“Gessler was no more a friend of the Great Wilhem than I was,” mused Nathaniel Vance, Gotham’s Assistant D.A. and decorated war hero. “He was merely doin’ what was expected of him, just like all of us East Side regulars did, you included. Besides, if he truly had been giving the Huns his best, we would have suffered a lot more than what we did. In the end, he helped us win the war, in a way.”

  Vance looked down at his friend’s glowering face and gave the shorter man’s curly straw-colored locks a tussle.

  “Don’t go strainin’ that noodle of yours over this, bud,” Vance chuckled. “Gessler’s on the up and up, trust me.”

  Henry’s cheeks flamed red with embarrassment.

  “Keep yer mitts to yerself, Nate,” the smaller man snarled. “You may be bigger, but I’m the better scrapper. I’ll wipe the floor with ya if you do that again.”

  Vance guffawed aloud as the two men made their way through the throng on the sidewalk and towards the ESB’s elevator tubes.

  “Now what kind of a public servant would I be if I was seen brawling in the streets, Hank?”

  “All I’m sayin’ is just leave off with that rufflin’ my hair stuff,” Hank grumbled, taking his place in line. “It’s irritatin’.”

  “Okay, Hank, no need to get all bent out of shape.”

  Vance took a place behind his friend and the two of them waited to be called to the next free elevator.

  Due to the increased air traffic between the Confederated States of the Americas and a newly formed European Union, the owners of the Empire State Building, usually called the ESB had installed several additional elevators to the outside of the structure’s South side, to ease the crush of those on the interior. And with no less than seventeen flights daily, that amounted to over five thousand passengers a week; all of them ferried via the new elevators to the airships that floated to roost briefly on the mooring platform nearly 1,500 feet above the street.

  Every three minutes one of the ESB’s six copper and glass conveyances would whisk passengers up to the 86th floor so they could either take a stroll around the observation deck, or check in for their designated flight to over a dozen locations, including San Francisco, Buenos Aries or Paris.

  After a few minutes Vance nudged his friend with an elbow, giving him a friendly grin.

  “Why don’t you tell me what’s really got you in such a foul mood today? It isn’t trouble with Angie, is it?”

  “Nah, she’s fine…we’re fine.” Hank let out a troubled sigh. “It’s just, I gots one of them feelin’s.”

  Vance’s grin quickly vanished. Suddenly, his whole demeanor changed from one of jocularity to focused seriousness.

  “A precog one?” the big man kept his voice low. “Got a color association yet, or an impression of one?”

  “Not yet, Nate, but that don’t mean I won’t.”

  “Sure it ain’t nerves? You hate riding in these things.”

  “Sure, I’m sure! I know my nerves and I know them feelin’s and it ain’t nerves! Look, these hunches, they ain’t never steered us wrong have they? They done got us through scrapes in Saarbrucken and Metz, right? And them other times, too.”

  “That they have, little buddy, that they have.” Vance’s eyes glittered.

  If what Hank was hinting at was something other than nerves, then Nate knew he’d better keep his wits about him. After spending a number of years with Hank during the war and having numerous adventures after, Nate had learned to trust Hank’s precognitive “feelings.” If his old friend felt something was odd or off, then something was…and that usually meant trouble, and lots of it.

  Both men craned their necks up toward to the top of the famed skyscraper, joining in with the rest of the crowd who were watching the enormous Imperial zeppelin glide into place one hundred and two stories up. A thick fog masked the giant shape of the bat-winged airship, giving it a dark and ominous look.

  “So what’s the skinny, Hank? What’re we in for?”

  “Not sure yet, but….” He squinted, looking around the area, and ran a hand through his thick curly hair.

  Suddenly Hank grabbed his tall friend’s arm.

  “We may want to grab a tube all to ourselves.”

  “You got a clear impression now? What color?”

  “Yeah, Nate. Black. No light whatsoever. Zilch.”

  “You sure?”

  “Sure, I’m sure! Why would I say it was if it weren’t?”

  Vance’s face had set and was now hard and grim.

  “Black you say? Last one of those was in Cairo. A lot of innocent folks didn’t make it through that one, Hank.”

  “No need to remind me. I was there.”

  Vance gave his old friend a long look, and then marched to the front of the line, pushing his way toward the pneumatic elevator attendants.

  The head attendant started to speak but Nate flashed his credentials.

  “Nate Vance; I’m with the D.A.’s office. I need a car for Mr. Thorne and myself, no others. We need to get to the Observation Deck. Right now.”

  The man at the checkout counter looked briefly at Vance’s ID, scanned the roster and then signaled one of the doormen.

  “Take these fellows to car three; no one else is to board.”

  In less than a minute, Nate and Hank were shooting skyward towards the mooring platform.

  acdb

  “Zhere is no hurry, Herr Professor. We still have time, ja?”

  The voice was cold, with a clipped and steely tone. Gessler looked toward it, fear filling his veins with ice. He knew that voice. Occupying the front area of the lounge were five men, four dressed in the black and silver of the Kaiserliche and armed with machine guns.

  But it was the fifth man who consumed the Professor’s attention.

  Dressed in a deep crimson commandant’s uniform, with brass buttons and black vulkanfiber polished to a high shine, the man’s chest was festooned with war medals. But it was his bearing that truly marked him as leader. The high collar of his waffenrock bore his rank insignia and covered his neck, melding into an apparatus attached to his shoulder and running down the entire length of his left arm. Even at this distance, Gessler could hear the hiss and whir of the mechanisms that allowed the man to raise that arm and take the cigarette holder from his lips. The skin beneath his schirmmütze was pale, almost grey, and marred by a mass of ugly scar tissue. An intricate eyepiece covering the right eye, adjusted and irised to compensate as the man gazed through the cloud of bluish cigarette smoke.

  “Von Kleist,” Gessler whispered in disbelief. “But, you are…”

  “Dead, Herr Professor? Yes, many had thought so, myself included. But as you can see, a man’s vill is an amazing thing. A man who has the vill can conquer anything. Even death.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  Von Kleist marched swiftly down the aisle of the cabin, with deliberate, mechanical precision. Gessler took an involuntary step backward.

  “I vould haff thought zhat was obvious, Herr Gessler. I am here for ze veapon you have in your possession.”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about. I have no weapon…”

  Von Kleist moved in uncomfortably close, the nicotine of his strong Belgian cigarettes flooding Gessler’s nostrils. As the scarred general looked him up and down, a chill ran the length of the professor’s spine.

  “Oh, come now, my dear fellow,” the General smiled.

  At that moment Gessler knew that both he and the General had been wrong. There wasn’t time yet. Time had run out.

  “Everything iz a veapon. You just have to have ze vill to use it.”

  acdb

  Vance and Hank stepped into the elevator car, the attendant closed and latched the door and with a whoosh of air the tube shot up the side of the tallest building in the city.

  “So,” Hank looked out through the thick glass at the scenery falling away below them. “I’m guessin’ this professor knows you got political connections, you being the assistant D.A. and all… but does he know about your moonlighting activities?”

  A knowing smile played out over Vance’s features.

  “Whatever are you talking about, Hank?”

  “Now look, that dopey act may work with Betty, but it don’t fly with me, pal. You wanna tell me why you’re wearin’ the harness under that suit? And don’t tell me you’re not… I been around you enough to recognize when you got it on.”

  Vance unconsciously placed a hand on his waist, brushing his fingers across the plating on his belt. What appeared to be raised decorative brass nubs were actually controls that activated and helped direct the flight harness strapped to his frame. If need be, his alter-ego was ready for any challenge that might arise.

  “And you got that collapsible headgear on ya somewhere as well, I bet.”

  Vance gave his friend a knowing wink.

  “It’s a good thing the tubes we’re ridin’ in don’t have a surveillance system, Hank, or everyone would know who the Harrier really is.”

  The Harrier! The mysterious winged vigilante whose exploits had been recently capturing headlines throughout the city. Some saw the Harrier as a hero, battling the nefarious forces of crime and corruption. Others labeled him a bloodthirsty killer bent on taking over the underworld for himself, through fear and intimidation. Only Hank knew of Nate’s one-man war on the criminal forces of the greatest city on the continent.

  “Ah, stow that nonsense, will ya?” Hank snorted. “Cameras and such in elevators, that’ll be the day. You ain’t got no cause to worry. Ain’t no one ever gonna learn about the Harrier from me, you know that.”

  “But your instincts are spot on, Hank. Professor Gessler contacted me a little over a week ago. Sent a wire saying he needed my help protecting a project he’d been working on. I told him I wasn’t in the army any longer but that I knew someone I could get in touch with. Someone who made it their business to protect what needs protecting.”

  Hank snapped his fingers.

  “And hence the harness and armored undergarments, huh? This Gessler didn’t happen to mention what this project of his is exactly or what it does, did he?”

  “Only in a general sense, but if it is as astounding as he claims, then a lot of amazing things are going to be taking place. Provided of course, Gessler’s theory is correct.”

  “Yeah, well that still don’t answer my question. o you know what this thing is that needs protectin’ or don’t ya?”

  Vance grinned at Hank’s seeming frustration, knowing it was all part of his patter. The more Hank got steamed about something, the more Nate knew he was working things out in his head, formulating strategies and patterns that ultimately aided the Harrier in his fight against crime. As much as they verbally sparred, the two men had a deep affection for one another, forged on the battlefields of the war, a bond of loyalty and devotion that only true soldiers know.

  “Let’s just say my understanding of it is…that it has something to do with probability.”

  Hank’s already furrowed brow, tried to furrow even further and Vance was pretty sure that if he kept it up, then Hank’s head was going to collapse in on itself.

  “What, you mean like odds or something? ‘Cause if that’s so, it ain’t nuthin but a calculator. Heck, all the World Powers each got themselves an Analytical Engine of some sort, and they’s always workin’ on trying to make ‘em faster and more powerful. That ain’t no big secret.”

  “There are elements of that I’m guessing, Hank, and Gessler wasn’t too forthcoming in his telegram; but I think it has a bit more in common with what you do, only with more real world applications beyond just premonition or crunching numbers.”

  “Like me?” Hank glowered. “Then he should destroy it or burn them papers or whatever he has. This thing I got, it ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, you know. I don’t ask to see these things, or feel ‘em neither. I wish I didn’t have it, whatever it is.”

  “I know you do,” Vance said, laying a comforting hand on his friend’s shoulder.

  Hank rubbed his jaw as he thought.

  “Well, if you ask me, and I’m not sayin’ you are, ‘cause you’re obviously not,” the smaller man grumbled, holding up his hand to prevent Vance from butting in. “Whatever this probability thing is, it just has to tie in with what he was doing for the Empire during the war, no matter what you may think. If what you’re tellin’ is the truth, this Gessler’s one of the top arms designers on the planet; it has to be a weapon of some sort, I’d bet my life on it.”

  “You may be right, my friend,” Vance’s voice was low and dangerous, causing Hank to look up at him.

  “Yeah, so what changed your…?”

  Vance jerked his head up, directing Hank to look out the glass windows of the elevator.

  “Do you remember the Army Air Corp saying anything about maneuvers over the city today?”

  Zooming toward the Empire State building were a dozen or more single man fighters, midnight black and chrome silver, the fearful buzzing drone of their props filling the sky. At that moment, the fighters broke formation and altered their direction, sweeping up toward the mooring tower and the huge zeppelin tethered there, defenseless.

  “Cripes!” barked Hank, “Thems is Flettner Gyros! We seen them in the war!”

  “Yeah,” Vance replied, “but these have been modified and improved, look at the stabilizer shape and gun mounts. They’re different. And so are the markings–these aren’t Empire flyers, but they’re meant for us to think they are!”

  Hank looked at his friend.

  “We’re less than a minute from the Observation Deck.”

  “More than enough time for a certain friend to make an appearance,” Vance smiled grimly.

  acdb

  “Tell me, how does it vork?”

  Gessler was seated and Von Kleist stood over him flipping pages and reading through his notes and figures. Two of the black clad soldiers had their weapons trained on the professor and the other two were guarding the doors to the gondola. Von Kleist had informed him that others of his personal army had already taken the landing platform and they had also secured the surrounding air space. Gessler did not doubt him, for he could hear the familiar buzz of the General’s gyroplanes.

  “It is merely theory, it has not been tested,” he replied, trying to keep the fear out of his voice.

  Von Kleist’s gaze slid from the pages to his face and Gessler knew that he was looking into the face of his death. Von Kleist was a brilliant commander during the war, having won battle after battle. He was a master strategist and field soldier. He was made for war.

  But a daring mission undertaken by Allied commandos had destroyed the General’s base of operations at Lake Vostok, and reports had stated that Von Kleist had been killed in the resulting explosion. The reports were, obviously, grossly incorrect.

  “Do not lie to me, Herr Gessler,” the General’s tone was low and angry. “I have it on good authority zat it has been tested and successfully. So, please…tell me.

  “How. Does. It vork?”

  Gessler’s throat was dry.

  “The equation details a probability matrix, when the matrix is activated it calculates a percentage chance of success…”

  “Ja, ja,” the General sniffed with impatience, “This I already know. The matrix, how do you observe it? Is it a projection? Vhat is required for zis?”

  “Could I get a glass…?”

  The General’s slap rocked his head back, knocking his glasses askew.

  “SCHTOP VASTING MY TIME! HOW DOES IT VORK?”

  Gessler’s shaking hands corrected the position of his spectacles and he looked directly into Von Kleist’s one good eye.

  “It is not a weapon.”

  The General’s hand dropped to his waist and came to rest on the pistol holstered there.

  “Of course it is. It details the best possible outcome for a choice or action, does it not? Vith zis I can accurately choose which path to take, which attack is best, how many men, what munitions, all vith a one hundred percentage chance of success. Zhat certainly sounds like the perfect veapon to me.”

  Gessler tried to swallow, but all the saliva in his mouth seemed to have turned to dust.

  “I will not tell you. And without my help….”

  The General un-holstered his sidearm and fired three shots into Gessler’s chest. The old man collapsed with a groan onto the floor of the gondola.

  “You disappoint me, Professor. But then again, so did most of my countrymen. All of you abandoned me during var, and now all of you vill pay the price.”

  Von Kleist retuned his pistol to its place on his hip, threw Gessler’s notes and papers into the briefcase and snapped it closed. He stepped into the aisle and looked down at the dying man once again.

  “Your ideals haff undone you, I’m afraid, and I have no time for ideals. I haff other minds at my disposal capable of deciphering your notes and I vill haff zhis weapon in my possession very soon. Ideals are for fools, professor. Ideals are for ze weak. Ze only zing zat matters is power.”

  The General turned and ordered his men out.

  “Auf wiedershen, Professor. May you burn in hell as I did at Vostok.”

  acdb

  “Raus! Sich zum zentrum! Bewegen und ich feuer!”

  The soldiers with the guns were herding the crowd of civilians to the center of the platform. The General and his body guards emerged from the gondola and marched swiftly to where a transport gyro hovered.

  The General turned and barked at his men before he climbed on board.

  “Leave no one alive!” he shouted above the rotors. “Shoot zem all!”