The Further Adventures of Batman (10 page)

And then, in another step, he had walked through the President.

And the President continued smiling.

The Joint Chiefs stared at Batman, slack-jawed. Nelson stood with the gun at his side, momentarily frozen.

“The trouble is,” Batman said, “I don’t see how you can do anything, Mr. President. Because you’re not the President at all.”

“What in God’s name is it?” Fenton asked, long-suppressed superstition bringing his voice to a reedy tenor. “A ghost?”

“Not exactly,” Batman said. “It’s a hologram.”

Fenton was trying to understand. “How did you know?”

“Because the same people who produce this,” Batman said, jerking a gloved thumb at the still smiling hologram of President Selden, “have also been throwing holograms at other people.”

“Who are these people?” Kowalski asked.

“I think,” Batman said, “that Deputy Director James Nelson here has the answer to that one.”

Nelson looked at him with pure hate.

The image of the President winked out abruptly.

Deputy Director Nelson had come into prominence about six months before, when James Tolliver, respected head of the CIA, had fallen ill to an as yet unidentified virus that even the best specialists had been unable to cure. The disease had taken a great toll on Tolliver’s strength and vitality. Bedridden, kept alive on support systems, Tolliver had been forced to turn over the day-to-day running of the agency to his assistant, Nelson.

Nelson was known as an extremely capable man with a grandiose personality. He had a reputation for ruthlessness, and more recently, and almost paranoid self-assurance. He had been known to take the law into his own hands when he thought he knew what to do better than his superiors. This, Tolliver would not tolerate.

There had been rumors that Tolliver had been planning to fire Nelson, or force him into early retirement. But now Tolliver was able to do nothing but lie in an oxygen tent and fight for his life.

Some in Washington circles considered Nelson more than a little dangerous, and more than a little crazy.

Like many another crazy and dangerous man, he had gathered a small circle of CIA operatives around him, whom he had seduced to his view. They were fanatical in their devotion to him. They would follow his every order.

These were the men who came into the meeting room now, moving slowly and alertly, hands near their concealed weapons.

“That contract is going to be signed,” Nelson said.

“You must be mad,” Admiral Fenton said. “You can’t expect us to sign it after all this.”

“I can, and you shall. But you needn’t bother doing it in person, gentlemen, I have expert forgers who can do a better job on your signatures than you can do yourselves.”

“What are you going to do with us?” Rohort asked.

“You will be given heroes’ burials,” Nelson said. “We have already established that Batman has been having hallucinations. His misadventures with Ilona and others in the New Era Hotel are on film. The public will believe it when we tell them that he massacred all of you before we could get here and kill him. We will release our news shortly before Super Bowl time, when no one will pay it any attention anyhow.”

“And what about me?” Batman asked.

Nelson gave a short, unhappy laugh. “I tried my best to keep you out of this, Batman. I decided to work on you. With the aid of my organization I discovered your true identity. You are Charlie Morrison!”

The tall hooded figure stirred slightly. A smile appeared on the masked man’s grim lips.

“Is that why you showed those holograms to Charlie Morrison in the New Era Hotel?” Batman asked.

“I was trying to convince you to stay out of this.”

“Your sense of psychology,” Batman said, “is as flawed as your sense of strategy. How could Batman resist a challenge like that? You set up your own defeat, Nelson.”

“But Nelson, why are you doing this?” General Kowalski asked. “Why do you want us to sign the contract? The ARDC weapons system is obviously flawed. And it is vulnerable to infiltration by enemy computers. As soon as our enemies get wind of this, they can attack our weapons system with impunity. When we try to fight back, our own weapons will be programmed to act against us.”

“That’s what Tolliver said when I showed him the plan,” Nelson said. “He couldn’t see that its weakness was only the outer layer of a deeper scheme. Yes, our enemies will certainly learn about the deficiencies in our plans and try to make a profit from our weakness. But we also have another program, this one really secret, which turns our enemy’s apparent gain into our advantage. It’s a built-in computer-killing program that is initiated when they try to crack our codes. When our enemies try to stab us in the back by reprogramming our weapons systems, they’ll find they’ve introduced the seeds of destruction into their own systems.”

“Interesting,” Batman said. “Ilona was a plant, I suppose?”

“Of course,” Nelson said. “We faked her death.”

The Joint Chiefs looked at each other in astonishment. Finally, Fenton said, “Nelson, this whole thing’s crazy! Your plan is crazy! What if our enemies also discover the scavenger program?”

“We have other secrets!” Nelson cried. His eyes were quite mad. “You don’t know how many secrets we have! Only my followers and I are aware of the power we can wield and the influence we can have upon events!”

Batman said, “What I do know is, you and your little clique stand to make a lot of money out of this contract. You are the secret shareholder behind the buyout of ARDC. Isn’t that so?”

Nelson shrugged. “It doesn’t matter that you know that now. There’s nothing you can do about it. This contract is going through.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Batman said.

James Nelson looked at the hooded figure and laughed. “Are you going to stop us? According to the standard biographical material, you are vulnerable to human weapons, unlike your hardshelled friend Superman.”

“I puncture as easily as other men,” Batman said. “But first you have to hit me.”

Nelson raised his gun. Batman opened his hand. A flock of tiny motes flew out of the capsule at the end of his little finger which he had managed to puncture while Nelson was ranting. The motes flew toward the light sources. The lights flashed crazily, dimmed, and went black.

“Chinese light-suckers!” Nelson exclaimed. “You
are
clever, Batman. But it will do you no good. Shoot, men!”

The CIA men swung into action. Shots crashed through the room, ricocheting off filing cabinets, screaming off the hardened plastic walls like a swarm of enraged hornets. But Batman was already moving, an inky shadow in the darkened room. The Joint Chiefs, too, had dived under tables and were answering the CIA fire with their own sidearms.

The outcome was never really in doubt, but perhaps it was just as well that James Gordon at the head of platoon of New Gotham’s finest burst through the door just then. The hard-bitten boys in blue made short work of the seer-suckered government operatives.

“Gordon!” Batman said. “What are you doing here?”

“After you called me, I figured you might need a little backup,” Gordon said. “So I brought a platoon of my Gotham City boys for a tour of Washington.”

“Don’t kill Nelson!” Batman said.

“The rat deserves it,” Gordon said, but held his fire.

“I know he does,” Batman said. “But he has to take us to wherever he’s hidden the President.”

Nelson, in handcuffs, led them to a small storage room in the basement. There, haggard and unshaven, they found President Marshall Seldon.

“Batman,” Seldon said. “I might have guessed it’d be you.”

“I thought I had taken care of you, Batman,” Nelson said. “I seem to have been mistaken.” The tan man bit down hard and grimaced, then slumped to the floor. The acrid odor of bitter almonds filled the room.

“A cyanide capsule,” Batman said. “Poor deluded fool. It’s all over now, Mr. President. But I think you’re going to need a new deputy director.”

Back at his house in Gotham City, Bruce Wayne was reading the newspaper in the drawing room when Alfred came in with a letter on a silver tray. “For you, sir. From Miss Vera.”

Bruce opened it and scanned it quickly. “She says she’s having a wonderful time,” he said, “but misses me and wishes I would join her.”

“A very good idea, sir,” Alfred said from the door.

Bruce Wayne needed less than a second to consider and make up his mind. “Alfred, pack my tropicals and book me the next flight to Rio.”

“Very good, sir!” the butler said, smiling despite his best efforts to maintain a grave face. “And the Batman Suit, sir?”

“Don’t pack it. This time I’m really going to take a vacation.”

Bats

Henry Slesar

I
have always resisted the temptation to keep a diary. In my privileged position, a journal of my experiences would undoubtedly be of incalculable value, both commercial and historic, but it would also reveal secrets entrusted to me by the person to whom I owe my loyalty and my devoted service, to say nothing of my weekly salary. My name is Alfred Pennyworth, and I am Batman’s butler.

It was only when that estimable person seemed lost to me (indeed, to the whole world) that I found myself in need of the cathartic that a diary often provides. I had a desperate yearning to share my pain and grief with someone, but my sacred vow of silence regarding Batman’s secret identity left me with only one confidante: myself. And on that unhappy evening when I returned from the Pine-Whatney Clinic where Batman was languishing, I inserted a sheet of paper into a rather cranky portable typewriter (a sad reminder of Master Robin’s school days) and made the first entry, beginning with an account of my visit to the hospital, an experience still vivid in my mind.

I have just returned from the Clinic, and Commissioner Gordon was kind enough to permit me a glimpse of Batman in his private room, in what he later described to me as his “antiseptic prison.” I was impressed with the security arrangements the Commissioner had made to avoid any public disclosure of the fact that the legendary figure was a patient at the institution located in a secluded suburb of Gotham City. I was even more impressed by how zealously he had guarded Batman’s concealed identity. Under the circumstances, he could easily have satisfied a long-standing curiosity concerning the face behind the Batmask, but the Commissioner did the honorable thing. The sedated man I saw in that hospital bed with those pitiful guard rails not only wore a hospital gown, he also wore his mask.