#13: Hostile Takeover (Burchette / Paugh / Villalobos)

Prologue

Garfield Lyons stepped into the back of the police car belonging to Police Corrections officer Daniel Barry. Barry had just been promoted to his own car. His wife, friends and family were very excited for him and his first promotion in years. His two kids were waiting for him at home with a poster they made of their family for him at school. The boys were twins and inseparable. Daniel had been given the job of driving the lead car in a secret transfer for prisoner Garfield Lyons a.k.a. Firefly. Ten cars on all were to follow him to the Arkham Asylum prison for the criminally insane. One attempt on his life had already been thwarted by the Batman. All involved were told this was a dangerous and volatile situation. Daniel was 27 years old…

Garfield Lyons could feel that something was wrong. As he stepped into the back of the car he felt a strange buzzing in his ear and he knew these were to be his last and final moments. He thought of his life and the way it had gone. In less than a second he felt all his regrets pile onto his shoulders. He wondered what he would have done differently if only he had another chance. He knew it was over. Something primitive in his brain was sending him all kinds of warning bells. He knew this and he got in the car anyway...

“Kill him,” The Penguin ordered with a sneer.

His men opened fire on The Batman.

No matter the situation, the first thing you always do is take inventory of the room. Something in that room may someday save your life.

He heard the words he spoke to a very young Dick Grayson when he was training him. Words to live by… and stay alive by.

The chandelier was his first thought. He thought it as he performed a backwards summersault onto the top of the bar and over the side. He felt two bullets hit body armor, and knew there would be two large bruises by morning. As he fell behind the bar his arms were already reaching for the special batarangs in his belt. They dropped down into his hand and with a quick flip to the wrist, unfolded and locked into place.

He threw them with uncanny precision, high above the gunmen and right into the cords that held the opulent light fixture. The razor edges made it a clean cut and the chandelier fell to the ground, knocking three out of the six gunmen out. The others scattered, which gave Batman the opportunity that he needed. He flung himself back over the bar, swinging both of his legs out and kicking two more men in the face, both of them falling back.

The third one was about to open fire, but Batman came down on his arm, knocking the gun out of his hand. The man threw a punch that landed squarely on the dark knight’s jaw. He stumbled back, losing his balance, and falling onto Penguin’s desk. The man reached down for his gun, but the black boot stepped on his fingers; a loud crunching sound filled the room.

“You only get one shot, tonight, and you already took yours,” Batman growled as he picked the thug up and smashed his fist into the guy’s face. He fell to the ground, dazed.

“I’ll call the cops!” Oswald screamed. “This is breaking and entering! I’ll have you locked up before…”

“Shut up, Penguin,” Batman barked. “You don’t want the police in here. I got what I came for, anyway. I’ll be showing myself out.”

Before Cobblepot or his men could reply, Batman had leapt behind up onto the desk and took a swimmer’s dive at the window, smashing it into pieces as he disappeared out of sight.

“What do you want us to do, boss?” One of the men asked as he finally crawled out from the oversized chandelier.

“I want you to expect a pay cut. Get out of my office, but stay close. As soon as I’m done, I want this place cleaned up.”

After his men had left, he went to his desk and dialed a number on his phone. He then hit several unusual buttons before the line was picked up.

“You better be scrambling this,” the voice said.

“Of course I am. The bat was here. He’d broken into my safe. Not that there’s much in there to begin with, but I do believe he may have found the connection between my orphanage and Isis Moornam, Inc.”

The chuckle that came through the line was void of humor. “Excellent. Just as I figured. Destroy the evidence now, and wait for me to call you. You’re proving yourself useful to me, Oswald, and I will reward you greatly when I am running this town.”

The line went dead. The Penguin set the phone down, turned and leaned back in his expensive leather chair. He took a drag from his cigarette in the holder and puffed out the smoke, watching it drift out the open window.

Michelle’s Restaurant The Other Side Of Town

The restaurant was quite and not very crowded. Every since the crisis, the turnover had been crazy and the manager was finding it hard to keep any good help. Being understaffed had caused business to slow because the service was slow. In turn, on any given night not more than ten people were in the place, including staff.

Three lovely Italian women sat enjoying a meal with their well-dressed husbands. Antonio the elder of the three men sat at the head of the table. As the last of their food slowly disappeared from their plates Antonio waved over the waitress and asked her to take the plates away. A moment later he looked around at the other two men and gave them a look that they knew all too well. The more handsome of the three took this signal and started to speak.

“Baby, why don’t you’se three ladies go up to the bar and have a drink.” It was an order more so than a suggestion or question. He gave her a one hundred dollar bill and she took it. She looked at him for a second as though she wanted to protest but the look on his face told her this wasn’t a good idea.

“All right, Joey, but you’re all mine tonight. No goin' out with these goons you hear?” She said motioning to the other men as she smiled and gave him a little wink.

The three women walked away towards the bar and Antonio sat forward in his chair. Joey watched his wife walk over and sit down.

“Wife night” as the Thorne Family lieutenants called it was a perfect cover to discuss business with out being bothered. When these guys were out at a club with a girlfriend or something, drinking it up, they tried to keep business talk to a minimum. Drinks could make people say things in front of others they couldn’t take back and that was just bad for business, but wife night they all stayed sober and their wives unlike their girlfriends knew when to talk and when to stay quite.

The third man, Aldo was the youngest. He sat running his fingers through his black hair looking at the other two waiting for them to talk.

Antonio spoke first, “ Falcones called a temporary truce. Turns out he wasn’t behind Mattie’s murder. Somebody else hired that freak with the puppet.”

“Any ideas on who?” Joey asked.

“None, there’s somebody new in town and things are just heating up. Boss has a few ideas and he needs a few messages sent out.” Antonio explained.

Aldo leaned forward and took his turn to speak, “ If things are heating up then why should we go out and start whacking people with out knowing who this new guy is?”

Antonio looked at him for a second and sipped his wine glass, “Because it doesn’t matter who did it as long as the message is out that Thorne isn’t playing. We have some old enemies we let slide before and its time to remind them who we are. We start spilling blood and we show them that we ain’t messin' around.”

Joey looked down at the table rubbing the patch of hair on his chin thoughtfully. He then looked up Aldo and then at Antonio, “Give me names. I’ll do it.”

Aldo and Antonio looked at each other and then back at Joey. Antonio spoke first again, “ Later, right now let’s get the ladies out of here and see that movie.”

As the words left his mouth some new comers entered the restaurant. Antonio looked up and reached into his coat while motioning to the other two men at the table. The new comers were all wearing plastic facemasks obscuring their features. They were also toting oversized machine guns that were fired before any of the three men knew what hit them. You always hear that these things go down so fast that there’s not time to think let alone react. This was very much the case this day.

All ten of the costumers and staff were down within seconds. The mob wives went down after the men then the staff. In any other town, this would go down in history next to things like The Saint Valentines Day Massacre and other famous mob battles. But in Gotham this was becoming the norm.

The gang left as quickly as they arrived. Professionals all the way. No survivors, no witnesses as far as they knew. Two sounds were left on the room for the seconds before the Police sirens could be heard blazing a trail across town. Tiny Dancer on the jukebox and Aldo exhaled when all the men were gone. He caught a few bullets to the arm and one to the chest, which lucky for him missed his heart by three inches.

A few minutes earlier

“… Please, next time you wish to communicate with me, I ask that it be over more pleasant topics, than your plans for our Mayor's murder.”

The man known in the underworld as The Penguin sat the phone back on its cradle and then placed the small but down next to it.

How stupid did Batman really think he was? That thug should never have been able to get that punch in. It was given to him, and for a reason. As soon as the bat had left, Oswald had had the entire office searched.

He leaned back, grinning to himself. It did end up working in his favor, though. The man he called boss, was wanting too much, and Penguin also knew that after he had accomplished it, he would leave Oswald Cobblepot out in the cold, and Oswald had come too far to let that happen. So why not give this one to that pesky bat? In the end it would work in his favor…

Batman waited on the rooftop opposite the Mayor’s building. Nearly an hour had passed before he saw what he had been waiting for. The big iron gates parted and the mayor’s limo slowly cruised out. The Dark Knight looked up and down the street for any sign of an assassin. Taking out his line and shooting the grappler in the direction the limo was going he leapt off the building.

After following the limo for six blocks across the rooftops he spotted what he was searching for. A black sedan rolled out of a side alley and pulled behind the mayor’s limo.
Batman raced in to action. He landed on top of the sedan’s roof and pulled out two smoke grenades. Knocking out the side window on the passenger’s side he threw them in side. Then moving to the driver’s side he knocked out that window and reached inside for the driver. No one was there. He righted himself so that he was standing next to the car looking in.

“Remote controlled.” He said to himself. He took a quick look around and before he could do anything he heard a rapid gunfire coming from in front of the limo.
It was the ventriloquist he had been hearing about.

The mayor’s guards threw their doors open and opened fire on Scarface. He pushed on slowly walking toward them as he continued to fire. The first guard went down. Batman was quickly making his way behind the limo while relieving his utility belt of flash grenades and tear gas. Staying low he made his way to the rear passenger door and crouched behind the opened door where the guard had fallen only seconds before.

Scarface continued his maddened slow pace toward the limo. A cigar in the dummy’s mouth and a tommy gun in hand Batman noted mentally how the puppet master looked pained and not in control. The guard on the other side went down as Scarface ran out of ammo and took the briefest pause to switch guns he came up on the passenger’s side of the car where Batman was ducking for cover. In this split second Batman dove through the car grabbing the mayor and landed on the pavement on the other side. He tossed the flash and tear grenades underneath the car and they rolled to a stop at Scarface’s feet.

They went off blinding the puppet master who began coughing strenuously. Batman sent the mayor running for cover behind a dumpster in a near by alley way as he somersaulted across the top of the car coming down hard on the top of the Ventriloquist’s head with a knock out punch. The dummy fell to the ground, as did his host. The Dark Knight radioed for an ambulance but it was too late for the bodyguards.

Officer Crispus Allen sat in the passenger’s side of the car, a bit nervous. James Gordon had only said one thing to him, and it was a question: You packing?
Wherever he was being taken, the Lieutenant was letting him know that there was some danger involved. He didn’t dare ask, though, already getting the impression that he was going on a need to know basis.

It wasn’t until they had pulled up to the gates of Rupert Thorne’s estate that he realized just how big of a job this was going to be. Gordon announced his presence and the gates opened. They began the drive up to the main house. It was only then that Jim spoke to him.

“There have been several hits on Thorne’s men, this evening. A few of us believe that Thorne, himself, may be in grave danger. We’re escorting him to a place that only three of us – make that four now, are aware of. I’ve seen you around, and I’m betting that you’re one of the good guys. But I’m warning you, Allen, if anything happens to Thorne, before he goes on trial, I will spend the rest of my waking days proving you were involved. Are we clear on this?”

“Crystal,” was the short reply. This was one of those days, Crispus thought, when it would have been better to stay in bed and called in sick.

When they reached the front door, Thorne and four of his men were standing there, waiting for him. He had two bags, already packed.

Gordon threw them in the trunk and opened the back door for the mob boss to get in. His bodyguards went to follow and he stepped in front of them.

“Thorne, and only Thorne. You men step back.”

“I need my…”

“You need to shut up,” Gordon snapped. “We can’t trust anyone at this point. The fewer people who know where you are, at the moment, the better; that means your goon squad, too.”

Thorne mumbled under his breath but waved his men away. “The flatfoot is right. I’ll be in touch as soon as I can.”

Gordon got back into the car and they cruised back onto the road and into Gotham. Officer Allen occasionally glanced back at their passenger, only to have an icy stare be returned. He quickly looked straight ahead.

They went into the heart of the city, near the financial district, and around back of one of Gotham’s priciest hotels. Allen saw the back door open and after a long look, realized that the man waiting for them was Assistant District Attorney Harvey Dent. This was getting weirder by the minute.

They pulled up in the small alley that dead-ended and both officers got out of the car. Allen opened the door to let Thorne out as James spoke to the D.A.

“Any word about the Mayor?” Dent asked.

“No, but with him, no news is good…”

“Hey, where’d you come from,” Officer Allen yelled, obviously startled.

Harvey and Jim turned around in time to see a man dressed in an overcoat and fedora pulled down, bringing his arm up, gun in hand, pointed directly at Rupert Thorne.

“No!” Jim screamed as he dove for the mob boss.

He didn’t reach him in time. Crispus Allen jumped towards the gunman who fired his first shot, hitting Allen in the chest and dropping him immediately. Just as Gordon’s arms touched Thorne, the second shot was fired. The bullet pierced right through the mob boss’s forehead and blew a large whole out of the back of the skull. Blood splattered all over Lt. Gordon as his hands finally grabbed a hold of what used to be Rupert Thorne; but all that he had was the shell of the man.

Chaos erupted at that point. Gordon was grabbing for his scanner, screaming for ambulances; that there was an officer down.

Harvey Dent had tackled the hit man and knocked the gun out of his hands. He was full of rage and after he had slammed the man down onto the trunk of the car, proceeded to beat the shooters head into the trunk several times. His rage was apparent; a crazy look was in his eyes.

“Harvey,” Gordon shouted. “Stop it, you’re killing him!”

Dent seemed to come out of the rage as quickly as he went into it. Gordon turned to Officer Allen who was on the ground, moaning. He applied pressure to the wound, using his suit coat to wrap around the bleeding man. He tossed Harvey his handcuffs and watched as the hit man was bound.

Sirens were already heard in the distance.

“How’s he doing?” Dent asked.

Gordon didn’t say a word, wouldn’t even look at him. It was bad, and it was his entire fault. He turned and looked at the shooter. “Who paid you? How in the hell did you even know we were going to be here?”

The shooter sneered, opened his mouth to say something, and another shot was fired, this one from far away.

The bullet entered through the open mouth and for the second time in less then ten minutes, Gordon and Dent witnessed a man’s brains come flying out the back of a head.

“Down!” Gordon screamed to Harvey as pulled his gun, looking around wildly.

“Where the hell did that come from?” Harvey Dent demanded.

“Long-range rifle; an assassin to take out the assassin. Damn it! Where the hell is back-up, and the ambulance?”

As if on cue, four squad cars and an ambulance pulled up. Gordon began to bark orders, knowing that whoever had killed the assassin, was long gone by now. Officer Allen was put into the back of the ambulance and taken away, leaving several officers, Gordon, and Dent.

“What the hell is going on here?” Harvey asked, as the entire situation fully hit him.

“I don’t know, Harvey, but whoever is behind all of this, they just declared war on Gotham’s finest and its worst. God help them… and us.”