of lady’s guns!” Ketchum insisted that we keep a wide variety of pistols at the range, and that everyone, even Bonnie, should practice regularly with guns other than their favorites. I admit I was being a little rude with the lady’s guns remark, but she had irritated me.

“In fact, let’s make it worthwhile. We’ll shoot for score. I win, you hire me. You win, I’ll take the case for free.” I wasn’t authorized to make a deal like that, but I didn’t expect to lose, either. “Bull’s-eye targets at fifty feet. What do you say?”

She looked hesitant. “I’m not sure about firing one of those.” She vaguely waved her hand at the cabinet.

I interrupted. “You can shoot with whatever gun you like.” I didn’t want to hear any excuses.

I picked up a Kolibri 2.7 mm, Austrian, six-shot semiautomatic — the smallest semiautomatic ever made. If she was a shooter, she would be insulted — good, let her deal with a little irritation for a change. If she wasn’t, she might even manage to hit the target with this gun.

She just laughed. “What a cute little gun! Not much stopping power, though. I guess you use it when you don’t want to hurt anyone?” Funny, I had always wondered the same thing. “I think I’ll use my own, thanks!”

She pulled out a Colt 1911 Kimber Ultra Elite — a big, fancy name for a small, deadly piece with a top-of-the line price — and worth every penny! Small enough to carry easily, with a short three-inch barrel and grip, it shoots .45 ACP rounds. Not a long-distance weapon, but designed to be able to stop a horse. If she was any good, I was prepared to be very impressed; for a small gun it has a big recoil, making accuracy in a timed test match an issue.

Hers was beautiful! Polished gunmetal, wooden grips, cleaned and oiled to perfection. We had a Kimber Ultra Elite in the cabinet, and it was in good condition, but hers was clearly lovingly maintained. She probably even had a private name for it. She had to be able to shoot — nobody spent that much effort on a display piece!

A small voice in the back of my head was whispering to me that there was something wrong with this lady. Nothing obvious, certainly, but I always listened to that particular voice. I started studying her more closely, but whatever it was that had alerted my subconscious, I sure couldn’t see it.

“Very nice gun! I’ll use the same model to make it a fair match.” I reached in the cabinet and pulled out the Kimber.

“Use the gun you usually carry, Tomas! I don’t want you using an unfamiliar weapon as an excuse when you lose!”

I had planned to give her a handicap, but now I changed my mind. She would see my absolute best shooting. I wondered if she had done that on purpose?

I can usually find a way to use my super-powers to avoid shooting on a job, but a private dick is expected to carry a gun. I carried the Colt Detective Special, a six-shot .38 snub-nose double-action revolver. Nice gun; I keep it up well, and with my enhanced speed and coordination, I can put all six rounds through the same hole in a target at fifty feet as fast as I can pull the trigger.

So we shot. She was good! She shot out a hole the size of a quarter in the bull’s-eye of her target. Watching her was weird. She moved very smoothly and gracefully, and deliberately as well, as if she were moving in slow motion, and yet she moved faster than just about any normal person I’ve ever seen.

But it still wasn’t really fair. I punched out a hole the size of a dime. She shrugged. “Nice! Let me tell you about the case.”

To be honest, I felt a little guilty. “Ida, before we go on, I have to apologize. You see, not long ago, I was exposed to radiation, and the doctors used an experimental treatment on me. It increased my hand-eye coordination to superhuman levels. (*) So this wasn’t really a fair match. If you don’t want to hire me, it’s OK. I’ll call down to Smitty’s–” Our main competition. “–and have them put their best guy on your case.”

She laughed again. “I expect you’ll do just fine. I need you to find my brother. And I want you to start looking today!”

“Let me finish putting things away, and then you can give me more details. Why don’t you go tell Bonnie to give you our rates page and set us both up with coffee in the conference room? I’ll be up in ten minutes.”

I called Bonnie on the intercom and asked her to escort Miss Autumn to the conference room while I cleaned up a little bit. When I walked in, she got right down to business.


“I would like to hire Dewey, Ketchum, and Howe to find out who this man is.” She handed me a color photograph of a blond man, with serious burn scars on his face and neck, who had obviously undergone extensive reconstructive surgery.

“OK. I’ll need more than just a picture, though. What do you know about him?”

“He claims he’s my brother. But he’s not. At least, I hope he’s not!” She was starting to sound desperate, almost like she was pleading with the universe to save her from something horrible. I looked at the picture, looked at her, looked back at the picture, mentally subtracted the scars… there was a definite resemblance there. He could easily pass for a relative.

I was finished inspecting the picture. No real information there, it seemed. “Ida, how can you be unsure whether or not he’s your brother?” It was almost a rhetorical question; I could easily think of two or three possibilities. But I needed to restart the conversation.

What I got was her life’s story. Probably more than I needed to know in order to solve the case, but I paid careful attention, anyway. You never know what background information might help you figure out who done it.

As she started telling her story, I suddenly realized what was bothering me about her. Her accent was pure Chicago — someone who had spent her whole life on Chicago’s Far North side. But her body language didn’t match. She wasn’t using her hands when she talked — she kept them folded in her lap. And her head movements were too restrained, too short, too few.

I’m not going to go into all the details here, but here’s a quick summary:

She’d had a brother named Harvey. Their parents had died when she was seven and Harvey was eleven. They had no known relatives, and ended up in an orphanage. In 1935, as soon as he was seventeen, Harvey had joined the army.

He remained in the army until his death in 1945, in the Battle for Berlin. Meanwhile, she had left the orphanage at seventeen and gone to work in the fashion industry, and by 1953 she had become a sought-after designer.

Early in 1953, she had been shocked when she was contacted by a Dr. Gilbert Gosain, representing the McClelland Sanitarium in Northern Indiana. Gosain told her that one of his patients, an amnesiac, had recently regained much of his memory after receiving revolutionary electroshock treatments (performed by Dr. Gosain, of course). He claimed to be Harvey Autumn, and all the research that Dr. Gosain had been able to do convinced him (the doctor) that this really was Harvey.

Gosain told her what he had discovered of Harvey’s story. This man had come ashore in Chicago off of a Great Lakes freighter a couple of months ago. The records that Gosain had been able to uncover showed that Harvey had joined the crew of this freighter in Quebec City. At the time he was hired, he had claimed to have just left the crew of a Transatlantic freighter that had shipped from Hamburg, Germany. He had kept to himself on both ships, and the crews knew almost nothing about him.

He had ended up at McClelland, because once he left the ship in Chicago, he somehow snapped and went wild. He went on a mindless rampage, attacking anyone nearby with wild punches and kicks, bites and head butts. He was a pretty big guy, and in his mindless rage, it took half a dozen policemen to finally subdue him. He was quickly judged to be mentally incompetent, and soon had been remanded to McClelland.

Gosain had immediately started him on electrotherapy, and the results were also immediate. And the process was unbelievably successful! Within days, Harvey had regained his identity, and shortly afterwards, enough of his memory and sanity that Gosain had decided that he could leave the hospital and continue his recovery in a more familiar environment.

Ida was thrilled to have her “dead” brother back! Harvey had always been her hero, the shining knight who had protected her when other kids at the orphanage picked on her. Dr. Gosain warned her that Harvey’s mind had been severely damaged, and he would never again be the man she remembered, but she was determined to take care of him as, years ago, he had taken care of her. Over the next six months, she discovered that Dr. Gosain was right.

She thought she was becoming paranoid when she started to suspect that this wasn’t really Harvey. He seemed to know things that proved he was Harvey. But she couldn’t believe that, even with severe brain damage, Harvey would treat her abusively. The last straw was when, yesterday, he had actually tried to rape her, and after she fought him off, he threatened to kill her if she told anyone!

That was enough. I was sold, I was on the job! I asked her a lot of questions, and we went over various parts of the story again. I was already starting to get a bad feeling about this case! She had put herself in danger just by coming here, and I wanted to help keep her safe. I suggested that, rather than going back home to her brother, she ought to think of someplace else to live for the next few days. She had been thinking somewhat along the same lines.


I was about to suggest to her that, on other occasions, some of our other female clients had stayed with Bonnie, when she suddenly belched. Not a little ladylike burp, either! It startled both of us, and I think she was incredibly embarrassed. Or she would have been, but just a second later, she screamed as if she was in terrible pain, put both her hands over her heart, tried to stand, and collapsed!

Since I took the alien drug, I haven’t encountered many people who can move faster than I can. I caught her before she could fall, and put her gently down on my couch. All the time I was screaming for Bonnie to call an ambulance. Ida’s face was whiter than anything I had ever seen before; it looked as if all of her blood had suddenly drained from her head. And in fact, this is what had happened.

A major aneurysm in her heart had burst, and her blood rushed out of the head and heart and into her chest cavity. Even as fast as I moved, she was dead before I touched her.


From the personal journal of Tomas Thomas, Private Detective:

If you are reading this journal, please don’t think I was as emotionless as the writing sounds. I’m writing this months later, and trying to be as unemotional as possible. At the time, I was almost hysterical! I was screaming, and I punched a hole in the wall of my office, and Bonnie actually threw a pitcher of water on me to get my attention! I had seen people die before in combat, including good friends, but had never seen anyone murdered. Watching someone die is never easy, but I found that watching the murder of someone who was apparently guilty of nothing but compassion was the most difficult emotional experience of my life.

The autopsy later reported that Ida had had a heart aneurysm and declared that it was a natural death, but I knew immediately after she died that she had been murdered. That autopsy would do nothing to change my mind. The timing — coming just after “Harvey” had threatened to kill her if she told anyone about the rape attempt, and she had ignored his warning and told me — seemed conclusive to me. Yes, I suppose it could have been a coincidence, but my gut told me otherwise.

This was a different sort of murder case than any of the others I had been involved with in my short time with DK&H. Usually there are several suspects, and the detective has to deduce which one is the murder, but in this case, there was only one suspect, and I had already deduced. Often, motive needed to be established, but in this case, I already had two motives — the murderer was trying to usurp Harvey’s identity, and Ida was about to expose him, and he had just attempted rape, and she was also about to expose that. And in many cases, the murder weapon was obvious — a gun, knife, rock, axe, bottle of poison, et cetera. In this case the murder weapon had been a heart aneurysm. How do you use a heart aneurysm as a weapon?

I had to fight hard to convince myself that I couldn’t have saved her, and that her death wasn’t my fault. She had already been dead when she walked into my office, we just hadn’t known it yet. I had to believe that, or my remorse and guilt would interfere with my ability to think clearly. And as much or more than any time in my life, I wanted to think clearly now!

There is a kind of natural antipathy between many cops and most private detectives. Some of it starts on their side — they feel that our very existence implies that they can’t do their jobs and need backup. I can’t blame it all on the cops, though, because some private detectives routinely break the law. And both sides are reluctant to share information, because both sides want to be able to take the credit when a case is solved. For the P.I., it may be a question of getting paid. For the cop, it may be a question of promotion.

So I wasn’t surprised when the patrolmen who answered Bonnie’s call were hostile. But I wasn’t in the mood to put up with it, either. I was just about to wipe the floor with them, which surely wouldn’t have been good for my future employment opportunities, when Police Detective Tony Spinelli walked in. I had met Detective Spinelli on my first case, and we had both immediately recognized a brother Marine. That started us off on the right foot, and I had made an effort to remain on good terms with him.

At the sight of him, I hesitated, and Spinelli immediately picked up on what had been going on. He is as good with body language recognition as anyone I’ve met, including me.

“Thanks, boys! I’ll talk to Mr. Thomas, here. One of you head downstairs and bring the medical crew up here when they arrive, and the other, keep folks out of this room until my team has a chance to check the room.” Tony is the commander of the Chicago Homicide Investigation Squad.

The two cops looked a little disappointed that they weren’t going to get in some fun exercise busting the head of a private dick. Well, at least that’s what they thought. They both left the room. Spinelli brought in his crew, and they started a careful, thorough, and — to my eyes — highly professional examination of the entire room. While they were doing their examination, Detective Spinelli interviewed me.

“Howdy, Injun!” That had been my nickname in the Marines, and only a Marine could have gotten away calling me that. “Don’t you have better things to do than baiting cops?” He stuck out his hand to shake hands, and that friendly gesture, as well as his smile, disarmed my flash of anger.

“They don’t know how lucky they are, Klattu.” Spinelli was a UFO buff, and somewhat resembled Michael Rennie, who played Klattu in the movie The Day the Earth Stood Still from a couple years back. After his crew found out he’d seen the movie a half-dozen times, the nickname was a natural. I noticed that nobody but me used his nickname in his presence.

“I’ve seen you fight; I know how lucky they are. But you’re damned lucky I broke it up — if they’d been able to get out an 11-99–” Police code for officer in trouble. “–every cop within fifty blocks would have been here in minutes, and even you can’t fight an army! You wanna be successful in the private eye biz, you are gonna have to learn to control your temper!”

I nodded, chagrined, because I realized that he was right. He had saved me from serious trouble. “Can you call your guys off? I didn’t have anything to do with this. She just stood up and died. Her face looks like she met up with a vampire, but there was nobody in the office but the two of us.”

He asked me some questions, and I ended up playing back the tape recording I’d made of our conversation. We always tape our discussions with clients, just so there won’t be any misunderstandings later on. Spinelli confiscated the tape as evidence. I would have complained, but we had another that he didn’t know about. His crew finally finished collecting evidence, and the ambulance had arrived and removed Ida to the coroner’s office. Spinelli sent along word to make this case his highest priority.

“Well, Injun, I’m convinced you’re clean. But somebody may want to talk to you again, so don’t leave town for a while, OK?” I nodded. “By the way, I know you well enough to know that, even though your client is dead, and you won’t get paid for this case, you are going to investigate anyway. I know nothin’ I say will stop you.” He paused and looked me dead in the eyes. “So, I’m tellin’ you this right now. Once the coroner certifies this as an ‘Act of God,’ and he will, our interest in this case will be over. Unless he finds evidence that this was a murder, that will take about a day. So you steer clear of this until I give you a call, understand?”

I nodded, he shook my hand, and we parted with some pleasantries. He really is a good guy. But no way was I going to hold off until tomorrow! Still, I could make sure I stayed away from the police. I could use the time doing research in the public library and some of the local newspapers. Time to get started on the legwork!

Just as I was heading out the door, a carpenter popped into the room with some plaster and his tools. Great girl, that Bonnie! Always taking care of me. I was sure the cost would come discreetly out of my paycheck, and the partners would never see the bill. I made a mental note to have flowers delivered tomorrow.


Research isn’t much fun, usually, but with my photographic memory, at least I can hurry through it. The problem for me is making sure I look at as little extraneous material as possible. I spent several hours in the morgue at The Tribune, followed by several more at The Defender.

Harvey was named in some old sports stories in The Defender. Seems he was pretty good throwing the javelin, and he had received some national attention while he was still in high school. He would possibly have competed in the 1936 Olympics if he hadn’t enlisted. One of the stories talked about his background, and I found out that he and Ida had grown up in the Guardian Angel Orphanage.

There were stories about Harvey joining the army in ’35, and each time he got a medal during World War II. And his obituary. The obit gave me his last unit. No relatives other than Ida were named.

Over the past four years, Ida’s name had started to show up on the fashion pages. About two years ago, she had resigned from one of the big local fashion houses and created her own lines. She had been an instant success, and her lines had even been picked up in New York, Paris, and London. She had been included in The Defender‘s list of “Chicago’s 100 Most Eligible Women” in 1952.

I found some stories in the news sections as well. Search as I did, I couldn’t find anything about Harvey’s rampage on the waterfront, or the court hearing that remanded him to McClelland. But I did find a story on the court proceedings to declare him officially alive again. And shortly thereafter, another hearing in which he was declared to be mentally competent again, and given probation. I got his lawyer’s names from these stories. It struck me as somewhat strange that he had been represented by two different law firms in these two cases.

I checked the phone books and found addresses for the orphanage, the sanitarium, both law firms, and Ida’s office, as well as her home address.

Nothing on their parents, even though I went back to 1900.

A good start, and enough newspaper research for a day. I put my notes in an envelope and mailed them to Bonnie, and then headed home for the day.


I started up my old Studebaker pickup and headed south out of town. I’d recently moved to Calumet, Indiana. As I turned onto Michigan Avenue headed south, I realized that one of the cars behind me had made the same turns I had, the last four times. I turned left on East 31st, and this same car was still back there. This wasn’t that unusual; I was headed for Lake Shore Drive (U.S. 41) to go south, and this was the best route from where we’d started. And it seemed like a pretty flashy car to tail someone in: an Aston Martin DB2.

Still, I thought I’d check it out. I turned south on Calumet Avenue, and he followed me. So I pulled into a gas station and watched him drive by, still headed south. When I’d filled up, I headed back north on Calumet, and then east on East 31st. I turned south on Lake Shore Drive and picked up speed. A few miles later I slowed down a little, and sure enough, there he was again. This guy had to be following me; no way could it be coincidence after the detour I’d taken.

I wanted to find out if he was just following me, perhaps to find out where I live, or chasing me. If he was only following me, when he realized I knew he was there, he would just peel off and give up, trying to make me think it was coincidence, and pick it up again later, perhaps with a less obvious car and maybe a couple of teams rather than just one. If he was chasing me, I’d know it in seconds. I could only think of one reason someone would be chasing me — to do me harm!

Well, I wasn’t going to lead him home, that’s for sure, but I wanted to find out who it was. There was no way I could outrun him. However, unless he knew the local streets as well as I did, I was pretty sure I could outwit him. I slowed down a bit more, and then, when he got a little closer, I stomped on the gas, hoping to convince him I had just seen him for the first time. He sped up as well. That answered that question — he was chasing me.

My reflexes make me among the safest drivers on the road, even at high speed in moderate traffic. But the guy chasing me didn’t have enhanced reflexes, and in the mirror I saw him run someone off the road. I had to get off Route 41 before he killed someone!

I had driven all over the Calumet area before I rented my beachfront house, so I quickly reviewed the roads in my mind. I needed some narrow, twisting, rough roads to offset the tremendous speed and acceleration advantages the Aston Martin had over my pickup truck. The DB2 certainly cornered better, but my reflexes might offset that advantage. A quick right at the next intersection, a half-mile and another right, onto a narrow dirt road — yup, that was the one I needed.

I waited as long as I could before I braked for my right turn. I slammed the brakes on hard, downshifted, and pulled the wheel hard over — and the back end broke loose as I started to fishtail. I was ready for that, took my foot off the brake, and steered into the slide — and man, I was around the corner and away, hardly even slowing down! I was back in fourth gear almost instantly and lost hardly any speed.

I’d never been one for driving at high speeds, but that turn sure had been exhilarating! Maybe I’d take up amateur racing after this. Sure enough, the DB2 followed, and now that we were on a road with no other traffic, it started to close in on me. Racing down a deserted, tree-lined road, it was hard to believe that we were only a few miles from downtown Chicago.

As I approached my next right turn, the Aston Martin got close enough that I could see two people in the front. The passenger leaned out the window and started shooting at me. I didn’t need to guess at their intentions any longer!

He was shooting a pistol, and on this rough road he missed his first shot. His next shot hit my tailgate, which really made me angry. It was an old truck, but I kept it in pretty good condition. I really couldn’t afford to replace the tailgate, though.

Suddenly, I stood on the brake as hard as I could! The truck started to slide around again, but this time I was ready for it, and just before I lost control again, I released the brake and accelerated again.

Aston Martins are high-performance cars — very expensive and worth every penny! They have always advertised based on performance — “Zero to sixty to zero in eleven seconds!” was one ad I remembered. Even so, when the driver behind me jammed on his brakes, the DB2 fishtailed a couple of times, and the driver panicked and over-steered, and his car went into a spin. Unfortunately for me, it didn’t roll, but it did come to a complete stop. By the time he was moving again, I had gained a quarter-mile.

My turn was rushing towards me. I braked again, downshifted to second, and made another fishtailing right turn. This was the road I’d picked to finally give me an advantage in this chase. It was narrow, unpaved, and rutted, and it gave me satisfaction to know that it was tearing the hell out of the Aston‘s suspension. But he kept coming. I was pulling away even farther when the road straightened out into a clearing.

The woods here had been cleared for a farm, but the family had gone bankrupt, beaten by the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, and the place had been deserted for around twenty years. The house had been built in the 1880s, and built to last. I had traipsed through the place and considered buying it, but it was really too big for me, and I wasn’t really the fixer-upper type.

I had misjudged things — I had figured that, by the time we got here, I would have been far enough ahead to fly across the clearing safely. Instead, the Aston Martin burst into the clearing behind me only a hundred yards back.

Once more, the passenger leaned out the window. This time he was holding something different; he held it like a pistol, but it looked much bigger. I kept glancing at the rear-view mirror, trying to figure out what to do next, and I just happened to be watching when he pulled the trigger. It was larger and slower than a bullet, and it left a trail of smoke behind.

Holy $#!*! A pistol rocket-launcher! I slammed into a hard left turn, and suddenly I was in the field, and this time the rear end went all the way around, and the damn truck stalled. But the missile missed, and another second later it flashed into the trees at the far end of the clearing and exploded!

I was out of the truck and running towards the old farmhouse before the explosion. I wasn’t running flat out; I wanted to make sure they saw me, and maybe not lob another rocket at my truck. I tell you, never trust the bad guys! I guess they were making sure I couldn’t get away, but just as I reached the corner of the house, my poor truck blew up. These guys were serious! Well, so was I. I would just have to “borrow” their car when this little party was over.

I heard the engine stop and the doors open and close. Three guys were yelling at each other. There must have been a third guy in the back seat of the Aston Martin. That couldn’t have been a comfortable ride, especially over those bumpy roads! One of them was giving orders to the other two, and he had a German accent. The other two sounded very Chicago. From the back of the house, I couldn’t see them, but they couldn’t see me, either.

I thought about going down the cellar stairs and into the house. Maybe I could sneak through it and take them by surprise. But then it occurred to me that if I stayed outside, I should be able to use my superior speed to greater advantage.

Good thing I didn’t rush inside, because suddenly there was the sound of glass breaking, and then a massive explosion inside the house!

Even my speed and reflexes weren’t enough to avoid that blast. When I heard the glass shatter, I dropped like a stone to the ground, and suddenly all hell broke loose! The rocket exploded in the front hallway, against the stairs, and stuff started flying!

The back wall remained standing, although all the windows blew out, and the debris started to rain down on me. I started crawling towards the stairwell for the basement, just as a broken fragment of what must have been a main beam from the roof crashed down and hit me!

Fortunately, it didn’t hit me squarely. It hit a glancing blow to my left shoulder, which knocked me down, and I fell into the stairwell. It was only about six feet deep, but my head slammed against the top step, and I bounced twice more before I reached the bottom. I lay there in too much pain to move, even to try to escape other falling debris. My left shoulder seemed to be separated, and I’d never felt pain like that before! My vision was hazing over with red, and I could hear a loud pounding in my ears, and I was retching from the pain. And this was before I realized that I had at least two broken ribs and a concussion!

The only stroke of luck, if you could call it that, was that the beam that had smashed me so painfully into the stairwell ended up laying across the upper opening — which probably saved my life.

The first rocket must not have satisfied them, because shortly afterwards there was another explosion, and the back wall of the house came down. The beam kept a section of wall from falling in on me, and most of the rest of the debris landed on the wall section. I had some good fortune then, finally – something heavy hit the beam and bounced toward the basement door, shattering it and smashing it opt. By the time stuff stopped falling around me, I must have been in shock, because even the pain in my shoulder seemed dim and far away, and I was able to squirm out of the stairwell and into the basement… thanking the Great Spirit and all my ancestors for my enhanced strength! And there was a trap door in the basement floor, down into the ancient ice room, and I managed to lever it up and roll over the edge…

A few seconds later, I realized I couldn’t hear anything. Two explosions that close to me had definitely not been good on my ears.

So there I was: injured, deaf, and trapped in the ice room under the basement, probably buried under a pile of debris. At least, I thought, it can’t get much worse!

I stood up as best I could, leaning heavily on the rough brick wall, to see if I could reopen the trap door. I didn’t want this ancient ice cellar to become my tomb! What happened next reminded me of a lessen I’d learned long ago: never tempt fate! Just as I stood up, I heard a third explosion! This one must have been much closer than the others, because even through my current deafness, I could still hear it.

Being in the ice cellar protected me from the actual blast, but the ground shook so hard I lost my balance, and came down hard on my left leg. Which, of course, collapsed, and I pitched forward, banging my head on the concrete wall, which knocked me unconscious.

When I came to, I somehow knew I had only been unconscious for a few minutes. I figured I had better get out before something else bad happened. So I…

So I what? I can’t remember! How can I be sitting at my desk, writing this down, months later, if I can’t remember how I got out of that ice cellar??

Uh-oh!


When Tomas returned to self-awareness, for a short second or so he thought he was back in nowhere. He couldn’t see anything. But he quickly realized that he could feel his body, so he wasn’t off in mental never-never land again.

Well, actually, what he was feeling was his head. He had a headache that felt as if someone were using sledgehammers as drumsticks on his head. He breathed in very small sips of air, trying to make sure his head didn’t move when he breathed. The air around him seemed very stale, and he felt as if he were choking. He sluggishly put two and two together in his slowly working mind. “The oxygen in here is almost gone! I’m suffocating!” This galvanized him into action, painful headache or no.

Trying to ignore the throbbing pain in his head, he reached up and found the trapdoor, and heaved up underneath it. It flipped open, and cold, sweet fresh air blew in. Tomas breathed deeply, and after several minutes, his headache started to improve. When the pain had finally diminished to about the level of a medium hangover, he climbed up and out of the ice room.

The sun was just rising. He had fallen into that room more than twelve hours ago, during which time a fire had been burning overhead, consuming oxygen. No wonder his head hurt so badly. It was probably a good thing he had been unconscious, or he would have needed more air, and might not have survived.

His headache continued to clear, and he was surprised at how well he felt overall. In fact, it seemed almost impossible that he could have climbed out of the ice room so easily, given his recent injury. But his leg felt fine, with no trace of pain. He gently reached up to touch his head, where he had bashed it, and there was a small lump there, and it was a little sore, but nothing to worry about. Then he realized that he was very, very thirsty and as hungry as he could ever remember being before.

It had begun to snow while he had been unconscious, which made the footing very treacherous as he scrambled out of the cellar and made his way over the remains of the demolished house. He didn’t even think about looking for the bad guys until he reached some solid ground, and it was fortunate for him that they hadn’t stuck around. If there had been a shooter nearby, he would have been shot. He could see no tracks of any kind in the fresh snow, so if anyone had come to check out the explosions and the fire, they must have left before the snow started to fall.

Feeling parched, Tomas ate some handfuls of snow from the ground. It didn’t do anything for his hunger, but helped his thirst a little. He ate several more handfuls, and eventually his stomach started to quiet down a little bit, but he knew he had only fooled it temporarily. He checked himself out again, and realized that he was in surprisingly good shape for someone who had been so badly injured only twelve hours before. He realized that it must be tied into the powers he had gained from the anti-crime drug. He probably owed Cody his life once again.

Tomas was filthy, he smelled like smoke, and his clothes were torn and bloody. His pickup truck was a pile of shattered junk, covered in a thin layer of snow. He was lucky the snow was only an inch or so thick, and the temperature, though quite chilly, was still above freezing. The way he felt, he’d be able to get back to the main road in twenty minutes or so, and if he could hitch a ride, he’d be home in another twenty minutes. That was, if anyone would stop for someone who was such a mess.

He didn’t even bother to check out the pickup; he had felt and heard the gas tank go up in the explosion. There couldn’t be anything useful there. The house was completely destroyed as well, but the barn was still standing. He hoped maybe he could find some rags or something in the barn, to clean up with, and maybe to use as gloves.

After a search he found a variety of farming tools in the barn, and he did find some old rags. A few minutes later, looking somewhat more respectable, he left the farm and started running down the road. Even in his depleted condition, Tomas was faster than any normal human, and he covered the three miles back to Highway 41 in a little over fifteen minutes. He started walking south, his thumb out.

A few minutes later, he was surprised when a Highway Patrol car pulled over. They didn’t usually bother hitchhikers.

One officer got out of the car. “Morning, son! You look kinda banged up. Where you headed?”

“Good morning, officer. Yeah, I had a night you might not believe. My name’s Tomas Thomas, and I’m headed home to Calumet.” Tomas showed him his I.D., both his driver’s license and his Dewey, Ketchum, and Howe I.D.

“We saw some footprints on Moeller Road. Was that you, Thomas? Know anything about those explosions and the fire last night?”

“I’ve got a long story, sir. Tell you what, I’m famished. If you’ll let me buy you and your partner a cup of coffee at Donna’s down the road, I’ll tell you the whole thing! I’m so hungry I might pass out otherwise!”

“You better not be trying to bribe us, son!” said the officer with a smile. Tomas noticed that his name was Sergeant Ken Williams. “Hop in.” Tomas got in and noticed that there were no door handles on the inside of the back doors. Well, he wasn’t trying to escape, anyway.

They stopped at Donna’s, and as Tomas ate, he gave them the whole story. Sergeant Williams asked him questions as his partner, Officer Johnson, went to call in the story, and then called Dewey, Ketchum, and Howe and talked to Bonnie Marlow to verify his identity. Williams and Johnson were assigned to investigate further, and after they took Tomas home to clean up some more and get some clothes, they headed back to the now-demolished farmhouse.

The three of them searched the demolished farmhouse and the surrounding area closely, but they couldn’t find any clues. Tomas contributed what he knew — three men driving a red and black Aston Martin DB2, armed with pistols and a pistol-mounted rocket-launcher. The patrolmen were skeptical about that, but they couldn’t doubt that Tomas’ pickup truck and the house had been blown up. And Tomas’ own footprints in the snow proved at least part of the story — he had clearly been in the house sometime before it began to snow.

There had been a pretty big crowd here just after dark, with fire trucks, police, and spectators, and nobody had seen the DB2. They had noticed Tomas’ truck, and there was a full-scale investigation team on the way. After they searched the crime scene, Tomas was questioned at Highway Patrol headquarters. When they found out that Ida Autumn had died in his office the day before, and he had admitted being involved in the explosions last night, the patrolmen wanted to keep him overnight in jail, but Bonnie managed to track down Ketchum, who convinced them to release Tomas on his own recognizance.

Williams and Johnson dropped him off at his house, and he hit the sack for a couple of hours. His subconscious must have been working overtime while he slept, because he awoke with a couple of conclusions and a lot of new questions.

Somebody wanted him dead. It had to be Harvey Autumn; he couldn’t think of anyone else in Chicago who would come after him. The man with the German accent must be an out-of-town contract killer, and the Aston Martin and the rocket launcher both probably belonged to him. Right now, Tomas had an advantage — if the gunman thought Tomas was dead, he might hang around Chicago for a few days. Tomas had to get downtown and see if he could find that car.

Catching a cab to the train station, he caught the next train into town, and then rented a car from Hervis Drive-Ur-Self. The gunman was obviously highly paid, so he would probably be staying at one of the high-class hotels, the Drake, the Fairmont, the Radisson, or the Chicago Hilton. He checked in with Bonnie and told her where he was headed. Then he went out to do some good old detective work.

Parking downtown near the Radisson, Tomas watched people go in and out for a few minutes, noting which of the attendants did the valet parking for guests. During a lull in guest traffic, he walked up to these attendants and began a conversation with them. “Hi, guys! Did you get a chance to drive that Aston Martin DB2 I saw fly out of here a while ago? Man, what a great car!”

“You talkin’ that red and black one?” asked one of them, the one whom Tomas had seen parking the most cars. Tomas nodded his head. The speaker had a wistful expression on his face. “I’ve seen it on the streets, but whoever owns it ain’t staying here. Too bad. Man, I’d give a bundle to take that one for a spin!” Suddenly, he looked worried. He and his mates were not supposed to drive guests’ cars any farther than the garage and back. He had heard that sometimes the hotel would hire people to report on what the employees were doing. He might have just talked himself out of this great job.

But Tomas wasn’t interested in getting these kids into trouble. He’d found out that the DB2 had been seen downtown recently, in the grand hotel area, and even though the owner wasn’t registered here, he seemed to be on the right track.

“Me, too! I wonder what they cost. More than I’ll ever have, I bet…” And he walked away.

This scene was repeated with minor variations at the Hilton and the Fairmont. The guy in the Aston Martin wasn’t shy about showing it off, which argued that he was pretty sure Tomas was dead, and there had been no witnesses.

Tomas had subconsciously saved the Drake for last, probably because of the name. But at the Drake, he had some luck.


“Tell you what, that is one fantastic car! It’s weird driving on the wrong side, but once you get used to that, it’s like riding a tiger!”

“Is it fast?” Tomas asked him.

This kid was smarter than the first one, and a little suspicious. “Sorry, pal, I don’t know. I drive it from the front door here to the parking lot, and then back again. Enough to make me wish it was my car, but I’ll never get a chance to see how fast it is. Say…” His voice became harsh. “…ain’tcha got someplace else to be? We’re busy here.”

Tomas smiled to himself and walked away. “Thanks!” he said cheerily, and waved. What else might he find out?

He stopped in a sheltered doorway down the street and watched to see where the Drake valets took the cars they parked. It was a covered garage about a block from the hotel. He scouted the garage, and the next time one of the valets brought a car around, he sneaked inside while the booth attendant was distracted. A little cautious scouting — he could be very quiet — and there was another piece of good luck: the DB2 was in the garage.

But what was he going to do next? He didn’t have any magical devices he could stick to the car that would enable him to follow it using his extrasensory perception. He glanced at the license plate and carefully checked the doors and the boot, but the car was locked. There were no obvious clues that he could see through the windows, either. He had an idea. He owed this guy big time for his pickup truck and his scrapes and bruises, so why not give him back a little aggravation? And maybe he could find out who the guy was at the same time. Pulling out his trusty Swiss Army knife, Tomas used the corkscrew to bore a hole in one of the front tires. Then he covered the headlights in turn with his jacket, and shattered them. The jacket kept the noise to a minimum.

Finally, he headed toward one of the emergency exits. He pulled out his pistol and, apologizing to the patron god of performance automobiles, shot out the front windshield of the DB2 and then took off. The emergency exit let out the back, and the only attendant in the garage was in the booth at the front, so he got away without anyone seeing him.

Suddenly, he had doubts — suppose this wasn’t the car he was interested in. It would take him six months of successful cases just to cover the cost of the windshield. And he doubted that Ketchum would allow him to put it on his expense account. In fact, if this was the wrong car, he was pretty sure Ketchum would fire him and make sure he never got another private investigation job in Chicago. Come to think of it, who was paying for this investigation, anyway, with the principal dead? Well, he could worry about those things later.

Opening the emergency exit set off the alarm, but he was prepared for that. He withdrew at top speed. By the time the disturbance had calmed down, he was back on the street in front of the hotel. He entered and made for the restaurant, taking a seat where he could keep an eye on the lobby, and sure enough, in a few minutes he saw a hotel manager escorting a very disturbed blond man toward the garage. The man was obviously angry, loudly berating the manager, and Tomas was sure it was the same man he had heard yesterday giving orders. He heard the manager apologize to Mr. Ackerman. It was almost certainly a pseudonym, but he sure knew a lot more now than he had this morning.

He felt sorry for the hotel staff for a few minutes, but their security was lax. He was about to leave when four very large men came over to his table and sat down with him. Tomas had rarely been scared of anything, even before he gained super-powers, but something about these four men told him to be cautious. They just pulled up chairs and sat down before they even started speaking.


“Good afternoon, Mr. Thomas. May I call you Tomas?” one of them said. “My name is Abraham Benjamin. Do you mind if my associates and I join you?” Clearly this group was trying to intimidate Tomas, showing him right off the bat that they knew more about him than he did about them.

Well, Tomas didn’t intimidate easily, even when he was being cautious. “Mr. Benjamin, where I come from, we usually consider it polite to ask first and then sit, rather than the other way ’round,” he said in a very mild tone. “Is that really your real name?” It seemed unlikely.

Abraham Benjamin smiled. “In our business, Tomas–” And he waved his arm to include all five of them. “–audacity is usually the best way to get results. After watching your tricks with Herr Schmidt’s car, I’m sure you already know this.”

Schmidt was apparently the name of the guy who owned the Aston Martin. Who were these guys? He was certain there hadn’t been anyone else in the garage. They must have had it under remote surveillance. Tomas didn’t bother to conceal his disbelief. “So, Abe…” Tomas said, smiling. “You don’t really expect me to believe you guys are P.I.s? Aren’t the four of you always in each others’ ways?”

“Actually, no, we aren’t exactly ‘private’ investigators. We are employed by our government. I guess you might refer to us as ‘secret agents.’ But much of what we do is similar, no?”

Tomas was startled to realize that he was unable to place this man’s accent. It took a lot of training to disguise an accent this thoroughly, as well as considerable acting skill. This just confirmed to him that he was swimming in pretty deep waters.

“Maybe. But I’m not a P.I. right now, either. I’m on my own time. I notice you didn’t say which government employs you. You aren’t IRS, are you? I’ve got documentation for everything on this year’s form!” He stopped talking for a second, but no one answered. So he decided to see if he could get some kind of reaction out of them. “By the way, what’s wrong with your buddies? Deaf and dumb?” He saw by the flare of anger in their eyes that they were not deaf, but none of them said anything.

“Don’t worry, Tomas! We are all on the same side. Our government is one of America’s closest allies and staunchest supporters: Israel.”

Holy $#!*, and once again, holy $#!*! Agents of the Mossad! thought Tomas. The Mossad was only two years old, but it had already established a deadly reputation. It might be time to become uninvolved in this business, whatever it was. Of course, he had to find out what it was, first. “So what can I do for you gentlemen?” There was no harm in being polite. He might not be intimidated, but there was no reason to make enemies here. Well, maybe he was intimidated, just a little.

“We’re wondering why you damaged Herr Schmidt’s car. What is your interest in him?”

“He almost killed me on the highway, driving that Aston Martin at around a hundred miles an hour and winding in and out of traffic. Cut me off, and I had to brake and swerve to miss him. Some friends of mine were in the car behind me, and they went off the road. He didn’t even slow down. I didn’t see his face, but I did notice the car! I would have let it go, except I happened to see him again, running around downtown, and he went through a puddle and sprayed dirty puddles over a bunch of pedestrians. So I decided I wanted to find out more about him, maybe have a friendly chat with him. So now I know his name and what he looks like.” He paused. “Your turn. What is your interest in Mr. Schmidt? Why would the Mossad be interested…?” He stopped, a startling thought occurring to him. “Why — he must be a Nazi, huh? And you guys are going to take him back to Israel for execution?”

“Very good, Tomas! Too bad you aren’t Israeli; there would be a place for you in the Mossad. Yes, Herr Schmidt, though that’s not his real name, is indeed a leftover Nazi.” Benjamin went on to tell the story of “Herr Schmidt.” Tomas wasn’t certain quite how much to believe.

Schmidt’s real name was Ackerman. During the war, he had been an officer in the Gestapo and part of the Gestapo liaison for one of Hitler’s secret ordnance development projects. You know, flying disks, lighting guns, inviso-rays, weather controllers, that kind of thing? Well, some of it was real. When Schmidt realized that the war was going badly, he stole a bunch of prototype super-weapons and fled from Germany. He spent a few years hiding out in Latin America. When he felt reasonably secure in his new cover identity, he had slipped into the United States and moved to Minneapolis, though God alone knew why. He had been using the stolen weapons as a contract killer.

Last year, in one of their first public efforts, the Mossad had busted up a group of Nazis who had set up as warlords in South America. A half-dozen of the leaders had gotten away, with significant amounts of money, and some of them were believed to be in the U.S. It seems they had contacted Schmidt about working strictly for them, and the Mossad had been following him for about six months, hoping Schmidt would lead them to bigger game.

They had his phone tapped, and yesterday they had overheard a conversation between Schmidt and an unknown man. This individual identified himself as a member of one of Chicago’s “families” and offered him a job. Schmidt had driven from Milwaukee, picked up two men unknown to the Mossad, and headed downtown. They had eventually followed someone out of town.

Benjamin assumed that the murder contract had been carried out, and now they were waiting for Schmidt to collect his money, and they would then pick up the trail of whoever had hired him.

Of course, Tomas was flabbergasted.


“You saw that, and you didn’t do anything to stop it? Why, you bastards!” Tomas Thomas grasped the edge of the table in both hands and started to stand up. He had never been pleased to be in the company of these four, and he’d had just about enough of them.

Benjamin reached out and put his hand on Tomas’ shoulder in what appeared to be a friendly gesture. His strength was such that any normal man would have been forced back into his chair. Tomas continued to stand with no more apparent effort than if there had been a mosquito on his shoulder. He was quite pleased when Benjamin’s eyes widened just a bit in surprise. This was a man who was used to having things go according to his own plans, and Tomas just wasn’t going along.

So, rather than lose face, Benjamin stood up, too. “Tomas, you have to understand, we are on a case. We are trying to track down a really evil Nazi survivor, and we think Ackerman might lead us to him. Please sit down, and let’s exchange information. We know some things that might be useful to you.”

Tomas wasn’t really appeased, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to turn his back on these guys, not just yet. He sat back down, as did Benjamin.

Benjamin spoke first. “Hold on, Tomas. Our job is to track down Nazi war criminals. We are good at it, and it’s what we do. So far, by following Ackerman, we’ve captured three very high-ranking Nazi butchers — two were on Goebbels’ staff — you remember Goebbels, don’t you? Minister of Propaganda? And the other was second-in-command to Bormann, leader of the Nazi Party. You must admit these people are evil and do not deserve freedom!”

Tomas was on the verge of shouting, but he was able to restrain himself — barely. “How many people has he killed during that time?” he asked in a low, intent voice. “Well, I’ll give you some information about this Ackerman goon right now — he’s about to stop killing people, and instead start paying for their deaths. Right now.”

He waved his left hand about for emphasis and managed to knock over a water glass. This drew the agents’ attention — not for long, but then, Tomas was very fast. When they turned their eyes back to him, he was standing very close to Benjamin. They were stunned to realize that he now held a pistol in his right hand, hidden from the other diners by his body and Benjamin’s body.

“As you can see, gentlemen, I am a lot faster than you. And I guarantee, I’m as accurate as I am fast.” Pausing for a moment to let that sink in, he said, “Now, I’d like to part with the Mossad on friendly terms, so I will tell you my interest in all this. Ackerman’s target last night — the one you knew about, but didn’t protect — was me. I promise you this — if there are any other Nazis involved in this assassination attempt, I will discover them, and I will capture them.”

Benjamin blurted out, “But that’s not good enough–”

Tomas forcefully interrupted. “Abe, you had better accept that it is ‘good enough,’ because it is the best deal you are going to get from me. Ackerman will get a fair trial, and there’s a good chance he will be found guilty — and maybe even executed. But we are going to do it following the laws of your great ally, the U.S.

“Good day, gentlemen! Don’t test my reflexes!” Tomas turned away and headed for the lobby. Two steps away, so quickly that even those people who were watching him closely couldn’t swear they had seen it happen, he spun about in a full arc, not even missing a step. But the agent who had been pulling his gun realized that his arm was now pinned to the back of his chair by a steak knife through the sleeve of his jacket. Benjamin waved at his team to stand down, and Tomas headed for the parking garage.

The manager and Ackerman, AKA Schmidt, were standing near the Aston Martin. A panel truck with the name Giant Glass was just leaving the garage, and the windshield on the DB2 had already been replaced, probably at the hotel’s expense. One of the bellboys had just finished changing the tire. The car was ready to drive again, although the headlights were still smashed.

Ackerman saw Tomas, and he reacted like some guy in the Sunday funnies — his mouth dropped open, his jaw almost hitting his chest, and his eyes almost popped out of his head. A half-second later, he yelled in his German accent, “You’re dead! I saw you die last night!” And he reached under his jacket to pull out his pistol.

A half-second was too long to wait. Tomas stepped forward, drew his own pistol, and grabbed Ackerman’s wrist, all before Ackerman could reach his gun. Now the manager and the bellboy were looking stunned and scared. Tomas identified himself. “Tomas Thomas. I’m a private investigator on a murder case. Please call the police for me!”

“Yes, sir!” said the manager, bolting out of the garage and back into the hotel, followed closely by the bellboy. And Tomas was sure he really was going to call the police. It looked like he didn’t care which of these two men was the good guy; the police sounded like the best possible choice right now.


Ackerman struggled, but Tomas was much stronger. “Mr. Schmidt, I’m placing you under citizen’s arrest for your attempted murder last night — of me. And I think we’re going to be able to track you back to some other recent assassinations. And the War Department might want to talk to you as about some war crimes, Herr Sturmbannführer Ackerman. Oh, and by the way, the Mossad will probably be here in a minute or so!”

“Mr. Thomas, you can’t let the Mossad capture me! They’ll torture me!”

Tomas interrupted. “I don’t plan to let them take you away from me. I’ll turn you over to the police, and then you’ll be safe from them.”

Ackerman was horrified. “No, if you give me to the police, the Mossad will find some way to get to me in custody! Please, Mr. Thomas, I would rather die right now than fall into the hands of the Mossad. Please, if you won’t let me go, then shoot me!”

Tomas was shaken to the core by this man’s fear of the Mossad. He had heard that they were a dangerous organization, but apparently Nazis were more aware of the danger than he was. “I’m not sure what else I can do for you. You are a Nazi war criminal, an assassin, and a murderer. No skin off my teeth whether the Mossad gets you or the American justice system. And I’m pretty sure you won’t be able to find a good lawyer to defend you from the Mossad!”

Ackerman was looking sicker and sicker as Tomas talked. Finally, he broke in, “Can I hire you to protect me from the Mossad?”

“Sorry, Ratzi, but you got nothin’ I want! I think the police is the best bet — I don’t believe that the Mossad can really reach you in the Illinois prison system.”

Ackerman was obviously thinking fast. “Maybe I do have something… How about the car?”

Tomas was tempted. It had hurt having to shoot out the windshield. “I can’t protect you forever. How long will the contract last?”

“Can’t we work out the details later? Here!” Ackerman reached into his pocket and pulled out some keys. “Can we just get out of here? Now?” He handed the keys to Tomas. “There’s some handcuffs in the car. I have a pistol in my shoulder holster, and an ankle knife. Let’s go!”

Moving quickly, Tomas disarmed the German, found the handcuffs, and cuffed him. It was nice of the man to cooperate. Tomas suspected some kind of trick, so he swiftly used his super-strength to mangle the cuffs so that it would take a power tool to get them off. He quickly strapped Ackerman’s feet together with his own belt, and threw him into the passenger seat. The car was in gear and heading for the exit only a second or so later. He was doing thirty miles per hour when he hit the alley behind the hotel. What a car!

Although he couldn’t be sure, he thought perhaps they were at least temporarily out of sight of the Mossad. “OK, Ackerman — I can’t protect you for long. But I know someone who knows someone who maybe can.”

The next phone booth they passed, Tomas got out and called Cody Mason. A half-hour later, after some driving around, Tomas drove by the University of Chicago to pick up Cody from his dorm room. Between them they stuffed the tightly bound German in the back seat.

Letting Cody drive, Tomas watched the rear-view mirrors for a tail. They headed for U.S. Highway 41 South, and within a surprisingly short time, pulled up into the U.S. Steel parking lot in Gary, Indiana. A couple of minutes later, Dr. Lambda, Dr. Aeon, and the Volunteer, all members of the Alliance of Mystery Heroes, popped into existence.

Tomas left the German with them, and he and Cody drove into town to find a notary. They paid him to make a house call, and a few minutes later, Tomas owned a new Aston Martin DB2, all legal and square, pink slip signed, sealed, and notarized. And Dr. Aeon even used a magic spell to fix the headlights.

The Volunteer had extracted enough information from Ackerman to justify offering him protection. The patriotic mystery hero was certain he could use his government contacts to convince the Mossad to leave Ackerman alive in U.S. hands. It seemed as if the threat of being turned over to the Mossad might convince Ackerman to rat out a few of his fellow Nazis, without allowing Ackerman to carry out any future assassinations.

Before the Volunteer took him away to turn over to the US Military, to seal the deal, Ackerman gave Tomas the lowdown on Harvey Autumn. He was indeed one of the Nazis that the Mossad had chased out of South America. He’d come to Chicago and hooked up with one of the Mafia families, and they were helping to set him up in a new identity. He’d picked Harvey Autumn from the obituary columns in the Chicago Tribune — same age, same general appearance, as the German, Harvey’s body never recovered. The German had suffered major facial burns in the Mossad raid in South America, and he used reconstructive surgery as the basis for his cover story.

Ackerman didn’t have enough hard evidence for the police, but Tomas was satisfied. Ackerman was in the custody of the US Justice System and he had a tidbit he could offer the Mossad in exchange, a tip leading to the phony Harvey Autumn. He hadn’t been able to save Ida Autumn, and he would always feel some guilt about that. But at least he had ensured that her killer wouldn’t get away. Tomas sure wouldn’t want to be "Harvey" right about now.