Gordon, who had been controlling the scene from the stairwell, began evacuating the hostages from the first floor all the way to the rooftop. When the people who had narrowly escaped death ran out of the building and saw the sunlight overhead,
they burst into tears of excitement. Gun in hand, Gordon followed the text-message instructions on his phone and found the Joker, unconscious and hanging upside down beneath the fire stairs.
The crisis was more or less over. Batman also cleared out several explosive devices from the building, though the bombs still carried the Joker's twisted sense of humor.
Only half of them were real explosives, but the rest were still frightening enough to look at. Gordon picked up a timed bomb that had been placed in front of a camera. Its detonator had already been removed.
The timer had stopped at thirty-four minutes.
Gordon threw down the bomb, turned around, and punched the Joker in the stomach. In those thirty-four minutes, they had lost six officers and twenty-one hostages. That damned lunatic!!!
After venting with two punches, Gordon still held to his principles. He took out handcuffs, cuffed the Joker's broken hands, and called for someone to come up and escort him away.
Inside an ambulance downstairs, Jason, his head wrapped in bandages like an Arab, watched Miao Mu discuss the case with several police officers.
Jason leaned against the side of the ambulance in boredom. He still needed stitches at the hospital later, but Miao Mu did not trust Gotham General Hospital, so he intended to take him to Leslie Thompkins instead.
"Are you all right?" Alexis, who had just finished her examination, came over from the temporary command post.
One of the Joker's men had mixed in with the hostages upstairs and launched a sudden attack.