The Dark Knight Rises (34 page)

Not in my town
, Batman thought.
Not any more.

He slammed into his foe, smashing him backward through the doors and into the building’s elegant lobby. He landed on top as they crashed to the floor. Without letting up for a minute, he pounded Bane against the marble tiles, all the while remaining aware of his surroundings.

Batman spotted Miranda standing a few yards away, surrounded by a small cadre of mercenaries. She appeared unharmed, at least for the moment. But no one would be safe until Bane was put down—and the bomb was disabled.

Miranda’s captors surged forward, coming to Bane’s aid. There were too many of them, all heavily armed.

“Stay back,” Bane ordered. “He is mine—’’

Gathering himself, he threw his opponent off and sprang to his feet. Closing in, he hammered away at Batman’s head with his fists, as though determined to shatter the cowl once more. Given time, he might even have succeeded, but Batman went after Bane’s own mask first. The blades on his forearm ripped across the breathing tubes that connected it to the tanks. The medicinal odor of the anesthetic spilled into the air.

The effect was immediate. Without the gas to keep his pain at bay, Bane bellowed in agony. He reached for the mask, but Batman dropped him to the floor,
where the anguished terrorist thrashed violently, unable to defend himself against the excruciating torment. Batman clamped a hand around his throat, holding him down, while using his free hand to search Bane’s vest and pockets.

“Give me the trigger!” Batman growled. He knew it had to be on Bane’s person somewhere. “You’d never give it to an ordinary citizen—’’

Bane stared up at him through pain-soaked eyes. His wild convulsions calmed as he seemed to surrender to the pain. He gasped through his broken mask.

“I broke you,” he said. “How have you come back?”

Batman remembered the pit.

“You thought you were the only one who could learn the strength to escape?”

“I never escaped,” Bane rasped. “Rā’s al Ghūl rescued me. That is why I must fulfill his plan. That is why I must avenge his murder.”

Batman blinked in surprise. He didn’t understand.

“The child of Rā’s al Ghūl made the climb—” he began.

“But he is not the child of Rā’s al Ghūl,” a familiar voice whispered in his ear. Batman flinched, then froze in shock as Miranda leaned in closer. Her exotic accent colored her words. “I
am.”

A knife expertly penetrated a joint in his suit, slicing into his ribs. It hurt, but not as much as the mocking humor in her voice.

“And though I am not ‘ordinary,’ I
am
a citizen.…” Her free hand removed the trigger from beneath her tunic.

Let’s try this again
, Gordon thought.

Another unmarked black truck rolled down the street, several blocks from where he and his officers had waylaid the empty decoy. Gordon still wasn’t sure what had gone wrong there—that had definitely been the truck Miranda had tagged as carrying the bomb—

But there wasn’t time to figure it out now. He could only pray that they had the right one this time.

Escorted by a solitary tumbler, the truck proceeded without stopping—until a pickup full of plain-clothes cops pulled out onto Fifth and opened fire on both vehicles. Watching from an alley, Gordon nodded in approval. He had been expecting this; his men had commandeered the pickup from a couple of mercs on their way here.

The cops shouted defiantly as they let loose with their weapons. Bullets pinged off the tumbler’s armored shell.

That’s it,
Gordon thought.
Give ’em hell.

The cops were hopelessly outgunned, though. They jumped from the pickup and scrambled for cover as the tumbler aimed its cannons and blew apart the hijacked vehicle. Within minutes, all that remained was a flaming pile of wreckage, and the fleeing cops were wisely making themselves scarce. They hadn’t stopped
the convoy—only slowed it down for a minute or two.

But that was enough. Taking advantage of the distraction created by his men, Gordon dashed from the alley and jumped onto the moving truck. He wedged himself into the narrow gap between the cab and the trailer, until a metal hatch blocked his progress. With any luck, the decaying core was inside the lead-lined trailer.

And it was only minutes away from detonating.

Not if I can help it.
A sudden burst of acceleration almost threw him to the street, but he held onto the hatch for dear life and fumbled beneath his coat for the jamming device Batman had given him. It was hard to manipulate the compact metal box while hanging on to a speeding vehicle, but he struggled to turn it on.

A blinking light rewarded his efforts.

Please let this be the right truck,
he prayed.
We’re not going to get another chance.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

The knife—which had once belonged to her martyred father—jabbed between Batman’s ribs. Although he still had Bane by the throat, the Dark Knight could not move to defend himself. Just an instant’s pressure and the blade would slice into a vital organ. She had Batman exactly where she wanted him.

At last.

“My mother named me Talia, before she was killed,” she said, claiming her true identity now that the need for “Miranda Tate” had passed. Her voice echoed in the spacious lobby. “The way I would have been killed, if not for my protector. . . Bane.”

For a moment her gaze turned inward as her memories raced back through the years, to the fateful hour she first saw the light.

* * *

The child, Talia, perched upon the stony ledge, nearing the top of her impossible climb. Only one daring leap, and freedom would be hers.

But the ugly sounds of violence, rising up from below, tugged at her. She glanced back down into the pit, where her faithful protector fought valiantly against a mob of crazed prisoners. The men swarmed over him, fighting tooth and nail. An angry hand clawed at his face, tearing the muslin mask away.

Bane gazed up at Talia, his youthful features exposed to the distant light. Their eyes met across the gap. He mouthed a single word:

“Goodbye.”

Then the mob dragged him down. He disappeared beneath a tide of vicious kicks and blows.

Talia leapt for the sun.

“I climbed out of the pit,” she said, remembering the desolate landscape that had greeted her so many years ago. “I found my father and brought him back to exact terrible vengeance, but by that time the prisoners and the doctor had done their work to my friend, my protector…”

She reached out and tenderly touched Bane’s damaged mask, which bore testament to the suffering he had endured for her sake. He had paid the price for her escape—and was paying it still. Memories of blood and fury cascaded behind her eyes.

* * *

Led by Rā’s al Ghūl, the League of Shadows descended upon the prison. An army of assassins rappelled down the sides of the pit before unleashing havoc upon the prisoners.

The Demon’s Head himself was in the forefront of the slaughter, avenging the murder of his lost love and the captivity of his daughter.

The tempered bronze blades on his wrist-guards turned aside crude knives and spears. His sword tasted the blood of the prisoners. The butchery continued until Rā’s found a badly injured youth lying on a filthy cot. Dirty bandages veiled Bane’s face, but did nothing to relieve his endless pain…

“The League took us in,” she recalled. “Trained us…”

Bane balanced atop upright wooden poles as the League’s brutal instructors battered him with hard oak staffs, trying to knock him off his perch. Bare-chested, the scars on his back a visible reminder of his past, Bane dodged and deflected the blows, refusing to fall.

A
crude mask—an early prototype—hid his face.

With pride, Talia observed Bane’s indomitable spirit, yet Rā’s turned away.

* * *

“But my father could not accept Bane,” she said. “He saw only a monster who could never be tamed. Whose very existence was a reminder of the hell he’d left his wife to die in. He excommunicated him from the League of Shadows.” An old anger crept into her voice as she contemplated the man lying on the floor.

“His only crime was that he loved me. I could not truly forgive my father…” She shifted her gaze to Batman. Her voice turned cold as ice. “Until you murdered him.”

Then Batman spoke.

“He was trying to kill millions of innocent people—”

She cut him off.

“Innocent
is a strong word to throw around Gotham, Bruce.” She scoffed at the notion. “I honor my father by finishing his work. Vengeance against the man who killed him is reward for my patience.” She twisted the knife—in more ways than one—and was rewarded by a grunt of pain. Blood trickled down the side of the Dark Knight’s armor.

“You see, it’s the slow knife…the knife that takes its time, the knife that waits years without forgetting, then slips between the bones. That’s the knife—” With her other hand, she armed the trigger device. “—that cuts
deepest
.”

She saw no point in waiting any longer. Batman
knew the truth now. He knew who had truly beaten him—and why. It was time to let Gotham burn, just as her father had intended long ago.

She pressed the firing button.

Nothing happened.

The truck rumbled down Fifth Street, jolting Gordon at every pothole.

He clung to the front of the trailer while watching the jammer intently. A blinking light indicated that it was doing its work, and promised at least a few more minutes of life for the city he had sworn to protect. Not for the first time, he thanked God for Batman and the amazing tools at his disposal.

Maybe Gotham still had a chance after all.

Talia stared in fury at the useless device in her hand.

“Your knife may have been
too
slow,” Batman said, his voice taunting.

Static squawked from a guard’s walkie-talkie. Scowling, he listened to an urgent message, then stepped forward.

“The truck’s under attack,” he reported.

Her mind racing, she put the pieces together. She knew who had been tracking the trucks.

“Gordon.” She glared at Batman. “You gave him a way to block my signal.” Then she shrugged and
glanced at her watch. “No matter. He’s bought Gotham
eleven
minutes.” She called out to the guard. “Prepare a convoy. We must secure the bomb until it detonates.”

The core was already well-guarded, but why take chances? She wasn’t about to give Gordon and Fox an opportunity to pull off any last-minute feat of technical wizardry. The bomb was needed to fulfill her destiny.

Giving the blade one last twist, she sprang to her feet. Bane scrambled out from beneath. Gasping through his mask, he snatched a shotgun from the nearest mercenary and took aim at Batman.

But Talia stopped him.

“Not yet,” she said. “I want him to feel the heat.” Venom dripped from her voice as she faced the Dark Knight one last time. She wanted to savor this moment. “Feel the fire of twelve million souls you failed.”

Suddenly a groan escaped Bane’s damaged mask. What could be seen of his face was drawn with pain. No matter how stoic he strove to appear, she knew how much he was suffering. So she took a moment to carefully reconnect the tubes as best she could. He steadied himself as the soothing gas began to flow once again. That would relieve his torment to some degree, here at the end. It was the least she could do, after all he had endured for her.

“Goodbye, my friend,” she said softly.

Bane nodded back at her. They both knew that they would never see each other again—not in this life. Soon the fire would devour them all—just as they had
planned. Vengeance was all they had lived for.

She spun and, flanked by her guards, exited the lobby, stepping out into the cold. Three tumblers awaited her. She climbed into the lead one, taking a seat beside the driver. The vehicles pulled out in a convoy.

Fighting still filled the streets, but that was merely a sideshow now. The only combat that mattered was the battle for the bomb. The tumblers’ cannons cleared a path through the tumult, blasting away cops and convicts alike. Explosions rocked the street. Frantic men and women scrambled for cover.

Except for one man.

Bloodied but still standing, his dress blues distinctly the worse for wear, Foley held the line. Talia recognized Gordon’s second-in-command as he raised his sidearm and fired at the oncoming tumblers. It was a futile effort, but a courageous one. His devotion to duty was to be commended.

Very well,
she thought.
Let him die fighting.
The armored vehicle smashed into Foley without even slowing down.

Batman watched as Miranda—no, Talia—left City Hall. Suddenly a flash of pain blocked his vision.

Having recovered his composure, Bane knocked Batman to the floor with the butt of the shotgun, then cracked open the breach to make certain there was a round in both barrels. Only the two of them remained
in the lobby.