MY JSA - pt. 5

“One day last summer, my girlfriend Joan and I were dining at our favorite club, when Joan spotted someone she recognized.

“’Jay, look!’ she said, ‘Here comes Mary Rogers!’

“I recognized her. Her father was a deep sea diver and explorer, and had been in the newspapers just recently because of his search for the Sancta Joanna.  Joan, ever the sociable gal, invited Mary over to our table. Joan seems to know everybody, or can make friends with them anyways. They made small talk for just a few minutes before Joan asked about what she was doing in the city.

“Mary answered, ‘I’m trying to raise funds so dad can continue his search for that Aztec treasure ship. A group of roughnecks have been giving dad a lot of trouble!  They’ve smashed our diving outfits, fought us, and spied on us -- they’re waiting until we locate the treasure...’

“Well, that was all Mary needed to hear. The whole way home after that she was pestering me to lend a hand. ‘But you could do it,’ she begged. ‘Her father is practically alone. He can’t afford a big crew to protect him.’

“Naturally, she expected me to do something because Joan knows I’m the Flash. I told her, though, that I was busy with other matters in the city.  That didn’t sit well with her, and I got the cold shoulder when I dropped her off at home. But as soon as she was inside, I flew through the streets like the wind. It took me seven seconds to return home, change into my costume, and consult some maps. Then I was on my way to Panama. Having never seen a sunken treasure, I was curious to give the experience a try.  Actually, it was my first time in Central America at all!

So when I hit Mexico I started to slow down and cruised the rest of the way at 300 MPH.

“I was famished by the time I arrived in Panama but, in my typical haste, I had forgotten to change currencies before leaving home! I found some locals who were up early the next morning, impressed them with some high-speed juggling, and earned my breakfast. Then it was out to the coast to look for sunken treasure!  I may be faster on land, but I’m the fastest swimmer alive too. I dived in off the east coast and started combing the sea bottom. When I periodically came up for air, I happened to spot both of the boats I’d planned to look for on the surface. I spotted Tim Roger’s ship first, which was named after his daughter.  In fact, I later learned that he’d seen my wake in the water and thought a torpedo was after him! The other boat was the

Nancy K, and since it seemed to be following the Mary Rogers, I assumed I’d found the villains. I planned to visit them again soon.

“First, though, I had to find the Sancta Joanna, and even at my speed that took nearly two hours! The tides had pulled its wreckage miles off course over the centuries.  I was still checking out the ship when I felt that something big was moving through the water towards me from behind.  Sure enough, it was a hungry tiger shark -- and I could tell it thought I looked like a nice, juicy morsel.  I swum around it fast and grabbed its tail fin.  Like a dog chasing its own tail, the shark kept circling around trying to bite me. But I couldn’t play around for long because my breath was running out.  I spun it around and around as fast as I could and then let it go.  It went sailing away almost as fast as me!

“After saying so long to the shark, I decided it was time to pay a visit to the Nancy K. I had to slow down when I climbed up onto the boat deck, and I was spotted right away by two tough-looking guys on watch.  They had time to ask me what I was doing there, but that was it. Once I was on deck, I whizzed past them so fast they thought they’d seen a ghost!  I searched the ship, and took a quick look at their diving equipment.  It was all state-of-the-art -- just what Rogers needed, if this wasn’t in fact his equipment. I needed to visit the Mary Rogers to get the whole story first.  

“’And what might you be doing so far from land?’ Rogers asked when I climbed up onto his boat.

“’I happen to know you’re having a little trouble finding the treasure,’ I said. ‘I’ve come to help you!  That galleon is a couple of nautical miles from here.... South by southeast.’ Rogers was skeptical, and apparently didn’t recognize me from any news coverage.  I wasted a lot of time trying to convince him to follow me to the treasure before he told me why he couldn’t.  The men from the Nancy K had boarded him in the night and sabotaged his engine!  I couldn’t exactly get out and push, so I did the next best thing and dived overboard again.  I was getting used to being soaking wet by then!  I swam behind the boat and took hold of its propeller in both hands. It took a lot of strength to get that propeller turning -- and I was afraid I’d run out of air first -- but once I got it turning it was pretty easy to keep it turning faster and faster.  Soon the Mary Rogers was going faster than it ever had before!

“When I figured we were pretty close to the treasure, I climbed back on board and told Tim he could dive and see for himself. After helping him into his diving gear, I remained on board as a lookout.  I knew the cutthroats on the Nancy K must have seen us moving when we shouldn’t be, and would follow.  Sure enough, they were on us before Tim Rogers had come back up yet.  For the third time that day, I’d have to board a boat.  First, I swam under it and grabbed its rudder.  I pulled them off course to buy Tim more time.  This time, there was enough excitement on deck that no one saw me sneak aboard. There were seven men onboard, mostly Hispanic except for one who was fair-haired enough that he must have been an American.  I was just a blur to them as I raced around, picking up every piece of diving equipment I found, and throwing it all overboard.  I slowed down long enough to confront a burly, bald man with a thick, black uni-brow.  He’d been trying to draw a bead on me with his gun, so I decided to give him a chance to surrender before I had to get rough.

“’You’d better be careful, or I’ll take away your ship!’  I warned.

“’Who the dickens are you? Why that screwy outfit? Talk, or I’ll fill ya full’a lead!’

“Apparently, no one this far south had heard of the Flash yet, though by the slang he used, I knew this fella had to be no more Hispanic than I am.  I was beginning to suspect that these guys weren’t just modern-day pirates, but maybe even professional rivals of Rogers’.  But to find that out, I had to ask Rogers some questions.  I dove overboard yet again, and though the man with the gun followed me and fired into the water, I was already hundreds of feet away by then.

“I dashed back to Rogers’ ship. He had just come up from the bottom.

“’Me boy, you were right!’ he said. ‘That’s the Sancta Joanna down there -- and it’s chock-full of gold she is, too!’

“’I can get you some real diving equipment from the Nancy K,’ I said, ‘but tell me -- how come they came down here at all?’

“’Word leaked out that I was after gold!  Burly Billy is a black-hearted villain.  He got a roughneck crew together and followed me!  He threatened Mary and me, stole our lines and equipment -- made life miserable!  I sent Mary to New York for help!’

“That’s where I had stepped into the picture, and everything Rogers said fit with what I knew or had guessed.  Confident that I had the whole picture, I was ready to dash back over to Burly Billy’s ship and give them what they deserved.  But looking over the starboard side, I could see the Nancy K was approaching us.  In fact, I could see the big bald guy who must have been Burly Billy on deck with some of his henchmen.  They spotted me too -- but not for long at the speed I swam back to their ship.  I came up their starboard side behind them, grabbed their guns from their hands under their very eyes, and then dove back underwater to reach the propeller.  I did the same trick to them I had done to Rogers, only this time I ‘propelled’ them south and east along the coast until we hit the mouth of the Amazon River.  Leaving them there for Brazil to worry about, I really opened the throttle and ran on the surface of the water until I’d reached Panama again.  And since I was drenched to the bone anyways, I decided to help Rogers with the treasure by bringing up a few dozen hat-full’s of gold!

“I left an astounded Tim Rogers behind me, laid out on the nearest beach to dry, and bought myself a feast of a lunch with a gold coin I’d liberated from one of those hat-full’s.  That afternoon, I returned to Kansas, changed clothes, and found Mary and Joan at the club.  Joan started on me right away, trying to persuade me to help Mary’s father, but I surprised them both with a telegram from her father that told Mary he had found the treasure.  Later, Joan cornered me and asked why I hadn’t told her.

“’You’d have wanted to come along!’ I said.  ‘I needed to make a quick job of it because I’m so busy these days, and you’d have gotten into trouble and had to be fished out.’

“So you see, even if it wasn’t my most exciting case, it was definitely my wettest -- and when I said that to Joan, it was my most dangerous!”

“I read about Rogers finding that treasure,” Scotty Thunder blurted out, “but I didn’t know you had anything to do with it.” The room turned quiet and Scotty knew he’d spoken out of turn again.  How long before these heroes got so annoyed with him that they just threw him out the window, he wondered?

But the Flash just said, “Well, there are lots of things we fellows do that nobody knows about! Am I right, Hawkman?”

“Yes, you are indeed,” Hawkman responded, “and for some reason or other it reminds me of my most exciting adventure!  It had to do with some very strange men -- men who could live in fire! I’m sure most of you have heard of the eruption of Mount Krakatao on an island between Java and Sumatra in 1883.  Over 36,000 people were killed!  Well, here’s a strange story about things that occurred there recently.  It was late last year, in fact, when Krakatoa went into action again. At the time, though, I was in New York for a gathering of scientists to discuss the region of

Indonesia.  I was there with Shiera -- my colleague, helpmate, and, well, we’ve been intimate in two lifetimes.  It was at the conference that I learned of her plan to visit Krakatoa.

“’Yes,’ she said, ‘the society has decided to study the volcano...and more than that, I’m going to investigate the queer tales I’ve been hearing from my correspondents there.  Nova Singgih spoke of strange balls of fire, and of fierce underground explosions.’

“By then, the conference was over, and I was escorting her home, but we were still discussing the matter.  Shiera had everything planned out, and this woman from Jakarta, Nova, was going to meet her there. ‘I’m sailing for Krakatoa tomorrow,’ she sprang on me.  It hit me like a ton of bricks.  I didn’t want her being away from me for such a long time.  I would have suggested going with her, but I expected Hawkman might be needed in the states.  So, instead I wished her good luck and told her to be careful.  I left her at her house and went on my way, unaware at first that Shiera had an unexpected guest waiting in the shrubbery by her door.

“While she was getting out her key, a dark-skinned man rushed her, pinned one arm across her throat, and held a thin dagger to it.  ‘Die,’ he whispered, ‘Mochtar has ordered it be so.’

“Shiera managed to gurgle a half-scream as he tensed his arm to plunge the dagger home, but I hadn’t been out of earshot, as he must have mistakenly thought.  I was on him that instant, grabbed the hand holding the dagger, and forced it away from Shiera.  I yanked his arm behind his back, then spun him around so I could face him, and gave him a swift punch to the face.  He was out like a light, and it took some shaking on my part to rouse him for questioning.  Poised with one fist over his face and one fist clutching his shirt, he came to seeing that I still meant business.

“‘She is going to Krakatoa,’ he said. ‘She had better stay away or the fire ghosts will get her.  She seeks to learn about Mochtar and that is forbidden.’

“I was about to hit him again when Shiera told me to let him go.  A little later, inside her home, she said, ‘I’ve heard of the fire ghosts!  They are supposed to live in the volcano.’

“’It isn’t right you should go alone,’ I told her.  ‘I wish you’d give up the idea.  You’ll be hurt...’ But there was no dissuading her.  At least she let me...stay the night there to protect her from any further attacks.  But just before dawn I slipped out and raced to my home.  I had by then decided that if she was going she was going to need Hawkman along.  Normally, a giant set of wings wouldn’t get through customs, but luckily I’m also an archaeologist, and know people who make a living at smuggling rare antiquities.  With a generous helping of cash up front, a crate packed with my Hawkman gear was on a fast steamer bound for Indonesia."