Alfred straightened. “Does this mean that Commissioner Gordon has been misinformed by the international authorities?”
“The region was part of the Soviet Union. Nobody knows what’s going on over there right now. The Communists hid everything beneath a thick coat of red paint, and now the paint’s peeling. Most of our data is suspect, but at least we’ve got data. The Kremlin ran that country for seventy years on terror and rumor. Open the lid on the Soviet box and you’re looking into the Dark Ages, not the twentieth century. But somebody lives in Bessarabia. Somebody got traded back and forth between governments like chips in a poker game. Somebody could be a terrorist—and if he is, the Connection would be right there to do business with him.”
“A shadow arms-merchant for a shadow terrorist. It does seem appropriate. What about that Tiger fellow? He sounded real enough.”
“Real enough, but not big enough. Gotham City records show him growing up right here—if growing up is the right word for it. The juvenile records are sealed, but there’re quite a few of them. He got into a lot of fights. Wound up in the hospital as often as he popped up at the East End precinct. Then, about a dozen years ago he left town—headed south. He either stayed clean the ten years he was gone, or he got in trouble somewhere that still has all their records in a dusty file cabinet. These days he runs an import-export business from the old neighborhood. The police keep a close eye on him. They know he’s trouble, but they can’t prove it.”