The Dark Knight Rises: The Official Novelization by Greg Cox Read Free Book Online Page B

the distraught young woman to safety, leaving her on the tailgate of one of the parked SWAT vehicles. There would be time enough for someone to take her statement…later. Right now, the congressman was still missing—and the perps might be getting away.
    Gun drawn, he raced into the bar, where his fellow officers were already rounding up a bunch of confused and injured lowlifes. A sloppy-looking bum was sprawled by the bar, blood soaking through his soiled trousers. His hair was disheveled and he reeked of booze. Stubble dotted his jowls.
    “Help me,” he whimpered.
    It took Blake a moment to recognize the missing congressman.
    “I’ve got him,” he reported into the radio on his shoulder. He gave the injured politician a quick onceover. “Bullet to the leg, but he’s okay.”
    In his excitement, he forgot all about the girl in the black dress.
    A firefight broke out in the alley behind the bar. Vicious hoodlums, desperate to get away, opened fire on the SWAT teams, who returned fire with extreme prejudice. The sound echoed off the grimy brick walls of the alley. Bullets ricocheted off rusty trash bins and dumpsters. Frightened rats scurried for safety. Broken glass, cigarette butts, syringes, crack vials, and other debris crunched beneath the heels of the racing cops and criminals.
    Laying down a blistering volley of cover fire, a group of the crooks darted into an even narrower passage.
    A cop car, its bubble light spinning wildly, squealed to a halt, blocking the mouth of the alley. Jim Gordon emerged from the car, brandishing his trusty Smith & Wesson pistol. A rumpled brown trench coat protected him from the night’s chill. He hurried to take charge of the situation. Anyone who would brazenly abduct a congressman deserved his personal attention.
    SWAT troopers converged on the murky passage,massing on both corners, just out of the line of fire. They exchanged hand signals and counted down silently before rounding the corner, their rifles aimed high and low. Gordon sprinted after them.
    He half-expected to find the armed felons waiting in ambush, but instead the dead end appeared to be completely empty. Only heaps of trash and obscene graffiti greeted his eyes. A high brick wall, topped with razor wire, blocked the other end of the passage.
    What the devil? Gordon thought. Where did they go?
    Searching for the hostiles, the troopers looked upward, raising their rifles toward the rickety fire escapes overlooking the scene. Laundry hung like flags, flapping on makeshift clotheslines.
    But Gordon had another idea. He scanned the filthy, litter-strewn pavement.
    “Manhole!” he shouted.
    A cast-iron manhole cover, about midway down the passage, appeared slightly off-kilter. Responding to Gordon’s summons, two armored SWAT troopers wrenched the heavy disk free and rolled it aside, exposing a deep, shadowy cavity. Gordon snatched a flashlight from the nearest SWAT guy.
    The beam probed the open shaft. A rusty ladder descended deep beneath the city streets. A pungent odor wafted up from the sewers. Gordon thought he heard footsteps splashing through the tunnels below. A shredded cobweb, recently disturbed, hung in tatters.
    “You three,” he ordered the nearest men, “down with me.” He glanced over at the remaining troopers. “You two, head down to the next exit.”
    The men looked around uncertainly.
    “Where?”
    The hell if I know, Gordon thought. “Get the DWP down here…now!” He wished he could wait for somebody from the Department of Water and Power himself, but there wasn’t any time. For all he knew, the men behind the congressman’s abduction were making their escape. He had to go after them.
    Taking a deep breath to steady his nerves, he led the way down into the gloom, scrambling down the ladder as swiftly as his aging bones could manage. The three SWAT men hustled after him.
    Gordon hoped they wouldn’t end up lost down in the tunnels.
    Congressman Gilly had been safely delivered into the