by Greg Cox
He just wished to hell that Lucius Fox hadn’t been seized by Bane. They needed his expertise where the nuke was concerned.
We have to get Fox back—before Bane gets rid of him.
There was a rap at the entrance. Everybody tensed up, and reached for their weapons, until a rookie peered through a peephole and gave the thumbs up. He unlocked the door and let the newcomers in. Blake entered the command center, followed by ten or so cops. Gordon counted them off as they came in.
Exactly ten. Disappointed, he edged over to the detective and lowered his voice.
“That’s it?” he asked. Blake just shrugged. Gordon stepped back and scanned the faces of their reinforcements. It took him a second to realize that someone was missing.
“Foley,” he said. “Where’s Foley, dammit?”
He grabbed his coat and headed for the door. Blake moved to block him.
“You shouldn’t be out on the streets.”
Gordon shoved past him and stormed out. The temperature was still well below freezing, but he hardly noticed the cold. His growing fury kept him hot under the collar. Stamping through the snow, he marched several blocks to a modest brownstone that seemed to have survived the worst of the rioting. Obscene graffiti defaced the walls, but a sturdy wooden door was still in place.
He climbed the steps and stabbed the doorbell.
At first, no one answered, so he kept on pressing it. Only the need to avoid raising too much of a ruckus kept him from pounding on the door with his fists. Finally, he pressed down hard on the bell, and didn’t let up.
Come on, Foley, he thought so intently he had to make certain he hadn’t said it out loud. I know you’re in there!
Stubborn persistence finally paid off. Multiple locks disengaged and the door opened by a crack, offering a partial glimpse of Foley’s wife, Jennifer. She looked tense and uncomfortable.
“Jim. He’s not here—”
He wasn’t buying it, and he shouted past her at the hallway beyond.
“You’re sending your wife to the door, when the city’s under occupation?”
Foley appeared—disheveled and haggard—at the end of the corridor. No longer the dapper up-and-comer, he wore a rumpled bathrobe over a tee-shirt and sweatpants. He looked like he hadn’t shaved in days. Guilt was written all over his face.
“Wait in the kitchen, honey,” he said, and Jennifer nodded. She retreated from the foyer, leaving the two men alone. Gordon stared accusingly.
“What did you do, burn your uniform in the back yard?” he demanded.
Foley tried to explain.
“Jim, you saw what they did to those Special Forces.”
“You forgotten all the years we went out on patrol, with every gangbanger wanting to plant one as soon as our backs were turned?”
“That’s different, and you know it,” Foley replied defensively. “These guys run the city. The government’s done a deal with them.”
“Deal? Bane’s got their balls in a vice. That’s not a deal!”
“You move against Bane, the trigger man’s gonna hit the button—”
Gordon still didn’t buy any of it—not Foley’s excuses, and not that whole “trigger man” crap.
“You think he’s given control of that bomb to one of ‘the people’? You think this is part of some revolution?” Gordon scoffed at the notion. “There’s one man with his finger on the trigger—Bane.”
Foley still tried to justify his cowardice.
“We have to keep our heads down till they can fix this,” he said. “If you still had family here maybe you’d—” He caught himself, perhaps fearing that he’d crossed a line.
But Gordon had bigger things on his mind than his own failed marriage. If anything, it was a mercy that Barbara and the kids were hundreds of miles away.
“This only gets fixed from inside the city, Foley.” He softened his tone, trying to get through to the man. “Look, I’m not asking you to walk down Grand in your dress blues. But we’ve got to do something before this maniac blows us all to hell.”
Foley stared at his slippers, unable to meet Gordon’s eyes.
“I’m sorry, Jim. I gotta—”
“Keep your head down?” Gordon said after him. “What’s that gonna do tomorrow, when that thing blows?”
“You don’t know that’s going to happen,” Foley said. Then he closed the door in Gordon’s face, ending the conversation. The commissioner stood alone upon the stoop, abandoned by his own second-in-command.
The wind suddenly felt a whole lot colder.
“I hear you’re looking for men, commissioner.”
Gordon turned around to find Miranda Tate standing behind him, wearing a winter coat over her tunic and leggings. Blake waited below on the sidewalk. He shrugged as if to say there was nothing he could do about the woman’s presence.
“How about me, instead,” she volunteered.
Gordon appreciated the offer, but he needed cops, not business executives.
“Miss Tate, I can’t ask you—”
“My company built it,” she insisted. Nevertheless, he tried to let her off the hook.
“Bruce Wayne built it.”
“And he wanted to destroy it,” she said. “It was me who wouldn’t listen.” She stared at him. “Please.”
Gordon looked at Blake, then back at Miranda. Lord knows he was in no position to be picky about his allies. He could use all the help he could get, especially where that nuke was concerned.
So he nodded.
“Let’s go.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The kid ran like hell through the East End. A thin gray windbreaker provided scant protection from the cold, but that appeared to be least of his worries right now. Two snarling gangbangers, twice the kid’s age and size, chased after him.
For a second, it looked as if the kid might get away, but then he slipped on a patch of icy sidewalk and tumbled to the ground. The hoods caught up with him and yanked him to his feet. Spittle sprayed from one punk’s lips.
“You steal from us, you little bastard?”
The punk had bad skin and an ugly expression. His buddy wore a blue ski cap and a perpetual sneer. Tearing open the kid’s backpack, Bad Skin pulled out a shiny red apple. He drew back his fist to wallop his prisoner, but before he could deliver the beat-down, a hand grabbed onto his arm and twisted it backward.
Bone cracked and the apple flew from his fingers.
Selina snatched it out of the air.
“You boys know you can’t come in my neighborhood without asking politely.”
Her hair hung loose above a black winter coat. A scarf was wrapped around her neck. Releasing the bully, she shoved him onto the slushy sidewalk, where he whimpered and clutched his broken arm.
His buddy still hadn’t gotten the message, though. Drawing a knife, he lunged at her like a rank amateur. She easily grabbed his wrist, shoved his shoulder back with her other hand, and redirected his knife arm so that he stabbed himself in the backside. He yowled like a stuck pig as the blade sliced into his fat gluteus maximus.
That was enough for both of them. Cutting their losses, the injured hoods turned tail and ran, slipping and sliding in their haste to get away from her. She savored the sight before turning to check on the kid, who regarded her with a wide-eyed mixture of fear and awe. From the looks of him, he couldn’t have been more than ten years old. Eleven, tops.
“Never steal anything from someone you can’t outrun, kid,” she advised him. That was something she’d learned a long time ago.
He stared longingly at the apple.
“Now you’re gonna take it,” he said, resentment in his voice.
It was a tempting prize, she had to admit. Fresh fruit was hard to come by in Gotham these days. She lifted it to her mouth and took a single perfect bite.
“Just tax,” she explained.
Licking her lips, she lobbed the rest of the apple back to the kid, who wasted no time absconding with it, just in case she chan
ged her mind.
A thank-you would have been nice, she thought, but she couldn’t really blame the little guy for getting away while the getting was good. She knew what it was like to be hungry and on your own.
“Pretty generous for a thief.”
It was a voice she had never expected to hear again. Spinning around, she found Bruce Wayne standing on the sidewalk behind her. He was dressed like a common laborer, with a scruffy beard and work clothes, but there was no mistaking the former prince of Gotham. His face was lean and weathered, but, much to her surprise, he was standing straight and tall—despite what Bane had done to his back.
The sound of that awful crack had haunted her dreams for months now.
“You came back,” she said. “I thought they’d killed you.”
“Not yet,” he said.
She got her guard up.
“If you’re expecting an apology—” But he shook his head, cutting her off.
“It wouldn’t suit you,” he said. “I just need your help.”
“And why would I help you?” she asked warily.
He pulled a USB drive from the pocket of his jacket.
“For this. The clean slate.”
“You’re gonna trust me with that?” she responded. “After what I did to you?”
Truth to tell, she still felt bad about luring him into Bane’s ambush. He hadn’t deserved that, especially after he had helped her get away from those mercs. So what if he was a wealthy do-gooder looking for trouble? At least he wasn’t a monster like Bane.
“I’ll admit I felt a little let down,” he said. “But I still think there’s more to you. In fact, I think for you”—he held up the flash drive—“this isn’t a tool, it’s an escape route. You want to disappear. Start fresh.”
Steal a brand new life, she thought. Tantalized by the possibility of reinventing herself completely, she greedily plucked the drive from his fingers. She looked it over, almost afraid to believe that it might be real. Then reality set in.
“Start fresh?” she said. “I can’t even get off this island.”
“I can give you a way off,” he promised. “Once you’ve gotten me to Lucius Fox. I need you to find out where they’re holding him. Then take me in.”
Easier said than done, she thought. “Why do you need Fox?”
“To save this city.”
“Who says it needs saving?” she challenged him. “Maybe I like it this way.”
“Maybe you do. But tomorrow that bomb’s going off.”
She felt the blood drain from her face—there was no reason to doubt him. If anyone was capable of nuking an entire city for his own twisted purposes, it was Bane. Suddenly, she saw her future going up in flames, but she tried not to let on how spooked she was.
“So? Get your ‘powerful friend’ on the case.” Saving Gotham was Batman’s job, not hers. She was just a thief, out to survive any way she could.
“I’m trying,” he said. “But I need Fox.”
First we ID the truck, Gordon reminded himself. Then we figure out what to do next.
He and Miranda strolled down a snowy street. Nobody seemed to be watching them, but he kept his head down and his coat collar up. Glancing around just to be safe, he discreetly slipped her the Geiger counter. Getting hold of the device had been a challenge in itself. He just hoped it paid off.
“Stay further up the block.” He nodded at a pair of undercover cops loitering at a street corner up ahead. “They’re gonna cross the street and try and slow the truck down. As it approaches, hit this button. If the needle hits two hundred, give me the signal and I mark the truck. Okay?”
She nodded and tucked the Geiger counter under her coat.
“Head’s up,” Blake’s voice squawked from Gordon’s radio. The rookie detective was playing lookout from atop a nearby building. The commissioner hoped he had good eyes.
“Copy that.” He moved to take his position at the other end of the block, leaving Miranda partway between him and the men on the corner. Moments later, an ominous black truck rumbled into view, right on schedule. It honked its horn angrily, barely slowing down, as the two cops stepped out in front of the truck as if they were crossing the street.
Gordon held his breath as Miranda covertly scanned the vehicle with the Geiger counter. Then she gave him a thumbs-up.
Bingo, he thought. Now we just need to keep track of that truck.
He flung a magnetic GPS locator at the vehicle as it lumbered past him, throwing up a spray of wet snow. The locator flew through the air before sticking to the bottom of the truck, where, with any luck, it would go unobserved by Bane or his accomplices.
The truck disappeared around a corner, taking the bomb with it. Gordon regrouped with Miranda and his two men at the corner. He removed a GPS tracking device from his pocket and checked to make sure they still had the locator’s signal. A flashing red dot tracked the truck—and the bomb—along its route.
“Got it,” he said with a touch of elation. Mission accomplished, he thought. They knew where the bomb was now. The tricky part was going to be getting it away from Bane—and neutralizing it in time. Gordon wished he had a better idea of how exactly they were going to pull that off, especially since Lucius Fox had been captured by the enemy.
I hope nobody expects me to know how to stabilize a fusion reactor.
He was still worrying when they rounded the corner, and found themselves confronted by a squad of armed mercenaries. Dozens of Bane’s soldiers emerged from doorways and alleys, training their weapons on Gordon and the others. Miranda gasped in shock.
The cops didn’t even have a chance to draw their side arms.
“Commissioner James Gordon,” a gunman barked. “You’re under arrest.”
Gordon bristled.
“On whose authority?”
“The people of Gotham,” the terrorist said smugly. He gestured to his men and they surrounded Gordon and the others, stripping them of their weapons, then leading them away toward the stock exchange.
The commissioner resisted the temptation to glance up at the rooftop where he knew Blake had to be watching. He hoped the hotheaded young detective would be smart enough to keep his head down and not try something stupid.
Watch yourself, son, he thought. It might be all up to you now.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
A hooded prisoner was shoved down the stairs that led into the dungeon beneath the stock exchange. Laughing, the guards kicked him down the last few steps, so that he landed in a heap upon the basement floor. A groan escaped the hood.
Someone moved to help him, and the guards mocked the Good Samaritan from the top of the stairs.
“Find this one a spot,” one of them said. “He’s got a big day tomorrow.”
“We all do,” his crony added. “It’s not every day you bag Bruce Wayne.”
The Good Samaritan gasped at the name. He hastily tugged the bag off the prisoner’s head, exposing the scruffy, unshaven face of Gotham’s most famous son, not seen by anyone in Gotham since before Bane took the city hostage.
Hello, Lucius, Bruce thought, gazing up at Fox. He exchanged a silent look with the older man before spotting Miranda in a corner, where she appeared to be comforting a worried mother and children. She waited until the guards had departed before rising and coming over to him. Despite her captivity, she looked just as beautiful as she had that night they lay in front of the fire.
“You picked a hell of time to go on vacation, Mr. Wayne,” Fox said.
Not exactly my idea, Bruce thought, but he didn’t have time for pleasantries. “How long till the core ignites?”
“The bomb goes off in twelve hours,” Fox said.
Just as Bane had planned all along, Bruce knew.
“Unless we can reconnect it to the reactor,” he said.
“If you can get it there,” Fox promised, “I’ll find a way to plug it back in.”
Miranda sat beside them, listening thoughtfully to the discussion. After so many months,
Bruce had no idea what to say to her. As far as she knew, he had just disappeared that night months ago, right after they made love.
“Can you get Miranda out?” Fox asked.
I wish I could, Bruce thought. “Not tonight,” he replied. Then he turned toward her at last, unable to explain all that had happened to him—and all that he still needed to do. “I’m sorry,” he told her. She nodded solemnly.
“Do what’s necessary,” she said, her voice steady.
Bruce appreciated her understanding. There would be time enough to sort things out between them, if and when Gotham survived. For now, he needed to focus on the bomb—and on Lucius.
“Tonight I need you,” he told Fox.
“What for?”
“To get back in the game.”
As if on cue, the door slammed open again. Catwoman sauntered down the stairs in her skintight black outfit and goggles, escorted by a pair of guards. The men treated her with overt respect. Apparently betraying Batman carried some weight under the new regime.
“Sorry to spoil things, boys, but Bane wants these guys himself,” she announced, and she indicated Bruce and Fox. The guards complied by yanking the two men to their feet, cuffing them, and dragging them toward the exit. Bruce looked back at Miranda.
“I won’t forget about you,” he promised.
Their eyes met across the grimy basement. She smiled sadly.
“I know.”
Catwoman rolled her eyes before gesturing to have her prisoners marched from the dungeon. Rifles in hand, the guards prodded the two captives along. Selina fell back between the thugs.
She waited until they were beneath the shadows of the towering marble colonnade before turning on the two soldiers in an almost balletic display of violence. A spiked heeled disarmed one man, only a split second before she slammed his head into the side of a column while simultaneously laying out the other guard with an open-handed jab to the throat. She moved with the speed and agility of her feline namesake.
