Batman 6 - The Dark Knight Read online

  Dent flipped the coin, caught it, looked at the damaged side, then pulled the trigger.

  Jim Gordon had a bad night. He crawled into bed a bit after one, lay still, rolled over, got up and had a glass of milk, retired again and watched the windowpane lighten. It was 5:00 A.M. Good time to go to work as any. He scribbled a note to Barbara, propped it against the toaster, and drove through semideserted streets to the grotesque heap that had been a hospital.

  There were already dozens of men and women busy at the disaster site, most of them wearing hard hats. He saw one of the cops, Grogan, talking to a paramedic. He asked Grogan for a situation report, and Grogan said there was no situation report.

  “You must know how many were inside,” Gordon protested. “You’ve got patient lists, roll calls . . .”

  Grogan interrupted him. “Sir. Sir. Take a look at what we’re dealing with. Cops, National Guard, sanitation men, firemen . . . As near as we can figure, we’ve got fifty missing. But that building was clear. I checked it myself, and so did six other cops.” He waved toward a departing bus. “These vehicles are heading off to other hospitals. My guess is, we missed one.”

  “Yeah? What’s your guess about where Harvey Dent is?”

  Grogan said nothing.

  “Keep looking,” Gordon said. “And keep it to yourself.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Lucius Fox expected to find Bruce Wayne in the research and development facility, in a subsubbasement of the Wayne Enterprises building. Instead, he found an array of thousands of tiny monitors. As he approached, seemingly random patterns appeared on them, patterns that swirled and dissolved and gradually re-formed themselves into a map.

  Batman spoke from the shadows. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “Beautiful,” Fox said. “Unethical. Dangerous. You’ve turned every phone in the city into a microphone.”

  “And a high-frequency generator-receiver.”

  “Like the phone I gave you in Hong Kong. You took my sonar concept and applied it to every phone in he city. With half the city feeding you sonar, you can image all of Gotham. This is wrong!”

  “I’ve got to find this man, Lucius.”

  “But at what cost?”

  “The database is null-key encrypted. It can only be accessed by one person.”

  “No one should have that kind of power.”

  “That’s why I gave it to you.”

  “Spying on 30 million people wasn’t in my job description.”

  “Let me show you something I recorded from a newscast.” Batman turned on a full-size monitor.

  The Joker appeared on the screen. “What does it take to make you people want to join in? You failed to kill the lawyer. I’ve got to get you off the bench and into the game. So, here it is . . . Come nightfall, the city is mine, and anyone left here plays by my rules. If you don’t want to be in the game, get out now. But the bridge-and-tunnel crowd are in for a surprise.”

  Batman switched off the monitor, and said to Fox, “Trust me.” He plugged a USB dongle into the console. “This is the audio sample. If he talks within range of any phone in the city, you’ll be able to triangulate his position. When you’ve finished, type in your name to turn it off.”

  “This is a terrible weight you’ve put on me. I didn’t ask for it, I don’t want it. I’ll help you this one time . . . but as long as this machine is at Wayne Enterprises, I won’t be.”

  Then began the great exodus. At first hundreds of thousands, and at the end, millions of men, women, and children streamed past the city limits—on foot, by car and motorcycle and bicycle, and a few by boat. Many did not reach their destinations, whatever they were; there were overheated engines and blown tires and, mostly, empty fuel tanks because few anticipated being stranded in traffic jams for hours. There were heart attacks and panic attacks and asthma attacks. There were fistfights and a few gunfights among motorists driven past fury by frustration. Some acts of kindness occurred, but those grew rarer as the day wore on.

  State police did what they could. It wasn’t much.

  The sky over everyone’s head buzzed with small aircraft, mostly television helicopters. Like their studio-bound colleagues, the airborne reporters didn’t have much to report on but, like their studio-bound colleagues, this did not prevent them from talking into microphones. The information they conveyed could be easily summarized: It sure is a mess.

  Of course, not everyone fled the city. Most Gothamites stayed put and braced themselves for some inconvenience, some belt-tightening, maybe a little pain. What the hell, it’s Gotham . . . what can you expect? Lousy town . . .

  Lucius Fox considered his options. He could just pull a Pontius Pilate, wash his hands of the whole thing, good-bye Mr. Wayne, and good luck. But he wouldn’t. He had never once, in his sixty years, broken a promise, and he’d promised Wayne he’d stay on until the present crisis was past. Okay, maybe promise-keeping was really nothing more than a habit, but it had helped give him the parts of himself that he liked. He would, though what Wayne had done with the technology Lucius had given him was, in Lucius’s opinion, pure evil. He had no doubt that Bruce Wayne was a good man, but he was starting to doubt Bruce’s nocturnal alter ego, and the lengths he seemed willing to go to. The lines that had been crossed . . . Maybe this was one of those three-faces-of-Eve deals, different personalities inhabiting the same body. And maybe Lucius wasn’t serving the good personality anymore.

  How the hell to know? Batman was trying to put the skids under a rotten bastard, no doubt about that, maybe save some lives, but he was abusing everything Lucius held sacred to do it.

  He made his decision. He’d keep his promise, but he wouldn’t just walk away. He would destroy every trace of the technology, beginning with the hardware already operating. Then he’d get rid of the computer files and finish up by burning every scrap of paper in the lab. If Bruce Wayne betrayed him, tried to use the technology again, or, worse, give it to someone else, someone governmental maybe, he’d have a hard time, he’s have to start—well, maybe not from scratch, because once you knew that something had already been done you had a big head start on doing it yourself. But Lucius’s sabotage would slow Bruce down, a lot.

  Lucius hated this, hated every damn bit of it. Because next to keeping promises, being grateful when gratitude was due was his primary virtue, and he had plenty to thank Bruce Wayne for.

  You take the hand you’re dealt, you play it, you don’t whine.

  Gordon was doing his best. This wasn’t the kind of thing he had any experience with, nor any training, but that didn’t stop him from trying. At the moment, he was in City Hall, in the mayor’s office, reporting to his honor.

  “My officers are going over every inch of the tunnels and bridges,” Gordon was saying, “but with the Joker’s threat . . .”

  “Land routes east?” the mayor asked.

  “Backed up for hours. Which leaves the ferries with thirty thousand waiting to board. Plus, corrections are at capacity, so I want to use the ferry to take some prisoners off the island.”

  “The men you and Dent put away? Those aren’t people I’m worried about.”

  “You should be. They’re the people you least want to be stuck with in an emergency. Whatever the Joker’s planning, it’s a good bet that Harvey’s prisoners might be involved. I want ’em out of here.”

  Gordon prevailed. An hour later, officers in riot gear escorted citizens off one of the ferries and felons on. Nobody was happy.

  Sal Maroni climbed into the rear of the limo and settled his bulk into the leather seat. He was in a hurry. Wanted to meet the old lady before dark.

  “Hey driver,” he said, louder than was necessary. “Don’t stop for lights, cops, nothing.”

  “Going to join your wife?” a familiar voice asked. The man beside the driver leaned over the seat, aiming a pistol, letting the light from outside the car strike his mutilated face.

  “Do you love her?” Dent continued, ignoring Maroni’s gasp.
/>   “Yes.”

  “Can you imagine what it would be like to listen to her die?”

  “Take it up with the Joker. He killed your woman. Made you like this.”

  “The Joker’s just a mad dog. I want whoever let him off his leash. I took care of Wuertz, but who was your other man inside Gordon’s unit? Who picked up Rachel? It must’ve been someone she trusted.”

  “If I tell you, will you let me go?”

  “It can’t hurt your chances.”

  “It was Ramirez.”

  Dent took his lucky coin from his pocket and cocked his pistol.

  “But you said—” Maroni protested.

  “I said it couldn’t hurt your chances.”

  Dent flipped the coin, caught it: good side. “Lucky guy”

  Dent flipped the coin again: bad side. “But he’s not.”

  “Who?” Maroni asked, confused.

  The limo made its way out of the train yard.

  Dent fastened his seat belt and shot the driver.

  The limo sped forward and crashed into an abandoned shack, then flipped over, crashed beyond repair.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The first ferry was chugging away from its dock and into the bay as the moon became visible through clouds, a fuzzy white disc. As soon as the traffic cops signaled the deckhands to lift the boarding barrier on the second ferry, hundreds of people surged aboard, some burdened with luggage, some wearing fur coats, some dressed as though for a beach outing, despite the chilly air. Within minutes, it, too, pulled out into the choppy water, heading for the western shore, the mainland, safety.

  It was about a half mile from the city when, Kirk Packer, the first mate of the vessel carrying the prisoners, went on deck and did something he always liked to do when he was working at night, gaze at the lights of Gotham. From out here, in the semidarkness, Gotham was beautiful. He noticed that the sister vessel, the second ferry, the one full of citizens, was a motionless silhouette, dead in the water.

  He went onto the bridge and said to the captain, “They’ve lost their engines . . . the other guys. Get on the radio and tell ’em we’ll come back for ’em once we dump these scumbags.”

  Suddenly, there was no green glow on the captain’s face. The lights on the control panel had flickered out.

  “Get down to the engine room,” the captain said, but Packer was already descending a ladder. He ran through the passenger lounge, one deck below, skirting around prisoners and corrections officers. He scurried down another ladder and another and wrenched open the hatch leading to the engine room.

  He stopped. The emergency lamps were red, shedding a red glow over hundreds of barrels, the kind used to transport diesel fuel, and sitting atop the closest one, was a smallish box wrapped in silver paper and tied with a silver bow.

  Packer grabbed the box and ran up three decks. The captain was still at his post, his large hands gripping the wheel. Packer gave him the gift box and reported that he saw no sign of the engine crew, just a lot of oil barrels.

  The captain contacted his counterpart on the passenger ferry and outlined the situation.

  The other captain’s voice, issuing from the radio, was startlingly loud and clear: “Same thing over here. Enough diesel fuel to blow us sky-high. And a present.”

  “Let’s unwrap ’em.”

  Through the radio speaker, Packer and the captain heard the crackle of paper even as the captain fumbled off the silvery wrapping on the small box.

  “I got a detonator,” the passenger captain said. “Looks homemade.”

  “Yeah, me, too.”

  “This can’t be good.”

  Bruce had been doing a random search of the city’s transmissions when he overheard the exchange between the ferry captains. He couldn’t decide if this was a lucky break or if some part of his subconscious expected trouble at the ferries, but it made no difference. He alerted Lucius Fox immediately, then changed into his Batman outfit.

  In the main lounge of the passenger ferry, a cell phone taped to the overhead, out of anyone’s reach, rang and immediately answered itself.

  “Can you hear me?” the Joker asked through the ferry’s speaker. “Tonight, you’re all going to be part of a social experiment.”

  The prisoners on the first ferry were listening to the same voice, as was Lucius Fox in the subsubbasement below the Wayne Enterprises building. Fox immediately busied himself at the console, trying to trace the call.

  “Through the magic of diesel fuel and ammonium nitrate,” the Joker continued, “I’m ready right now to blow you all sky-high. Anyone attempts to get off their boat, you all die. But we’re going to make things a little more interesting than that. Tonight, we’re going to learn a little bit about ourselves. There’s no need for all of you to die. That would be a waste. So I’ve left you a little present. At midnight I blow you all up—both boats, boom, bye-bye. If, however, one of you presses the button, I’ll let that boat live. You choose. So who’s it going to be—Harvey Dent’s most-wanted-scumbag collection . . . or the sweet, innocent civilians? Oh, and you might want to decide quickly, because the people on the other boat might not be so noble.”

  Barbara Gordon picked up the phone on the second ring. “Hello?”

  “Barbara, it’s Anna Ramirez. Listen carefully, there’s no time. Jim needs you to pack up and get the kids in the car right away.”

  “But the patrol car’s outside . . .”

  “Barbara, those cops can’t be trusted. Jim needs you away from them as soon as possible. I’ll call them off for ten minutes . . . You’ll have to move fast.”

  Ramirez was sitting at her desk in the Major Crimes Unit, hanging up her phone and wincing because Harvey Dent was pressing a gun barrel into her temple.

  “She believes you?” Dent asked.

  Ramirez nodded.

  “She trusts you,” Dent said. “Just like Rachel trusted you.”

  “I didn’t know—”

  Dent interrupted Ramirez: “—‘what they were gonna do?’ You’re the second cop who said that to me. What, exactly, did you think they were going to do?”

  “I’m sorry. They got me early on. My mother’s medical bills—”

  Dent’s voice was harsh: “Don’t.” He flipped his coin.

  Ramirez spoke rapidly: “I took a little from them, once they got you they keep you I’m sorry.”

  Dent caught the coin: good side.

  “Live to fight another day, Officer,” Dent said, and struck her with the butt of his gun.

  Batman sped out into the night astride the two-wheeled pod. There was no traffic problem; the citizens had either fled or were barricaded in their dwellings.

  On the freeway leading downtown, Batman spoke to Fox on his mask radio. “Anything?”

  Fox did.

  Batman called Gordon: “I have the Joker’s location. Prewitt Building. Assemble on the building opposite.”

  The passengers were clustered around a National Guard commander, who had one hand on the Joker’s detonator and the other on his holstered weapon. Several passengers, including a mother holding an infant and a brown-suited, gray-haired businessman, took several steps toward him.

  “Stay back,” the commander warned, drawing his gun.

  “We don’t all have to die,” the mother said. “Why should my baby die? Those men had their chance . . .”

  “This is not open to discussion,” the commander said.

  “You can bet they’re discussing it on the other boat,” the businessman said. “If they’re even bothering to talk. Let’s put it to a vote.”

  The crowd murmured its assent.

  The businessman was wrong. On the prisoners’ ferry, nobody was exactly discussing anything, though a lot of the men were muttering threats and curses as they inched forward. A corrections officer fired a shotgun blast just above their heads, then aimed the barrel of the gun directly at them. They stopped, but the muttering grew louder.

  The passengers had persuaded the captain t
hat a vote was the best way to settle their differences. Everyone tore scraps from whatever paper was available—newspaper margins, receipts, ticket stubs, old calling cards—and using either their own pens or ones borrowed from whoever was nearest, scribbled either a yes or a no. Someone provided a hat and as it was passed from person to person, each dropped their vote into it.

  Ronald Coburgh stared down at the bit of paper he’d torn from a video rental card. It was blank. He looked first at the prisoner’s ferry, laying maybe a hundred yards off the port bow, then at the glowing face of his watch: 11:50. Ten minutes . . .

  Gordon looked at his watch—ten to midnight—then at the cops who were setting up rifle tripods on the balustrade of the building they were occupying, which was directly across from their objective.

  Was Batman near? Didn’t make a damn bit of difference.

  The voice of a SWAT team leader called his name from his radio and said, “We found our missing school bus. Parking garage basement. Empty.”

  What Gordon expected and feared: a hostage situation.

  He looked across the street at the Prewitt Building. The building was still under construction, and a lot of the floors were either missing or incomplete. Pipes and wiring were exposed in many areas, making the site a dangerous one. The top third of it was nothing more than steel girders forming a superstructure, gaunt against the sky; the lower section was more or less complete, at least on the outside. There were stacks of building materials littering the street, and several pieces of earthmoving equipment, and a corrugated steel trailer that served as a temporary office. Gordon knew that the job was months behind schedule and that some of the tenants had already occupied the lower, completed floors.

  Several men, wearing clown masks and brandishing firearms, were standing in clear view behind one of a long row of floor-to-ceiling windows.

  “It’s a shooting gallery,” Gordon said. “Why’d he choose a spot with such big windows.”