Flying Bombs

The steady clatter of typewriters echoed through the editorial offices of the New York Star. The sound was all too familiar to Richard Blakemore, yet he paid little heed to the men and women toiling away at the desks. For at the far end of the room, staring out of a window at the mist enshrouded spires of the city, he spotted the very man he had been looking for. Randall J. Whitman, publisher of the Star.

“You wanted to see me, Randall?”

Whitman turned around, startled by the visitor he himself had invited. However, the jolt lasted only a second, then he regained his composure and held out his hand to Blakemore. “Glad you could come, Richard. We need to talk.”

Richard Blakemore shook Whitman’s hand. “What’s the matter, Randall?”

Whitman’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Not here.”

Once the door of the publisher’s office had closed behind them, Whitman immediately pulled down the blinds, hiding the interior of the glass-walled cubicle from the prying eyes of his own employees. Richard sat down, while Whitman proceeded to pace the tiny office, stopping only occasionally to gaze out of the window. Something was clearly troubling him. And by virtue of his profession, Randall J. Whitman was not easily troubled.

“I wouldn’t have asked your help if I didn’t know that you had some experience in these things.”

Richard Blakemore smiled. “What things?”

“Weird things. Criminal things.”

“You do me too much honour,” Richard replied, “I’m just a simple scribbler.”

Randall Whitman momentarily turned away from the window. “Come on, Richard, we both know that you are far more than that.”

For the briefest of instants, Richard Blakemore’s smile slipped. For he was indeed far more than a simple scribbler. When night descended over the city and the criminals stirred in their lairs, Richard Blakemore donned the steel mask of the infamous vigilante known only as the Silencer, a man whom the world at large believed to be nothing but a character in a cheap pulp magazine.

“You couldn’t have earned that fortune of yours pounding out half a cent a word novels about that Silencer fellow for Jake Levonsky’s pulp empire. And then there’s your penchant for crimes. Unusual crimes.”

“I trust that you have just such a crime at your hands…” Richard said in an attempt to steer the conversation back on course, “…and that you want me to look into it.”

“It’s not exactly a crime,” Whitman said, “Not yet.” He handed Richard a typewritten letter. “This arrived Tuesday.”

Richard scanned the letter. Someone calling himself the Master of the Air threatened to let “death and destruction rain down upon the city” by February 9, 1935, if the president did not agree to his demand of one hundred thousand dollars. He also threatened dire consequences, if Whitman did not print his letter on the front page of the New York Star.

“I ignored it at first. We get dozens of letters by obvious crackpots every week. All those Silencer sightings alone…”

“So what made you change your mind?”

“This.” Whitman handed Richard a second letter. The paper and type were identical to the first. “It arrived yesterday. Same guff about raining death and destruction down upon the city. With one addition.”

“As it seems that you do not take my message seriously…” Richard read out.

“Can’t blame me for that.”

“…you shall receive a token of my power, should you not print my demands on the front page of the Friday edition of your paper. Look out of your office window when the clock strikes nine on Friday morning and gaze upon my might. It is but a small foretaste of what is to follow.”

Richard picked up a copy of today’s Star from Whitman’s desk. The headline read, “Zeppelin Imperator set to arrive tomorrow.”

“You obviously did not print the letter,” he remarked.

“Of course not. I can’t run a newspaper according to the whims of a madman.”

“Did you call the police?” Richard asked.

“At once. They said I shouldn’t make too much of it. Most likely, the letters are nothing but a hoax.” He turned to the window again. “Still, I wonder…”

Richard pulled out his watch and flipped open the golden lid. Almost nine. He got up and joined Whitman at the window. Together, they looked out at gleaming chromium spires and crumbling brownstones, at cars, busses, taxi cabs and pedestrians bustling by at a frantic speed on the streets below. Richard’s clock reached nine, followed barely a second later by the first strike of the giant clock at the Metropolitan Life Tower, a mere three blocks away. An instant later, the clock on top of the New York Star building joined the concert, chiming loud and clear. Nine strikes and it was over.

Whitman turned to Richard. “Crackpot,” he said.

The word had barely left his lips, when a cloud of fire lit up the sky and the building was rocked by an explosion.