The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Read online

  An eager henchman picked up a gold brick and could not help admiring it. "Such treasures."

  "Treasure, yes," the Fantom agreed, hardly sparing a glance for the chunk of precious metal. "Some worth more than others."

  With a gloved hand, the masked man snapped the latch of a mahogany plan-chest and reverently drew open the long drawer to reveal a sheaf of fragile parchment. He lifted one sheet, then another. Behind the metal mask his eyes darted back and forth.

  The pages of age-yellowed paper bore hand-drawn architectural plans of a city on water, its deep foundations crumbling and cavernous. In spite of the faded ink, the detail was incredible, drawn by a genius centuries ago.

  "Ah, here is the key to our labyrinth." The horribly scarred lips, barely visible beneath the silver mask, smiled. The Fantom snatched up the pages and swept out of the vault, ignoring the rest of the gold and treasure. "Time to go. We have what we need."

  Outside, Constable Dunning huddled in horror and misery, his face spattered with blood. As relieved as he was to be alive, he felt a piercing guilt at being the only survivor among dozens of slaughtered policemen and soldier guards. The German henchmen ignored him as they climbed back aboard the land ironclad.

  The Fantom also vanished inside the vehicle, while his lieutenant spared a final glance for the surviving constable, who seemed oblivious to the departing soldiers. Dante said to him, "Count your blessings."

  Then he swung the hatch shut, and the land ironclad roared back off the way it had come.

  TWO

  Voalkyrie Zeppelin Works

  Hamburg, Germany

  Like gigantic inflatable whales, six zeppelins floated inside a construction hangar that was large enough to swallow a small town. Spotlights shone on the graceful curved sides of the hydrogen-swollen dirigibles.

  Atop the hangar, red wind socks extended parallel to snapping giant flags that displayed the colors of the German Empire. In the cool breezes that swept across the grassy lowlands off the Elbe River, the zeppelins strained against their tethers, as if restless.

  Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin had designed these huge airships, supported internally by a light skeletal framework and guided by rudders and propellers. Zeppelin himself had envisioned the military uses of these giant and silent craft after ascending in observation balloons with Union forces during the American Civil War. After retiring from military service, Zeppelin had spent most of his life's savings on independent aeronautics research — until finally the Kaiser himself had become interested enough in the work to provide much-needed financial backing.

  In the past several years, Kaiser Wilhelm II had invested a fortune in the secret Valkyrie Zeppelin Works. The graceful, yet intimidating airships would be Germany's pride, drifting across the skies in fearsome formation. They looked silent and peaceful, like slumbering giants of the north.

  The first gunshot rang out even before shouted orders launched the sneak attack. A German guard screamed as he died. Others scrambled for their weapons, taken completely by surprise. But no matter what they did, it was too late for them.

  The Valkyrie Works were destined to fall this night.

  "Forward, men! Tallyho! For Queen Victoria!" Heavily armed men wearing British military uniforms let out a simultaneous yell and rushed forward into the zeppelin factory:

  Ratcheting sirens blared like prehistoric beasts in the cavernous construction hangar. Warning shouts rang out above the din, a mixture of German and English.

  Straight-backed and grimly satisfied with how the operation had proceeded so far, Lieutenant Dante emerged from a workers' room. Tonight, for this second phase of the Fantoms plan, he was dressed as a British commander, even sporting a pencil-thin moustache. He directed squads of "British" soldiers as they roughly herded frightened German factory workers down iron steps from the catwalks and construction platforms above.

  The radio box at Dante's hip squawked. He grabbed it, pressed it to his ear, and listened to the report from his scouts outside the factory perimeter. He scowled. "Fantom! We won't have the time we expected. The Germans are already arriving in force."

  With his gleaming silver mask affixed to his mysteriously malformed face, the gaunt Fantom waited at the bottom of the metal stairs. "I expected the Kaiser to respond without delay."

  Both of them spoke in richly accented English this time. The German workers — anyone who survived, that was — would hear him and remember who had attacked the extravagant new zeppelin factories in Hamburg. The Kaiser wasn't likely to be very forgiving of the British Empire.

  Brandishing their modern snub-nosed weapons and shoving, the Fantom's men drove the other prisoners away. The sounds of fighting echoed intermittently through the hangar, screams, gunshots. Although the resistance was dwindling, the Kaiser's troops would arrive before long.

  The Fantom turned, swirling his black cape. "But that is not relevant, Dante. Do we have the man we came for?"

  The Fantoms lieutenant snapped his fingers, and one of the henchmen shoved a meek academic scientist forward. "As you requested, Fantom. This is Karl Draper, at your service, whether or not he bloody well likes it."

  The Fantom regarded the cringing man before him. The German scientist wore spectacles and work overalls; from one pocket protruded a wad of cloth with which he had frequently mopped beads of perspiration from his forehead. Karl Draper looked into the bright, demonic eyes behind the silver mask; he swallowed hard at what he saw there.

  "W-what do you want?" Draper asked in German, the tension of terror modulating his voice to a higher pitch.

  "The world, Herr Draper. I want the world." Barely visible beneath the lower curve of his mask, the Fantoms' lips curled in a sinister smile. "And you will help give it to me."

  The scientist looked as confused as he was frightened. "But… but I have no secret knowledge! I am just an architectural engineer."

  The Fantom looked at Draper as if he were only a mildly interesting specimen in a very large collection. "Yes. I know."

  Dante checked his boxy radio and frowned. "The Kaiser's troops have reached the gate, Fantom. They will be inside in a matter of moments, and they seem to be surprisingly well armed."

  Below the mask, the Fantoms' twisted lips smiled. "Yes, the Kaiser has been gearing up for war for many years now."

  Dante stood, waiting for more detailed orders. "Should I tell the men to prepare for a pitched firefight?"

  "Nothing so troublesome, Lieutenant. I'll provide a distraction to cover our exit. I think it will be rather impressive."

  The Fantom glanced up to the hangar's next level and gestured to one of his loyal henchmen who stood on the iron steps above. The soldier tossed down a sleek and complicated rocket-launching weapon. The masked leader shrugged his cape out of the way, shouldered the weapon, and cocked the firing pin.

  "Are you mad?" the German scientist cried upon seeing the rocket launcher. "This place is full of hydrogen gas!"

  "Exactly." He turned to Dante. "Get Herr Draper to safety please."

  Shouting into his radio box, Dante sounded the retreat. Leaving the corralled factory prisoners waiting for rescue from the incensed German army, the invading soldiers in British uniforms beat an orderly withdrawal from the main work area.

  The masked leader swung the weapon to bear on the space behind them, where the six enormous zeppelins hovered by the yawning open doors of the hangar. Shouting curses at the English, the Kaiser's reinforcements swarmed through the front doorway, demanding that the British troops surrender.

  When the oncoming German soldiers were halfway across the hangar, running directly under the dirigibles, the Fantom fired the heavy rocket launcher.

  "Nein!" Karl Draper shouted, his face filled with horror. Dante pushed him impatiently ahead.

  Whistling, sputtering, and buzzing as it flew, the rocket trailed a control wire behind it. The Fantom studied the trajectory like an expert skeet shooter and adjusted his aim to put the nearest zeppelin in the crosshairs. He couldn't pos
sibly miss.

  The wire-controlled rocket angled up and tore through the side of the gas-filled airship, then detonated. Though a single spark would have been sufficient, the Fantom found this extravagant method more dramatic and satisfying.

  Contained within baffled chambers of the huge lighter-than-air dirigible, the rich hydrogen gas erupted in incinerating flames. The explosion sent out shock waves powerful enough to knock the rushing German soldiers flat. Many of them caught fire, like living candles, screaming as they burned and fell to the hangar floor. The trapped factory workers and defeated guards tried to escape, but the flames rolled forward like fiery floodwaters from a burst dam.

  A wave of flame spewed from the first dying zeppelin and ignited its nearest counterpart, triggering a catastrophic chain reaction that leaped from one zeppelin to the next. Soon, the entire Valkyrie Works were in flames.

  The Fantoms' silver mask caught and reflected the dazzling firestorm. He admired the holocaust he had triggered. Quite impressive.

  Then he turned and followed his men, thoroughly satisfied with how well he had stirred the hornets nest.

  THREE

  The Brittania Club

  Nairobi, Kenya

  A dry savannah wind blew along dirt roads lined with single-level stores, huts, and merchant stalls. A few natives loudly hawked overripe fruits and vegetables from produce carts. The smell was thick with rot, manure, and sweat. It seemed inconceivable that a person might choose to live here unless he had absolutely no other options.

  Sanderson Reed looked at his surroundings with disdain, waving his straw hat in front of his face as much to chase away the odors as to cool himself. He was a pallid bureaucrat in his late twenties; to him, traveling so far from home was an unpleasant chore instead of an adventure.

  "Nairobi. The big city… according to the map of Kenya." He made a snorting sound.

  According to the briefing M had given him, this was little more than a glorified, boggy watering hole for the Maasai people. Not exactly civilization. Reed wished he was back in London. For all its faults, at least that city had culture.

  Hearing him mutter, the dark-skinned driver of the wagon turned to him. "Sorry, sir? Did you say something, sir?"

  "Nothing worth repeating. So, where is the Britannia Club? Are we almost there?" The drive had been as interminable as it was unpleasant.

  "Almost there, sir." The wagon creaked ahead down to the end of the dirt road, finally stopping beside several horses tethered to a hitching post. With a sad attempt at pride, the driver gestured. "Here it is, sir. The Britannia Club. Nairobi's finest, sir."

  With a sigh of dread, Reed looked at the rundown building. "I was afraid you were going to say that." He shook his head.

  The Club was certainly one of the largest and sturdiest stuctures in all of Nairobi — but that wasn't saying much. The grounds had gone to seed, making the weeds indistinguishable from the once-tended flower beds. Union Jacks drooped from poles like dead fish, engorged with humidity. The heat and flies and squalor seemed to sap the life from even the flag of the British Empire. He doubted M would have approved.

  As the patient driver waited, Reed climbed gracelessly out of the wagon. "Don't wander off," he said.

  "No, sir."

  Stepping toward the Britannia Club, the bureaucrat wrinkled his nose as he glanced over at a rundown graveyard nearby. "Couldn't they have picked a better place to put a club? On another continent, perhaps?"

  Reed climbed the porch steps and entered the open front door; as many flies seemed to be wandering out as venturing inside. Not a good sign. He took a moment to assess the surroundings, observing the details of the room with a sour frown.

  The Britannia Club spoke of weary, faded glory, a time when Cecil Rhodes and intrepid explorers had seen the dark continent as a treasure box to be unlocked. Allan Quartermain had personally done much to foster that impression on gullible English schoolboys who were hungry to read tales of adventure.

  The walls were crowded with a hodgepodge of stuffed animals, tribal shields, stretched pelts of striped and spotted animals, and dusty portraits of forgotten English adventurers. Ivory tusks hung from the rafters.

  The club was full of the empire's dregs, old men awash in gin and memories. They sat around at the tables snoring, playing cards or checkers, or endlessly repeating stories of their past escapades.

  A black valet stepped up to meet him. "Good afternoon, sir. May I help you? A drink perhaps?"

  "I'd prefer information." Reed explained who he was looking for, and the valet, showing no surprise at all, gestured in the direction of a red-faced fellow in his mid-sixties, who — from all appearances — probably spent more time drinking than adventuring.

  Anxious to finish his assignment and catch the next steamer back to England, Reed briskly approached his target. A second man sat at the table, brooding and silent, probably drunk. Reed ignored the companion, now that he had found his mark.

  "Excuse me, gentlemen?" He waited for them to look up at him with bleary eyes. "Do I have the pleasure of addressing Allan Quartermain?"

  The red-faced man grinned at him with discolored teeth. "You do, sir. Indeed you do!" A breath heavy with the sour juniper of bad gin wafted up to him. "Only, it's Quatermain. Bloody press always misspells my name. Never asked them to print my adventures anyway, and then they can't even spell my name right."

  "You're not… at all what I expected," Reed said, disappointed. But then, so far everything about Africa, Kenya, Nairobi, and the Britannia Club had also been a disappointment. But M had been very specific about this man.

  "I presume you're another traveler, got it into your head to sample the dark continent? And while you're at it, why not hunt down old Allan Quatermain and have him tell his adventures, eh? Well, I've heard that one before, and I certainly welcome the company." Jovially, the red-faced man nudged his quiet companion. "He's not much of a conversationalist."

  The other man just grunted.

  "Well, actually—" the pallid young bureaucrat said.

  "Sit down, sit down. Fill a seat, fill my glass." Quatermain shouted to the bartender. "Bruce! A double!" He turned back to Reed, smiling. "And I shall regale you with how I found King Solomon's Mines. Or I could relate my exploit in Egypt when I met Ayesha, Ayesha, 'She who must be obeyed."

  As if they were old friends, Quatermain reached out to grasp Reed's elbow.

  "Scintillating, I'm sure, but it is not your past that interests me," Reed said, peeling the man's moist hand off his sleeve. He refused to sit down.

  "Not interested? That must surely be a first, sir." Bruce arrived with Quatermain's drink, which the old adventurer gladly accepted. The brooding man at the table glanced at the visitor with a faint flicker of interest.

  "My name is Sanderson Reed. I am a representative from Her Majesty's British Government. Terrible things are happening, Mr. Quatermain, and the empire needs you." His words fell heavily on the humid air, and dropped like gassed flies.

  Blinking his gin-reddened eyes, Quatermain was unsure of what to say. Fumbling, he looked over at his companion, full of unspoken questions. Then the quiet man leaned back to look Reed in the eye, his gaze sharp as a surgeons scalpel.

  Startled, Reed realized that he had been duped. As he looked more carefully at the other man, he understood that this must be the real Allan Quatermain. His past was written on his face, his visage etched with hard lines from a life on the veldt.

  "But the question is, young man, do I need the empire?" said the real Quatermain. His voice was rough and rich, with a pleasant lilt.

  "I—" Reed started, rummaging through his rehearsed lines to find one that might fit the situation.

  The jovial impostor clutched his fresh drink, as if it were a prize that he would allow no one to pry from his hands. He looked crestfallen, as if his favorite game had been spoiled. "I'll toddle off then, shall I, Allan?"

  "Yes, of course, Nigel. You toddle off." Quatermain turned back to Reed. "Nigel is us
eful for keeping the story-seekers at bay. I'm Quatermain. Now, either sit down or leave, but don't just stand there like another one of those tiresome stuffed hunting trophies."

  Reed quickly took the seat that Nigel had vacated, "The empire is in peril," he said again, lamely. He had expected that phrase to be sufficient.

  "I'm sure you're too young to know, Mr. Reed, but the empire is always in some kind of peril," the old adventurer answered. "It gets to be as tedious as Nigel's inflated stories of things I may or may not have done."

  Reed remained insistent. "We need you to lead a team of uniquely skilled men, like yourself, to combat this threat."

  Quatermain gestured for the bartender to refill his glass and pour a stiff drink for Reed, who by now felt he needed one. "Very well. Explain yourself, and please try to make it interesting."

  The bureaucrat sniffed. "You may not be much aware of current events, since Nairobi is so… unfortunately isolated. Believe me, there is great unrest. Europe, the Orient, parts of Asia, and even here on the dark continent. Many countries are on the brink of war on an unprecedented scale." His voice finally found its fervor.

  Quatermain raised his eyebrows. "This is 'news'? The natives realize that they don't need their Great White Father. It's about bloody time."

  "You think this is just unrest among the British colonies? If it were that simple, we'd deal with it in a snap," Reed said. "The Queen's army has plenty of resources to deal with ordinary problems such as that."

  The famous old hunter ignored his fresh drink as his indignation grew. "Oh, yes, I know the practice. Send in the troops, kill a few villagers, and peace is restored." He made a disgusted sound. "No. Request denied. I'm not going anywhere." He crossed his arms over his chest. "You may leave now."

  Reed did not accept the rebuff, but pressed on as he had been instructed to do. "Europe is a sticky place at the moment. Countries at each other's throats, baying for blood. It's a powder keg. The trouble of which I speak could set a match to the whole thing, extending far beyond the British Empire. War."