by Greg Cox
Blake dragged Miranda down the stairs.
“Down on the floor!” a gunman shouted.
Fox froze in place. Realizing there was no escape, he raised his hands above his head and lowered himself to the floor.
Jones lay gasping upon the blood-stained floor of the lobby, surrounded by the bodies of his unlucky brothers-in-arms. A crimson pool spread beneath him, his shattered limbs twitched uselessly. An awful cold swept over him, chilling him to the bone. He felt his life slipping away.
No, he thought desperately. Not yet. I need to warn Washington about that nuke.
Heavy footsteps approached. He looked up to see a huge man crossing the lobby toward him. Bane. The terrorist leader nudged Jones with the toe of his boot, eliciting an agonized gasp. He bent to examine the dying soldier. His bizarre mask, which now figured prominently in the nightmares of the entire world, concealed his intentions. Yet cold black eyes held not a hint of sympathy or compassion.
Jones glared at him defiantly.
“I’ll die before I talk.”
Bane nodded. “I’m on your schedule, captain.”
A powerful hand clasped itself over Jones’s mouth and nose, cutting off his air. The soldier tried to breathe, fighting for even a few more minutes of life, but Bane’s grip was too strong. He convulsed upon the floor, then stopped struggling…forever.
“There were people upstairs,” a mercenary reported as Bane rose from the dead captain’s body.
“Give them over for judgment.” He gestured at the lifeless remains of the American soldiers. “Hang them where the world will see.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Barbaric images flickered upon the television screen. A headline crawled along the bottom of the report.
SPECIAL FORCES BODIES HANG IN THE CABLES OF GOTHAM BRIDGE
Bruce stared in horror at the corpses strung up on the bridge as a warning. Bloody flags were wrapped around their bodies, looking like shrouds. It was something out of the Dark Ages—not a modern American city. Not Gotham.
Furious, he hurled a rock at the screen. It exploded in an eruption of sparks and broken plastic.
What is Bane doing to my city?
The knowledge that such atrocities were transforming Gotham drove Bruce to accelerate his already-brutal exercise regime. Endless pushups, squats, and stretches filled his every waking hour until he barely remembered to eat or sleep. It was as if the League of Shadows was training him, all over again. One cell over, the blind doctor listened to Bruce’s exertions. He spoke out in his obscure dialect.
“He says the leap to freedom is not about strength,” the European translated.
Bruce disagreed. He shadow-boxed inside his cell, throwing punches and kicks at the empty air.
“My body makes the jump.”
“Survival is the spirit,” the blind man said, surprising Bruce by speaking in broken English. His accent was thick, but his meaning came through, more or less. “The soul.”
“My soul’s as ready to escape as my body,” Bruce insisted. Maybe more so.
The blind man shook his head.
“Fear is why you fail.”
“I’m not afraid,” Bruce countered. “I’m angry.” He punched the air, imagining Bane’s ugly face before him. He visualized that grotesque black mask cracking beneath his knuckles, the same way Bane had cracked Batman’s cowl. He couldn’t wait to get even.
Soon, he promised himself.
Finally, he was ready to attempt the wall again.
The rope knotted around him once more, the thick coils chafing against his bruised ribs, he began to climb. A much smaller crowd gathered this time. Most of the prisoners had already seen this show; they had little interest in an encore. Only a handful of inmates watched with vague interest.
That was fine with Bruce. He wasn’t doing this for an audience.
Angrily, letting his fury drive him, he scaled the wall again, seeking out remembered handholds and crevices. Despite his familiarity with the cliff face, the climb wasn’t any easier. Breathing hard, he fought the wall as if it was yet another enemy, keeping him away from Gotham. He thought about Gordon, lying in that hospital bed.
About the attack on the football stadium.
About those bodies, hanging from the bridge…
I’m coming for you, Bane.
A loose piece of rock came away in his hand. Losing his grip on the wall, he fell once more. The rope yanked taut, digging into his chest and armpits, and he swung into the wall again. If anything, the collision felt more brutal than before. The pain of yet another failure battered his soul even as the unforgiving stone punished his body. He dangled upside-down, high above the scummy green pool at the bottom of the pit.
A distant glimpse of sunlight taunted him.
Down below, the blind man shook his head, while the European played cards with a skinny, underfed inmate, who glanced up at Bruce hanging helplessly overhead. A drop of sweat fell onto the card table.
“Shouldn’t you get him down?” the bony prisoner asked.
The European shrugged and played another card.
“He’ll keep.”
Only eight years old, Bruce lay at the bottom of the abandoned well. His arm throbbed as though broken. Frightened and in pain, the frenzied flapping of the bats still echoing in his mind, he watched anxiously as his father descended on a rope to rescue him. Thomas Wayne hurried to comfort his son.
“And why do we fall?” he asked.
Bruce knew the answer. Had known it his entire life.
“To learn to pick ourselves up.”
Bruce awoke on his cot, no longer a child, but trapped once again at the bottom of a pit. This time his father would not be coming to rescue him. He would have to save himself.
But how?
The blind doctor sat beside the cot. He cleared his throat to get Bruce’s attention.
“You do not fear death,” he said. “You think this makes you strong. It makes you weak.”
Bruce didn’t understand. He had always fought to overcome his fear.
“Why?” he asked.
“How can you move faster than possible,” the other man asked, “fight longer than possible, if not from the most powerful impulse of the spirit? The fear of death. The will to survive.”
Self-preservation, Bruce realized. He got up on his elbow, ignoring the latest battery of aches and bruises.
“I do fear death,” he said. “I fear dying in here while my city burns with no one there to save it.”
“Then make the climb,” the blind man said.
I’ve already tried that, Bruce thought. Twice.
“How?” he asked.
“As the child did. Without the rope.” The blind man cackled. “Then fear will find you again.”
Bruce pondered the doctor’s words all night, weighing the risks, before finally reaching a decision. Early next morning, he prepared for what was bound to be his final ascent, one way or another. He tucked a few scraps of bread into a rough wool coat, which he then folded into a makeshift shoulder pack.
The European watched him pack.
“Supplies for your journey?” he asked derisively. Nearby prisoners laughed as Bruce marched toward the cliff face yet again, this time decked out as if he actually expected to reach the top. His caretaker followed after him, intrigued by Bruce’s new demeanor. At the foot of the climb, the tattooed man offered Bruce the safety rope.
Bruce shook his head, and waved it off.
Not this time.
That did it. Word rapidly spread that the crazy American had refused the rope. A crowd gathered to watch the literally death-defying ascent. Carefully, methodically, relying less on raw fury than before, he climbed the treacherous rock face. He tested each bulge and crack, unwilling to throw away his life through carelessness or impatience.
The familiar chanting began anew.
He never wanted to hear it again.
For the last time, he approached the fatal jump. As he hoisted himself
onto the ledge, he startled a nest of bats roosting beneath it. They exploded from the side of the cliff in a flurry of leathery wings that momentarily transported him back to that abandoned well, so many years ago. The bats screeched in his ears, buffeting his face and body, threatening to dislodge him. His heart pounded wildly.
A long-buried fear came flapping out of his past.
Good, Bruce thought.
The bats circled up to the opening, like an omen. Bruce caught his breath, walked to the edge of the precipice, and gazed down, reminding himself how far there was to fall this time. Wide-eyed prisoners stared up at him, waiting for him to plunge to his death. The chanting grew louder and more insistent. His mouth went dry.
This is it, Bruce thought. All or nothing.
Fearing for his life, but fearing for Gotham more, Bruce contemplated the awful drop a final time, then jumped for the sun.
A hush fell over the pit as the entire prison population watched in suspense. Time seemed to skip a beat. Blood rushed in Bruce’s ears like the flight of the bats. He reached out with both hands…
And caught hold of the ledge above.
Wild cheers erupted from the pit as he pulled himself up onto the next ledge. The ancient stone was rough and weathered, but held fast beneath his weight. Hundreds of feet below, he heard the European laugh in disbelief. Looking down, he saw him hug the tattooed man in celebration.
The blind doctor nodded.
The morning sun beat down on Bruce as he climbed the last few feet to freedom. He peered warily over the edge of the pit and was greeted by a vast, desolate landscape. No guards were stationed at the mouth of the pit—it would have been considered a waste of manpower. With any luck, Bane wouldn’t even hear that he had escaped.
A huge, forgotten stone fortress, its imposing walls and towers showing the ravages of time, loomed over the pit. Rocky hills beckoned in the distance. An arid desert stretched for miles in every direction.
He had a long hike before him.
But first he found a thick coil of rope that was attached to the base of an ancient stone wall. It was used to lower new prisoners—and the occasional supplies—into the pit, then drawn up afterwards. He unwound the rope and tossed its free end down into the hole.
Free yourselves, he thought. I need to get moving.
He shouldered his pack and started walking.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The basement of the stock exchange was now a dungeon. Stockbrokers, lawyers, executives, industrialists, and other modern-day aristocrats huddled together in the crowded prison, which bore little resemblance to the luxury they had once enjoyed.
Lucius Fox, one-time CEO of Wayne Enterprises, tended to his fellow captives, offering a calming presence in these hellish circumstances, but many of the prisoners were beyond solace. They wept or cursed or retreated into their own minds, hugging themselves as they rocked catatonically in the corners. The dungeon reeked of fear and desperation.
I don’t belong here, Philip Stryver thought. There’s been some mistake. He paced impatiently, keeping apart from the other prisoners. His bespoke suit was rumpled and dirty. He needed a shave and shower— badly. His waxen features were drawn and haggard. His breath was sour.
Bane double-crossed us, he fumed resentfully. This isn’t what we planned!
A door banged open and the mercenary’s men invaded the basement. Trembling prisoners backed away, fearful that their time had come. Fox stepped protectively in front of a party of Wayne Enterprise executives. He faced the newcomers with dignity.
But the guards weren’t here for Fox. Sullen eyes fell on Stryver, who found himself grabbed by the men. They held onto him roughly as he squirmed and tried unsuccessfully to break free. He shouted frantically as he was dragged from the dungeon.
“I want to see Bane!” he shouted. “There’s been a mistake! Take me to Bane!”
Ignoring his protests and demands, the men hauled him upstairs to the main trading floor, which now served as the occupation’s kangaroo court. A jeering crowd of lowlifes and ruffians hooted as he was dragged before the exchange’s famous bell podium. Armed bailiffs—along with the vicious mob—quelled any hope of making a break for it. He wouldn’t get five yards before being gunned down or torn apart.
“This is a mistake!” he kept insisting. “Where’s Bane?”
“There’s been no mistake, Mr. Stryver,” a cool, sardonic voice corrected him from the podium. Stryver looked up at what was now the judge’s bench. His heart sank as he saw who was presiding over his trial.
Dr. Jonathan Crane had once been chief administrator of Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane, but his illicit experiments on human subjects—and involvement in a terrorist plot to flood Gotham with his trademark “fear gas”—had turned him into a wanted criminal. Thanks to the Batman, he had been remanded to Blackgate Prison, until Bane “liberated” its inmates. Clearly, he was thriving under the new regime.
A slender, ascetic gentleman with a cultured voice and pale blue eyes, Crane wasn’t wearing his ragged burlap “Scarecrow” mask at the moment, but that was small consolation to the frightened prisoner in the dock. Crane was infamous for his obsession with instilling fear in others.
In what sort of world, Stryver wondered in despair, does a sadistic nutcase like Crane end up as a judge?
“You are Philip Stryver?” Crane asked. “Executive vice president of Daggett Industries?”
Stryver nodded cautiously.
“The same Philip Stryver who for years has lived like a prince off the blood and sweat of people less powerful?”
Stryver didn’t like the way this was going.
“Call Bane!” he insisted. “I’m one of you—”
Then he spotted a masked figure watching silently from the gallery. Bane showed no evidence of intending to intervene. Stryver’s shoulders sagged in defeat as his last hope evaporated.
“Bane has no authority here,” Crane declared. “And your guilt is self-evident. This is merely a sentencing hearing.” He waved his gavel airily. “The choice is yours, death or exile.”
“Death!” the mob shouted. Peering around, Stryver was confronted by a sea of bloodthirsty faces. People spat at him and hollered. “DEATH!”
Stryver gulped, choosing the lesser of two evils.
“Exile.” Something told him it wouldn’t be that easy, however.
“Sold!” Crane banged his gavel against the podium. “To the man in the cold sweat.”
Mercenaries yanked Stryver from the dock, actually protecting him from the maddened crowd, who appeared all too inclined to tear him limb from limb with their grubby hands. He had only a few minutes to appreciate his escape from the “courthouse” before he was loaded, handcuffed, into the back of a van along with several other condemned executives and professionals.
Stryver recognized their faces from the society pages and business sections of the Gotham papers—if nothing else, he was still in the company of the A-list. Stone-faced guards watched over the men as they were driven away towards God-knew-where.
Exile, he thought. That doesn’t sound too bad. Who in their right mind would want to live in Gotham these days, anyway?
After a short drive, the van braked to a halt and the exiles were herded out into the cold. A biting wind blew steadily, making him wish he were better dressed for the weather, as they found themselves down by the docks overlooking the Gotham River, which appeared to have frozen over. A dirty white crust of ice and snow partially covered the flowing currents that could still be seen underneath.
The frosted ruins of a demolished bridge were piled along the shore. Stryver shivered and hugged himself in a futile attempt to stay warm. He gazed at the waterway with trepidation.
The guards, many of whom sported prison tattoos, prodded the exiles down slippery, ice-encrusted wooden steps to the edge of the river. A smirking mercenary unlocked Stryver’s cuffs. He nodded at the winding frozen expanse.
“Follow the thick ice,” he instructed.
“Try to swim, you’re dead in minutes.”
Stryver looked at the man with dawning horror. He shuddered, and not just from the cold.
“Has anyone made it?”
The guard snorted and turned away. Stryver hesitated, backing away from the river, until he felt the muzzle of an automatic rifle poke him in the back. Peering over his shoulder, he found no pity or room for negotiation in the surly faces of Bane’s men. It seemed he had no other options.
Maybe I can do this, he thought. Perhaps the ice is strong enough after all.
Working up his nerve, he stepped cautiously onto the frozen surface. He shuffled forward, trying to tread where it appeared thickest. His handmade Italian shoes offered no purchase, and he slipped. The ice creaked and groaned beneath him. The other side of the river seemed impossibly far away.
One step at a time, he thought. Just a little further…
He got all of a hundred yards before the ice shattered beneath him. He screeched loudly, throwing out his arms, as the river swallowed him whole.
The guards led the next “exile” onto the ice.
The empty office building had become a command center. A map of the city was spread out atop a desk. The shutters were drawn to keep in the light—and keep out prying eyes.
Gordon examined the map, surrounded by a handful of officers who had managed to avoid being trapped underground. Many had been retirees, green cadets, inactive, or assigned to desk duty. The commissioner valued their grit and loyalty, but wished there were more of them.
A whole lot more.
“Where the hell are they?” He glanced impatiently at his watch. “It’s not like we have a lot of time here.”
“How long?” Sergeant Richards asked. He was a ten-year veteran, and Gordon knew he had a wife and kids in the city.
“The bomb goes off tomorrow,” Gordon said. We’ve got about eighteen hours to do something.”
“To do what?” Richards pressed.
“We mark that truck, get a GPS on it,” Gordon said. “Then we can start thinking about how to take it down.” It wasn’t much of a plan, he had to admit, but it was a start. If nothing else, it beat sitting around waiting for that damn bomb to go off.
