Velvet 9

Velvet 9
Feb 2015

The Secret Lives of Dead Men - Part 4
By Ed Brubaker, Steve Epting, Elizabeth Breitweiser, Chris Eliopoulos

Lt. Simonson and Sgt. Roberts compare notes about Velvet Templeton in the aftermath of her attack on the van that was transporting a prisoner. She caused the van to crash and took Damian Lake, the prisoner, the former head of the intel division of ARC-7. Fourteen years ago, in 1959, something happened, something he was involved in, something that got a lot of people killed and got him locked up in a mental institution.

The version that Velvet heard prior to meeting Lake is that he was the head of the Paris code station when it was hit by the KGB. He was the only one that survived the strike. He was shell shocked and hasn’t been the same since. That’s the official story.

She broke him out because she needed information from someone who was around when she killed her husband. She needed information from someone that couldn’t possibly be involved in framing her for killing X-14. She suspects that whoever framed her also framed her husband.

When she questions Lake he tells Templeton a story that is different, more complicated than the one she knows. He claims to have stumbled across something that he wasn’t supposed to find or know about. He claims he wasn’t at the station when it was hit. He also claims that ARC-7 is responsible for the hit on the Paris code station.

Templeton doesn’t buy his story. There are holes in it but she takes him with her and they head to Paris by a very roundabout route. They leave England and travel north to Scotland, from there they travel to Holland by ship, from there they travel south to Luxembourg and then to Switzerland, and from there they catch a train into France.

Simonson tells Roberts a third version of what happened at the Paris code station. According to Simonson, Lake is the one who killed the staff of the code station. He was trying to impress someone, someone other than the KGB or at least that’s what Simonson implies.

The chapter ends with Velvet going to look for Lake when he is taking a little too long in the loo. She finds it empty and then is approached by Gendarmes with guns drawn.

It still isn’t clear exactly who Velvet contacted on the phone in Manning’s office in the last chapter. Was the prisoner already being moved or did she call and request the move? Did she contact someone else who has yet to show up.

Good stuff. I’m enjoying the ride. It is s bit of a slow burn but I kind of like it that way. Just one more chapter in this arc. I have no idea if the third arc is the end of the story or not. I don’t want to peek ahead and see.