The Dark Knight Rises (16 page)

“Sorry?” Bruce rasped. “You expect to destroy my world, then shake hands?”

“No,” Alfred said. “I know what this means.” But Bruce forced him to say it.

“What does it mean, Alfred?”

“It means your hatred. It means losing the person I’ve cared for since I first heard his cries echo through this house.” He paused. “But it might also mean saving your life. And that is more important.”

Bruce glared at him. Calmly, coldly, he said the worst thing he could say.

“Goodbye, Alfred.”

The butler nodded, looking older and more tired than he had just moments ago. His shoulders slumped.

“Goodbye, Bruce.”

Bruce turned his back and marched up the stairs.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The doorbell woke him. Bruce rolled over in bed, waiting for Alfred to answer it.

Then he remembered.

He rose and threw on a dressing gown. No breakfast awaited him, and the house somehow seemed colder than it had before. Moving down the corridor toward the front, he called out tentatively.

“Alfred?”

The answering silence confirmed that last night had really happened. Bruce’s face hardened. Knotting his robe shut, he hurried down the stairs and threw open the door.

Lucius Fox gazed at him with surprise.

“Answering your own door?”

“Yes,” Bruce said tersely. He didn’t feel like explaining. “Could you decode the trades on that drive?”

Instead of answering, Fox handed him the morning paper. The front page headline was in huge type.

BATMAN BACK TO FOIL OR MASTERMIND STOCK RAID

The headline was accompanied by a blurry photo of the Bat in flight. A sidebar displayed a chronology of Batman’s career, beginning with his capture of mobster Carmine Falcone, so many years ago.

“I didn’t need to,” Fox said. “Page three.”

Puzzled, Bruce flipped past the coverage on Batman’s alleged return until he stumbled onto another, significantly smaller headline.

WAYNE DOUBLES DOWN—AND LOSES

Bruce scanned the article in growing dismay.

“It seems you made a series of large put options on the futures exchange. Verified by thumb print.” Fox shook his head grimly. “The options expired at midnight last night.”

Bruce looked up from the paper, reeling from the news. He had always preferred crime-fighting to high finance, but he grasped the implications of what he had just read. And the consequences were devastating.

“Long term, we may be able to prove fraud,” Fox said, spelling it out. “But for now…you’re completely
broke. And Wayne Enterprises is about to fall into the hands of John Daggett.”

“The weapons.” Bruce instantly zeroed in on what mattered most. “We can’t let Daggett get his hands on Applied Sciences.”

“Applied Sciences is shut up tight and off the books,” Fox assured him. “But the energy project is a different story.”

Then it sunk in, that it was the worst of all possible worst-case scenarios—the prospect of a man like John Daggett, with his connections to Bane, taking control of the mothballed project.

Bruce realized he needed help.

“Miranda Tate,” he said, thinking aloud. “We need to convince the board to get behind her, instead of Daggett.” He knew what that meant. “Let’s show her the reactor.”

Fox was way ahead of him.

“We’re meeting her in thirty-five minutes,” he said. “You better get dressed.”

The recycling plant was located across the river from Gotham. Acres of abandoned scrap metal, surrounded by a barbed-wire fence, enjoyed a scenic view of the city’s imposing skyline. Gulls and pigeons scavenged in the garbage. Bins of discarded car batteries and electronics equipment waited to be disposed of. Rust ate away at the accumulated refuse.

Miranda Tate glanced around dubiously as Fox led her from the car. She stepped lightly amidst the piles of junk, avoiding a greasy puddle.

“You brought me out here to show me a rubbish dump, Mr. Fox?” she said as he unlocked the front gate. Then he turned.

“Bear with me, Miss Tate.”

A derelict-looking portacabin was hidden deep within the junkyard, behind towering heaps of scrap metal. Nothing but a glorified aluminum shed, with poorly maintained siding, the one-story building hardly seemed worth her time.

Wearing a cryptic smile, Fox invited her inside.

“Keep your hands and feet inside the car at all times,” he commented.

An empty office was tucked away inside the cabin. Dust covered the desk and file cabinets. A pinup calendar on the wall was more than a year out-ofdate. Beat-up office equipment looked as if it belonged in the heaps of recyclables outside. Fox flipped a concealed switch beneath the desk and, all at once, the entire office turned into an elevator, sinking into the floor. The room tilted like a funhouse ride as it slid diagonally into a massive concrete tunnel that angled beneath the junkyard and toward the river.

Miranda gasped out loud. Her eyes widened in excitement.

“This is it, isn’t it?” he asked. Fox nodded.

“The reactor is beneath the river, so it can be
instantly flooded in the event of a security breach.”

“Is Bruce Wayne really that paranoid?” she asked.

Fox chuckled.

“I’m going to plead the Fifth on that one,” he said.

The elevator came to a stop deep beneath the river. Marveling at the elaborate security, she stepped out of the “office,” only to find Bruce Wayne waiting for them in a cavernous underground complex that was as large and impressive as the ugly junkyard was not. She noted that he was no longer using his cane.

“I thought you might like to see what your investment built,” he said.

At the center of the hangar-sized complex was a black steel sphere, at least five feet in diameter, girded by segmented steel rings that she quickly identified as powerful electromagnets. Blinking green lights and gauges were embedded in the surface of the sphere. Diagonal steel trusses supported the core assembly, suspending it several feet above the floor. An instrument panel was located at the base of the left-hand buttress.

Drainage from the river flowed through wide concrete troughs in the floor.

At last,
Miranda thought. She savored the sight of the revolutionary fusion reactor. “No radiation, no fossil fuels,” she said. “Free, clean energy for an entire city.”

“If it worked,” Bruce said. “It doesn’t.” He flipped a switch on the control panel. The core hummed to life,
glowing brightly from within. Lit gauges registered a sudden surge of energy.

Then the device went cold. The gauges dropped back to zero.

“Ignition, yes,” he stated. “But no chain reaction.”

She didn’t believe him.

“You’ve built a lot of security around a damp squib.”

He gazed at her stonily, but remained silent. She thought she understood his reticence.

“About three years ago, a Russian scientist published a paper on weaponized fusion reactions,” she commented. “One week later, your reactor started developing problems.”
You don’t have to be a nuclear physicist to see a connection,
she mused. “I think your machine works.”

Wayne peered at her intently.

“Miranda, if it were operational, the danger to Gotham would be too great.”

“Would it make you feel any better,” she asked, “to know that the Russian scientist died in a plane crash six months ago?”

This did not seem to reassure him.

“Someone else will work out what Dr. Pavel did,” he argued. “Someone else will figure out how to turn this power source into a nuclear weapon.”

“Then why show this to me?” she asked.

“I need you to take control of Wayne Enterprises…and this reactor.”

She was aware of his current financial difficulties. How could she not be?

“And do
what
with it?”

“Nothing,” he said firmly. “Until we can find a way to guarantee its safety.”

“And if we can’t?”

“Decommission it,” he said. “Flood it.”

She was dismayed by the very idea.

“Destroy the world’s best chance for a sustainable future?”

“If the world’s not ready, yes,” he replied.

She stepped closer to him. He caught a whiff of an exotic perfume.

“Bruce, if you want to save the world, you have to start trusting it.”

“I’m trusting you.”

“Doesn’t count,” she said. “You have no choice.”

But he wouldn’t let it lie.

“I could have flooded this chamber any time over the last three years,” he said. “I’m choosing to trust you, Miranda, and that’s not the easiest thing for me.” Intense eyes implored her. “Please.”

She nodded.

Fox cleared his throat, politely intruding on the moment.

“Excuse me,” he said, “but we have a board meeting to get to.”

* * *

The board of directors had convened an emergency meeting. Lucius Fox, as CEO, sat at the head of the long oak table, while Bruce Wayne occupied the other end for the first time in years—and possibly for the very last time.

John Daggett rose to address the board. He appeared even more arrogant than usual.

“I’d like to point out that we have a non-member here,” he protested. “Highly irregular, even if it is his family name above the door.”

All eyes turned toward the last surviving Wayne. Douglas Fredericks, one of the board’s senior members, spoke up. He was a dignified older gentleman with a mane of snowy white hair, who had seldom been afraid to speak his mind. Bruce had always respected his honesty.

“Bruce Wayne’s family built this company,” Fredericks protested, “and he himself has run it—”

“—into the ground, sir,” Daggett interrupted. He glanced around the table. “Anyone disagree? Check the value of your stock this morning. Gambling on crazy futures didn’t just lose Mr. Wayne his seat on this board, it’s lost us all a lot of money.

“He needs to leave.”

“I’m afraid he has a point, Mr. Wayne,” Fox said.

“I understand.” Bruce rose from the table. “Ladies and gentlemen.” He exchanged a look with Miranda as he slipped out the door.

* * *

A hush fell over the board room as the latch clicked behind him.

“All right,” Daggett said, breaking the silence. He puffed out his chest. “Let’s get down to business.”

“Right away,” Fox agreed.

He winked at Miranda.

A crowd had gathered outside Wayne Tower. Angry shareholders and hungry reporters shouted at Bruce as he exited the building. Cameras clicked away at a rapid-fire pace. TV crews captured the chaos on film.

“Mr. Wayne!” a reporter from the
Gotham Gazette
hollered. “How does it feel to be one of the little people?”

Bruce ignored him, and all of the questions. He looked around for his car.

“I’m sorry, sir,” a company valet said sheepishly. “They had the paperwork—” Then Bruce saw his new sports car being towed away.

First the Lamborghini,
he thought,
and now this. I wonder if I still have cash enough for a cab.

A police cruiser was parked at the bottom of the steps. The young police officer—Blake—emerged from the car. He called out to Bruce.

“Looks like you could use a lift.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Daggett stormed into his penthouse, slamming the door behind him. His face was purple with anger as he stomped across the floor.

“How the
hell
did Miranda Tate get the inside track on the Wayne Board?” he demanded to no one in particular. “Was she meeting with Wayne? Was she
sleeping
with Wayne?”

Stryver tried to calm his boss.

“Not that we know of—”

“Clearly you don’t
‘know of’
everything, do you?” Daggett wanted answers and he wanted them immediately. “Where’s Bane?”

“We told him it was urgent,” Stryver said.

Daggett looked at his watch.

“Then where is that masked—?”

A deep voice interrupted him.

“Speak of the devil…” it said.

Daggett spun around to find Bane standing behind him, his meaty arms crossed atop his chest. Air hissed from the hulking mercenary’s mask.

“…and he shall appear.”

Daggett clutched his chest, startled by Bane’s sudden appearance. Where had the ugly merc come from, and how had he gotten past the penthouse’s supposedly first-class security? Between Catwoman and Bane, Daggett was starting to think
anybody
could get past his guards.