Free The Further Adventures of Batman by Martin H. Greenberg

guard for a moment. He drew his sidearm quickly, not the beltbuckle derringer but a heavy Browning automatic that he reserved for dire emergencies. But by then Batman had stepped up to the President . . .
    And then, in another step, he had walked through the President.
    And the President continued smiling.
    The Joint Chiefs stared at Batman, slack-jawed. Nelson stood with the gun at his side, momentarily frozen.
    “The trouble is,” Batman said, “I don’t see how you can do anything, Mr. President. Because you’re not the President at all.”
    “What in God’s name is it?” Fenton asked, long-suppressed superstition bringing his voice to a reedy tenor. “A ghost?”
    “Not exactly,” Batman said. “It’s a hologram.”
    Fenton was trying to understand. “How did you know?”
    “Because the same people who produce this,” Batman said, jerking a gloved thumb at the still smiling hologram of President Selden, “have also been throwing holograms at other people.”
    “Who are these people?” Kowalski asked.
    “I think,” Batman said, “that Deputy Director James Nelson here has the answer to that one.”
    Nelson looked at him with pure hate.
    The image of the President winked out abruptly.

    Deputy Director Nelson had come into prominence about six months before, when James Tolliver, respected head of the CIA, had fallen ill to an as yet unidentified virus that even the best specialists had been unable to cure. The disease had taken a great toll on Tolliver’s strength and vitality. Bedridden, kept alive on support systems, Tolliver had been forced to turn over the day-to-day running of the agency to his assistant, Nelson.
    Nelson was known as an extremely capable man with a grandiose personality. He had a reputation for ruthlessness, and more recently, and almost paranoid self-assurance. He had been known to take the law into his own hands when he thought he knew what to do better than his superiors. This, Tolliver would not tolerate.
    There had been rumors that Tolliver had been planning to fire Nelson, or force him into early retirement. But now Tolliver was able to do nothing but lie in an oxygen tent and fight for his life.
    Some in Washington circles considered Nelson more than a little dangerous, and more than a little crazy.
    Like many another crazy and dangerous man, he had gathered a small circle of CIA operatives around him, whom he had seduced to his view. They were fanatical in their devotion to him. They would follow his every order.
    These were the men who came into the meeting room now, moving slowly and alertly, hands near their concealed weapons.
    “That contract is going to be signed,” Nelson said.
    “You must be mad,” Admiral Fenton said. “You can’t expect us to sign it after all this.”
    “I can, and you shall. But you needn’t bother doing it in person, gentlemen, I have expert forgers who can do a better job on your signatures than you can do yourselves.”
    “What are you going to do with us?” Rohort asked.
    “You will be given heroes’ burials,” Nelson said. “We have already established that Batman has been having hallucinations. His misadventures with Ilona and others in the New Era Hotel are on film. The public will believe it when we tell them that he massacred all of you before we could get here and kill him. We will release our news shortly before Super Bowl time, when no one will pay it any attention anyhow.”
    “And what about me?” Batman asked.
    Nelson gave a short, unhappy laugh. “I tried my best to keep you out of this, Batman. I decided to work on you. With the aid of my organization I discovered your true identity. You are Charlie Morrison!”
    The tall hooded figure stirred slightly. A smile appeared on the masked man’s grim lips.
    “Is that why you showed those holograms to Charlie Morrison in the New Era Hotel?” Batman asked.
    “I was trying to convince you to stay out of this.”
    “Your sense of psychology,” Batman said, “is as