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Quote1 You'll like her, Chi. Leiko's one of the best agents Smith's got—you and I included ... and a classier woman you won't find anywhere. Quote2
Clive Reston

Appearing in "Wicked Messenger of Madness"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

Antagonists:

Other Characters:

Locations:

Synopsis for "Wicked Messenger of Madness"

Shang-Chi, Denis Nayland Smith, and Black Tarr reach London's Victoria Station after their sea voyage. Clive Reston has a car there to pick them up. A robot walks toward Reston, begins saying, "Mis-ter-Res-ton-I-pre-sume," and fires bullets from gun barrels set in its eye sockets. Shang-Chi kicks it and Smith shoots it, both without effect. Shang-Chi, guessing that its armor is not proof against its own bullets, twists its head over so that it shoots itself. Tarr comments that it looks like a Mordillo creation, except that Mordillo is dead. He goes on to tell Shang-Chi that Mordillo was a world-class assassin and a world-class loon; he preferred to use offbeat machines.

Reston takes Shang-Chi to his new place, an apartment on King's Row. They find Leiko Wu using his bathtub. Reston strongly hints that he and Leiko were lovers; she hints just as strongly that the relationship is over. Smith calls and asks them to come to Scotland Yard. Once there, they learn that the bullets fired at Reston all have the same inscription on the base: "MY FAIR LADY." That ties Reston to agent Norris Putnam, recently killed by bullets similarly inscribed with "DED CBCD ABC BCD." Putnam's contact, Simon Bretnor, is now missing. When Leiko hears this, she slips out of the meeting. Putnam's last assignment was to protect the report from Project: Ultra-Violet, a scheme to open holes in the ozone layer at specific locations; unfiltered sunlight could kill anyone outdoors at such a location. The cryptographic team reports that, when assigned to musical notes, these letters are the refrain of "London Bridge Is Falling Down"—and Putnam was shot on Tower Bridge.

Shang-Chi and Tarr go to Tower Bridge, where Putnam may have left a clue so important that the enemy is willing to blow up the bridge to keep it hidden. They find a construction van parked on the bridge. The goons inside the van attack. After Shang-Chi and Tarr defeat them, Shang-Chi finds a bomb attached to a girder. He throws it into the Thames, where it explodes.

Reston and Smith arrive, carrying a note Reston found at Leiko's place: "If you love me at all, meet me at the usual place~~Simon." Smith says that the Project: Ultra-Violet research was shredded, but there is a copy hypnotically placed in Leiko's mind, along with a command to forget that she had it. Only Putnam had the code word to unlock the hypnosis. Between two bricks, they find Putnam's clue: a note that says, "Bretnor is Mordillo," along with the latitude and longitude of his base in the East China Sea.

At that moment, Bretnor/Mordillo and his captive, Leiko, are landing on his small island in the East China Sea ....

Notes

  • Leiko Wu becomes a regular supporting cast member beginning with this issue.

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