Batman: No Man's Land Page 20

  With a grunt, Batman followed after her, pulling himself up through the broken flooring, feeling his whole body protest with the effort. A visit to Alfred would be necessary as soon as he could find the time.

  The girl had stopped and was looking back, though whether she was checking to see if he was all right or still following, Batman had no idea. When she saw Batman, though, she turned and sprinted out of the building, racing around to the front. He went after her, feeling his right leg threaten to give out beneath his weight.

  She was in the street, staring up at the window where they had left Cain hanging.

  But Cain was gone.

  Batman tilted his head back, slowly scanning the buildings on both sides of the street, down one side and then back up the other, until finally he was again looking at the Clock Tower. He could see the tiny shape of figures at the broken window nearly twenty stories above, a tan overcoat discernible. One of the figures, he knew, was Jim Gordon.

  The girl was pulling at his hand, silently imploring him to follow her off the street, toward the Clock Tower. She was pointing up, at where Gordon was still looking down at them.

  Batman shook his head, breaking free from her grip gently. Clearly Cain had made an attempt on Gordon’s life, one that had been blocked before he arrived, apparently by the girl. He gave her another look, saw the broad spread of the knuckles of each of her hands, how she held her center of gravity. She was looking at him with wide eyes, waiting, and he saw the pattern of her breathing, the measured control of an advanced martial artist.

  He needed to withdraw, tend his wounds. Cain would be doing the same. There was time to spare. The girl had bought Gordon another day, at least.

  He gestured for her to follow him, then made for Puckett Park.

  TWENTY-SIX

  “PARLEZ-VOUS FANCAIS?” BATMAN ASKED.

  The girl looked at him blankly. They were seated opposite each other, under one of the many oak trees in Puckett Park, not more than a hundred yards from where Batman had buried the bodies of those men Two-Face had murdered. It was dark now, and the heat and humidity of the day had begun to mercifully recede.

  “Sprechen Sie Deutsch? Nihongo ga dekimasuka? Vy govoritiye po Russki? Hangaokah hashimnigka? Ba heeayoo kahng noy deeyahng Veeahdt?”

  The girl shook her head.

  He used his hands to ask, Are you deaf, do you understand signing?

  The girl shook her head again, then reached out and took the Batman’s hands, pushing his fingers into fists. Then she pressed her palms against the face of each fist. She pulled back and then repeated the gesture, harder, keeping her eyes on his.

  Batman considered, then got to his feet and began performing the Push Hands drill from Tai Chi Chuan, going through each movement slowly. Before he had finished the first sequence, the girl was standing beside him, mirroring each gesture perfectly, timing her motions against his.

  Batman stopped and looked at her, again grateful for the lenses in the cowl that shielded his eyes. He didn’t want the girl to see the sudden pity he felt for her.

  “I understand,” he said.

  She smiled hesitantly.

  “I knew David Cain once, long ago,” Batman continued. “More than twenty years past. I was a student of his.”

  The girl’s eyes widened a fraction.

  “He used to say that the only way to truly be a warrior was to make your actions as fluid and easy as your speech. He used to say that combat itself was a discourse, the finest form of conversation. At the time I thought it was hyperbole.” Batman reached out, touching the girl’s cheek. “I didn’t realize he was insane enough to actually force that philosophy on another human being.”

  The girl nodded slowly.

  Batman swiped at the earth with his hand, clearing a surface broad enough to work on. With his index finger he drew three symbols: a badge, a face with a line down its middle, and the serpent’s head that was the mark of Cain. He drew an arching line, joining the mark of Cain to the badge, then another joining the split face to the mark.

  “Two-Face,” he said, tapping the appropriate symbol. “Hired David Cain to kill Commissioner Gordon. You saved Gordon’s life.” He circled the badge, then said it again. “You saved his life.”

  The girl’s smile was genuine. She reached out and erased the line from Cain to Gordon.

  “Yes,” Batman said. “I want to keep that from happening.”

  The girl frowned, her brow creasing, and he could see that whatever she was thinking, she was having difficulty finding the means to articulate it. Finally, she brought her closed fist down on Cain, rubbing the symbol out.

  “No,” Batman said, and he quickly drew the symbol in again. “I won’t kill him. I don’t kill.”

  The girl’s frown deepened and she redrew the line from Two-Face to Cain, then added arrow heads on either side of the link. She looked pointedly at Batman, then redrew the line from Cain to Gordon, dragging an X across the symbol for the Commissioner. Finally, she once again rubbed out the symbol representing Cain.

  Batman calmly replaced it, saying, “I understand. Two-Face has paid Cain to kill Gordon. Cain won’t stop until Gordon is dead. And you believe the only way to stop Cain is by killing him. I disagree. There is another way.”

  The girl held up her hands, as if asking for an explanation.

  “The weak link is the money. If Cain isn’t paid, he won’t complete the contract, and Two-Face won’t pay him until Gordon is dead.” He got to his feet, looking at the girl. “Stay here. Whoever you are to David Cain, I don’t want you two mixing it up again. In the morning, head back to Oracle.”

  She tugged on his cape as he turned, then pointed her index finger at his chest, the question on her face.

  “I’m going to try and keep Jim Gordon alive.”

  * * * * *

  The standoff had started during the night, four members of what had been Black Mask’s cult, aimless and lost with his disappearance, taking hostages and parading them down Palmieri Way until reaching Central. Then they put knives to the throats of three innocents and began with their demands.

  “We want the release of Black Mask!” their leader had shouted. “We want the release of Black Mask or these three die!”

  Montoya would have laughed if she’d still had it in her to do so. It was utterly ludicrous, on so many levels. To begin with, she didn’t know where Black Mask was. As far as that went, she didn’t think anyone in the GCPD knew where Black Mask was either, and she didn’t have the time or the inclination to look. She was far more concerned with trying to keep the Commissioner alive and as far away from Cain as humanly possible, and she honestly didn’t have much faith in her ability to do so with only a handful of other cops beside her.

  The word about Cain had spread like wildfire, of course, and now, to make matters just as bad as they could possibly be, the Blue Boys were two steps away from panic as a whole, their faith in Gordon’s leadership shattered by this new threat. Montoya knew this, knew the cops who still had their nerve were few enough she could metaphorically hold them in her hand. She didn’t have time to deal with the self-mutilated marauders gathered outside of Central.

  But, of course, since the very last thing she wanted to be doing was negotiating her way out of a hostage situation in the rubble in the middle of the night, that was precisely where she had found herself.

  When Pettit and his squad had finally showed up just before daybreak, she was almost happy to see them. She didn’t even mind that Foley had come along to watch.

  * * * * *

  “No negotiations,” Pettit declared.

  Montoya sighed. “They’ve got hostages.”

  Pettit adjusted his cap, the same one he’d been wearing since Day 0. “No negotiations. These are terrorists. We don’t negotiate with terrorists.”

  “Bill. What are you proposing to do?”

  “We give them an ultimatum. QRT protocols. I’m in charge now.” He faced the cult members. “You have until dawn to let
them go. Otherwise you’ll be shot.”

  “We want the release of Black Mask! We want the release of Black Mask or we’ll kill them.”

  “Yeah,” Pettit muttered. “I heard you the first time, freak. Anderson?”

  One of the men in the squad stepped forward. “Sir?”

  “You and Lewis go up the block, come around back. I’ll give you the signal when I want you to move.”

  “Yes, sir.” He backed off and tapped another member of the squad on the shoulder, and the two men headed into the lightening night together. All of Pettit’s squad were armed, sidearms and M16s.

  “What exactly are they supposed to do?” Montoya asked.

  “They’ll shoot when the time comes.”

  “They have ammunition? You said we were out of ammunition.”

  Pettit ignored her, moving closer to the rusted husk of a crushed car, trying to get a better look at the Black Maskers and their captives. Two of the hostages were men, one of them barely out of his teens, the other on the far side of fifty. The other was a woman, and from the way the three hostages kept looking to one another, Montoya guessed they were a family. One of the few that had remained in the city as a unit.

  The sky was beginning to bleed with color, driving the navy blue away, dripping gold light on the sides of surrounding buildings. Montoya saw the Black Maskers fidgeting, exchanging glances more and more frequently. The hostages had gone utterly silent.

  “Time’s up,” Pettit said. Then, louder, he shouted, “I’m giving you one last chance to let them go, understand? One last chance. I’m counting down from ten. If the hostages aren’t free when I hit one, we’re opening fire.”

  “Free Black Mask!”

  “That’s the way you want it, fine.” Pettit turned and motioned more of the squad forward, dropping his own rifle from his shoulder and snapping the rate selector switch above the trigger plate.

  “You can’t just—”

  “You know what, Montoya? Shut up.”

  She felt the color racing into her cheeks. “Pettit! You can’t—”

  “What part of that didn’t you understand?” Pettit brought the rifle to his shoulder, using the roof of the car as a support.

  Montoya looked around, trying to find a solution, some support, anything. Foley was standing at the back of the squad, and he avoided her eyes. Pettit was now counting down, had already reached seven, and it seemed to her that he was actually speeding up instead of slowing down. The rest of the squad had their weapons up as well, all their sights on the Black Maskers. Montoya watched while the hostages were herded together in a tight group, and the Black Maskers proceeded to kneel behind them, using their bodies as a shield.

  “This is crazy,” she said. “Pettit Stop, you’ll hit the hostages!”

  “Three,” Pettit was saying. “Two. One—”

  “What the hell is going on here?!” Gordon demanded.

  Montoya turned, hearing Pettit moving as well, seeing the Commissioner racing toward them from the end of the street. Bullock was with him, chewing ferociously on the stick in his mouth. She heard Pettit swear under his breath.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Gordon demanded.

  “Hostage situation, Jim,” Pettit said. “You just broke my ultimatum, now they think they can push us around.”

  “Were you about to open fire?”

  “We were on the count, Commissioner. You know as well as I do—”

  “I don’t give a damn if you were solving the national debt, Captain Pettit.” Gordon shoved his glasses back on his nose with an angry thumb, glaring. “This is not how we deal with the mentally ill, and it sure as hell isn’t how we deal with them when there are hostages at stake. Nobody is shooting anybody here until I say otherwise. Is that understood, Captain Pettit?”

  Pettit blew out a long breath, and Montoya saw the muscles in the man’s jaw tighten. The dawn light was making his skin look red, and then Montoya realized it wasn’t just the light.

  She saw what he was going to do, tried screaming, “No, don’t!” but she was already a half-second too late to stop it.

  Pettit spun and opened fire with the M16 from the waist, putting down a long burst. The noise was terrifying and tremendous in the dawn silence, and the barrage seemed to last a long time, and when Pettit came off the trigger, Montoya heard the rattling of spent brass on the ground.

  The Black Maskers lay dead on the broken pavement outside of Central.

  So did the family, the hostages.

  “Don’t compromise my leadership in the field,” Pettit said softly.

  Montoya felt the sudden, terrible need to vomit. For a moment she thought she would. She put a hand out on the wrecked car to steady herself.

  Gordon and Bullock had moved past her, were staring down at the bodies. No one else was moving, no one in the squad, no one on the street.

  Gordon looked back at where they were standing, Montoya beside Pettit, and he started to go for his gun, when Bullock grabbed his arm.

  “No, Commish, don’t do it,” Bullock said quickly, fighting to keep Gordon’s gun arm down. “Don’t do it, it’s not worth it.”

  Pettit had brought the rifle to his shoulder once more, had the barrel leveled at the Commissioner.

  Montoya moved before considering, slapping the gun aside, and Pettit responded by swinging at her with the back of his hand. The blow snapped into the side of her face, high on the cheek, hard enough to put her on the ground, and when she could see again Pettit was pointing the rifle at her, scowling.

  “Don’t ever touch my weapon again, woman,” he said.

  Montoya thought it would be damn stupid to die this way, to die because Billy Pettit had lost it.

  For a long second Pettit’s finger stayed on the trigger. Then he came off it and stepped back, raising the rifle above his head and shouting

  “This is the only diplomacy left!” he cried. “The diplomacy of strength, the ability to back your words! We’ve been deluding ourselves for months, thinking we could survive by being soft.”

  “Well, I’m not deluded anymore. I know what has to be done.”

  He lowered the rifle, surveying the gathered men. Montoya, still on the ground, didn’t move. The light in Pettit’s eyes was one she knew. It was the light in Harvey Dent’s eyes when he’d told her to run. It was the touch of madness.

  “You can stick with him,” Pettit said, gesturing with his free hand at Gordon. “With Jimmy’s outmoded ethics and sense of fair play, his precious morality. You can stick with him, and you can die.”

  “Or you can come with me, and live.”

  He lowered the rifle, glancing down at Montoya again, his mouth curled in contempt. Then he stepped back.

  Anderson and Lewis came around the car and joined him on either side. Then more of the squad—one man, then two, then four, then all of them—gathered around Pettit. Montoya stared, seeing Foley glancing from Pettit to Gordon, frightened. Then he dropped his gaze to his feet and fell in with Pettit’s men, too.

  “Right,” Pettit said softly. “Nice knowing the three of you.”

  Then he led his men away, down the street, leaving Montoya, Gordon, and Bullock to stare after them.

  TWENTY SEVEN

  CASSANDRA. HAVING DECIDED WHAT SHE was going to do, wasted no time in doing it.

  Two-Face’s men posed very little problem, really. Some of them had guns, and those were the ones to be cautious of, but the rest were only equipped with clubs and knives and the like, and she knew how to deal with those easily enough. It took her less than two minutes to work her way from the steps into the building, dropping each guard with her hands or her feet as she came upon him, leaving them on the ground, clutching at dislocated joints or fractured bones or, more often, not clutching at anything at all, simply unconscious.

  The guard at the bottom of the stairs, though, he had a gun, and she moved at him quickly, tracking the weapon’s movement, then veering away before he fired. The one shot, she felt, wo
uld be enough, would do the trick, and she trapped the guard’s arm at the elbow and then twisted until she felt the bone snap. She heard the doors opening above the atrium. She let the guard fall, glancing up to see a man with a horrible, split face.

  Two faces, she thought, and bounded up the stairs, after him. Two-Face moved back, reaching into his pocket. Cassandra was only halfway up and trying to decide which way to go if he pulled a gun, but he didn’t, he pulled a coin, flipping it quickly. Then he dropped the coin back into his pocket and ran.

  She hit the landing, skidding around the corner on the marble floor in time to see the doors near the end of the hall slamming shut. There were another two guards here, each with a rifle, and she sprinted at them, then dropped to her back, sliding. Both fired and missed, and she flipped from the ground up, kicking the nearer of the two in the chest and then coming down on her hands, another flip, another kick, this one to the remaining guard’s face. When she got to her feet, both were out cold.

  She moved to the door, pushing it open, then stepping back.

  The shots tore through the wood, hit the wall across the hall. She counted them, eleven, one after the other, and then there was a pause and she decided she would have to risk it. She went into the room low, diving toward the desk and then springing up, coming at Two-Face from his exposed side. She knew she was moving quickly now, perhaps as fast as she had ever gone, and she had the gun away from him with a bash at his wrist, then caught him beneath the throat, closing her fingers around his larynx.

  There was another man in the room, in a funny hat. That man had a gun pointed at her, too. She didn’t worry about him, moving Two-Face in front of her as a shield. With her free hand she dipped into his pocket, where she had seen the coin disappear. She showed it to Two-Face.

  “You’re gonna die for this, little girl,” he managed to croak.

  She shook her head and tightened her grip slightly, waving the coin at him.

  “You, too? You’re gonna flip on me, too?”

  She frowned. The other man was still holding the gun on them. She gave Two-Face another shake.