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.""The American public has no business looking into my private affairs.""The American taxpayers have every right to know how their money is spent.The defense of the United States is hardly a 'private affair.'"He scowled."Since you have infiltrated this facility, I gather you've seen with your own eyes that we are manufacturing new models of tanks, artillery shells, and missile components for the Defense Department."Bertram shuffled forward to hand Luthor a small camera he had taken from Lois.With a stern frown, he accepted the camera, opened the back, and removed the film, unspooling it into the light."I'm afraid your photographs didn't turn out, Miss Lane.A shame." He let the exposed film drop to the lunchroom floor, where someone else would clean it up later.He leaned closer, placing both hands on the lunchroom table."Are you a Communist spy, Miss Lane?"She laughed at that, pointedly ignored her camera and ruined film, and scribbled something on her notepad."Let's not waste the opportunity here, Mr.Luthor.You're a very powerful man, and like most powerful men, you're also very mysterious.Daily Planet readers are keen to hear all about one of Metropolis's wealthiest and most influential citizens.For instance"—she tapped pen on paper as though considering what must have been a well-rehearsed question—"you often go on secretive trips to undisclosed locations.Why is that?""Your precious taxpayers aren't entitled to know my social schedule.That's why I own a private jet."Luthor turned to a different and time-proven tack.With fake self-deprecation, he pointed to himself."I'm not a rich playboy bachelor like Bruce Wayne, I'm not a celebrity, and I'm not some…man of steel—I'm just a business executive making a living.""I agree, Mr.Luthor—you are no Bruce Wayne.And certainly no Superman."He smiled with acid benignity."That's all I have time for, Miss Lane.I'm a busy man, and my hardworking employees will be going on their shift break in a few minutes.""Your young male employees." If Lois Lane had a major fault, it was a poorly developed sense of tact, and she did not know when to stop pestering." My employees.Shouldn't a woman your age be married, Miss Lane? Having children, starting a family?You aren't getting any younger."He snapped toward the guards at the door, "Gentlemen, please escort this woman off the property.And that notebook will have to remain here along with the camera—this is a top-secret, classified facility.We can't allow any possibility of espionage."The burly men grabbed her arms, and for a moment it looked as if she would actually thrash and struggle.But Lois apparently realized she would make an amusingly helpless spectacle as they dragged her off kicking her heels and flailing her arms.Instead, she angrily allowed herself to be marched out.Once they had disappeared down the corridor, Luthor's composure began to crumble.Extracting his handkerchief, he wiped a single bead of sweat from his smooth brow.Yes, he was greatly relieved that she had seen only the assembly line, the tanks, the large-caliber artillery guns, the missile nose cones.All those projects were perfectly legitimate.Not far from where she'd been apprehended, though, Luthor maintained his secure administrative room, which held a large wall map, illuminated radar screens, and the information about his isolated Caribbean island base, not far from the Cuban coast.If she had managed to get one floor higher in her prowling, he thought, that nosy bitch would have seen everything.* * *AFTER BEING GIVEN THE BUM'S RUSH OUT, LOIS BRUSHED herself off, regaining her dignity."Well, that went about as well as I expected."Blanche Rosen had been right on the money.Lois had infiltrated the facility through a delivery dock when all the men had been on their coffee break.She had slipped up the fire-escape stairwell and gone directly to the secret rooms.She had taken a roll of film already, stashed the small canister inside her waistband, and then sneaked to the lower assembly levels, where Luthor constructed his legitimate munitions for the army.There, she had allowed herself to get caught.She returned to her rented car—another Ford convertible, but chartreuse this time—which was hidden in the trees outside the fence.Now that he knew he had a weak link in his outer perimeter, Luthor was bound to crack down.She wouldn't get inside again, at least not that way.Lois climbed into her car and slammed the door.The white canvas top was up, keeping the interior cool.She opened her glove compartment and extracted another notebook, then quickly wrote down everything she could remember, from quotes to details.She hoped the hidden roll of film would yield enough explicit information about what she had seen inside Luthor's locked control room—the outline of the Caribbean island base, strange military plans, blueprints for exotic, high-powered weapons.She felt in her bones that this could be the story of the decade, hopefully enough to take Luthor down once and for all.CHAPTER 17GOTHAM CITYTHANKS TO DRAYLING'S REVELATIONS TO ALFRED AND THE suspicious documents he had found in their offices, Bruce believed that most, if not all, of the remaining board members were under Luthor's thumb.But he did not believe they were stupid.Arrogant, perhaps.Overconfident, definitely.Some might even be terrified.But not sloppy.They would never leave the truly damning evidence in their own offices.He had to dig deeper to find what he was looking for.And the best time for digging deep was after dark.Night after night.He sifted through all publicly available information about the nine men and stripped away their first layer of secrets.Then he donned his other identity and slipped out, targeting each man in turn.He would investigate until he had the necessary proof or until he was convinced a particular man was genuinely clean.So far, no one had fallen into the latter category.Next on the list was Paul Henning, the vice president of manufacturing—the first appointed board member who had not been personally selected by his father.Henning had replaced Willard LaBrie, a good man twenty years Thomas Wayne's senior, who had succumbed to a heart attack in his sleep.At first Henning had seemed to fill his predecessor's shoes very well, but he'd grown arrogant, greedy.He had made mistakes, and his biggest mistake was that he left clues.Though Henning owned a nice house in a good suburb of Gotham City, he also surreptitiously rented an apartment under an assumed name.The secret apartment was convenient, discreet, and readily accessed by his mistress for an occasional rendezvous.At the moment, though, it was unoccupied.The fire escape window in the apartment building had been painted shut.From his utility belt, he withdrew a tiny vial of solvent and applied it to the cracks on the sill, loosening the paint.Powerful magnets on telescoping rods dealt with the latch.Then with a slender metal probe he jimmied open the window.Several lights were on in the surrounding apartments, and a radio's music drifted into the night.A couple downstairs argued so loudly and constantly that their shouts provided the perfect distraction.Nobody heard the slight sound of a window opening.With a swirl of his dark cape, he slipped inside, then gently slid the window back into place.He was in the kitchen.Dark, cold.Not a single dirty dish in the sink.Everything neatly in place in the cupboards
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Tematy
IndexChris Vials Realism for the Masses; Aesthetics, Popular Front Pluralism, and U.S. Culture, 1935 1947 (2009)
Joel Fleishman The Foundation, A Great American Secret; How Private Wealth is Changing the World (2009)
Oleg Kalugin Spymaster, My Thirty two Years in Intelligence and Espionage Against the West (2009)
Renee K. Harrison Enslaved Women and the Art of Resistance in Antebellum America (2009)
Kamila Twardowska Kobiety a władza, Cesarzowe Bizantyńskie II poł. V w. po Chr. (2009)
Heather Lehr Wagner, Tim McNeese Spies in the Civil War (2009)
Andrew Stark Drawing the Line, Public and Private in America (2009)
Improve Your Punctuation and Gr 3rd ed How To Books 2009
STRZEC I BRONIC ERIC L. HARRY
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