Standing triumphant beneath Wayne Tower, he contemplated the hollow, empty eyes of the Dark Knight’s cowl.
Forgotten for the moment, Catwoman slunk away into the shadows.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Blake knocked impatiently at the door of Wayne Manor. It was the middle of the afternoon, but no one answered, not even the butler. Worried, he nosed around the windows, yet couldn’t spot any signs of life inside the mansion.
A pair of French windows showed evidence of having been forced open.
Not a good sign, he thought. He considered calling it in, only to decide against it. Bruce Wayne had important secrets to protect. Blake didn’t want to risk blowing them on a false alarm. Maybe Wayne just forgot his keys.
Troubled, he returned to an unmarked police cruiser that was parked out front. Despite repeated attempts to contact Wayne, he hadn’t heard from the bankrupt billionaire since dropping him off in Old Town the day before. He was half-tempted to invest in a Bat-Signal.
Or perhaps there was someplace else he ought to check out first.
He drove straight to the same scuzzy street where he had last seen Wayne. Parking himself across from the dilapidated townhouse, he settled back and waited. It felt strange not to be wearing his uniform anymore. A new coat and suit marked his promotion to detective. He wondered what his old partner was up to now.
Ross had taken the news like a champ. No jealousy, no envy, just sincere congratulations. Blake already missed working with him.
Not that he wanted to go back…
He didn’t have to wait long before an attractive woman—who seemed far too elegantly attired for this part of town—exited the building. A stylish wide-brimmed hat shaded her striking features. It was the same dark hue as her fashionable black dress and matching gloves. A small collection of luggage suggested that she was going on a trip.
Something about her struck him as familiar, but it took him a moment to place her. A memory—of a frightened young woman bumping into him on her way out of that sleazy underworld bar—flashed through his brain. That had been the night Gordon was shot.
He took a closer look at the woman on the sidewalk.
Holy crap, he thought. It’s her.
It all fell into place. Congressman Gilly had claimed he’d been abducted by a woman—a woman matching her description. The congressman had been a bit vague, no doubt to protect his own reputation—and marriage. But now it made sense.
What had Gordon said again? That he wasn’t allowed to believe in coincidence anymore.
The woman hailed a cab, and climbed into the back seat. As it pulled into traffic, he followed suit, and got on the radio.
“Get Commissioner Gordon,” he said. “Tell him I’ve got a line on the congressman’s kidnapping.”
Selina made it through airport security without a hitch. Her boarding pass in her purse, she walked briskly through the international terminal, trying not to attract the wrong kind of attention.
According to the departures monitor, her flight was on-time and leaving soon. With any luck, she would be an ocean away from Gotham before the day was over.
Or perhaps it wouldn’t be that easy.
Heading toward her gate, she spotted a uniformed police officer checking her out. Judging from his expression, he wasn’t just appreciating her figure. Was there an all-points bulletin out on her already?
Time to improvise, she thought.
Veering away from the main concourse, she ducked into a secluded service corridor, ignoring the signs that said it was for authorized personnel only. As she expected, the cop followed her. He rounded the corner, only to find her applying a fresh layer of ruby-red lipstick.
“Excuse me, miss,” he said sternly. “I need to see your ticket and identification, please.”
Acting surprised, she fumbled in her purse.
“Would you mind?” she asked, handing him her hat. He accepted it without thinking. Big mistake, she thought. Her fist punched right through the crown of the hat, delivering a sharp blow to his chin. She grabbed him before his limp body hit the floor.
A janitor’s closet provided a convenient hiding spot. She crammed the unconscious cop into it and placed the mangled hat on his head. It didn’t exactly go with his uniform, but she liked to think it made a statement.
Better you than me, she thought.
Her brown hair neatly tied up in a bun, she closed the closet door and slipped back onto the concourse. Her flight was already boarding by the time she reached her gate. She trotted confidently down the jetway—only to spot two scowling airport security guys waiting at the end, right before the entrance to the plane.
Changing her mind, she turned around and started to head back the way she’d come. But a clean-cut young man in a cheap suit stood waiting at the other end of the jetway, blocking her exit. She quickly recognized him as the helpful cop she had ditched during the police raid on the bar.
He smiled and held up his badge. It looked brand-new.
So much for the French Riviera.
She looked up as Blake entered the interrogation room, carrying a thick file. A pair of cuffs had replaced the elbow-length black gloves she had been wearing earlier.
Harsh fluorescent lights illuminated a stark white chamber. Soundproof ceramic tiles cut the room off from the outside world, isolating the suspect. One-way mirrors, mounted on the wall, captured their reflections. A closed-circuit camera monitored the proceedings.
He sat down at the steel table across from her and started the tape recorder. This was his first formal interrogation as a detective, and he wanted to do it by the book.
“I showed your picture to the congressman,” he told her. “And guess what?”
“Don’t tell me,” she guessed. “Still in love?”
“Head over heels,” he acknowledged. “Pressing charges, though.” He smacked the file down onto the table. “You’ve made some mistakes, Ms. Kyle.”
She shrugged.
“Girl’s gotta eat.”
“You have an appetite,” he observed, flipping through the file’s contents. He glanced up from a list of her greatest hits to look her directly in the eyes. “Why run? You can’t hide from us with this record.”
She met his gaze without evasion.
“Maybe it’s not you I’m running from.”
“Who then?” He took a shot. “Bane? What do you know about him?”
Her cocky attitude went away.
“That you should be as afraid of him as I am.”
She means it, Blake realized, hearing genuine fear in her hushed tone. “We can offer you protection…”
She shot him an incredulous look, like they both knew it was a joke. Then she looked away from him, idly checking her reflection in one of the mirrors. Blake got the distinct impression that she’d given him as much as he was going to get for the time being—at least on the record.
He switched off the tape and stood up from the table.
“When I spotted you,” he said, “I was looking for a friend. Bruce Wayne.”
The name got her attention. She didn’t say anything, but he could tell she was hiding something, and it seemed to bother her. He stepped between her and the mirror. His eyes entreated her.
“Did they kill him?”
For the first time since he’d entered the room, she couldn’t meet his gaze.
“I’m not sure,” she confessed.
Blake’s heart sank.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Feverish images dragged him up from the dark. Screams, sobs, and maniacal laughter surrounded him. Broken bodies crashed to earth. He was falling down a long dark shaft. A black, skull-like visage gazed down on him, coming closer and closer…
Bruce opened his eyes, drifting back to consciousness.
Disoriented, he found himself lying on his back on a rough wooden cot. He stared upward at a sooty stone roof that looked as though it had been carved from solid rock. He glimpsed prison bars out of the corner of his eye. His
Batsuit was gone, replaced by coarse, filthy rags. His head throbbed and his throat was parched.
Whiskers carpeted his pale, clammy face. He tried to sit up, only to experience an excruciating jolt of pain. He sank back onto the cot, gasping in agony.
It all came back to him.
Bane. Wayne Tower. His back bent backwards until…
Someone stirred to his right, and he realized that he wasn’t alone in the cell. He tried to roll over to see who it was, but even the attempt was torture.
Heavy footsteps approached the cot. A massive figure squatted beside him. Densely muscled shoulders curved upward into a thick neck supporting a familiar masked face. The dark skull from his fever dreams seemed to gaze down on him.
Bane.
“Why didn’t you just kill me?” Bruce rasped, his throat sore from disuse.
“You don’t fear death,” Bane answered. “You welcome it.” He shook his head. “Your punishment is to be more severe.”
Bruce understood now. He glared furiously at his captor.
“You’re a torturer…”
“Yes,” Bane agreed. “But not of your body. Of your soul.”
Bruce tried to hold onto his anger, but the pain was too great. He let out a sharp gasp. Bane blurred before his eyes as he felt the darkness encroaching on his vision. He fought to stay conscious.
“Where am I?” he asked.
“Home,” Bane replied. “Where I learned the truth about despair. As will you.”
Bruce forced himself to look around, turning his head as little as possible. Through the rusty iron bars of his cell, he glimpsed what appeared to be an enormous underground complex carved into the sides of a gigantic pit. Metal stairs and catwalks connected rows of terraces that led into deep, cavernous cell blocks. The entire structure resembled a huge inverted pyramid or ziggurat that was almost Escheresque in appearance.
Wretched figures clad in frayed peasant garb populated the place, trudging wearily about their labors. There appeared to be no guards—only prisoners. Angry shouts and screams came from the other cells. The early morning sunlight filtered down from a vast circular shaft rising hundreds of feet above the bottom of the pit. Higher up, crumbling ledges and outcroppings jutted from the weathered stone sides.
It was like being at the bottom of a colossal well.
Bane rose from Bruce’s bedside and crossed the cell to the bars.
“There is a reason that this prison is the worst hell on earth.” He lifted his masked countenance toward the distant sunlight. “Hope. Every man who has rotted here over the centuries has looked up to the light, and imagined climbing to freedom. So simple, so easy. And, like shipwrecked men turning to seawater from uncontrollable thirst, many have died trying.
“I learned here that there can be no true despair without hope.” He looked away from the light, fixing his pitiless gaze on Bruce.
“So as I terrorize Gotham, I will feed its people hope to poison their souls. I will let them believe they can survive, so that you can watch them clamber over each other to stay in the sun.” He pointed to an ancient-looking television set up just outside the bars of Bruce’s cell. A cable ran from the television into the crude, rough-hewn masonry.
“You will watch,” Bane continued, “as I torture an entire city to bring you pain you thought you could never truly feel again. Then, when you have truly understood the depths of your failure, we will fulfill Rā’s al Ghūl’s destiny. We will destroy Gotham. And when it is done—when Gotham is ashes—then you have my permission to die.”
Bane turned to depart, leaving Bruce alone in the dismal cell. A barred door swung shut, its rusty hinges squeaking in protest. He wanted to shout at Bane, say something defiant, but it would have been nothing but an empty gesture. He couldn’t even move without agony.
The pain overwhelmed him again and the darkness swept over him. His eyes drooped and fell shut.
He could still hear the screams, even in his sleep.
Blackgate Prison was a maximum-security penitentiary located on one of the smaller islands in Gotham Harbor. Now that the Dent Act had made it all but possible for the city’s criminals to cop an insanity plea, it had replaced Arkham Asylum as the preferred location for imprisoning both convicted and suspected felons. The worst of the worst were sent here, except for the Joker, who, rumor had it, was locked away as Arkham’s sole remaining inmate.
Or perhaps he had escaped. Nobody was really sure.
Not even Selina.
She gazed up at Blackgate’s forbidding gray walls and watchtowers as she was escorted into the facility, wearing an absolutely hideous orange jumpsuit. Her long brown hair was tied back behind her head. A pair of steel handcuffs accessorized her convict garb. She would have preferred a pair of diamond bracelets.
After being processed, she was led down the middle of a multi-level cell block. Rows of inmates, locked in their cells, hooted and hollered at her as though they had never seen a woman before. Obscene jeers, whistles, and catcalls followed her down the length of the long, dreary corridor. They rattled their cages like monkeys in a zoo.
She had always liked the big cats better.
The guard in charge of the block looked askance at his new prisoner.
“We’re locking her up in here?”
Selina was the only female prisoner in sight. This part of Blackgate wasn’t exactly co-ed.
“The Dent Act allows non-segregation based on extraordinary need,” the warden explained. He kept a close eye on her. “First time she broke out of a women’s correctional, she was sixteen.”
Fifteen, she thought, but I looked mature for my age.
A hulking convict—who was as ugly as he was muscle-bound—groped for her through the bars of his cage. Pudgy fingers strained to reach to her. He licked his lips, practically drooling like a dog in heat.
“Little closer, baby,” he said coarsely.
“Why, honey,” she purred, “you wanna hold my hand?”
Making it easy for him, she slipped his greedy hands between her own handcuffed ones, and then executed a flawless cartwheel, snapping both of his arms.
Bone splintered noisily and the steroid case shrieked in agony even as the guards rushed to separate them.
She landed on her feet and kept on walking, not missing a step.
The hoots and whistles died away.
“She’ll be just fine,” the warden predicted.
The elevator let Fox and Miranda off on the top floor of Wayne Tower. They strolled toward the executive boardroom.
“I don’t see the need for a board meeting on the energy project,” he protested. He didn’t have time for a meeting right now, not when he was still dealing with the raid on Applied Sciences. Even a partial inventory of all the prototypes that had gone missing was enough to keep him up at night. He didn’t like to think about those inventions falling into the wrong hands.
“Bruce got a lot of things right,” Miranda said. “Keeping the board in the dark wasn’t one of them.”
Lucius wasn’t sure he agreed with that, but Miranda was president of Wayne Enterprises now, so he needed to respect her opinion. Bracing himself for a contentious exchange, he politely opened the door to the boardroom and escorted her inside.
Where he found a different kind of meeting already in progress.
The board members sat around the conference table, ashen and trembling. Armed intruders held them captive at gunpoint, while an intimidating masked figure occupied the head of the table. Lucius recognized him as the same ruthless killer who had staged the raid on the stock exchange, wiping out Bruce Wayne’s fortune. Newspaper reports on the attack had identified him as a notorious mercenary known only as Bane.
“This meeting is called to order,” the man said.
Fox and Miranda froze, staring aghast at the masked man and his gunmen. Lucius stepped protectively in front of Miranda.
“Chair and president,” Bane said, addressing them. He was dressed for combat, wearing a khaki utility har
ness with plenty of pouches, and rugged gray trousers and boots. He crossed his beefy arms. A pistol was stuck in his belt. He glanced around the conference table. “I also need one ordinary member. Mr. Fox, would you care to nominate?”
For what? Lucius wondered. Bane’s mockery of business protocol left him speechless and confused.
“No,” Douglas Fredericks said, speaking up. The dignified older man rose to his feet. “I volunteer.”
Fox was impressed by his colleague’s courage. He hoped it wouldn’t cost him too dearly as the mercenaries rounded up the three of them. Helpless against the armed soldiers, he couldn’t help wishing that Wayne was still a member of the board. Bruce would know how to handle a situation like this.
But no one had seen Bruce Wayne in days.
Or his nocturnal alter ego.
“Where are you taking us?” Fox asked cautiously.
“Where you buried your resources,” Bane answered. “The bowels of Gotham.”
Fox shivered involuntarily at the killer’s words.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
A nurse helped Gordon pull himself up to a sitting position. It hurt, but maybe not as much as before. A dog-eared copy of A Tale of Two Cities sat on a bedside table. Detective Blake stood by the hospital bed, waiting patiently for the nurse to depart.
He closed the door behind her when she left.
“So you think our friend is gone again?” Gordon asked him.
The young detective nodded gravely.
“This time he might not be coming back.”
Gordon’s face fell. The whole time he’d been stuck in this damn bed, the one thing that had kept him going was the knowledge that Gotham’s Dark Knight had returned. But it seemed as if that hope had been short-lived.
Where is he? Gordon wondered. What’s happened to him?
The door swung open again, and Foley barged into the room, visibly agitated. He was short of breath, as though he had run all the way up the stairs. Beads of perspiration dotted his brow.