Batman 6 - The Dark Knight Read online

  In the lobby below, the phone Fox had left behind began to glow. The top-floor lights dimmed and, suddenly, all the doors hissed open.

  A guard looked around, then used his radio to call for help.

  Batman launched himself into the empty air between the buildings. His backpack burst open and re-formed itself into wide, stiff glider wings. His descent slowed, and he streaked around the shorter tower, then banked hard to line up with a window in the rear.

  He cannonballed into Lau’s office, a hail of shattered glass surrounding him, and with the flick of his wrists, his wings again re-formed themselves, this time into a soft cape he wrapped around himself. He hit the floor, rolled, then stood upright and removed Fox’s second phone from his belt. He took only a second to glance at the screen, on which was a diagram of the building he had just entered, then moved quietly into a corridor. He could hear shouts from below and the wail of approaching sirens.

  Lau did not know what was happening, but he did know that whatever it was couldn’t be good. He decided that caution was his best response and locked himself in his office. From a desk drawer, he took a fifty-caliber semiautomatic pistol and a flashlight. He switched on the light and swept it around the office. Nothing. Nobody here.

  Then the door exploded inward and fell onto the rug, and something struck the flashlight from his hand, extinguishing it.

  Lau fired in the direction of the door, then fired again.

  Below, a dozen policemen, wearing helmets and holding assault rifles at port arms, swarmed into the building. One of Lau’s guards pointed first to an elevator and then to the fire stairs. Half the cops ran to the elevator, the other half to the stairs.

  Lau was on his feet, shooting into the blackness that surrounded him, the muzzle flashes from his weapon lighting the office for less than a second each. He fired his last round and in the brief red blaze saw a black silhouette, a giant bat, swooping toward him.

  Batman had been mentally counting the seconds since he had burst into Lau’s sanctum. He hit the man once, feeling a flush of satisfaction as Lau immediately fell. He removed a pack from under his cape, a smaller version of the one that had converted into wings, then the cape itself, and strapped it onto Lau.

  Still counting seconds. Ten, nine, eight . . .

  Almost time . . .

  five, four, three, two . . .

  The four small, round sticky bombs Batman had launched onto the wall exploded simultaneously, rending steel, glass, and cement, opening a jagged gap to the dawn sky over Hong Kong, just as the six cops who had ridden the elevator up followed their flashlight beams and gun barrels into the room. The air was filled with thick dust from the explosions, making it impossible for the cops to see clearly. But they could hear a low rumble, coming closer . . .

  Batman jerked a cord attached to the pack he’d fixed to Lau, and a weather balloon exploded out and began inflating, unreeling high-test nylon. The cops flashed their weapons as the weather balloon now swayed gently in the breeze two hundred feet above them.

  Suddenly, a massive C-130 cargo plane, flying much too low, swooped over Lau’s complex, its engines a deafening roar. The large V on its nose snagged the line stretching from the balloon, and Lau and Batman were yanked through the hole in the ceiling. The C-130 began to climb, trailing the balloon and, lower, its two human passengers—Lau screaming as he and Batman were slowly being reeled into the cargo hold of the plane.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Several hours later, James Gordon was sitting at his desk, leafing through a sheaf of reports inscribed on yellow flimsies. Detective Ramirez rapped on the open door and told Gordon there was something he’d want to see.

  Gordon followed Ramirez downstairs through a throng of excited cops to the front steps of police headquarters. There, on the cement, with his hands, legs, arms, and ankles bound with thick tape, lay Lau, his eyes squeezed shut. Pinned to his chest was a sign:

  Please deliver to Lieutenant Gordon.

  The next two hours were busy. Lau had to be unbound, carefully, in case there was something lethal hidden on him, and examined by a physician, as well as fed, allowed to bathe, and taken to an interrogation room. Assistant District Attorney Rachel Dawes eventually entered the room, nodded to several detectives who leaned against a wall, and sat across a table from Lau.

  Without preamble, Rachel said, “Give us the money, and we’ll deal.”

  “The money is the only reason I’m alive,” Lau said.

  Rachel leaned forward. “You mean when they hear that you’ve helped us, they’re going to kill you?”

  When Lau didn’t reply, Rachel stood and moved toward the door. “Enjoy your stay, Mr. Lau.”

  “Wait!” Lau cried, and Rachel stopped, her hand on the doorknob. “I won’t give you the money, but I’ll give you my clients. All of them.”

  “You were a glorified accountant,” Rachel said. “What could you have on all of them that we could charge?”

  “I’m good with calculations. I handled all their investments. One big pot.”

  Rachel stared at the ceiling for almost a minute, and finally said, “It might work.”

  On the other side of the door, Harvey Dent and James Gordon were watching the Lau interrogation on a closed-circuit television.

  “You know what Miss Dawes has in mind?” Gordon asked the district attorney.

  “RICO,” Dent replied. “Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. If their money was pooled, we can charge all of them as one criminal conspiracy.”

  “Charge them with what?”

  The door opened and Rachel joined them.

  Dent smiled at her and continued: “In a RICO case, if we can charge any of the conspirators with a felony—”

  “We can charge all of them with it,” Rachel said.

  “Want to keep going?” Dent asked Rachel.

  “Love to.”

  “Then he’s all yours.”

  Rachel went back into the interrogation room and stood at the table, looking down at Lau and Evans. “Mr. Lau,” she said. “Do you have details of this communal fund? Ledgers, notebooks . . . ?”

  Lau raised his face until he was staring into Rachel’s eyes. “Immunity, protection, and a chartered plane back to Hong Kong.”

  “Once you’ve testified in open court. So with your clients locked up, what happens to the money?”

  “As I said . . . I’m good with calculation.”

  Outside the room, Gordon looked up from the television screen. “He can’t go to the county lockup. I’ll keep him here in the holding cells.”

  “What is this, Gordon, your fortress?” Dent asked.

  “You trust them over at county?”

  “I don’t trust them here.”

  “Lau stays.”

  “It’s your call, Lieutenant. Be right.”

  “I am, Counselor.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Sal Maroni and the Chechen were eating rare steak in a midtown restaurant and watching a newscast on the television above the bar. The district attorney was holding a news conference on the steps of City Hall.

  A reporter was speaking. “. . . Chinese government claims that its sovereign rights have been violated.”

  Dent’s face replaced the reporter’s on the screen: “I don’t know about Mr. Lau’s travel arrangements . . . but I’m sure glad he’s back.”

  “I put word out,” the Chechen said. “We hire the clown. He was right. We have to fix real problem. Batman.” The Chechen chuckled.

  The street door swung open, and James Gordon entered, a pair of handcuffs dangling from his right index finger. He sauntered over to where the Chechen and Maroni were eating and nodded to the television. “Our boy looks good on the tube.”

  “You sure you want to embarrass me in front of my friend?” Maroni asked.

  “Don’t worry. He’s coming, too. So are a lot of your other friends.”

  There were no buses left in the police garage that afternoon, and very few patr
ol cars. The men and women of Gotham’s Finest were busy, arresting people in every one of the city’s dozens of neighborhoods, loading them into vehicles, unloading them at stations and jails, processing them, photographing them, slamming barred doors behind them.

  At four o’clock, when the courts would normally be closing for the day, the judicial session in the civic center was just getting started. A dozen newly arrested prisoners were brought before the Honorable Janet Surillo for arraignment.

  The judge was reading a list of charges supplied by Harvey Dent: “. . . 849 counts racketeering, 246 counts fraud, 87 counts conspiracy murder . . .”

  Judge Surillo turned a page and paused. A playing card was paper-clipped to the indictment sheet, a Joker. The judge pushed it aside with little thought as to how it got into her files, and turned her attention to the group in front of his bench.

  “How do the defendants plead?”

  Then there was bedlam as an army of defense lawyers all began talking at once.

  Across the street, at City Hall, Harvey Dent entered the mayor’s office to find Police Commissioner Loeb, Lieutenant James Gordon, and the mayor himself waiting.

  “Dent!” the mayor snapped. “What the hell’s going on over here?”

  “I asked Lieutenant Gordon to make some arrests.”

  Loeb scanned a report he was holding. “Five hundred and . . .”

  “Forty-nine, sir,” Gordon said.

  “Five hundred and forty-nine criminals at once!” the mayor shouted. “How did you convince Surillo to hear this farce?”

  “She shares my enthusiasm for justice,” Dent said. “After all, she is a judge.”

  “Even if you blow enough smoke to get convictions out of Surillo,” the mayor said, a bit more calmly, “you’ll set a new record at appeals for the quickest kick in the ass.”

  “It won’t matter. The head guys make bail, sure . . . but the middle-level guys, they can’t, and they can’t afford to be off the streets long enough for trial and appeal. They’ll cut deals that include some jail time. Think of all you can do with eighteen months of clean streets.”

  The major shook his hand in the direction of Loeb and Gordon. “I want a word alone with the district attorney.”

  After the door had closed, the mayor said, “The public likes you, Dent. That’s the only reason this might fly. But that means it’s on you. They’re all coming after you now. Not just the mob . . . politicians, journalists, cops—anyone whose wallet is about to get lighter. Are you up to it? You’d better be.” The mayor stood, turned, looked out a window at the now-quiet evening. “They get anything on you, those crooks will be back out on the streets, followed swiftly by you and me.”

  A dark shape struck the glass directly in front of the mayor’s face, cracking it. Dent strode to the mayor’s side, looked outside, and gasped. A man in Batman garb was dangling from a rope around his neck. He had to be dead. There was a playing card, a Joker, pinned to his chest with a knife.

  Dent could read the writing on the card:

  WILL THE REAL BATMAN

  PLEASE STAND UP?

  It took most of the night to identify the murdered pseudo-Batman. The fingerprints weren’t in the system, and nobody seemed to have a dental chart for him. At midnight, someone got around to checking the missing persons file, and there it was, the identity they’d all been seeking: Brian Douglas, late of north Gotham.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Across town, Bruce Wayne was entering the living room of his penthouse where Alfred was arranging canapés on a sideboard. A television in the corner tuned to a newscast and turned very low.

  “How’s it going?” Bruce asked.

  “I think your fund-raiser will be a great success, sir.”

  “Alfred, why do you think I wanted to hold a party for Harvey Dent?”

  “I assumed it was your usual reason for socializing beyond myself and the scum of Gotham’s underbelly—to try to impress Miss Dawes. Oh, and perhaps to prepare Mr. Dent for taking on that mantle you mentioned.”

  “Very droll. But only half-right. Actually, it’s Dent. You see . . .”

  Bruce’s voice trailed off as something on the television caught his attention; a Batman hanging from a rope with a question splashed across the bottom of the screen:

  BATMAN DEAD?

  Bruce picked up a remote and raised the volume. The image changed, from the macabre corpse to a well-coiffed anchorman who was saying: “Police released video footage found concealed on the body. Sensitive viewers be aware—it is disturbing.”

  The anchorman was gone and in his place, a badly lit picture of a blindfolded man wearing a makeshift Batman costume. The man’s face beneath the mask and blindfold was bruised and bloody. He spoke in a rasp: “Name . . . Brian Douglas.”

  An off-screen voice: “Are you the real Batman?”

  “No.”

  “Why do you dress up like him?”

  “He’s a symbol . . . that we don’t have to be afraid . . . of scum like you . . .”

  “But you do, Brian. You really do. You think the Batman’s helped Gotham?”

  Brian nodded.

  “Look at me, Brian. Look at me!”

  Brian looked up, and the camera panned from him to the Joker, in chalk white makeup, a red smear of lipstick across his scars.

  The Joker cackled, and said, “This is how crazy Batman’s made Gotham. You want order? Batman has to go. Batman has to take off his mask and turn himself in. Every day he doesn’t . . . people will die. Starting tonight. I’m a man of my word.”

  The screen was blank for a moment, then the anchorman resumed his report. Bruce and Alfred looked at each other, but neither said a word.

  Finally, Bruce asked, “Your computer setup recorded what we just saw?”

  “The device would have been activated by the word ‘Batman,’ ” Alfred replied.

  “Good. Let’s pull the Joker’s voice from the tape. It might come in handy later.”

  At ten minutes after nine that night, Harvey Dent and Rachel Dawes got out of an elevator. Dent stopped, scanning the area in front of him, a lavish room almost as big as a basketball court filled with dozens of people, each wearing thousands of dollars worth of clothing and jewelry. Tuxedoed waiters circulated through the crowd offering food and drink from silver trays.

  Rachel looked up at Dent. “Now I’ve seen it all—Harvey Dent, scourge of the underworld, scared stiff by the trust fund brigade.”

  Rachel waved at someone—Dent couldn’t tell who—and scurried off.

  Alfred appeared at Dent’s elbow, holding a tray of drinks, and asked, “A little liquid courage, Mr. Dent?”

  “No thanks. You’re Alfred, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Rachel talks about you all the time. You’ve known her her whole life?”

  “Not yet, sir.”

  “Any psychotic ex-boyfriends I should be aware of?”

  “Oh, you have no idea.”

  Alfred left Dent still standing in front of the elevators and went off to mingle with the partygoers. There was a chup chup chup sound that grew steadily louder, and the crowd moved to the french doors that opened onto a wide terrace. A twin-rotored helicopter descended from a cloudy sky and, with a slight shudder, came to rest on a heli-pad above the terrace. A side door slid back and Bruce Wayne, accompanied by a bevy of tall, sleek women wearing colorful cocktail dresses, crossed the terrace and entered the penthouse. He smiled and waved and when he saw Dent, still standing by the elevators, strode across the room and shook the district attorney’s hand.

  “Sorry I’m late,” Bruce said. “Glad you started without me. Where’s Rachel?”

  Bruce saw Rachel talking to a woman with silver hair piled high atop her head, and raised his voice to address the room: “Rachel Dawes, my oldest friend. When she told me she was dating Harvey Dent, I had one thing to say . . . the guy from those god-awful campaign commercials?”

  There was a ripple of laughter. Dent shifted
his weight and stared at the floor.

  “ ‘I believe in Harvey Dent,’ ” Bruce continued. The room was now quiet except for his voice. “Nice Slogan, Harvey. Certainly caught Rachel’s attention. But then I started paying attention to Harvey and all he’s been doing as our new DA, and you know what? I believe in Harvey Dent. On his watch, Gotham can feel a little safer. A little more optimistic. So get our your checkbooks and let’s make sure he stays where all of Gotham wants him . . . All except the criminals, of course.” Bruce took a glass from a passing waiter and raised it. “To the face of Gotham’s bright future—Harvey Dent.” Dent raised his eyes and smiled at the crowd, accepting the toast.

  While Bruce Wayne and Harvey Dent were basking in the approval of Gotham City’s elite, James Gordon and Anna Ramirez were squinting down at a sheet of paper that lay flat on Gordon’s desk.