Batman 6 - The Dark Knight (22 page)

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 . . .

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.

B
atman 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 corridor. “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?”

The Joker danced around to the rear of the pile and emerged from the other side holding a gasoline can. “I’m a man of simple tastes. I like gunpowder. Dynamite.” He splashed liquid from the can onto the money.
“Gasoline.”