Chapter 1

Karl Steele was walking back to the lot where he had parked his Stutz Bearcat. He had just left his karate class, and he was carrying his practice nun-chuck at his belt. As he walked, Karl was practicing the art of perceiving the entirety of his surroundings as taught by his mentor at the karate school. The idea was to know what was going on at all times so that an enemy could never catch him by surprise. Though karate is an "empty hand" art, Karl's mentor, Ichiro Watanabe, was not such a purest that he disdained the use of weapons; thus the training with the nun-chuck.

Karl's widened perceptions warned him of the disturbance in the alley he was rapidly approaching. His interest was piqued by the sight of some school books, a woman's hat, and a woman's shoe lying at the entrance to the alley. Karl hurried to determine the reason for this odd combination of items on the sidewalk at the entrance to the alley. He looked into the alley and was absolutely amazed at what he saw.

A young woman of near his age was standing with her back to the filthy back wall of a brick building. She was facing 6 men of various ages, none over 20 and none under 14. Three of the men were writhing in pain on the ground, while 3 others were facing her in a very threatening manner. She was holding her other shoe in her right hand with the heel pointing away from her body, obviously brandishing it as a weapon. Her left hand was spread in such a way that it looked like a very dangerous claw.

One of the young men stepped toward her and reached out to grab her blouse. Just as he grasped her shirt, she pivoted on her heel in a full 360 degrees. This caused the man to fall toward her, since he couldn't release her blouse in time. As he fell toward her, she whipped out her other foot to slam into his crotch with a crushing force. The man screamed and joined his fellows writhing on the ground.

One of the two men remaining standing, growled, "That's enough of that shit, bitch!" and pulled a knife from his belt.

Karl stopped admiring the woman's self-defense technique and ran to her aid. On his way, he pulled his nun-chuck into position and crashed it down on the wrist of the hand holding the knife. The wrist shattered at the blow and Karl's back swing caught the man across the face. There was a strong possibility that the man was dead; if not, he was certainly blinded by the bone chips that were thrust into his eyes.

The last man turned to flee and was caught in the knee by a blow from the nun-chuck. This man screamed as he collapsed, unable to move from the pain in his leg.

Karl turned to the young woman and inquired, "Are you all right, Miss?"

"Yes, I am, thanks to you. But I wonder why you didn't help me the moment you showed up?"

"Truthfully, I was admiring your fighting technique and was sure that you didn't need any help until that cretin pulled the knife. Where do you study martial arts? You move as smoothly as a ballerina!"

"Why, thank you sir! Actually, I am studying to be a ballerina. I have no martial arts training. I was just doing what I thought was the right thing to do."

"Hummm! Maybe I should study ballet. I have never seen such smooth and coordinated fighting movements from a woman. I am in awe!

"May I be of further assistance. Perhaps I could offer you a ride home in my car."

"That would be very gallant of you, and I would certainly appreciate it. I have my own car, but I am really too keyed up to drive safely for a while. I live in Grosse Pointe; is that too far out of your way?"

"Absolutely not! I live in Grosse Pointe, too, so it would be no problem to drive you there. By the way, my name is Karl Steele."

"I'm pleased to meet you, Karl. My name is Helen Gardner. Shall we be on our way?"

Over the years, Helen and Karl became very close friends and, eventually, fell in love. They were constant companions when not compelled by circumstances to be separated. Helen went to a "finishing school" designed to turn her into a lady of the highest society; Karl went to the University to learn all he could of the technicalities of business. In both cases, they made their parents very proud of them and graduated at the head of their classes. They were married and took up residence in a mansion of their own in Grosse Pointe.

They had the usual number of servants, hosted and attended the usual number of parties, and supported the usual number of charities. Karl's father owned a significant portion of one of the major automobile companies and decided to retire, and to tour the world before he and his wife got too old to enjoy the experience. He sold out for, as he liked to say, "more money than God, and possibly more money than the pope."

Karl's parents were in Switzerland at a ski resort when there was a major avalanche which wiped out the resort, the associated town, and most of the adjacent country side. Of course, Karl was devastated. He went through the period of mourning, but couldn't shake the feeling of sadness and general melancholia which settled over him. Helen did her best to shake him out of his funk, but nothing seemed to work until she was able to get him to return to his study of martial arts.

Even though he loved martial arts, he couldn't seem to stick with it unless Helen was there with him. To her amazement, she found that she, too, was mesmerized with martial arts and couldn't get enough. This filled the void left when she had given up ballet, because it stretched her body to its physical limits while taxing her mind and spirit at the same time. Thus, Karl and Helen began to spar with each other, each driving the other to push their limits higher and higher. They never competed in public contests, though, since this was not something done by people in their social class, but it was not long before they had pushed themselves to be among the top experts in karate and the use of many of the associated weapons, particularly, the nun-chuck.

Prohibition had been enacted and had become the bane of the country. City after city, town after town, and neighborhood after neighborhood was afflicted by the curse of illegal alcohol corrupting the people and the government. Karl and Helen were appalled by what had happened, but didn't know what they could do to alleviate the situation. Everything they tried to do was an abject failure. The social pressure to go along with the corruption was well neigh impossible to combat. What could they do? Then the impossible happened!

Helen's parents were shopping at a major department store in downtown Detroit for Christmas gifts when they were caught in the crossfire between two rival gangs trying to monopolize the city's liquor sales. They were chopped to pieces by the Thompson submachine gun and BAR bullets that were fired indiscriminately among the innocent bystanders by the two gangs of criminals as they tried to wipe each other out.

In a caricature of justice, none of the criminals were killed, but 37 innocent civilian Christmas shoppers were mowed down by the shooting spree. This time it was Helen's turn to be devastated by fate. Karl did everything he could to overcome her distress, but it turned out that the martial arts were the means to relieve her pain. Therefore, both of them labored harder and harder on their studies and training.

One evening after supper, they were talking about the latest atrocities committed by the criminal gangs and the inability or unwillingness of law enforcement to slow down the rampage, much less stop it. They wished that they could do something personally to stem the tide of lawlessness. This led to a long discussion lasting into the early morning hours about what they might do as vigilantes to combat the criminal element.

At first, it started out as a joke, as they discussed becoming masked avengers, similar to those in the fiction they had read as children. Then, as the discussion continued, they got more and more serious about the subject. Karl pointed out that they couldn't let other people know of their real identities, or many of their relatives and friends might be harmed. Helen said that was easy to solve, they only had to wear outlandish costumes and to assume false names to hide their identity. She eventually suggested the name of Eagle for Karl and Hawk for herself.

This was turning into a great adventure as they prepared to assume the roles of Eagle and Hawk. They "vacationed" in Los Angeles where they had their costumes made, 3 copies each, by an expert in outfitting movie stars. The costumes were form fitting of a stretchy material, such that they were practically a second skin. Both were colored a matte black, so that they were nearly impossible to see in a low-light situation. Even the hands and feet were covered, and there was cowl which only exposed the face below the nose. The entire surface of the costume, except for the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet, were covered with a semblance of feathers, which made it impossible to see the actual outline of the body.

The boots that were part of the costume were very supple, except for the sole, which was a very hard material to protect the feet and the toe, which was encased in a metal shell. Woe unto the malefactor who was kicked by this boot with all the force that Eagle or Hawk could put behind it.

The gloves were a unique design which gave complete freedom of movement to the fingers, yet, when the fist was clenched, a series of metal plates slipped into place to provide the effect of the "brass knuckles" of popular fiction. When the hand was open, these same metal plates would provide a backhanded slap with bone crushing impact.

A full suit of light chain mail was to be worn under the costume to provide protection against knives and such, but, of course, could not prevent the penetration of a bullet. Skill and agility would have to do that. Likewise, the chain mail could do nothing to prevent injury from clubs, since there was nothing to distribute the blow over a wide enough area; they would just have to be careful.

They realized that some means of transportation would have to be provided, so they went to Germany, England, and Italy to find the bits and pieces which were fitted together into a truly spectacular car which they dubbed "Black Widow." The body and windows were completely bullet proof, yet the engine was powerful enough to propel the car to 100 MPH!