Batman no mans land, p.26
Batman: No Man's Land, page 26
“So you admit it.”
“Admit it?” Nightwing threw up his hands in frustration. “Admit that I like her? Of course I like her, Babs! I think she’s basically a decent person who’s trying to do the best she can.
“She’s a murderer and quite possibly insane.”
“That’s harsh.”
Oracle spun her chair around to face him, the color in her cheeks rising slightly, as if trying to match the red of her hair. “No, it’s a fact. She’s a killer. She has a vendetta thing going. Maybe you’re not upon the facts, Dick, but I am, because that’s my job here. Helena Bertinelli isn’t wearing a costume because she wants to do what’s right for the people of Gotham. “She isn’t wearing that getup of hers because she’s out for justice. She wants revenge, plain and simple.”
“Did she kill anyone while she was Batgirl?”
Oracle closed her mouth, glaring.
“Well?” pressed Nightwing. “If she’s as nuts as you say, why didn’t she?”
“She kept it under control, that’s why.”
“Uh-huh. And that makes her insane how, exactly?”
“You want to know where she is, Dick? I’ll tell you. I got a report from Vanessa this morning, and another of my Eyes, Alex, he confirmed it. She’s on the Upper West Side. She’s in with Pettit and his Strong Men. The martial law brigade. Apparently she’s playing on their team now.”
Nightwing frowned darkly, turning away and moving to the stained-glass window, looking out past the shadow of the hands on the clock face beyond. “Dammit.”
“Not so rosy now, is it?”
He shook his head slightly, almost not listening. There was a plan, he knew there was a plan, and that Batman had put it in motion, but what it was … he hated not knowing. But when he’d asked Bruce he’d received only silence in response—the traditional answer that Nightwing remembered since childhood. Sometimes it honestly felt as if nothing had changed between him and Batman. Nothing at all.
“Dick?”
He blinked, saw that Oracle was watching him with some concern.
“I was just… I am hard on her,” Oracle said slowly. “But, you’ve got to understand, I think it’s warranted.”
“It is warranted. That’s not what concerns me.”
“Then what?”
“Batman,” he said, and that was the only answer necessary.
THIRTY-FOUR
PATIENCE WAS THE KEY, AND BANE KNEW that, and so he took his time before making the first move. A lot of time, almost two weeks’ worth.
Miss Graves, he noted, seemed perfectly content with this, allowing him to proceed at his own pace and staying out of the way. She had something going on with the Penguin, he had gathered that much, and he suspected he knew what that was. But it didn’t concern him, and thus he devoted no energy to confirming his suspicions.
Most of the initial work was surveillance. The target location was in the center of Two-Face’s southern territory, near City Hall. And though the Hall of Records itself was not heavily guarded, there were many men in the area, and several were armed, and he knew they would respond in kind to his actions once he began. For that reason, among others, he planned carefully, caching weapons at strategic locations, mapping his routes, and calculating his best angle of attack.
Only when he was certain he had accounted for all of the variables did he begin, and as the mid-October evening descended he rose from his cot in the warehouse workshop that had been his home for the last several weeks and began dressing. He had a costume, his traditional outfit for actions such as these, but put it aside in favor of more utilitarian garb. This was, in his mind, a military operation, almost commando work, and he dressed accordingly. He wore his mask nonetheless. Concealing his features was a conceit, but he knew the psychological value it would provide.
“You’re ready?” Miss Graves asked.
“I am. You will not see me for the next couple of days. This will take some time.”
“Very well.”
She watched as he armed himself, as he hoisted the mammoth pack onto his back. Bane took a moment, adjusting the straps and distributing the weight. He was carrying over two hundred pounds of equipment, a weight great enough for even him to feel its effects. After making certain it was seated properly, he made for the exit. Miss Graves followed.
“May you have good luck,” she said.
“Luck will play no part in this.”
* * * * *
The covert infiltration was flawless, and Bane was inside the Hall of Records before darkness had completely fallen. In an empty office he stowed the majority of his gear, and then with a gun strapped to his thigh and a knife in his hand, he began making his way silently through the halls, working from the top floor down. He encountered no one until reaching the ground level, where Two-Face had posted guards at all of the entrances. Bane had expected as much.
Returning to the office where he’d left his gear, Bane began gathering the explosives he had made. Patiently he began wiring each floor, starting with the top and again working his way down. There was no rush, and haste, he knew, would lead to a mistake. He had the luxury of double-checking his work, even, and so he did.
By dawn he had completely wired the upper floors of the building, the guards below blissfully unaware of his presence.
Shortly after daybreak, the guards were relieved by their replacements. Bane watched as the old departed and the new settled in, then he returned to the office for the third time and, after barricading the door, lay down for a nap. He felt good about his progress and certain in his hiding place and safety, but nonetheless it was hard for him to fall asleep. He ached for a good woman or a fine cigar or some rich, rare brandy, and his mind wandered among such thoughts for a good hour before he was able to calm it enough to truly sleep.
* * * * *
It was dark when he awoke, and he sat up in the office, listening carefully for almost two minutes before assuring himself that all was as it should be. Using the NVG from his bag, he gathered the two submachine guns and reconfirmed that each was fully loaded. Then he put the pack on once again, the detonator in his pocket, and snuck back into the hallway, guns in each hand.
The same guards from the night before were at their posts again. Without preamble, Bane descended the stairs and opened fire.
None of them reacted in time to return the shots, and the hallways echoed briefly with the sounds of dying men and the rattle of spent brass. Then there was nothing more but silence.
Slinging the guns, Bane searched the bodies. One had a radio, and he took it, hooking it to his belt in order to monitor any transmissions that Two-Face might broadcast. According to his surveillance, he would be safe until dawn, when the relief arrived. Finished with his search of the cooling bodies, he moved the corpses out of the main hall, dumping one after the other inside the nearby men’s room.
He used four more explosives to mine each of the doorways into the building, running nearly invisible tripwires back and forth across the thresholds to prevent any entry. Then he armed the devices. Anyone trying to enter via a doorway wouldn’t have time to regret the decision.
He moved to the basement level, where the actual records bad been kept. There were, he knew from reviewing the blueprints Miss Graves had supplied, eight separate rooms that housed the mainframe computers, and the electrical data that was now useless in No Man’s Land. Another four rooms—almost cavernously huge—housed the hard copies. Bane took the mainframe rooms first, going from computer to computer, systematically removing the platters of digital tape, setting each aside. When he had finished with the machines, he moved onto the hardcopies.
This took most of the night, moving down the rows and rows of files, opening each drawer, starting from the bottom, and dumping its contents to the floor. It was tedious and repetitious, and Bane didn’t much enjoy the task, but it had to be done, and he knew it had to be done this way. Records safe inside their filing cabinets might survive what was to come, and the instructions from Miss Graves had been absolutely clear.
When he was finished with the second room of hard copies, he turned and surveyed the scene, and for a moment he marveled at the amount of paper spreading out before him. It completely covered the floor, in places almost two feet deep, and the scent of it was pleasant and almost overwhelming.
There was one set of records he had retrieved personally that he had yet to add to the pile, though, and he held them in his hand for a moment longer before opening the thick file and leafing through the contents. Technically, what he held was only one small part of what was, relatively, a much larger set of records.
Wayne.
He flipped it open, leafing through the contents. Birth and death certificates, titles and deeds, the annotated history of a dynasty. Stretching back to the late 1600s, Waynes had lived in Gotham City before it was called that.
The final copies were, of course, the birth certificate for Bruce, followed almost immediately by the death certificates for Thomas and Martha.
Bane allowed himself a moment of commiseration, then banished it entirely. Bruce Wayne had, at least, known a father and a mother, proud people who had left him a legacy. He, on the other hand, had never known a father at all, and his own mother had been less a parent than the prison’s whore who sometimes paid him extra attention.
With a flick of his wrist, he sent the files fluttering to the ground, then moved purposefully out of the room, back to where he had left the platters of digital tape. He then broke each spool apart with his bare hands, letting the celluloid strips spring wildly and uncoil.
He checked his watch and noted that it was already past five-thirty in the morning. With a heavy sigh he moved out of the basement, back up to the floor where he had stowed his gear. Phase One was now entirely completed, and with time to spare. He dragged the pack to the stairs, then lifted it, returning once again to the lobby where he began assembling the machine gun, mounting it on its tripod. He carefully removed and then refolded the belt of ammunition, making certain all of the links were smooth, that there would be no kinks in the feeding of the rounds.
His watch now read eleven minutes past six. He sighed, then settled back to wait.
The relief arrived precisely at eight, as they had the morning before, and Bane lay flat on the floor, covering his head as the doors opened. The explosion came next, the concussion of the blast rolling back into the building and over him, and he could feel it through his thick muscles, deep in his thick bones. He rose quickly and moved to the machine gun, taking in the cloud of smoke and dust, pieces of masonry, wood, and marble still finding their way to the ground.
The dust cleared and no one was in the doorway. He saw a piece of a leg just beyond the entrance, presumably a segment of the man who had first tried to enter.
The silence stretched. Outside, Bane saw daylight filtering down through the floating dust, showing the dance of the motes. Pausing momentarily, he caught a breath of the autumn air from outside.
Someone stuck his head around the corner cautiously and without hesitating, Bane shot him.
Phase Two had begun.
* * * * *
Christina Weir screamed.
“Push,” Essen urged.
“With all due respect; Lieutenant,” Christina said, gasping for air, “go to hell.”
Essen nodded and said, “That’s good, just remember to breathe. And push.”
“I am pushing!”
“And you’re doing great. Breathe. Andy?”
“Uh,” Officer DeFilippis said.
“Keep holding her hand.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Touch me and I’ll kill you,” Christina said, then winced, then hollered again. “Oh, God, this is killing me.”
“You’re doing great, Chris, you’re doing fine, you’re almost there. I can see the head. Just another couple of—”
“This hurts! Oh Jesus God dammit ow oh dammit how did I let you do this to me?” Christina tilted her head back, looking up at Andy, reaching for his arm. “I swear you’re going to pay for this, I swear to God.”
“I love you,” Andy said.
Christina hollered again, her hand almost white from the strength of her grip around his arm, almost sitting up in bed, and her expression changed suddenly and she fell back, pulling long breaths from the air, blinking rapidly. Andy put a hand on her brow, wiping her hair back, murmuring to her.
The baby started to cry.
Essen took the blanket Montoya handed her, swaddling the newborn gently, then looked up at where Christina and Andy were both staring at her, and she thought it was almost cute, how both of them had the same stunned expression, the same look of absolute wonder in their eyes. Christina was still trying to catch her breath.
“It’s a boy,” Essen said. “A perfect little boy. Congratulations.”
* * * * *
Later, outside of the bungalow that Weir and DeFilippis were now using as their home, Essen joined her husband. It was evening and cool, the edge of an autumn crispness in the air, and she slipped her hand into his, giving it a squeeze.
“A boy, huh?” Gordon said.
“Yup.”
“And everything is good?”
“Looks that way. All his fingers and toes are there, at any rate.” Essen brushed her hair back off her face. “In a week or so we can have someone take them up to Dr. Thompkins, have a real doctor look at their work.”
“Good idea. So, this kid have a name?”
“A mouthful of a name. Justin Michael DeFilippis-Weir.”
“I’m impressed.”
“Yeah, just imagine yelling that from your front porch.”
Gordon let go of her hand, putting his arm around her shoulder instead. “Not what I meant. From all the shouting going on in there I wasn’t certain if it was a birth or an interrogation.”
“Well, rubber hoses can be used in both situations, as I’m sure you know,” Essen joked. “So it’s understandable that you’d become confused.”
They began walking toward their home. After a minute, Essen said, “You know, I think that’s the fourth kid I’ve delivered in my career as a cop. Four. Wow.”
“I never have.”
“No?”
Her husband shook his head. “No. Almost all of the cops I know, they’ve delivered at least one child, or been present for at least one delivery in the field. Not me. I keep missing out.”
“Children,” Essen said softly.
He stopped, moving his hand to her shoulder and looking in her eyes. “We agreed when we got married. You regretting that decision?”
“No,” she said. “I’ve got you, and that makes me happy.”
“You’re happy?”
“Right now? Yes. I’m walking home with my husband, the Commissioner of Police for the city of Gotham. We’re safe, we’ve got a roof over our head. We’re surviving. You told me a while back that you were afraid with Pettit gone we’d crumble. Well, it’s been months, and here we still are. I’m happy. I’m proud.”
She moved forward and kissed him on the mouth, feeling the familiar scratch of his mustache, and he responded in kind, wrapping his arms around her tighter and pulling her in close. They stayed in the clinch, lips together, and she felt her heart beginning to race and the same sense of wonder that, after so long, he could still excite her like this, still make her feel as young and strong and potent as he had all those years ago, when they’d first met.
From down the street, she heard Bullock shouting, “Woohoo! You kids knock that off! There’s laws against that!”
She broke away from her husband long enough to turn and spot Bullock and Montoya a couple doors down, sitting on the stoop, side by side. Montoya was laughing, and Bullock was waving his arms as if to say, please, no more.
“C’mon,” Jim whispered in her ear. “We can go back to our place and do that thing people do when they want to make babies.”
“Except without that baby-making part.”
“Whatever you want,” he said, and his breath on her neck made her shiver involuntarily.
She ignored the catcalls and hoots from Montoya and Bullock, taking her husband by the hand and leading him the rest of the way home. Then she didn’t have to lead him at all.
* * * * *
He was careful not to wake Sarah when he rose the next morning, just before dawn. He slipped on his glasses and his clothes, quietly opening the door to the bedroom before stopping and looking back, seeing her asleep still, listening to the gentle song of her breathing. He let himself smile, and for the first time in months didn’t feel guilty that he could.
Things were bad, sure, Gordon knew. But not impossible.
Hell, even in No Man’s Land people were having babies. If that didn’t prove that life would triumph no matter what, he didn’t know what did.
He moved into the kitchen, finding a half-empty can of Sterno with which he started a fire to heat some water. Back when they’d taken Penguin’s land south of the park, in one of the caches, they’d found some vacuum-sealed French roast, already ground, and he used a little of it now to make himself a cup of coffee. He took the cup with him out to the garden, planning to watch the sun rise.
He’d settled on the bench, watching the dawn beginning to bleed over the horizon, when he heard the voice right behind him. The hot coffee scalded the back of his hand when he started at the noise.
“Jim.”
From the corner of Gordon’s eye, he saw Two-Face standing just behind him, to the left. He had a gun in his hand, not quite pointed at Gordon’s side.
“What do you want?” Gordon said tightly.
“Your turn to fulfill our bargain,” Two-Face said softly, and it wasn’t the voice Gordon expected. It was almost imploring. Almost hopeful.
“Our deal is off, has been for months. Long over.”
“For you. Two people make a deal. Two people end it.”
Gordon turned slowly, facing him, holding the mug with both hands. Worse came to worst, he’d fling the hot liquid at Two-Face and hope that would buy him a few seconds. He glanced at Two-Face’s free hand, and was vaguely relieved to see that the coin was nowhere in sight.
