Ch. 3: Twelve Little Gunmen All in a Row

Two gunmen pace the rooftop of the 41st precinct, peering into the darkness surrounding the building. One stops by the service door to the access stairs and knocks twice, pauses and knocks one more time. The door opens and another armed thug looks out.

"Hey Rodriguez, trade places with me, it's friggin' cold out here."

"You think I got a heater in here, pendejo?" The man known to his cohorts as 'Voodoo' Rodriguez sneers as he shuts the door on Jones. The nickname has nothing to do with religious beliefs, but was given to him upon his arrival from Peru with an accent so thick, the simplest sentence sounded as though he were bestowing a curse in foreign tongue. The name stuck.

Of the twelve men currently occupying the police barracks, Jones is the least proficient at his work. Chosen because of boasting that he had killed a man bare handed in a fistfight, what he always failed to mention was that his opponent died from heart attack in the middle of the match and not some death dealt blow. By the time he realized this plan involved killing cops, it was too late to back out.

The other man on the roof silently spits a wad of tobacco-seasoned saliva into the gravel of the rooftop as he eyes the surrounding buildings for signs of movement. 'Tex' was new to Gotham; straight from the plains of Texas, he was recruited specifically for this job because of his straight shot and quick draw. Taking a point position on the roof, he was given the best odds of the group for getting a shot in on Batman.

Jones pushes the gun strap around to move the AK assault rifle out the way as he slides down his zipper to relieve his bladder on the gravel beside the rooftop access outbuilding.

The sensation of cold steel against his manhood is more than enough to end his flow.

"Keep it in your pants, and keep your eye on the sky," Tex menacingly intones his threat barely above a hissing whisper to the man, "or next time, I'll cut if off."

Jones gulps as the blade vanishes as quickly as it arrived. Fumbling to close his zipper, he kicks some gravel over what little bit of relief made its way to the ground. He turns away from the building in time to see a silhouette pass through the light.

He calls out to the other side of the roof. "Tex?"

Tex takes a deep breath, his frustration with this amateur crook reaching a boiling point. "What is it now?" He turns to threaten the meek gunman one last time only to see Batman waiting for him. A quick thrust of a gloved hand to the thug's throat, and Tex begins choking, unable to alert Jones to the imminent danger. Tex reaches for the AK strapped to his shoulder, but isn't fast enough as Batman grabs the barrel, turns the gun and slams it upward, the stock crashing into Tex's jaw, mashing his teeth together and knocking his head back in whiplash. The man falls into the gravel as it shuffles slightly under his body. Dazed and winded, Tex looks up only to see the butt of the rifle once again coming toward him, and then the black of unconsciousness.

Jones peers through the blinding light of the signal, unable to see across the roof. He hears something scuffle the gravel, then a grave silence. The light flickers off. Jones hugs the assault rifle to his body, ready to fire on the slightest movement. He slowly walks to the darkened spotlight looking for Tex.

From atop the stairwell outbuilding, the dark shadow of Batman rises behind Jones, as the trigger-happy gunman walks around the light. Jones steps one last time in his slow circle around the Kleig and Batman pulls the line attached to a chain discretely concealed in a shallow burial of gravel, catching Jones' leg in a snare, pulling him off balance and face down to the ground.

Jumping from the outbuilding, Batman lands, dropping a knee into the sciatic nerve of his prey. He quickly uses the chain to secure Jones, and pulls the crook to his feet.

The second front of the ambush is getting edgy. Batman should have been there by now according to the plan. Carter paces the hallway of the fourth floor of the precinct waiting for Voodoo to signal from the outbuilding.

Carter is the muscle. A former heavyweight boxer, his frame is enhanced by overdeveloped muscles cocooning his arms and torso. His job is to get in close for the hand-to-hand combat after the first team weakens Batman with distance attacks. His signal flies past the window as he walks by. Carter runs to the window to see what, or who, came from the roof.

A chain swings haphazardly outside the window as Carter peers out. Dangling from the end of the line is Jones, rendered unconscious when he hit the third story window below. Carter leans out the window to look up to the roof, but something catches his attention in his peripheral vision. Before he can react Batman pulls the giant man through the window to fall to the cement sidewalk.

Watching helplessly from the street, Gordon sees the man fall, scraping along the brick wall with the slim hope of catching hold before slamming into the concrete landing pad. Gordon wonders if he has made a mistake unleashing this masked menace to retake the building. As Batman enters through the fourth story window, Gordon notices his men, looks of contempt and bewilderment on their faces, and he knows the delicate balance he has maintained between his career and his association with this vigilante will not last the night.

On the third floor, Gator Trick has watched "the Bat" dispatch two of his cohorts. He attempts to radio the other two on the roof. Voodoo is kicking and ramming his shoulder into the access door to the roof, trying to get out after hearing the sound of breaking glass. His calls to Tex and Jones are left unanswered. His radio suddenly crackles to life with Gator's voice. "Tex? Voodoo? Report?"

Voodoo ceases thumping against the door to answer. "Yo, I'm locked in up here ese." He yells at the door as if it will do his bidding, "Abra la puerta, Jones!"

"Jones isn't up there man. I don't know about Tex. Carter just flew past the window. He's on the fourth. Meet me there and we'll double-team him." Gator heads for the elevator as Voodoo flips off the door and starts down the stairs to the fourth floor.

Batman hears the perturbed Hispanic thundering down the metal access stairs and, as the handle of the firedoor turns, he kicks against the door, hurling it back into the face of the goon. Voodoo feels the bones crack in his nose and the warm sensation of blood splatter across his cheeks as he falls back into the stairwell. The metal treads connecting with the back of his head are the final sensation he has.

Batman grabs the unconscious ruffian and tosses him into the elevator as the call light blinks, summoning the lift to the third floor.

Gator has his weapon pointed at the elevator door as it arrives on his floor. The last thing he expected to see was Voodoo lying crumpled in the back with blood streaming down his face. Gator enters the box to check on his partner, and he realizes his best chance now is to team up with others on the lower floors. He moves to push the button for two, but pauses to consider if Bane is really the guy with whom he wants to make a last stand. Sure the guy is a badass crook to the core, but he's just as likely to take out his own team in the process. Gator decides to take his chances on the first floor with Brock, Dojo and A.J.

Batman is riding atop the elevator car as it begins to move. He finishes affixing a small strip to the cable and retracts his own line on his belt, floating away from the descending car. With the touch of a remote, a focused detonation blows the cables from the elevator and the car jerks as it begins to freefall to the basement. Inside the car, Gator is knocked against the wall as the cable breaks. Just as suddenly, the car jerks to a stop as the emergency brakes kick in to stop the fall. The power cuts off and Gator is left in the dark with his unconscious conspirator.

On the second floor, Bane hears the ruckus in the elevator and chooses a new weapon from his arsenal of S.W.A.T. gear. Picking up a handheld battering ram, he pulls a pistol from his belt and makes his way toward the elevator. Bane presses the call button with no response. Holstering his gun, he slams the battering ram into the elevator door, denting the steel covering. Using the ram he pushes the doors open to look down the shaft at the detached car hovering mid-floor.

Bane is the man responsible for assembling this rag tag crew of bandits to raid the station as bait to entrap the Batman. The price on the head of the masked vigilante has enticed a worldwide market of mercenaries and petty amateurs alike to set in motion schemes to claim the bounty. No one knows who is sponsoring the hunt, but the rules were made explicitly clear. To collect, one must personally deliver the cape and cowl of the Dark Knight, with his head included.

Bane knew most of his crew wouldn't survive the ordeal, less money to be split at the end of the day. He had studied Batman. He knew the vigilante's tactics, eliminate multiple entrance and exit points, separate and incapacitate. The Bat followed this procedure consistently and Bane meant to use it to his advantage. The precinct had two entrance points, the roof and the street. Bane positioned 3 at each point, although he knew of the Bat's inclination for rooftops. As he expected, Batman took out the elevator and most likely had barricaded the rooftop access door by now. He assumed the elevator was being used as a holding cell for at least one of his band of outlaws.

The elevator damage also meant Batman had bested 4 of his men so far and found Gator on the third floor. Bane slips the Glock 18 machine pistol from his holster and flips the firing lever to burst mode, enabling the rapid-fire function of the gun. He knows an assailant only gets one chance with Batman and he wants to get off as many rounds as he can.

Batman descends the stairwell cautiously between the third and second floors. He stops momentarily on the landing between floors and looks down through the flights of stairs to the first floor. No movement or sound from anywhere below. He realizes he should have asked Gordon where the armory is located; that is likely to be the staging ground of the main ambush. Too late for that now. He glances toward the entrance to the second floor, knowing he needs to clear it before moving lower. This is the floor from where the sniper was firing. This guy also had the rocket launcher; he hesitates to think what other toys were taken from the armory to this floor.

Batman moves toward the antiquated wooden door with the frosted glass, a throwback to the "classic" police station architecture with dark wood trim and moldings that were designed to give a warm, homely feeling to the structure. The door is ajar and Batman slides his gloved hand across the knotted cherry wood, hoping to open a wider view of the level without being spotted by the gunman. Little does he know the attacker is already positioned behind the door, waiting for Batman to breech the entry to an onslaught of bullets.

As the door opens wider, Batman creeps with it, edging further into the hallway. His knee bumps the door and it bounces open quicker than intended. In an instant his hand reaches out to grab the edge of the door to stop it before swinging wide to reveal his not so stealthy entrance. As his fingers wrap around the edge of the door just below the latch, the anxiety in Bane takes over and he squeezes the trigger of his pistol, hurtling several rounds into the frosted glass window.

Shards rain down on a crouching Batman, skidding across his exposed cheeks and flowing over his outstretched arm. Pulling in his arm he jumps back into the stairwell, pulling items from the utility belt. He loads the gas-powered launcher with a grappling hook and pulls a small black box, sticking it to the wooden banister railing in the stairway. Launching the grapple, Batman locks onto his belt and hoists himself between the flights of stairs.

Bane moves toward the battered door, kicks it shut and aims the gun into the stairwell from the broken window, just in time to hear the beep from the explosive left by Batman.

The detonation blasts Bane into the open elevator shaft, dropping him onto the broken cable car.

Outside, the remaining police force watch in awe as the second floor windows blow out of the building they call home. Gordon holsters his revolver and barks an order to whoever can hear him, "That's it. Grab whatever you've got, we're going in." Officers begin pulling extra pistols and rifles from the cars and any riot gear they have handy.