Chapter Five: Third
From the official police records of James Gordon, Police Commissioner of Gotham City
Investigation cont’d:
Cptn. James Gordon Date: Apr. 11, 1940
The Joker got the commissioner, despite our best efforts. Six of my men are dead, and at least one of us was compromised. A goddamned two-timing traitor. We caught the sniveling weasel, but the Joker and a bunch of his crew got away.
We were able to round up a few of them from inside the building. I don’t have any solid proof, but it appears to me that the Batman incapacitated a bunch of them before coming down to help us out. I know I’m still in the minority on this, but I think the guy proved once and for all he’s on our side. Even if it’s not enough to clear him of his crimes, at least it’s something.
Onsen Haynes has been an officer for many years. He’s well liked enough, though he mostly kept to himself. I’ve asked around and no one can tell me a thing about what might have caused him to do this. The man he shot, Eric Swanson, was said to be a friend of his. It doesn’t make any sense. And of course, he’s not talking.
Whoever this Joker is, he’s got friends in high places. These guys could be anywhere. Last night we saw more henchmen of his than ever before. There’s really no telling how many people are working with him.
We believe we know when the next attack is going to take place. Or at least, I do. It’s me who’s the target, after all. I suppose I’m somewhat in control of that, although maybe that’s what Joker is letting me think.
Peter Grogan is the new Acting Commissioner for the time being. I don’t know too much about him, as he’s not from our precinct. He chewed my ear off for an hour this morning for letting the Batman go, though, so he at least has that in common with Loeb. Afterwards, he suggested that it might be a little bit okay if I take a leave of absence until the third attack happens. I don’t know if it makes any real difference whether I’m on duty or not. I can’t be home near my family, as it puts them at risk. So I’m bound to be spending the night with a bunch of policemen as protection one way or another. Might as well get paid for it.
From the confessions of Bruce Wayne
I had failed, and this time I had earned it.
And what was more, tonight my friend would be targeted. I needed to change tactics, and get ahead of the Joker rather than continuing to trail behind his every move. But there wasn’t time, and Gordon was far too important an ally to chance losing him to this maniac’s plans. We were trapped. There was no choice but to continue with our defensive maneuvers, in hopes that we would be successful this time.
How much did the Joker know about him, I wondered. If the policeman who was working with the red hooded crew had been on the force for a while, there was a good chance he knew quite a bit. It pained me to think upon it, but something was eating away at my mind in regards to that minute detail. Where was Captain Gordon most vulnerable?
I suppose the answer to that one was rather easy to deduce. His family. It all fell into place at once, and I knew the Joker’s next move would be more than a little personal.
No doubt, Jim would believe he was protecting his family by staying away from them tonight, and as an extra precaution there would be police officers stationed at his home to watch over them. However, there would be no guarantee that any of those officers were uncompromised, and it would thus make sense for the Joker to use his family as a lure in some way. And so, the question before me was a difficult one to answer. Would I be better off watching over his abode, or would it be safer to keep an eye on Gordon himself? After all, there was no telling when or where the Joker was planning to strike. It could be at his office, it could be at his home after being lured back to it, or it could be along the way.
“So what’re ye gonna do?” Alfred asked after I’d explained my train of thought.
“I haven’t the foggiest, old friend.” We were out for a morning stroll around the Wayne Manor property, as I had requested his counsel. “Without a vehicle, I would be hard pressed to pursue the man if he were to be summoned home. But… leaving him to his own devices, it feels so wrong.”
“Well it ain’t like he’s entirely helpless. He’s gone ‘n proven himself quite capable, y’ask me.”
“Yes, but with his family at stake, he’ll play right into the Joker’s trap without a moment’s hesitation!”
“Mmhm,” Alfred sighed deep in thought. “Master Wayne, ye ever think about what your life mighta been like, had yer parents gone on living?”
“Of course, all the time. You know that.”
“I’d suspect it’d be much different in all aspects of yer life. You might be livin’ it up somewhere warm right now, with nary a care in the world. Pin up models on yer arm, parties late into the night, the occasional glance at the company reports to ensure profits are still as high as ever. Ye might even enjoy your life.”
“What are you getting at, old man?” I was growing impatient, as I was certain he had a point he was leading up to.
“It ain’t like that though, is it? Ye spend your nights stalking the streets, sticking to yer strictly regimented workouts and diets, tinkering wif radio signals and synthetic materials and ole that. Then ye put yourself in the minds of these madmen, solving their puzzles, deciphering their motives, anticipating their methods, researching their chemical mixtures, and just generally taking on all the problems of the world. You live a sad existence, ye ask me.”
“And?” I ignored the insults.
“It’s because on that night, when your parents were murdered in front of ye, you had your innocence taken cruelly away from you. And a part of you died that night. The part that would have set you towards a different path ceased to exist foreva. Ye get what I’m saying, don’t you now?”
I didn’t. I most certainly should have - simple as it was to comprehend - but it was somehow beyond my grasp at that moment.
He shook his head at my confused stare, “If you let anything happen to that man’s family, ye may as well have killed the man yourself.”
I felt my face go hot with embarrassment. Of course, he was right. What was so wrong with me that I couldn’t comprehend something so elementary for my own self? Something I surely should have been able to identify with, even more than any other emotion, and yet it had completely eluded me. I buried the feelings of anger and frustration and set my mind on the matters at hand.
“If we had been able to speak again before all of this, he would tell me to be there to protect them. You’re right, Alfred. There’s a fifty-fifty chance that he will be able to take care of himself tonight. The odds for his wife and children are far lower in favor. I know now what I must do.” I winced in pain as I remembered my promise to him above the GCPD building, that I would protect him no matter what.
“Good thing yer working with a genius like meself then,” the old coot said matter of factly. “While on the subject, didn’t ya give that chap a comm device?”
“I did,” I confirmed. “He hasn’t turned it on. He doesn’t want to hear from me.”
“The bloody fool,” Alfred spat. “Why ever not then?”
“I don’t quite know myself. But for all he knows, or for all either of us know, the Joker may always be listening as well.”
From the audio logs of Dr. Hugo Strenj
Strenj: This is Doctor Hugo Strenj of Arkham Asylum, audiolog number twenty-three. April the eleventh, nineteen forty.
Happy Tuesday, Doctor Crane. How are we feeling today?
Crane: Mm. Mm, okay.
Strenj: Wonderful. So, today I want to delve further into the kidnappings you conducted around a decade ago. We’ve already established the reasons for poisoning your former colleagues. But you had a mission when you came to Gotham. You wanted to test out your experimental serums, am I on the right track?
Crane: Uh… yeah, yeah that’s it.
Strenj: What were these serums, doctor? What was their purpose?
Crane: I had… this idea. An idea about how to control people through their fears. I even had… it was an experiment… but it was stolen from me. Used for something that… it was wrong, it was all wrong! And HE got all the credit for it!
Strenj: He. And who is he?
Crane: John Watson!
Strenj: John Watson, John Watson… as in John B. Watson?!
Crane: The very same.
Strenj: Really! You are acquainted with the man?
Crane: We were partners. He betrayed me, and so I took my revenge!
Strenj: How, Jonathan? How did you take revenge upon this man?”
Crane: His wife… hehehh… I had her poisoned just like the rest of them. He was none the wiser!
Strenj: Simply diabolical! Truly, your maliciousness knows no bounds!
Crane: Eheh… thank you.
Strenj: But back to the street victims. How did you choose them?
Crane: I didn’t… not really. I paid the homeless to abduct them for me. It was the safest way… to ensure they did not escape me.
Strenj: You were afraid they would avert you?
Crane: Look at me, doctor. I am not a brawny man. I could not take the risk of them evading me and running off to tell someone. It had to be someone else handling that part of it… I gave them a gun, just in case. Only one man ended up using it… the fiend.
Strenj: Who did he shoot?
Crane: Some rich couple, I don’t remember. The dolt returned to me with their young son. I had to be extra careful with the small ones… they were quick to overdose, otherwise.
Strenj: Mm, I see. And you felt nothing for this boy, after his parents were shot?
Crane: He was merely a test subject, his feelings were of no concern to me.
Strenj: Did the parents die?
Crane: I can’t remember, it was no matter to me.
Strenj: What happened to this boy?
Crane: He was susceptible enough. The children are like that though… a little too suggestible, and very quick to become petrified. I released him when he had served his purpose.
The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Strenj: Did… did the boy live?
Crane: I can’t remember. Why do you care for such insignificant matters? Are you not a man of science, as you claim to be?
Strenj: I am simply trying to confirm that you indeed have a conscience. You did, after all, let your victims go in the end.
Crane: Almost always. Some died over the course of the experiments… others… others I would give simple instructions to before allowing them to go, just to see how well they would follow my direction. They never really did… at least, not during the first round of experiments. It was upon my return to the city where I achieved far better results.
Strenj: I see, I see. After you’d better refined your concoctions, yes?
Crane: …Yes.
Strenj: Jonathan, I want to thank you for your honesty today. We have taken yet another significant step here, you and I. I wonder if I could ask you more about your more recent victims…
Crane: I am tired, doctor. Please, allow me to rest…
Strenj: Oh, yes, of course. I completely understand. Next time.
This has been Hugo Strenj with Jonathan Crane, signing off for the day.
From the confessions of Bruce Wayne
I tried the communication device one more time before departing for Gordon’s abode. He did not answer, and my anxiety spiked with this continuing pattern from my friend. I knew I would have to make a point of tuning my antennae to the correct channel on this night. Thoughts battered me from all sides as Alfred drove me out from Wayne Manor, relentless and taunting. What if I’d been wrong about the timing? What if the Joker got bored and broke from his initial plot? What if I was heading in the wrong direction? Was the Joker even human enough to understand the Captain’s strong familial bonds? All these questions, of course, were nonsense. I knew in my heart I’d been right in my assessments thus far, and that it had only been bad luck I’d been met with in the end. That stroke of misfortune would need to end tonight, or I would lose my greatest ally.
Whence we had arrived just a few blocks from Gordon’s apartment, I waited until the coast was clear and made my exit from the vehicle. I dearly hoped this would not be the case going forward, as I knew Lucius was doing his damnablest to construct a vehicular prototype for me, but for the present it still could not be avoided.
The two possible times for the attempted assassination were 8pm and 10pm, so I had made a point of arriving just slightly after darkness had begun to spread its wings across the scope of the city. Ducking behind anything and everything of a size large enough to conceal me, I made my way through the cluttered neighborhood towards my destination. Upon my arrival, I immediately saw two police squad vehicles parked outside of Gordon’s building. One man was placed at the wheel of each, and I made an assumption that the passengers would be inside with the family.
Eight o’clock came and went without a stir of commotion. I tried my communication device once again, and was surprised when I’d perceived a whispered reply from Gordon himself.
“Can’t talk now.”
That was all that was said. Indeed, he would have been surrounded by his protectors all day, and even making this feeble communication to me had been a gamble on his part, lest anyone in his department were to discover our working together. It was enough though. It had to be, for now.
Another hour passed, and soon the next. That was when I sensed motion off in the distance. Shadows lurking on all sides, headed in the direction of the building. The policeman in the car closest to me, just ten yards ahead of my hiding place, did not seem to notice the movement. The cop in the second car, however, casually stepped out from his vehicle, drew upon the first, and shot him point blank! I hadn’t the time to react, and the shock of both the unexpected action and the utter cruelty of it threatened to render me paralyzed in my place. It was then that the shadows, now visibly donning the red balaclavas and dark suits, crept out from their hiding spots and began barreling up the steps of the apartment complex.
I shook myself out of a state of petrification and lunged out from the shadows. Grabbing for my grappling hook, I aimed and fired at the gun in the shooter’s hand and pulled the trigger. It narrowly missed its target, but tore into the man’s hand, jettisoning him back as he was launched into the air by the force of impact. The gun he’d held landed hard upon the front of the vehicle, and the red hooded soldiers jumped in alarm, some stopping dead in their tracks to scan for an attacker.
I fell upon my first victim, catching him completely unaware, and kicking him terribly to the face. He flipped sideways and landed upon the ground with a thud, and it was then that I’d been spotted by the rest of them.
“Ignore him! Get to the wife and kids,” someone shouted.
I could see now that there were dozens of them, all coming out from the surrounding alleyways and running towards the front entrance. I took down two more hostiles as they attempted to get past me, but it was all for nought, as there were too many of them, and they were crowding their way through the front door without a second’s care for my intrusion. I had to get to Gordon’s wife and children, as I knew their protectors wouldn’t stand a chance against such an army.
I turned and ran towards the side alleyway where I would typically ascend the rafters to attend my meetings with Gordon. I retracted my grappling hook and fired upwards. It wrapped its way around a railing and I began my climb, counting my blessings all the while that I had been so ignored, to their own detriment. It was a difficult climb, the wire being so thin in my gloved hands, and I feared that time was not at all on my side. To my good fortune, however, I managed to climb over the fire escape and onto the fifth floor balcony of Gordon’s apartment just as his family and their police guardians were coming outside. I could vaguely hear violent rapping against their front door, as the Joker’s fiends attempted to barge their way inside.
“Over here,” I called to my charges, startling them as they noticed me. I led them over to the rail and ushered them down as fast as I could. Each police officer placed a child upon their backside, telling them to hold on tight, and slid down my contraption to safety below. When they had made it to the bottom, Gordon’s wife began her descent.
“Thank y-” she could not finish her words to me, as we were interrupted by a small explosion from inside her home. The red hoods had successfully invaded.
“Go, now!” I beseeched her.
As she began her descent, a crowd of red hooded fellows made their way onto the veranda and rushed at me. I had no choice but to stay and fight them, though the struggle did not last long, as I was very quickly overwhelmed by their accumulating bodies. In almost no time at all, the small, narrow metal platform was too overcrowded for any of us to do much of anything at all. I wiggled about, weathering a few feeble punches to my helmet, and leaned over the railing to ensure the woman had reached safety below. They were no longer in sight, and so I knew I must take my leave as well.
I pushed and shoved for room and then swiftly - or, perhaps it was rather clumsily - hauled myself over the railing and landed harshly upon the rafters beneath. I swung and fell again upon more below, only then noticing that my foes had begun hurling their weapons of various shapes and sizes down upon me. Most of them missed, but a few knocked me squarely and threatened my grip on the rails. Upon reaching the third set of rafter polls, I jumped clear of them and landed harshly upon the concrete ground.
I looked to and fro, but alas, there was no sign of the family or their protectors. I could only hope that they had managed to slip away into the night undetected, and that there was not yet another double crosser amongst them. For whatever reason, they had opted not to escape in one of the police vehicles. Perhaps they had seen the dead man at the helm of the nearest one and decided to escape on foot instead. I, on the other hand, held no such reservations, and ran towards the one with the dead man inside.
“Gordon, are you alright?” I activated my comm device located in the earpiece of my cowl.
“I’ll survive, but my family! Where are you?!” The grainy, muffled voice of the captain was music to my ears.
“They’re okay,” I was relatively sure this was true. “They made it out before your home was overrun.”
“Oh, thank god…” he wept then, openly and without restraint.
“Where are you? What happened?”
“We got a call from the Joker. He said I was going to die, but that my family would join me. We ran to the squad cars and as soon as we got out of the Two Towers District we were sideswiped by a series of heavy trucks. It was a planned ambush. My car flipped and I somehow managed to get away without being seen but… my god, the whole squad was torn apart. I was just about to hail a driver when you called.”
“Stay out of sight until I contact you again,” I instructed.
As he had been relating his story to me, I had lifted the key from the dead policeman and shoved his corpse over to the passenger side. I turned the car on and began to drive away just as a rush of red hoods exited the building. A few attempted to chase after me, but it was to no avail.
I perused the streets of the neighborhood, trying my best to locate Gordon’s missing family. After a time, I became frustrated, and very nearly abandoned the vehicle outright. I thought for certain I had lost them, when all of a sudden the passenger side door swung open and I was greeted by a one of the cops who had vanished with them into the night. He wore an appreciative smile upon his face, and I looked past him to see the other four members of the party peeking out from an alleyway across the street.
“Can you get them to safety?” he asked me.
“Of course,” I replied, astonished that he would allow me drive off with the squad wagon.
He hauled his dead colleague out from the seat beside me, and began lugging him away.
“Merkel, you can’t be serious,” the other cop said.
“Sorry, Harv, but I trust him a lot more than I trust you right now,” the man named Merkel opened the back door and beckoned the family inside. So, this Merkel fellow wasn’t any more trusting of the GCPD force than I was. These double agents of the Joker’s were a true menace, and he was not one to take chances. I would make sure to remember his name, as well as what he was doing for Gordon’s wife and children.
As for the other policeman, I recognized him from the mayor’s murder scene. The fat man named Bullock. He gave Merkel a snide scowl, but relented in the end. I drove away, wanting to get as far as I could from this residential area.
“Take us to the GCPD,” Gordon’s wife pleaded.
“It’s not safe there.”
“I have to know he’s alright!”
“I promise you, he’s fine. You need to worry about them,” I nodded my head backward, indicating the children.
“Where are you taking us then?”
“Train station. You need to get out of here until the Joker is caught.”
Silence. Deafening silence. An understanding and meaningful acceptance of what I had laid bare. We drove the rest of the way in the comfort of our wordlessness, as I contemplated my next move. If the Joker decided to persist until Gordon had been eliminated, there was only one way it could end. If he was a man of his word, little redemption as that may be, he would concede defeat on this night and the Captain would be safe. Alas, I couldn’t force myself to trust in the principles of a man such as the Joker, no matter how much I wanted to. Jim would need to disappear as well, but I knew as well just how impossible it would be to convince him of that. The Joker had made things personal tonight, and if I knew Jim Gordon, there was no way in the seven hells he would rest until this lunatic was behind bars.
After dropping the three innocents off at the train station, I headed in the direction of the GCPD building. When I had arrived at the scene of the car wreckages, the red hoods had all fled the scene. Injured policemen littered the sides of the street, battered and bloodied. Medical personnel were attending to a few, while lone and straggling officers made their way onto the scene on foot. I stayed a ways back, scanning around for any sign of Jim.
“Can you talk?” I radioed him.
There was no reply. I tried several times throughout the night, and drove around aimlessly in the surrounding neighborhoods until the early hours of the morning. When daylight threatened its arrival, I was forced to abandon the vehicle after all and make my call to Alfred to come and collect me. I worried for my friend for many hours, staying in close proximity to the radio device set up in the batcave for the remaining morning hours. Finally, I received a transmission.
“Batman,”
I rushed to the comm system and breathed a sigh of relief, “Jim. You’re alright?”
“I am. I’m in the hospital now. Guess I was in worse shape than I’d thought. I… just spoke to my wife on the phone. What you did for them last night… I can’t tell you how much it means.”
“It’s alright, Jim.”
“How did you know that he’d…?”
“He had to lure you out into the open. You’re not a public figure playing host to a publicized event in an exposed environment; he knew you’d be harder to get to.”
“Right… and here I thought I was protecting them by keeping them at a distance.”
“I don’t suppose there’s any way I can talk you into a leave of absence,” it was more of a statement than a question.
“Not on your life.”
“Jim… there was another dirty cop at your apartment. There could be more.”
“Dommel. I had my suspicions when he apparently made his way back to the station, acting like he’d simply been overpowered by the mob. Your word is all I need to arrest his ass.”
“Get some sleep, Jim. And thank Merkel for me.”
I turned the device off and headed for bed myself. It had been a long and unrelenting night.
From the official police records of James Gordon, Police Commissioner of Gotham City
Investigation cont’d:
Cptn. James Gordon Date: Apr. 11, 1940
The plan that acting commissioner Grogan and I came up with seemed foolproof. We had a squad assigned to my home, and all GCPD agents were called to duty between 7 and 11pm last night. At 7:30, we changed up the roster of who was going where, just to try and throw off any of the Joker’s inside conspirators. I made sure Merkel was with my family, and had him choose a team to go with him. Lot of good that did. Dommel was dirty.
And very likely, someone else informed on our routes when we left the station.
At twenty-two hundred hours we got a call at the station from the Joker. He asks to speak with me. I pick up the receiver, wondering if it’s somehow been tampered with, but then I hear his voice.
“Hello, Jimborino! Guess who!”
“What the hell is your game, Joker?”
“There’s no game here! I’ll have you know that I am an infinitely serious person, Heheheh… I just wanted to let you know that you are about to die. But fear not, I am a man of great virtue, and have arranged to have your family join you in the afterlife so you won’t be so lonely! Ahahahaaaaaahaha!”
I vaguely remember slamming the phone down, running down the corridors and out the lobby, screaming at my fellow officers that the piece of shit was going after my family. I led the string of police cars through the streets, not bothering with the radio. It was my squad car that was slammed into first. Truck came out from one of the side streets and flipped me over. Within seconds, I heard a bunch of other crashes and screeching tires all around me. I crawled out from the wreckage with my weapon drawn and I was met with a scene of absolute chaos. Armed red masked guys everywhere, jumping out from their trucks and battering at our men as they attempted to escape their cars.
I stumbled and almost lost consciousness. Knew I wouldn’t be able to hold it together for long, and limped my way through a side alley to catch my breath. I don’t know how long I passed out for, it wasn’t long. When I regained consciousness I crawled my way back to the side street, but all of our men were either dead or had already fled the area. The red masks were scouring around, likely trying to find me, so I had no choice but to fall back and try to lose them in the maze of buildings.
I don’t know how long it was before I passed out again. Felt the air sucked completely out from me and just collapsed in a dark corridor. I didn’t wake up until I was in the hospital. Niedemeyer was the one to find me, and somehow managed to lead a team of medics through the labyrinthian alleys to retrieve me and get me in the ambulance.
Merkel and Bullock saved my family. Merkel says it was all thanks to the Batman’s help, and I’m damn grateful to him for that, regardless of how the department feels about his brand of lawlessness. Martinez was shot in the head while laying low in his squad car. I had Dommel placed under arrest this morning under suspicion of sabotaging the operation and conspiring with the enemy. If I get my way, he’ll go down for Martinez’s murder too.
I’m a sitting duck here in my hospital bed. I had four agents guarding me at all times, but after all these double crossings you’ll forgive me if I’m a little less than comforted. If the Joker still wants me dead, I’m probably as good as.
We still have no solid leads. There are more of these red mask guys than we had imagined. And we still have another assassination attempt to plan against.