Batman 6 - The Dark Knight Read online

  “Can anyone hear me?” She tried to yell, but her voice was only a hoarse whisper.

  But it was loud enough for Harvey Dent to hear. He had been awake for some minutes and could see, in the light from a single, bare and dirty bulb, that he was sitting tied to a rickety wooden chair in a filthy basement. Rachel’s voice was coming from a speakerphone on the floor.

  “Rachel? Rachel, is that you?”

  “Harvey? Where are you?”

  As soon as he had wakened, Dent had strained his head to look behind him. He knew that he was near two metal barrels, wired to a car battery and a crude timer that was counting down; its clock face showed five minutes. Five minutes to what? Nothing good.

  It was now 4:35.

  “It’s okay, Rachel. Everything’s going to be just fine.”

  The Joker was certainly damaged—bloody, smeared—but he seemed perfectly content, sitting in the interrogation room, guarded by Gerard Stephens.

  “I want my phone call,” he said.

  “That’s nice,” Stephens said.

  “How many of your friends have I killed?”

  “I’m a twenty-year man. I can tell the difference between punks who need a little lesson in manners and the freaks like you who would just enjoy it. So I’m not gonna hit you. And you killed six of my friends.”

  “You know why I use a knife, Detective? Guns are too quick. You don’t get to savor all the little emotions. See, in their last moments, people show you who they really are. So, in a way, I knew your friends better than you ever did. Would you like to know which of them were really cowards?”

  The night shift was busy in the holding area adjoining the lockup, uniforms and detectives alike processing the Joker’s crew: taking fingerprints, photographing, asking simple questions. A badly overweight man who had identified himself as Kilson was pleading for a doctor.

  “I don’t feel so good,” he moaned, clutching his belly.

  “You’re a cop killer,” a detective named Murphy said. “You’re lucky to be feeling anything below the neck.”

  “We better get a medic,” a sergeant said, turning to a uniformed officer standing next to him. “Remember what Gordon told us . . . everything by the book.”

  “I think some of the ambulance guys are still outside,” said the cop. “I’ll see if any of ’em feel like getting their hands dirty.”

  As Rachel’s eyes had adjusted to the dark, she began to discern silhouettes and, comparing her situation with the one Harvey Dent described to her, she realized that they were in identical predicaments: helpless and close to ticking bombs. She began to realize, for the first time, that she might not survive, or that Harvey might not, and she was filled with regret for all she had not said to him, for her reservations about loving him. Should she speak now?

  “Can you move your chair?” Dent asked her.

  “No.” Rachel could see the red numbers on the timer. “Harvey, we don’t have much time.”

  2:47

  2:46

  2:45

  Her confession to Harvey would have to wait. Because she had to believe that, somehow, they would both come through this ordeal intact. Right now, she had to concentrate on escape.

  1:56

  Dent could move his chair by tilting his weight until it was mostly on a rear leg, pivoting on that leg, and repeating the process on the other side. That’s what he was doing, inching closer to the barrels and sweating and talking to Rachel: “Look for something to free yourself.”

  “They said only one of us was going to make it,” Rachel said. “That they’d let our . . . our friends choose.”

  Dent’s chair wouldn’t move—stuck on a raised board, probably. Dent shifted all his weight to one side and . . . that was a mistake. He began to topple. It was too late to regain his balance, and he fell into one of the barrels, knocking it over, falling on top of it and slipping to the floor. The concrete was cold against his cheek, then it was cold and wet; the top of the barrel had dropped open, and diesel fuel was spilling out.

  1:23

  “Harvey,” Rachel called. “What’s happening?”

  “Nothing. I’m trying to—” Dent gagged: Some of the fuel had touched his lips, filling his mouth and nose with an ugly taste and an overpowering stink.

  Fuel continued to seep out onto the floor and onto Dent, soaking through his clothing, wetting his skin, making it itch and sting, the fumes rising into his nostrils and mouth and eyes. He had never, never felt so uncomfortable, so helpless and trapped, and if he had been in this situation alone, he might have simply surrendered to it. But he had to save himself and in so doing, find a way to save Rachel.

  59 seconds

  Rachel knew, now, that they wouldn’t escape, that one or both of them would be dead in less than a minute. But there was still time. She could still tell Harvey what she felt.

  34 seconds

  “Harvey, in case . . . I want you to know something . . .”

  “Don’t think like that, Rachel.”

  “I know, but I don’t want them to . . .”

  20

  19

  18

  “I don’t want to live without you, Harvey. Because I do have an answer, and my answer is yes . . .”

  Murphy escorted an ambulance paramedic to where Kilson sat handcuffed to a bench.

  “Where’s it hurt?” the medic asked.

  Kilson pointed to his belly.

  “Let’s get your shirt off,” the medic said.

  Gerry Stephens stepped from the interrogation room with the Joker holding a piece of broken glass to his throat. A half dozen detectives stopped what they were doing and stared. Two of them reached for holstered pistols.

  “This is my own damn fault,” Stephens said. “Just shoot him.”

  “What do you want?” Murphy asked the Joker.

  “I want,” the Joker said slowly, as though speaking to a toddler, “my phone call. Please.”

  Murphy looked around at the other detectives, shrugged, took a cell phone from his hip pocket, and tossed it to the Joker, who managed to catch it in his left hand while keeping the shard in his right pressed against Stephens’s throat. The Joker began to press keys with his thumb.

  The medic stared down at the rectangular shape under Kilson’s skin, which bore a line of crude stitches. It was about the size and shape of a playing card, and a bit thicker.

  “Is that a . . . phone?” the medic muttered. “Somebody stuck a phone in this guy.”

  The detectives looked at each other, their expressions saying: Well, this is a new one . . . Murphy took a step backward, but craned his head forward to maintain his view of Kilson.

  The Joker pressed the SEND button on Murphy’s phone, and Kilson’s belly . . . started ringing. The medic and several officers leaned in closer in disbelief. Three seconds later, an explosion tore through the room.

  Batman encountered little traffic once he got past central Gotham and into the area of warehouses and manufacturing lofts that formed a half-mile barrier between the city and the first of the suburbs. It wasn’t a region people ever went to except on business, and at this hour everyone had gone home. He braked the pod at the corner of Avenue X and Cicero Street and before the engine had died he was kicking in the door to a storage facility. He saw that he was in some kind of shipping depot: cardboard boxes were stacked at irregular intervals, and there were a couple of forklifts parked against a wall. There was a glimmer of light coming from a flight of steps that ran downward, obviously to a basement. Batman ran, down the stairs, then through another door.

  He had expected to see Rachel, to free her and get her out of the building. To tell her he loved her and would keep her safe forever. Instead, he saw Harvey Dent lying in a black puddle, bound to a chair. Next to him were two barrels, one on its side, and a timer. Shock and horror flooded over Batman.

  “No!” Dent rasped. “Not me! Why did you come for me?”

  Rachel, thought Batman. Good God, I’ve failed her . . .
r />   9

  8

  7

  Cursing and furious with himself, Batman dragged Dent and the chair toward the door, desperately trying to free the sobbing, struggling man.

  “RACHEL!” Dent screamed.

  The Joker stopped outside Lau’s cell and beckoned to him with a forefinger. “Time to take a little ride.”

  Strapped to her chair, hearing Harvey’s screams, Rachel realized she was going to die. No one was going to save her. Tears ran down her cheeks as she tried to accept that this was how her life was going to end. “Bruce,” she said. “Harvey . . . I love you.”

  4

  3

  2

  Gordon’s car had just stopped at 250 Second Avenue, an abandoned warehouse in the middle of the block, when an explosion shattered windows—

  Batman wrapped his cape around Dent and lifted him along with the chair, then hurled him through the door. A deafening noise and a sphere of flame filled the room and enveloped the two men.

  Gordon was running toward the storefront that was gouting fire from every window. A patrolman brought him down with a tackle, and several others helped restrain him.

  “There’s nothin’ you can do,” the officer gasped.

  Dent’s fuel-soaked clothing was burning. Batman smothered the flames with his cape and smashed the chair, and once Dent was free, he began to carry Dent through the conflagration toward the steps. Dent’s clothes caught fire again, but this time Batman was on the staircase, and it was collapsing under him. Batman got them both to the street outside and rolled Dent over and over until the fire was out.

  Gordon and the uniforms stood watching firemen contain the blaze. They weren’t trying to save the warehouse—clearly, that was impossible. But they could save the adjoining buildings.

  Gordon noticed hundreds of playing cards blowing across the asphalt. He picked one up and, in the orange glow of the fire, saw that it was a playing card, a joker, with Lau’s face atop the clown’s shoulders.

  A sergeant Gordon didn’t know approached, and said, “Dent’s alive.”

  Gordon looked at the fire. “How?”

  “The Joker must’ve lied. Dent was at the other place, on Avenue X.”

  Still gazing at the fire, Gordon said, “Then Rachel Dawes . . .”

  “Can’t be sure till we can get in there. Maybe mid-morning. But yeah, the bet would be that Miss Dawes is inside that. Oh, yeah, another thing. The Joker’s gone. Something blew up in MCU. Lau’s gone, too.”

  “Goddammit!!! The Joker planned to be caught. He wanted me to lock him up in the MCU. That son of a bitch!” Gordon tore at his hair and broke down in sobs.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Batman had arrived a few minutes after Gordon and his men started mopping up and putting out the fire. He approached the burning building and stood silent for several long minutes, trying to suppress the urge to scream and start tearing things apart. As he turned to leave, he noticed the glimmer of metal in the glare of the fire’s flames. He bent down and picked the object up, realizing that it was Harvey’s coin. He must have given it to Rachel at some point. He put it in a pouch on his utility belt.

  Rachel . . .

  Alfred Pennyworth was feeling horrible grief for the first time since Thomas and Martha Wayne had died. He’d gotten a hasty call from Master Bruce, and he knew what had happened. Now, Alfred sat at the kitchen table reading the letter Rachel had written to Bruce and had given to him for safekeeping.

  Dear Bruce,

  I need to explain, and I need to be honest and clear. I’m going to marry Harvey Dent. I love him and want to spend the rest of my life with him. When I told you that if Gotham no longer needed a Batman we could be together, I meant it. But I’m not sure the day will come when you no longer need Batman, and if it does, I will be there, but as your friend. I’m sorry to let you down. If you lose your faith in me, please keep our faith in people.

  Love, now and always,

  Rachel

  Alfred wiped tears from his eyes, refolded the letter, put it back in its envelope, and placed it on a breakfast tray he brought into the bedroom. Bruce, still wearing his Batman outfit, the cowl on the floor by his feet, was slumped in a chair staring out the window at the Gotham skyline.

  “I prepared a little breakfast,” Alfred said.

  “Okay. Alfred?”

  “Yes, Master Bruce?”

  “Did I bring this on us? On her? I thought I would inspire good, not madness.”

  “You have inspired good. But you spat in the face of Gotham’s criminals—didn’t you think there might be casualties? Things were always going to have to get worse before they got better.”

  “But Rachel . . . Alfred, I loved her. A part of me still thought we’d have a life together. That when this was all over we’d . . .” Bruce broke off, unable to finish the sentence. He swiped tears from his eyes as Alfred laid a hand on his shoulder.

  “Rachel believed in what you stand for. What we stand for. Gotham needs you.”

  “Gotham needs its hero. And I let the Joker blow him half to hell.”

  “Which is why, for now, they’ll have to make do with you.”

  Bruce finally turned his head and looked up at Alfred. “She was going to wait for me. Dent doesn’t know. He can never know.”

  Bruce looked at the tray and saw the envelope. “What’s that?”

  Putting the envelope in his pocket, Alfred said, “It can wait.” He turned to leave.

  “Alfred? The story you were telling me, the bandit in the forest, in Burma . . . Did you catch him?”

  Alfred nodded.

  “How?’

  Alfred waited almost a minute before answering, “We burned the forest down.”

  He turned and left, and Bruce was again alone in his thoughts.

  Alfred reentered the bedroom less than a minute later and switched on the television. To Bruce, who was still sitting staring out the window, he said, “You need to see this.”

  Bruce swiveled in his chair and looked at the familiar face of Mike Engel, the TV reporter, who was saying, “. . . he’s a credible source, an A and M lawyer for a prestigious consultancy. He says he’s waited as long as he can for Batman to do the right thing. Now he’s taking matters into his own hands. We’ll be live at five with the true identity of the Batman. Stay with us.”

  Harvey Dent knew his face was burned badly and that he couldn’t eat normally. He could speak, though, from one side of his mouth; the words were slurred, but audible and understandable. He watched James Gordon enter the room and sit at his bedside.

  “I’m sorry about Rachel,” Gordon said. Dent did not reply, and any change in his expression was hidden by the bandages. Gordon spoke again: “The doctor says you’re in agonizing pain but won’t accept medication. That you’re refusing skin grafts.”

  “Remember the name you all had for me when I was at Internal Affairs?” Dent asked. “What was it?”

  “Harvey, I can’t . . .”

  “Say it!”

  “Two-face,” Gordon whispered. “Harvey Two-face.”

  Dent turned his head toward Gordon and revealed what the flames had done to him. The left side of his face had become a horror: skin blackened and shriveled, molars visible through a gash in his cheek, the eye reduced to a ball and socket.

  Gordon did not look away.

  Dent smiled with the right side of his mouth. “Why should I hide who I am?”

  “I know you tried to warm me,” Gordon said. “I’m sorry. Wuertz was driving you home. Was he working for them? Do you know who picked up Rachel? Harvey, I need to know which of my men I can trust.”

  “Why would you listen to me now?”

  “I’m sorry, Harvey.”

  “No you’re not. Not yet.”

  Gordon sat silently for a while, then got up and left. It was then that Harvey noticed something on a side table. Something metallic and glinting in the lamplight . . .

  Maroni, on crutches, clumped down the co
rridor. “H’lo, Lieutenant—or it is Commissioner now?”

  “What happened to you, Sal?”

  “I fell off a fire escape. But never mind that. What I wanna talk about is this craziness—it’s too much.”

  “You should have thought of that before you let the clown out of the box.”

  “You want him, I can tell you where he’ll be this afternoon.”

  The sun was low in the sky when the black SUV left the freeway via its last exit in lower Gotham and went through narrow, cobblestoned streets until it reached the tip of the city, an area as yet untouched by urban renewal, a dense warren of abandoned buildings and stores and wharves too rotted to use. The SUV bumped onto one of these and braked next to an ancient freighter, listing and sheeted with rust. The Chechen got out of the SUV and, followed by dogs and bodyguards, went up a wobbly gangway and onto the ship. He climbed into a hatch and descended a ladder into a cavernous hold. There were a dozen battery-powered lanterns placed at intervals around the bulkheads, their beams aimed at a pile of cash in the center of the chamber. The Joker was perched atop the pile. Lau, bound, was lying at the bottom. Several bulky men were standing in the shadows.

  The Chechen spoke, his words echoing off the steel walls. “You bring friends.”

  “I gave each one of them a nice handful of your cash,” the Joker said. “I’m sure you don’t mind. Loyalty can be bought.”

  “Like I say, you not so crazy as you look.”

  The Joker slid down the pile of money. “I’m a man of my word.” The Joker put a flat hand over his eyes and gazed around. “But where’s the Italian?”

  The Chechen, in the process of lighting a cigar, shrugged. “More for us,” he said, blue smoke seeping from his mouth. “What you do with all your money, Joker?”