Batman: No Man's Land Page 18

The angle looked good.

  He went back to the canister and opened the main compartment, taking out the components of his rifle. The assembly was smooth and fast, taking him under a minute to complete. He loaded the magazine, slipped it into place, then set the rifle aside and removed the scope from its shock-resistant box. He had zeroed it only the day before, outside of Montreal, and hoped that the sensitive sight had survived the HALO drop unharmed. He bolted it to the rifle, then removed one more instrument from the canister. Then he climbed back into the sniper’s nest he had made.

  He took three range readings with the new device, marking them painstakingly in grease pencil on the laminated surface taped to the butt of the rifle. Then he adjusted the sight to match.

  Content, he set the rifle aside and reloaded his pistol.

  Finally, he lay back against the cushions, the pistol in his hand, his hand in his lap, and waited for the dawn to rise.

  TWENTY-TWO

  HE HATED HIMSELF FOR ALMOST ENJOYING what he was doing.

  It had been depressingly simple to slip past Two-Face’s guards, to penetrate the courthouse under the cover of darkness, to slip into Judge Halsey’s chambers without alerting anyone to his presence. The only truly challenging part had been when he’d found Two-Face actually asleep in bed, and even that hadn’t stopped him. He’d managed to bind Two-Face’s hands and feet without waking him, and had the gag ready in his hand. It would be the gag that would give him away, he knew. It was impossible to gag a sleeping person.

  The night beyond the window was dark and moonless. The Batman felt that was somehow appropriate.

  In one swift move, he stuffed the gag into Two-Face’s mouth. Then the Batman stepped back, watching coldly as the man he’d once known as Harvey Dent, the man he’d once called his friend, opened his eyes in horror and began struggling, pulling at the bonds that held him. He struggled for nearly a minute, straining violently at the ties holding his wrists and ankles, thrashing his head, the one already bulging eye seeming to surge all the more in the darkness and in desperation.

  “Harvey,” the Batman finally said.

  Two-Face fell back against the bed, turning his head to the source of the voice. The surprise registered in his eyes, and he tried to say something that was lost behind the gag.

  “I have a problem,” the Batman said.

  Two-Face made another noise.

  The Batman moved silently around the room, then stopped at the bureau at the foot of the bed. On its surface was the silver half-dollar, and he picked it up, ignoring Two-Face’s gagged protests. He held the coin between two fingers at eye level, turning it to look at each side, the smooth, worn surface that served as good heads, the representation of Liberty. Then the same face on the other side, only there it had been scratched and pitted, marred beyond all recognition. Bad heads.

  “I think I finally understand its appeal, Harvey,” the Batman said softly.

  Two-Face’s eyes widened slightly.

  “There’s no judge, Harvey. No court. No jury. There’s no law anymore. Do you understand? There’s no law anymore.”

  Two-Face didn’t move, tracking the Batman’s movement around the room.

  “You murdered six men, Harvey. Six men I’d sworn to protect.” The Batman moved closer, looming over the bed, glowering down at Two-Face. “Six men that I know of, and how many more have you killed who have no one to speak for them? Another six? Twelve? Twenty?”

  He stepped back, looking once more at the coin in his hand. Two-Face’s expression had changed, and the Batman recognized it as honest fear. For a moment, it gave him a glimmer of something like satisfaction.

  “There’s got to be a reckoning, Harvey,” the Batman said. “What do you say? Should I flip it? Good heads, I let you go. Bad heads …”

  Two-Face began thrashing again, then stopped suddenly as he caught the motion of the toss, hearing the sound of the coin, the slight tone of the metal as it was struck, the noise of the disk flipping through the air.

  The Batman caught the toss with a snapping of his fist, looking at his closed hand as if he could divine the result by feel.

  “Bad heads,” the Batman repeated, spitting the words as if they were slick with grease, and then he turned and flung the coin, a move so fast and so sudden that Two-Face’s muffled scream didn’t begin until after the half-dollar had embedded itself, edge first, into the far wall.

  The Batman leaned in suddenly, lifting Two-Face by the throat.

  “Never forget how close you came tonight, Harvey,” he hissed. “Never forget what you almost made me do.”

  Then he was gone, leaving Two-Face lying tied to the bed, pulling desperate breaths through his nose while he tried to force the gag out of his mouth with his tongue, tried to call for help.

  TWENTY-THREE

  “IT’S TOO DANGEROUS FOR A YOUNG LADY like you to be wandering around the No Man’s Land at night,” Dr. Leslie Thompkins told Cassandra. “You’re sleeping here tonight, in my tent. No arguments.”

  Cassandra tried to explain that she needn’t worry, that she really could take care of herself, but eventually gave up. Dr. Thompkins was a healer, after all, and worthy of respect. The last thing Cassandra wanted to do was insult her. There was no way to explain that she was only at the makeshift hospital and camp as a courier, running messages between Oracle and Alfred Pennyworth. It wouldn’t matter to the doctor that Cassandra had already passed Oracle’s message to Alfred, or that she now had Alfred’s response folded safely in a pocket, ready for the return journey.

  So she spent the night at the MASH encampment, helping Dr. Thompkins and Alfred with the patients there, following either one or the other of them around until quite late. She was astonished by the steady stream of people, men and women and children who made their way to the little camp, all hoping that the doctor could minister some aid.

  Even more surprising than that, though, was Leslie herself.

  Cassandra wasn’t certain, but the woman had to be in her late sixties, at least, with hair that was both silver and white, and the clearest, palest blue eyes she had ever seen. She was a small woman, too, no bigger than Cassandra herself, and slight, with almost no muscle to speak of; the kind of person who looked like she could be tossed away in a stiff breeze. Yet Dr. Thompkins seemed invested with a boundless energy fueled from somewhere within. It was inspiring to simply watch her speaking with a patient, to see her render care so gently and so competently.

  Dr. Thompkins would never hurt anyone or anything, Cassandra could tell that just by looking at her.

  When they turned in that night, Cassandra tried to share that observation with the doctor, tried to pay her the honor as best she could. She waited until Dr. Thompkins had finished preparing the cot for her. Then, before the doctor could move out of the way, Cassandra stepped in, blocking her passage.

  “I’m sorry?” Dr. Thompkins said. “Is there something more you’d like, dear?”

  Cassandra shook her head, then presented both hands. With her right she made a fist, seating the face of it against the palm of her left hand, extending both in front of her at waist height. Then she bowed, looking the doctor in the eye.

  Dr. Thompkins’s wrinkled face wrinkled some more, and then she surprised Cassandra by returning the bow, saying, “You are quite a warrior, aren’t you, dear? Thank you for the compliment.”

  Cassandra went to sleep happy.

  * * * * *

  The next morning, she woke before dawn and slipped out of the cot in the dark, making her way silently past Dr. Thompkins’s sleeping form, until she was outside once more. The sky was turning pink, and a hint of the day’s coming heat was already in the air.

  Cassandra crouched outside the tent, pulling on her boots, and then she heard the movement to one side and turned quickly to catch its source.

  The Huntress was watching her from beside the large tent, where the most serious patients lay.

  Cassandra grinned and raised a hand, and the Huntress nodded in a
cknowledgment.

  Boots on, Cassandra approached, arms out in an exaggerated gesture, trying to convey both that she was pleased to see the other woman and that she hadn’t seen her in a while. It had been months since they’d crossed paths on the Upper East Side, and since that time Cassandra had found herself wondering what had become of the Huntress. Whenever she had tried to ask Oracle, Oracle pretended not to know what Cassandra was talking about.

  “How are you?” Huntress asked softly.

  Cassandra smiled and nodded, then gave her a thumbs-up. Huntress smiled. “Good.”

  Cassandra indicated the camp, then pointed at Huntress. “Me? No, I’m fine. I’m not hurt.”

  Cassandra shook her head, repeated the gesture.

  “Oh, you mean what am I doing here?”

  Cassandra nodded.

  “I could ask you the same thing,” Huntress said. “Just thought I’d stop by, make certain everything here was okay. I’ve been trying to keep an eye on the camp. What about you?”

  Cassandra indicated herself, then made a walking gesture with the fingers of her right hand. Then she used her left palm as if it were a piece of paper, and mimed scribbling a note.

  Huntress nodded. “Who for?”

  Cassandra frowned, uncertain whether she should answer the question, if Oracle would be angry or not. Cassandra hadn’t told her about the time she and Huntress had met at the end of winter, which had been all right because it really hadn’t seemed to matter, then. But this was a question about Oracle specifically, and Cassandra didn’t know what to do.

  Huntress looked at her expectantly, and Cassandra finally nodded and pointed at her chest, making a small circle above her left breast. She tapped the circle, then did it again.

  Huntress smiled gently, like a teacher with a favorite student. “I don’t understand, hon.”

  With her hands, Cassandra drew a shield in the air between them. Then she tapped her chest again, made the circle again.

  “Badge, is that what you’re trying to say?” Huntress asked.

  Cassandra nodded.

  “Gordon has you running messages back and forth in the No Man’s Land? He really has forgotten his priorities, hasn’t he?”

  Cassandra frowned. She didn’t like having to tell the lie, and now she didn’t like where the one-sided conversation was headed. And it was starting to get light, and she wanted to make it to Oracle’s before the morning had progressed too far.

  She made the running fingers gesture again, then pointed out of the camp, to the south.

  “Got to run, huh?”

  Cassandra nodded and shrugged.

  The Huntress chuckled. “Not that you need the warning, but be careful. Two-Face is between us and the Blue Boys now, and he’s not as permissive a landlord as the Batman was.”

  Cassandra made the gesture with her fists she had offered to Dr. Thompkins the night before.

  Huntress returned it perfectly.

  “Watch your back, kid,” Huntress said.

  * * * * *

  After reading Alfred’s note, Oracle wanted to work on Cassandra’s lesson. They moved from the control room into the main space of the apartment, Cassandra watching while Oracle slid the false wall back into place. Cassandra took the seat Oracle indicated and waited while the other woman maneuvered the chair around to face her. From the coffee table, Oracle took a sketch pad and flipped it open to the beginning of the alphabet. They went through twenty-six sheets, each letter of the Roman alphabet, with Cassandra trying to mimic the sounds that Oracle made, matching the noise to the symbol.

  “Good,” Oracle said. “You’re getting better. You’ve made a lot of progress.”

  Cassandra pushed the tip of her tongue against the back of her teeth. “T-aaans…”

  “Thanks.”

  “Ta-ah nks…”

  “Better. Okay, let’s try something else.” Oracle set the pad in her lap, turning to a new page and writing quickly with a large black marker. “Okay, try this one. This is a high palate sound. Stop.”

  “Sdaaa…”

  “That’s right, you’re getting it.”

  “Ss-daa … ssddaa…” Cassandra tried, then turned quickly in her seat, attention now on the door to the apartment. There was a knock, and then the door opened, and the man she knew was Oracle’s father was coming inside.

  “Barbara, you shouldn’t leave it unlocked,” Gordon said.

  “Who’s going to break in, Dad?”

  Cassandra got up, moving out of the way as Gordon passed her to hug his daughter. She could see Oracle’s smile, how they both closed their eyes briefly. Her own father had only offered her a hug once, and that had been so many years ago, just before she had left. She felt both awkward and embarrassed watching them, as if she were intruding on something she had no right to see, and so she left, slipping silently out of the apartment and back into the hallway.

  She could hear their voices, the soft tones, and she reached the stairs knowing that jealousy was dogging her steps. She wrestled with it in her mind all the way to the lobby, trying to see the emotion for exactly what it was. She didn’t want to feel sorry for herself.

  There were two extra Blue Boys in the lobby, bringing the total of guards to four. She didn’t recognize any of them. The woman, the blond one who normally stood on guard, hadn’t been there for days. Cassandra had meant to ask Oracle about her, where she had gone, but with communication being so difficult, it had been too much of a bother.

  She stepped out into the summer heat and light, and saw her father across the street.

  Her heart stopped for an instant, turned cold, and she froze on the steps, not believing it. She couldn’t breathe.

  It’s not him, she thought. It can’t be him, not here. He couldn’t have tracked me here.

  She stepped back into the lobby, pressing herself against the wall, then peeking around again with one eye.

  The man was still walking along the broken sidewalk; he hadn’t stopped, hadn’t even looked her way, and Cassandra prayed he hadn’t seen her.

  He can’t know I’m here, there’s no way he could know that I’m here, she thought. He can’t know, he can’t…

  He was entering one of the ruined buildings across the way, the tallest of them, now out of sight and inside. Walking with his head down, hands in his pockets, focused. She knew the look. She also knew that he didn’t miss much, and that if he hadn’t seen her already, it was by the same chance that had allowed her to see him first.

  She edged back out of the lobby, clinging to the wall and then moving into the alley at the side, ducking behind some rubble. She couldn’t see any movement from the building he’d entered. The windows facing the street had almost all been shattered in the quake, and most of them were now blocked with either scraps of boards or sheets, used by the residents to keep out the summer heat and the swarms of flies that moved in the streets like black clouds.

  As she watched, the sheet hanging over the window on the end of the top floor moved barely. The glint of metal reflected just for an instant, then was gone.

  There were voices coming from the Clock Tower, just inside the lobby. Oracle’s father, telling the Blue Boys there that he was ready to go.

  Her father! Cassandra thought, and then she was out of the alley, leaping hack up the steps as Gordon and the other cops stepped outside. She scared them with her approach, two of the men stepping back and freeing their weapons from their holsters, and Gordon’s surprise was alight all over his face. She didn’t care, didn’t think about it, just grabbed him around the waist, passing the Blue Boys on either side of the Commissioner, and then driving him back into the lobby, shoving him down and covering him with her body.

  There was no sound of the shot, but the bullet hit the ground on a line with where Gordon’s head had been only a second before, splintering the concrete of the steps. Cassandra pushed herself up, still holding the Commissioner, dragging him forcefully back into the lobby as more rounds were hitting the ground, ea
ch only an instant behind them until they were far enough inside to have cover, to block the sniper’s angle. Cassandra let Gordon go, turning back to look.

  One of the Blue Boys was already dead, shot through the throat. The remainder had pulled back, their weapons drawn, shouting to one another. One of them was trying to return fire.

  Gordon started to get up and Cassandra caught him by the arms, shoving him back, toward the stairway. She indicated up with a finger, jabbing at the ceiling.

  “Upstairs?”

  She nodded vigorously, still poking the air above her. Gordon shook his head, started to step forward, but another barrage of shots from outside peppered the ground, breaking into the lobby and snapping pieces of the marble tile, shooting them into the air. Cassandra moved directly in front of Gordon, then wrapped her arms around his middle, using her right leg as a brace, trying to keep him from continuing. He tried for a second longer, but Cassandra held her ground, and Gordon finally got the message.

  “Fall back,” he told his men. “Fall back.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  THE BODY LANGUAGE WAS ALMOST AS FLUENT as speech, and it filled in the gaps. The problem with trying to read Two-Face’s lips, the Batman knew, was the left side of Harvey’s face. So far, though, Two-Face had been obliging, ranting at the TallyMan in the outer office of Judge Halsey’s chambers. From where the Batman was perched on the remnants of what had once been Gotham’s Federal Building, his view via binoculars was unobstructed.

  It had taken Harvey almost six minutes to break free from the bonds, twice as long as the Batman had estimated. He put the discrepancy down to two factors, possibly a combination of both. First, he had bound Two-Face to the bed more securely than intended. Second, Two-Face had most likely been terrified by what had happened, and was almost certainly irrational.

  The Batman understood that last factor more than he cared to admit. He had scared himself nearly as much as he had Two-Face. The coin had been, for one horrible instant, seductive. It had offered to take the responsibility away, and the offer had been a tempting one. So much of the No Man’s Land seemed to now be resting on his shoulders, and the chance that somehow, someway, Batman could abdicate responsibility, that was a potent dream.