*Bruce Wayne "Batman," Northeastern Jungle, Argentina
Diving behind a jeep, Batman barely managed to dodge a hail of gunfire from the drug lord's last few men standing.
RAT TAT TAT TAT
Several of the rounds slammed into the jeep with some punching through and skimmed off his armor. With the jeep taking the brunt he took a moment to catch his breath and wait for Batgirl and Robin to encircle them.
From his peripheral he could see the two approaching from the sides of the abandoned hangar with a flanking motion. Soon the two were in position as they waited for the opportune moment.
RAT TAT TAT TAT TAT TAT TAT TAT TA CLICK CLICK CLICK
Jumping over the hood of the jeep Batman threw a batarang that landed at the feet of the three men with empty uzis.
BANG
The batarang exploded with a bright white light and ear shattering ring making the armed men clutch their ears.
Immediately Batgirl jumped forward and swept the leg of the man on the left before delivering a sharp blow to the man's head. Robin followed suit with a leap wrapping his legs around another man's neck before swinging downward with enough momentum to swing him to the ground. A locked arm twist grab followed by a quick kick to the head took that man out.
The third gathering his senses fumbled with reloading his weapon but soon found himself flying into the wooden hangar door breaking it, courtesy of Batman.
"Any others left," Jason asked as he stood up.
Barbara flicked a switch on her mask that made her mask eye holes glow red before returning to normal.
"Thermals show nothing except the target in the hangar," she confirmed.
Batman said, "Good work," before entering the hangar.
Inside was a gulfstream jet hooked up to a fuel tank. It seemed their quarry who they had been trying to catch for the last 24 hours hadn't been fast enough to escape the country.
Robin immediately threw a batarang at one of the gulfstream jet turbines causing a burst of sparks before a puff of black smoke rose.
Giving him a questioning look, Jason shrugged as simply said, "Might as well make sure he can't escape."
Despite not quite being as skilled as Dick was, Jason Todd was proving to be quite the inheritor of the Robin persona. When Dick and Jason briefly shared the title there had been a tension between the two with Dick refusing to train Jason. It also added to the growing divide between Bruce and Dick. A divide that eventually saw Dick moving to Bludhaven and taking the name 'Nightwing,' while also refusing to work with Batman on cases.
That left the mantel to being fully embraced by Jason who did so with a certain level intensity and street smarts that still caught Batman off guard.
A quick glance to his left saw Barbara roaming the hangar, checking the corners for any surprises.
It was a bit of a shock she agreed to come with him on this mission. The last few months she had spent more time focused handling the GCPD cyper division. The work she had done was exemplary with her hacking skills continuing to grow beyond even the best of the Justice League. Still though, her relationship choices was one that he still did not know how to feel about.
As Robin proceeded to drag the fat drug lord screaming and cursing from the plane, Batman could not help reflect on the conversation he had with Barbara concerning her new boyfriend.
Well before she finally told him about James he had been made aware from Alfred a few months prior. The aged butler kept a closer eye on the kids more then anyone knew. This made it easier for him to focus on other cases with someone he could trust keeping an eye on his proteges. Still, it was a surprise to hear that she was in such a serious relationship.
Alfred had done a lot of the leg work with gathering all public and even non-public information on James Coulson. Batman reviewing the information could only raise his eyebrow at the red flags.
'Adopted mother a prostitute...'
'A prostitute that worked directly with the Penguin mob...'
'Police reports of him fighting on the streets...'
'Struggle in school and now studying to be a doctor...'
'A record after 16 being clean? A punk from Eastside really changing their life around, unlikely.'
A combination of his mother's connections and the fact her crimes were hushed up made the suspicions even more poignant. It wouldn't be the first time Penguin groomed a young man to be a spy on the GCPD. In his years of crime fighting he had found a handful of officers, politicians and even a few doctors who Penguin had helped out of the slums. Doing so bond them to him and made excellent point of contacts.
But the evidence was still somewhat circumstantial. And with the events of the Reach invasion and pressures of the U.N. he had been forced to put that on the back burner. That wait ended with Barbara telling him about James and their relationship. From there he questioned her thoroughly and eventually brought up the various facts of James life.
What he hadn't expected was Barbara knowing everything. Apparently, James had been very forthcoming about his mother's past life, he had said she tried very hard to leave and finally did when she adopted James. That was almost 20 years ago which at least according to the records was when she stopped receiving payments and protection from the Penguin.
The fighting on the streets were explained as the struggle growing up in Eastside, a neighborhood not dissimilar to where Jason came from. As for the clean record, that came about following the Eastside fires and the deaths of several of his aunts. Even for a sceptic like him, it made sense the change that came about with the young man.
It was also reassuring that Barbara admitted to trailing him at night for a few weeks. While he would question her objectiveness, it was difficult to argue against her effectiveness as an investigator. Besides Batman and Alfred she was possibly the very best in the Bat family, with her hacking skills outpacing even his. If she found nothing suspicious then it was unlikely he would.
But why then did he have a funny feeling about James...
Finishing checking the hangar, Batgirl joined up with Robin tying up the drug lord who was still spouting a mixture of crude and racial expletives.
Shaking his head, he decided he would dig a little more into James Coulson when he had a chance. Though the deep searches from the Bat computer and Justice League computers showed nothing, they were not infallible. Might as well make sure and if he was wrong no harm would be done.
But now was not the time to think about such things. Right now there was something more important to do.
Walking over to the bound man his shadow loomed and his cowl became just more frightful. The drug lord looking up widened his eyes and gave a big gulp.
Kneeling down, he spoke softly, "What is the 'Order,' Miguel?"
"Errrr," the Miguel the drug lord stuttered, "I sorry, I do not speak Ingles very well... please no hurt me... F&*K!!!!"
Batman had stepped down hard on the drug lord's leg with a audible snap sounding.
Miguel screamed, "F^*K Cabron!!!! Ok, ok, ok I am sorry but I don't know anything about the Order!"
Grabbing Miguel's hand, he separated his pointer finger away from the others and began twisting it.
"You have 1 leg left, 10 fingers and 2 arms that I can break right now. Talk now and you save yourself a lot of pain. Don't talk and you will experience every break and end up talking anyway. We both know you will Miguel."
Robin and Batgirl at the sight of him breaking the drug lord's leg had taken a few steps back. Intense interrogation like he performed was something the others, even Dick were not quite comfortable with. It was something he was glad they all shared a distaste for, if he could he would try to protect them from the darker aspects of the job.
Perhaps a lost cause, but one he would try if he could protect them a little longer.
"Please," tears began to form from Miguel's bubbler face, "They will kill me!"
"Uh huh," Batman said coldly.
Silence.
A few more tears and sweat followed before Miguel finally spoke.
"I... I don't know much I swear! They contacted me first along with a few others I know. The deal we had was we would launder their money and take a cut. Then we hired out mercenaries on their behalf to attack the League."
"Where is the money coming from," Batman demanded.
Miguel shook his head, "I have no idea, these guys are loaded though. I have laundered a few billion in just this past year."
"Wire transfer?"
"Ehhh," Miguel stammered, "Well at first, but then they started dropping off gold."
"Gold?" Batgirl said confused.
Miguel hesitated but spoke up when Batman added pressure to his hand, "Shit yes! Gold! Tons of bricks of the stuff. Check my bag!"
Giving a look to Robin the boy walked over and opened the bag. Inside was a few stacks of bills and on the bottom a glint. Reaching in, he pulled out the a bar of gold, probably a kilo worth of it.
Looking back at Miguel he growled, "How many of these did you deal with?"
"I don't know... thousands maybe tens of thousands," Miguel stuttered.
Billions in gold of all things, Batman felt more confused then before. Someone having hold of that much gold would of triggered alerts. People didn't just procure thousands of gold bricks from no where.
While he considered this Robin turned the gold over and frowned. His eyes squinted before widening in surprise.
"Barbara look at this," Robin held the brick up to her.
Taking a close look she appeared confused before narrowing her eyes brought realization to her.
"Batman," she said urgently.
Taking his eyes off Miguel he looked up to her. But before he could ask her what they found the loud distress voice of Alfred sounded in their remote comms.
"BRUCE! Get out of the hangar now! I am detecting a missile heading your way. ETA 20 seconds!"
"GO!" Batman yelled at the two while he grabbed Miguel and began dragging him to the hangar doors.
Batgirl and Robin made their way swiftly out reaching the edges of the airfield with enough time to see a flash of a fast moving object collide into the hangar. For a second it was silent before the roar of the explosion leveled the entire hangar. Pavement, glass and metal sheets were sent flying making the two duck down. Lucky they had as some of the flying metal pieces had such great force as to cut deep into the trunks of trees and crack boulders.
Unfortunately, Batman dragging the fat drug lord had only made it a few yards outside of the hangar when it exploded.
The shockwave sent him and Miguel flying a few yards with the flames scorching both men's armor and clothes. Both men landed hard on the cracked tarmac and skidded across.
Lifting his face off the ground he felt his head wattle and his vision blurry but soon it came back into focus.
'That was far too close,' Batman thought as he felt a sharp pain in his ribs.
Glancing down he saw beyond the scorch marks which his armor protected him from that he had been struck with slightly bent piece of rebar. Feeling around he was reassured his armor had deflected it from hitting organs, but he still felt the sting of a broken rib at least.
Still as he looked at Miguel, it could of been worse.
The drug lord lacking armor had blistered burnt skin from where they were thrown. Not only that but the shockwave itself had undoubtedly killed the man. And besides the shock wave there were chunks of random pieces of concrete and glass embedded in him, Miguel had no chance of surviving the missile strike.
"Batman!"
Alfred's voice shouting in his ear piece broke him from his thoughts.
"I am fine," he groaned.
Batgirl and Robin true to their training grabbed him and began dragging him into the cover of the jungle. A choice they would all appreciate as the sound of chopper blades became prominent.
"Lets get to the Javelin," Batman said with gritted teeth.
With a shaky effort, he managed to stand being helped by Batgirl. Robin meanwhile had gone to the outskirts of the jungle to watch the rapidly approaching helicopter.
"Robin come on!" Batgirl ordered.
With a wave of his hand for one moment they watched as the helicopter landed. It was a old huey painted black that had its doors swung open and a dozen familiar skull helmeted soldiers rushed out.
"Those are the same men who attack me and the Team in the Himalayas," Batgirl whispered to Batman who merely nodded, his eyes focused on the new development.
The skull helmed soldiers secured the airstrip before another man in a suit step off the helicopter. Wearing sunglass did little to hide the obvious scarring of the man as he walked over to where Miguel's body was. A nudge from his expensive shoes seemed to confirm the death of Miguel to the man.
"Überprüfen Sie das Gebiet, verbrennen Sie die Leichen," the suit said to the soldiers annoyed before going to sit in the helicopter.
The men went about following the order's of the suit.
"We need to leave now!" Batman said firmly.
Jason seemed to hesitate before joining Barbara and him as they made their way to the jet.
Boarding the Javelin, Barbara helped him lay down on the medical pad while Jason started the jet and punched in the autopilot.
The rocking of the jet made the medicine Barbara was applying to him sting worse then usual with his grimacing making her feel bad.
"Sorry," she said as she injected him with a stim pack.
Batman grunted before forcing his body to sit up despite the protests from Barbara.
Jason came from the cockpit and was talking with Alfred on the comms.
"How did you not see a missile coming till it was too late Alfred?"
The butler tone was polite but also stiff, "I sincerely apologize master Todd. The sensors from the Bat computer should of warned head well ahead of time. My only thought is that they fire the missile from close by, and that it was hypersonic."
"Hypersonic?" Barbara questioned, "Not many countries even have those, much less the means to fire one in a foreign nation."
"Yes miss Gordon, it is proof this 'Order' is perhaps more well armed or at least connected then we thought."
At that everyone went silent pondering what had happened.
Finally Batman spoke up, "Before the missile, what did you and Jason find?"
"Glad I held onto this," Jason mumbled as he handed the gold bar to him.
"Check the back," Barbara said taking a seat and watching his expression closely.
Turning the bar over Batman saw it bore a few words and faded imprinted marks.
"Deutsche ReichsBank," Batman said softly tracing the words.
Above the words was a imperial eagle with its claw gripping a very familiar symbol.
Looking up, he could see why the two were so shocked seeing the symbol.
"Nazi gold..." he said quietly.