The night wind chilled the broken edges of the steel.
Clark discarded the lump of iron in his hand. The metal struck the concrete with a grating clang. Without looking up at the dark figure overhead, he grabbed the container's door handles with both hands and pulled.
The rusty hinges screeched.
The doors opened.
A stench of excrement, sweat, and vomit hit him. There were no lights inside the container. Dozens of people in ragged clothes were crammed into the confined space.
Most were women and children, huddled in the corners and shivering in the cold wind. Some of the younger children no longer had the strength to cry. Their mouths hung open as they gasped weakly.
Clark's jaw tightened. He stepped inside, took off his worn coat, and draped it over a trembling little girl.
"Don't be afraid. I'll get you out," Clark said softly.
Air rushed overhead. Bruce leaped from a beam thirty meters above, spreading his cape in midair to slow his descent. He landed silently, his tactical boots touching down beside a puddle.
Clark stopped and turned to block the container's entrance. He didn't take a fighting stance. He simply stood there quietly.
Bruce studied him from five paces away. There was no sign of combat training, and his stance was full of openings, yet his body seemed to hold an inexhaustible reserve of strength.
Bruce pictured Yang Ming sitting on a barstool drinking black coffee. The Asian underground doctor could suture blood vessels on an operating table without so much as a micron of deviation, and he could run circles around Falcone. Now a homeless man who could crush steel barehanded had appeared at the East End docks.
*Did all the freaks these days like pretending to be poor to see how the other half