The Dark Knight Rises (22 page)

Ross hoped so. He trudged down yet another dirty tunnel behind the rest of his squad. A yawn escaped his lips. He’d been at this for hours, and all he’d found was way too many rats and spiders and bugs. The sewers stank like, well, sewers, and he figured he was going to need a new uniform when this was over. No way was he getting
this
smell out of his clothes.

Sorry, Yolanda,
he apologized in advance to his wife. Given a choice, he would have much rather been home with her and their daughter. Little Tara was turning five next week, he reminded himself. He still needed to pick up her present.
Maybe after I get out of these stinking rat holes.

A lizard scurried over his boot and he kicked it away in disgust. Garbage floated past him on a greasy river of muck. A cobweb brushed across his face. He felt as if he was hiking through the world’s biggest latrine. His feet were wet and cold and he wanted a hot shower more than he had ever wanted anything in his life.

This sucked, big time.

Blake got promoted just in time,
he decided, more than a little envious of his old partner.
Wonder what they’ve got him doing now?

John Blake cruised through an ugly industrial district, checking in with Gordon via his cell phone. His
butt was sore and he would have killed for a cup of coffee—or maybe a few hours’ sleep.

“I’ve been to half of Daggett’s cement plants,” he reported. “Logged locations they’ve poured for underground construction.”

“Anything strange about the pourings?”
Gordon asked from his hospital room. Static added to the hoarseness of his voice.

Blake pulled the car over to consult his notes. A crumpled map was spread out across the passenger seat next to him. Red dots, scribbled on the map, indicated all the pouring sites his research had identified. He tried—and failed—to find any clues on the map.

“Honestly, commissioner, I don’t know anything about civil engineering—”

“But you know about patterns,” Gordon insisted. “Keep looking.”

If you say so
, Blake thought, signing off. He checked the address of the next cement plant on his list.
I just hope this isn’t a wild goose chase.

He couldn’t help wishing that he was underground, taking part in the manhunt for Bane instead. That was where the real action was.

He hoped that Ross and the others were okay.

Sweating, Dr. Pavel stepped away from the reactor. His sleeves were rolled up and he was breathing hard. Much of his task had involved reprogramming the reactor’s
safety parameters and neutron flux allowances, but he had also needed to tinker with the magnetic coils and plasma containment units.

A case of sophisticated tools lay at his feet, along with discarded bits of shielding. Essential baffles and dampeners had been replaced with more volatile materials. The sphere’s access panels were once again closed.

“It is done,” he announced dolefully. “This is now a four megaton nuclear bomb.” That was roughly two hundred times more powerful than the bombs that had devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War Two.

Bane nodded in approval. He called to his men.

“Pull the core out of the reactor.”

“You can’t!” Pavel blurted, his face draining of color. “This is the only power source capable of sustaining it. If you move it, the core will decay in a matter of months—”

“Five, by my calculations,” Bane replied calmly.

Pavel was confused. Did Bane not appreciate the danger? He tried desperately to explain.

“And then it will go off!”

“For the sake of your family, Dr. Pavel, I hope so.”

Stunned, the scientist watched as the men began to disconnect the core. He wrung his hands anxiously. Not for the first time, he found himself wishing that he had died in that plane crash, after all.

God forgive me,
he thought.
What have I done?

* * *

Blake had been tempted to stop for lunch, but instead he drove straight to his next destination—a cement factory on the outskirts of town. A chain-link fence topped with razor wire surrounded the grounds. Hot gases jetted from the heating tower. Storage silos rose above the plant. Grinding mills churned noisily. He parked outside and approached the gate.

A guard scowled at his badge before letting him through the fence.

“Boss is about to leave,” the man grumbled as he escorted Blake across the lot. Bags of powdered cement were piled high on wooden pallets, waiting to be shipped out. Metal bins and barrels sat upright amidst the pallets. A front loader was on hand to transport the bags and barrels onto trucks. Cement dust was everywhere.

An odd chemical odor nagged at Blake’s memory.

Where do I know that from?

They walked past a parked cement mixer. Keeping his eyes open, Blake spotted a familiar face. He veered away from the guard to accost a driver who was standing outside the vehicle.

“Hey!” Blake called out, getting the man’s attention. The driver turned toward him. “I know you. That was you outside the stock exchange, right?”

The man’s stony face might as well as have been cast in cement. He crossed his arms belligerently.

“When?”

“When?”
Blake echoed in disbelief. “When half the city’s cops were trying to pull onto Castle Street, and your truck shut them out.”

Hard to imagine the guy had forgotten that particular altercation.

“Oh, yeah,” the driver said, as though only just recognizing Blake. “You’re that cop—”

“Detective, now.”

The driver snorted, unimpressed by his promotion. Blake heard the guard come up behind him. The approaching man must have reached for something in his pocket. Metal jingled against loose change. Blake felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck.

“And as a detective,” he added, “I’m not allowed to believe in coincidence any more—”

He spun around, drawing his sidearm just in time to see the guard lunging at him with a knife. Reacting quickly, he swept the man’s arm aside and fired in self-defense. The sharp report of the gun cut through the factory noises and the guard toppled backwards, clutching his chest. Blood spurted from his wound.

Oh my God,
Blake thought.
I think I killed him.

But he couldn’t deal with that now. The driver grabbed him from behind, holding onto his arms. Blake tried to break free from the grip, but the man was strong and knew what he was doing.

Blake held on tightly to his gun, but couldn’t get off a clean shot as along as the guy kept behind him. The
driver twisted Blake’s gun arm, trying to break it. The cop grunted in pain.

In desperation, he fired backward at the nearby front loader. The bullet ricocheted off the vehicle’s heavy steel bucket, catching the driver in the back. He jerked violently, then hit the ground like a bag of cement.

Gasping, Blake knelt to check on the man, whose life already seemed to be slipping away. His body twitched spasmodically. Ragged breaths slowed to a stop. Blood trickled from the corner of his lip.

“What were you doing?” Blake shouted at him, furious that the information he needed might be slipping away. He wanted to pound the man’s face in, just for making him pull the trigger. His voice was hoarse with emotion. “What?!”

The driver twitched one last time, then went still. His chest stopped moving, and his eyes glazed over. Blake checked for a pulse, but it was no use.

The man was dead.

Both
men were dead.

Feeling sick to his stomach, Blake stared at the gun in his hand, which suddenly felt like it weighed a ton. He had never killed anyone before—not even in the line of duty. Bile rose at the back of his throat. He clenched his teeth to keep from throwing up.

Instinctively he hurled the gun to the ground. Shaking, he somehow managed to pull his phone out of his pocket. He dialed Gordon.

His boss’s voice mail picked up.

“Commissioner,” he said, trying to keep his voice as steady as possible. “I’m at the 14th Street plant with two dead witnesses and a lot of questions. Call me—”

He glanced around to make sure nobody else was coming after him, but the gunshots seemed to have scared all the other workers off. He stooped to retrieve his firearm, just in case, when that odd odor caused his brow to furrow. He sniffed the air suspiciously, tracing the smell to a collection of unmarked steel barrels resting alongside the wooden pallets.

His jaw dropped as he finally identified the odor.

“Commissioner,” he reported urgently. “They’ve got Polyisobutylene here—” He surveyed the scene, taking in the plant’s inventory. “And motor oil.” The pieces came together to form an alarming picture. “They weren’t making cement—they were making
explosives
—”

An awful possibility hit him with the force of revelation. He ran to his vehicle and grabbed his charts. His eyes frantically scanned the map, hoping he was wrong, but the telltale pattern of dots only confirmed his worst fears.

“Oh, God.”

He dived behind the steering wheel and peeled out of the factory parking lot, spraying gravel behind him. He drove furiously back toward headquarters, pressing the gas pedal to the floor, while shouting into his radio.

“Patch me into Foley!”

A maddeningly calm voice responded. “Deputy Commissioner Foley is overseeing the operation—”

“They’re heading into a trap!”

Foley followed his men into the subway tunnel, putting the lights of the platform behind him. He was tired of waiting. He needed to check on the search with his own eyes. He owed Gordon that much.

He owed Gotham that much.

“Sir!” a lieutenant came running after him. He thrust a radio into Foley’s hand. “It’s Blake. He says it’s urgent.”

Foley took the radio. As much as he hated to admit it, the hotheaded young detective had been on the ball so far.

“Foley,” he said.

“It’s a trap!”
Blake’s voice shouted.
“Pull everyone out! Bane’s been pouring concrete laced with explosives
—”

Foley froze in his tracks.

“Where?”

“There’s a ring around the tunnels,
Blake answered.
“They’re gonna blow it and trap the cops underground
!”

Foley spun around and stared back at the mouth of the tunnel, which suddenly seemed dangerously far away. His mouth went dry.

“Pull out!” he shouted. “Pull ’em out!”

He raced toward the light.

The boiler room was in a sub-basement of the stadium, far below the cheering crowds. With all eyes on the field, no one was watching as Bane’s men broke through the basement floor. Drills and explosive charges had carved out a path from the tunnels below. The mercenaries climbed up into the stadium.

Bane emerged from the underground. His utility harness was strapped to his chest.

The National Anthem could be heard wafting down from above. He imagined thousands of sports fans, standing at attention as they paid tribute to bombs bursting in the air. No doubt the mayor had his hand over his heart.

The mercenaries advanced to the empty locker room tunnels. They took out their detonators. Bane cocked his head at the sound of the kickoff, like a hunting dog scenting the wind.

Now,
he decided.

“Let the games begin.”

The men hit the detonators.

Foley scrambled for the light. Along with his men, he raced out of the subway tunnel only heartbeats before explosions rocked the underground. The tunnel roof
collapsed behind him, and enormous slabs of concrete crashing down onto the tracks. Sparks flared from the electrified third rail.

A billowing cloud of dust and debris filled the station. Booming echoes were amplified by the tunnel walls, forcing him to throw his hands over his ears. Cops and SWAT team members dived for cover. An injured officer screamed.

Somehow Foley managed to stay on his feet. Panting, he made it all the way back to the passenger platform before turning around to inspect the damage. Pulverized stone and concrete caked his sweaty face. He coughed hoarsely, choking on the dust. His eyes bulged from their sockets.

Oh my God…

Tons of fallen concrete blocked the mouth to the tunnel. Frantic radio reports, coming from all around the city, confirmed Blake’s dire prediction. Explosions and cave-ins had closed off every entrance to the underground, trapping thousands of cops beneath the city. Foley gazed in horror at the heap of rubble. He may have gotten out just in time, but what about the rest of his people?

He already knew the answer.

Practically the entire GCPD had been buried alive.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

The football spiraled through the air.

Come to daddy,
the Gotham receiver thought as he caught the ball and made a break for the end zone. The hometown crowd went wild, screaming their lungs out as he started his run, pursued by the visiting linebackers. He ran past the mayor’s box, guessing that His Honor was cheering, as well, and ducked past a Rapid City cornerback who was trying to block him.