The Black Assassin waited for an answer as he stood next to the beaten figure of Batman. The Caped Crusader stood pilloried. His arms were pinned behind him. His tunic was torn, and his cape lay on the cold cement floor.

"Go to hell," Batman spat out.

"I don't think you are listening to my question, Batman. Let's try this again, shall we?" The Assassin motioned to a jackbooted figure in the room, who came forth to tighten the restraints on Batman's arms.

Batman groaned, but he would not speak.

General Immortus walked into the room. "Have you been able to extract anything from him, Assassin?"

The Black Assassin snapped to attention. "No, sir. He's been quite resistant to torture."

"He's a formidable opponent, then. No wonder he was able to help stop our efforts at the Plasticorp plant."*

*(back in Batman #15)

The General scratched his craggy chin.

"Black Assassin, I need you to prepare the team for our Atlanta operation. I will supervise Batman's interrogation from here on."

"Jawohl, Herr General!"

The Black Assassin turned on his heels and stepped out of the room.

General Immortus took a seat before Batman. "So, you think you can withhold information from us, do you? You are but a child to me."

The General lit a cigarette, and took a long puff from it. He blew the smoke into Batman's face. "I have seen warriors come and go . . . and I have brought the most battle-hardened soldiers to their knees, mewling to me like kittens. I will make you talk . . . yes, I will make you talk."

*(last issue)

But even in the early morning light, these trained detectives and police officers could not see that someone was hiding from their careful eyes up in the bushes alongside the highway.

Azrael crouched in the brush up in the hillocks near the shootout scene. He knew he would not get much information about where Batman was from the investigators and troopers below - more likely than not, he would be questioned or even detained for questioning.

He had heard about the Legion of Hate even before he had met Batman. If the Dark Knight Detective was in their hands, he would not remain unhurt or even alive for very long.

Then Azrael spotted someone who could help him get information about Batman.

Out of the view of the agents, down in the brush below, lay the figure of one of the militiamen who had fought against Batman and the FBI agents the night before. Azrael's trained eyes saw that the man had a number of broken bones, resulting most likely from one of the chain reaction of accidents that Batman had reported. This man might have the information that Azrael needed.

In a moment, Azrael had the man in his gauntleted hands. He pulled the limp man up off the ground and held one of his gauntlet blades up to the injured man's neck.

"You call out or speak, and I'll cut your throat."

"Amerikaner . . . superhero . . . I will tell you nothing."

Azrael moved the blade closer to the injured man's neck.

"Oh, I think you will. I can use this blade to cut you deep, but so slightly that the blood will drip out of your neck until you finally die an agonizing death. Or you can answer some questions for me."

The captured soldier decided to talk then. Azrael found out about the Legion of Hate's planned attack on WGBS studios, and about how Batman had fought against them on this very stretch of highway. And Azrael obtained a device from the en soldier, one that was supposed to teleport him right into the Legion of Hate headquarters.

As repayment for the courtesy of all of this information, Azrael snuck the injured soldier back to where the investigation was going on. As his last words to his former captive, he advised the injured man to make some noise so the authorities would notice him; imprisonment for attempted conspiracy would be better than being picked apart like so much roadkill by the opportunistic crows that frequent the sides of highways everywhere.

Azrael had the teleporter now. He had to think about how he would make use of it without delivering himself straight into the clutches of the Legion of Hate.

"Now, Batman, you are going to talk, I think. You will answer each of my questions, or things will be very wet, and very uncomfortable for you." The General motioned his assistant torturer over.

The General leaned into Batman's face and talked in almost a whisper.

"Do not think that your efforts to keep secrets from me will do your country any good, Batman. The minor setback that your country's FBI agents caused will turn out to be inconsequential. When my men take WNN's Studios in Atlanta and use it to call my soldiers across the world to arms, the will of the Legion of Hate will soon be the only thing that matters in this nation."

Batman started to growl and spit like an animal that had been tied up. Even though he had been tortured for hours now, he still had plenty of fight left in him.

"Bring the four posts in here. Set them down, and tie Batman's limbs to them, and then bring the funnel and the water tank."

Batman knew that this meant that Immortus was going to use water torture on him. He would never survive this next mode of torture, if he allowed them to fit him into it. He had to take advantage of the precise moment when they transferred him to call upon his last reserves of strength and escape.

Batman's training with Eastern martial arts masters came to the fore. He had to mentally ready himself, to focus whatever inner energy he had left, into one burst.

At the precise moment when the torturer loosened Batman's bonds a bit, Batman struck behind him swiftly, then lashed out at the General.

His fist impacted the General's chin, and Batman could hear old bones cracking. Even the benefit of life-prolonging drugs could not make General Immortus a better combatant than Batman. Batman then grabbed the older man by his lapels, and threw him against the wall.

As Immortus tried to recover, he began to regret the fact that he had asked his guards to leave him and the other torturer alone with Batman. But he had not lived two hundred years by not being able to have a contingency plan ready when he needed it. He pulled a small holdout pistol from his sleeve, and at the same moment, signaled for his men to come to his aid.

But Batman was already gone.

"Sound the general alarm!" Immortus barked as he put away his pistol.

"But sir, most of our troops are already on their way out to the airfield!"

"Get whoever's left and set them after Batman!"

A portly man with a beak-like nose snorted a duck-like laugh in response to the question.

"Of course, Killer Shrike. Not only do I have enough to hire you right now, but you'll also be pulling in plenty as our plans move forward."

"I represent myself. If I start not liking what we're doing, or if the money don't come in fast enough, I'm outta here." The speaker ejected one of his wrist spikes to lend this statement extra effect.

"We'll leave whether you come or go up to you," the birdlike man responded. "I'll contact you when I have the rest of our group together."

"I'll be waiting to hear from you." Killer Shrike pressed a button on his costume to extend his wings. He then ignited his boot jets and took off into the night sky.

"One more, Jackdaw, my dear. One more to add to our Aerie, and we are ready."

The birdlike man enjoyed the caresses of his black-clad, raven-like assistant.

He pressed the button, and disappeared in a flash of light.

Batman heard the clanking of iron boots in the hallway. He stopped and readied himself for battle.

In a moment the silver-blue figure of Iron Cross appeared.

"You!" Batman growled. "I owe you one for shooting me before."

Iron Cross held up his gauntlet. But this time it was to make a gesture of peace, not to shoot Batman.

"Don't worry, friend," he said. "I shot you because I had to convince the Legion that I was still loyal to their cause. But now it's time to reveal my true loyalties."

"Do I have time to find out to whom you are loyal?"

"To the Fatherland, Batman. To Germany. Once, to Nazi Germany, but after battling the Justice Society of America a few times, along with other heroes, and after seeing what Hitler did to the Jews and others, I figured out that the Nazi cause was not for the greater glory of Germany. It was all for Hitler . . . it was all about him. So I disappeared just before the end of the war."

"But the Legion still thought you were loyal to Nazism?"

"Yes, when the General found me, he offered me a great deal of money to help his cause. I had only been able to scrape out a meager living as a machinist down in Argentina until he found me. He redesigned my armor. Once I joined, I met up with super-powered agents I had not seen since the 1940's - many of whom were not exactly friends."

"So, you've been waiting for the right moment to betray them?"

"Yes, and the moment is now, while so much of their energy is bent on the attack on WNN in Atlanta. We must get there, and stop them."

"Well, how about we get out of here first?"

Iron Cross and Batman made their way through a number of secret passages in the bunker toward one of the exits.

An alarm was sounding, and Azrael took advantage of the confusion to sneak toward what looked like a barracks building. When he arrived at what he surmised to be a back entrance, he quickly disposed of the two guards who were there with a pair of throwing knives that he aimed expertly at each guard's jugular vein. He was not sure whether Batman would be alive or not, so he felt it was all right to let the more deadly side of his Azrael training come to the fore.

As he entered the compound, he heard the tapping of the boots of the Legion of Hate's soldiers on the concrete floor.

Most of the superpowered operatives boarded the same plane.

"This time, no one stops us," the Black Assassin bragged as they strapped themselves in.

"So you've gone through all of the troops already, and found no more double agents?" the woman called Night asked in a challenging tone.

Black Assassin's eyes were visibly cold and blue, even under his death-pale mask.

"I did find one more - another agent of SHIELD. I locked him in an isolation chamber, pinned to a wall with an icepick. As he slowly dies, he'll have time to contemplate betraying our organization."

The other supervillains, evil as they were, wriggled a little bit in their seats at the notion of the heinous torture that would await them, should they ever betray the Legion of Hate.

"No one will stop us," the Black Assassin reasserted.

One by one, the small planes lifted off into the midday sky.

"Azrael!" Batman explained. "How did you end up here?"

"I was able to track you down," he replied. "You and the Legion of Hate left quite a mess along the New York State Thruway."

Batman grimaced a little at the mention of the shootout.

"Well, Azrael, you're a better detective than I thought you were," Batman replied. He gestured to Iron Cross. "This guy looks mean, but he's on our side now."

"If you say so." Azrael stared long at the armored man.

Iron Cross stared back. "You are a member of the order of St. Dumas, aren't you?" he asked. "I encountered one of your agents on one of my first missions was for Kaiser Wilhelm."

"We have to get going," Batman said. "We need to get down to Atlanta to stop the attack on WNN."

The three men rushed to the airfield, where they jumped a technician working on a small jet.

"We're taking this jet off your hands," Batman said as he threw the technician to the dusty ground.

"This plane isn't entirely fixed!"

"We'll worry about that later!" Batman shut the hatch door.

As the group prepared for takeoff, Iron Cross was able to see a group of soldiers running toward the plane, headed by General Immortus.

"We'd better get this thing off the ground!"

As bullets began to impact the ground around the plane, Batman managed to get it started. He got the engines going and started the plane down the runway. Bullets kept flying at the plane.

Iron Cross opened the hatch back up and began firing at their attackers. His laser blasts scattered many of the soldiers and helped clear a path for the plane to take off.