January 17th, 1949 - Manhattan, NEW YORK - Light snowfall
1948. It had been a hectic year. Truman had signed the Marshall Plan, which would provide $5 billion in aid to 16 wartorn European countries in dire need in the wake of World War II. It would give a boost to infrastructure and business, remove trade barriers and form the base capital to modernize industry…
...particularly when combined with foreign investment.
The next four years would see the most rapid growth in European history. And would form a large part of my own personal holdings over the next decade. I had invested in the region because I saw it as the opportunity to do the most good with my father’s legacy, the potential for growth merely sweetening the pie.
Truman had also signed Executive Order 9981, ending racial segregation in the US Armed Forces. Five years before the desegregation of schools would make any major headway and allow equal opportunities to live and learn, it would be made the law of the land that all men who can bleed red for this land can fight side-by-side.
Between brutality and life; this country, this city still has questionable priorities.
That brutality is why I find myself there, on that fire escape, whilst the rest of the city slept. One man, facing this city’s darkest nightmares, so that the innocent could dream peacefully.
Senator Margaret Chase Smith had the gall to speak out against the witch hunts that were being perpetrated in the name of Senator Joseph McCarthy and his HUAC. Senator Smith was the first woman to be elected to both houses of Congress, and is a lively driven woman, reminding me very much of Dian.
At least she had been a very lively woman prior to her abduction…
She’d passed comment to the wrong person at a fundraiser, prior to making her public denouncement of the HUAC’s activities, and the wheels had been put in motion to remove the dissenter before she would have the opportunity to make a problem.
Again, that’s why I found myself there, on that freezing fire escape, counting the kidnappers and waiting for the right spread across the upscale apartment building to make my move with the minimum chance of the Senator being caught in the crossfire.
I watched as one particular criminal crossed the floor to go to the kitchen, giving an opportunity to put myself between the bound Senator and the rest. I watched as my moment fell into place.
I crashed through the window and took the space in front of her. Thick gas dispersed into the crowded apartment.
Shouting and calls of “Get him!” and “Shoot him!” gave further proof to the brutality of these men and the world they would inhabit given the choice.
I heard a voice emanate from my mask that I barely recognized as my own, the ethereal tones the final thing these brutes would hear before drifting into unconsciousness.
“< There is no escaping the Sandman’s Dark Dream… >”