“Stay further up the block.” He nodded at a pair of undercover cops loitering at a street corner up ahead. “They’re gonna cross the street and try and slow the truck down. As it approaches, hit this button. If the needle hits two hundred, give me the signal and I mark the truck. Okay?”

She nodded and tucked the Geiger counter under her coat.

“Head’s up,” Blake’s voice squawked from Gordon’s radio. The rookie detective was playing lookout from atop a nearby building. The commissioner hoped he had good eyes.

“Copy that.” He moved to take his position at the other end of the block, leaving Miranda partway between him and the men on the corner. Moments later, an ominous black truck rumbled into view, right on schedule. It honked its horn angrily, barely slowing down, as the two cops stepped out in front of the truck as if they were crossing the street.

Gordon held his breath as Miranda covertly scanned the vehicle with the Geiger counter. Then she gave him a thumbs-up.

Bingo, he thought. Now we just need to keep track of that truck.

He flung a magnetic GPS locator at the vehicle as it lumbered past him, throwing up a spray of wet snow. The locator flew through the air before sticking to the bottom of the truck, where, with any luck, it would go unobserved by Bane or his accomplices.

The truck disappeared around a corner, taking the bomb with it. Gordon regrouped with Miranda and his two men at the corner. He removed a GPS tracking device from his pocket and checked to make sure they still had the locator’s signal. A flashing red dot tracked the truck—and the bomb—along its route.

“Got it,” he said with a touch of elation. Mission accomplished, he thought. They knew where the bomb was now. The tricky part was going to be getting it away from Bane—and neutralizing it in time. Gordon wished he had a better idea of how exactly they were going to pull that off, especially since Lucius Fox had been captured by the enemy.

I hope nobody expects me to know how to stabilize a fusion reactor.

He was still worrying when they rounded the corner, and found themselves confronted by a squad of armed mercenaries. Dozens of Bane’s soldiers emerged from doorways and alleys, training their weapons on Gordon and the others. Miranda gasped in shock.

The cops didn’t even have a chance to draw their side arms.

“Commissioner James Gordon,” a gunman barked. “You’re under arrest.”

Gordon bristled.

“On whose authority?”

“The people of Gotham,” the terrorist said smugly. He gestured to his men and they surrounded Gordon and the others, stripping them of their weapons, then leading them away toward the stock exchange.

The commissioner resisted the temptation to glance up at the rooftop where he knew Blake had to be watching. He hoped the hotheaded young detective would be smart enough to keep his head down and not try something stupid.