She slowed to a stop in front of a dark tenement building. 'This is it, where Jennings is hiding — if my guess is right.'
Leaving the car parked at the curb, Polly and Sky Captain hurried down the sidewalk. The leather bomber jacket kept him dry, but the cold sleet quickly matted his short brown hair. Polly wore a tan trench coat and a black fedora pulled low. He remained close at her side, not wanting to appear to be following her lead, as they turned the corner into a darkened alley. They descended a set of leaf-strewn stairs, past a junk pile of debris at one corner of the landing, to the door of a basement shop. A small placard read: ALLIED CHEMICAL.
After comparing the address to a scrap of paper in her hand, Polly knocked briskly at the door, but no answer came. 'Hello? Dr. Jennings, it's Polly Perkins.' She waited again, then knocked harder on the door. 'Dr. Jennings?'
She flashed Sky Captain a worried look, and he reached for the doorknob, rattling it. 'It's locked.' Looking around for another way in, he spied an open window above them on the second floor. 'See that window — there…?'
He began to concoct an elaborate plan to gain entry. In the junk pile on the landing, he found a length of old rope coiled around two sagging boxes and a broken chair. He untangled the muddy strand so he could tie a loop in one end. He pulled hard to test the strength of the rope, hoping the fibers weren't too rotted. 'We might be able to get in through that window if I can attach a line.'
He heard a crash for his answer, and he looked to see Polly holding a rock in her hand. She smashed the door's window glass a second time, knocking the sharp splinters from the frame.
She dropped the rock, reached inside, and unlocked the door. 'Never mind, Joe. It's open.'
Sky Captain looked at Polly, his throat so full of conflicting words that he couldn't say any of them. Finally, he just brushed past her and pushed the door wide enough for them both to enter Dr. Jennings' lab. 'I've seen my share of mad scientists and their laboratories. Usually they're better housekeepers than this.'
The small lab had been thoroughly ransacked. File cabinets were yanked open, drawers emptied. Papers lay strewn all over the floor and on the overturned furniture. Broken test tubes and glass beakers littered the ground in puddles of colored, foul-smelling liquids. An off-kilter lamp lay sprawled against a wall; a writing desk had been smashed.
'We're too late,' Polly said.
The two moved deeper inside, crunching through the debris. In the yellowish light of the dim lamp, Polly spotted a heavy metal cabinet in a far corner. Because iron brackets anchored the cabinet to the wall and floor, the vandals had been unable to tip it over. The latch to the cabinet had been broken.
Without telling Sky Captain what she intended to do, Polly strode directly to the cabinet and pulled open one of the loose doors. She blinked in disbelief, then raised her camera.
The cabinet held shelf upon shelf of glass jars. Tiny skeletons floated in embalming fluid, showing alien body shapes she had never seen before. 'Looks like the remnants of aborted experiments.'
Then she saw something move, barely more than a shadow at the bottom of the cabinet. On the lowest shelf, Polly found another glass container — that one holding a live specimen. She couldn't believe her eyes: a living, breathing elephant no larger than a bar of soap drank from a miniaturized trough. It lifted its trunk and let out a tinny bellow, like a child tooting a plastic whistle.
Beside her, Sky Captain knelt to stare at the tiny creature. He turned to her as if she was somehow to blame. 'All right, Polly — no more games. Tell me what the hell is going on.'
She shrugged. 'I was hoping you could tell me. Dr. Jennings wasn't very talkative during our brief interview.'
As the miniature elephant paced inside its doll-sized cage, Polly's eyes moved upward, hungry for explanations. She screamed and immediately regretted having done it in front of Sky Captain.
A man emerged from a hiding place among the ransacked furniture, staggering forward. He was much more haggard-looking than she had seen him in Radio City Music Hall. 'It's Jennings!'
The scientist had a dazed look on his face as he stumbled toward them, his hands outstretched in a wordless plea. Sky Captain reacted quickly as Jennings collapsed into his arms. 'Got you!'
He eased the scientist down to the cluttered floor, turning the other man's body to reveal a knife buried deep between his shoulder blades. Thick, fresh blood soaked the woolen fabric of his brown suit. His gold-rimmed glasses were askew on his pasty face.
Dr. Jennings looked up, struggling to speak. With one hand, he clutched the zipper of the pilot's leather jacket. His voice was weak, barely audible. 'You must stop him…'
Sky Captain and Polly froze as they heard a stealthy noise in an upstairs room. Letting Polly support the dying scientist's head and shoulders, Sky Captain got back to his feet but remained in a wary crouch. 'Stay here. Maybe we're not too late after all.'
Someone was moving quickly in the other room. He heard the sound of a window opening, the scrape of a wooden frame moving in the sash. He ran up the staircase and through the door into a smaller office. He arrived just in time to see the blur of a black-garbed figure climbing out the open window.
'Stop!' Sky Captain lunged to grab the shadowy figure by the arm. With a vicious tug on the fabric sleeve, he spun the stranger around and found himself face-to-face with a stunning woman. Her face was perfect, her lips a dark ruby red. Her eyes were covered by large, round glasses with opaque lenses. It didn't seem possible that she could see through them.
She wasn't what Sky Captain had expected at all. He loosed his grip, surprised. 'Listen, I don't want to hurt you — '
The dark woman moved with unbelievable speed, striking him with a backhand that had the force of a catapult. The blow knocked him against the wall, cracking plaster. Reeling, he slid to the floor, his legs turning into noodles. Sky Captain grabbed the back of his head and silently mouthed, 'Owww.'
Before he could scramble to his feet, the strange and murderous woman leaped to the window again. Ignoring the hammers inside his skull, Sky Captain dove after her, managing to catch her wrist just as she jumped. His hand accidentally hit the window latch, which caused the window to drop with a thud. The pane of glass shattered, and he was forced to let go, ducking to avoid the flying shards. 'Damn!'
Anxious, he leaned through the empty frame. The black-swathed woman landed with uncanny grace in the alleyway below, bent her knees for the briefest pause, then sprinted with lightning speed around the corner. She was gone in a flash.
With a disappointed sigh, Sky Captain withdrew from the window. 'What the hell is going on?' He wondered what excuse he could tell Polly. His head still throbbed, and he could feel a few cuts on his face from the glass splinters.
Before he left the office, he noticed a leather satchel lying on the floor, as if it had been tossed under a writing table. Curious, he picked it up. This could be something…
In the cluttered laboratory room, Polly knelt over Dr. Jennings, trying to comfort him, but she could see he was dying. He had lost too much blood already, and the knife wound was deep. With his failing strength, the scientist struggled to speak. 'Miss Perkins…'
'I'm here, Doctor. I tracked you down.'
'If Totenkopf finds them… nothing will be able to stop him. Nothing…'
Polly leaned closer to hear his faint words. 'Finds what?'
Jennings squirmed to reach inside the pocket of his jacket with a bloodied hand, then removed two small test tubes. 'Once he gets these… the countdown will start.'
'The countdown for what?'
'This world… will end.' Before he could say anything more, before Polly could grasp the magnitude of what he had said, the scientist wheezed out his last rattling breath and died.
'Dr. Jennings!' She tried to revive him, but it was no use. Polly gently pried the two test tubes from the scientist's hand and held them up. 'The end of the world? In here?' Dumbfounded, she glanced up as Sky Captain reentered and knelt down beside her. 'He's dead.' With sluggish movements, Polly covered the body with a jacket.
'Well, the murderer got away… but I think I found something.' Sky Captain held out the satchel.
Polly recognized it immediately. 'Dr. Jennings had that case with him at the theater yesterday, just before
