Chapter 2
As a single unmarked black van laid siege to the favored watering hole of the GCPD, other small bands of terrorists were striking in equal fervor. Simultaneous to the attack on Finnigan's, a pair of criminals drove a car filled with explosives into a packed gas station, ignoring the long line of vehicles stretching from the pumps and the signs on the sidewalk insisting "OIL RATIONING IN EFFECT" as they drove right through the glass doors of the convenience mart and detonated their payload.
Downtown, a band of marauders opened fire on the sidewalk outside the Gotham Institute of Art and proceeded to ascend the granite steps into the gallery, killing security guards, curators, and visitors without hesitation. Security cameras would show them practicing taking headshots on the paintings in the portrait gallery, using sculptures as blunt instruments to bludgeon victims, and setting the modern art wing ablaze in kerosene. Other paintings were cut violently from their frames and taken as trophies.
In the Diamond District, a group of five murderers and thieves went door-to-door playing Russian roulette with store owners as other accomplices created roadblocks at either end of the street and fired on random commuters and first responders. Those lucky enough to live, were allowed to keep their jewelry. The priceless bracelets, necklaces, earrings, gems, and stones of those not-so-lucky ended up in a canvas bag in the back of another black license plate-less van.
Over the course of twenty minutes, a quiet, golden September afternoon was bathed in the largest wave of random violence in recorded Gotham City history. One perpetrator suffered a non-life threatening injury after falling down some stairs at the Institute of Art and twisting his ankle; otherwise, the response time by law enforcement was insufficient to engage or prevent any of the attacks and not a single assailant was apprehended.
Jim Gordon arrived at the apartment complex of one Dr. Leslie Thompkins, M.D., eighteen minutes after leaving Finnigan's. His phone had not rung once during the drive.
He pressed the call button under her name on the registry at the front door and contemplated, not for the first time, if her refusing to take his last name when they married had been a bit of foreshadowing of their future separation he missed. His thoughts were interrupted by the twin buzzing of his phone and the gate as she allowed him to come into the building. Gordon entered a waiting elevator and rode it up to the twenty-eighth floor while attempting—unsuccessfully—to answer his cell. The door chimed open and he crossed the well-appointed hallway to Leslie's door.
It opened before he could knock. His ex-wife stared at him with an ashen expression, her kind brown eyes marred by a fear he'd only seen twice before: Once after she was attacked by his crazed fiancée, Barbara Kane, and the second time when she was held hostage by the same woman. But the unstable Barbara was long since dead, leaving Gordon at a loss as to what could disturb the doctor so deeply.
His phone rang again, and as Gordon stepped into the apartment, his right hand fell to the service pistol on his hip and his left raised his phone to his ear. "Captain Gordon."
"Jim? Thank God you're alright." It was the Commissioner. Thompkins waved him into the living room and pointed at the television. "Someone said you were down at Finnigan's and I feared the worst."
"What do you mean, you feared the—" Gordon's words died in his mouth as he finally processed the scene on screen. A news helicopter was circling the bar he left not more than a half hour earlier. A fire engine was parked across the street and paramedics and firemen scurried back and forth on the sidewalk like ants. The banner across the bottom of the channel noted GOTHAM CITY UNDER SIEGE.
"Commissioner, I have to go." Gordon hung up and dropped his arms limply to his sides. Despite the small wording in the top corner of the screen, he felt compelled to ask, "Is this a live feed?"
"Yes. The man across the hall knocked and told me to turn on the news just before you arrived."
"Dad?" Jim whirled to find his daughter walking hesitantly down the hall from the bedrooms with her backpack pulled snugly over both her shoulders, her red hair pulled back in a ponytail, a tell-tale sign she had been reading or working on her computer. "What's wrong?"
The stoic GCPD Captain melted and crossed to his eleven-year old daughter, hugging her tightly and exhaling in relief. "Barbara. Everything's fine, honey."
She frowned and pointed at the television. "Then why is yours and Harvey's favorite place on fire? Why are 'terrorists running amok?'"
Gordon looked back at the live feed and the headline claiming precisely that. The video changed abruptly to show the steps of the Gotham Institute of Art, bodies lying grotesquely beneath the burning second floor windows. Then his daughter's first question finally registered.
Harvey.
Gordon stood and walked over to the window, peering out of it at the street below as he withdrew his mobile and called the station.
"This is Captain Gordon. Detective Harvey Bullock was at Finnigan's as recently as thirty minutes ago. Has he called in?"
"No, Captain. He couldn't."
"What do you mean he couldn't?"
"They found him unconscious behind the bar, bleeding out. He's en route to Gotham General right now. He was one of the few live ones left."
Gordon turned back to Leslie, his own face as pale as hers and his whole body rigid. The lieutenant at the precinct clicked off and Gordon put his phone back in his pocket. "Barbara, put your shoes on, we're going."
Leslie frowned. "Is Harvey okay?"
Gordon looked at Leslie helplessly and shrugged. Not trusting himself to repeat the report, he merely said, "Gotham General."
"I can get us there in ten minutes if the lights cooperate. Give me your keys."
Gordon handed them over silently, mulling over the last words of his lieutenant as they rode the elevator downstairs.
One of the few live ones left…
Dr. Thompkins glanced across the front seat at Jim Gordon, then into her rearview mirror at her daughter and found both of them looking out the window with identical strained looks on their faces. It wasn't easy at first, calling her daughter by the same name with which she associated so much pain, violence, and fear, despite what Barbara had done with her last moments to redeem herself in Jim's eyes, but maybe she'd underestimated him as before today she'd only ever thought of that name in the most loving way as they raised their daughter, first together and then separately when their jobs took them in different directions: his as Captain requiring more and more time despite the long respite in violent crime (by Gotham's perverse standard, at least) and hers as the lead physician at Gotham Children's, a role she cherished after five years as ME for the GCPD. But that, too, grew tedious and now she was about to embark on a new adventure, yet again.
Dr. Thompkins braked as the long line of cars snaked towards the traffic light: her estimate of ten minutes elapsed after three blocks. The city's avenues were snarled as citizens tried to get away from the carnage and make it home to their loved ones. Silence persisted in the car despite her thoughts being interrupted by the traffic.
"Barbara, why don't you tell your father about how your project went today?" Leslie turned and smiled encouragingly at their daughter as she returned from her thoughts beyond the windows of the car and rummaged in her backpack. The doctor elbowed her former husband and arched an eyebrow.
Gordon cleared his throat and looked accusingly at Leslie. "Right, that was today. Er, how'd it go?"
The young girl produced a folder with her favorite literary character on the cover and withdrew the grade sheet from the assignment. Handing it forward proudly, she announced, "I got a 97! Highest in the grade! My teacher says that computer is going to be entered in the state competition next month."
"What does it do again, sweetie? You know I don't understand all the technology stuff like you do?" Dr. Thompkins winked at her daughter and then turned her attention back to the road as they passed through the light and she fought against traffic to make a turn onto the freeway. Gordon looked up from the grade sheet and gave her a grateful smile—he'd completely forgotten what the project was in the first place.
"It's a database investigator. It's a computer program I made that will search through a database for you in less than thirty seconds! The database can be millions of documents and it will sort through it super quick. I demonstrated it with the police department's case files for the last twenty years," Barbara announced simply. "I asked it to find any mention of your name, Dad, and it came up with 6,431 occurrences in eleven point three seconds."
Gordon twisted around to look at his beaming daughter, shocked. "You used what?! I didn't give you access to those. Those are private, Barbara."
"You didn't have to give me access. I just let myself into the database. Those are bad people, I didn't think they'd care. I got access to Mom's hospital's records too, but those are sick kids and that wouldn't have been very nice," she concluded with a frown.
Gordon looked up amused as Leslie whirled in her seat to look at Barbara. "You have access to what?!"
Their daughter looked down at the folder in her hands, upset. "I know I'm not supposed to access private things. I didn't look at any records, I promise…even though I got an A like you said I had to, does this mean I can't go to Mom's fundraiser?"
Captain Gordon looked over at the doctor. "Are you still going to have it tomorrow night with what happened today?"
Leslie frowned and nodded slowly. "I think so. If we don't then we're telling whoever attacked Gotham today that they succeeded in scaring us. Besides, the clinic opens on Monday regardless. I'd love to have both of you there," she added with a smile.
Gordon smirked in spite of himself and turned to his daughter. "Do you still have that dress from the Policeman's Ball that Mr. Alfred hosted in the summer?"
"YES!"
Dr. Thompkins couldn't help but laugh in concert with Gordon as they pulled into the entrance for Gotham General. It was moments like this, she told herself sadly, that she missed being a family.
Jim Gordon led his ex-wife and his daughter out of the elevator and through a set of swinging doors into the Intensive Care Unit as two policemen snapped to attention and held the doors open for them. The three of them followed the harsh glare of fluorescent lights down the white-tiled hall to a small gathering of officers and suit-clad detectives. In the center of the group was the diminutive Commissioner, who waved Gordon over immediately.
"Jim, I'm so glad you're alright. I got here about ten minutes ago."
"How's Harvey?"
The Commissioner's face clouded over as he led Gordon to a window into one of the treatment rooms. As Gordon stepped forward and placed a hand on the glass, leaning as close as he could in stunned silence, his boss answered in a detached way, "The doctors aren't sure. He lost a lot of blood and they did emergency surgery when he arrived. He's stable, but they had to induce a coma. They're not sure if he'll come out of it."
"When, you mean," Gordon corrected with a swallow. His hand clenched into a fist and he tapped it against the glass. "He'll come out of it. He'd better."
"I'm going to call a press conference for Monday," the Commissioner continued, as if he hadn't heard Gordon, his hands plunged into his pockets as he stared at Bullock's bedridden form through the glass. "I'm going to announce the reinstatement of Strike Force and you're going to lead it again to figure out who murdered over a hundred people including dozens of cops in less than a half hour."
"Over one hundred?" echoed Gordon as he turned to look at the Commissioner.
"They're still finding more and I'd expect some injured to not make a full recovery. It's bad, Jim. I need Strike Force."
Gordon rubbed his jaw. "Nearly all of the kids we picked for it last time died. We got some results, but it wasn't pretty."
"I'm not looking for a Goddamn beauty pageant, Captain. Just find whoever did this."
The Commissioner strode back down the hallway towards the elevators without another word, leaving Gordon to stare at Harvey alone.
A/N: More to follow shortly! If you're onboard, please let me know! Even if you don't follow, fav, or review, thank you for taking the time to read!