“Was it conscience that made you save my life back at Penn Station?”
“Perhaps. Or maybe it was the same thing that stopped you from killing me in the hotel room. We provide each other with scale. Each of us justifies the other’s existence. We’re different yet the same, both anachronisms who’ve lived far beyond our allotted time. We’re the best but the best craves competition, rivalry.”
“We’re not rivals anymore.”
“You have a place to regroup, of course.”
Bane nodded. “The best kind. A dead man lives there.”
“There’s one problem,” Bane said when they reached the Bat’s apartment building. “The man putting us up is the man you made a cripple in Berlin.”
“Harry Bannister?”
“That’s right. Someone tried to take him out today but the job was botched. The shooter didn’t know the Bat lived out of a wheelchair.”
“He’s not still in the field, is he?”
“No, he’s moved on to computers which means he might be able to help us learn more of what Vortex is all about.”
Harry the Bat regarded Trench with vague recognition as he followed Bane into the apartment. Then his eyes bulged and his head snapped back against the wheelchair’s rest. His hand grasped his magnum.
“Jesus Christ…”
Bane was upon him before he could get the gun from his lap, pinning his hand where it was. “Listen to me, Harry, he’s on our side now.”
“Yours maybe, not mine!” And the Bat’s left hand was moving toward another of his pistols.
Bane pinned that one too. “He saved my life today, Harry.”
“And fucked up mine five years ago. You expect me to forget that?”
“Not any more than I expect you to forget that Janie was killed today and Davey was kidnapped, and Trench can help us get the people behind it.”
The Bat’s eyes filled with tears. “That fuckin’ son of a bitch killed my legs, Josh. I’ve got to nail him. You’ve got to let me nail the fucker!”
Bane kept the Bat’s arms pinned. “Listen to me, Harry, and listen good. They tried to take me out at Penn Station today and they came damn close. I’m only alive now because this man put a bullet between Scalia’s eyes. Do you hear me, Harry? He saved my life! That’s what we’re down to now, life and death. Real bullets and real bodies. The stakes are different and I don’t plan on losing. The only people I care about right now are the ones who can help me stay alive and that makes you … and him … the only two. Don’t force me to make a choice.”
Bane felt a hand on his shoulder and then a gentle tugging as Trench pulled him away. “Leave him his guns, Winter Man, let him to do what he must.”
Harry raised his magnum in a trembling, sweat-soaked hand and aimed at Trench’s head.
The killer held his ground, looked down at him distantly.
The Bat cocked the magnum.
Trench kept looking.
The Bat dropped the pistol back onto his lap, covering his face with his hands.
“That fucker killed my legs,” he moaned. “My legs!” And he slapped his thighs as if they were to blame.
Then Trench gave him his dignity. “I was wrong in the car, Winter Man,” he said, holding his gaze on Harry. “There are still three of our kind left, not two.”
Harry looked up, eyes sharper. “
I did what I had to do,” Trench told him. “I will not offer insulting apologies. Instead, I’ll only remind you that men like ourselves judge everything in the context of the moment. In the context of this one, we need each other.”
“And when it’s over, I’ll put a bullet through your brain,” Harry said with grim coldness.
Trench smiled, apparently satisfied. “It will not be so easy the next time. You’ve had your chance. Next time we start out even.”
“Fine by me, you fucker,” the Bat snapped.
“I believe we have arrived at a truce,” Trench told Bane. “For now at least.”
“Good,” Bane retorted, “because we’re going to need Harry’s computer.”
“I’m dead, remember?”
“I–Com-Tech has a service entrance and you’re cleared for weekend and evening duty.”
“What do you need?” the Bat asked, glad for the attention. His eyes never left Trench for more than a second.
“There’s got to be some connection here we’re missing. A link somewhere, a common denominator between Einstein and Metzencroy that will tell us precisely what COBRA’s up to with Vortex.”
“Vortex?” Harry quizzed.
“Project name for the operation Jake Del Gennio led us into. Meanwhile, I think a call to Arthur Jorgenson is in order. It’s time to go home.”
Jorgenson was on the other end of the line two minutes later. “Josh, where are you?”
“Do you really expect me to tell you?”
“Not if you don’t want to.”
“It’s been a long time, Art.”
“Should’ve been less, Josh. I’m sorry for what happened at Penn Station.”
“You were almost apologizing to my corpse.”
“It won’t happen again, you have my word. I’ll handle things personally next time.”
“How do you know there’ll be a next time?”
“Because we’ve known each other too long for there not to be.”
“We never knew each other.”
“Don’t go philosophical on me, Josh. We’re running out of time. I’ve got to know what you’ve uncovered.”
“One hell of a mess.”
“I know. Just name your terms for coming in and I’ll meet them.”
“You, Art, I want you face-to-face.”
“I already offered. Name the place and time and I’m yours.”
“The Washington Bullets have a game at the Capital Center in Landover tomorrow night. I’ll leave a ticket for you at the box office, a couple for your bodyguards as well near our section. If they try anything, they’ll be dead before they finish. You know that, Art.”
“Yes, I know.”
“You’ll also be interested to learn that I’m working with Trench now and we’ve developed a mutual insurance policy. If I don’t walk out of the Capital Center tomorrow night, my newest friend will take you out.”
“Can’t we meet sooner?”
“It’s been a long day, Art, lots of people dropping dead all around me. I need to collapse for a while and tomorrow I don’t plan on taking a direct route to the capital.”
“Nobody wants you to make it safely here more than I do, Josh.”
“Let’s hope so.”
Chapter Twenty-three
“Bane just called in,” Jorgenson reported, closing the Oval Office door behind him and moving to his chair.
“Did you trace the call?” the President wondered.
Jorgenson shook his head. “Couldn’t. He routed it through a sterile emergency exchange again.”
“Damn! … What the hell happened up there, Art?”
“It’s just as I expected when the initial reports arrived. Bane killed the four men I sent to bring him in because they tried to take him out.”
“Your men?”
“Strictly speaking, they’re not mine. DCO, CIA, NSA, DIA — none of us are permitted to run domestic operations but sometimes necessity forces our hand. Like this afternoon. On those rare occasions, we choose agents from a free-lance pool. Getting a DCO team together and briefed and on their way would have taken an extra five hours or so and we couldn’t spare the time, which left us with the pool. I never even met the men assigned to bring Bane in.”
“You making excuses, Art?”
“Just explanations; for Bane, not myself.”
“What does he want now?”