Bane and the Suicide Squad (A Batman Alternate Universe story)

Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

"So we will find someone new." Amanda Waller stated, her chin raised proudly.

"Find—find someone new?!" Harris cried, his eyes bulging. "Are you insane? Don't you get it? This little experiment of yours is over!"

"It's not over until I say it's over." Waller leaned back in her chair, her arms crossed. "The Suicide Squad works, and I'm not giving up on it just because we've had a few set backs."

The pair were sitting in a restaurant, Waller's meal already almost gone, Harris's looking as if it hadn't even been touched.

Harris shook his head, his face wrinkled up in anguish. "A few setbacks? That's what you call the leader of your team dying? Rick Flag was the only one—the only one, who could even come close to managing that bunch of nut-cases. It won't work. Anyone you give them they'll eat alive. Flag was one of a kind. How are you going to find someone that's as good as him?"

"We won't. We'll get someone even better." Waller replied as she reached into her purse and pulled out a folder.

"What's this?" Harris asked as she handed it to him.

"It's the new leader of the Suicide Squad."

Harris opened the folder, took one look, and then closed it. "You can't be serious."

Waller merely stared back at him.

"You're serious." Harris looked dumbfounded. "But he's a criminal!"

"Exactly, that's why they'll get along just fine. He's perfect. He's like hell to look at, and his reputation is even scarier. They'll respect him instantly."

Harris took a deep breath. "We keep the squad members under control by the devices in their necks. You can't use that same thing on the leader, or he won't be a leader. He'll be too afraid to make decisions for fear you'll kill him for it. So tell me, how are you going to keep someone like Bane under control?"

Waller scraped her plate with her fork, cleaning off the last of the creamed chicken. "His days of threatening Gotham with nuclear bombs are over. He's living simpler now. He works downtown, as a sort of bounty hunter. He's for hire. So we just pay him a sum he can't refuse."

Harris downed his glass of wine and began pouring himself another one. "Lunatics leading lunatics. The government will never allow it."

Waller licked her fork and smiled."They won't know until it's already done."