The Dark Knight Rises (27 page)

Scrambling up the sides of the shaft, the child reached the fatal precipice that had killed the hopes of so many other climbers. Determined eyes glanced down at the protector, who was losing ground against the horde of maddened prisoners. They were swarming over him. Knives drawn, they fell upon the protector just as an equally bloodthirsty mob had attacked the child’s mother, years before.

For an instant, the child was tempted to turn back and fight beside the outnumbered champion.

The child stared down at the masked warrior. Their eyes made contact.

Go,
the man ordered silently.
Now.

The child jumped over the abyss. Desperate hands grabbed onto solid rock.
A
small body swung up onto the ledge.

“A child born in hell,” the white-haired prisoner said. “A child forged by suffering. Hardened by pain.”

He shook his head sadly at Bruce.

“Not a child of privilege.”

Defeated, Bruce staggered back to his cell.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Supply trucks approached the checkpoint on the bridge. Armed mercenaries inspected the trailer of an idling eighteen-wheeler, finding only crates of emergency rations. A guard helped himself to an energy bar before giving the driver the go-ahead.

The truck drove through the snow-covered streets, which were badly in need of plowing, until it pulled up in front of a dimly lit supermarket. A long line of Gothamites—stretching all the way down the block— waited miserably along the sidewalk, braving the frigid winter weather for a chance to replenish their dwindling stores. Hungry children cried impatiently.

Inside the truck, hidden from view, the lid of a crate opened just a crack. Captain Mark Jones, US Special Forces, peered out to make sure all was clear. Finding the trailer compartment free of hostiles, he climbed
out from beneath several bags of rice and rapped the sides of four other crates.

A quartet of Special Forces operatives, wearing nondescript civilian clothing, emerged from the boxes and checked their automatic weapons before concealing them once again.

We made it,
Jones thought.
We’re in Gotham.

“Now for the hard part,” he muttered aloud.

The back door of the truck rattled open and he and his men began to unload the supplies. A nervous-looking store manager met them at the door and guided them into the back of the store, then down a flight of stairs into a storeroom in the basement. There they were greeted by four plain-clothes cops.

“You have ID?” Deputy Commissioner Foley asked.

Jones recognized Foley from his briefing.

“Of course not.”

Foley eyed the newcomers warily.

“How can we trust you?”

“We don’t have any choice,” James Gordon said. He and a younger man stepped out of the shadows at the rear of the room. They wore heavy coats to protect them against the chill of the basement. Both were carrying.

“Commissioner Gordon?” Jones was glad to see the wounded man up and about. There had been conflicting reports about his status. He held out his hand. “Captain Jones. Special Forces.”

“Captain,” Gordon replied. “Glad to have you here.”

Jones glanced around the storeroom, anxious to assess the situation.

“How many of you are there?”

“Dozens,” Gordon said cautiously. “I’d rather not say exactly. But the men trapped underground number almost three thousand.”

Jones whistled softly. That matched with what he had heard.

“What kind of shape are they in?”

“They’ve been getting water, food,” Gordon said.

“Could we break them out?”

“Yes, sir.” The younger cop stepped forward. “Take out the mercenaries guarding the outflow pipe south of Ackerman Park, blow the rubble, you’ve got a hole big enough for ten at a time. I’m in contact with my partner—they’re waiting for the day.”

Jones was skeptical, but it was one of his men who voiced it.

“Men who haven’t seen daylight for three months,” the man said.

“Men with
automatic weapons
,” the young cop stressed, "who haven’t seen daylight for three months.”

Good point,
Jones acknowledged silently.
That has to count for something.

“What about the bomb?” he asked. “The satellite can’t see any radiation hot spots.”

“They keep it on a truck,” Gordon reported. “It must have a lead-lined roof. They move it constantly.”

Jones nodded. The brass had suspected as much.

“But you know the truck?”

“They’ve got three of them,” Gordon said. “The routes don’t vary much.”

A shell game
, Jones realized.

“What about the trigger man?”

“No leads,” Gordon said. He paused, then offered his own theory. “It’s a bluff. Bane wouldn’t give control of that bomb to someone else.”

“We can’t take that chance,” Jones said. “Until we have the triggerman, we just track the device, smuggle men over—”

That clearly wasn’t enough for the young cop, who spoke up.

“Meanwhile Gotham lives under a warlord,” he said irritably, “like in some failed state.”

“Dial it back, officer.” Jones sympathized with the man’s frustration, especially after nearly three months, but they needed to keep cool heads where that nuke was concerned. “This situation is unprecedented. We can’t do anything that might risk millions of lives.”

The young hothead turned to his boss.

“Aren’t you going to tell him?”

“Captain,” Gordon began, “things are more complicated than you think. There’s somebody you need to meet.” He addressed the young cop by name. “Blake?”

Blake nodded and gestured for Jones and his men to follow him. Puzzled, Jones trailed Blake back upstairs. Weapons in hand, they departed the supermarket via
a rear exit and stealthily made their way down a series of back alleys and side streets.

Jones let Blake take point. They were on his turf now.

What’s this all about?
he wondered.

Several blocks later, they crept through the back door of what turned out to be an empty bank. The teller booths were deserted. The vault and safety deposit boxes had already been looted. Their footsteps echoed throughout the lifeless building as they crossed the lobby and rode the elevator to the top floor offices—which proved to be home to several displaced refugees.

Sleeping bags and makeshift cots lined the carpeted corridor. Homeless people camped out in the hall and offices. Trash cans were overflowing with empty food containers and wrappers.

“I was up here looking for a vantage point,” Blake explained tersely. “Found the people who run the corporation that owns it living here.”

Jones regarded the huddled survivors.

“Which corporation?”

“Wayne Enterprises,” a distinguished-looking black man answered. He came forward to meet them, accompanied by an attractive brunette several years his junior. His collar was unbuttoned and his sleeves were rolled up. She wore a belted plum tunic and black leggings.

“Captain, meet Mr. Fox,” Blake said. “Mr. Fox, I’d
like you to brief the captain.”

“Hold on,” Jones said. He cast a pointed look in the woman’s direction.

“Miss Tate is fully aware of the situation,” Fox assured him.

“And as CEO of Wayne Enterprises,” she said, “I have to take responsibility for it.”

Jones gave her a closer look.

“Why?” he asked.

“Because, captain, we built it.”

“You built the bomb?” He didn’t understand. This hadn’t been in his briefing.

“It was built as a fusion reactor,” Fox said, keeping his voice low. “The first of its kind. Bane turned the core into a bomb, then disconnected it from the reactor.”

“And here’s the important part,” Blake prompted.

“As the device’s fuel cells decay,” Fox said, “it’s becoming increasingly unstable, until the point of detonation.”

Blake spelled it out.

“The bomb’s a
time bomb.”

“And it
will
go off,” Fox stated gravely. “In twenty-three days.”

Jones couldn’t believe his ears. An already hellish situation had just gotten infinitely worse. He reeled at the news.

“Bane’s revolution’s a sham,” Blake explained. “He’s watching Gotham rearrange its deck chairs while the whole ship’s going down. Your appeasement
plan might not be as practical as you thought.”

Jones scowled at Blake. The young cop was right, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. He looked again at Fox.

“Could you disarm it?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Fox said. “But I could reconnect it to the reactor. Stabilize it.”

That was something, at least. Jones considered his next move, adapting to this distressing new intel.

“We have to let the Pentagon know.”

“They’ll be monitoring our frequencies,” one of his men cautioned.

“We have no choice,” Jones said. Washington had to know that there was a ticking clock in this scenario. “Let’s move away from this location, then call it in.”

Blake didn’t disagree. Taking leave of Fox and Miss Tate, he escorted Jones and his men back to the elevator. Jones wanted to put at least four or five blocks between them and the bank before he broke radio silence. He waited impatiently for the elevator to reach the ground floor. All of a sudden, every moment counted.

A chime sounded. The elevator door slid open and Jones led his team out into the vacant lobby. They were halfway across the floor when all hell broke loose.

Mercenaries sprang up from behind desks and counters, wielding machine guns, opening fire on the ambushed soldiers. Bullets tore apart the lobby’s ornate walls and furnishings. Caught in a crossfire,
the soldiers cried out and jerked like malfunctioning marionettes before dropping to the floor. Blood spilled across the polished tiles.

Dammit!
Jones thought.
How’d they find us already?

He swung his assault rifle toward their attackers, but the enemy already had the drop on them. Hot lead tore through his meat and bones. Pain exploded like miniature neutron bombs all over his body.

Crap!

Blake dived back into the elevator. Bullets blew through the door as it slid shut behind him, and he flattened himself against the wall. He waited a second to see if any of Jones’s men had survived the ambush long enough to join him, then he hit the button for the top floor.

Gunfire, and the cries of dying soldiers, rang out from below.

Sorry, captain
, Blake thought.
I wish your mission had ended differently. You and your men deserved better than this.
But he couldn’t worry about the murdered soldiers now. Fox and the others were still in danger. They needed to get out of there, pronto!

The elevator hit the top floor. Blake rushed out into the corridor.

“Fox!” he hollered. “Somebody sold us out!”

* * *

Fox and Miranda were already in the hall, trying to herd everyone toward the fire exits. They had all heard the gunfire downstairs. Terrified refugees screamed and shouted. Pandemonium spread through the corridors and offices.

“Take Miranda,” Fox urged Blake, putting her safety first. Blake grabbed the woman by the wrist and hurried toward the back stairs, even as the elevators chimed once more.

Mercenaries burst out, firing high. Overhead lights exploded. Sparks and broken glass rained down on the crowded hallway. More screams came from the cornered refugees. People scurried into the nearest offices or threw themselves flat.

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.”