Wayne of Gotham (19 page)

“Do you understand me, Dr. Wayne?”

“Yes … yes, I understand.”

“I'll be there inside of fifteen minutes,” Jarvis instructed. “Do nothing until I arrive.”

“But I …”

“Nothing, you understand! Do NOTHING! I'm coming now …”

T
he grandfather clock in the front hall was just spooling up to strike three when Thomas heard the steps coming up the front steps of the mansion. Light from the rising moon cascaded over his shoulders from the two-story windows behind him as he sat on the grand staircase in the main foyer. He had managed to change out of his bloodstained shirt and slacks, his hands shaking throughout the process, and had tried to cleanse his body and his soul in a long, hot shower. He felt calmer, but sleep was impossible. He wondered if it would ever be possible again.

Thomas stood up as the latch on the great front doors was released, swinging them wide.

Thomas caught his breath.

No detectives. No police. No condemning witnesses.

It was Jarvis—alone.

“Dr. Wayne, you should be in bed,” Jarvis said, his elegant English accent once again dominant.

Thomas breathed out a shudder. “But, Jarvis, what about the escaped subjects? They are loose in the city now and … Dr. Richter lying … lying there in his … in his own …”

“Everything has been taken care of, Dr. Wayne,” Jarvis said smoothly. “I have taken the liberty of seeing to it personally.”

“Seeing to it … personally?” Thomas parroted. “But, Jarvis, a man is dead …”

“Yes, Dr. Wayne,” Jarvis pulled off his white cotton gloves with an almost casual boredom. “It is a tragedy, but I serve this family, Dr. Wayne … and I assure you that everything has been taken care of
personally
.”

“But, Jarvis, how could you possibly—”

Jarvis interrupted Thomas. “Did your father ever tell you about my earlier profession, Dr. Wayne?”

Thomas, taken aback, shook his head slowly. “No, Jarvis. We weren't much on speaking terms.”

“As you are the master of Wayne Manor and, it would seem, most obviously in need of my services, perhaps I might enlighten you,” Jarvis continued, setting his gloves down on the side table. I was born in 1908 in a little village outside of London. My father was in service, although he fancied himself a bit of an actor. I trod the boards myself for a time in my youth but proved myself a bit of an adept with a gun. I was in my late twenties, as you say, when war was brought home to my beloved England. And I answered her call, Dr. Wayne … I answered most emphatically.”

“Jarvis, I don't see what this has to do with—”

“What do you know about the SOE, Dr. Wayne?”

“I don't think I'm familiar with it.” Thomas sighed.

“It was the Special Operations Executive, although the few who knew of us often referred to us as the Baker Street Irregulars, after they moved us to 64 Baker Street.” Jarvis stepped toward the base of the grand staircase, his eyes fixed on Thomas. “You might be more familiar with our American counterparts—the OSS?”

“You were a … spy?” Thomas blinked. He considered for a moment whether the shock of the evening's events had driven him mad, or if perhaps it was Jarvis who had gone around the bend.

“That's far too broad a term, Dr. Wayne,” Jarvis continued, moving toward where Thomas stood. “In fact, I was trained as a medic. Our specific purpose was to conduct sabotage operations and guerilla warfare, as well as train and support resistance units behind Nazi lines. I was part of SO2—conducting operations in Telemark, Norway, against a heavy-water production plant. It was part of our training to be far past the front lines, Dr. Wayne, and it was often helpful to us while we were there to make sure we cleaned up after ourselves. Sometimes it was just better for the living if the dead were found somewhere other than where they died—or, in most cases, not at all.”

“What have you done with Dr. Richter?” Thomas asked, both dreading and desperately needing the answer.

“As I have said, Dr. Wayne,” Jarvis replied, looking up at Thomas with his placid face. “You need not concern yourself. Do not return to the laboratory. I have secured it. This incident will not be traced to you. Things will look better in the morning.”

“Jarvis, how can I—”

“Come, let me help you to bed. I have a special drink for you to help you rest.” Jarvis took Thomas's arm and turned him, guiding him back up to the second landing. “It is what I do, Dr. Wayne. I clean things up.”

Arkham Asylum / Gotham / 8:31 p.m. / Present Day

Batman carefully folded the pages of his father's stationery. They were on different paper than the pages he had discovered waiting for him in the hands of the dead Dr. Moon and, in this case, appeared to start in the middle, as the first page was number seven. He had not yet read half of them, but he had read enough.

Batman looked up from the pages to glare again at the faint stain on the glass.

Nazi.

He glanced back at the book and then all around him. Something here was not right. He felt as if …

I'm being watched.

Whoever was behind this had controlled every situation very carefully; it made sense they would not leave anything to chance. They would want to watch the mouse struggle beneath their paws. Someone had baited the trap—this Manipulist, as he had begun to call the person in his mind—and he had taken the bait.

No … I haven't taken it yet.

He glanced at the open logbook on the table.

They wanted me to see this, but me alone. If they had wanted it to be public knowledge, then it would be on every news outlet nationwide by now. No … They want me to take it, but what if I don't? What if I don't spring their trap but set another trap inside their own
?

Batman bagged the envelope and its contents, securing it in a belt pouch at his waste. Then he reached over with his gloved hand, slowly closing the logbook and adjusting it squarely on the table. He closed his eyes.

The room was instantly replaced in his mind with the ghostly, three-dimensional image.

“Contrast thermal overlay,” he muttered quietly.

The room in his mind was colored in a spectrum of heat signature. He could see his own footprints, the warming of the book on the desk from his opening it, and the far brighter signatures of his hands and fingers on the book itself.

It's not there yet … almost but not quite.

“IR shift,” he whispered into the silence.

The cowl heard and the image in his mind shifted the thermal and light readings into the infrared band.

“Hold!” he commanded with quiet firmness.

I own the dark. The darkness is my strength.

Pinpoints of brilliant light in the IR band. Tiny, fiber-optic cameras—the type often used in medical procedures—had been placed throughout the wrecked office and laboratory beyond. He could not see the holding cells from where he stood, but Batman did not doubt they were being watched as well. Each had a coupled IR emitter that would enable the cameras to function with or without the lights on in the room.

Batman smiled. Whoever he was fighting was not perfect … They were good, but they could make mistakes.

He then stepped over the broken door of the office, searching about the scattered, smashed remnants of the laboratory. There were several pieces of equipment that still looked serviceable; a microscope, a pair of centrifuges. There was an operatory table with motor drives that appeared functional. Finally he found what he needed: an infrared spectrometer still in good condition.

Batman smiled beneath his cowl. He would have preferred to use his own equipment, but he could not risk the time it would take to go to his lair and return.

He stooped down and picked up a centrifuge, examining it carefully.

Take your time.

He discarded that and picked up a microscope, examining it with infinite care for several minutes.

Patience is part of the illusion.

He walked casually toward the spectrometer, saw that the crude emitter was still intact, and that the device was still connected to power from the wall. He knelt down next to it and flipped the switch on the emitter.

The IR image went suddenly blank in his mind.

Batman opened his eyes, standing in a rush and moving to the overturned operating table. He pulled his collapsible tool set from his Utility Belt and started to remove components from the bed, first taking its motors and then stripping the adjusting cables clear.

It all took shape in his mind. He loved to work with his hands.

A
few minutes later, the infrared emitter died. The IR image in Batman's mind cleared, showing him once again to be kneeling in almost the identical position he had been in when he had turned on the emitter in the first place. Batman continued to play with the instrument for a while and then moved to another broken piece of equipment.

“
Hey, Batsy!
” Harley called out from her cell. “When are you gonna take me to the dance? I
never
get asked to the dance!”

Batman stood up amid the ruin in the lab. “Right now, Harley. We're going right now.”

“A
nd just where the hell have you been?”

James Gordon stood on the secure receiving dock on the south side of Arkham. It had been placed in an awkward location—like so many things in Arkham—but it was well suited for prisoner transfers. It sat off a narrow alley across from the guards' block, with great flying buttresses arching overhead against the wall of the old chapel. The stars could be seen brightly through the band of open sky directly overhead.

“Nice to see you, too, Commissioner,” the Batman growled. “Sorry I'm late for the party, but I did bring you a present.”

The Caped Crusader pushed forward the still bound Harley Quinn, who was unusually quiet. James Gordon motioned to the four armored SWAT police behind him to come forward and take the woman into custody.

“You told me to meet you here over an hour ago,” Gordon replied. “You've made me cool my heels here—along with the High Security Team—all this time. That's not like you.”

Batman waited as the guards walked Harley back into the dark maw of Arkham. Only when he heard the security door clang shut did he turn away and speak. “I've got to go.”

“No! Just hold on a moment,” Gordon said. “There's something going down tonight. Harley's just the tip of the iceberg on this.”

“On what?” There was impatience in his voice.

“Aren't you supposed to tell me?” Gordon shot back. “I've got reports from every precinct of vigilante actions going down all over the city. It's like a sudden outbreak of do-it-yourself justice. We found one of Falcone's goons hanging upside down from the West Side Bridge, dropped there by some unknown citizens—a tailor, his son, and two businessmen from the Diamond District. The 125th Precinct down on Moench Row had to hold back a mob trying to lynch a mugger, for Pete's sake! And don't try to tell me this is just some random coincidence, either, because I know better!”

“Why?” Batman turned, glaring at the commissioner. “What do you know?”

Gordon rarely had the advantage on Batman and was enjoying it. “You don't know, do you? I think I'm going to just take a moment and savor this. I know that all this happened once before—decades back—and if there's something that has to do with taking a shortcut to law in this town, it has to do with you. So what's going on, Batman? Let me in on the joke.”

“Your job is to hold them,” Batman said simply. “Mine is to catch them.”

“Damn it, that's no answer!” Gordon shouted. “What are you hiding?”

“You've got your job to do,” Batman said as he turned away, stalking into the darkness. “And I'm late to do mine.”

Arkham Asylum / Gotham / 9:02 p.m. / Present Day

The ruined long-forgotten laboratory was dark and silent once again. The space felt relieved, as though it preferred to be a sealed tomb of dreams and death hidden from the world.

But the world was not yet finished with it.

The rusted handles of the great steel doors at the end of the laboratory slowly rotated, groaning with the effort. The gears attached to them pulled at the closing rods, which squealed as they slowly withdrew. At last the sound stopped with the motion.

Batman quietly watched it all through his closed eyes, as he had for the past three hours. The world around him was canted slightly from the angle of the telepresence device he had left lying atop the debris in the laboratory. It worked on the same principle as his cowl—using sonic imaging—but could transmit remotely over short distances directly into his cowl, thereby allowing him to “be” in the room while his physical presence was actually a few dozen feet away.