"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown."
- William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 2
Dark clouds gathered overhead, and within minutes, rain began to fall. The rain came down in cold, gray sheets, soaking everything.
Marco cracked the E350's window open about three centimeters. "I hate Gotham's weather. Open the window and everything gets damp. Keep it closed and you suffocate."
He watched GCPD officers trying to persuade the reporters who'd been staking out the plaza to leave. Most were refusing, waving their press credentials and arguing loudly. A few camera crews had set up under tarps, filming the preparations.
"If Black Mask shows up and these idiots catch it on camera, that's front-page news for a week," Darnell said. "Wonder if the mayor can keep a lid on it."
"Depends how it goes down." Marco shrugged. "If Gordon puts up a good fight, it becomes 'GCPD Heroically Defeats Terrorists,' and that's political gold. Besides, as long as Wayne Tower's protected and the reporters are happy, how's the public gonna know the real body count?"
A low rumble rolled across the horizon. He looked up, but there was no lightning in the clouds. Then he noticed the puddles on the ground. They were rippling.
His radio crackled: "All units, prepare for contact. Repeat, prepare for contact. Hostiles inbound from the southwest."
Gordon's voice was strained.
The officers maintaining the perimeter abandoned their arguments with the reporters, drew their weapons, and sprinted behind the defensive line of patrol cars and concrete barriers. Everyone found cover and went still, eyes locked on the southwest approach.
"Stay mobile," Marco said quietly to Darnell. "But safety first."
Darnell's hands tightened on the steering wheel. His breathing was fast and shallow. "Got it."
Every cop in the plaza turned to face the same direction.
And then they saw it.
Like stars falling to earth, a dense mass of headlights lit up the sky. Through the rain, the sound of engines grew louder. A massive convoy came charging down the avenue toward them.
Gordon's voice boomed through a loudspeaker: "GCPD! All vehicles, stop immediately! This is your only warning! Stop, or we will open fire!"
The warning echoed across the plaza. Marco knew it the moment he heard it.
You don't play "who shoots first" with lunatics like these.
The convoy's answer was silence. Then the engines roared even louder, and the headlights surged forward without slowing. A flood of modified pickups, vans, muscle cars, all of them packed with armed men. They weren't stopping. They weren't even hesitating.
"Fuck." He twisted around, squeezed into the back seat, and grabbed the Soviet PTRD with both hands. He snatched two spare cartridges and shoved them into his vest. "I'm gonna see if I can drop Black Mask directly. You two watch yourselves. If it goes bad, get the hell out."
He shoved the rear door open. Cold rain immediately soaked his shoulders and back. Using the shadows cast by the plaza's decorative sculptures and the chaos of Gordon's defensive line as cover, he sprinted hard toward a waist-high concrete pedestal about thirty meters ahead. His boots splashed through puddles.
He slid behind the pedestal, dropped to one knee, and braced the rifle against the concrete. The weight of it dug into his shoulder. He flipped up the lens covers on the scope and started scanning the convoy.
That's when the other side answered Gordon's warning.
A blinding flash erupted from the bed of a pickup truck near the center of the convoy. An RPG-7 rocket screamed through the rain and slammed directly into the foremost patrol car on the GCPD's defensive line.
Boom!
The patrol car disintegrated. Twisted metal fragments, shattered glass, and melted police lights were flung in every direction. The officers closest to the blast were caught in the open. The concussive wave lifted them off their feet and slammed them into the pavement. Blood misted the air. Bodies crumpled and didn't move.
"Officer down! Officer down! We need a bus!" someone screamed over the radio.
"All units, return fire! Free fire!" Gordon's voice, raw and furious.
And just like that, the night exploded into chaos.
The GCPD line erupted in a storm of muzzle flashes. Dozens of officers opened up at once. Bullets tore through the rain toward the convoy. Some hit windshields. Others tore through doors and hoods. A few thugs went down immediately, clutching wounds and screaming. But Black Mask's crew didn't flinch. They poured out of their vehicles, using them as cover, and returned fire with automatic weapons. Bullets ripped through the air.
Then came the heavy machine gun.
THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP...
Marco pressed his eye to the scope and tracked the sound. About two hundred meters out, mounted in the bed of a pickup with a roll cage, a gunner in a black skull mask was operating an M2 Browning .50-cal. The belt-fed beast roared to life, spitting fire. The rounds were devastating. They pierced straight through two patrol cars in seconds, shredding metal like paper. The officers hiding behind those cars didn't stand a chance. Blood and bone exploded across the pavement.
Marco centered the crosshairs on the machine gunner's chest, held his breath, and squeezed the trigger.
BOOM.
The recoil slammed into his shoulder so hard it went numb instantly. Through the scope, he saw the round hit. The gunner's upper body simply ceased to exist. The round tore through flesh, bone, and the machine gun itself, reducing everything to a spray of red mist and shrapnel. The body toppled backward into the truck bed, and the M2 went silent.
But the shot had given away Marco's position.
Immediately, half a dozen muzzles swung his way. Bullets hammered the concrete pedestal, chipping away chunks of stone and kicking up clouds of dust. Marco ducked low, pressing himself flat against the ground.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck..." He crawled backward on his elbows.
The radio crackled again: "RPG! Second RPG, watch out!"
Marco risked a glance. Another thug had climbed into a truck bed and hoisted a rocket launcher onto his shoulder. The black tube was aimed directly at Marco's cover. But before the thug could fire, a sharp crack echoed from above.
CRACK.
A bullet drilled into the thug's eye socket, and he collapsed, his RPG launcher clattering beside him.
Marco looked up, scanning Wayne Tower's facade. Midway up, in one of the darkened windows, he caught the faintest glint of reflected light. Someone else was up there, covering the plaza.
"Nice shot, whoever you are," he muttered, keying his radio. "Unknown sniper, appreciate the assist."
No response. Not that he expected one.
He grabbed the Soviet PTRD, crouched low, and sprinted toward a cluster of ornamental shrubs near Wayne Tower's perimeter fence. He threw himself down behind them, and set up the rifle again. Through the scope, he scanned for targets. But every thug he saw had their face covered with a skull mask or balaclava.
"Where the hell did you people get so many masks..."
As he was adjusting his aim, someone suddenly crouched down right next to him and shoved a microphone in his face.
"Officer, can you tell me who these attackers are and what their objective is?"
Marco nearly jumped out of his skin. "Fuck!"
He whipped his head around. A blonde woman stood there, drenched in a business suit, clutching recording equipment and a handheld mic like it was a weapon.
Vicki Vale?
"Officer, I need to ask—"
"What are you doing here? Get out of here! Can't you see there's a goddamn war going on?"
"Reporting the truth is my duty. I won't back down because of danger." Her voice was almost defiant.
"Reporting the... are you insane?!" Marco gestured wildly toward Gordon's position, where officers were dragging wounded comrades behind cover. "You want the truth? Go film the cops who are bleeding out over there! Don't let their sacrifices get whitewashed by the mayor's PR team afterward. That's how you become a hero journalist."
Vicki's eyes widened slightly. Then she nodded, wringing water out of her jacket. "You're right."
And without another word, she took off running straight toward Gordon's defensive line.
Black Mask's thugs spotted her immediately. Submachine gun fire and rifle rounds chased her across the plaza, kicking up geysers of water and chipping the pavement. Bullets stitched a trail of impacts all around her, missing by inches, sometimes centimeters. But not a single round touched her.
He stared, dumbfounded, as she sprinted through a hail of gunfire without a scratch.
"What the fuck... That actually works?"
He shook his head, almost laughing.
"Gotham really is full of crazy people..."