CHAPTER 7

Part of him ached this morning, but that was all part of getting old, as his wife and his doctor had reminded him several times over the last few years. Marcellus Walden woke up every morning at 5 A.M. sharp. His wife, Katherine, had his coffee ready and his eggs made the way he liked; scrambled, with salt and lots of pepper. Barney, their Cocker Spaniel, moped around at his heels every morning, curious about every little thing Walden did. He sat in the living room reading his newspaper, which he had one of his bodyguards bring him every morning, until his four kids, June (13), Martin (11), Amber (8), and Rodney (5), were being herded in the living room by their mother.

The mayor kissed the head of each of his children, and said to Martin before he left, “Don’t let me hear about you fighting with that boy Tony anymore, you hear me?”

“Yeah, Dad. I got it.”

“You better.”

Behind the kids were Jacob and Robert, a member of the executive protection team assigned to the Walden family now around the clock. They would see the kids all the way to school.

The mayor finished his third cup of coffee, but hadn’t finished his breakfast. He almost never finished his breakfast. His belly was always a little queasy in the mornings. He didn’t know why, but he’d had it his whole life and it had never been diagnosed.

After Katherine returned from seeing the kids off to the cars, she joined him getting dressed. He’d always been clumsy with putting on cufflinks, many times buttoning his shirt wrong, and had never learned how to tie an adequate Windsor knot. “All those poor people,” Kat said. She was referring to the victims at the Center. “It’s just so awful. If you can, sweetie, let them know that they’re all in my prayers, too. Not just yours. All of ours. I know it may not be in your speech, but try and work it in.”

“You bet.”

“Promise me?”

“I promise I’ll try,” he said. She had a soft soul for a woman who had once worked with the toughest DAs in Gotham’s history.

“You’re sure you don’t want me to go with you today? I can stand off to the side where the cameras won’t see me,” Kat offered.

“Thanks, sweetie. But I can do this myself. Besides, I’ve got to meet with the police commissioner later today, though he doesn’t know it yet.” He winked at his wife. “I’m going to surprise him.”

“You and Jim Gordon? Since when were you two on speaking terms?”

He smiled. “I don’t hate him, Kat. He and I just have two different styles of approach. He still thinks he belongs on the force, sticks close to his old friends and colleagues, but I’m the kinda guy to leave all of those people behind when a better position comes along. Gotta keep moving, can’t stay stagnant with those stuck at the bottom. If you do, they’ll—”

“Just pull you down,” she said, finishing the knot for him and kissing him on the lips. “I’ve heard all this before, remember?”

“Can’t hurt to hear it again. You’re your father’s daughter, and that man had the thickest head of anyone I’ve ever known.”

Kat punched him lightly in the shoulder. “Don’t call my family thick!”

The mayor laughed, and turned to check himself in the mirror one last time. “It wasn’t a jab at your old man. He certainly raised a fine daughter.”

“And he knew how to pick a good aide,” she said.

It was true, there was no denying that Frederick Habersham had once had the most powerful legal aides and assistants on the city council. Freddy had spotted Marcellus Walden on the state’s board of education back when the council and the acting mayor had been forced by public protests to overhaul the city’s educational system. Kat’s old man had noticed how quickly Walden made allies and changed the minds of so many pigheaded idealists behind the scenes, and when Freddy offered him a job that would pay less for the time, but would allow Walden to pave the way for his future by making more new powerful contacts, he’d left the board of education behind. Taking the long view approach, as Freddy had once said to him.

Freddy had only intended to groom him for work in the city council, helping organize all of his legal secretaries and hammer out legislation, but Walden had done that and so much more. A lifelong partnership with the old man had been sealed when he had taken a shining to Freddy’s daughter, and she to him. Lots of people would believe that Marcellus Walden had gotten to where he was by kissing ass and good old-fashioned nepotism, but so what? Opportunities came and went. Kat had been a great opportunity because she was also an intelligent, motivated woman with her own career at the District Attorney’s office. Freddy had always wanted children, and couldn’t think of a more beautiful, perfect woman to have them with.

“How do I look?” he asked, turning to be appraised.

“I dressed you. You look perfect.”

“Very humble of you.”

“Don’t forget, your interview with the Times got bumped up—”

“I know, sweetie. Pam will have all that information for me. But thanks. You’re my anchor.” He kissed her, pulled her in close, and ran his fingers through her long blonde hair. After a short but passionate tight squeeze, they separated, kissed once again, and he picked up his coat. “Have Aaron drive you if you have to go shopping for anything.”

“I can drive myself,” she protested.

“I don’t want to hear it,” he said, throwing on his coat and stepping out of the bedroom. “Things aren’t completely safe right now, sweetie. You know that. Have Aaron drive you.”

Though the public almost never knew when it actually happened, death threats came in for public officials pretty much on a regular basis. Last week, Police Chief Chapman had gotten a threatening phone call from someone in the middle of the night, saying that he’d better watch his children when they walked to school in the morning. And Angela MacArthur of the city council had had her windows smashed in and her tires slashed while she went into a supermarket. The words “DON’T MESS WITH THE MOLEHILL MOB!” had been spray-painted on the hood of the car.

Then there were the late-night phone calls to the house, which Aaron or one of his team usually answered during the night, and always got nothing but air whenever they did. Tracing the source of the calls did no good, since whoever it was commonly called from public phones, either in a train station or a hotel lobby. That’s why the kids were all driven by a member of Aaron’s executive protection team, one of the best in the business. Before joining the Gotham City Council, Walden had always thought bodyguards were only necessary for someone like the President or an Arab sheik come to visit the States. Now, he and his wife were both learning what it felt like to be the focus of so much attention, especially during a time of such crisis. Crime was up again, after having seen a drop over the last few years, and there was general belief that it would only continue to go up.

But Walden didn’t believe that. He couldn’t. All of this was due to the weirdness of criminals attempting to create their own champions to push back against the police, and that had only started with the bat. It had now drawn out far too long. While Walden could admit that it was surprising how much corruption had been revealed within the GCPD over the last few years, he was almost certain that that was all but finished.

Well, there was one last little piece, he had to admit, but he was seeing to that.

Yes, the threats had come in great numbers, but it was all worth it, and his wife, having worked in the DA’s office for so many years before retiring to become a full-time mother, knew the risks of such jobs, as well. They were in this together. A team.

When Walden stepped outside, he nodded at Aaron and said, “If she goes anywhere, drive her. If she makes a fuss or anything, just follow behind her in your own car, but I don’t think she’ll be a problem.”

“Yes, sir,” Aaron said.

Ned did the driving for him today. On the way to City Hall, they stopped briefly to pick up Pam, whose car was in the shop this week and so she needed a ride. She was unmarried with no friends, so her only ride was whatever her boss could provide. Going out of his way a bit for Pam was no serious thing for Mayor Walden. Pam was worth every penny she was paid. That, and then some.

When she slipped inside, she handed him his speech. “It’s basically what I e-mailed you last night,” she said, pushing her brown locks behind her ear in a rush. She had a cell phone to her ear and was talking to both the mayor and someone else who spoke loudly. “Uh-huh…uh-huh, yeah, I know, he’s never been that good with…Right here, sir. I changed some of the wording in the second paragraph, and I added some details you may not be aware of. Commissioner Gordon’s people received an anonymous tip last night that gave them the location of a guy named Enrique Gutierrez, who was beaten pretty badly in what they said was a gang fight. They have his voice on tape confessing to a murder out on the docks, a mother and her daughter, apparently the family of the guy who blew himself up yesterday.”

Walden’s eyes narrowed as he skimmed the first page. “Wait a minute, are you saying this guy killed his own family and then blew up the Muslim Center?”

“No, actually, what Gordon and the investigators in charge of both cases seem to think is that this suicide bomber, Tralley’s his name, was forced to do what he did with his family held hostage, but we can’t go forward with that much right now. It’s still not clear that that’s what happened, and that would mean that the real bad guy here is still at large. We shouldn’t create a panic. There was already a small riot of twelve or thirteen people on Lemon Street last night who said something wrong about somebody else’s religion, things got personal fast, and there were two deaths. Witnesses are saying that the argument got started up talking about the attack on the Center.”

Walden looked over the speech for a moment, and then looked at Pam. “You sure Commissioner Gordon’s people received an anonymous tip, or Gordon himself?”

“Hang on a sec, Ma,” she said into the phone. “What, sir?”

“Was it Gordon, or Gordon’s people that got the tipoff?”

“I don’t know. He texted me early this morning about it, and the sergeant down at Precinct Nine sent me the report about thirty minutes ago. Some guy from the Bowery basically confessed on tape—although, he’s claiming the police forced him.”

“Forced him how?”

Pam sighed. “I said hang on a sec, Ma.” She took the phone away from her ear. “I heard this from Alison, so don’t quote me on this, but the guy they brought in is with the Juarezes, he’s still confessing to that much, and seems proud of it. Hang on, Ma! But he’s saying he was tortured by the Batman, and Alison says she wouldn’t be surprised, because he’s got some serious scars to show.” She shrugged, adding, “Somebody gave him a beating.”

The mayor didn’t like that. He knew, just like anybody with any sense at all knew, that the vigilante was Commissioner Gordon’s creature. Their partnership was something only suggested in the newspapers, but behind closed doors some of Walden’s fellow politicians had castigated him for not nipping that little problem in the bud. I intend to, he told them. Very shortly, I intend to do just that.

Gordon’s relationship with the bat was a dangerous thing, it lent credence to the criminals who said that if the cops weren’t going to heed the laws they espoused, then why should they? Batman’s existence flew in the face of everything Walden and his ilk were trying to create for Gotham. And while he was willing to concede that maybe, just maybe, there had been a time when the Batman had been a helpful asset to the police force (although he truly believed that a better solution could have easily been found), he had obviously outstayed his welcome, and it was time for him to go.

Only we can’t catch him. That was probably the most humiliating part. Not only were certain portions of the GCPD showing their incompetence by not weeding out sorts like Mulcoyisy Stewart-Paulson, the Falcones, the Juarezes, and other bloodthirsty types like Dreaded Sun and the Molehill Mob, they also couldn’t catch a single man who moved about at night in their city, stalking and preying on the people in such a way that it wasn’t entirely clear that he wasn’t just a sadistic freak doing it for the laughs instead of an eye towards justice.

When they came within sight of City Hall, Ned, his driver, looked at the mayor in the rearview mirror and said, “I can take us around back, sir.”

Walden leaned forward in the back seat, looking out through the tinted windows at the throng of reporters, photographers, and citizens of Gotham. There must have been five hundred people across the streets holding signs. He’d forgotten that there was a protest today against the firing of three members of the Gotham City School Board. On the same day that I have to talk about twenty-seven people dead and another twenty seriously injured from a suicide bomber.

Pam sighed. “Couldn’t they just reschedule the damn protest and leave today as a memorial for all those who died in the attack?”

Technically, talking to the public about police matters was the police commissioner’s job, and if not him then the Chief of Police, but during attacks as great as these the press and the public expected a solemn speech of some kind from a city’s mayor. And Walden had to admit, he liked doing it, it wasn’t a chore at all. I was made for this, he thought. He said to his driver, “Take us right up to the steps, Ned. Let them see me. Let ’em shout if they want to.”

Pam smiled. “That’s my boy.”

* * *

GORDON STOOD IN the antechamber to the mayor’s office, watching the mayor on a large plasma screen TV mounted on the wall.

“Thank you all for coming,” he said from his podium, which was erected about fifty yards from where Gordon was currently standing. “Yesterday, our brothers and our sisters, our fathers and our mothers, our sons and our daughters, came under an attack in a bombing that has quite frankly left me as stunned as all of you.” The mayor paused here, cleared his throat with his fist to his mouth, and swallowed deliberately, perhaps for effect, perhaps out of genuine emotion. “These brothers and sisters, these fathers and mothers, these sons and daughters, were not doing anything out of the ordinary for them. They were worshipping. They were worshipping peacefully at their holy center, as they have done many days before, when a terrible tragedy befell them.

“Now, I don’t know all the specifics,” he went on, holding up one hand in a way to ward off any potential outburst from persons in the crowd. “But I do know this much. I know that it was a single individual. I do know that this person acted alone. And that is about all we know at this time.” A series of clicks could be heard from just off-camera, the snapshots that would run in tomorrow’s Times and Informer and Journal-Constitution were being taken right then, and this video would likely be played over and over again in the next two days, so Walden kept his composure.

Gordon had always given Mayor Walden that much. The man possessed oratorical skills, yes, but he had a posture and a mien that commanded the respect that the office deserved. However, he didn’t know if he liked the mayor’s remark about knowing that the Center attacker “acted alone.” That wasn’t technically true, and they knew that now. Not only had Patrick Tralley been helped, he’d been given all the materials to conduct the attack with, not to mention the incentive, by someone who was still at large.

Gordon had gone through it time and again in his head, seeing himself in the same situation that Patrick Tralley had been put in. What must’ve been going through the man’s mind when his children were being threatened? If given no other alternative, would he, James Gordon, be able to muster the kind of courage it took to do something like, even if he had known no one else would die for his actions? He couldn’t see himself doing what Tralley had done because it would certainly kill many others; but then again, Gordon had seen his own family threatened before, and if he’d been given an option like that…well, who really knows what a father will do to protect not just his child, but his whole family?

Now, he tried to put himself into the mind of the monster that had put Patrick Tralley through all of that, the soulless bastard that would do that to a defenseless woman and child. Gordon couldn’t even enter that kind of mind, and he never wanted to. Maybe that was a failing on his part, but that was what the bat was for, right? Batman knew these creatures. He knew them in a way that Gordon never would, never could. But Gordon’s position was something else—just as he was now a liaison between the GCPD and City Hall, he was also a kind of liaison between the city’s people and their Caped Crusader. And he needs as much PR work as he can get.

On the TV, the mayor went on. “In the wake of such a tragedy as this, there comes a great swell of anger. Who knows the purpose of this kind of attack? Regardless of the purpose, the actual effect that it has had is to bring Gothamites closer together.” That was a lie. The thirteen beaten souls on Lemon Street last night was testament to that. Still, Gordon knew why the mayor said it. Sometimes the people need to hear a lie. “We are not made afraid by this kind of action. Such attacks seek to disrupt the foundations of a people, the foundations of a society and its many cultures, but they never actually succeed, do they? We must remember this. Never forget it. We, as Americans, as Gothamites, as citizens of such a great legacy, have emerged each time after attacks such as this, and we have been made stronger, been made into a finer steel after we have been tempered and tested in the heat.

“For the moment, I can tell you that this storm has passed. I can—”

“What about the riddles?!” someone shouted. Others called out their support for this question, while most people hissed at the rabble-rousers and Gordon saw at least one of the officers standing guard by the podium take a step forward and give a few in the crowd dirty looks.

“Please! I’ll be glad to answer questions at the end. Just be patient, please.”

And he would be good to his word. He would answer their questions, just not totally. Walden played with the press, and seemed to give them what they wanted. He fed them here and there, just little nibbles.

But that will never be good enough for them and you know it, Gordon thought, looking at Walden’s pained face on screen. Eventually, you’ll make little ravenous piranha out of them, and then they’ll come to feast. But not on you, because you’re their master. They’ll come for me and my people. Gordon still considered the GCPD his people, and not just another bickering side in the argument to quell, despite what the office of Police Commissioner demanded. He could understand Walden’s use of the press to some degree, because all politicians had to learn how to sway them, but he supposed it was the mayor’s lack of concern for the city’s PD, their equipment, and their overall well-being that made him so biased against him.

Without a good, organized, and well-equipped police department, we’ll never be ready to let go of the bat.

Walden would never get that. While he was mayor, and as long as he continued his love affair with being heard and listening to the sound of his own voice, he wasn’t likely to implement any real change. As much as he loved Gotham City (Gordon had spoken with the mayor and had no doubts about the man’s convictions), he wasn’t the right man for this job. He had gotten to where he was by knowing how to make friends in powerful places and maneuvering against his political enemies, and not by mastering the art of being a proper agent of the people. And now he was allowing the Informer and other rags like it to run things that the GCPD really needed to keep under wraps if they didn’t want rampant copycats—copycats, although usually not very bright, had become a problem in Gotham of late. You can’t allow news rags to do as they please so that you keep them loving you and then hide the truth from the public forever. You can’t just keep toying with them.

But one good thing was that the screamer in the crowd had mentioned the riddles without saying anything about a “Riddler”, and that was because Gordon had so far managed to keep the Informer from saying anything about the hack attack on the Third Bank of Gotham, and the fact that Patrick Tralley’s account had been the only one emptied out—if they had known that, then there would be a general fear that a serious terrorist was still out there. For right now, all the public knew was that a man had blown himself up and his family was dead, which forced them towards the argument of Occam’s razor, the simplest solution being the best—that being the story that Patrick Tralley had killed his wife and daughter, then himself, for reasons unknown.

It was terrible that people didn’t know the real truth about the Tralley family yet, but for the time being they may need to keep all of that under wraps. As it was, the press had already leaked the rumors of riddles being spread about.

Gordon’s cell buzzed. He checked it. It was from Greg Copeland at Precinct 12’s Cyber Crimes Division: Have u seen today’s Informer? It’s all n the papers about the riddles. What the hell, Commish?

He sighed, and sent a text back, explaining that he’d done everything he could. Did I? He wasn’t sure he had. Gordon felt so ineffectual these days, probably because he was. Walden wasn’t taking the time to listen to him, and even when he did he wasn’t taking anything Jim Gordon said seriously. He, or Pam, had always just said, “We’ll take that under advisement.” Such as when Gordon had suggested they keep the riddles under wraps for now—so soon after the Scarecrow, the Joker, and all the others, now wasn’t a safe time to give another crazy the strange credibility that came when a criminal hit the Big Leagues in Gotham, the Big Leagues being a highly-sought-after wrongdoer. It was now a strange honor given to a select few, but it seemed they all wanted it. Walden had to know that, but he seemed to think the day of the “super criminal” was near its end, and so he’d released the information about the riddles.

He doesn’t want to be seen as hiding from another potential crisis like the Joker’s run. He likes to appear strong, never weak. Meanwhile, he’s choking the police department by convincing his old pals at city council to hoard all the city’s funding, and for what?

Gordon looked back up at the television just in time to hear the end of the mayor’s speech.

“Now, I know that my words today may come as hollow to the family and friends of those lost in our Downtown Eastside,” he was saying. “I can only tell you that my thoughts, and my prayers, and those of everyone in my family and on my staff, go out to you. God bless all of you. And God bless Gotham. I will now take a few questions.” And he did take questions, almost all of them were the cookie cutter, short quotes that Walden had no doubt been trained were perfect for print, but actually said nothing substantial at all.

Gordon’s phone buzzed again. It was another text message, this one from Brady Marston in forensics. He’d gotten with Interpol about some of the things Batman had left in his possession the night before, including the fingerprint scans and faces of the people who’d been talking to Gutierrez down in the Bowery. So far zip on the audio clips, the message read, but the face of the big bald guy belongs to Gaspare Gianfranco Calabria. The Polizia di Stato in Italy are looking for him in connection with many murders for the Calabria family. Fingerprints belong to Victor Edgar Hughes, also worked with the Calabrias. There’s more. Call me when you get the chance.

Gordon put the phone back in his pocket, and just as he did it rang. He saw the name. “Hey, Barb,” he said.

His wife said, “Jim, uh, is it safe? To talk?” Her voice sounded a little low.

Gordon figured he knew what this was about. He looked around the room he was in. There was no one else watching or listening except for the three paintings of former Gotham City mayors, and a security camera that he was pretty sure couldn’t pick up low audio. Just the same, he said in a low voice, “Yeah, go ahead.”

“I went out to get groceries, and when I came back there was a note on the door. I don’t know who left it, but it’s like the others.”

By the others she meant that they were pretty much short and to the point, without very many details, just the way the bat always left messages for him. It was rare for him to leave messages for Gordon like that. He had only ever done that twice before, and whenever he did it was fairly urgent. “Can you read it to me?”

“It says he’s figured it out. He decrypted some message. He says that the person who left the riddles was issuing a challenge to him directly.”

Gordon looked up at the TV, half listening to Mayor Walden deflect another question, and said, “Is that all it says?”

“That’s all, yeah.” Barbara knew the score between Jim Gordon and the Batman like most others around him knew, and as long as it had been going on they had only ever argued over it once. Gordon had outlined all of the benefits of being this close to such a rogue crime fighter, saying that Batman was a valuable CI (criminal informant), and that he, Gordon, was keeping a potentially dangerous threat under control and focused—he hadn’t believed the Batman was really any threat, but it was the kind of argument that could win people over. It was a political kind of argument, which meant Jim Gordon was learning something about politicking. Barbara had offered a very heated counterpoint, but in the end said that she was his wife and would support him in whatever decision he made.

“All right. You know what to do.” Burn it.

“Okay. Jim?”

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“Yeah?”

“Does this put our family in any kind of danger?” That had been her one ultimatum, that if any of this craziness ever came down on their family again, she wasn’t just going to demand that he cut all contact with the bat, she was going to demand that he resign from his job. Barbara might have been supportive of his assignment as commissioner in the beginning, but ever since things had started escalating, she had become more uncertain, and a bit more willing to go into survival mode and leave Gotham City behind forever if things got that dangerous again.

“No, sweetheart. No. This has nothing to do with us. I promise.” He had hesitated to promise, because the implications of their unsub aiming the riddles at Batman meant that the unsub had known they would somehow end up in Batman’s hands. The fact that there were riddles at the scene of each crime was now common knowledge, thanks to the Informer, but what those riddles actually said were unknown at this time. If others found out what they were, and solved them too, well, it would only make it more dangerous for the Batman to go out at night, since more blame would be cast on him.

“All right,” his wife said, sounding partially relieved, but still on her guard. “I’m gonna let you go now. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Gordon hung up the phone, and looked up at Mayor Walden, leading a moment of silence for the victims. Gordon, alone in the waiting room, bowed his head and observed the moment, as well.

* * *

WHEN BRUCE WAYNE stepped onto the sixtieth floor of the Wayne Enterprises Building, Margery was there with the reports to bring him up to speed. After all, he had been on a three-day holiday, so far as everyone knew, and a few things had changed. Things were always changing in the corporate world—mergers got approved or else suddenly died with a major kill fee tacked on, investors jumped on board or backed out quickly, and of course there was the occasional high-level partner who got caught doing something illegal from time to time.

The sixtieth floor of the WE Building was bustling with activity. Bruce smiled and pointed to people at their cubicles and behind their kiosks, purposefully misremembering their names. “Hey, Connie!” he said to a woman he knew perfectly well was named Sylvia. This feint served two major purposes, the first to keep up the ruse that Bruce Wayne was a rich playboy who couldn’t care less about the people under him (which was why he allowed Lucius to be the primary face of WE these days, since it gave people something and someone to truly look up to), and second so that he only had to use a minimum amount of brain power on the goings-on around him while his mind was elsewhere.

He knows about Gordon and me, Bruce thought, still unable to believe it. A lot of people suspect it, but he’s counting on it. He knew the riddles would get into my hands, even though they weren’t to be released to the public, yet. He’s playing the game against me. Never in his life had Bruce felt more responsible for these new threats to Gotham City. Before he’d emerged, things had been bad, of course, no one was denying that, but now…this. This was becoming more and more commonplace, and while Margery spewed out endless updates, Bruce maneuvered his way through the sea of cubicles and made his way to the main conference room.

“You updated my rolodex yet?”

“Yes, sir,” she said. “Your appointments with Milton & Rutherford was pushed back, just as you asked. They took the hint, and are reconsidering their bid since you seem to be playing hardball. On an unrelated note, Pettinsky Labs has put their deal with us on hold. Some reporter for the Informer is suggesting that some of our people are guilty of insider trading, Mr. Wayne. Did you know that?” Margery asked.

“No, I hadn’t heard.” Of course he had, but it was best if everyone around him thought him lost in the dark. It all helped to underscore the fact that Bruce Wayne was incompetent, and therefore no one would ever dream of placing him anywhere near the league that the Batman was in, which was imperative since Bruce Wayne disappeared for long periods, and during some of those periods the Dark Knight emerged and went on the prowl. “What happened?”

“It’s just another attack from the Informer,” Margery said, squeezing her way between two interns that were carefully balancing a few reams of paper on their way to the copier. “Completely baseless accusations. They’re still burned that you and Mr. Fox grant interviews with just about all other journalists except theirs.”

“Yeah, well, we can’t all be friends,” he said. They reached the conference room, and found Lucius seated at the end of the table with a matronly, gray-haired woman sitting right beside him. When Bruce stepped inside, he turned to his assistant and said, “Margery, if you don’t mind, I would like to speak to Lucius in private about some of these concerns you’ve brought up.”

“Of course.” She turned to leave him, and then said, “Oh! Mr. Wayne?”

“Yeah?”

“Um, your fly…?”

Bruce looked down, and feigned surprise once more. He winked at her as he zipped himself up. “Margery, you’re a life saver.” It was the little details as much as the blatant misremembering of names that created the illusion that, while Bruce Wayne could be charitable with his money, he was a relative lackwit when compared to titans such as Lucius Fox.

He walked around the long table and shook hands with Lucius. Both he and the matronly woman stood up from their seats to receive him. “Lucius. Nothing fell apart while I was gone, did it?”

“No, sir. And actually some rather interesting propositions came up while you were gone,” he said, smiling. “I hope you don’t mind that I took the liberty of inviting Ms. Swanson down to discuss one of those ventures, and we’ve already started looking into what the paperwork and the project would entail.”

“Oh? What kind of venture is this one?” he said, a big, boyish smile smeared across his face, acting the part of a kid with a potentially interesting new toy.

“Ms. Swanson, may I introduce Bruce Wayne? Mr. Wayne, this Ms. Abigail Swanson. She’s the owner and CEO of Champion Avionics. They’re the ones that I told you about a month again. Remember at our last board meeting, the company that’s at the forefront of pushing for more intense missions to the moon to mine helium-3?”

“Oh! Yeah! Of course,” he said, smiling abashedly and shaking the woman’s hand. “How could I forget? Fusion, right? It’s all about gathering more materials to fuel the fusion process.”

“That’s right, Mr. Wayne,” said Ms. Swanson in a voice that might have been a grandmother’s, but also might belong to a woman who was used to the formidable world of men in suits. “We’re in the process of completing our first prefab habitats, which can be broken down here, launched towards the moon, and reassembled on the lunar surface.”

“Sounds like a lotta work for such a potentially small payoff,” Bruce said, again feigning supreme ignorance of the topic at hand. His mind was still half on the riddles.

“Not at all, Mr. Wayne. There’s more helium-3 on the moon than there ever was fossil fuels on the Earth. Helium-3 is a powerful energy source, and if mined can help solve numerous energy problems right here in our world. NASA was planning such operations before their funding was cut so badly,” she said, “and before the U.S. started piggybacking into space with the Russian cosmonauts. Champion Avionics is looking to return space dominance to the U.S., and decrease dependency on fossil fuels alone.”

“How would these operations work?” he asked.

“Well, that’s what my people have been discussing with Mr. Fox here. He and I have been talking at length about what Wayne Enterprises sees for itself in the future—your company hasn’t traditionally been in the business of supplying energy, but it’s not a completely foreign concept to your people. And Wayne Aerospace has helped both the government and NASA make incredible strides in the past.” Ms. Swanson smiled a grandmotherly smile. “Your people have the tech to make this happen, Mr. Wayne, and your company also has the opportunity to not only expand into energy supply, a market you’ve never seriously tackled, but to be the energy supplier of helium-3 to the whole world within five years.”

“Five years! That’s quick.”

Lucius chimed in. “Champion Avionics has been working tirelessly on these prefab habitants for potential researchers, explorers, and miners on the lunar surface for almost twelve years,” he said. “I’ve followed their research for a while now; everyone’s been trying to replicate the success they’ve had with their prefab units. Many others in the world right now are thinking of doing this, China has shown a great interest, but CA is the leading candidate for supplying the hardware for such an operation on the moon. It’s just a matter of time before someone tries it, Mr. Wayne. But Champion Avionics has been dogged by staffing problems and underfunding. They only need a little extra push to help make sure they get there first, and I believe Wayne Aerospace can provide that help.”

Bruce nodded. Wayne Enterprises was comprised of so many different subsidiaries and branches it was sometimes difficult keeping them all straight, but Wayne Aerospace was one he’d used numerous times for advancements in his batgear. “Well, Ms. Swanson, you’ve certainly seemed to convince my CEO,” he chuckled. “Put me down for extremely interested. As long as your work looks solid and Lucius stands by the project, you can assume I’ll look into it, though I can’t make any promises. And you won’t regret working with him; Lucius is one of my oldest friends, I trust him with everything.” He touched Lucius on the arm. “Speaking of which, do you mind if I have a word with you in private when you have a chance?”

Lucius looked at their guest. “I’ll only be a moment, Ms. Swanson.”

“Actually,” she said, “I was just leaving.”

Bruce said, “Are you sure? I didn’t mean to intrude if you two were in the middle of—”

“No, no. You didn’t intrude at all,” she said with humor, putting an arm gently on his. “I’ve got other appointments to keep, Mr. Wayne.”

“Keeping your options open, huh? Out to find other interested parties?”

“Nope. Grandkids. I have to pick them up from school.” She shook hands with both of them. “Thank you for time and consideration today, Mr. Fox. Mr. Wayne, it was a pleasure to finally meet you.”

“The pleasure was mine. I’m sure we’ll talk again. I’ll have Margery see you out.” After the woman had left, the two men stood in the conference room and gave one another a meaningful look. “How are you faring this morning?” he asked, walking over to the windows to get a better view of the city.

“It’s past noon, Mr. Wayne,” Lucius said, walking over to where Bruce stood by the large bay windows. Together, they looked out on an endless sea of skyscrapers. “But I suppose you had to sleep in a bit today to, ah, rest up after such a busy weekend of…what was it you were off doing again?”

“Waterskiing. On a private lake just outside of the city.”

Lucius smirked. “Ah, yes. Well, it’s good to see you survived another outing. I hear waterskiing kills over seventy people a year.”

“I’m well trained. And I always keep my safety equipment on and all my gear around, so you don’t have to worry about me, Lucius.” Bruce sighed, and shook his head. “But it is a dangerous sport, and a guy could use a good upgrade from time to time.”

His CEO looked at him, and nodded, then looked back over the cityscape. Lucius Fox had so far kept enough distance from Bruce’s extracurricular activities to maintain plausible deniability of his actions. He had spoken with Bruce on numerous occasions about upgrades to pet projects of his, had even helped him design many of the aspects of his batsuits, and portions of the lab equipment and computers that had gone into the cave. Lucius had met Batman in his physical form only a couple of times, and never had he addressed the Dark Knight as “Mr. Wayne” or anything else that could implicate him later. Just as Bruce needed to be careful to protect Alfred and Gordon, he also needed to ensure the safety of Lucius Fox. He had been a good friend and ally, and the thought of him suffering for Bruce’s risky lifestyle was unbearable. “What sort of weekend excursion do you have planned next?” Lucius asked.

“Well, I was thinking of taking up hiking.”

“Hiking, is it?”

“Yeah, or some serious backpacking into the wilderness. But I’m carrying a lot of gear right now, so I need something to help lighten my load. Something to help give me a little extra power and support, so if, say, a big rock were to fall on my leg and pin me down, I’d be able to lift it off.”

“How big a rock we talkin’ about?”

Bruce thought about Enrique Gutierrez’s size. “Say about three to four hundred pounds.”

Lucius nodded. “But you’ll want to be keeping all your gear on you, and probably some level of protection, yet still be able to maneuver.”

“That’s the idea,” Bruce said.

“Well, the military is currently releasing their latest design of the HULC.” Bruce was familiar with the Human Universal Load Carrier from Lockheed Martin and its tech. It was an un-tethered, hydraulic-powered anthropomorphic exoskeleton developed by Berkeley Bionics, and was intended to help ease the burden of U.S. soldiers who carried such cumbersome loads of armor, weapons, food, bags, and all other gear while also picking up heavy objects, such as a fellow soldier who had been injured, all without interfering with their overall mobility too much by using narrow, load-bearing leggings that the soldier strapped on tightly to his side.

But while the HULC could allow a soldier to carry up to 200 pounds at a speed of 10 miles per hour for good while, Bruce needed something even more powerful and yet even less intrusive. He said, “I was thinking more along the lines of the Stacksuit design you were working on months back.”

“Hmmmm. The STACS is still under wraps down in the labs. There’s only two complete prototypes right now, and if one of them were to suddenly go missing…”

“Yeah, you’re right. I’ve worried about that myself. Security on things like that are important.” Bruce sighed heavily. “I mean, it would be easy to send a message to the feds saying that the STACS is ready for testing, but then once it left the R&D department it would go directly to the airport, and everyone knows how easy it is to lose luggage at the airport. And even if you sent it by a special shipping service, and got all the necessary insurance on package delivery, there’s still the chance the package could get mislabeled, and then they could deliver both of the packages to the wrong place. The same with the Bat Hawk, the prototype helicopter for the Army is about ready for another test run, but once it leaves our private airfield it could suffer minor malfunctions, and if it did it would be about time to label it RTV,” he said, referring to return to vendor. “You know how the paperwork is when things get RTVed; the thing gets disassembled, but the parts go every which way, and at that point anyone with enough access could rearrange shipment labels willy-nilly. When separated, all these items can be very easy to lose, but can be reassembled later at a secret location and used by shady people. Tsk.” He looked at Lucius meaningfully. “Yep, too dangerous.”

Lucius looked at him, and a smile played at each end of his lips. “Tell me, Mr. Wayne, do you stay up all night coming up with these dreadful hypothetical scenarios and thinking of ways of preventing them?”

Bruce put his hands in his pockets. “Somebody has to,” he said.

* * *

THEY SAT ACROSS from each other, Walden on one side of the immense oak desk and Pam beside him, while Commissioner Gordon sat in a lower chair, one that Walden had picked out because he believed it gave him a greater vantage and bargaining position than his opponents. And that’s how he thought of others, opponents.

The mayor said, “Pam, make sure you’re recording all of this.”

“Yes, sir,” she said as she dutifully opened her laptop and set out her voice recorder.

“Why are we recording this?” Gordon asked. “What is this?”

An interrogation, Walden thought. “It’s an informal review, Commissioner.”

“A review of what?”

“Of the investigation into this attack so far.”

“Well, if it’s so informal then why is there a voice recorder running?”

Because you’re not going to be smart enough to know what’s really going on here. Because I have the better bargaining position. “I’ve called you here today to go over what we know of this case so far.”

“That still doesn’t answer my question, Mr. Mayor,” Gordon said. No, it doesn’t. Kudos to you for catching that. “Why is there a voice recorder running?” He suspected an ambush, and he was right to suspect.

Walden leaned forward and put his arms on the desk, which he’d chosen personally because of its great U-shape top that encircled him and made him appear inaccessible to anyone standing on the other side. Whenever he sat behind it, he felt like it was his own little fort. He even had a handgun in a desk holster, an M1911 fully loaded just within his reach under the desktop if he ever needed it. It was the only gun allowed in the building that wasn’t in a guard’s holster. He interlaced his fingers, and said, “In this discussion, I’m going to ask you what you knew and when you knew it.”

“We need to hold a formal hearing before a committee before you can ask me these sorts of questions,” Gordon said. He glanced at Pam. “Unless you’re willing to be off the record here.”

The mayor sighed, glanced at Pam, and nodded. She removed the recorder from the top of the desk.

“And switch it off,” the commissioner said.

Pam held up the recorder, showed him when she was flipping the switch off, and set it back on the desk for him to see. “Is that better, Commissioner?”

Gordon looked at her for a moment, considering. Then, he looked at Walden. “I guess so. Ask your questions, sir. But please be quick about it. I have an appointment with Chief Chapman about the specifics of the Policeman’s Ball.”

“That sounds like important work,” the mayor said, smiling.

Gordon bristled at the subtle invective. “I have to make a speech, Mr. Mayor. There are a few ceremonies, awards to be handed out, a schedule to follow. And it’s also a matter of deciding on who gets to go and who doesn’t. We can’t have all of Gotham’s men and women in uniform attending—somebody has to watch our streets, especially since we’re already short-staffed and ill-equipped.”

Sensing that Gordon would try to take the opportunity to corner him about the “ill-equipped” police force, Walden pressed on before the conversation could go that route. “These riddles. What are they? Do they point to anything so far?”

“Not so far, but we have solved all of them. We’re not sure they mean anything. They could just be a way that the unsub marks his—”

“The what?”

“The unknown subject. It may just be a way that he marks his territory, just a way of saying ‘Joe was here.’ There’s no indication yet that the riddles lead us to any—”

“What steps have been taken so far in the investigation?”

“Many steps are being taken, sir.”

“Like what? Name them.”

Gordon looked at a loss for a minute, but then sighed and ran two fingers over his mustache. “Well, there’s fingerprints on both Margot and Jessica Tralley’s bodies, as well as tissue samples to be analyzed, sir. We’d hoped that the explosives used in the attack were exotic, so that we could easily trace the sale, but it appears it’s Semtex; not so easy to trace. Handwriting analysis is being done on the letter left inside the sailboat where Margot Tralley and her daughter were killed, but that hasn’t turned anything up, not yet. Security videos that caught Patrick Tralley moments before he stepped into the Muslim Center are still being analyzed to see if he was walking with anyone before he entered, maybe an accomplice or accomplices. Cyber Crimes Division is looking into the computer worms that attacked Gotham Light and Power and shut off part of the power grid, but those are—”

“Tell me about Enrique Gutierrez,” the mayor said. He enjoyed watching Gordon fidget each time he was interrupted. Walden did this often with people he considered a problem. Interrupting them kept them off-balance, unable to gain momentum in the conversation, and it put them constantly on the defensive. They had to explain themselves to him.

James Gordon and his bat were a blight, they gave reason for Gothamites to believe in something else besides their elected leaders, so if he couldn’t find a reason to drive James Gordon out of the commissioner’s office, then he’d make him quit out of sheer frustration.

“What about Gutierrez?” Gordon countered.

“You say the GCPD got an anonymous call that told you where he was? Who was that person?”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss my confidential sources—”

“You mean you can’t discuss the Batman.”

“Oh, we can discuss him, certainly, sir,” said Gordon, and the hint of a smile materialized underneath his graying mustache. “Is that what you brought me here to talk about?”

“He gave you this information, didn’t he?”

“Sir, as I said, I cannot discuss the identity of the anonymous tip outside certain parties who are closest to the investi—”

“I hold the office of Mayor of Gotham City, Commissioner. I think you can trust me.”

“And as mayor you are still not privy to all of the details of an ongoing investigation, sir.”

“I can walk down to the police precincts and ask for that information if I want—”

“You can ask, but it doesn’t mean they have to answer to you. In fact, you can be sure that I’ll tell them to give you no such access. I hold the office of Police Commissioner, I can do that, I can put a seal on any investigation if I feel spreading it would be damaging.”

Walden fumed. He didn’t like being the one interrupted or stonewalled. “You would purposefully withhold evidence from me and keep me from informing the people of what kind of threat we have out there? Police departments everywhere commonly search for help from the public by spreading pictures of suspects in newspapers, or sometimes even releasing a key piece of information in the hopes that someone somewhere can provide pivotal information or a new insight to help solve the case. You would scratch that chance because, what, you don’t trust the people of this city with that information, Commissioner?”

“It’s not that I don’t trust them, Mayor. It’s just that I don’t trust their decision-making under trying times,” Gordon said, shifting himself a bit uncomfortably in the too-small chair. “The people of Gotham are very emotional right now, and emotional people can’t be depended on to make the right choices. This investigation…the topic is highly charged, it happened at a major religious center for Muslims in this city, a people already viewed with great suspicion, a people that have received undercover NYPD and CIA agents into their midst, and we’ve already had a small riot on Lemon Street that seems to have been provoked at least in part by religious or cultural comments made. The Shukurs are a gang of Muslims, and, in the past, they have been known to respond violently to incendiary remarks made about their—”

“You’re holding this information back from the people, Commissioner. They elected me and they want answers.”

“I advised you not to allow any information about the riddles to leave our confidence—”

“And I didn’t, that was somebody from your police force, Commissioner.” Walden aimed a finger at him, dead center.

“I’m sure they did, the press have always had cops on the force that they pay for a scoop, and I told the Informer to hold off on running the story, but when they called your office they got nothing but approval—they played Mommy against Daddy, and once one gave them approval, they now can’t be blamed since Daddy said Mommy’s word doesn’t count. Well, okay, now they know there are riddles. Fine, that’s probably no big deal right now. But now you want my sources?” he asked, incredulously. “Sir, I’m sorry, but I just can’t allow that. Not with so many leaks in our ship already.”

“Commissioner, you are holding back information from the Mayor of Gotham City—”

“I’m withholding information from a lot of people,” Gordon said, “and so will my officers and investigators, at least as long as possible, as long as I can control them. The deputy director of the FBI has already contacted me and advised me that he will have people getting involved, so the information will pass to them in confidence.”

Walden looked on at Gordon with eyes that his wife had described as “smoldering”; it was a look he reserved for people he had a supreme distaste for. However, on the inside, the mayor of Gotham city was smiling. He had what he wanted. “I’m going to ask you one last time,” he said. “Did the Batman give you Enrique Gutierrez?”

Gordon leaned forward in his chair. “Mr. Mayor, have you looked at this city? Have you? Because, if you had, you’d know that the Batman isn’t what needs to be discussed. Have you looked at the GCPD? Have you looked into any of the changes I’ve asked about? The additions to the retirement plan to keep more officers and lure new ones? Approving the higher budget for funding? Anything?” Before Walden could answer, Gordon pressed on. “My officers have had more pressure added to an already frayed police force. I’m seeing the departure of more mid-level guys, who are opting for early retirement. They’re not interested in hanging around for their twenty-five-year reward, they’re settling for the twenty-year retirement plan, now what does that tell you?” He leaned back in his chair. “The clown opened a door, and now, new problems are flooding in, like maggots in a wound.”

Walden would not be deflected by a pugnacious little man who knew nothing of the machine of politics. “Answer the question, Commissioner.”

“If that’s all, Mr. Mayor, I have an appointment, like I said before.”

He fumed. “Yes, concerning the Policeman’s Ball, like you said before. I’m sure that’s pressing business,” Walden said, leaning back in his chair. “Go and your plan your little party, Commissioner. In the meantime, I’ve got a city to run, one dealing with a terrorist attack, and a public demanding answers that I can’t give because my people are stonewalling me.” He added, “And that’s not including the almost daily death threats I get concerning myself and my family.”

“Well, Gotham’s finest would certainly be glad to help you in that, sir,” Gordon said, rising from his seat. “But just last night a SWAT team tried to serve a simple search warrant at a house that was hiding a meth lab, and all of the meth dealers used Lapua armor-piercing rounds, killed one officer and injured two others. Two days ago, four men knocked off a jewelry store wearing advanced body armor. Things are ramping up for my people in the street, and the bureaucracy is slower than ever, making it harder and harder to get a search warrant in a reasonable amount of time. Were they not undermanned, overworked, and ill-equipped, the GCPD might be able to do something about your problems, Mayor. Maybe somebody should look into that.”

“I’m not in control of the city’s budget, Commissioner. That would be the city council and they’re—”

“You still run city council, with all of your old friends sitting in chairs and owing you favors, and everybody knows it.” Gordon sighed. “As I said, maybe somebody should look into all of these problems, then your family wouldn’t have to worry about so many death threats.”

Walden steepled his fingers. “I’ll take that under advisement.”

“See that you do.” Gordon looked at Pam and nodded. “I’ll see you later, Pam.”

“Of course, Commissioner.”

Gordon took one more look at Walden, nodded curtly, and turned to leave. When the door had shut behind him, Walden looked at Pam and said, “Did you get it?”

Pam reached into her purse, which was sitting on the other side of her chair, and removed the other recorder. She rewound it a bit, and hit the PLAY button. “—people of Gotham are very emotional right now, and emotional people can’t be depended on to make the right choices.” James Gordon’s voice came through crisp and clear. “Got it,” Pam said.

Walden smiled. “Jim Gordon has the Dark Knight, and I have Pamela Brighton.” She smiled back at him.

* * *

WHEN GORDON STEPPED out of the mayor’s office, he walked right by a secretary who said his name and waved, but he didn’t respond. He was fuming. He didn’t know what had caused him to say all the things he’d said to Walden in there, but it had been a long time coming.

He left out the back way, away from the crowd still protesting one thing or another, and away from where the throng of reporters would basically camp out for the rest of the day in case the mayor wanted to make any other appearances or statements concerning the Muslim Center attack. He stepped around to the parking lot, still running through all the things he’d said to Mayor Walden in his mind. In a way, he was sorry to have treated the mayor of Gotham City that way, but lots of things had been building up over the last year, and Gordon was getting tired of being commissioner and not being down on the ground floor as he’d once been. The front lines was where he belonged, at least that’s how he felt. And now his former comrades-in-arms were being hung out to dry while Gotham’s crime rate soared—Walden and the general public believed it was the police’s job to do it all, but the police couldn’t do much without the support of their leaders and even the people they protected. Someone had to give, or else they’d always need the Batman.

The Juarezes, the Shukurs, the Falcones, Stewart-Paulson, Dreaded Sun, the Molehill Mob, and now the “Riddler” and a racially-charged riot on Lemon Street just hours after an attack on the Muslim Center that the Riddler apparently caused. The police were outmatched. They needed help. They needed an increase in numbers. They needed better surveillance equipment and plenty of elected officials ready to grant warrants so that they could use that equipment. And they needed the people to understand that.

Getting his mind off things, Gordon performed a dry cleaning run to ensure no one was following him before he made his way over to Glen’s Bakery, across from Grant Park. He parked his car and walked around to the back of the building, where he scribbled the names of Gaspare Calabria and Victor Hughes on a piece of notebook paper and found an area to hide it where he figured the Batman could easily find it later. He had a feeling that if Mulcoyisy Stewart-Paulson was proving too difficult for the GCPD to find, then looking for a pair of international heavy hitters wasn’t going to be easy, either. Let the bat find them. He likes this kind of stuff.

When Gordon exited the back alley, he looked around to make sure that no one was watching him, and then walked over to his car.

In his pocket, his cell phone rang again. It was Barbara. “Hey, sweetie. What’s up?”

“Jim…I’m getting more messages.”

He stopped just before hopping into his car. “What? More messages on the door?”

“No, Jim, I’m getting e-mails, on my personal e-mail account…I thought they might just be spam at first, but they keep coming in, over and over again, the same ones. I deleted them all six times, but they just keep coming. I finally opened one, and it says, ‘To the wife of Jim Gordon, make sure he gets this.’ I don’t know…is it…is it him sending me the messages?”

By him she meant Batman, of course, but that didn’t make sense. It wasn’t like him to send e-mails, which could be easily traced these days thanks to “pinging” technology exclusive to the law enforcement community. “I don’t think he would contact you via e-mails, sweetie. Don’t open the rest of the e-mails, they might have viruses on them.”

“Well,” she said, “I kind of already did. And the e-mails, Jim…after hearing what they’re saying in the news about the riddles…”

“Why? What’s in the e-mails, Barb?”

“Riddles, Jim,” she said, sounding more than a little shaken. “There’s eight of them altogether, and they’re all different.”

For a moment, Jim Gordon felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck, and then the feeling traveled down and around his whole body. “Where are the kids?”

Hesitation. “They’re…at school. Why?”

“Go to the school, pull them out of class,” he said, going directly into survival mode but keeping his voice calm for her sake. “Just take them to…” He tried to think of a safe place really quickly. “Take them to your friend Alice’s house.”

“Jim, is something wrong?”

“I don’t know yet. Just do what I tell you. Get the kids, and get gone.”

“Okay…okay, do you need the e-mails for anything?”

“I know your password, I can get in later and read them.” Son of a bitch is threatening my family?! No, this couldn’t be happening. Not again! “I love you, Barb.”

“I love you, too, Jim.”

Immediately after he hung up, he called up Police Chief Clay Chapman, who thankfully answered on the first ring. “Hey, Jim. I guess you heard?”

“I don’t have time to chit-chat, Clay. I have reason to believe my family may be targeted by the people who organized the attack on the Muslim Center.”

“Jesus, Jim! You sure?”

“Not positive, but something’s not right. Barbara received some e-mails that look suspicious. Can you send a squad car over to the house and then another one over to the schoolhouse to make sure everything’s kosher?”

On the other end of the line, papers rattled as Chapman accepted something from a secretary. “I’ll do that right now.”

“Thanks, Clay,” he said, finally getting inside his car and turning it on. He started to pull out of the parking lot when a thought occurred to him. The police chief had sounded a bit urgent when he answered the phone. Since he still had him on the line, he said, “A second ago you said that you guessed I’d heard. Heard what?”

“You mean, you didn’t know?” Chapman asked. He sounded like the unhappy bearer of bad news. “A woman was reported missing by her family after she didn’t show up for a wedding rehearsal this morning. Her fiancé and parents just went over to her apartment, found a riddle written on the wall. It’s all just coming through to me now.” He sighed. “The riddle was written in blood, Jim.”

Slowly, Jim Gordon’s world began to shrink. He had few regrets in life, but if his involvement with the Batman had somehow brought enough focus to them both that they were now targeted, and his actions ended up bringing harm to his family, he would never forgive himself. Not ever.

He turned on his siren and ran through eight stoplights on his way home.