Dakota's then 12-year-old brother Ricky came to stay with her and promptly became involved in case when their father's old friend Major George C. "Coop" Cooper left a nerve-gas-filled pen with the boy. Seeking the gas, Vanderlip assigned desperate young model Daisy Kane to befriend Ricky. Unknown to Dakota, the pair traveled to Europe while she protected Coop from Russian thugs hunting down the nerve gas. Dakota trailed Ricky to Paris, where she evaded a Vanderlip-sponsored assassination attempt in the Musée National d'Art Moderne, housed in the Centre Georges Pompidou, and then lost him when he took a train for Venice but disembarked in Switzerland. Aided by police detective Amos Culhane, who had a shameless crush on Dakota and frequently tried to win her affections, Dakota reunited with Ricky outside Grindelwald, Switzerland, but the trio was captured by Sheik Ibn Bheik, an ally of Vanderlip's who used his private soldiers and his trained falcon to hold Dakota and her allies captive. They eventually escaped and the nerve gas was released in the sheik's castle, killing all present.