by Greg Cox
“Okay, Commissioner,” he said, gasping, “you were right!”
Gordon sat up straight, his pains forgotten.
“What’s happened?”
“Your masked man kidnapped the Wayne Enterprises board,” Foley reported. “He let most of them go, but took three down into the sewers.”
Gordon winced at the thought. Memories of the tunnels, of his own blood spilling into the chilling waters, sent a chill through his entire body.
This is it, he realized. Bane is making his move.
“No more patrols,” he ordered. “No more hide and seek. Send every available cop down there to smoke him out.”
Foley hesitated.
“The mayor won’t want panic—”
“So it’s a training exercise,” Blake suggested.
For once, Foley seemed to welcome the younger man’s input. He looked guiltily at Gordon.
“I’m sorry I didn’t take you seriously—”
Gordon cut him some slack. Foley was a good cop. He had just taken for granted that the bad days were gone. Gordon had known better.
“Don’t apologize for believing the world is in better shape than it is,” the commissioner told him. “Just fight to make it true.”
Foley nodded, seeming to understand at last. He left to carry out Gordon’s orders. Blake moved to follow him, but Gordon called him back.
“Not you,” the commissioner said. “You’re telling me the Batman’s gone. So you chase up the Daggett leads, any way you can.”
They needed to do more than just find Bane. They had to find out what he was up to, before it was too late. Daggett’s name had been all over the excavations in the tunnels, and now he was dead. There had to be a connection. And somebody had to find it.
If not Batman, then maybe Blake.
Water dripped onto Bruce’s dry, cracked lips. An old man with shaggy white hair leaned over him, squeezing the liquid from a dirty rag. One cell over, separated from them by sturdy iron bars, a blind Middle Eastern man squatted against a rough stone wall. He appeared to be in his seventies. Milky cataracts clouded his eyes.
He muttered something in a tongue Bruce couldn’t place. An obscure dialect of Persian, perhaps, or Arabic.
“He asks if you would pay us to let you die,” White Hair translated. An Eastern European accent suggested that he had been born somewhere far beyond this hellish pit. A ragged wool vest hung over his scrawny frame. He was dressed like a peasant, but had an air of ravaged gentility. “I told him you have nothing.”
Bruce grimaced. He lay miserably atop the cot, from which he hadn’t stirred for who knew how long. Feverish and weak, he’d lost all track of time, drifting in and out of awareness. His head pounded, and the searing pain in his back was a constant companion, even in his sleep. Existence had become an endless ordeal he could never escape. He could not even clean himself.
“Do it for the pleasure,” he said bitterly. But the nameless European placed a stale piece of bread to Bruce’s lip. He shrugged apologetically.
“They pay me more than that to keep you alive.”
Chanting, coming from outside the cell, caught Bruce’s attention. Slowly, painfully, he rolled his head to see what was going on. Daylight, its presence just as tantalizing as Bane had promised, provided barely enough light to see.
A crowd of prisoners had gathered around a stocky, well-built inmate who could have had a career as a carnival strong man. He stood on one of the upper levels, just below the mammoth shaft that led to the surface.
Another prisoner, whose face was liberally covered in tattoos, handed the strong man a rope, which he tied around his brawny chest. More prisoners crowded the various terraces and stairways. They joined in the chanting, which sounded more dirge-like than encouraging.
“He will try the climb,” the European said.
The other end of the rope ran through a pulley system that had been hammered into a ledge about a third of the way up the shaft, hundreds of feet from the top. It served as a safety measure, Bruce realized, as the strong man began to scale the crumbling stone wall. Rugged outcroppings and narrow crevices were scattered irregularly along the rocky face, offering occasional purchase for the climber’s bare hands and feet.
He made his way slowly up the shaft, the chanting growing louder and louder as he climbed toward the light. At one point he slipped, and almost lost his grip on the wall, but managed to recover. The safety rope trailed behind him as he rose.
Secure handholds and footholds grew scarcer and further apart the higher he went. He paused on a narrow ledge, gazing up at the challenge ahead. The next available shelf was at least a twelve-foot jump away. Bruce would have been hesitant to make such a leap even as Batman. It was a daunting prospect.
The strong man perched upon the foothold, searching in vain for some other way to proceed. Far below him, the chanting egged him on, growing in intensity. The man gazed up at the distant sunlight and made up his mind. As the chanting peaked, he jumped for the higher purchase—and missed.
Screaming, he plummeted toward the bottom of the pit. The safety rope snapped taut partway down and he swung into the unforgiving stone wall, hitting it with bone-crushing force. The chanting fell silent as the battered prisoner was slowly lowered down on the rope. His head drooped limply. Blood dripped from his smashed face and torso.
The spectators retreated back to their cells.
“Has anyone ever made it?” Bruce asked.
His caretaker shook his head.
“Of course not.”
One cell over, the blind man barked in protest.
“What does he say?” Bruce asked.
“He says there is one who did,” the European admitted. “A child…” He shuddered. “A child who had been born in this hell.”
Bruce knew whom he meant.
“Bane.”
The other man flinched at the name. He seemed anxious to change the subject.
“An old legend. Nothing more.”
Shoving the last of the bread between Bruce’s lips, he hurried to leave the cell. Once outside, he paused to switch on the TV.
“Don’t,” Bruce pleaded. He had no desire to witness whatever horror show Bane had in store. But his caretaker left the TV on. He shrugged apologetically.
“Whatever they want you to see,” he said, “it’s happening soon.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Where are they taking us? Fox wondered.
Bane’s men led their hostages out of Wayne Tower through the jagged hole in the floor of Applied Sciences. They made their way across the debris into a confusing maze of tunnels somewhere beneath the city. The dismal catacombs were dank and dark, but showed evidence of recent modifications, and even new excavations.
The engineer in Fox tried to figure out the purpose of the construction. Somebody had clearly put a lot of time and labor into retrofitting the underground.
But why?
As he tried to assist Miranda and Fredericks, Lucius was dismayed to see the mercenaries brandishing his own inventions—weapons and equipment he had designed for the US military…and the Batman. Incendiary mini-mines the size of jacks, magnetic steel grapples, smoke and gas capsules, high-tech eavesdropping equipment, even a trio of stolen tumblers.
Thank God Bruce took the Bat, he thought, before we were raided.
They came at last to a large, damp tunnel lit by flickering fluorescent lights. It looked as if it had been newly excavated, perhaps as recently as the last few days. Fox had no idea where beneath Gotham they were, although it felt as if they had been walking for miles.
We could be anywhere, he realized.
Bane’s men planted explosive charges on a freshly hewn wall at the far end of the tunnel. Standing off to one side, looking distinctly ill at ease, was an older man about Fox’s age. He didn’t look at all like a mercenary. He paced nervously, his face drenched with sweat. He ran his hand through disorderly white hair. Armed escorts kept a close eye on him
Miran
da stared at the stranger in surprise.
“Dr. Pavel?”
Fox recognized the name of a renegade Russian scientist who was believed to have perished in a plane crash some months ago. It was Leonid Pavel’s work, he recalled, that had persuaded Bruce to mothball the fusion project indefinitely.
What’s he doing here? Fox wondered. Another of Bane’s prisoners?
The mercs finished placing the charges. They stepped away from the wall and signaled Bane.
He nodded at them.
An explosion rocked the tunnel.
Police and SWAT teams prepared to invade the underground. Foley glanced up at the sky as he coordinated the massive raid, operating from the 49th Street subway station. The sun was going down, but that hardly mattered where his teams were going.
Assault teams reported in from all around the city, massing in the thousands outside every subway station, manhole, and drainage pipe. As soon as he gave the go-ahead, pretty much the entire GCPD was going to descend and begin scouring every tunnel and rat hole until they rooted out Bane and his hostages.
The deputy commissioner just wished he’d done this earlier.
“Go,” he ordered.
A SWAT team, its members equipped with faceless black helmets, body armor, and assault rifles, converged on the mouth of a large drainage tunnel. Before they got too far, however, a low, echoing boom sounded from somewhere deeper within the sewers.
The men exchanged tense looks, but headed in anyway, following orders that had been given to thousands of other officers throughout the city. Flashlights swept the slimy walls of the tunnels. Weapons were locked and loaded. Radios kept them in touch with all the other teams.
One way or another, they were going to find Bane.
Bane led the way into the reactor chamber. Dust and smoke filled the air as Fox and the others stumbled over the rubble and into the top-secret energy project beneath the river. Water from the drainage channels spilled over onto the wreckage. Fox felt sick to his stomach as they approached the reactor.
All at once, Dr. Pavel’s presence made horrible sense.
Bane shoved Fox toward the control panel.
“Turn it on,” he ordered.
No. Fox shook his head. This was exactly what Bruce had sacrificed so much to prevent. I can’t allow this, no matter what.
Bane drew a gun from his belt and held it to Fredericks’ head.
“I only need one other board member,” he said. “Shall I have my men fetch another?”
Fox remembered the other hostages they had left behind at Wayne Tower. Was it possible they were still in danger? He prayed that the man was bluffing.
“I won’t do it,” he said.
Fredericks maintained his dignity, but still trembled as Bane cocked his weapon. An old friend of Thomas Wayne, he had always been a staunch defender of the Wayne legacy. Would a gun now take his life as well?
“All right, stop.” Miranda hurried forward and, before Fox could even try to stop her, placed her palm down on a biometric scanner. The control panel beeped, confirming her identity. Buttons and gauges lit up. She turned and pleaded with Fox, her dark eyes moist.
“Lucius, you’ll kill this man and yourself, and barely slow them down.”
As much as he hated to admit it, she had a point. Bane held all the cards. Defying him at the expense of their lives would be nothing but an empty gesture, and leave him unable to fight back later on.
I’m sorry, Bruce, he thought. I have no choice.
He reluctantly placed his own hand on the scanner. Bane lowered his gun and motioned for Fredericks to do the same. A final beep activated the reactor core, which began to glow brighter and brighter as a fusion reaction ignited inside the suspended metal sphere, generating vast amounts of energy. Gauges on the core recorded the steady increase in power production.
Unlike the rigged demonstration Bruce had staged for Miranda before, the reaction did not peter out after a few minutes. It continued to grow in intensity as— deep within—atomic nuclei combined with increasing frequency, releasing vast amounts of power in the form of high-energy neutrons. It was the same process, Fox knew, that powered the sun.
And hydrogen bombs.
Dr. Pavel stared at the reactor, transfixed by the sight. Bane turned toward the scientist.
“Do your work,” he commanded.
Roused from his scientific reverie, Pavel scurried to obey. Bane turned back to his men and gestured toward the hostages.
“Take them to the surface,” he instructed, effectively dismissing Fox and the others. “People of their status need to experience the next era of western civilization.”
Fox didn’t like the sound of that.
What does he mean to do with that reactor?
But Bane did not bother to elaborate. He merely stood by silently as his men dragged Fox and the others back into the tunnels.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Gotham Stadium was home to the big game between the Gotham Rogues and the Rapid City Monuments. The new $300 million arena was the jewel of Mayor Garcia’s urban renewal program, built on top of a formerly blighted stretch of riverfront property. The huge open-air venue was built of stone, steel, and glass.
Flanked by security, the mayor greeted reporters outside the VIP entrance. Cameras captured his photogenic visage. Reporters hurled questions, all about the game.
“Mr. Mayor!” a busybody from the Gotham Post called out. “We’re seeing literally thousands of police heading into the sewers—”
“A training exercise, that’s all.” The mayor’s winning smile grew slightly forced. He planted a Rogues cap on his head. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got tickets to watch our boys thrash Rapid City.”
Ducking the press, he was escorted to his private luxury box overlooking the horseshoe-shaped arena. More than sixty thousand eager sports fans—many sporting Gotham black-and-yellow—crowded the bleachers. An electronic scoreboard advertised major brands and products. More than two acres of natural grass covered the playing field, just waiting to be torn up by the competing teams.
This was the kick-off game of a brand new season and hopes were high that the Rogues would go all the way this year. The mayor hoped so; a Super Bowl victory wouldn’t hurt his poll numbers.
He waved to the crowd as he took his seat.
Now if Foley and his officers could just take of care of their little problem downstairs.
The GCPD had been searching the underground all night without success. There seemed no end to the branching tunnels and sewers, which were practically a city in themselves. Weary cops and SWAT teams waded through the fetid water, sweeping their flashlights back and forth. Boots pounded on old brickwork or concrete, or else splashed through the disgusting drains.
A grid search based on outdated Gotham blueprints had them converging on the center of midtown, albeit well beneath the city streets. With any luck, they were closing in on the terrorists.
Ross hoped so. He trudged down yet another dirty tunnel behind the rest of his squad. A yawn escaped his lips. He’d been at this for hours, and all he’d found was way too many rats and spiders and bugs. The sewers stank like, well, sewers, and he figured he was going to need a new uniform when this was over. No way was he getting this smell out of his clothes.
Sorry, Yolanda, he apologized in advance to his wife. Given a choice, he would have much rather been home with her and their daughter. Little Tara was turning five next week, he reminded himself. He still needed to pick up her present. Maybe after I get out of these stinking rat holes.
A lizard scurried over his boot and he kicked it away in disgust. Garbage floated past him on a greasy river of muck. A cobweb brushed across his face. He felt as if he was hiking through the world’s biggest latrine. His feet were wet and cold and he wanted a hot shower more than he had ever wanted anything in his life.
This sucked, big time.
Blake got promoted just in time, he decided, more than a little envious of his old par
tner. Wonder what they’ve got him doing now?
John Blake cruised through an ugly industrial district, checking in with Gordon via his cell phone. His butt was sore and he would have killed for a cup of coffee—or maybe a few hours’ sleep.
“I’ve been to half of Daggett’s cement plants,” he reported. “Logged locations they’ve poured for underground construction.”
“Anything strange about the pourings?” Gordon asked from his hospital room. Static added to the hoarseness of his voice.
Blake pulled the car over to consult his notes. A crumpled map was spread out across the passenger seat next to him. Red dots, scribbled on the map, indicated all the pouring sites his research had identified. He tried—and failed—to find any clues on the map.
“Honestly, commissioner, I don’t know anything about civil engineering—”
“But you know about patterns,” Gordon insisted. “Keep looking.”
If you say so, Blake thought, signing off. He checked the address of the next cement plant on his list. I just hope this isn’t a wild goose chase.
He couldn’t help wishing that he was underground, taking part in the manhunt for Bane instead. That was where the real action was.
He hoped that Ross and the others were okay.
Sweating, Dr. Pavel stepped away from the reactor. His sleeves were rolled up and he was breathing hard. Much of his task had involved reprogramming the reactor’s safety parameters and neutron flux allowances, but he had also needed to tinker with the magnetic coils and plasma containment units.
A case of sophisticated tools lay at his feet, along with discarded bits of shielding. Essential baffles and dampeners had been replaced with more volatile materials. The sphere’s access panels were once again closed.
“It is done,” he announced dolefully. “This is now a four megaton nuclear bomb.” That was roughly two hundred times more powerful than the bombs that had devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War Two.
Bane nodded in approval. He called to his men.
“Pull the core out of the reactor.”
