Another Way

By Alekto

Chapter 5

It irked me, I had to admit, the idea that to get out of a simple hostage situation I needed Batman's help, but it wasn't just me who was in danger in the bank. I ran back through the day's events in my mind. I'd played it too overconfident every step of the way. If the bad guys had been metas or one of the grotesque costumed madmen that Gotham seemed to breed in abundance, I had to think I would have acted differently, but instead they'd just been street punks with guns, and as it was I'd messed up.

All I could do, at least in the short term, was wait and think. With Greg dead, Marty was well and truly in a corner. He had too many hostages, especially now with only Carl to help him keep an eye on us. The cops, Feds, or whoever it was running the show outside were still likely to want to play nice while they thought they could get out of this without anyone -any hostages, that was- getting killed. Like Sarah pointed out, they couldn't know yet that Greg was dead or they'd most likely have made their move already and been in here.

The inside of the bank was getting darker as the light from outside began to fade. I could see some of the hostages watching dull-eyed as Marty went around turning on the old style green glass and brass desk lamps on some of the desks: a vain purchase on the part of the bank in its attempt for a safe, stable, old-fashioned image. In this part of the 'Haven, it was a wasted effort. Nice desk lamps couldn't distract customers from the unrepaired cracks of bullet impacts in the security glass protecting the tellers.

I glanced again at the wall clock as the time inched towards the 7.00pm deadline. Deadline, I mused, it was suddenly a very apt term. My head was aching and my mind was surely drifting if I'd started to consider abstracts like that. Dammit, Grayson, get it together. Concentrate! I still had to get these people -those that were left- out of here alive. I was guessing that Bruce would most likely be on his way, but that didn't mean I could relax yet.

From the other side of the room I heard faint groans that suggested that Vinnie was finally beginning to come around. For him to have been unconscious that long, I guessed I must have erred on the side of enthusiasm when I took him down. I peered over at him. Unconscious, he looked so young, and I felt a brief flash of guilt when I considered how much I had to have hurt him for him to have been out for so long. It had been his decision to pick up a gun, though, and been ready to use it.

Marty wandered over and crouched next to him. "Hey, Vinnie. You awake yet? You hear me?" he asked without solicitude, then reached down to shake his younger colleague. "Hey!"

"Wha--?" Vinnie eventually managed in reply, scarcely cognisant of his surroundings. Marty soon lost patience with him and abandoned his efforts to go back to his chair. His eyes scanned the crowd of hostages who dropped their faces, unwilling to meet his gaze. I didn't. I just stared back at him, knowing that one way or another I was going to take him down. From his answering smirk, he must have guessed my intent and discounted it as a nothing more threatening than a victim's impotent rage. Fine. I could live with that. Let him underestimate me for a change.

It was Carl, though, who for the time being was worrying me more. I'd guessed at the outset that he was flying on something, but with how long things had dragged on, he wasn't just coming down from whatever high he'd been on: he was crashing. Since I'd woken up he hadn't stood still for more than a few seconds. He was no longer satisfied with pacing. His every move was possessed of a jerky urgency, frenetic, anxious, starting at the smallest noise. With his submachine gun clenched in his hand it did not make for a reassuring sight.

Tap. Tap. Tap, tap. Tap.

It was so faint I wasn't sure I'd heard it, but moments later it came again. Tap. Tap. Tap, tap. Tap. I kept the satisfaction I felt from reaching my face. The cavalry had arrived: the BatClan, not the police SWAT. The code was something Bruce had developed years ago, derived from a combination of Morse and the various codes created by POWs to communicate between themselves in prison.

//Hidden in ceiling// I translated from the tapping. //Blink response if understood//

I let my head rest back against the wall behind me and blinked once in reply. With my vision playing up from the blow to the head I'd taken, I couldn't hope to see where Bruce had managed to gain a view of the room. It had to be some high resolution fibre-optic mounted mini-cam fed through a tiny hole that he must have drilled in the ceiling.

//Be ready. Takedown set for 1900hrs. Query: able to assist?//

I blinked my assent without a second thought. I knew that attempting any kind of rapid movement would hurt like hell -if I could manage it at all, given the state I was in- but there was no way I was going to sit on the sidelines for this one. Cracked ribs or no cracked ribs, I was in this for the duration.

It took nearly a full minute for me to get the lockpick from where it lay hidden in my watch strap and undo the handcuffs. By my standards, that was appallingly slow, but the handcuffs had been snapped on unnecessarily tightly while I'd been unconscious, robbing my fingers of the fine dexterity that would have allowed me to release them that much more quickly. I let the now empty cuffs rest silently on the floor behind me, and glanced up at the clock - only seven minutes to go.

At a couple of minutes before seven, the phone rang. Marty picked up. "Yeah? What? You expect me to believe--? No, okay, ten minutes, but if you're messing me around here." He left the threat hanging. We didn't need to guess what he meant.

"Hey, man," began Carl. "What's the hold up? We gonna get out of here, aren't we?" Raw need and desperation were plain in his voice.

"Yeah. Just a few minutes more. Take it easy," Marty placated. "The bus taking us to the airport? Cops say it's got a flat. Kids playing around, throwing nails on the road. Go figure!"

Carl snickered his disbelief. "You gotta be kidding!"

"Cops couldn't make up something like that!" averred Marty. "Either way, in ten minutes we'll know. Get everyone up and ready to go, including 'hero cop' there," he said pointing at me. "I'm gonna stash the body. Don't want it found, at least until we're airborne."

"Sure, Marty," he agreed. With scant regard for propriety, Marty hauled Greg's body out of the room. I heard a barely stifled sob and looked over at Sarah. Her arms were wrapped tightly around herself and tears ran freely down her face as she watched her fiance's body being treated like so much baggage.

Carl chivvied the rest of us to our feet at gunpoint. Sarah dragged herself from her sorrow to help me. I'd planned to play up how badly I was hurt. As it happened, it didn't take much in the way of acting ability. I was leaning equally against Sarah and the wall behind me, dizzy with nausea and a pounding headache that had abated slightly while I'd been sitting, but had returned with a vengeance now I was moving. Each breath sent a stab of pain through my side.

My mind was working overtime. I kept my now free hands behind my back, but I'd decided to hold on to the handcuffs - better that than for anyone to notice them lying on the floor. I wondered where Bruce was, hoping that he'd have gone after Marty. Of course he would: it's what I would have done and he'd taught me. It was pointless to listen for any sounds of struggle. Batman could take out someone like Marty without even a whisper, but I listened anyway.

All I heard was a groan from Vinnie. Carl glanced briefly over to see his colleague finally regaining some semblance of consciousness. "Hey, you! Girl!" he ordered, using his gun to point to Sarah. "Help him get up."

Sarah looked at him a moment, then almost seemed to shrug before going over to Vinnie's side. She crouched next to him and took his left arm over her shoulder to lever him to his feet. He might have been scrawny but she staggered, having to support most of his weight while he gasped in pain. The knee I'd kicked was at an odd angle and swollen to twice its normal size. His face was pale and sheened with sweat as he struggled to deal with the pain his knee had to have been causing him, but he still kept hold of the gun in his right hand.

Then as I watched, I saw the expression on Sarah's face slowly change as her previous seeming diffidence gave way to fey determination as she eyed Vinnie's submachine gun. I stole a glance at the clock: two minutes to seven. Too early. Sarah was going to bring this thing down too early. I tried to catch her gaze, to warn her off but she was too wrapped up in her own plan to notice, whether to rescue everyone or simply revenge her dead fiance, I couldn't say.

With a scream of rage she made her move, grabbing for the gun in Vinnie's hand. I had to hope that Bruce had already dealt with Marty otherwise we'd all be in trouble. In the meantime, I did the only thing I could and went for Carl.

I threw the handcuffs at him, thankful not for the first time of the hours of practice I'd had to put in as a child throwing anything I could lay hands on from batarangs to guns. As a missile, handcuffs were less than ideal but they gave me the half-second distraction I needed to cover the ground between us. From my earliest days of being Robin, I'd been taking down thugs like Carl almost in my sleep and ordinarily, dealing with him would have been a matter of a few seconds' work.

Ordinarily, though, I wouldn't be trying to fight someone while nursing a couple of broken ribs and a concussion. To make matters worse, Carl knew exactly where I was hurting and where to target his blows. The adrenaline rush brought on by the fight was enough to blunt my perception of pain and lend a crystal clarity to my vision, but even so, I knew it wouldn't last. Carl had to go down, and quickly.

Normally I could rerun a fight in my mind, blow by blow. Not this one. It was too messy, too chaotic as I struggled to keep Carl's gun pointing away from me or the other hostages. In the background I dimly noted the rattle of gunfire, but couldn't spare the attention to see what had happened. I was focused entirely on taking Carl out of the equation.

After the events of the day, I was nowhere near top form, but in the end it proved to be enough as I managed to land a couple a rapid punches on Carl that dropped him to the floor. Staggering somewhat, I turned to see what was happening between Vinnie and Sarah. My head was beginning to swim as the adrenaline rush ebbed, and the renewal of the tearing pain from my side reminded me that I was still hurt and that before he'd gone down Carl must have got me at least a couple of times.

Sarah was having trouble with Vinnie. Hurt he might have been but he was still stronger than the slightly built, grief-stricken teller. Their frantic struggle for control of the gun had it waving around with scant regard for who it might end up pointing at. The remaining hostages were huddled on the floor, more intent on avoiding being shot by accident than trying to intervene on Sarah's behalf.

I stumbled over there, mildly confused as to why my right leg was suddenly feeling so unsteady. Dogged determination and the last dregs of adrenaline were the only thing keeping me going. I got to them and with a burst of strength wrenched the gun from their joint grasp only to slam it firmly against Vinnie's head. He reeled and fell, dragging Sarah down with him. At that, my leg folded under me, depositing me next to them in an unceremonious heap on the floor. Somewhere in the background, the phone rang plaintively, unheeded, in the silence. I sat there, coughing for breath and just concentrated on trying not to pass out.

"Are you okay?" asked Sarah in a very small voice.

I would have laughed if I hadn't known how much it would hurt. Oh, yes, I was absolutely fine, just wonderful, let's all do this again someday... "No," I finally managed to say after a couple of abortive attempts to catch enough breath to speak.

On the ground between Sarah and me, Vinnie was making vague attempts to get up. I reached over, relieved him of the handgun tucked into his waistband, then slid the belt off, rolled him onto his front and used it to tie his hands behind his back. Now I had time to think, I had to wonder what had happened to Bruce. I didn't think he could have been put off, or even noticed by the cops. I had to assume he'd taken care of Marty. I hoped he had, because I sure as hell didn't feel up to it. I gathered up and checked Vinnie's discarded weaponry. The submachine gun, now empty, I left on the ground. I decided to keep hold of the handgun just in case Sarah got any more ideas about revenge.

She glanced down at my leg. "You're bleeding," she noted quietly.

I followed her gaze and saw the blood seeping through my dark blue work trousers. I figured it had to have been from when Vinnie's gun went off during their struggle. It seemed to hurt more now I'd noticed it. Funny, the way that works.

A shriek from one of the hostages dragged my drifting mind mercilessly back to the matter at hand. Looking over Sarah's shoulder I saw Carl getting unsteadily to his feet, the gun in his hand wavering in the direction of the cowering hostages. Damn. I should have noticed it myself, but I'd been too preoccupied with Vinnie.

"CARL!" I yelled, and raised the gun I'd taken from Vinnie to cover him. Carl half turned towards me, his arc of fire still encompassing the hostages. "Drop the gun, Carl!" I ordered.

He looked at me, a slightly crazed grin flickering over his features, warring with the desperation I was sure I could see in his eyes. For the briefest instant I was reminded of another crazed grin: a face with white skin, green hair... A face that wouldn't stop grinning however many times I hit it...

No. Enough of that. It wasn't him. It was just Carl, another thug with a gun. I thought back involuntarily to long ago, to Bruce's lectures about the capabilities of various sorts of firearms. I could almost hear his dry, precise voice in my mind going through the weapon's specifications: submachine gun, Ingram, M10, fires 9mm para or .45'' ACP, noted as being hard to control unless fired in short, disciplined bursts.

Disciplined? Carl? Not a chance. If he cut loose with the gun he'd empty the clip in a couple of seconds, spraying bullets everywhere. I had to guess that was what had happened before, when Greg and the others were shot, when I'd been outside with a gun to my head. I couldn't let that happen again.

"Carl, drop the gun," I repeated. "Drop it or I'll fire." /Please, drop the damned gun. Oh God, don't make me have to do this./

Carl's expression didn't change. "Screw you, cop!" he spat out, and brought the M10 to bear.

Training took over.

I fired.

To be concluded...