The Dark Knight Rises: The Official Novelization

  As they spun, she pretended to laugh at his jokes.

  “Mind if I cut in?”

  Annoyed, Gladstone turned. Bruce thrust his cane into the other man’s hand and took Selina by the waist. Without missing a beat, he swept her away from the fuming old gent.

  She glared at him as they danced.

  “You don’t seem very happy to see me,” he observed.

  She glided gracefully atop her high heels, letting him lead.

  “You were supposed to be a shut-in.”

  “Felt like some fresh air.”

  She eyed him curiously, more irked than alarmed.

  “Why didn’t you call the police?”

  “I have a…powerful friend who deals with this kind of thing.” He admired the tufted ears sprouting from her sleek brown hair. “Brazen costume for a cat burglar.”

  “So?” she challenged him. “Who are you supposed to be?”

  “Bruce Wayne, eccentric billionaire.” He glanced back at Gladstone. “What about your date?”

  “His wife’s in Ibiza, but she left her diamonds behind.” Selina smirked. “Worried they might get stolen.”

  I should have known, he thought. Why else would a woman like Selina waste time with a pompous old boor like him?

  “It’s pronounced ‘I-beetha,’” he said, correcting her. “You wouldn’t want these nice people realizing you’re a crook, not a social climber.”

  She bristled at the suggestion. Her eyes flashed angrily.

  “You think I care what anyone in this room thinks of me?” He caught a hint of Gotham’s East End in her voice, although she had obviously worked hard to eradicate her accent. He admired her skill and intelligence, if not her fondness for appropriating other people’s property.

  “I doubt you care what anyone in any room thinks of you,” he countered.

  “Don’t condescend, Mr. Wayne,” she replied. “You don’t know a thing about me.”

  “Well, Selina Kyle, I know you came here from your walk-up in Old Town. Modest place for a master jewel thief. Which means either you’re saving for retirement—or you’re in deep with the wrong people.”

  It was the only plausible explanation for why such a high-end burglar—who had already scored big several times over—was slumming in Old Town. She had to be trying to stay off someone’s radar, even if this gala—and Mrs. Gladstone’s jewels—had lured her out of hiding.

  She frowned at that.

  “You don’t get to judge me because you were born in the master bedroom of Wayne Manor.”

  “Actually, it was the Regency Room.”

  “I started off doing what I had to do,” she said unapologetically. Then a hint of regret entered her voice. “But once you’ve done what you had to, they’ll never let you do what you want to.”

  “Start fresh?” he guessed.

  She laughed bitterly.

  “There’s no fresh start in today’s world. Any twelve-year-old with a cell phone could find out what you did. Everything we do is collated and quantified. Everything sticks. We are the sum of our mistakes.”

  “Or our achievements,” he argued.

  “The mistakes stick better. Trust me.”

  Bruce knew all about mistakes…and regrets. He eyed the pearls around her neck.

  “You think that justifies stealing?”

  “I take what I need from those who have more than enough,” she said, a tad defensively. “I don’t stand on the shoulders of people with less.”

  “Robin Hood?” He couldn’t quite imagine her in forest green. Black suited her better.

  “I’d do more to help someone than most of the people in this room,” she insisted. “Including you.”

  “Maybe you’re assuming too much,” he said.

  “Or maybe you’re being unrealistic about what’s really in your pants other than a fat wallet.”

  “Ouch.”

  Still gliding in his arms, she glanced around at the ostentatious display of wealth and extravagance.

  “You think all this can last?” She shook her head dubiously. “There’s a storm coming, Mr. Wayne. You and your friends better batten down the hatches, because when it hits you’re all going to wonder how you ever thought you could live so large…and leave so little for the rest of us.”

  “Sounds like you’re looking forward to it,” he said.

  “I’m adaptable,” she promised.

  But maybe not for much longer, Bruce thought. He recalled the damning accumulation of tips and clues filling her files. The net was closing in on her, even if she didn’t want to admit it. Small wonder she yearned for a fresh start.

  “Those pearls look better on you than they did in my safe.” He rolled her into his shoulder and reached up to unclasp the necklace. “But I still can’t let you keep them.”

  The pearls slid off her neck into his other hand. She glared at him again, then surprised him by lunging forward and kissing him hard. Breathless, he let her slip away into the crowd. By the time he recovered from the kiss, she already had a decent head start on him. He tried to limp after her, but his bad knee slowed him down.

  Within moments, she had vanished from sight.

  What was that all about? he thought. Not that I’m complaining.

  Exiting the dance floor, he retrieved his cane from Gladstone.

  “You scared her off,” the old man complained.

  “Not likely,” Bruce said. “But if I were you, I’d keep an eye on your wife’s diamonds.”

  Tucking the pearls safely into his pocket, he headed for the exit. The taste of her kiss lingered on his lips.

  Maybe Alfred is right, he thought. Perhaps I do need to get out more.

  The fall air outside was bracing after the sweltering heat of the party. He approached the valet to reclaim his car. He patted his pockets. “I seem to have misplaced my ticket.”

  It wasn’t an act. He really had lost his ticket somehow.

  The valet looked puzzled.

  “Your wife said you were taking a cab home, sir.”

  “My wife?”

  The Lamborghini zoomed away from the museum. Behind the wheel, Selina grinned and gunned the engine.

  Alfred picked him up in the Rolls-Royce an hour later. Bruce climbed into the back of the car.

  “Just you, sir?” the butler asked dryly.

  Bruce gave him a withering look. He wasn’t used to being outsmarted.

  “Don’t worry, Master Bruce,” Alfred assured him, clearly enjoying the situation. “Takes a little time to get back into the swing of things.”

  Bruce ignored the butler’s teasing. He was in no mood to exchange banter right now. Instead he took out his phone and hit a number on speed dial.

  Lucius Fox answered on the second ring.

  “This is Fox.”

  “Remember those unusual requests I used to make?”

  “I knew it,” Fox said. Bruce could easily imagine the other man’s amused expression. Am I really that predictable?

  Up front, Alfred’s smile faded. Bruce glimpsed the butler’s careworn face in the rear-view mirror. Alfred looked distinctly troubled now, like he knew what was coming next, and wasn’t at all happy about it.

  Bruce couldn’t blame him, but he had made up his mind.

  It was time to come out of retirement.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The experimental carbon-fiber brace arrived at Wayne Manor the very next morning. Bruce tried it out in the cave, away from the prying eyes of everyone except Alfred and the bats roosting overheard. He had gotten only a few hours of sleep since the masquerade, but wasn’t about to take time out for a nap. He had slept enough these last eight years.

  He clamped the brace onto his right leg and pressed a blinking button on its side. The pivoted orthotic toned up at once, tightening around the joint. A thin layer of padding cushioned the brace. Bruce stood up and worked the knee, attempting deep bends and stretches. It took some effort, but the brace moved with him smoothly, without chafing or riding up
and down his leg.

  So far so good, he thought.

  Alfred put down a thermos of hot coffee.

  “You’ve got the wrong leg, sir.”

  Bruce shook his head.

  “You start with the good limb,” he explained, “so the brace learns your optimum muscle patterns.” He sat down on a slate cube and swapped the brace to his bad left knee. He rose cautiously, putting his weight on it, and grunted in satisfaction as the reinforced leg appeared to support him. He bent slowly, then rose again, more confidently this time. He threw a kick at the empty air.

  A rare smile lifted his lips. He was liking this.

  “Now we tighten it up.”

  He pressed harder on the button, clicking it again. The brace contracted against his leg, the unyielding carbon fibers digging into his flesh. Grimacing, he gritted his teeth against the increased pressure.

  Alfred looked on with concern.

  “Is it terribly painful, sir?”

  “You’re welcome to try it, Alfred.”

  “Happy watching, thank you, sir.”

  Bruce let out a howl as the brace clicked home. He took a moment to get used to the discomfort before rising to his feet again. Despite the pain, the leg felt more solid than it had in years. Than it had since the night Batman fell.

  “Not bad,” he said.

  A stack of bricks waited a few feet away. Bruce spun and delivered a furious roundhouse kick to the bricks, which went flying across the cave. Overhead, startled bats screeched in alarm. They flapped wildly among the stalactites.

  “Not bad at all.”

  Alfred appeared somewhat less enthusiastic about the success of their experiment. Picking up a brick, he turned it over slowly in his hands. A pensive look came over his face.

  “Master Bruce, if you’re truly considering going back out there, you need to hear some worrisome rumors about this Bane individual.”

  Bruce gave Alfred his full attention.

  “I’m all ears.”

  “There is a prison,” Alfred began grimly, “in a more ancient part of the world. A pit where men are thrown to suffer and die. But sometimes a man rises from that darkness. Sometimes the pit sends something back.”

  Bruce nodded, understanding.

  “Bane.”

  “Born and raised in a hell on earth,” Alfred said. Bruce’s brow furrowed.

  “Born in a prison?”

  “No one knows why,” Alfred reported. “Or how he escaped. But they know who trained him once he did.” Alfred took a deep breath before speaking the name. “Rā’s al Ghūl. Your old mentor.”

  Bruce stared back at him in dismay. Rā’s al Ghūl, who had also gone by the alias “Henri Ducard,” had been the ruthless leader of the League of Shadows, an ancient order of assassins and crusaders dedicated to waging war on crime and corruption—by any means necessary. Rā’s had trained Bruce to carry on in his footsteps, and had been largely responsible for shaping the orphaned billionaire into the Dark Knight he had become.

  But when Rā’s had turned his sights on Gotham City, convinced that the embattled city was beyond saving, Batman had been forced to fight back against the League—with fatal results. Rā’s had died, incinerated in a fiery monorail crash. Batman hadn’t killed him, but he hadn’t tried to save him either.

  “Rā’s plucked Bane from a dark corner of the Earth,” Alfred continued, “and trained him in the blackest disciplines of combat, deception, and endurance. Just as he did with you.”

  Bruce was stunned by the news. He had thought Bane merely a vicious mercenary, but the truth was far worse.

  “Bane was a member of the League of Shadows.”

  “Until he was excommunicated,” Alfred said. “And a man considered too extreme for Rā’s al Ghūl is not to be trifled with.”

  But Bruce refused to be intimidated.

  “I didn’t know I was known for ‘trifling’ with criminals.”

  “That was then,” Alfred said gravely. “And you can put the cowl back on, but it won’t make you what you were.”

  “Which was?”

  “Someone whose anger at death made him value all life,” the servant replied. “Even his own.”

  My own life doesn’t matter, Bruce thought. Then he spoke. “If this Bane is all the things you say he is, then this city needs me.”

  “Yes,” Alfred seemed to agree. “Gotham needs Bruce Wayne. Your resources, your knowledge. Not your body—not your life. That time has passed.”

  “I tried helping as Bruce Wayne,” the billionaire protested. “And I failed.”

  Just ask Miranda Tate, he thought. But Alfred did not give in.

  “You can fail as Bruce Wayne,” he said. “As Batman, you can’t afford to.”

  “Is that what you’re afraid of?” Bruce asked indignantly. “That if I go back out there, I’ll fail?”

  “No,” Alfred said. “I’m afraid you want to.”

  I can’t listen to this, Bruce thought. Gordon was depending on him. Gotham was depending on him. I have to go back out there.

  He crossed the Batcave, no longer needing his cane, and unlocked a rectangular metal closet the size of an upright sarcophagus. Inside the cabinet, hidden away for eight years, was a suit of matte-black body armor made of reinforced Kevlar bi-weave fabric and fire-retardant Nomex. The silhouette of a winged nocturnal predator was emblazoned upon the broad chest piece, which was capable of resisting anything except a straight shot at close range.

  Adjacent shelves held steel-tipped black boots, gauntlets with scalloped metal fins, a hanging cloak, a golden Utility Belt, and—last but not least—a pointy-eared cowl. Its mere shadow had once struck terror into the hearts of Gotham’s criminal element.

  He took the cowl off the shelf.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The Gotham City Stock Exchange was a scene of frenzied activity. Buyers and sellers, wearing jackets and wide suspenders, crowded the trading floor, shouting out orders and keying them into their handheld wireless devices. The latest stock prices and interest rates scrolled across the countless flat-screen monitors mounted all around. It was pretty much impossible to look in any direction without seeing a flood of financial data.

  Computer terminals facilitated electronic trading. Canvas banners extolling the GCSE hung above the busy traders. Sweat mixed with expensive cologne, which in turn mixed with the greed in the air. It was nearly closing time, but the trading was still going strong.

  “You can’t short a stock just because Bruce Wayne goes to a party.”

  A pair of traders, taking a break from the commotion, exchanged notes at a shoeshine stand just around the corner from the main floor. They paid no attention to the nameless peon who was polishing their handmade Italian leather shoes.

  “Wayne coming back is change,” the second trader insisted. “Change is either good or bad. I vote bad.” “On what basis?”

  The other trader shrugged.

  “I flipped a coin.”

  At the market’s grandiose front entrance, overlooking Castle Street, a hungry trader haggled with a delivery guy. It was already getting dark outside, and he hadn’t eaten in hours. He scowled at his sandwich.

  “No, rye, he insisted. “I told them rye.”

  Bad news from the west coast flashed across one of the ubiquitous monitors. A major Silicon Valley product launch had just been hacked. Suddenly, his sandwich was the least of his concerns. He thrust a ten at the vendor.

  “All right. I’ll take it.”

  A motorcycle pulled up to the rear entrance. Unlike the front of the building, which saw a constant stream of traders going in and out, the rear entrance was only used for deliveries. Bored security guards watched as a courier entered the building. A messenger pouch was slung over his shoulder. A ruby-red crash helmet concealed his features.

  “Hey, rookie!” An exasperated female guard moved to block him. “Lose the helmet. We need faces for the camera.”

  He reached for his helmet.

  In the
men’s room, a janitor mopped the floor. Toilets flushed in the background. Crumpled paper towels littered the floor. He paused to peek at his wristwatch.

  Almost time, he thought.

  He reached into his bucket and extracted a sealed Ziploc bag. A micro-Uzi machine pistol waited inside the bag.

  The janitor tossed away his mop.

  The brokers’ shoes shone like new. They paid the shoeshine guy, stiffing him on the tip, and headed back toward the trading floor, still debating the significance of Bruce Wayne’s return to the spotlight.

  The shoeshine man, whose name was McGarrity, put down his brush. A bulging gym bag rested at the foot of the stand. Glancing about, he unzipped the bag and inspected a loaded sub-machine gun. Smuggling the gun into the building had not been easy, but the time for stealth was almost over.

  He hoisted the bag over his shoulder and trotted after the unsuspecting brokers.

  The delivery guy drew a pistol from beneath his jacket and brained his unhappy customer. The hungry trader collapsed onto the floor, just inside the front entrance. His pastrami sandwich—on white bread—slipped from his fingers.

  The food vendor kicked it aside as he stormed into the building.

  The motorcycle courier took off his helmet. The female guard gasped out loud at the sight of the freaky rubber gas mask beneath the helmet. She fumbled for her taser.

  Bane was too fast for her. Lunging forward without hesitation, he lifted her above his head and hurled her into the other guards, who tumbled to the floor in a tangle of limbs. They tried to scramble to their feet, but Bane was already among them, dispatching the outmatched men and women with ruthless efficiency. His boot stamped on one guard’s throat, crushing his windpipe, while he caught another guard in a headlock, snapping her neck, even as his fist slammed into a third guard’s face, driving shards of bone and cartilage into his brain.

  His goal was simple: inflict as much damage as he could as quickly and efficiently as possible. Despite his muscular frame, Bane moved with the speed and ferocity of a wild animal. Bones shattered beneath his expert blows. Ribs cracked, shins and knees and collars snapped. Blood spurted.