The Dark Knight Rises (29 page)

Stryver didn’t like the way this was going.

“Call Bane!” he insisted. “I’m one of you—”

Then he spotted a masked figure watching silently
from the gallery. Bane showed no evidence of intending to intervene. Stryver’s shoulders sagged in defeat as his last hope evaporated.

“Bane has no authority here,” Crane declared. “And your guilt is self-evident. This is merely a sentencing hearing.” He waved his gavel airily. “The choice is yours, death or exile.”

“Death!”
the mob shouted. Peering around, Stryver was confronted by a sea of bloodthirsty faces. People spat at him and hollered.
“DEATH!”

Stryver gulped, choosing the lesser of two evils.

“Exile.” Something told him it wouldn’t be that easy, however.

“Sold!” Crane banged his gavel against the podium. “To the man in the cold sweat.”

Mercenaries yanked Stryver from the dock, actually
protecting
him from the maddened crowd, who appeared all too inclined to tear him limb from limb with their grubby hands. He had only a few minutes to appreciate his escape from the “courthouse” before he was loaded, handcuffed, into the back of a van along with several other condemned executives and professionals.

Stryver recognized their faces from the society pages and business sections of the Gotham papers—if nothing else, he was still in the company of the A-list. Stone-faced guards watched over the men as they were driven away towards God-knew-where.

Exile,
he thought.
That doesn’t sound too bad.
Who in their right mind would want to live in Gotham these days, anyway?

After a short drive, the van braked to a halt and the exiles were herded out into the cold. A biting wind blew steadily, making him wish he were better dressed for the weather, as they found themselves down by the docks overlooking the Gotham River, which appeared to have frozen over. A dirty white crust of ice and snow partially covered the flowing currents that could still be seen underneath.

The frosted ruins of a demolished bridge were piled along the shore. Stryver shivered and hugged himself in a futile attempt to stay warm. He gazed at the waterway with trepidation.

The guards, many of whom sported prison tattoos, prodded the exiles down slippery, ice-encrusted wooden steps to the edge of the river. A smirking mercenary unlocked Stryver’s cuffs. He nodded at the winding frozen expanse.

“Follow the thick ice,” he instructed. “Try to swim, you’re dead in minutes.”

Stryver looked at the man with dawning horror. He shuddered, and not just from the cold.

“Has anyone made it?”

The guard snorted and turned away. Stryver hesitated, backing away from the river, until he felt the muzzle of an automatic rifle poke him in the back. Peering over his shoulder, he found no pity or room for negotiation in the surly faces of Bane’s men. It seemed
he had no other options.

Maybe I can do this,
he thought.
Perhaps the ice is strong enough after all
.

Working up his nerve, he stepped cautiously onto the frozen surface. He shuffled forward, trying to tread where it appeared thickest. His handmade Italian shoes offered no purchase, and he slipped. The ice creaked and groaned beneath him. The other side of the river seemed impossibly far away.

One step at a time,
he thought.
Just a little further…

He got all of a hundred yards before the ice shattered beneath him. He screeched loudly, throwing out his arms, as the river swallowed him whole.

The guards led the next “exile” onto the ice.

The empty office building had become a command center. A map of the city was spread out atop a desk. The shutters were drawn to keep in the light—and keep out prying eyes.

Gordon examined the map, surrounded by a handful of officers who had managed to avoid being trapped underground. Many had been retirees, green cadets, inactive, or assigned to desk duty. The commissioner valued their grit and loyalty, but wished there were more of them.

A whole lot more.

“Where the hell are they?” He glanced impatiently at his watch. “It’s not like we have a lot of time here.”

“How long?” Sergeant Richards asked. He was a ten-year veteran, and Gordon knew he had a wife and kids in the city.

“The bomb goes off tomorrow,” Gordon said. We’ve got about eighteen hours to do something.”

“To do what?” Richards pressed.

“We mark that truck, get a GPS on it,” Gordon said.
“Then
we can start thinking about how to take it down.” It wasn’t much of a plan, he had to admit, but it was a start. If nothing else, it beat sitting around waiting for that damn bomb to go off.

He just wished to hell that Lucius Fox hadn’t been seized by Bane. They needed his expertise where the nuke was concerned.

We have to get Fox back—before Bane gets rid of him.

There was a rap at the entrance. Everybody tensed up, and reached for their weapons, until a rookie peered through a peephole and gave the thumbs up. He unlocked the door and let the newcomers in. Blake entered the command center, followed by ten or so cops. Gordon counted them off as they came in.

Exactly ten.
Disappointed, he edged over to the detective and lowered his voice.

“That’s it?” he asked. Blake just shrugged. Gordon stepped back and scanned the faces of their reinforcements. It took him a second to realize that someone was missing.

“Foley,” he said. “Where’s Foley, dammit?”

He grabbed his coat and headed for the door. Blake moved to block him.

“You shouldn’t be out on the streets.”

Gordon shoved past him and stormed out. The temperature was still well below freezing, but he hardly noticed the cold. His growing fury kept him hot under the collar. Stamping through the snow, he marched several blocks to a modest brownstone that seemed to have survived the worst of the rioting. Obscene graffiti defaced the walls, but a sturdy wooden door was still in place.

He climbed the steps and stabbed the doorbell.

At first, no one answered, so he kept on pressing it. Only the need to avoid raising too much of a ruckus kept him from pounding on the door with his fists. Finally, he pressed down hard on the bell, and didn’t let up.

Come on, Foley,
he thought so intently he had to make certain he hadn’t said it out loud.
I know you’re in there!

Stubborn persistence finally paid off. Multiple locks disengaged and the door opened by a crack, offering a partial glimpse of Foley’s wife, Jennifer. She looked tense and uncomfortable.

“Jim. He’s not here—”

He wasn’t buying it, and he shouted past her at the hallway beyond.

“You’re sending your wife to the door, when the city’s under occupation?”

Foley appeared—disheveled and haggard—at the end of the corridor. No longer the dapper up-and-comer, he wore a rumpled bathrobe over a tee-shirt and sweatpants. He looked like he hadn’t shaved in days. Guilt was written all over his face.

“Wait in the kitchen, honey,” he said, and Jennifer nodded. She retreated from the foyer, leaving the two men alone. Gordon stared accusingly.

“What did you do, burn your uniform in the back yard?” he demanded.

Foley tried to explain.

“Jim, you saw what they did to those Special Forces.”

“You forgotten all the years we went out on patrol, with every gangbanger wanting to plant one as soon as our backs were turned?”

“That’s different, and you know it,” Foley replied defensively. “These guys run the city. The government’s done a deal with them.”

“Deal? Bane’s got their balls in a vice. That’s not a deal!”

“You move against Bane, the trigger man’s gonna hit the button—”

Gordon still didn’t buy any of it—not Foley’s excuses, and not that whole “trigger man” crap.

“You think he’s given control of that bomb to one of ‘the people’? You think this is part of some revolution?” Gordon scoffed at the notion. “There’s one man with his finger on the trigger—Bane.”

Foley still tried to justify his cowardice.

“We have to keep our heads down till they can fix this,” he said. “If you still had family here maybe you’d—” He caught himself, perhaps fearing that he’d crossed a line.

But Gordon had bigger things on his mind than his own failed marriage. If anything, it was a mercy that Barbara and the kids were hundreds of miles away.

“This only gets fixed from
inside
the city, Foley.” He softened his tone, trying to get through to the man. “Look, I’m not asking you to walk down Grand in your dress blues. But we’ve got to do something before this maniac blows us all to hell.”

Foley stared at his slippers, unable to meet Gordon’s eyes.

“I’m sorry, Jim. I gotta—”

“Keep your head down?” Gordon said after him. “What’s that gonna do tomorrow, when that thing blows?”

“You don’t
know
that’s going to happen,” Foley said. Then he closed the door in Gordon’s face, ending the conversation. The commissioner stood alone upon the stoop, abandoned by his own second-in-command.

The wind suddenly felt a whole lot colder.

“I hear you’re looking for men, commissioner.”

Gordon turned around to find Miranda Tate standing behind him, wearing a winter coat over her tunic and leggings. Blake waited below on the sidewalk. He shrugged as if to say there was nothing
he could do about the woman’s presence.

“How about me, instead,” she volunteered.

Gordon appreciated the offer, but he needed cops, not business executives.

“Miss Tate, I can’t ask you—”

“My company built it,” she insisted. Nevertheless, he tried to let her off the hook.

“Bruce Wayne built it.”

“And he wanted to destroy it,” she said. “It was me who wouldn’t listen.” She stared at him. “Please.”

Gordon looked at Blake, then back at Miranda. Lord knows he was in no position to be picky about his allies. He could use all the help he could get, especially where that nuke was concerned.

So he nodded.

“Let’s go.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

The kid ran like hell through the East End. A thin gray windbreaker provided scant protection from the cold, but that appeared to be least of his worries right now. Two snarling gangbangers, twice the kid’s age and size, chased after him.

For a second, it looked as if the kid might get away, but then he slipped on a patch of icy sidewalk and tumbled to the ground. The hoods caught up with him and yanked him to his feet. Spittle sprayed from one punk’s lips.

“You steal from us, you little bastard?”

The punk had bad skin and an ugly expression. His buddy wore a blue ski cap and a perpetual sneer. Tearing open the kid’s backpack, Bad Skin pulled out a shiny red apple. He drew back his fist to wallop his prisoner, but before he could deliver the beat-down, a
hand grabbed onto his arm and twisted it backward.

Bone cracked and the apple flew from his fingers.

Selina snatched it out of the air.

“You boys know you can’t come in my neighborhood without asking politely.”

Her hair hung loose above a black winter coat. A scarf was wrapped around her neck. Releasing the bully, she shoved him onto the slushy sidewalk, where he whimpered and clutched his broken arm.

His buddy still hadn’t gotten the message, though. Drawing a knife, he lunged at her like a rank amateur. She easily grabbed his wrist, shoved his shoulder back with her other hand, and redirected his knife arm so that he stabbed himself in the backside. He yowled like a stuck pig as the blade sliced into his fat
gluteus maximus
.

That was enough for both of them. Cutting their losses, the injured hoods turned tail and ran, slipping and sliding in their haste to get away from her. She savored the sight before turning to check on the kid, who regarded her with a wide-eyed mixture of fear and awe. From the looks of him, he couldn’t have been more than ten years old. Eleven, tops.

“Never steal anything from someone you can’t outrun, kid,” she advised him. That was something she’d learned a long time ago.

He stared longingly at the apple.

“Now
you’re
gonna take it,” he said, resentment in his voice.

It was a tempting prize, she had to admit. Fresh fruit was hard to come by in Gotham these days. She lifted it to her mouth and took a single perfect bite.

“Just tax,” she explained.

Licking her lips, she lobbed the rest of the apple back to the kid, who wasted no time absconding with it, just in case she changed her mind.

A
thank-you would have been nice,
she thought, but she couldn’t really blame the little guy for getting away while the getting was good. She knew what it was like to be hungry and on your own.

“Pretty generous for a thief.”

It was a voice she had never expected to hear again. Spinning around, she found Bruce Wayne standing on the sidewalk behind her. He was dressed like a common laborer, with a scruffy beard and work clothes, but there was no mistaking the former prince of Gotham. His face was lean and weathered, but, much to her surprise, he was standing straight and tall—despite what Bane had done to his back.