The Dark Knight Rises (36 page)

The din of battle penetrated the lead-lined walls, as though World War Three was being fought on the streets of Gotham.

That sounds about right,
he thought.
Here’s hoping the angels are winning.

The Bat would not die.

Talia cursed beneath her breath as the agile black aircraft strafed the street in front of her. Strapped into the truck’s passenger seat, she stared at the battle raging all around her. She had to assume that it was Bruce piloting the Bat, which meant that he had somehow escaped from Bane.

And the woman riding the Bat-Pod appeared to be Selina Kyle, alias “Catwoman.” Talia had no idea why the notorious thief had allied herself with Batman, but she regretted not eliminating Kyle earlier.

No matter,
she reminded herself. Nothing could prevent Gotham from burning.

The Bat came in for another run. It blasted the road in front of them, forcing the truck to veer right at an intersection. Smoke and flames burst from the flying
debris. Against all odds, a random chunk of concrete smashed through the driver’s side window, striking the man in the head. He jerked, then slumped forward onto the wheel, blood leaking from a fractured skull.

The truck careened out of control.

Talia shoved the man’s body aside and took hold of the wheel. She steered the truck back into the center of the lane. Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed the Bat banking off into the sky, no doubt preparing for another assault.

Just as well,
she thought. She preferred to be in the driver’s seat.
At least for a few more minutes.

Blake raced back toward bus. Father Reilly had the boys in a huddle outside of it, praying. Soot blackened their faces. He caught snatches of the Lord’s Prayer.

“Father!” he called out. “Get the boys on the bus!”

The old priest gave him a puzzled look.

“But there’s nowhere to go, son!” Nevertheless, he moved to comply.

A navigation unit was built into the dashboard of the truck. Talia kept one eye on the miniature screen as she sped through the glass-and-steel canyons of downtown. Deserted skyscrapers and office buildings seemed to rush past her on both sides. A concrete divider separated the eastbound expressway from the westbound lanes, which
lay one level below. A radio kept her in communication with the last surviving escort.

A glance at the rear-view mirror showed the Bat-Pod trailing her. Irritation flashed across her face. Catwoman wasn’t supposed to be a part of this.

The voice of the driver came over the radio.

“They’re trying to force us onto Grand
—”

“Pushing us to the entrance of the reactor,” she murmured. Bruce’s plan was obvious. “They’re going to try to reconnect the core.”

“Can they?”
the driver asked.

Talia smiled.

Alarms blared throughout the reactor plant. Indicator lights flashed red.

Lucius raced toward an emergency ladder, praying that there was still time to escape. He reached the foot of the ladder, only to hear the beginning of a thunderous rumble. The sound grew louder and louder behind him.

He turned, fearing the worst.

Here it comes
, he realized. The reactor’s last-ditch shutdown procedure, functioning precisely as designed.

Icy water, flooding in from the river above, smashed through the plant, demolishing everything in its path. It poured in from all directions, tearing apart the main reactor unit and destroying any hope of stabilizing the missing core. Lucius winced at the sight, even as a churning wall of white water rushed toward him at
heart-stopping speed. Looping his arm around one of the bottom rungs of the ladder, he braced himself for the impact.

I don’t understand,
he thought, still trying to make sense of it.
Nobody else had the shutdown code except Bruce
…
and Miranda.

The flood slammed into him like a battering ram.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Your ass is mine,
Catwoman thought.

Hitting the gas, she closed in on the final tumbler. With time running out, there was no point in conserving her ammo, so she let loose with everything she had.

Cannons blasted the tumbler again and again. It flipped diagonally into the path of the truck, causing the vehicle to lurch onto its side. Both hit the divider and crashed down onto the expressway below. They careened across the pavement before skidding to a stop.

Catwoman accelerated toward the crash site.

Gordon threw open the trailer doors to expose the luminous core. He jumped out of the truck in time to see a masked woman in a tight black suit pull up on what appeared to be Batman’s one-of-a-kind
motorcycle. Her description matched Selina Kyle.

Catwoman
. Blake had nabbed her for abducting the congressman, right before Bane took over Gotham. He wondered whose side she was on.

“Give me a hand!” he shouted. As he did, the Bat touched down on the expressway several yards away, its backdraft stirring up a cloud of dust and litter. The canopy opened and Batman emerged.

He hurried toward them, his dark cloak flapping in the wind. It occurred to Gordon that he had never before seen Batman in the daylight.

First time for everything, I guess,
he mused. Then he turned.

The core was throwing off heat like a blast furnace. Gordon started toward it, hoping to haul it out of the trailer, but even the slightest touch showed that it was too hot to handle. He prayed that that it wasn’t already too late.

“Let’s get a cable on it and drag it out!” he shouted. “Come on, we’re almost there—’’

Bitter laughter interrupted him.

Startled, he stared as Miranda Tate dragged herself out of the crashed truck. Badly injured, she looked past saving, but her dark eyes gleamed with malice.

“Fox showed me how to operate the reactor core, including the emergency flood—’’

* * *

Lucius’s left arm felt like it was broken. He cradled it against his chest as he painfully dragged himself up the ladder, trying to keep his head above the rising tide. Choppy waves pounded against him. The frothing water felt cold as ice, and he shivered uncontrollably, every unwanted movement sending another jolt of pain through his fractured limb.

But he kept on climbing, one rung after another. Part of him wondered why he bothered; with the reactor destroyed, the core would inevitably explode. Even if he didn’t drown, he was doomed to perish in a nuclear blast. If he was smart, he would just let the freezing water swallow him up.

Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice,
he thought ironically.

Why keep on fighting?

Because I’m not ready to die yet
, he realized.
And I’ve lived too long to give up now.

So he climbed another rung.

Batman joined Gordon alongside the overturned truck. Talia lay upon the pavement, only half out of the cab. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth— the same mouth he had kissed in front of the fireplace. Not that long ago. He found it hard to reconcile those tender memories with the vengeful woman who was dying before his eyes.

“There’s no way to stop this bomb,” she said. “Prepare yourself.” Her eyes met his. “My father’s work is done.” A smile lifted her lips as her eyes closed. They fluttered briefly, and fell still.

The daughter of Rā’s al Ghūl had gone to join her infamous father. A pang of regret stabbed Batman’s heart, but only for an instant.

Turning away from her, he located the hoist on the Bat, grabbed the cable, and moved toward the core. He could feel the scorching heat even through his suit, but his gloves protected his hands long enough to attach the line to the core. He tugged on it to make certain it was secure.

“What are you doing?” Gordon asked. He had heard Talia’s dying words. He knew the core couldn’t be stabilized.

“Two minutes,” Batman said. “I can fly it out over the bay.”

Catwoman looked over his shoulder. She nodded.

“Rig it to fly over the water, then bail…” she began.

He shook his head.

“No autopilot.”

Understanding dawned as he let go of the cable, then turned to face her.

“You could have gone anywhere,” she said. “Been anything. But you came back here.”

“So did you,” he reminded her.

“I guess we’re both suckers.” She stepped closer and wrapped her arm around his neck. She kissed him, not defiantly like before, not as a challenge, but tenderly
and with feeling. He kissed her back, wishing that this moment could be longer, that they had more time.

But time was the one thing they didn’t have. He hurried toward the Bat. Gordon kept pace beside him.

“So this is the part where you vanish,” Gordon said, “only this time you don’t come back.” It wasn’t a question.

Batman opened the canopy.

“Come on! On the bus!”

Blake hustled the boys through the door. He grabbed one of the smaller kids and shoved him through, then reached for another.

“What are you doing?” Father Reilly asked.

Blake kept it up.

“Protection from the blast.”

“It’s an
atom bomb
—!”

Blake glared at the priest.

“You think they need to hear that, in their last seconds? You think I’m going to let them die without hope?”
Not a chance,
he thought to himself.

Gordon placed a hand on Batman’s arm.

“I never cared who you were—’’

“And you were right,” Batman said.

“But shouldn’t the people know the hero who saved them?” the cop asked.

“A hero can be anyone,” Batman replied. “That was always the point.” He got into the cockpit, and gripped the controls. “Anyone. A man doing something as simple and reassuring as putting a coat around a little boy’s shoulder to let him know the world hadn’t ended.…”

The canopy closed.

Gordon stepped back as the Bat fired up. A distant memory surfaced from the past.

The boy sat alone at the police station, pale-faced and trembling. A botched hold-up in a filthy alley had just taken his parents from him.

Jim Gordon, an ordinary uniformed cop, knelt to comfort him. He wrapped a rumpled overcoat around the small figure, wishing there was more he could do. The boy looked up at him. Gordon tried his best to be reassuring, even though he knew the boy’s life would never be the same
…

Gordon stared in wonder at the cockpit, at the Dark Knight fighting one last time to save Gotham.

“Bruce Wayne?”

The downdraft dusted him and drove him back as the Bat rose. The cable—attached to the core— snapped taut, and Gordon dived out of the way as the white-hot mechanism was yanked from the back of
the trailer and into the sky. It trailed behind the Bat like a captured sun.

Tilting his head back, Gordon watched anxiously as the Bat ascended with its volatile cargo. Swirling fumes issued from the core. The exotic aircraft struggled with the weight.

Then a towering skyscraper blocked its path. The Bat’s engines roared, searching for the power to clear the building. Gordon imagined Batman in the cockpit, fighting the controls, trying to overcome the drag.

It’s too heavy,
Gordon realized.
He’s not going to make it.

The boys were all loaded into the bus. Frightened faces peered out the grimy windows.

“Heads down!” Blake shouted, leaning in from outside. “Heads down, now!” Father Reilly tried to restrain him.

“Blake, they need to make their peace.”

“They’re children,” Blake snapped. “They have no peace to make—’’

A titanic explosion cut off his outburst. It sounded as if it came from downtown. Startled, Blake glanced back at the city. He caught a glimpse of flames and smoke. Turning back toward the bus, he hollered at the kids.

“Get
down
! That’s it!”

“No.” The smallest boy, whose name Blake couldn’t recall, stared out an open window past Blake
and Father Reilly.

“That’s Batman,” he said.

Blake spun around to see the Bat thundering out of the heart of Gotham, coming in their direction, dragging a blazing star behind it. Smoke rose from a busted skyscraper that looked as if a missile had hit it. The cop squinted at the radiant globe hanging from the aircraft. He knew what it had to be.

But where was Batman taking it?

The Bat flew toward the river, growing nearer by the second. Father Reilly crossed himself as the aircraft curved dangerously close to the demolished bridge before heading for the mouth of the river. . . and the bay.

And the ocean beyond. Moving at uncanny speed.

The Bat and its fiery cargo receded into the distance. Shielding his eyes against the glare, Blake watched as the core appeared to shrink to a tiny point of light— before bursting like an exploding star.

A hellish mushroom cloud blossomed on the horizon. Nuclear thunder could be heard from miles away. For just a second, winter turned into summer. Blake and Father Reilly hurled themselves to the ground moments before the shock wave rushed over Gotham, carrying a ferocious blast of wind, heat, dust, and ash that blew through the entire city, from Blackgate to City Hall. Blake guessed that even the stately walls of Wayne Manor were shaking.