“You’re sending your wife to the door, when the city’s under occupation?”

Foley appeared—disheveled and haggard—at the end of the corridor. No longer the dapper up-and-comer, he wore a rumpled bathrobe over a tee-shirt and sweatpants. He looked like he hadn’t shaved in days. Guilt was written all over his face.

“Wait in the kitchen, honey,” he said, and Jennifer nodded. She retreated from the foyer, leaving the two men alone. Gordon stared accusingly.

“What did you do, burn your uniform in the back yard?” he demanded.

Foley tried to explain.

“Jim, you saw what they did to those Special Forces.”

“You forgotten all the years we went out on patrol, with every gangbanger wanting to plant one as soon as our backs were turned?”

“That’s different, and you know it,” Foley replied defensively. “These guys run the city. The government’s done a deal with them.”

“Deal? Bane’s got their balls in a vice. That’s not a deal!”

“You move against Bane, the trigger man’s gonna hit the button—”

Gordon still didn’t buy any of it—not Foley’s excuses, and not that whole “trigger man” crap.

“You think he’s given control of that bomb to one of ‘the people’? You think this is part of some revolution?” Gordon scoffed at the notion. “There’s one man with his finger on the trigger—Bane.”

Foley still tried to justify his cowardice.

“We have to keep our heads down till they can fix this,” he said. “If you still had family here maybe you’d—” He caught himself, perhaps fearing that he’d crossed a line.

But Gordon had bigger things on his mind than his own failed marriage. If anything, it was a mercy that Barbara and the kids were hundreds of miles away.

“This only gets fixed from inside the city, Foley.” He softened his tone, trying to get through to the man. “Look, I’m not asking you to walk down Grand in your dress blues. But we’ve got to do something before this maniac blows us all to hell.”

Foley stared at his slippers, unable to meet Gordon’s eyes.

“I’m sorry, Jim. I gotta—”

“Keep your head down?” Gordon said after him. “What’s that gonna do tomorrow, when that thing blows?”

“You don’t know that’s going to happen,” Foley said. Then he closed the door in Gordon’s face, ending the conversation. The commissioner stood alone upon the stoop, abandoned by his own second-in-command.

The wind suddenly felt a whole lot colder.

“I hear you’re looking for men, commissioner.”

Gordon turned around to find Miranda Tate standing behind him, wearing a winter coat over her tunic and leggings. Blake waited below on the sidewalk. He shrugged as if to say there was nothing he could do about the woman’s presence.

“How about me, instead,” she volunteered.

Gordon appreciated the offer, but he needed cops, not business executives.

“Miss Tate, I can’t ask you—”

“My company built it,” she insisted. Nevertheless, he tried to let her off the hook.

“Bruce Wayne built it.”

“And he wanted to destroy it,” she said. “It was me who wouldn’t listen.” She stared at him. “Please.”