The engineer in Fox tried to figure out the purpose of the construction. Somebody had clearly put a lot of time and labor into retrofitting the underground.

But why?

As he tried to assist Miranda and Fredericks, Lucius was dismayed to see the mercenaries brandishing his own inventions—weapons and equipment he had designed for the US military…and the Batman. Incendiary mini-mines the size of jacks, magnetic steel grapples, smoke and gas capsules, high-tech eavesdropping equipment, even a trio of stolen tumblers.

Thank God Bruce took the Bat, he thought, before we were raided.

They came at last to a large, damp tunnel lit by flickering fluorescent lights. It looked as if it had been newly excavated, perhaps as recently as the last few days. Fox had no idea where beneath Gotham they were, although it felt as if they had been walking for miles.

We could be anywhere, he realized.

Bane’s men planted explosive charges on a freshly hewn wall at the far end of the tunnel. Standing off to one side, looking distinctly ill at ease, was an older man about Fox’s age. He didn’t look at all like a mercenary. He paced nervously, his face drenched with sweat. He ran his hand through disorderly white hair. Armed escorts kept a close eye on him

Miranda stared at the stranger in surprise.

“Dr. Pavel?”

Fox recognized the name of a renegade Russian scientist who was believed to have perished in a plane crash some months ago. It was Leonid Pavel’s work, he recalled, that had persuaded Bruce to mothball the fusion project indefinitely.

What’s he doing here? Fox wondered. Another of Bane’s prisoners?

The mercs finished placing the charges. They stepped away from the wall and signaled Bane.

He nodded at them.

An explosion rocked the tunnel.

Police and SWAT teams prepared to invade the underground. Foley glanced up at the sky as he coordinated the massive raid, operating from the 49th Street subway station. The sun was going down, but that hardly mattered where his teams were going.

Assault teams reported in from all around the city, massing in the thousands outside every subway station, manhole, and drainage pipe. As soon as he gave the go-ahead, pretty much the entire GCPD was going to descend and begin scouring every tunnel and rat hole until they rooted out Bane and his hostages.

The deputy commissioner just wished he’d done this earlier.

“Go,” he ordered.

A SWAT team, its members equipped with faceless black helmets, body armor, and assault rifles, converged on the mouth of a large drainage tunnel. Before they got too far, however, a low, echoing boom sounded from somewhere deeper within the sewers.

The men exchanged tense looks, but headed in anyway, following orders that had been given to thousands of other officers throughout the city. Flashlights swept the slimy walls of the tunnels. Weapons were locked and loaded. Radios kept them in touch with all the other teams.

One way or another, they were going to find Bane.