Prologue

Green Bay, Wisconsin, 1962.

One of the largest cities in Wisconsin. One of those rare places that never sleeps. Yet in the quiet suburb of the city, just to the west of the city, it was the dead of night and it showed.

Not a soul could be seen in the centre of the place. The shops and traders had shut down for the night as early as 5.30 and all was well, except for the local museum and archive, just off the main square. To a passer by, the light streaming down from the small room on the first floor, just above the door, would seem a little odd. Why was the place still open? A passer by would ask. The answer was simple. Its occupant was busy, cataloguing his latest acquisitions. A set of rare stamps dating back to the settling of the first colonies on the moon.

One passer by however was glad there was light coming from that building.
Dr Herbert Vimmer, the curator, sat hunched over the stamps at his desk in the corner of the small upstairs room, and was engrossed with them. A set of five dating from 1957, the year Latka went into space, following the decision of the United Nations to pass the Luna homestead act, opening up the moon for colonisation. Five years on, the first five cities were complete, and each stamp has a picture of one of those cities on it.

Vimmer looked at each one carefully in turn, the first one depicting the military garrison and base of the Luna Security Executive(LUNASEC) at the massive Tycho crater. Then next showing the largest civilian settlement at the Copernicus Village, after that came the stamp showing the Luna Capital, Armstrong City, bang smack in the middle of the sea of tranquillity. The last two, worth not quite as much as the others, but still rare and valuable had pictures of the Goddard research institute at the Lovell settlement in the Frau Mora highlands, and the main destination for the newest occupants of space, tourists, the Scott building at the spectacular Hadley Rille, nicknamed the "Luna Hilton."

All these pictures showed the leaps and bounds that man had made in this 20th century and the Doctor, fascinated by what he was looking at, though his magnifying glass failed to notice he was talking to himself.

"History," he said, "What wonderful history. A century that began so bleakly has for once produced more plusses than minuses."

He however also failed to notice the dark haired overweight stranger who now stood in the doorway. How long had he been standing there? Long enough to be able to make a quip back at the curator, his voice was low, and almost monotone.

"History can be cruel as well as kind, Doctor Vimmer." Vimmer leaped from his desk, spun around, but was not able to make out the features of the person at the doorway, for just as he straightened up, and the visitor flicked the light off. All the doctor could make out was an outline of a man, standing against the light coming from the outside corridor. He was almost six foot tall and appeared to be wearing what seemed to be the uniform of the Spectrum Agency. His eyes just finished adjusting to the change in light when he noticed the agent pulling out his revolver from its holster.

A single shot rang out.

The magnifying glass fell from his hand. Vimmer was dead before it hit the floor, smashing its glass into a dozen pieces. He fell back and clattered into his desk.

The assassin leaned forward and uttered to the corpse. "History can also be cruel and kind."

Two luminous green rings suddenly appeared over the body as though projected on to it by a torch or spotlight. They moved very slowly and eerily from head to foot. All it took was a the time for the human eye to blink, and there, standing next to the dead doctor, was as exact a duplicate copy of him as it could be possible to create. Waistcoat unbuttoned, hair all out of place, glasses on the end of his nose, the 51 year old man, copied to the most exact detail. The unblinking eyes of this facsimile of Herbert Vimmer looked straight ahead; there was not a flicker of emotion in him. The man in the white suit looked at him and spoke with calm certainty.

"Doctor Vimmer, this is the Candy Man, relaying instructions from the Amazons, you know what you must do."

"THIS IS THE VOICE OF THE AMAZONS, WE KNOW YOU CAN HEAR US, MAN'S WORLD. OUR REVENGE FOR YOUR ATTACK ON OUR COMPLEX ON PARADISE ISLAND'LL END WITH OUR ULTIMATE VICTORY. NOTHING'LL PREVENT THIS. OUR NEXT ACT OF RETALIATION'LL BE TO EXECUTE THE MAYOR OF MILWAUKEE. ON THE FIRST OCCASION, WE FAILED TO ACHIEVE OUR AIM. THIS TIME, THERE WON'T BE ANY MISTAKES AND YOU WON'T EVEN REALISE IT'S OCCURED. HISTORY'LL BE CREATED AND CRUSHED!"

Chapter 1- A Place to Hide

"Chachi, we've got trouble."

Spectrum Chief Alfred 'Al' Delvechhio spun his desk around and had finished giving out the order even before his desk stopped rotating.

"Sure thing, Sir," came the reply from the standby officer. His chair then moved him slowly to a position halfway down the long computer console that was his responsibility and pressed a small switch. "I hope Potsie turns into Captain Muscles."

As Charles 'Chachi' Arcola was doing this, Al was stepping out from his desk and walking over to the observation port to see the rest of their team arrive. Such was the efficiency of their lovely pilots that no sooner had Al stepped on to the cylindrical walkway that lead from the control room, than the others sat down in the office.

Al then turned his attention to his two most trusted officers, Roger Philips and the man who, by sheer fortune alone had become Spectrum's most valuable and superhuman sset in this war of nerves against the Amazons, Warren 'Potsie' Weber a.k.a Captain Muscles. It was Potsie's voice that Al now heard as it came over the speaker.

"Me and Roger'll take care of it."

"Spectrum is Green." came the reply from Chachi and Potsie's Air firce-esque jet moved slowly at first and then gradually it picked up speed until it left the carrier and climbed fast.

"Bluebird is sky borne, Sir."

"Thank you, Chachi," Al acknowledged and he went back to his desk. "Open a radio link to all the Bluebird." he requested.

Chachi flicked a switch "Go ahead, Sir".

"This is Colonel Alfred Delvechhio. You'll proceed to the rendezvous point as instructed in your briefing. It's code number is 162. There, the Bluebird will land. Captain muscles or Potsie, Roger and the Mayor of Milawukee will be in a Spectrum Maximum Security Vehicle, this'll be flanked front and rear by two Spectrum Pursuit Vehicles. Once you've collected the Mayor, head straight for cloudbase. That is all".

Roger replied, "S.I.G, Sir. ETA point 162, 21 minutes".

The Bluebird swung east, it's destination was a disused airstrip just 20 minutes drive from the presidential palace, itself a mere two miles from the centre of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The flight passed as Roger had estimated, just 21 minutes in to their journey, Potsie looked down from his side of the cockpit, he saw first the huge sprawling mass of Milwaukee with its familiar rotating T-tower, then, in a matter of minutes their plane passed over the even bigger mass of buildings that was Milwaukee. The Bluebird then banked to the west, in doing so, it passed over the Mayor's house. Younger Manor as it was known, looked every inch a palace, fit for a President. Though at this time, its incumbent would be glad, Potsie thought, to live in a hut if it meant no more attention from the Amazons.

A roadway lead from the palace to a junction. In one direction was the main road that linked the palace to the centre of the city. The other road petered out into a track. This track lead up a small hill, over the brow of this hill and into a small field. It was flat and was, it appeared at one time to be the chosen site for a runway for all presidential sites. Potsie pondered that it was perhaps wise that consruction workers chose to use the purpose built NASA with all its security. Yet now on probably the most serious matter imaginable, it was ironically, this small strip that was being used and sure enough as briefed, the SPV's and the MSV were there in the pre discussed position.

"Okay, Roger," Potsie said to his colleague and friend, "There's the Mayor's place." His watch buzzed and he contacted Al. "Sir, we've arrived at point 162. Area's clear, the MSV and the two SPV’s are in position."

"S.I.G, Potsie. Fonzie's in the front SPV and Howard's in the rear one, they both report the area clear. Marion's in the MSV with the President, she'll escort him to the plane and will return to Base with you."

"S.I.G, Sir, losing height now, will radio once we are airborne again."

The exchange on the ground took less than 2 minutes; the two SPV's sped off with Fonzie and Howard at the wheels. They would follow the others back to cloudbase within the hour. A Spectrum security officer took care of the MSV. It had taken four minutes for the vehicles to arrive, deposit their VIP on the jet and leave.

Less than thirty minutes later, the Mayor of Milwaukee, Robert Younger sat in front of Al's desk. The sixth person to hold the position since after the Second World War ended in 1945, Younger had become the first person to be targeted by the Amazons when, just two years into his term, the attack by the Zero-X triggered the war of nerves. Now he was the first to be targeted twice and the strain of it showed but he remained stoical and to the surprise of Al, even humourus, cracking a joke or two with the valet staff as they took the Mayor's luggage to the quarters he had been assigned on Base.

"Mr Mayor," Al began. "We're keeping all channels of investigation open, any lead, however small or insignificant, will be investigated. We have the resources, the man power and last of all and the will to win. You can rest assured that we will find the Amazon agent before he or she finds you".

"Thank you, Mr Delvechhio", Mayor Younger replied. "But where do you start?" he asked, his voice showing signs of exasperation, and worry.

Al sounded almost apologetic. "I wish I could answer that, Sir, I wish I could".