The Crime Crusaders Club

Case #7: "O Canada"

By Mikel Midnight

Captain X examines the group portrait thoughtfully. "I regret not seeing our esteemed leader here, I'd long wanted to meet the esteemed Jim Anthony."

Neptune Perkins shakes his head, "More our sponsor than our leader, I think."

The Gay Ghost chuckles softly, "Mr. Anthony has a roving eye in more ways than one, methinks. He is not one to be settled long at home. He seeks his own adventures."

Wonder Girl curls up on the large chair by the fireplace, sipping a hot chocolate. She sighs as there's a knock at the door, and slowly unwinds herself from the chair. "I just got comfortable too," she complains.

As the door opens, cold air and a whirl of snow invades the house. A man walks in from the night, tall and handsome, wearing a uniform red jacket and cap, accompanied by an immense wolf.

Captain X stares at the newcomer. "I see by your outfit that you are a mountie."

The man nods, "Sergeant Jim Reynolds of the Royal Mounted, at your service." He rests his hand on the wolf, who looks about the room alertly. "This is Tanero. I was sent here by my superior, Corporal Keene, to request your assistance."

Wonder Girl kneels down next to Tanero. "My, you're a big boy," she says. The wolf smiles at her and nuzzles his head between her breasts as she strokes his sides.

The Gay Ghost bows deeply, "I am ever at the service of the Commonwealth," he proclaims. "What is so dire that thou wert sent from the North to seek our help?"

Reynolds hesitates briefly, as if loath to involve outsiders. However he brings himself to bear. "Recently we battled a gang of enemy agents who were engaged in extracting a secret mineral compound from a government-owned mine that could be used as a war weapon against England. We Canadians are mining Compound X to use as a treatment for polio - but the Nazis need it as a bomb detonator!"

Neptune Perkins blinks. "It's a polio treatment and a bomb detonator?"

Captain X whispers to him, "I'm sure it's also a floor wax and a dessert topping."

Neptune Perkins looks at the Captain blankly.

Reynolds continues. "We sent in our own ... special forces ... but they were captured. Rather than face further fatalities, Corporal Keene sent me to acquire help. The Crime Crusaders Club were the closest organisation of American mysterymen, so we came directly here," indicating himself and Tanero.

Wonder Girl claps her hands, "I've never been to Canada! Captain, do you think we'll all fit in Jenny?"

Captain X ers ...

Reynolds chuckles softly, "No need, I brought my own transportation."

Captain X looks mildly relieved. "Good, then, I'll have Jenny follow us by remote control, and you can brief us all further on the flight over."

Reynolds drives them to a nearby airstrip, where his Quebecois mustachioed pilot Jerry 'Red' Laroux is waiting for them. On the flight over, with Jenny following invisibly, Reynolds told of the robber baron Thaddeus Harper, known as "the Emperor." He had been public about his fascist sympathies prior to the war, although had retracted his claims once hostilities were declared. Nevertheless, there was considerable evidence that he had been selling black market Compound X to the German government, and that he had been employing some of Canada's worst criminal element as bodyguards. It was exactly those criminals whom their special forces had fallen afoul of in the previous raid."

Finally the small plane coasts over to a stop in a clearing. 'Red' opens the hatchway and the Crime Crusaders climb out into the biting cold air. Reynolds points the way through a forested area, "Harper's headquarters are down that way. We'll try to approach silently, but be warned, he has a small army holed up down there."

The Gay Ghost becomes invisible and floats above the others, while Jenny hovers overhead. Reynolds leans down and says to Tanero, "You remember the route through here? Take us down, old friend." The wolf perks his ears, and then pads noiselessly through the trees.

Wonder Girl's eyes widen, "That sure is a well-trained wolf, if he can understand English so well."

Reynolds nods soberly, "He understands many things."

Finally the team catches up with the wolf, where he stands several yards from a military fort. Oddly uniformed men are patrolling the area. "Who are they?" Captain X whispers, "I've never seen that insignia."

"Kablunets," Reynolds explains. "Harper must have made a contract with their leader, Commander Toroff."

The Gay Ghost unsheathes his sword, "If they stand with the Nazis, they will receive no quarter from me."

Neptune Perkins looks at his partners, "I agree ... let's take 'em out!"

As he speaks the words, Tanero bursts forth, running straight at the corp of guards. The Kablunets see the wolf and start firing at him, and he dodges through the bullets are remarkable speed. "Suffering Sappho," Wonder Girl mutters, as the rest are forced to follow the head-on charge.

>From a platform above the fort, a large, husky man in his sixties with grey hair and a mustache watches the battle below. "Slimey," he says, and a repulsive fellow whose name describes him appears at the Thaddeus Harper's side. "Yessir," he says.

"These Kablunets are worthless. We will have to bring out my imperial guard; inform Brunner, and have him prepare the others."

"Yessir," Slimey repeats, and disappears back down to the garrison headquarters. Harper sighs; one day when this is all over, I'll take my rightful place as Emperor of all Canada ... until then I must deal with these endless distractions.

Emptying his handgun, Captain X uses his control unit to bring Jenny low to finish off the rest of his opponents. She swoops down like a great bird, her flight suddenly halted as she is encased in a block of solid ice. The aviator frantically attempts to adjust his remote control when a knife, thrown with unerring accuracy seemingly from nowhere, pierces the mechanism to render it useless.

The Crime Crusaders look up to see a burly man, his features marred. Reynolds curses, "One-Ear Brunner himself." Holding the mechanism which generated the ice beam, Brunner begins barking commands in German-accented English to the corp of men which descend on the team.

Remy LeClerc, the self-described "greatest knife-thrower in all of Canada," and his brother Pierre, who claims he "can shoot the whiskers off a wolf at 200 yards" begin to harry Captain X. They curse at him; their reputation having suffered since their humiliation by "Docteur Minuit" years before, and they take the appearance and accent of the goggle-wearing American personally.

The Mist, prepared with his invisio-solution, finds the Gay Ghost's attempts at subterfuge to be transparent. He prepares his matter destabiliser, and the Earl of Strethmere finds his ectoplasm tested by the attack.

The Crime King, a criminal inventor who has coated himself with indestructible plastic, engages in heated battle with Wonder Girl, who finds her strength nearly useless against the man's invulnerability.

The Black Bat soars around in his winged suit, pursuing Neptune Perkins. >From a bag strapped around his shoulder, he draws a syringe, and the youth struggles against the deranged doctor's strength buoyed by madness.

Sergeant Reynolds kneels down, "Find her," he whispers into Tanero's ear, and the pair of them sneak off around the side of the fortress, the great wolf's nose to the ground. Neptune Perkins watches as they abandon the battle, "We could use some help here!" he complains.

Brunner turns to Slimey. "This is taking too long. Fetch Dr. Electra."

Reynolds follows Tanero's lead, eventually finding his way to a water tower, an armed guard at its base. Silently the pair sneak up behind the guard, Reynolds striking him on the base of the skull with his pistol. "Up there?" he whispers to the wolf, and watches as the animal awkwardly scrambles up the ladder to the base of the tower.

The two of them circle around the walkway at the top of the tower, and Tanero begins scratching as he comes to a doorway. "In here, boy?" Reynolds asks, and unbolts the door.

He feels the peculiar sensation of his ears popping as he enters the room, as the air pressure changes noticeably. The air inside is filtered and cool. In the middle of the room is a medical table, on which is strapped a woman clad in blue, frail and gaunt. A needle is attached to her arm, through which a clear liquid is being fed into her veins.

Reynolds walks up to the table, and strokes the woman's cheek silently. Tanero leaps up onto it and sniffs at her face. At the touch of the wolf, her eyes open. "Tanero. Sergeant Reynolds," she murmurs. "I had hoped Corporal Keene ... " her voice trails off. "Please ... the needle ... "

He carefully untapes the needle from her arm and withdraws it. She gasps at the sensation, "Chemicals ... saline ... keeping my body alive but ... nothing natural ... even the air ... filtered ... "

Tanero releases something from his mouth into her hand. "A seed," she smiles weakly and whispers to the wolf, "Thank you my brother. I am sorry you must remain in this form a while longer ... your true self is not to be seen by ... " she glances at Reynolds, "late-born eyes."

Reynolds scoops her into his arms, and gently carries her back down to the ground. She sinks to her knees, planting the seed and chanting words once known by the ancestors of the Inuit, centuries past.

Elsewhere, Dr. Electra looks up at Brunner as he finishes tinkering with his device, and gives a silent nod. Brunner shouts out, "Retreat! Regroup!" leaving the Crime Crusaders abandoned in their wake as the Emperor's imperial guard draws back.

The Gay Ghost soars upwards, sword drawn. "Methinks 'tis time to cut the head off this hydra," he announces, any further words silenced as a blast from Dr. Electra's atom ray disintegrates him.

The Crime Crusaders gasp in shock, Wonder Girl choking on a sob. "Now, the rest of them," Brunner orders.

Dr. Electra adjusts the atom ray's aim, but draws back suddenly as he is blinded by the lights of the aurora borealis. A young woman appears suddenly atop his device, her aura sparkling with myriad colors. "I hardly think so," she says, and log-rolls the firing mechanism at blinding speed, until it topples off the platform and falls to the ground with a crash.

"Impossible!" curses Brunner.

"Nothing's impossible where Nelvana of the Northern Lights is concerned, surely you'd have learned that by now." With blinding speed she draws the ice-beam weapon off his shoulders, tossing it to the ground atop the atom ray. "So," she says with a laugh, "Do you want to be the next thing down?"

Having faced that laugh already in his life, Brunner turns tail and runs. Nelvana looks down at the Crime Crusaders solemnly, floating down to their level. "I could use your help with the rest of these ... whites," she says.

Wonder Girl kneels, as someone who has worshipped goddesses before. "At your disposal, my lady."

Neptune Perkins growls, "They cost us a friend," he says.

Captain X nods, "Wonder Girl, you're the next fastest of us, if you head east and Nelvana heads west, we can catch them in a vise grip easily. Perkins, take this," handing him his gun which the young man accepts gingerly, "I'm going to make a try for the ice-beam weapon."

Armed with ice and light, the four lay siege to the fortress. As Sergeant Reynolds and Tanero join them, The Emperor and his imperial guard are quickly rounded up.

"Goddess," Wonder Girl approaches Nelvana. "Our friend that we lost, can you ... restore him to us?"

Nelvana sighs, "Demi-goddess at best, child. But I will see what I can do." She floats back upwards, circling the area which had seen the end of Keith Everett, and returns with a puzzled expression. "Nobody has died here."

"I should say not!" says a familiar voice. Wonder Girl screams as a skeleton, armed with a sword, enters the room and cuts a low bow. "I have faced death before my friends, it holds no appeal to me. When at last I go to my final resting place it shall be at my home in Eire." It sinks down to one knee, skull bowed. "The Earl of Strethmere at thy disposal, my lady."

Neptune Perkins says, "Keith ... you look ... "

The skeleton ambles up and peers at its reflection in a wall mirror. "Zounds!" it says. It wraps its hands into fists, the sounds of visible strain emitting from its ghoulish grin ... and a set of familiar brown locks appear at the top of its skull. It sighs. "This ectoplasm may not be made of atoms, but 'tis demned difficult stuff to work with."

Captain X shakes his head, chuckling to himself, "Welcome back, Sir Everett."

The Gay Ghost raises a serif of The Emperor's wine, and pours it down past his ribs where it settles quite visibly. "I regret only that I was not here for the final battle, but thou didst well, my friends. To victory and a free North!"

THE END