"Treating you like an errand boy. Coming in here like they're the grown-up and you're still the kid, eh? And talking about your men as if they were cannon fodder?"
Gordon exhaled his anger with a sigh. "That's the truth of it. Too sensitive for us locals. I thought at first they didn't have the facts to back their mouths up, but they showed me enough to make me think they're onto something. A couple wiretaps, a CIA briefing, an Interpol file filled with bad pictures and names I couldn't pronounce if I were drunk. Ever hear of Bessarabia of Bessarabians?"
Batman mouthed the word, making it sticky and tossing it into his memory to see what it caught. Nothing more than the vague sense that he heard the word before. He shook his head in the negative, and Gordon was disappointed.
"Can't remember a thing myself either. Don't think they knew too much either. They all pronounced it exactly the same way---like a word they'd just learned yesterday. You know those types---they find their own way to pronounce Monday, just so you'll know they've got an opinion they can't tell you about."
Smiling wanly, Batman reached for the water pitcher on the corner of Gordon's desk and poured himself a glass. He hadn't expected to be inside tonight---especially not inside City Hall where the flow of political hot air kept the place overheated and stale. "I'll research it," he said after the water cooled his throat.
"I've got a staff of college-educated rookies camped out at the library. By tomorrow morning I'll know what Bessarabian grandmothers eat for breakfast. What I don't know is why they've come to Gotham City, where they're hiding, and what they mean to do before they leave."
"You want me to find out?"
The answer was obvious, but the Commissioner hesitated before nodding his head. There wasn't a law-enforcement agency in the world that didn't own a debt to one or another of the eccentric, sometimes inhuman, champions of justice. Gordon was privately grateful that Batman was simply eccentric---a human being beneath the polymer and dedication, who could still play a practical joke like coming through the window instead of the door. Even so, a few of Gordon's muscles always resisted admitting that a man in a costume could do things a man in a policeman's blue uniform could not.
"Track them down. Tell me where they are---then I'm going to put some of my best men on the job. I want this thing busted by Gotham's own." He stared intently at his fingertips. "You understand, don't you? Having you pull our bacon out of the fire time and time again... It's bad for morale. It's bad in the media---and this is going to get a lot of media. I can feel it in my gut."
The phone rang conveniently, sparing Batman the need to reply, giving him another few moments to organize his thoughts and lay the groundwork of a comprehensive plan. If these Bessarabians were real, and he had no reason to believe they weren't, the combination of his computers and a little legwork would find them. He'd do that much for Gordon, and let the police force have the glory; he understood what Gordon said about morale. But the Bessarabians, as the buyers, were small potatoes on a larger plate.
He waited until Gordon hung up the phone and completed a notation in his daybook.
"Did your visitors drop any hints about the suppliers and sellers?"
Gordon closed the book slowly. Had he really thought he could invite his old friend here and not tell him the whole story?
"They mentioned a name: The Connection."
Batman slouched back in the chair, steepling his fingers against the exposed portions of his face, rendering his expression completely unreadable. The Connection... that was a name that made, well---connections. He was the ultimate middleman---whenever a buyer needed a seller, or vice versa, the Connection could make the market. The operation started up after the war---the big one, WWII---and for decades intelligence considered it a "what" rather than a "who": a loose association of wartime quartermasters, procurers, and scroungers doing what they did best.
There were files in the Batcave computer that continued to refer to the Connection as "it" or "they" in the stubborn belief that no man could move so much matérial. Those documents also supposed that if the Connection were a man, he'd have come forward by now to claim his honors. Easily ninety-five percent of his activities were legitimate; some were downright heroic. The world had cheered when three bulging freighters steamed into Ethiopia with enough grain to feed the country's war-weary refugees for a month. The world, of course, had not known that buried deep in the wheat and corn was enough ammunition to feed the civil war for two years.
Bruce Wayne knew, just as he knew there could only be one mind behind it all. Maybe forty-five years ago it was a group; not anymore. No committee could generate the subtle elegance of the Connection's world-ringing transactions. But not even Bruce Wayne had a clue about the body or personality that went with the name. Other monikered individuals, including himself, had public faces and private faces, but the Connection---so far as anyone knew---had no face at all. A complete recluse, he'd never been fingered, not even when one of his operations went sour. If a description did emerge, it contradicted all previous ones---fueling the case of the committee-ists. Bruce Wayne was guiltily grateful that the Connection---though widely believed to be an American operation---scrupulously avoided washing its dirty laundry in the USA.
"They weren't positive," Gordon said when the silence became uncomfortably prolonged. "It's not the Connection's style to make a swap where our side has jurisdiction. They're leaping at the chance, I think, but they admit it might all be smoke and mirrors."
Massaging his cheeks, Batman shook his head. "The world's changing; it's already changed so much the sides are smudged. The Connection's got to change with it. I don't wonder that the Feds and Interpol are jumpy. There's a first time for everything---he's testing the waters."
Gordon took note of the singular pronoun. "You think it's one man, then?"
"I'm sure of it. One genius. He doesn't leave many traces, and when I find them, I'm always chin-deep in something else. But this time he's steaming right across my bows, and I'm going to find him." Batman's voice was calm and even, leaving no room for doubt.
The Commissioner drew a ring of arrows on his blotter, all pointing inward. "Remember," he said without looking up, "when the time comes, my men close the trap, not the Feds, not Interpol, and not you---"
Batman wasn't listening. A cool breeze was stirring the papers on Gordon's desk. Batman was gone.
Chapter Three
It was no accident that Batman's mind filled with maritime metaphors when he thought of the Connection. In this day of fiber optics and instantaneous communications, a good shipping line was still the best way to move contraband. Jet planes were faster, of course, and these days could carry just about anything if the need was great enough, and the buyer cared nothing about cost. Big planes, however, needed big runways and left big blips on radarscopes around the world. Refined drug operations, with their worth-more-than-gold cargoes, made good use of short-takeoff planes. But the Connection moved contraband by the ton, and for that an interchangeable string of rust-bucket freighters, casually registered in Liberia or Panama, and crewed by a motley assortment of nationless sailors, was a necessity.