Superman: Dawnbreaker (DC Icons #4)(66)
“And?”
“He agreed to meet me,” Lana said. “But he’s definitely not happy about it. I think the whole charity angle is out the window. We’ll just get right to it.” She held up a small black duffel bag. “I brought the digital camera and tripod from school. So at least I have that part covered.”
Clark wanted to believe this part of the plan could still work, but he had his doubts. “Where are you guys meeting?” he asked.
Lana tried to seem more upbeat. “Corey said he talked to the courthouse manager. She’s letting us use one of the meeting rooms for the interview.”
“Okay. So you’ll be at the courthouse.” He turned to Gloria. “And were you able to get a look at the AV they’re using?”
Gloria nodded.
“It only took her, like, two minutes to figure out how to do it,” Lana said.
Gloria shrugged. “For outside events like this, people don’t usually do anything too sophisticated.” She held up a thin laptop. “I enabled split-screen capability in case we want to have the interview running alongside the footage. Up to you.”
“That would be great.” Clark still had doubts about the Corey piece, but if anyone could pull it off, Lana could. And he loved the split-screen idea. “I’ll be right next to the police stand the whole time. Soon as we cut the footage, I’ll lead them directly to Wesco.”
“We just need Lex to show up,” Lana said.
Gloria’s phone buzzed just then. She stood to answer it, saying, “Marco? Did you get in touch with Carlos yet?” She stepped out of the room to continue the call.
Lana looked at Clark. “You don’t think Cruz could be on the farm, do you?”
“I sure hope not,” he said. “But I’m not putting anything past these people.”
“When this is over,” Lana said, “I want to see them all rot in jail.”
They both went quiet for a stretch, and then Clark said, “Can you text Lex again?”
“I’ve been texting and calling all morning,” Lana said. “What are we gonna do if we don’t have the footage? Then everything’s ruined.”
Clark stared at the floor, replaying everything that had happened the night before, searching for any sign that Lex might have been putting them on. Clark definitely didn’t trust the guy to do anything out of the kindness of his heart, but in this case it seemed like their interests were aligned. Clark, Lana, and Gloria wanted to expose Wesco and save the people held prisoner on the Jones farm. Lex wanted to take down the competition.
A few seconds later, Gloria came back into the quiet room. She was followed by a thin, middle-aged black man with a bushy mustache. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt, jeans, and a leather backpack.
Clark and Lana looked to Gloria, who said, “This is Leonard. He was looking for us outside the library.”
Leonard nodded, removing his backpack and unzipping the front pocket. “Unfortunately, something came up, and Lex is unable to make it. But he sent me to give you this.” He held out a thumb drive.
Clark took it.
“It’s the footage you guys need for the hack,” Leonard said.
Clark looked up at the guy as he was putting his backpack on again. “And how are you connected to Lex?”
“I work for LutherCorp.”
Clark and Lana and Gloria all looked at one another.
“Anyway,” Leonard said, backing up toward the glass door, “I was told to deliver that. Good luck with everything.” And then he turned and left.
After sitting there stunned for several seconds, Clark shook his head. “I knew Lex wasn’t in it for the same reasons we are, but…can you believe he didn’t even show up?” Clark softened when he looked at Gloria. “Everything go okay on your call?”
She shook her head. “It’s like you said earlier. We have to get this right.”
They all nodded, and then Lana said what was on everyone’s mind. “I wish we could speed up time. Those men shouldn’t have to spend another second chained up like that.”
* * *
—
By eleven the public square outside the new Mankins headquarters was packed. It was easily the largest crowd Clark had ever seen in Smallville. People were sitting in lawn chairs all over the closed-off street, heaping plates of food in their laps. Dozens of food trucks were parked outside the library, and long lines snaked from each window. The beer tents were already overflowing. Giggling kids chased after one another in the grassy area in front of the library steps. Or they waited in line for the ball pit or the bounce house. Smoke from industrial-sized barbecues curled into the sky as crowds of people waited for food-service workers to dish up pulled pork and brisket and baked beans and coleslaw.
The two large video screens were mounted well above the stage, one on either side of the podium. They were blank, since the speeches had yet to start, but Clark hoped they’d soon be filled with Corey’s face as Lana interviewed him live. And then the footage they’d recorded on the Jones farm.
Clark kept glancing down at Gloria, who was sitting at the tech table to the right of the stage. He knew how devastated she was about Cruz. And it had to be hard on her to be sitting down by the stage when so many people from her community were protesting up the hill, in front of city hall. He glanced up there now, watched men, women, and children march in a large circle, shouting about equal rights and brandishing signs in both Spanish and English. When the protests had begun a few weeks earlier, it was only Latinos marching. Now it was everyone. Blacks, whites, Latinos, Asians. Anyone who wanted to fight for equality.