The Tin Man

Chapter Three

Sacramento Convention Center, J Street,

Sacramento, California

Saturday, 7 March 1998, 0708 FT

In times of emergency anywhere in the city or county, the Sacramento Convention Center in the heart of the city was transformed into a crisis command center. In a matter of hours, telephone and radio networks were set up in several of the hospitality suites, with the brain trusts of the city and county administration in a command suite and other staff and support agencies in the others, all of them connected by phone, runners, and the Central Dispatch communications center. As the crisis grew, additional suites were commandeered. All the rooms were tied in to the various safety, maintenance, welfare, and administration offices throughout the county, each with its own command center in place. Representatives from outside state and federal agencies also came to the command suite as summoned.

The mayor of the city of Sacramento, Edward Servantez, strode into the side entrance of the convention center, escorted by a plainclothes police officer who had been assigned to him, as to most other major city officials, after the Sacramento Live! shooting. Servantez, a short, dark, handsome lawyer and former state legislator in his late fifties, was accustomed to starting his day early. Accompanying him this morning was one of his aides; the chief of police, Arthur Barona; and the city manager.

Servantez was in his third and last term as mayor of Sacramento, and as such he had been through several crisis-management-team exercises and a few real ones, mostly for natural disasters such as the devastating floods of 1986 and 1997. But no matter how many times he and his staff practiced or implemented the crisis-management plan, it always seemed to turn into a barely controlled bedlam. During the exercises, the staff would often call time-outs to discuss what they were doing wrong and how to get back on track, but it never helped. And during real emergencies, of course, there was no such thing as a time-out.

Servantez removed his jacket, loosened his tie, and took his seat at the center of the head table, situated on a raised platform at the rear of the suite. To his right were the other city representatives-the deputy mayor, city manager, city attorney, fire chief, director of public works, city council representative, and Barona. To his left were the chairman of the county board of supervisors, Madeleine Adams; the sheriff and undersheriff; the district attorney; the county fire chief; and the county commissioner for public works. Places were also reserved at the head table for representatives from the California Office of Emergency Services, the governor’s office, the California Highway Patrol, the National Guard, the state attorney general, the FBI, and other state and federal agencies. A briefer’s podium, rear-projection screen, and PA system were set up opposite the head table. There were two tables of staff members to the right of the table, and a communication center and refreshment table on the left.

All the necessary players were now present, so Servantez said to Chairman Adams, “Let’s get started, shall we? Can we please get a situation and update briefing?”

“Yes, Mr Mayor.” She nodded to the Sacramento County undersheriff and he stepped up to the lectern. A map of Sacramento, El Dorado, Placer, and Yolo counties came up on the large rear-projection screen. “At ten-thirty-seven last night an explosion and fire was reported in the area around E Street and Market in Rio Linda,” the undersheriff began. “The first fire units on the scene reported several homes and businesses on fire or heavily damaged by an explosion, and the call was upgraded to four alarms. Four square city blocks were affected by the blast. Upon further investigation, firefighters discovered remnants of precursor chemicals used in the manufacture of methamphetamines…”

“Precursor chemicals?” the city public works director asked. “What’s that?”

“In simple terms, they’re the intermediate chemicals that are produced before making the final product,” the undersheriff explained. “It’s a felony to make or possess these precursor chemicals, just as it is to make or possess meth itself.

“The fire captain called in both county HAZMAT teams and sheriff’s narcotics investigators, who took command of the scene,” the undersheriff went on. “The death toll appears to be quite high: Investigators estimate over a hundred deaths and several dozen injuries as a result of this one blast.”

“Are you suggesting this was basically a narcotics case?” Mayor Servantez interjected. “That’s a staggering loss of life.”

Captain Tom Chandler of the police department’s Special Investigations Division stepped up to the lectern to respond. “No, Mr Mayor; we don’t believe so, because approximately twenty minutes later, a similar large-scale explosion occurred in the Oak Park section of the city. It was of comparable intensity, destroying homes within one block of the blast and damaging every structure within four square blocks. The casualty count was similarly high-in this case, over one hundred and forty deaths and almost a hundred injuries. Then there was another explosion in the Northgate and Levee Road section of the city just a few minutes later. This one occurred in a storage room under a multifamily apartment building. The death toll is expected to exceed two hundred.”

“My God,” Servantez breathed, shaken by the numbers. “What do we have here? A serial bomber?”

“Perhaps, sir,” Chandler replied, “but it doesn’t quite fit the pattern. The blasts were close together time-wise but spread out in terms of distance. Serial bombers, even a group of bombers, usually strike targets close together but spread out time-wise.”

“Then what? A gang war? Clumsy drug chemists?”

“Perhaps all of the above, Mr Mayor,” Chandler replied. “These were not the only explosions that occurred last night. In all, there were four blasts in the city, six in the county, and seven more in El Dorado, Placer, and Yolo counties. Similar explosions have been reported in San Francisco, Oakland, Stockton, Bakersfield, and Los Angeles-a total of almost thirty powerful explosions, with death tolls ranging from a few dozen to over three hundred, and extensive injuries.”

“So what the hell have you found out?”

“All of the explosions have two things in common: traces of methamphetamine precursor chemicals found at the blast scene, and a large number of gang members at each location, usually members of biker gangs,” Chandler said. “The large numbers of gang members indicate a gang chapter meeting, maybe even an instructional meeting on how to cook methamphetamines. The pattern of the deaths at each location suggests that there was very little or no warning, possibly ruling out intentional explosions or an attack by outside forces. Those killed in the blasts seemed to be very close to the blast center, as if observing or guarding the site.

“At the very least, it appears likely that everyone at the blast scenes wanted to be there-these do not seem to be executions or assassinations,” Chandler concluded. “And while this or any other particular blast could have been a booby trap or experiment gone wrong, the similarity to other explosions throughout the state does seem to rule out an accident. One or two such blasts in one night could be a coincidence. Almost thirty of them, even if spread out in terms of distance, is no coincidence.”

“We’ve had meth-lab explosions in the past,” the county fire chief pointed out. “But compared to any others, these blasts are enormous.”

“That’s right,” Chandler said. “A regular-size meth-lab explosion might substantially damage or set fire to a two-bedroom house or typical barn, or destroy a storage shed. These explosions destroyed entire city blocks, perhaps eighteen homes, and damaged many more. This means that the labs in question are many times larger than the usual labs we’ve seen. Plus, there are a lot more of them. So someone is making large meth-labs, big enough to destroy or damage almost two dozen homes at a time but disguised well enough to escape notice. It’s a very serious development. We’re wondering how many labs like these didn’t blow up.”

“Any estimate on how much meth these labs can make?” the mayor asked.

“Hard to say, sir,” Chandler said. “We’re guessing as much as twenty pounds or even more-that’s at least a quarter of a million dollars’ worth at a time. The power of the explosions suggests that the meth cookers are using hydrogen gas as part of the cooking process, which is highly explosive when mixed with oxygen. A small meth lab might use a few cubic feet of hydrogen pressurized to thirty or forty psi-pounds per square inch. These labs must have been using perhaps two or three hundred times that amount. And the quality of the drug produced by the hydrogenation method is very good-the product can be cut several times to increase its value and distribution tremendously.”

“So what’s the situation now?” the county commissioner asked.

“Critical,” the undersheriff replied. “We’ve called for this crisis team because our resources, both city and county, are stretched beyond the limit. Both the city and the county have split up our narcotics-investigation teams and made them primaries on pieced-together narcotics-investigation teams, augmented by other detectives and patrol officers. We’re using firemen and reservists to secure crime scenes, and because every blast scene involves hazardous materials, these untrained personnel are in great danger. We can’t borrow Narcotics officers from neighboring counties because most of them are involved with investigating their own meth-lab explosions. And all of the area hospitals are clogged with casualties. We’ve got a real emergency situation here, Mr Mayor, Madam Chairman.”

Adams spread her hands and looked at the city officials to her right. “It sounds to me like we need some help in handling the emergency,” she said. “Undersheriff Wilkins, what are you specifically requesting?”

“We need immediate help in securing and investigating the crime scenes and getting as many of our cops back on patrol as possible,” the undersheriff replied. “Since the California Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement is likely to be busy investigating all the lab explosions statewide, we should request immediate support from the Drug Enforcement Agency, the FBI, and Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms-and we should ask the governor to mobilize the National Guard. We’re requesting that the Infrastructure Protection and Security Plan be implemented immediately, and we simply don’t have the manpower. All of our communications and utilities could be shut down.”

“Excuse me, Chairman Adams, Undersheriff Wilkins, but I disagree,” Chief Barona interjected. “I don’t think it’s necessary to get a lot of federal agencies involved quite yet, and certainly not the National Guard. At least not until we’re sure what we’re up against.”

Almost everyone in the room looked at Barona in surprise-the most surprised of them the head of SID, Tom Chandler. He was ready to speak up but Servantez beat him to it: “Excuse me, Chief?” Servantez exclaimed. “You don’t want any help in responding to this situation? Did you hear the same briefing I did?”

“Of course, Mr Mayor,” Barona said. “But we shouldn’t bring in a lot of unnecessary outside help until we’re sure exactly what we’re up against and what we need.”

“We could use help on the investigation of those explosions, Chief,” Chandler said. “We usually call Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms on any explosives investigations.”

“Only for bomb explosions, Captain, not lab explosions,” Barona said. “We have four narcotics-investigation teams and four explosions. We can handle our own emergencies.”

The various officials began to talk urgently among themselves, and Chandler took advantage of the break to go over to Barona. Kneeling behind him, he whispered, “Chief, my teams are already up to their eyeballs in cases-we have half as many guys in SID as we did just three years ago. Plus some of the teams out working these explosions are federal or state grant positions-they’re already committed to other projects outside the division…”

“I’m recalling them-they stay on the investigations, Captain,” Barona said. “Besides, if these explosions did wipe out a bunch of drug gangs, your division’s caseload probably took a big cut.”

“But we also usually request help from BNE and nearby counties with big cases,” Chandler argued, “and they’re so swamped too that it’s not likely we’re going to get any help from them. The feds and the National Guard would help…”

“I am not going to go to the governor and request that he send troops onto the streets of Sacramento with M-16’s to do something that your units should be able to handle well enough on their own,” Barona snapped sotto voce. “I won’t give the bastard the satisfaction. That’s all. Sit down.”

Chandler returned to his seat, taking a deep breath to try to mask his feelings. He hated to go along blindly with the rumor mill or the department gossipmongers, but the only possible explanation he could fathom for why Barona would refuse outside help was that he didn’t want to spoil his political aspirations by appearing not to be in full control.

The meeting pulled itself back to order. “That’s well and good for you, Arthur,” the Sacramento County sheriff said wryly, picking up on Barona’s last statement, “but I’ve only got three narcotics-investigation teams to investigate six lab explosions. I could use the help.” To the head table he said, “I’d like to put in a request for state Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement narcotics investigators, ATF hazardous-materials investigators, and FBI crime-scene investigator support, ma’am. As many as we can get, as soon as we can get them. And if the National Guard has any HAZMAT-qualified engineer units handy, we could use them to help in the cleanup too.”

“I’ll put in the request, and I’ll mark it ‘urgent’,” Chairman Adams said, making a note and passing it along to her staff. “Mr Servantez, if you want to amend my request, you’re welcome to do so. Might save you a little time.” When she noticed Barona’s icy glare and saw Servantez’s hesitation, she leaned over to the mayor so Barona couldn’t hear. “It could cause a problem, Edward,” she said in a low voice. “The governor might be reluctant to call out the Guard if one government agency asks but another doesn’t. We should be united on this.”

“I’ve got to back up my chief of police and my city council, Madeleine,” Servantez answered. “Calling in the Guard and the federal agencies takes control of the emergency out of our hands-we burn resources but we don’t get any benefit from it. We can ask for plenty of free advice, but I prefer to wait and see exactly what we’ll need before we push the panic button.”

“I think you’re wrong, Edward,” Adams said. “Put your name on the request and let’s get a handle on this thing early. A little more force on the streets will be much better than too little and having this crisis reignite. I’m sure your chief is competent, but let’s not get pride-or arrogance-in the way of handling this emergency.”

Servantez nodded reluctantly. Avoiding Barona’s accusing glare, he said, “After consulting with Chairman Adams, in the spirit of cooperation and conservation of resources, I recommend that the city join the county in asking the governor for assistance from the National Guard and assistance from state and federal investigation agencies.”

Tom Chandler breathed a sigh of relief, thankful that Servantez kept his backbone straight on this one. Barona was as mad as a wet hen. Well, screw him. He’d be proclaiming how great he was right up until the time the gang-bangers and anarchists kicked open his office door.

In any case, Chandler knew his troops and the entire force would be running full bore for the next few weeks.

Wilton, South Sacramento County, California

later that day

Unless Townsend or one of the others needed him for something, Bennie the Chef usually slept in until noon. It had been a very late night, and he had every intention of letting his growling stomach awaken him whenever. But for some reason he’d woken up early, and something made him get up and flip on the TV around seven A.M. What he saw horrified him. Meth-lab explosions. Dozens of them. Huge explosions, killing enormous numbers of people and damaging or destroying entire city blocks.

It could only be his portable hydrogenators, Bennie thought. The explosive power of one of those units was tremendous. And he realized the location of each explosion corresponded to a Satan’s Brotherhood chapter site-the exact places that Townsend was going to send each unit.

Bennie got in his car and drove to the ranch of the Aryan Brigade brain trust in Wilton. Throughout the drive he listened to his car radio broadcasting reports of the explosions all around the state-it reminded him of the news coverage of the Persian Gulf War, when that too took over the radio. The devastation caused by the explosions was enormous. It was no wonder. Nine cubic feet of hydrogen gas mixed with oxygen and detonated with a spark was enough to blow up a two-story house. Put in enough hydrogen gas under forty psi of pressure, and the explosive effect was multiplied forty times. The steel hydrogenation unit would contain some of the blast, but the net effect would be similar to a four- or five-thousand-pound bomb.

He found Townsend, Reingruber, and several of the organization’s top sergeants conducting firearms training in one of the wooden barns. Townsend’s weapon of choice was a small 9-millimeter Calico automatic, a short, sleek pistol with a huge cylindrical ammo drum on top. Townsend seemed adept at shooting it either one- or two-handed, with either hand, on full-auto or single-shot.

“What happened?” Bennie shouted as the guards let him approach. Townsend ignored him. Forgetting who he was dealing with in his agitation, Bennie grabbed Townsend by the shoulder. “I asked you, what happened, Townsend?”

Gregory Townsend shrugged off the hand without turning around and finished his target practice-only one round went astray with the distraction; the others were dead-on-then removed his eye protection and ear defenders. “We didn’t expect you up so early, Bennie. I had a driver arranged to pick you up later.”

For a moment Bennie was relieved-Townsend didn’t appear to be blaming him for the explosions. Then he felt scared, for exactly the same reason. If Townsend wasn’t angry or upset about the explosions, then he must’ve known about them all along. He looked at Townsend in horror. “You planned this?”

Townsend unclipped the cylindrical drum from the top of his weapon, clipped a fresh one in its place, and said coolly, “We had two strikes against us from the very beginning, Bennie: We were dealing with drugs, and we were dealing with the Satan’s Brotherhood. Yes, there’s lots of money in manufacturing and selling illegal drugs, but the people you deal with in the drug business-very unsavory characters.”

Talk about ironic, Bennie thought grimly-Gregory Townsend calling the Satan’s Brotherhood unsavory.

“Did you know that four of my men were killed and one seriously wounded when the Brotherhood’s chapter members turned on them while they were delivering the hydrogenators?” Townsend went on. “I abhor anyone who cannot stick to his part of a bargain. Major Reingruber and his men are going to hunt down the surviving Brotherhood members and teach them a lesson.”

“You didn’t expect some of the Brotherhood to try to rip you off?” Bennie asked incredulously. “You blew up all the hydrogenators and wasted a chance to make hundreds of thousands of dollars a day because a few of the chapter guys killed your troops?”

“Of course not, Bennie,” Townsend replied. “I was going to kill them all anyway.” The way he said it, so casual and so businesslike, made the hairs stand up on the back of Bennie’s scrawny neck. “Actually, I was quite relieved that the death toll on our side was so small. We were at a considerable disadvantage.” Townsend smiled at the shock on his face. “Bennie, you’re an intelligent man. Tell me: What would have happened to the price of methamphetamine in the state of California if there were over a thousand extra pounds of pure uncut meth on the street per day? That would equate to approximately one hundred thousand pounds of cut meth each day.”

“The price would drop,” Bennie said.

“ ‘Plummet’ is the term you Americans use, I believe.”

“But so what?” Bennie asked. “Your deal with the Brotherhood was a thousand dollars per pound produced, no matter what the street price was.”

“But if the street price dropped to, say, two thousand dollars a pound rather than eight to ten thousand dollars,” Townsend asked, “what do you think the Brotherhood’s reaction would be?”

“They’d… they’d try to renegotiate the deal.”

“Bennie, Bennie, please don’t delude yourself like this, not with me,” Townsend scolded him. “You know as well as I that the Brotherhood would first renege on the deal, then go to war with us to try to cancel it-by killing every last one of us and keeping the hydrogenators for themselves. It was a no-win situation for us right from the start, Bennie. But now answer this: Has California’s appetite for methamphetamine been affected by these explosions?”

“Hell no. Why should it?”

“Precisely,” Townsend said. “So with the market for methamphetamine the same, and with almost every Satan’s Brotherhood chapter in the state of California closed or substantially downsized, shall we say, and with the surviving members scattered or eventually hunted down by Major Reingruber and his men, what do you suppose will happen to the price of a pound of methamphetamine that makes it to the street now?” There was a glimmer in Bennie’s eyes as he answered the question in his head, and Townsend saw it.

“So you have your answer, Bennie. Now, as we all know, the Mexicans and those remaining in the biker gangs will rush to fill the void left by the Satan’s Brotherhood,” Townsend pointed out. “So the window of opportunity for whoever becomes California’s premier meth cooker would be very small, although incredibly lucrative. After a period of time, however, the battle for control of the meth trade in the West will heat up all over again. Meth cookers will be killing each other over a few dollars or a few ounces of white crystals. That will be the time to pack up and take our leave.”

“I don’t get it,” Bennie said, shaking his head. “Are you offering me the meth dealership?”

“I am offering you much more than that,” Townsend said. “I’m offering you protection and distribution assistance as well.”

“All for the price of…”

“Just three thousand dollars a pound, plus chemicals at our cost plus ten percent,” Townsend said. “For a substance that can sell from between ten and thirty thousand dollars a pound or more, I think it’s an offer too good to pass up.”

“Three thousand a pound? Why so little?” Bennie asked. “It’s worth two or three times that much.”

“It is more important for us that we maintain a good working relationship with you, Bennie,” Townsend said with an expression that made the little hairs on the back of Bennie’s neck stand up all over again. “Frankly speaking, you know quite a bit about my organization and recent activities. Since killing you would be akin to killing the golden goose, as it were, I find it better to deal fairly with you rather than go to war. Do we have a deal?”

“I can cook anything I want, anywhere, anytime?”

“Supervised by my men, yes,” Townsend said. “I presume you are not planning to use the hydrogenation method to produce methamphetamine this time?”

“Hell no,” Bennie said. “The law will be all over the dude who tries to buy thionyl chloride or a tank of hydrogen now. If I can get my hands on some five-gallon drums of phosphorus-3-iodide, some condensers, and what’s left of the ephedrine that’s stored out here, I can whip up a couple of dozen pounds in one day. We can restart thionyl chloride synthesization later, when the heat subsides.”

“Do you need a hydrogenator or special apparatus for this method?”

“Nope-just the phosphorus, the ephedrine, some water, and a condensing unit,” Bennie replied. “It’s a faster and much safer process than hydrogenation, but it produces forty percent less meth for the same cost. But if the street price for meth takes a jump like I think it will, it’ll be worth it. This would give us a nest egg to set up a few more labs in just a couple of weeks.”

“Very well,” Townsend said. “But we must be very careful now. I am not so naive as to think that our headquarters, labs, warehouses, and meeting places are free from police scrutiny. I must assume that the ranch and the dozen or so other properties I own throughout the state are under some kind of surveillance. I’ve been fortunate thus far in not encountering any police interrogations, but after this past night all bets are off.

The police may receive some special powers to arrest or conduct investigations in the interest of public safety-but more likely, they’ll simply barge in wherever they like and the Constitution be damned,” Townsend went on. “You are a known methamphetamine cooker. Almost thirty meth labs just blew up all across the state. The police will want to question you. We want to try to avoid all official inquiries on us at this point. If the police find a connection between you, us, and our two men who were just released from custody, and tie us in to the downtown Sacramento shootings, our operation could unravel very quickly. The police will not rest until the ones responsible for killing their own are found and punished-or eliminated.”

Bennie nodded that he understood. “Okay, Colonel, okay. No way they’ll connect me with you,” he assured Townsend. The guy was like a chess master, Bennie thought, always thinking several moves ahead. “And I’ll get to work right away.”

“Very good,” Townsend said. “We’ll get you your chemicals so you can start producing as soon as possible.”

Bennie had that same damn sensation again-the feeling of a long, slow slide into doom. Dealing with a guy like Townsend had to be like dealing with the devil himself. But the money-Jesus, with most all of the Satan’s Brotherhood out of the way, it would be raining and pouring meth money. And the level of fear would be so high that no one, not even the Mexicans, would dare get into the meth trade in California for a few months at least. Bennie would be raking in money. And clearly Townsend and his army weren’t interested in cooking.

Bennie held out his hand. “You got a deal, Colonel,” he said.

Townsend smiled that awful smile again, holding up the Calico as he switched it to his left hand so Bennie could not fail to see it-and shook Bennie’s hand. “Very good. Let’s get to work, shall we?”

As Bennie moved off to supervise the startup of his new lab, Reingruber came over to Townsend. “I am weary of these greedy idiots, Herr Oberst. We risk all we have to transport some chemicals so we can make a few dollars, when the real money is sitting there waiting for us to take it.”

“Patience, Major,” Townsend replied. “The city is not yet in a sufficient panic for our purposes. Continue to monitor the target and report if there is any movement. If the local authorities do not act a bit more decisively soon, we may need to implement Phase Three of our plan. But I have a suspicion that, as the Americans are so fond of saying, ‘The shit will hit the fan’ by itself very soon.”

Special Investigations Division Headquarters,

Bercut Drive, Sacramento, California

Monday, 16 March 1998, 0802 PT

Captain Tom Chandler stepped into the conference room a few minutes after the morning briefing began and took a seat in a corner. Shielding his face behind his FBI National Academy coffee mug, he surveyed the division members present and his heart sank.

His guys and gals looked whipped. After ten days of twelve-hour shifts, weekends included, they were ashen and exhausted. Everyone was chugging coffee to try to stay awake. Personnel assigned to SID could dress casually-it was an all-undercover unit-but most of them looked as if they had been sleeping in their clothes, which was probably not far from the truth. Hats, apparently hiding unwashed hair, were everywhere.

The lieutenant in charge of operations, Deanna Wyler, was giving the morning briefing. She normally dressed like a high-powered executive around the office, emulating the captain; but today she wore black BDU’s, a rangemaster’s cap, and combat boots, and had her sidearm strapped to her waist with a black web belt. Wyler, who was normally responsible for administration, training, and liaison with other divisions in the department, had probably been to more crime scenes and labs in the past week than she had in the entire six months before.

Chandler had heard through the rumor mill that Wyler was a couple of months pregnant. Selfishly, he had not ordered her to stay away from labs or explosion scenes because he desperately needed the manpower out on the street. She hadn’t told him she was pregnant, so officially she wasn’t-which meant that in effect, she was accepting part of the responsibility for any damage, illness, or birth defects…

Fuck that, Chandler yelled at himself. If anything happened to that child because it was exposed in utero to any drugs or precursor chemicals at one of those lab scenes, it would haunt him for the rest of his life. He would never ever forgive himself.

“We have the preliminary investigation report on the explosions ready to go to City Hall and the chief’s office,” Wyler began, distributing folders to each officer with the investigation summaries. “What we had was a total of twenty-five meth-lab explosions, all occurring within eight hours of one another. The labs all appear to be similar: They were all thionyl chloride hydrogenation reactors, approximately twenty to forty gallons’ capacity each.”

“Twenty to forty gallons?” someone exclaimed. “You mean liters, don’t you?”

“I mean gallons,” Wyler repeated. “We’re talking a thionyl chloride reactor capable of producing close to forty pounds of pure crystal meth at a time.” That was probably the one piece of news that could animate this bone-tired audience. The thought of a single lab making that much methamphetamine was astounding all by itself-to think that there were twenty-five of them set up out there at one time, and possibly more, was almost too much to believe.

“Want some more unbelievable stuff?” Wyler went on. “How about very few signs of precursor chemical stores? No chemical dumps, no storage sheds full of chemicals, no hijacked trucks nearby. When those labs went up, the explosion took out all but traces of precursor chemicals. Now with that much pressurized hydrogen in the reactor, you know the fire-ball it produces is going to be big and hot. But in the past we’ve always found huge dumps full of precursors nearby, and an aboveground explosion wouldn’t wipe out a below-ground dump or burial site. Some of the sites had chemical dumps nearby, but they hadn’t been recently used.

“Now, either the cooks were extraordinarily neat and tidy and cleaned up their precursors before starting to cook-very unlikely-or the chemicals came with the labs,” Wyler said. “We did find remnants of trailers and hitches and stuff like that at a few of the sites, but that’s not uncommon and we didn’t think much of it at the time. We think it’s a vital clue now. We now feel we’re talking about a large, portable, self-contained reactor unit, mounted on a trailer and possibly disguised as a U-Haul or a home-built trailer.”

Wyler let that information sink in a moment, then continued: “Now, as to the victims. With the exception of a relatively small but nonetheless unfortunate number of civilian casualties, it looks like the right folks got dead in those explosions. Get this: Of those identified so far, about seventy percent of the fatalities were Satan’s Brotherhood members or associates. Over a thousand identified casualties. And all these DOA’s were found well outside ground zero of the blasts, farther than fifty yards or so. That means anyone within fifty yards was probably Crispy Critters the nanosecond that lab went up. Although we’ll probably have no way of knowing for sure for several months, if ever, it’s safe to say that most of the Brotherhood members were closer than fifty yards to ground zero, and that the current Brotherhood death toll is just a fraction of the actual number. We could be talking about three, four, even five thousand casualties, guys-maybe up to eighty percent of the total known Satan’s Brotherhood membership in the state of California.”

“Hol-ee shit,” someone exclaimed.

“Well, what are we sitting around here for?” said someone else, exchanging high fives with the detectives around him. “Let’s get the hell out of here and go to Sammy’s for some breakfast. Or better yet, I think I saw McLanahan’s open for the graveyard shift. Let’s go and get us a few pops and celebrate!…”

Tom Chandler rose to his feet. “Seventy-three children were killed in those explosions-you want to invite the parents of those kids to McLanahan’s to celebrate with you?” he asked. The celebrating agents fell silent. “Whoever did this didn’t kill all those Brotherhood bikers for our benefit-whatever they got planned for this city has got to be far worse than what the Brotherhood could do to us. Keep your damn minds on the task at hand: Let’s find whoever did this and put his ass in jail, soonest.”

“We didn’t mean any disrespect, Captain,” one of the sergeants said. “But we been workin’ twelve-, sixteen-, some of us even twenty-hour shifts. We’re burned out.”

“The chief is counting on us to get a handle on this,” Chandler said.

A moan of resignation went up from the cops in the conference room. Police Chief Barona was currently in Washington, D.C., testifying to some Senate subcommittee on law enforcement about the need for more federal funding for law-enforcement programs for cities, citing the statewide meth-lab explosions as perfect examples of a crime rate almost out of control. If he did get any funding, it would probably be for yet another federal grant research study or education program, not for more cops. And it was a sure bet that the chief wasn’t manning a command post or sifting through bags of body parts at three A.M. looking for clues.

“All right, that’s enough of the whining,” Chandler said. “You’ll all have one hour for Code Seven after this meeting-and I mean one hour, not an hour and a half, and not at home either-and then I want your butts back out on the street. Start hitting up your informants…”

“The CI’s have scattered, Captain,” one of the officers said. “The streets are empty.”

“I don’t need excuses, I need results,” Chandler said irritably. “Find out where your CI’s have gone and go talk to them. Bump up the cash offers, but get some solid info from your informants. And update me on the status of your surveillance operations. Obviously the Brotherhood surveillance ops went bye-bye, but find out which surveillance jobs are still standing, and why. If a Brotherhood lab site or hangout or a lab site in a Brotherhood area of town didn’t blow up, I want a surveillance set up there.

“Don’t forget to call up BNE and any of the surrounding agencies and get the flow of information going again. I know there’s been no exchange of information while the crime-scene investigations were being conducted, but now that agencies are wrapping up the crime scenes and starting the investigations, I want that information now. Everyone got that?” Nods all around. “Anything for me?”

“Yeah,” said one of the sergeants. “There’s a rumor going around that overtime is being cut. What’s the story, Captain?”

Chandler took a deep breath, then looked directly at his troops. “Rumor looks like it’ll be true this time. We blew through the first two quarters’ overtime budget like it was nobody’s business, and emergency procedures went into effect. Starting tomorrow, mandatory flex time up to forty hours, then mandatory comp time. No overtime will be authorized beyond that, so don’t ask and don’t put it on your time cards. All personnel may have to go on staggered twelve-hour shifts if this keeps up much longer. Until further notice.”

“No overtime!” the cops wailed, almost in unison. “The sheriff’s department gets feds to help them with their investigation, and we get sixteen-hour shifts with no overtime? That sucks, Captain!”

“Listen, everybody has to sacrifice until we get a handle on whoever planned these meth-lab booby traps,” Chandler said wearily. “This is an emergency situation. Update your surveillances, beat the bushes for your CI’s, gather some tight info, and make some arrests. Pronto.” He knew it was not much of a pep talk, but right now Thomas Chandler wasn’t feeling too peppy himself. “Anything else for me?” There were no replies this time, just exasperated expressions. Chandler turned and left, feeling the icy pinpricks of his troops’ anger jabbing at his back.

Deanna Wyler rubbed her eyes as she waited for the muttering to die down. “Okay, listen up,” she said, opening up her notes. “I looked through all your recent surveillance reports and cross-checked them with the locations of those lab explosions. Two glaring holes: the new Rosalee suspected lab, and the Bobby John Club. Intelligence has filled in a couple of holes for us and I think it’s time to revisit those two locations. If someone was going to target Brotherhood labs or hangouts, I’d have thought it would’ve been those two places. Both are still standing, right?” The sergeants nodded.

“I know we had a surveillance set up on the Rosalee location before, but we terminated it before the explosions because we needed the manpower elsewhere and because we were starting to see more normal activity there-kids, yard work, pet dogs that weren’t guard dogs, et cetera. Intelligence says there’s a pit bull in the yard again, and they haven’t seen the kids that were playing there. They may be cooking and dealing again. Restart that surveillance again tonight.

“Let’s restart surveillance on the Bobby John Club too,” Wyler went on. “We stopped it after that weird bar-fight incident where someone set off a gas grenade, because the place has been nearly deserted. But informants tell us it’s open for business again. I’d think that any surviving Brotherhood members would steer way clear of it in case whoever set up the booby-trapped portable labs goes hunting for survivors, but no one ever gave the Brotherhood a lot of credit for brains. I want to know who goes in and out of there; I want to know which Brotherhood members are still breathing, and I want them brought in for questioning.

“I don’t think we’ll have any trouble getting wiretap warrants, so write ‘em up and I’ll help you get them signed,” Wyler said. “I’ve got some retired folks and some volunteers who are going to come in and help us write up warrants and help around the office too, and we’ve even got retired judges resworn in and volunteering to sign warrants. So at least a little help is on the way.”

Wyler then stepped closer to the table and laid her best warning glare on them all. “One more thing, guys and gals: Stop the hangdog poor-overworked-me bullshit. I’m sure the captain will be happy to compare duty hours with yours any day, and he doesn’t get flex time, CTO, or overtime, and he doesn’t have a union to go cry to if he works too hard. We’re all tired. The whole city, the whole fucking county is tired. Think about the innocent victims killed or hurt in those explosions the next time you start bellyaching about getting time and a half, CTO, or flex time, while those poor folks are out burying their children and sleeping in a shelter or on the street because their apartment complex was destroyed.

“If you still feel like you’re being abused and mistreated, just let me know and I’ll be happy to reassign you to Patrol, where I’m sure you’ll feel more appreciated. Manning a checkpoint in Oak Park or guarding an explosion site in Alkali Flats on foot at three in the morning might appeal to you. Does everyone get my drift?” There was no response-nor would one have been tolerated. “Sergeants, I want to see your surveillance operations plans on my desk by two. Everyone: Remember why you chose to put on a badge, and remember your city is in trouble. Now get the hell out of here.”

Bobby John Club

Del Paso Boulevard,

Sacramento, California

Saturday, 21 March 1998, 0145 PT

The night air was fairly warm for this time of year, a first taste of the mild springtime evening temperatures that were right around the corner. The back door to the Bobby John Club, on the alley between Del Paso Boulevard and Anne Street, was open, and the bouncer assigned to the door had been told to move his bar stool out into the alley.

The bouncer saw the figure coming down the alleyway from about a block away. It was a guy wearing a full set of leathers, carrying his motorcycle helmet. He had on a plain dark watch cap, so the bouncer couldn’t see much else of his face.

Neither could the police surveillance team parked on Anne Street, across the alley from the rear entrance to the club. The police had installed a surveillance camera on a light post across Del Paso Boulevard to cover the front of the club, but still had to use a two-man surveillance van to cover the rear. Cameras snapped as the newcomer came up to the door, and the surveillance crew adjusted the “big-ear” directional microphone to hear the conversation better.

“Where’s your ride?” the bouncer asked as the guy approached.

“Broke down, back on Calvados Street,” the stranger replied. “Gonna use the phone.”

As the stranger started to walk through the door, the bouncer stuck out a finger and placed it against the guy’s chest in a clear order to stop. “I seen you around before, sport?”

“Sure. I been around.”

The bouncer noticed that the leather jacket was fairly new and hardly worn. It certainly didn’t look like it had been worn by anyone riding a motorcycle during a wet, sloppy Sacramento winter-it didn’t even smell worn, in fact it smelled crisp and new, right off the rack-and there were no colors or logos on it. It looked like the guy could’ve picked up the jacket at the mall earlier in the day. He wasn’t wearing leather chaps or pants either, but some kind of dark gray coveralls. “You flying any colors, bro?”

“No.”

“Then use the phone at the Safeway back where you came from. Club’s closed.”

“Phone’s broke.”

“Ours is broke too. Hit the fucking road.”

The stranger turned as if he was going to leave, then stopped and turned back to the bouncer. “Okay,” he said, “my motorcycle didn’t break down. In fact, I don’t have a motorcycle. Never rode one in my life.”

“Like I give a shit. Beat it.”

“The actual truth is this,” the stranger said. “I’m going to ask you some questions about Joshua Mullins.” He saw the sudden tenseness in the bouncer’s face. “Good. You know who I’m talking about.”

“Fuck off, bozo.”

“Mullins was Brotherhood,” the stranger went on. “He was also part of a holdup gang that did the Sacramento Live! shootout…”

The bouncer could move fast for a guy his size. He shoved the stranger away from the door, then reached inside the doorway for a piece of galvanized steel pipe used to bar the rear entrance when it was shut. The stranger flew backward, landing hard on his back and side, though from his dazed expression it looked more as if he’d hit his head. “You’re trespassing, buster,” the bouncer yelled. “You get lost, or you get hurt.”

“That guy’s gotta be a 5150,” one of the officers in the police surveillance van said with a chuckle as they listened to the interchange. A 5150 was the radio code for a mental patient. Recent events around Sacramento had brought out a lot of weirdos who thought they could clean up the town all by themselves. “Or probably another stupid cop wanna-be.”

“He’s gonna get his head smashed in if he doesn’t run like hell,” his partner said. “Think we should call a Patrol unit before this guy gets hurt-or dead?”

“Yeah. Better get a black-and-white heading this way,” said the other cop. “We can always Code-ten him if the 5150 beats feet.” He got on his portable radio and called Central Dispatch, requesting that a Patrol unit swing by and shine its spotlight down the alley, “It’ll take a few minutes to get here,” the cop said. “That’ll be enough time to give the 5150 a good healthy scare-hopefully.”

“If the bouncer starts beating on him, we’ll have to do something.”

“Relax and wait for the Patrol unit.”

The other cop lowered his binoculars, his mind racing. “Intel did speculate that Mullins was one of the guys that did that robbery, right? He was the one they found dead a few days later, right?”

“I think so.”

“Did that ever come out in the papers?”

“About Mullins? Yeah. He was a security guard or watchman at Sacramento Live!, one of the missing guards.”

“Yeah, but did it ever come out that he was a Satan’s Brotherhood member, or that he might have been involved in the robbery?”

“Yeah, sure… at least I think so,” the other cop said, not much interested in the subject.

“I don’t think it did,” his partner said.

“So?”

“So if it didn’t come out in the papers, then how could this guy know that Mullins was Brotherhood and involved in the heist? Not many cops know about that, only guys in Intelligence or Gangs. How could a buff know?”

“How the hell should I know?” his partner said irritably. “Just take the pictures, okay? I got enough to think about.”

The stranger got himself up to a kneeling position, his chest heaving as if he was having difficulty breathing. “Here’s the deal,” he said. “You tell me everything I want to know about Mullins and I go away. If you don’t, I’ll break your head, and then I’ll go inside, break some more heads, and destroy the place.”

“Listen, shithead, you got one more chance,” the bouncer said. “Get up and get your fat ass outta here or I’ll bend this pipe around your fucking head.”

The stranger got up, retrieved his helmet, and took a couple paces right toward the bouncer. “Last chance for you,” he said. “Mullins was working for a guy called the Major. The word is that Mullins met the Major or one of his men here about a week before the robbery. Tell me about him. Who was he? Did he have a German accent? What did he look like?”

“Not as bad as you’re gonna look, asshole,” the bouncer said-and swung the pipe. He faked a head shot, brought the pipe back, and swung it at the side of the stranger’s left knee. The blow would’ve put a two-inch dent in the side of a car. He gaped as the pipe ricocheted off the guy’s leg as if he’d hit a concrete post.

“What did he say about Germans?” the second surveillance officer asked. “Did he say ‘the Major’ was a German?”

“Yeah-I heard about the Major but that never got in the papers either. And I never heard about no tie-in between him and any Germans. What makes him think the Major was… Ohhh, shit, he hit him, right in the fucking knees! Better get that Patrol unit over here fast. Looks like the bouncer just tried to break that turkey’s knees.”

“They’re on their…” Both cops stopped to watch. The guy was still standing after being clubbed in the knees. No set of biker leathers would protect him against a shot like that. “He must’ve missed, trying to scare him?…”

“He hit ‘im,” the first officer said, sounding unsure whether or not he saw what he saw. “That pipe didn’t faze him. He must be wearing full body armor, but it sure doesn’t look like it.”

His partner put down his light-intensifying binoculars. “I’m going over there and talk to this guy,” he said.

“You what? You’ll blow our surveillance, man…”

“The guy knew about the Major, and he knew about the meeting here between him and Mullins,” the second cop said, rolling open the sliding door of the van. “He knows a lot more than any civilian should know. If he’s a cop, then he’s trying to pull some kind of off-duty or vigilante shakedown thing, and we gotta stop him before he sets this city on fire. Besides, I want to figure out how he can take a hit from a steel pipe and keep on standing. Tell the black-and-white I’m 940.”

The second blow was sheer rage. It was hard, fast, and overhead, aimed right at the head. Patrick McLanahan deflected it with ease with his left arm, cracking the pipe. The surge of electricity from the arm to the rest of his body mixed with the surge of energy he had felt from the blow to his leg, and the two power waves seemed to meet right at his heart, sending an explosive stream of energy through the rest of his body.

Patrick screamed through a wicked-looking smile. They hadn’t fixed the problem with the energy surge through the suit but he didn’t care. In fact, he was glad. It was like a drug-and he was hooked on it.

It all happened as if in slow motion. The bouncer stared at Patrick as though he were a swamp monster, then grasped the pipe in both hands and tried a major-league home-run swing at his head. Patrick never let it happen. He simply stepped forward and drove his right fist into the bouncer’s chest.

The guy was wearing a bulletproof vest, which attenuated some of the impact and probably saved his life. His sternum and left rib cage shattered, collapsing his left lung. Blood spurted from his mouth and nose and he crumpled to the ground. Patrick was close enough to be showered with blood, but instead of sickening him, it further fueled his anger and thirst for…

… for what? Patrick wasn’t sure what he wanted: revenge, information? No, just to take out his frustration and bitterness on whoever was inside. To hurt someone. To make them afraid, the way he and his family were afraid. He was going to…

“Stop! Police!” Patrick turned. A plainclothes man with a badge on a chain around his neck was galloping across the alleyway from Anne Street. His right hand was behind his back, probably hiding a gun. He held up his gold detective’s badge. “Hold it right there! I want to talk to you.”

Patrick tossed away the watch cap and put on his helmet. The instant the final component of the suit was in place and activated, he felt the extra surge of energy course through his body. He had bypassed the safety system that deactivated the suit when the helmet was removed, which allowed him to take it off but still be protected by the rest of the system. Now that he had put it back on, and the environmental system was fully functional and data was streaming in on his heads-up display and headphones, he felt utterly alive, utterly powerful.

“Take the helmet off now!” the detective ordered. Patrick stood there, unmoving. The cop’s gun came up. “I said, take off the helmet, then put your hands on top of your head and turn around!”

“I’m unarmed,” Patrick answered, his voice now electronically amplified through the helmet.

“Do it, buster. Helmet off, hands on top of your head. Now!” To his surprise, the guy simply turned around and headed inside the rear door of the Bobby John Club.

He holstered his gun-the guy was unarmed, and he couldn’t shoot an unarmed man, especially in the back. If he had killed the bouncer, he was a murder suspect and could legally be detained by any means necessary, including shooting him-but if the guy didn’t have a weapon it would still be hard to justify using deadly force. “Jesus, Dave, get over here and give me a hand,” the cop said to his partner, who was listening on the directional mike. “Better call in a 245 and possible 187, get some backup, and roll an ambulance-I think the bastard killed the bouncer.”

As Patrick came into the hallway, a biker appeared from the kitchen area, rushing him. Patrick solidified his entire left arm and straight-armed him in the face; it was as if the biker had run headlong into a steel girder. The door Patrick was looking for, the one that was closed and guarded the last time he was here, was on the right, locked. He stepped back into the kitchen and ran at the door, using his shoulders as a battering ram. The door splintered and came off its flimsy hinges.

Two bikers were inside, with several partially dressed girls. Patrick recognized one of them as the same guy who had confronted him with the broken beer bottle, the same one who cut Jon Masters-and the one who knew about Mullins and the Major. One girl was kneeling between his legs; the others scurried around the room at Patrick’s entrance, grabbing for their clothes. Several lines of a white powder, crank or cocaine, were laid out on a serving tray on the table.

“Who the fuck are you?” the biker shouted.

“I want the Major,” Patrick said, his voice eerie through the helmet. “Tell me where the Major is and I’ll let you live tonight.”

The biker reached over to where his pants were on the floor beside his chair and pulled out a 9-millimeter Glock. “I never killed anyone while getting a blow job before,” he said with a laugh. He yanked the woman’s head back into his crotch, smiled, and pulled the trigger. At the same moment, the other biker pulled a shotgun from out of the corner of the room and fired. Patrick tumbled over backward, crashing into the opposite corner.

The first biker grinned as the invader hit the floor. “Damn, that felt good,” he said, firing another round into him just for good measure. He yanked the woman off his cock by the hair and shoved her aside. “Get dressed, bitch-the cops are going to be swarming over this place any minute. Clean up that coke and take the tray into the kitchen and get it in the sink. It was self-defense. All you bitches remember that. The guy busted in here and threatened to…”

“Holy shit!” the other biker yelled. They all turned in horror to see the helmeted invader picking himself off the floor. There was not a single hole in him. A shotgun blast from less than twenty feet away should’ve put a hole the size of a softball in his chest.

“I want the Major!” Patrick said again. The girls grabbed whatever clothes they could and fled, screaming, from this… apparition. The second biker racked the action on his shotgun and fired again, but he was shaking so hard from the sight of this guy still standing, walking, and talking, that he missed from fifteen feet away. He dropped the shotgun and ran.

“Hey, asshole!” the other biker screamed futilely, “get back here and nail this guy!” He swore, aimed, and fired his Glock. The invader reeled, hit right in the chest-but this time he did not go down. Another shot and another, from ten feet away and less. Still standing. It was clear he had been hit, because he stopped in his tracks and howled, as if ready to collapse from pain or shock, but then he straightened up and kept right on coming.

Patrick grabbed the biker by the right wrist, then chopped his forearm with his hand. There was the sound of bone snapping, and the Glock dropped to the floor. Then he lashed out with his right hand, hitting the biker square on the left collarbone. Bone snapped again, and the biker sank to his knees, screaming like a child. “I want the Major,” said Patrick. “Tell me where he is or I’ll kill you.”

“I don’t know where he is, man, I swear…”

Patrick’s hand jerked out again, breaking the other collarbone. “Next, I’m going to break your sternum,” Patrick said, jabbing a finger into the guy’s chest. “Then I’m going to break your neck, and then your skull. You’ll be a vegetable for the rest of your life. Now talk. Where’s the Major?”

“I swear I don’t know,” the biker gasped, his face contorted in pain.

“Who contacted Mullins? Who met Mullins here?”

“I never seen him. One of his guys, one of his lieutenants, came here, but I didn’t see him. Mullins told me he was going to meet the Major at a ranch in Wilton. I don’t know where, I swear to God!…”

“Were they Germans?”

The biker nodded. “Yeah… yeah, Mullins said he didn’t want to deal with no krauts, but they paid him good.”

“Where was this ranch in Wilton? What road?” No response. Patrick forced the biker’s head between his left arm and his side and squeezed. “I’ll pop your head right off your damned shoulders if you don’t talk!” But the guy had fainted. Patrick let him drop in a heap on the floor and headed for the bar. He knew that the patrons had probably scattered like rats in a fire when they heard the gunshots, but he had to find that other biker. If he was this guy’s friend, he might know more about…

“Police! Freeze!” Patrick turned. Two plainclothes cops with gold badges hanging from their necks were taking cover just outside the back door, aiming what looked like very large automatic pistols at him. “Hands up! Turn and face the wall! Now!”

Patrick ran a system self-test. Battery levels were still in the green, but down to less than two hours’ endurance. He had only had the suit on for less than an hour-must be a problem with the power-reserve indicators. Taking all those gun blasts certainly didn’t help. He could probably withstand these cops emptying their guns on him, but he couldn’t take the chance of more cops showing up and his power draining down into the reserves or to emergency levels. He would then have no choice but to surrender.

“I’m unarmed,” Patrick told the cops. He raised his hands, palms out, so they could see they were empty. “I’m leaving now. Don’t shoot me. I might hurt you if you shoot, and I don’t want to hurt the police.”

“Shut up, turn, and face the wall!” one of the cops yelled. Patrick started walking out the door, hands raised.

“Oh shit,” the second cop muttered, “he’s not going to stop. I heard gunshots in there-do we shoot this asshole?”

“He doesn’t have a gun, dammit,” said the first cop. “I don’t see any weapons.” He shouted again for the guy to freeze, but he kept on coming.

“Fuck,” said his partner, holstering his weapon. He shouted, “Cover me!” and ran full speed into Patrick like a charging linebacker.

The first cop heard a dull clunk when the two bodies collided. The guy was knocked backward into the wall by the flying tackle, but his buddy lay facedown on the floor and wasn’t moving. The guy simply got on his feet, took a second, as if regaining his balance, raised his hands again, and started for the door, careful not to step on the unconscious cop.

“Freeze!” the first cop shouted again, aiming his 9-millimeter SIG. “Stop right there or I’ll shoot!” He had made the decision to shoot; his partner was down. At Patrick’s next step, he fired three rounds-two in the chest, one in the head. He heard the scream as Patrick collapsed on his back.

The cop grabbed his portable radio and keyed the mike with a shaking hand, keeping his gun aimed. “KMA, Sam One-Niner, shots fired, officer down, officer down, one suspect down, send cover and an ambu-”

He broke off in midword, gaping as the guy in the helmet crawled to his feet, held on to the wall for support for a moment, then walked toward the door.

This time the shot hit somewhere in the torso, but after reeling back against the wall as before, the guy pulled himself up, pushed the cop out of the way, and stumbled out into the alley. The arm that shoved him felt like a steel bar, but by now he was so stunned, the guy could’ve used a feather.

“Mother of God!” the cop muttered. He followed the guy outside, his smoking pistol still leveled at him, but a small crowd had formed out in the alley, so he had to lower the gun and decock it. The crowd let the guy trot past them and down the alley, his gait improving with every step until he was sprinting by the time he vanished out of sight.

Torn between pursuit and his downed partner, the cop retrieved his radio and mashed the mike button: “KMA, Sam One-Niner, the 245 suspect…” Shit, how in hell was this going to sound on the radio? He’d just reported that the suspect was down-now he was running down the street?… “Suspect is on foot heading west down the alley behind the Bobby John Club, heading toward Fairfield Street. All units be advised, the 245 suspect is wearing a black leather jacket, dark coveralls, some kind of backpack, and a full-face motorcycle helmet. Suspect… shit, suspect does not appear to be armed but should be considered dangerous.”

At Del Paso Boulevard, Patrick ran left onto Fairfield Street. Using the thrusters in his boots, he leaped to the second-story roof of an abandoned printing shop, then paused to do another system self-test. Battery levels were already in the emergency reserve range. The emergency reserves were for escaping and survival, not for fighting. If he encountered any police now, he’d have no choice but to surrender.

Patrick called up and interrogated the discrete global positioning satellite search function on the heads-up display inside his helmet. A tiny red blip appeared, with a direction and range to the target. The red blip was Jon Masters, riding inside a specially equipped AMC Hummer they were using as a mobile support vehicle. Both Patrick’s suit and the Hummer carried satellite navigation transponders, for each of them to see and track the other’s location. Masters was now less than two-tenths of a mile away, cruising around the target area and trying to look as inconspicuous as a six-thousand-pound Hummer wagon could look on a city street in the middle of the night.

Using the thrusters, Patrick hopped from roof to roof along Fairfield and Forrest streets until he got to Arden Way. He waited on the roof of an apartment building until he saw the Hummer moving closer. Then he leaped off the roof, landing on a patch of lawn-right beside a startled guy just getting out of his car in the parking lot not forty feet away. Patrick ignored him. Fifteen seconds later, when the thrusters had recharged, he made another leap across the parking lot and lit down a few feet away from the Hummer as it slowly cruised down Arden Way. He pulled open the door as it stopped; then Jon hit the gas and sped away as fast as the big all-terrain vehicle could take them.

After they crossed the river and headed down Sixteenth Street south toward the downtown area, Jon finally asked, “How did it go?”

“Great! It went great!” Patrick said, removing the helmet. Remembering his awful visage when he had taken off the helmet after the demonstration, Jon had been afraid of what he might see this time, but Patrick looked pretty normal. “Everything worked great!”

They had installed a portable gasoline-powered generator in the back of the Hummer, and Patrick started it up with a push of a button, then brought a cable around and plugged it into a receptacle on a bottom corner of his backpack. Although he couldn’t monitor the power levels without the helmet on, he knew from testing that it would take thirty to sixty minutes to recharge the backpack power unit.

“We’re done for the night, right?” Jon asked hopefully. “You got what you were looking for?”

“Hell no-we do it the way we planned!” Patrick answered. “I got a lot of good information, but I need more. The next stop might give us the rest of what we need to bust these guys.”

“There seemed to be a lot of cops around…”

“We’ll do it the way we planned, Jon,” Patrick repeated. “We’ll go to a wider radius to keep this vehicle away from the next location. If all else fails, I’ll meet you at Sac Executive Airport, at our rendezvous point. I can hide in the hangar or up on the tower.”

Jon fell silent. It had to be played out…

Rosalee Subdivision,

Elder Creek neighborhood,

Sacramento, California

A short time later

Sometimes it took days to find the best location for parking a surveillance van. Ideally, the crew wanted a spot a block or so down the street from the target address, close enough to see and photograph everyone entering or leaving the premises with a medium telephoto lens or to look inside an open garage, but not so close as to attract attention to itself or the target. Even in better neighborhoods, the van had to be moved periodically so it didn’t attract attention or become a target for thieves or vandals.

Although it only involved sitting, waiting, watching, and listening, doing a surveillance was tough, uncomfortable, tiring work. Depending on the neighborhood and the nature of the operation, the cops doing the surveillance could sometimes switch with other officers for food or relief breaks. But a lot of times they were stuck inside the van for the entire eight-hour shift, forced to use “piddle packs,” portable toilets, garbage bags, or soft drink cans to do their thing.

But the worst part of a surveillance, even after only a couple of days, was the godawful smell. Thankfully, few cops smoked inside the van anymore, but a closed-up surveillance van quickly collected a variety of odors-fast food of every conceivable kind, sweat mixed with various deodorants and perfumes, fumes from a leaky exhaust, and other, more unmentionable, smells. Leaving the van actually made it worse. The cops grew accustomed to the smell after a couple of hours, no matter how bad it was, and if they then left the van to grab a bite or take a piss, the fresh air made getting back into the stinky, stifling, claustrophobic vehicle that much worse.

The Rosalee subdivision, between Sixty-fifth Street and Stockton Boulevard north of Elder Creek Road, was one of the predominantly white areas of the Elder Creek section of town, with lower- to middle-class homes on generally nice suburban or semirural streets. Go a few blocks in any direction around Elder Creek, however, and it was very different territory. Some houses showed pride of ownership, with clean yards, neat landscaping, and fresh paint; but most were rentals, subrentals, sub-subrentals, or squatter-occupied, and no handyman or can of paint had come near them in years. The area was a melting pot of races and ethnic backgrounds: whites, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, plus every possible mix.

The house just north of the target address on the corner was a very nice single-family property with a decent-looking lawn, well-trimmed shrubs still wrapped in burlap to protect them against the winter frost, plenty of lights surrounding the place, and a For Sale sign in the yard. The reason for the sale was probably the ramshackle house next door, a one-story frame structure of rotted wood and cracking stucco set in a dirt yard covered with patches of brown grass. It was surrounded by a mangled, rusting chain-link fence, and a huge pit bull terrier prowled the yard, barking fiercely at the slightest provocation. Some of the windows were boarded up, and others caged in steel bars bolted onto the outside of the house.

Usually it’s the dirtbag traffic around a house that gets cops’ attention, but this time it was the dog that had roused the interest of Intelligence and Narcotics again. When the occupants of the house were first busted, they had a fierce rottweiler guarding the place; after the bust, the dog was gone. The new occupants had a dog too, but it was small, a beagle or something like it, just as noisy but no killer guard dog. Drug dealers rarely used beagles as watchdogs. A few kids’ toys in the yard, a morning newspaper, and pizza boxes in the trash cans were more indications that maybe the occupants weren’t dealing or cooking meth.

But a few weeks later, all these domestic touches began to disappear. The foot traffic increased, the toys vanished, the take-out food containers were gone-meth users never ate very much-and the beagle was replaced by a pit bull. It definitely attracted attention.

The objective of this surveillance was to observe and look for opportunities. It had been suspected that the Satan’s Brotherhood was using this house for selling or distributing crank, but Narcotics had never been able to get enough solid evidence to prove it. They had tried every trick in the book: making traffic stops of vehicles that had recently been to the place, hoping to find some crank inside so they’d have probable cause to get a warrant to search the house; tailing frequent visitors, hoping to catch someone on possession with enough stuff to go after the house itself. None of this ever panned out. Neighbors were too terrified of the Brotherhood to cooperate with the police, and there was simply not enough weight moving into or out of the place to attract serious manpower. Surveillance on the house had been spotty at best, and it was finally terminated because the police couldn’t justify the cost or time to the captain, or the probable-cause circumstances to a judge who would be asked to sign a search warrant.

But the house was definitely Brotherhood and probably a meth lab-and it had survived the recent bombings. Even on lean days, the place probably turned several thousand dollars’ worth of methamphetamine a week-if someone was going to wipe out the Brotherhood’s drug outlets, this certainly would have been on the list. That was enough information for Deanna Wyler to order surveillance restarted.

The last three hours of this twelve-hour shift were the real dog part. This was when all the coffee in the thermos was cold and the burgers sat like lead weights in the gut, slowing down blood circulation and acting like a big sleeping pill. The van was cold, the seats smelled musty, and the rubber-covered eyepiece in the 180-millimeter telephoto camera was slimy from all the oily eyes that had touched it.

A few subjects had approached the house this evening, but they had been scared away by the pit bull. One visitor did bring out an occupant of the house; the surveillance teams got some good snapshots of a big biker-looking guy with long, stringy dark hair, a beard, and a leather vest over a bare torso, but little else. The big-ear directional microphone picked up an argument between the two. “What you got, man?” the visitor had asked, his voice coarse and cracking.

“What you need? You need a snort, man? I got what you need.” They had met at the chain-link fence, but it was obvious that the occupant didn’t want to be out in the open too long.

“What the hell is this, man?” the buyer asked angrily. “That ain’t no line.”

“Where you been, muthafucker? There ain’t no shit on the street. The Brotherhood’s fucked. This is it, man. You want it?”

“You rippin’ me off, man.”

The surveillance officer eyeing them through the oneway window scowled. “They could be talking about buying Girl Scout cookies, for chrissakes,” he muttered. He knew there was nothing in their conversation so far to hold up in court. “C’mon, boys, do the deal.”

An exchange was made, and the officers got pictures. The twenty-dollar bag of a white crystalline powder looked like a speck of white paint, a fraction of the normal size of a hit of meth. “They’d laugh that buy right out of the courthouse,” the surveillance officer said. “We need some weight, boys. These mouse-shit-size buys aren’t going to cut it.”

“There’s hardly any dope on the streets,” another officer said resignedly. “Everyone’s scared to be holding any weight. They think whoever took out the Brotherhood might go after them.”

“We should give this thing another week, when the brave cookers start gearing up,” said another officer as the buyer moved off and the seller went back inside. “Nothing worthwhile is happening now.”

“Politics,” the officer watching the front door said. “The chief and the mayor want something for their press conferences, something so they can show folks they’re in control. Election day is coming, and…”

“We got another guy,” the officer with the camera interjected. “Sheesh, I must be getting tired. I didn’t even see him walk up.” He looked up from the eyepiece, rubbed his eyes, then went back on it: “Medium height, about five-nine; husky build… looks like he’s wearing a full set of leathers, jacket and pants. How the hell can those guys wear those things? He’s wearing his helmet too. One of those full-face jobs.”

“I didn’t hear a Harley,” the other officer remarked. “Usually you can hear those things three blocks away.”

“I don’t see a bike.”

“No bike, huh?” Now they were all interested. “What’s he doing?”

“He’s… uh-oh, he just walked right through the front gate. That pit bull’s going to have him for breakfast-I don’t care how much leather he’s wearing.”

“This oughta be good.” The second officer lifted a set of binoculars and peered through the one-way mirror. “Here comes doggie booking around the house.” They could hear the angry barks and growls. “The guy must be a regular. The dog must know him.”

“That dog’s still on the hunt… oh shit, looks like he’s going to pounce! Better hop the fence, dude!”

The pit bull pounced, all right, jaws extended, teeth flashing in the light of the front porch, going right for the newcomer’s left wrist-then let go as soon as he clamped on. They watched the dog shake his head, bark, growl again, and then leap for the stranger’s left ankle. The same thing happened-the dog bit but did not hold on. At this angle they could see that the guy was holding a small backpack in his right hand. A third leap, and this time the dog clamped down hard on the fingers of the guy’s left hand. The force of the bite jerked him around to the left and downward-but then, as casually as swatting a mosquito, the stranger slapped the dog on the side of his head. They heard him yelp in pain and saw him knocked to the ground as if he’d been hit with a baseball bat. Weird. The slap didn’t look that forceful.

“And the dog is down!” one of the surveillance officers proclaimed. “Ha! Never saw a pit bull run with its tail between its legs like that before! What’d he use on the dog-a Vulcan nerve pinch or something?”

“Mace, probably,” said another officer.

“I didn’t see him spray. Anyway, sometimes badass dogs like pit bulls aren’t affected by pepper spray. He’s a lucky bastard, though. He might be cranked up already, and the pain is going to hit him full force when the dope wears off. Hope the crank is worth it. Maybe we can just go and pick this guy up and see how his hand is doing, and ask him what he did to that dog.”

“I don’t really give a shit,” said the head surveillance officer. “Wonder what he’s got in the backpack? He just set another bag down by the front door. His hands are clear. Maybe this is a delivery.”

“Through the front door? Yeah, like Domino’s or something-your crank delivered in thirty minutes or less or it’s-”

A huge explosion rocked the van. The cops’ heads flew back as if they had been stabbed in the eyes, the brilliant flash temporarily blinding them. “Shit, what the hell was that?” one officer shouted, trying to rub the flash out of his eyes. “He set off a bomb?”

“Sure as hell did!” said another officer. “Looks like he tried to plant it, but it went off before he could get away.” He scrambled for his handheld radio, hoping it was set to the right channel because he couldn’t see the selector knob if it wasn’t. “KMA, Special Unit Four-Four, roll backup, fire and bomb squad on our location for a nine-two-seven bomb explosion. Notify all units of nine-nine-four circumstances, repeat, nine-nine-four circumstances.” The sergeant in charge of the south area sector got on the radio and repeated the 994 call, reminding everyone responding to the call to use bomb threat procedures: no radio, MDT, or cellphone calls within two blocks of the scene.

It took several long moments before the cops in the van could get the use of their eyes back. When they finally peered through their telephoto lenses, they could see the stranger lying on his back, blown about ten feet away by the force of the blast. “Looks like the biker got a faceful,” one officer said. “I hope the ambulance guys bring spatulas-they’re gonna need…”

He stopped, and his jaw dropped in disbelief. The stranger who had planted the bomb and looked as if he had been smashed flat by the explosion struggled to his feet and a moment later was standing in the blown-apart doorway of the crank house.

Patrick heard the dog’s bark through his sound amplification system and he even picked up the sound of its pads racing across the muddy grass from the backyard, but he didn’t actually notice the pit bull until it grabbed his wrist, then his ankle, then leaped for the fingers of his left hand. There was no pain, but the sight of the big dog latched onto his hand frightened him. All he’d meant to do was dislodge the jaws, but the sound he heard when his other hand hit the poor creature’s head was sickening. The dog yelped and dropped to the ground, blood oozing from his ears.

Sons of bitches, Patrick cursed into his helmet, sending a dog out to fight their battles! He fought to suppress the anger spreading through his head but he was furious. He hurled the backpack full of explosives against the door, selected the short-range FM channel to the detonator, and keyed the transmit switch.

At the explosion just a few feet in front of him, the light-sensitive visor in the helmet instantly dimmed so the flash wouldn’t blind him, and the environmental system inside the suit began circulating more coolant to drench the blast of heat. But the blast pushed him back and off his feet, and when he opened his eyes, the rage that had seared into his head was burning red-hot throughout his body. He moved his arms, then legs, then torso-everything worked fine, no pain anywhere. A quick systems check: battery already down by half, to four hours remaining. It had been at six hours just before he approached the door, so the blast must’ve sapped a lot of juice. Everything else reported normal.

The explosion had blown open the door, taken out some of the wall to the left and right of it, and cut off all power in the house, but there was enough light from outside for Patrick to realize he was in a living room, with the kitchen visible beyond. The place was a pigsty-the explosion didn’t help, of course, but it had to have been unfit for human habitation before that. Garbage was scattered everywhere, and he could make out spray-painted graffiti on the walls.

A tall, lean figure dressed like a commando or special-operations infantryman in a black combat suit, balaclava, and combat harness rounded the corner of the hallway to the left, leveled a small automatic machine pistol at Patrick, and fired. He rocked backward as the triple-round burst hit him, more from surprise than pain or the impact of the bullets, since all he felt were the powerful electric shocks coursing all across his body. Damn, Patrick swore, I thought that problem was fixed! The electric current blurred his vision, and when he rocked back, he stumbled against a piece of debris and sank down against the wall.

“Stirb, du Teufel!” he heard the commando shout. He pointed the gun right at Patrick’s head and fired again.

This time, Patrick felt the impact of the blast against the helmet-but it was a love tap compared to the surge of electricity that shot through his body. The pain was exquisite, as if every nerve ending was firing like the spark plugs in a race car-but most of all it felt so goddamn good…

The commando looked as though he were seeing a ghost rise out of a gravesite. “Wer bist du?” he shouted.

Patrick charged, forearms up. The commando screamed and fell backward into the tiny kitchen. In rage, Patrick bent over him, grabbed his face in his left hand, and pushed his head against the floor. His fingers felt like steel spikes. He ripped off the balaclava and saw a young, fair, chiseled face staring at him in terror. “The drugs,” Patrick said through his electronic helmet. “Where did you get the drugs?”

“Drogen? Ich weiss nichts!” the soldier cried. “Lass mich los!”

“Who the hell are you?” Patrick demanded. “Are you a German? Deutsch?” There was no answer. “Who are you? Do you work for the Major? Kommandeur? Der Major?”

The look on the soldier’s face gave him his answer. He had struck home at last.

“Where is the Major?” Patrick racked his brain for remnants of his German-it had been years since he’d used it. “Vere… no, shit, wo ist der Major, asshole?”

“I will not answer!” the soldier said in broken English, and in a flash pulled a knife from a boot sheath with his left hand and shot it toward Patrick’s chest. Patrick caught his wrist, but not in time to stop the thrust, only slow it…

… and the knife blade inched toward the suit, touched it, then pierced it.

A warning tone sounded in the helmet. Cooling fluid from the environmental control system spurted out, and then the knife pierced the thin cotton lining of the suit and touched flesh. At the pulse of electricity discharging through the suit, and his panic, Patrick cried out and rolled away. The soldier leaped to his feet and scrambled for the rear door beyond the kitchen.

The suit didn’t work-the knife had penetrated it! Patrick felt for the breach. It was small, a slit less than an inch long-how in the hell could the BERP suit protect him against bomb blasts and gunshots but not protect him against a simple knife jab?

Patrick did a systems self-test. He would lose all of his coolant in a few minutes, and after that the sealed-up suit would probably become too uncomfortable to wear. But he was relieved to see that the system integrity was still intact-a cut in the BERP fabric didn’t render the entire system inoperative. He still had a couple of hours of power left.

He was going to catch the German, torture the hell out of him until he told what he knew about the Major. He activated the low-light sensor in his helmet and stopped in his tracks at the entrance to the kitchen. A body was lying on the blood-soaked floor-a big guy with long, stringy hair, his arms and shoulders covered in tattoos, bullet holes in his head. From the commando’s gun? What was a German commando or soldier doing here in a known Satan’s Brotherhood house? The Major was German too. A connection? Could be that the terrorists who had engineered the bomb blasts throughout the Sacramento area were mopping up the remnants of the Brotherhood they’d missed. It felt like a clue at last.

He heard a sound in the back of the house and went down the hallway. It was coming from the vicinity of a small bedroom on the right, which had a smell even the suit’s environmental systems couldn’t filter out-but all he could see was debris and garbage, and evidence of some strong chemicals too, probably from cooking drugs. Then he spotted a little nest of soiled blankets and a filthy pillow, with some empty fast-food containers next to it. It looked as if a small child had been sleeping there. Fucking animals, Patrick said to himself. Allowing a child to live like this… it’s subhuman.

The bathroom on the left had been partially blown in by the explosion, and he realized this was where the heart-wrenching sounds of a child’s sobs were coming from. When he pushed open the broken door, he found a tiny little girl inside, half covered in debris from the blast. She couldn’t have been more than two or three, and she was a waif, skinny as a straw, and as dirty and as uncared-for as the house. He could make out bloody cuts on her head; she must have been in there when the explosion hit.

“Easy, sweetheart,” Patrick said softly. “I’ll help you out of here.” But the child began to scream, a long, wild, piercing scream, and he saw her eyes bug out and her little body shake in terror. She tried frantically to claw her way out of the debris, but only succeeded in bringing more of it down around her. Patrick ignored the screams, eased her free, and gently laid her down on the threadbare carpeting in the hallway.

Using his laser holographic heads-up display, he selected the VHF frequency of the UC-Davis Medical Center emergency dispatch center, which he had discovered while with Paul in the hospital. “Davis Dispatch, have an ambulance respond to the residence at Sixty-fifth and Rosalee Heights,” he radioed. “Victim is a female child, approximately age two, with lacerations on the back and head and possible head trauma. How copy? Over.”

“Unidentified caller, this is Davis Medical Dispatch Center, this channel is for official use only. If you require emergency medical assistance, please clear this channel and dial 911 on any telephone.”

“Listen, Dispatch, I’m in a drug flophouse in Rosalee with a dead drug dealer and a young girl who’s been hurt in an explosion and is probably going into shock,” Patrick radioed back. “The police are on their way. Send an ambulance right now.” Patrick terminated the call and turned to the now unconscious child. He had to try to give her first aid until the medics got there.

Suddenly Patrick heard a cry, “You bastard! Get out!” and something hit his helmet. A half-naked woman was standing at the end of the hall, clutching an aluminum softball bat. He couldn’t guess her age-she might have been young and maybe even pretty, but the drugs had left her ravaged face seamed, gaunt, and covered with sores, and her hair hung thin and lifeless. “Fucking cops! Leave us alone!” she shouted, and swung the bat again. Patrick let it bounce harmlessly off his right shoulder.

“Is this your daughter?” he asked. “Is this your child?”

“Fuck you!”

“How can you let your own child live in a place like this?” Patrick shouted at her. “How can you let her sleep in a room where you cook drugs?”

“You want her, you take her!” the woman yelled. “She does nothing but cry and throw up all day anyway! Just get the hell out!” She moved in closer to take another swat at him, and Patrick swung his left shoulder and hit her square in the face. She bounced off him as if she had been hit by a truck, screamed, scrambled to her feet clutching a bloody broken nose, and retreated back into the bedroom.

Patrick carried the unconscious child to the living room. He found some clothes piled in a corner and tucked them around the frail little body as best he could. Her breathing seemed normal, thank God-maybe it was fright that had knocked her out and she wasn’t going into shock. He hunted for pillows to cradle her head…

“Sacramento Police Department! Freeze!” Patrick turned around. Two guys in jeans, sneakers, and jackets stood in the shattered doorway, aiming automatics at him.

“Do as he says, mister,” said another voice. Two more cops, these in uniform, were taking cover behind the door leading to the kitchen.

Patrick faced them, hands along his side but palms facing outward to show they were empty. “The child’s hurt,” he said. “I’ve called an ambulance. Someone get a first-aid kit.”

“I said, stand still and get your hands up where I can see them,” the first cop ordered.

“I’m unarmed. I’m trying to help this child. She was caught in the explosion…”

“Turn around, face the wall, with your hands up and your feet spread. Do it! Now!”

Patrick felt as if he was in a daze. He turned and faced the wall. Despite his anger at the guys like Chandler and Barona, obeying the police was in his blood. He’d been taught from childhood to cooperate with them, do everything they told him. They were doing an important job. They were there to help the innocent…

“One dead over here,” one of the uniformed cops called out, waving a flashlight. He must have found the dead biker in the kitchen. “Multiple gunshots and knife wounds.”

One of the plainclothes cops saw the blood on Patrick’s body. “Did you kill him?” he asked.

“No,” Patrick replied. “There was a man here before me, a guy that looked like a soldier or commando, speaking German. There’s a woman in the back bedroom too. I don’t know how many more are back there.”

“We’ll check it out.” The two uniformed officers headed toward the bedrooms with guns drawn, and the first plain-clothes cop asked, “Did you plant a bomb in that doorway to blow that door open?”

“Yes.”

“You’re under arrest. You have the right to remain silent.”

“You had this place under surveillance,” Patrick said angrily. “Why didn’t you raid it? Why were you just sitting out there?”

“How do you know we had it under surveillance?”

Patrick looked at the cops. “You saw a drug deal go down right in front of you, and you…”

“Face the wall!” the cop yelled, pushing Patrick’s helmeted head hard against the wall.

“That’s him!” they heard. It was the woman, her nose still bleeding, being led out of the back room, handcuffed and with a blanket over her shoulders. “That’s the cop that beat me up and tried to rape me! When I fought back, he took my daughter and said he was going to kill her!”

When she reached the living room, she caught sight of the man lying on the kitchen floor. She screamed. “Oh God, that’s my husband! He killed my husband! That murdering bastard, he killed my man!”

“Don’t worry, lady,” said one of the uniformed officers. “We’ve got him. He’s under arrest.”

One of the cops grabbed Patrick’s left wrist and twisted it down and back. Patrick tried to fight back, and realized that, like the knife attack, the BERP suit couldn’t resist a gradual application of force. As long as the force wasn’t sharp or powerful, it would not activate.

“Relax your arm, pal,” the cop ordered. “Don’t resist or we might have to hurt you.” Another cop pushed his fingers under Patrick’s jaw, pressing the nerve. The sharp pain made him see stars. Another tried unsuccessfully to kick the backs of his knees to get him down, which would give them more leverage. He realized they were easily overpowering him, and in a moment they’d have the handcuffs on him.

“Don’t touch me,” Patrick said, fighting to keep his voice steady and his emotions under control. “I don’t want to hurt you. I’ll come along peacefully, but don’t try to hurt me.”

“Then stop resisting and put your hands behind your back,” an officer ordered.

“You don’t need handcuffs on me!” Patrick shouted. “I’ll come along peacefully. Let me loose!” They almost had him-one man was on each arm, and he was tiring quickly.

“That’s not how it works, buddy. The handcuffs are for our protection. We’ll take ‘em off as soon as we’re sure you’ll cooperate with us. They won’t be on long, and they won’t hurt as long as you don’t try to resist. Relax, bud. We put cuffs on everyone. It’s routine. Don’t panic over it. Before you know it it’ll be over with. No one wants to get hurt…”

“Then let me go and I’ll do whatever you-”

“Dump him!” someone shouted. Pepper spray hit the front of his helmet. The environmental system only allowed a whiff of it to enter the helmet, but the irritation muddled his thinking. He was scared. All four cops were on top of him now, dragging him backward. He landed flat on his back with a hard thump. A forearm was pressed against his throat, a knee was shoved in his groin, and they were trying to pull the helmet off…

… and when Patrick hit the floor, the electrical surges that had been quiescent for the past several minutes shot back with full force. Patrick screamed, a deep-throated, electronically amplified howl. The uniformed cop with his knee in Patrick’s groin got an armored knee to his midriff and was saved from a broken left rib cage only by his Kevlar bulletproof vest. He cried out but kept on fighting until the second knee crashed in. The two plainclothes cops had hold of Patrick’s arms, pinning them down with the full weight of their bodies so he couldn’t move-but his head was free. Using his legs for leverage, he head-butted one cop, then the other. Blood spattered, but they held firm until Patrick was able to work his right hand free. That was enough-a simple swat at one of their faces made the guy feel as though he’d been hit with an iron skillet. The last cop landed a couple of blows to Patrick’s head and rammed his knees into his rib cage, but every blow was like hitting a brick wall, and he finally let go of his prisoner. Both he and Patrick rolled to their feet.

The cop drew his sidearm and aimed it at Patrick. “Freeze, asshole!” he shouted. “Don’t move!”

Patrick held up his hands again. He did another system self-test and noticed he now had a problem. Power was discharging more quickly now-the levels were down to one hour remaining, and it had only been minutes since he checked it last. There was no way of telling if the suit would protect him against more gunshots. Time to get out of here.

“All right, listen,” Patrick said. “I am telling you guys the truth. I am on your side. I blew the door in and came in here because I knew you were doing a surveillance on the place but couldn’t enter unless you had probable cause or saw a crime actually take place. I’m not going to hurt you unless you try to arrest me.”

“All right, all right, we won’t touch you,” one of the plainclothes cops said. He still had his gun drawn, but held out his left hand as a sign of good faith. “If you say you’re on our side, that’s good. We won’t try to hurt you either. Just answer a few questions for us, how about that? I gotta remind you that you have the right to remain silent, the right to an attorney, and the right not to answer questions unless your attorney’s present. Do you understand what I’ve just said?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” the cop said. “There’s no reason why anyone has to get hurt. We’re just doing our jobs. If you’re innocent, if it was justifiable, everything will be fine here. But you gotta cooperate with us. Why don’t you start by taking off the helmet?”

“The hell I will,” said Patrick. “You’re trying to delay me until more backup units arrive.” He scanned the police channels accessible through the new VHF system in his helmet comm system. “Two units, the sergeant, and a fire unit are on the way now. I’ll be long gone before then…”

“Don’t you try to leave, buddy,” the cop said. “You’re a murder suspect. You look like you’re carrying a weapon in that backpack, and you hit one of my officers and almost knocked him cold, so you’ve got a weapon hidden on you. If you try to run, we can shoot to stop you. We’ll kill you if we have to, but we don’t want to do that. Just stay put. Don’t move.”

Patrick made another systems check: power down to forty minutes remaining, much less than he hoped for but still plenty to get him out of this. “I’ll tell you once more,” he said. “I’m not your enemy. Don’t fight me. These guys who set off all the explosions all over the state are the enemies, not me. We need to work together.”

“Don’t move,” the cop warned again. “You’re under arrest. Don’t move or I’ll shoot!”

He had to get out of there before the reinforcements arrived. He fired his boot thrusters, aiming for the shattered front door. Gunshots-this time hitting on his right shoulder, each impact like an electric cattle-prod to his head and his heart. He hit the broken right side of the door and spun around, landing hard just outside.

A small crowd had collected outside the house. A woman screamed. “Police!” he heard behind him from inside the house. “Everyone, clear the street! You! Freeze! Hold it right there!” And in front of him, no more than fifteen feet away, was another uniformed cop, crouching behind his open squad-car door, lights flashing, headlights dead on him. Patrick dodged left to go around the car. The officer fired two shots. The crowd cried out in horror when Patrick went down, but that was a whisper compared to the reaction when he got back up on his feet.

Warning advisories flashed in the heads-up display inside his helmet. My God! he realized, he was on emergency power. The emergency power setting was for emergencies only-for escaping and surviving, not doing battle. The system was supposed to provide an hour of reserve power, a warning to recharge or leave the battlefield, before reaching into emergency power. He’d never received a reserve power warning, or else it had drained right through that level with one gunshot. His power indicators said he had another thirty minutes of emergency power remaining, but at the rate it was draining with every shot, he knew it would only last a few more minutes.

“Freeze!” called the uniformed cop who had just shot him. “Get down on the ground! Get down now or I’ll shoot!”

There was a sudden soft whoosh! and a short blast of compressed air-and Patrick vanished.

“There he is!” someone shouted. Everyone turned. He had reappeared next to a fire truck responding to the scene almost a half-block away. He got up, turned, ran down Sixty-fifth Street, then disappeared again. Police vehicles gave chase, together with a responding sheriffs-department air unit, but it was no use. The suspect had disappeared.

Santo Porte, California

that same time

“It appears you were correct, Colonel,” Reingruber said as Gregory Townsend rushed into the command center at the hideout in the Sierra Nevada foothills near Santo Porte after being awakened by his excited deputy. “We are receiving news reports from Sacramento about some invasion-style assaults on drug houses and Satan’s Brotherhood locations in the city.”

“Is it any of our men?” Townsend asked. “Are your men accounted for, Major?”

“Ja, Herr Oberst,” Reingruber replied. “All of my strike teams reported in and are returning. It is not any of my men.”

“Any indication on who’s behind these attacks?” Towns-end asked as he sat down in front of the bank of television sets. “Is it the Mexican drug gangs? Rival biker gangs?”

“There are no specific reports, sir,” Reingruber replied. “Reports of a few bikers injured, one casualty. Indications are that police had brief gunfights with the intruders, but there were no reports of arrests. However, one team reported contact with a lone, strangely outfitted unidentified police officer or military security officer. One of my men was seriously injured in a scuffle with him.”

“Was he a National Guard soldier?” Townsend asked. “A police SWAT officer?”

“He could not verify exactly who it was, sir,” Reingruber said. “He did manage to wound him, but he reports that the unidentified man’s uniform had some unusual characteristics. In addition, reports we have heard on police frequencies indicate that this was the same figure involved in the invasion-style attacks, and that the outfit the unidentified officer was wearing is like full-body bullet-resistant armor.”

Townsend was intrigued. “A new military technology, in use by National Guard troops but deployed on the street in a civil mission?” he mused. “I must get as many details as possible on this armor. Where are your men who encountered this man?”

“It will be several hours before the teams return, Herr Oberst. They are executing full evasion procedures in enemy territory.”

“I want to talk with that team as soon as it arrives,” Townsend said. He thought for a moment. “This is a good sign. I see frustrated and maybe even fearful police, perhaps rival gangs trying to move in on the drug trade in the city or vigilantes or militia taking to the streets, and angry citizens demanding that something be done. It is beginning to look as though the city is starting to rip itself apart, Major. Any reports from the target area?”

“Still normal activity, sir,” Reingruber replied. “Departure appears to be within the week.”

“They will soon have no choice but to accelerate their departure,” Townsend said. “It will happen in the next few days. Get your men ready to move.”

Patrick McLanahan was hiding between two Dumpsters behind a minimall just off Stockton Boulevard when Jon Masters pulled up in the Hummer. He had driven there when he noticed on the satellite tracking system that Patrick had not moved in several minutes. Patrick unfastened his helmet, then slid into the backseat. “How did it go?” Jon asked. Patrick did not reply. “The tracking device in the suit worked perfectly. I had a map of your every move. The undegraded GPS signals pinpointed you within six feet.” Still no response. “Lots of police around,” Jon added. “I thought we’d head the opposite way, east, toward Florin-Perkins Road.”

“Just get us out of here,” Patrick said.

“Patrick, there are police everywhere…”

“I’ve been monitoring the police frequency,” Patrick said. “The police are setting up a perimeter in the Rosalee subdivision between Stockton Boulevard and Sixty-fifth Street. Head west on Thirty-seventh Avenue and we should miss the outer-perimeter roadblocks on Stockton Boulevard and Lemon Hill Avenue.” Patrick was filled with a burning rage. “Man, I knew Sacramento had problems, but I never dreamed it was this bad,” he went on. “The drugs, the abuse, the violence-they’re beyond belief. It’s like a battle zone.”

“I’m just glad you’re in one piece, bro,” Masters said. “I was worried.” He went south on Stockton Boulevard. They could see a knot of headlights and blue flashing lights up ahead and guessed it was the first police roadblock. Jon made a right onto Thirty-seventh Avenue and Patrick steered him through neighborhood streets, hoping the turn hadn’t attracted attention. Before long they were safely headed northbound toward downtown Sacramento. “How did it go, Patrick?” Jon repeated. “Why didn’t you rendezvous with me?”

Patrick started the generator in the back of the Hummer, then retrieved the power cord from the generator and plugged it in. But the backpack power unit was not charging, and the environmental system was completely shut down. “The suit’s damaged,” he replied. “A knife cut it. I lost the environmental control system and power drained out at three to four times the normal rate. I was lucky to get out of there.” Patrick took a deep breath and leaned back against the headrest. “I think I hurt a little girl too,” he said.

“What? Oh no, Patrick! Christ-how did it happen?”

“The bomb,” Patrick explained. “The bomb I used to bust open the front door destroyed part of the bathroom where the little girl was.”

“They had a child in there, where they sell and make drugs? How badly was she hurt? Did you call an ambulance?”

“Yes,” Patrick responded. “She was bleeding, a little shocky-but she screamed pure holy terror when she saw me.” Jon was relieved; a child’s death would have been unendurable. “Jon, you should have seen that house. It was filthy. The child, she was sleeping in a bedroom that they used to make drugs. I could smell the chemicals. She was sleeping on garbage, eating leftovers off the floor, breathing fumes that would’ve knocked out an adult. It was horrible…”

“Patrick, it’s all right,” Masters said. “For all you know, you might have saved her life by doing that raid. You didn’t put a child in harm’s way. They did.” He paused, unsure whether to ask Patrick what he wanted to know; then: “What happened with the suit? How was it damaged?”

“It was a knife attack,” Patrick replied. “I was struggling with this guy who looked like a commando, complete with face mask, combat harness, the works. He pulled a knife. I grabbed his arm, but I couldn’t stop him, he was too strong. The blade touched the suit and just went right on through. Power levels dropped off sharply after that, but the system remained intact. But I also discovered that the cops could wrestle with me and win. Any slow action and the suit couldn’t activate. I barely got out of there without being handcuffed.”

“It must be the nature of the BERP process,” Jon surmised. “We never tested the system with a soft or slowly penetrating force, only a sharp impact. The same characteristic of the suit that allows you to move freely means that a slowly penetrating force won’t activate the electro-reactive collimation.”

“So a bomb blast won’t kill me,” Patrick said, “but a knitting needle pushed in slowly will go through my heart with ease?”

“We should be able to fix that,” Jon said, cringing at the image. “We might be able to have you selectively harden sections of the suit. What about the power levels?”

“Dropped way down after the cut in the suit,” Patrick said again, “especially after being hit repeatedly.”

“Hit?”

“Hit… as in shot,” Patrick said.

Jon’s gulp was audible. “How many times were you shot, Patrick?”

Patrick took a moment to count. “About a dozen times in the space of six minutes. Plus I got hit by a baseball bat a couple of times and bitten by a pit bull-I nearly killed it too.” He said all this so matter-of-factly, Jon noticed, that he could have been a piece of stone relating what had happened.

“So we need to bump up the power reserves a bit, and reprogram the power-monitoring logarithms,” Masters said. “We still haven’t cured those discharges inside the suit, have we?” No reply. “Patrick, are you sure you’re okay?”

Patrick’s tone changed a bit as he went on: “You know what I did, Jon? When I planted that charge by the door, I didn’t take cover. I just stood there and let it rip. It was almost as if I was thinking, If this bomb kills me, fine. If I survive, fine, I’ll do this mission. I survived. I don’t know why I did that. Maybe I thought it was like a test or something, a validation, proof that what I was doing was the right thing.” Patrick was quiet for a long moment, but Jon could actually feel the tension, the rage building in the backseat. “Those sonofabitches,” Patrick went on in a low, angry voice. “They kill, they terrorize, they poison others, they abuse their children-I want to kill every last one of them!”

Then he added, “I got some information on where the Major might be hiding. There was a German-speaking commando already inside that house when I arrived. I think he was there to take out the surviving Satan’s Brotherhood members. Another biker gave me information on a hideout in Wilton. I want to go there. Tonight. Right now.”

“Patrick, you can’t and you know it,” Jon said. “The reason we were successful today is because we did pretty good intelligence work and planning. We don’t have another target planned right now. You have some initial intel on a potential target. Fine. Let’s build on that. But now is not the time to do it. Your suit is damaged, it’s not taking a charge, and there are cops and National Guard troops everywhere. The only reason we haven’t been bothered so far is because there are already so many Hummers on the streets right now that we blend in.”

Patrick thought for a long moment. “You’re right,” he said at last. “And we’ve got to get the cops involved in this too. I realize I’m fighting the cops even more than I’m fighting the bad guys. That’s no good. Let’s get the suit fixed, and then we’ll plan our next move.”

Special Investigations Division Headquarters,

Bercut Drive, Sacramento, California

a short time later

“What in the hell is going on?” Arthur Barona thundered as he strode into Tom Chandler’s office at Special Investigations Division headquarters. His suit was rumpled; he had clearly dressed in a hurry. Chandler was on the phone, trying to listen to the information being passed to him and to the bellowing chief of police at the same time. “I just got tossed out of bed by the damned mayor himself,” Barona went on. “He’s been getting calls about a rogue Narcotics cop killing civilians and busting up people’s homes and businesses? I want answers, and I want them now!” He stormed out of the office to the conference room across the hall.

Chandler put the phone down and went to join Barona. “That was Deputy Chief Ohrman, Chief,” he said. “He’s ordered Homicide to take over the investigation.”

“What in hell is going on?” Barona repeated. “Reports of an officer in body armor and full riot gear blowing up somebody’s home, killing the occupant and nearly killing a youngster? Another cop in riot gear breaking into the Bobby John Club, nearly killing three patrons? Cops not trying to apprehend the suspect as he flees on foot?…”

“That’s inaccurate information, Chief,” Chandler said. He started from the beginning, detailing the two incidents of the strange invader in body armor who appeared to be rushing around the city in a Hummer going after drug dealers and biker-gang members. “That’s all we know right now,” he ended.

“What about this Hummer?”

“A witness reported the suspect getting into a Hummer on Arden Way shortly after the Bobby John Club incident.”

“Arden? That’s several blocks from Del Paso Boulevard.”

“The guy moves fast,” Chandler said. “He’s got some kind of jet thing in his boots that lets him jump…”

“Or there’s more than one of them,” the chief said. “It’s not any of your men, is it?”

“I’ve started a telephone recall of the entire division and ordered Property to do a full inventory of our property rooms,” Chandler replied. “I don’t think it’s any of my men, but I’m going to do a full accounting just in case. Every man has to account for his whereabouts tonight. But I can tell you, it’s not any of them.”

“What about you?” Barona asked. “Where have you been tonight?”

“At home with my wife, Chief,” Chandler replied irritably. That wasn’t entirely accurate-until about eleven-thirty, he was with a woman friend up near Folsom Lake. But his wife would vouch for him if anyone bothered to check. She was accustomed to putting up with his antics. “Yeah, DC Ohrman thinks I was the guy, as if I’ve got nothing better to do these days than to run around in tights busting heads. That’s bullshit. I was home.”

“All right, Tom, all right,” Barona said. “What else? What about the witnesses?”

“Witnesses and officers on the scene describe an individual, probably male, five eight or five nine, medium build, wearing what appeared to be a dark gray tight-fitting outfit similar to a wetsuit, stiff but flexible; a strange high-tech-looking helmet that altered and amplified the suspect’s voice; and a thin backpack, similar in size and shape to a sport-jumping parachute but thinner,” Chandler answered, checking his notes. He paused, then added, “Our officers at both the Del Paso Heights and Elder Creek scenes report that the outfit worn by the suspect was probably some sort of new lightweight body armor. Several officers reported discharging their weapons at the suspect and hitting him, but the suspect appeared unhurt or only slightly injured.”

The chief asked something, but Chandler’s mind had drifted off momentarily. High-tech, high-tech… it reminded him of a conversation he’d had with someone not too long ago. Who was it? Chandler couldn’t remember…

“Chandler! What about weapons?”

Chandler shook himself from his reverie. “No weapons reported, Chief, except my surveillance officers said the suspect planted a satchel charge at the door of a known meth house in the Rosalee section of Elder Creek that was under surveillance at the time.”

“So what it looks like is that we have a vigilante or some well-equipped militia type with explosives roaming the streets,” said Barona, “taking out the last of the Satan’s Brotherhood with more explosives-this time delivered in person by a soldier in body armor. Sounds like whoever booby-trapped those drug machines is looking to finish the job by picking off the survivors one by one.”

“Looks that way to me too, Chief,” Chandler said absently. He was still trying to tease out that memory. Revenge… high-tech… soldier… what in hell was it?

“And the DC is turning this over to Homicide?” Chandler nodded. He couldn’t tell whether Barona was perturbed by this news or not. “Okay, but I still want you working with them. I want to know the results of your division internal investigation too. We might have to do the entire department. We’ve got to make sure this wasn’t a rogue cop.”

“I can guarantee it wasn’t,” Chandler said. “And if it was a cop, he’s a pretty stupid, sloppy one-he’ll get caught soon enough.”

“Better make that happen, Chandler,” Barona said. “Find him and throw his ass in jail. Whoever this guy is, I want him hung out to dry.”

Good for you, Chief, Chandler said to himself as Barona stalked out. You bust my hump even though I’ve been taken off the case-and you’ll proudly take all the credit for busting the guy if you have the chance.

Chandler looked over the notes of his conversations with his surveillance teams. It seemed incredible-too incredible to tell the chief: a guy who seemed invulnerable to bullets. A guy who had an outfit that moved like nylon but could instantly harden into a suit of armor, A guy who could leap fifty feet away and twenty feet up. It was a vigilante or militiaman, all right-but a vigilante unlike anyone ever seen before. Either this was some kind of joke, a ploy by his officers in the field to cover for the work of a vigilante or militia group, or it was a science-fiction movie come true.

And if it was true, this guy could be the ultimate police officer, the ultimate weapon in the hands of law enforcement-or the ultimate nightmare for them.

Swan Creek Road,

Granite Bay, California

Wednesday, 25 March 1998, 0213 PT

Women. Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em-can’t shoot ‘em.

After all the shit that happened in the past couple of months, Tom Chandler thought, and just when it seemed as if he’d be able to come up for air-hell, now Kay wanted a commitment from him, wanted to stop sneaking around, wanted him to divorce his wife. Shit.

He had come to his girlfriend’s house to get away from the craziness and relax. Some welcome. They had a good thing going here. Why’d Kay want to screw it up by wanting a commitment? Of course, that still didn’t stop them from dropping down and doing it doggie-style right on the living room floor, but Chandler was glad to get the hell out.

It was a long, dark drive from Kay’s place overlooking Folsom Lake to Douglas Boulevard, which would take him back toward the interstate and home. The heavy runoff from the deep snows in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, combined with nearly forty straight days of rain, filled Folsom Lake, a one-million-acre man-made reservoir thirty miles east of Sacramento, almost to capacity. They were releasing water from four of the eight big steel gates on the dam, but the water level in the lake was still rising. It was an annual balancing act for water officials in this area: measure releases from the dam to keep the reservoir full to supply the fast-growing Sacramento Valley with water through the upcoming long, dry summer; release enough water to keep the forty-year-old dam from rupturing; but don’t release so much as to cause flooding down the American River and inundate the city of Sacramento. State and federal water officials were not always successful keeping all three properly balanced.

Folsom Lake had always been special for Chandler. As a kid, he used to skip school, ride his bike more than twenty miles, and hang out at the lake, trying to stay one step ahead of the truant officers. He lost his virginity at Folsom Lake; he met his first two wives at Folsom Lake. It could look like a raging ocean, as it did now; in four months it could look like a desert wadi with a little stream running down the middle, as it did the year one of the gates on the dam broke and three-quarters of the lake spilled out. It didn’t matter to Tom Chandler-he would always be drawn to it.

Chandler was on a shoulderless, unlit road just west of the lake when he heard a loud bang, felt his steering wheel jerk to the right, and heard the sickening flopflopflop of a flat tire. Shit! He hadn’t changed a flat tire in forever, but it would take at least half an hour for a wrecker to get out here. It was a department vehicle and the city would pay for the call, but he didn’t want anyone to find out he was taking a city car out to his girlfriend’s house. Still swearing, he pulled off to the side of the road, stopped the car, got a Stinger flashlight from his glove compartment, and got out to inspect the damage.

He had just stooped down to look at the flat when he was clubbed over the head with a thick rubber baton. He did not lose consciousness, but he saw stars and he couldn’t make his hands and feet work right. As he tried to cover up his sidearm, someone pinned his hands behind his back and the gun was snatched out of his holster. Then gloved hands dragged him off the road into the low brush and sand dunes, and dropped him facedown. A boot pressed down on the back of his neck.

“Good evening, Captain Chandler,” said a cheerful British voice.

“Who the hell are you?” Chandler shouted. “I’m a fucking cop! Get off me!”

“Who I am is irrelevant and unimportant, Captain Chandler,” the voice said. “What I am is your salvation.”

“My what?”

“Your salvation,” the voice repeated. “I am here to help all your problems go away. Stop struggling and I will be happy to explain. Continue to resist, and I will be forced to end your police career-not to mention your life-sooner than I’m sure you desire.” Chandler realized he had no choice: No one except Kay knew where he was, and she wouldn’t try to contact him for at least a day. His wife didn’t really care if he was dead or alive. He stopped trying to free himself.

“Thank you so much,” said the Brit, and the boot lifted off his neck. Chandler sat up in the damp sand. There was a figure standing in front of him, but a flashlight was shining in his face, blocking out the man’s features.

“I must say, Captain, you are a nasty man,” the Brit said with mock disapproval. “I don’t mean to sound judgmental, but you do seem to be letting your vices get the better of you. Although I truly believe that the true measure of any man is evident in his appetites, it seems you are allowing your appetites to destroy you.”

“I never got slugged in the head by that little voice on my shoulder before,” Chandler said sardonically.

“Indeed,” the Brit replied, all humor gone. “After some extremely cursory inquiries, I find you are several thousand dollars in debt; you owe several thousand dollars more to a variety of loan sharks and bookies; and you just cannot seem to-how shall I put it?-keep it zipped up.”

“Who the hell are you? The morality police? The church’s strike force?”

“I am the man who can make your problems go away, at least in part,” the Brit said. “What you do with your zipper is up to you. But your gambling debts can disappear tonight.”

“And what do I have to do for you?”

“A simple matter-information. Everything you have on the strange costumed man who has been running about this city. Everything you have on the suit he wears. I understand that suit has certain special properties that are of great interest to me.”

“I don’t know squat about a suit,” Chandler said, “and whoever told you about ‘certain special properties’ has been yanking your chain.”

The rubber baton came down on the back of his head again, not as hard as before but enough to make him cry out. “Stop being flippant, Captain, or I’ll terminate this offer to you right now, permanently,” the Brit said angrily. “I’ve monitored the police radio reports. Your men said this individual jumped twenty feet in the air and almost a half a city block in one leap. Your reports said not only was he bulletproof, but that his suit was like solid metal armor one moment and then like ordinary fabric the next. This is not conventional body armor. Whatever it is, Captain, I want it.”

“Hey, asshole, I’m not in charge of the case-it’s been turned over to Homicide,” Chandler said. “But listen, maybe we can trade some information. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about any German-speaking terrorists in this area, would you? Maybe one called the Major?”

The rubber baton was pressed around his neck so hard that he thought his windpipe would crack. “I am offering you help with your financial problems, Captain-I’m not interested in becoming your snitch,” the Brit said, coming closer. “I have made you a very generous offer. Cooperate with me, and you’ll live to gamble, screw, and piss your career away as you choose. Cross me, and I’ll see to it that you witness the deaths of your wife and your girlfriends before you die yourself. I’m not precisely sure what it is in your pitiful life that you value the most, but I assure you I’m very good at finding out and taking it away from you in a very gruesome manner. When I next get in touch with you, sir, you had better have some information for me, or it will all end for you.”

The choke hold let up just before Chandler thought he was going to pass out from lack of oxygen. He collapsed on the sand, trying not to panic as he took a long, thin breath through his constricted throat.

At least now I’ve got a good excuse why I’m late getting home, he thought to himself.

Research and Development Facility,

Sacramento-Mather Jetport,

Rancho Cordova, California

Friday, 27 March 1998, 0052 FT

Sacramento-Mather Jetport has two runways, one eleven thousand feet in length, the other six thousand, both one hundred and fifty feet wide. The old Strategic Air Command alert-aircraft “Christmas tree” parking area-so named because from the air it somewhat resembled a tree-was only two thousand feet long from the end of the ramp to where the throat of the taxiway joined Runway 22 Left. It wasn’t even a proper runway, because there was a steep drop from the alert ramp down to the runway. But it was more than adequate for this particular aircraft.

Its nickname was Skywalker. Carried in three sections on board one of Sky Masters, Inc.’s transport aircraft from the company’s production facility in Arkansas, together with its self-contained control module, it was delivered to Mather Jetport and reassembled by two men inside one of the hangars at the research and development facility Sky Masters had leased. Skywalker resembled a manta ray, with long, thin, tapered forward-swept wings and a large oblong fuselage. Its skin was fibersteel, a composite material stronger than steel but non-radar-reflective, so it was invisible to radar. It had two small, efficient propjet engines and enough fuel to fly for several hours.

Skywalker’s other nickname was HEARSE, which stood for High Endurance Aerial Reconnaissance and Surveillance Equipment. It carried almost half a ton of sophisticated all-weather sensors and communications equipment. It could photograph an object the size of a rabbit from thousands of feet in the air in any weather, and beam the pictures in real time to a ground station or command aircraft.

Under cover of darkness and a light springtime drizzle, Skywalker’s engines were started up and it was taxied to the end of the alert parking ramp. A push of a button activated its preprogrammed flight plan and it zoomed down the parking ramp, airborne before it reached the end of the throat. It made a steep left turn away from the buildings over the airport and continued its climb southwestbound. The aircraft had a small transmitter, similar to a light plane’s transponder, that would send out a “ 1200” code to allow air traffic controllers to “see” it and help any aircraft flying in the area avoid it. To anyone on the ground, however, the plane was invisible.

This was Skywalker’s third flight since arriving at Mather Jetport earlier in the week. In its first six-hour flight alone, it had photographed the majority of south Sacramento County, about six hundred square miles. The second flight was used to pinpoint specific locations and to provide comparison photographs that would show activity at any of the targeted locations.

This third flight was not designed for reconnaissance-it was designed for surveillance. The target had been pinpointed. Skywalker would now be used to watch over the target area as tonight’s mission got under way.

Special Investigations Division Headquarters,

Bercut Drive, Sacramento, California

the same time

The side door rattled, clunked awkwardly, then closed. It sounded as though yet another surveillance team was coming in to do its debrief before heading home. Tom Chandler thought he’d sit in on the debrief, show the troops that the old man was still on the job, then go home and get some rack time before beginning the shit all over again in about six hours. Just as he was getting up there was a knock on his door. “Come.”

The door swung open. Chandler nearly jumped out of his skin. There, standing before him, was the guy. The vigilante. The… whoever it was. It was him. He fit the description provided by Chandler’s Narcotics officers exactly: dark gray outfit resembling a wetsuit, full-face high-tech helmet, backpack, the works.

He entered the office and closed the door behind him. Chandler drew his SIG Sauer P226 automatic from his shoulder holster and aimed it at the apparition. Neither spoke for a moment. Then Chandler said, “Well, well, if it isn’t the Tin Man. You know, that’s what the guys in my division are calling you now. We’ve been looking for you. Who the hell are you?”

“A friend,” the intruder replied in an electronically altered voice.

“What do you want?”

“To give you information.”

Chandler blinked in surprise, but kept the gun level. “Why the outfit? Why the disguise?”

“A German-speaking commando was at the Rosalee drug house last week,” the guy said, ignoring Chandler’s question. “He was the one who murdered the biker, not me. And a biker at the Bobby John Club told me that Mullins was hired by a German-speaking gang to help in the Sacramento Live! robbery. Those two guys with the broken legs that you let go-they were Germans. That’s the tie-in you were looking for…”

But Chandler wasn’t interested in the Tin Man’s theories. “You’re under arrest, bub,” he said. “You’re wanted for the murder of that biker, plus attempted murder of my police officers and a couple of civilians, for breaking and entering, assault, battery, malicious mayhem, and trespassing.”

“I won’t allow you to arrest me,” the guy said matter-of-factly. “Your officers tried. You can shoot me if you like. It won’t hurt me. But as I told your officers: I didn’t kill that sonofabitch biker. Although after I saw what kind of conditions he kept that kid in, I wish I had.”

“Is that so?” Chandler asked. “Listen, mister, you can tell all that to the judge. You’re under arrest. Turn and face the wall, hands behind your back.”

“Chandler, you will not be able to arrest me,” the Tin Man said. “I’m telling you the truth. I don’t want to fight you-I’m trying to assist you. I’ll do anything I need to do to prove I’m on your side. But you can’t arrest me.”

“Bullshit,” Chandler said, holstering his weapon. “My guys told me you can be had.” He reached out and grabbed the guy’s right wrist with a come-along hold. He had been practicing various holds just in case he ever encountered him.

But the guy simply reached over with his left hand and, as though he were swatting a mosquito, smacked Chandler’s hand. It was only a tap, but it felt as though the hand had been sandwiched between the bumpers of two crashing cars. He jerked it away in pain. “Motherfucker!” He drew the gun and aimed it again, stepping back so the guy couldn’t reach it. “No more shitting around, asshole! Turn around, hands behind your back!”

“Don’t waste your bullets, Chandler,” the Tin Man said. He picked up a letter opener from the desk, held it in both hands, and plunged it into his chest. The blade bent, then snapped. He picked up a silver pen and jabbed it into his arm, and it broke in two. “You tell me when you’re convinced you won’t be able to hurt me, Chandler,” the guy said.

“All right, all right!” Chandler said. “Don’t wreck everything on my desk.” He started running through the suspect identification and memorization checklist in his head: height, weight, build, age, voice, other distinguishing characteristics. The guy sounded white, male, maybe late thirties, but it was almost impossible to tell much with the electronically altered voice. The suit might have increased his height and weight, so maybe five seven to five eight and medium build. Keep him here until help arrives…

“Now what, big shot? Are you going to break my head and my shoulder bones like you did those bikers’?”

“No,” the Tin Man said. “I came here to deliver my information, and to tell you I’m going after the ones responsible for the violence in this city. I can do it without your help, but I prefer to work with you.”

“Who are you to think you’re the one to take this on? What makes your information worth anything? Because you wear this high-tech wetsuit and bust some bad guys’ heads?”

“You don’t have to believe me,” the guy said. “I’m just informing you of what I’m going to do. We can work together on it. You give me the information I’m looking for, and I’ll do what I have to do, what the Constitution prohibits you from doing.”

“I’ve got a newsflash for you, bub,” Chandler said, praying that one of his patrols showed up soon. “The Constitution prohibits you from doing it too. It’s called breaking the law. You do this, and you’ll be just as much a dirtbag as the bums you’re going after.”

“Except the real dirtbags will be off the street, and I’ll go home and stay out of the way,” the intruder said.

“The problem with you vigilantes is that you never go home,” Chandler said. “The rush you get by breaking heads stays with you, and soon you spin out of control. You think you can just take the law into your own hands like this? What gives you the right to break into people’s homes and businesses and tear them up?”

“I don’t care if you or anyone else thinks it’s right or wrong, Chandler,” the intruder said. “I’ve got the power to do it. Are we going to work together, or will you just hear about it on the radio and pick up the pieces afterward?”

“Work together? What the hell do you mean, work together?” Chandler asked. He lowered the gun but kept it in his hand. “How the hell can you see me working with you? And if I did, who’s your first target, hotshot?”

“One of the bikers said Mullins was going to report to a ranch in Wilton,” the intruder said. “I think that’s where we’ll find the German terrorists. I’m looking for a British-sounding terrorist who may be working with them too.”

Chandler’s throat turned as dry as sand. Shit, he knows about the Brit too? Was it some incredible coincidence, or was it possible that they could be hunting the same guy? And if they were, could it be possible to join forces with this guy, the Tin Man, and maybe take on the Brit and his German terrorists together? Perhaps… but face it, this character was as much a wild card as the Brit.

“There’s only about a dozen suspected labs and possible hideouts in Wilton,” Chandler said. “You going to hit them all?”

“I was hoping you’d give me a clue.”

“We don’t have the foggiest idea,” Chandler said. That wasn’t entirely true. But surveillance was extremely difficult because the ranches were so big and the houses were so far off the road. “Besides, that’s Sacramento County, not the city. You got any targets in the city?”

“Why don’t you give me a couple?” the intruder asked.

“Because I’m not sure I want to risk losing my badge and my career to help you,” Chandler said. “Giving you information so you can go out and commit a crime is conspiracy and aiding and abetting. For all I know, this is some kind of elaborate setup.”

“You’re a little paranoid, aren’t you? I’ll go out and find my own targets. See you in the funny papers, Chandler.”

“Wait!” Chandler shouted. Shit, where were those guys?… “How can I get in contact with you?”

“Don’t call me-I’ll call you.”

Chandler followed the guy to the side door-and to his relief, saw headlights turning into the parking area. His cops were finally back.

The Tin Man saw them at the same time, heading for the main entrance. Chandler noticed that the front door had been smashed in and realized his guys saw it too. Within seconds, three of them were approaching it with their guns drawn. Two others came around to the side door. Chandler raised his weapon again. “You’re surrounded, mister. Surrender right now.”

The intruder raised his hands. “I’m unarmed,” he said through the electronic mask.

“That’s him!” one of the officers shouted. “He’s the Tin Man! That’s the guy who was at the Bobby John Club!”

“Chandler, your officers won’t be able to take me,” the Tin Man said calmly, “and if they open fire in here or try to tackle me like they did before, someone can get hurt. I’m asking you to call your officers off. I won’t hurt anyone if they leave me alone.”

“Captain, he’s a murder suspect,” one of the officers said. “He’s wanted for the murder at the Rosalee stakeout-and he put a uniform in the hospital too.”

“I know, dammit, I know!” Chandler shouted to his men. “But you saw what he can do. Do you think it’s realistic to think we can take him?”

The cops were silent. They got the point, recognized they’d need a lot more help or a lot more firepower-but they didn’t want to admit it.

“Let him go,” said Chandler.

“But Captain-”

“I said, let him go. We have no choice. Until we can figure out how to shut him off, leave him alone.”

The cops stood there and listened as the Tin Man turned to Chandler. “Thank you, Captain,” he said. “I do want to work with you, not fight you. You need to believe I’m on your side-I’ll prove it to you. Just wait. I’ll be in touch.”

Then Tin Man calmly walked outside. They watched as he ran northbound across the parking lot, leaped over the low one-story buildings, and vanished. “Christ Almighty!” said one of the shaken officers. “I’ve never seen anything like that! Who the hell is he?”

Chandler ordered his men back inside headquarters and had them write out statements detailing everything they knew or had heard about the guy they called the Tin Man. While they were at work, he slipped back into his office. Holding his broken letter opener in his hand, he dialed a tollfree voice-mail number. He had already checked it out; it was a dead phone drop, a computerized voice-mail service, paid for with cash with a PO box as the customer’s address. He dared not check further-the Brit was bound to find out.

“The subject was just here,” Chandler spoke into the digital message service. “He says he’s found one of your hideouts and he’s heading your way. I think he’s heading toward Wilton, sometime soon if not tonight. Catch him yourself if you can. And I want my money, motherfucker.”

Wilton, California

later that night

“Heading two-three-zero… area’s clear… go,” Jon radioed to Patrick on the secure VHF channel. He was in the Hummer command post, a few miles from Skywalker’s target position, watching the blip Patrick made on the screen. The terminal in the Hummer showed a composite picture of infrared and light-intensified surveillance images from the reconnaissance aircraft and the satellite tracking data Patrick was sending, and Skywalker’s live video feed was displayed on the terminal.

The Skywalker images revealed several patches of recently disturbed ground, which could be assumed to be land mines planted by the bad guys around the Wilton ranch. There had been a lot of activity there in recent days, and a variety of vehicles moving in and out of the property-much more activity than could be properly accounted for. The number of individuals varied. Weapons were all over the place, and roving patrols kept crisscrossing the property. For a ranch that had no animals, no crops, and no ranch or farm equipment evident, all this was highly suspicious.

The thruster jump was a little long, but it placed Patrick between two rings of disturbed earth. They had no way of knowing whether he had landed far enough away from whatever was under there to be safe, but the farther away, the better. Patrick scanned the area with his low-light vision sensors. He was about five hundred yards from the house, where all the activity now seemed to be. “Can’t see that roving patrol anymore,” he radioed.

“The nearest patrol is to the east, about two hundred yards,” Jon radioed back. “You’re right in between two rows of something. You should be able to clear the inner row with the next jump. Turn left, head one-eight-zero, area’s…”

Jon’s report was cut off by a burst of heavy automatic gunfire. A row of bullets ripped into the ground a few feet from where Patrick was standing. He hit his thrusters and leaped toward the ranch house just before the next bullets hit. “Shit, Jon,” Patrick radioed as he landed. “Felt like a fifty-cal that time.”

“Gunfire’s coming from a ditch bearing one-five-five, range about seventy-five yards,” Jon reported. “The gun must be hidden in a culvert or under a building.” He couldn’t see the gun or the shooter from the Skywalker images, but the blasts looked like bright sparkles, and the red-hot bullets were visible as they plowed into the earth.

Patrick turned to his left and leaped. The machine gun tried to track him in midair, so he was able to identify the location of the nest perfectly. It was hidden in a large culvert that ran across a ditch. He landed right on the road over the culvert, then started running down the road toward the house. Seconds later, a huge explosion split the night. He had left an explosive charge on the road over the culvert, blowing the concrete bridge and the machine gunners underneath it into the mud.

“Wait, Patrick!” Jon radioed. “The road!…” But he was too late. Before Patrick could make the leap toward the house, he stepped on a mine planted in the road. The explosion blew him six feet into the air, swerving around and flopping like a rag doll caught in a twister. He landed hard and awkwardly, and lay there motionless.

“Patrick! Do you read me?” Silence. Jon zoomed the Skywalker cameras in and had a clear view of Patrick lying on the ground, still not moving. Moments later, two Jeeps headed from the house across the meadow toward him. “Patrick! Two vehicles approaching! Can you hear me? Patrick!” Silence. “If you can hear me, Patrick, wake up!” Jon screamed. “They’ll be on you in thirty seconds!”

Wearing night-vision goggles, three German soldiers dismounted when they were fifty feet from where they thought Patrick lay and approached on foot. At thirty feet they deactivated their image-intensifiers so the muzzle-flash of their guns wouldn’t blind them, and fired at the intruder. Then they reactivated their night-vision optics and advanced on him-but no one was there.

A horn beeped behind them. They turned, found themselves staring into the full-bright headlights of one of the Jeeps, and ripped off their goggles in pain. One of them swore, leveled his machine pistol, and fired at the headlights. It took almost an entire clip to shoot them out.

“You missed me!” shouted an eerie electronic voice. The shooter swung his submachine gun left to track the voice.

“Nein! Nein!” came a shout-but too late. The gunman, still blinded, opened fire across the area where the voice had come from and cut down both his fellow soldiers.

Patrick checked his suit’s systems-running perfectly so far, although power levels had been cut in half after the land mine. “Down to three hours already,” he radioed.

“Thank God you’re okay,” Masters answered. “I copy that. Do you want to withdraw and get a full recharge? I can watch the area and let you know if anyone tries to escape.”

“No, let’s press on,” Patrick said. “I’ll try to conserve power every chance I get.”

Inside the ranch house, the two remaining guards heard and saw the gunfire but could not raise their comrades on the radio. “Patrouille zwei, berichten!” one of them called. “What is your status? Have you terminated the intruder? Patrol Two, report!”

“Here’s one heading back,” said the other lookout. “Patrol Three is heading back!” A Jeep was racing back across the meadow, bumping through the furrows. Then he shouted, “Wo wollen die hin?” The Jeep was headed straight for the ranch house at top speed. “It’s him! It’s the intruder! Open fire!”

The guards raked the Jeep with their submachine guns. A tire exploded and the vehicle swerved momentarily, then kept on its collision course. One of the guards leveled an antitank rocket launcher at it. It exploded, flipped over, and hit one of the outbuildings near the house.

“Where is he?” There was no sign of life in the vehicle and a quick survey of the house and grounds showed they were clear as well. “We’d better radio the lieutenant,” said one of the guards as he removed the spent magazine and retrieved a fresh one from his ammo pouch. At that moment a helmeted figure flew at them, body-tackling them like a rocket-powered battering ram. In seconds they were disarmed by hammering blows that felt like steel batons, cracking fingers and wrists.

“Wo ist der Major?” the intruder demanded. “Wo ist der Englдnder?”

“Go to hell!”

Patrick heard Jon Masters’s voice through his radio. “Hey, I’ve got several vehicles heading this way, heading east on Grant Line, moving fast! How’s it coming?”

“These guys aren’t talking,” Patrick radioed back. “There’re a lot of weapons here, including a rocket launcher-I’ll bet they match some of those used in the Sacramento Live! shootout. Can you reach the sheriff’s department?”

“Already called,” Jon reported. “I’m going to change position, get farther to the west away from these newcomers. Let me know if you find anything. I’ll signal you when you’ll have visitors.”

Patrick secured the guards with nylon handcuffs and began to search the ranch area. He hit pay dirt right away. “Jon, I got something,” he radioed. “The barn is full of chemicals. Barrels of it. Ether, acetone, thionyl chloride, phosphorous-3-iodide-oh shit, tanks of hydrogen gas, enough to blow half the county sky-high. You better warn the sheriff’s department to bring a HAZMAT crew out here-there’s enough poisonous stuff here to kill ten thousand people.”

“Copy,” Masters responded. “On the way.”

Patrick swung around at a sound off to his left. To his astonishment a scrawny little man carrying a nylon gym bag was running as fast as he could down the long main driveway toward Grant Line Road. Patrick caught up with him with a single thruster jump.

“Jeez!” the man yelped. “Who the hell are you?”

“I’m the one who’s putting you out of business,” Patrick said, yanking away the nylon bag. “Who are you?”

“Nobody!” the little man shouted. “Let me go!”

Patrick rapped him once on his bony chest, and the guy screeched and hit the ground. “I said, who are you?”

“You broke my chest!” the man whimpered.

“I’ll break your head if you don’t answer me!”

“I’m Bennie Reynolds.” The man struggled to his feet despite the pain and cried, “We’ve got to get out of here!”

“What are you doing here?”

“I work here. I work for Townsend and the Aryan Brigade. Listen, there’s no time…”

“Townsend?” said Patrick. Christ, the pieces were finally starting to fit together. “The British terrorist? You mean Gregory Townsend, the weapons dealer?”

“I told you who, asshole.” The guy was sounding panicky. “Jesus, we’ve got to get out of here! The barn has been booby-trapped!”

“What?”

“Don’t ask questions, stupid-just run!” Patrick didn’t hesitate. He grabbed Reynolds and hit his thrusters. Even though the guy didn’t weigh very much, the leap was only seventy or eighty feet. But it was a spectacular ride for the drug-cooker. “Hol-ee shit!” he cackled. “Awe-some! You can fly!”

It would take several seconds for the thrusters to recharge. “Okay, now talk,” Patrick demanded. “Where is Townsend? Where’s the Major?”

“They bugged out maybe twenty minutes ago,” Reynolds said. “I don’t know where they were headed. You went into the barn, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Then we’re dead unless we can get at least a mile away from here,” Reynolds said. “For sure you tripped a switch. Townsend has that barn booby-trapped seven ways to Sunday. Hit those jets and let’s get the hell out of here!”

“Can’t quite yet,” Patrick said. They started down the road as fast as Patrick could half-carry, half-drag Reynolds. He switched over to his secure channel: “Jon, we’re on the move,” he said. “I’ve got one prisoner.”

“Copy,” Jon replied. “I’m heading toward you.”

Patrick called up the GPS tracking device on Jon’s location and saw he was around a mile and a half away. He grabbed Reynolds, turned in the direction of the Hummer, and hit the thrusters…

… and just as he was about to touch down from the first eighty-foot leap, a massive explosion erupted behind them. A delayed-action bomb exploded inside the barn, rupturing the hydrogen tanks and sending up a huge cloud of fire.

They were lifted off the ground by the shock wave and thrown another hundred feet. The concussion from the blast landed them across Grant Line Road in a shallow cow pond and covered them with eighteen inches of muddy water, just as the white-hot fireball rolled over them like a tsunami. The fireball vaporized the six-acre pond, turning it into a blackened hole-but as the water vaporized it sucked away enough of the heat from the fireball to keep the two of them from instantaneous incineration.

Then the suit’s environmental system kicked in, and-barely-kept enough of the residual heat away from Patrick’s skin to prevent his being burned. But he could not protect Reynolds. He covered him with his body as best he could, but when the fireball rolled over them Bennie’s clothes burst into flames, the hair on his head turned into white ash, and his skin reddened, then turned dark, then peeled like burned paper.

It was over as quickly as it began. The vegetation as far as Patrick’s eyes could see was blackened down to the earth. The ranch house and the buildings around it were gone. On the other side of Grant Line Road, over a half mile away, other buildings were on fire. The ground around him was crusty and smoldering. He did a systems check-the suit was still functioning, although the environmental system was guzzling power at a tremendous rate. He took off his helmet to help it vent excess heat.

“Nice try, flyboy.” To Patrick’s astonishment, Reynolds was still alive. “You almost got me out.”

“Try to relax. I’ll get you to a hospital as fast as I can.”

“Never been to a hospital, and I don’t intend to go now, buddy,” Reynolds said. “Damn, now I know how those salmon feel sitting in my skillet.” He looked at Patrick, his face just visible in the faint glow from the fires. “You look like a good guy, brother. I seen you before, haven’t I?”

“Don’t know,” said Patrick. “Maybe on TV-there was some stuff when my brother was in the hospital. Paul McLanahan, one of the cops who was shot by the Major. Is he part of Townsend’s organization?”

“Yeah. The Aryan Brigade, they call themselves,” Reynolds said. “Although they don’t do much Nazi shit except when there’s visitors.”

That was an interesting tidbit, thought Patrick, filing it away. “They were the ones who staged that robbery at Sacramento Live!?” he asked. “They set up those explosions around Sacramento?”

“Yeah. Townsend… what a piece of whacked-out work,” Reynolds said. “Kills two cops to steal enough money to build meth hydrogenators, then gives them away to the bikers, then blows them all up. Squandered hundreds of thousands of dollars. He tells me we can start up production again out here at the ranch, then booby-traps thousands of dollars’ more worth of chemicals. One sick motherfucker. I knew I should’ve stayed away from him.”

“Where is he now? Where can I find him?”

“Don’t know,” Reynolds gasped. He was having difficulty drawing breath by now. “Only place I ever been is right here.” He was looking at Patrick, but his eyes were focused far away. “Hey, man, I’m sorry… sorry about your brother an’ those cops,” he said weakly. “I never meant to hurt no cops. All I wanted to do was go about my business…”

It was an apology, Patrick realized; the poor guy was trying to make his confession. But Patrick felt only disgust. “I guess your business is over,” he said, then realized Reynolds had died before he could hear those words.

Minutes later, Jon Masters arrived in the Hummer. He was as excited as a kid in Disneyland. “Oh man, did you see that explosion?” he asked as Patrick climbed in, turned on the generator, and plugged in the backpack. “It looked like a mushroom cloud, just like those old photos of aboveground nuclear tests in Nevada, except it was all fire! How close were you to the blast?”

“About a hundred yards.”

“A close shave-awesome!” Jon exclaimed. “Hey, where’s your prisoner?”

“Dead,” Patrick said. “Didn’t you see his body lying there? He got burned up by the fire after the blast. But he talked before he died-he was the guy in charge of cooking drugs and building the equipment for a group called the Aryan Brigade.” Patrick filled Jon in on what he’d seen at the Wilton hideout.

“It looks to me like it must be over now,” Jon said. “With his base of operations gone, this Townsend guy must be heading for the hills.”

“I’m not sure about that. Some things that Reynolds said make me wonder. Look-he said that Townsend staged the Sacramento Live! shootout to raise money to build the meth generators. Then he gave the generators away to the gangs-and blew them all up. The deal would have been worth hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. Why would he give all that up so Reynolds could go back and start making drugs all over again? It doesn’t make sense. There’s got to be some other agenda. And Reynolds said that Townsend and his group don’t act like neo-Nazis except when there’s someone around from outside their organization. I wonder what that means.”

“It means he’s crazy,” said Jon. “Maybe he thought he’d lose control of the Brotherhood unless he killed them all. Maybe he wanted to make his mark with the cops and the gangs, you know, sort of be the capo di tutti capi or something. Or maybe it was some kind of tactic to run the price of meth up on the street, then make his own and make more money. Who knows? Who cares?”

Patrick let it drop. They took Douglas Road west to the east entrance to the Mather airport, which gave them a shorter drive to the old SAC alert facility on the southeast side of the runway. The roads were completely deserted. They turned down the long access road that led to the entrapment gate. As they pulled up, Jon activated his earset cellular telephone and dialed the number for the guard shack so they could open the outer gate, but the line was busy. “Busy?” Patrick asked. “That doesn’t sound right. You’d better let me…”

There was a tap on Jon’s window. They turned in surprise. To their astonishment, there was Tom Chandler, the muzzle of his 9-millimeter automatic pressed against the glass. He made a circular sign with the gun, and Jon reluctantly rolled down the window.

“Good evening, Dr Masters,” said Chandler. “You’re out late tonight.” He looked into the backseat and saw a wiped-out Patrick McLanahan sitting by himself. He was in that Tin Man suit Chandler had last seen as he leaped away from the headquarters parking area. “And good evening, Mr McLanahan-or should I say, General McLanahan. You’ve been very busy tonight, I see.”

“Go to hell, Chandler,” said Patrick.

“Easy, General.” Chandler gestured behind him, and several sheriff’s deputies in full SWAT assault gear emerged out of the scrub bushes and surrounded the Hummer. Simultaneously a dozen squad cars with lights flashing and sirens wailing roared down the access road toward them. “Party’s over, boys. You’re both under arrest. You have the right to remain silent.” He held up a sheaf of papers. “I have a warrant to search this facility and take you and the suit. You and the suit are considered a lethal weapon and we can use any amount of force in our discretion in the name of officer safety. We won’t hesitate to kill you if you try to resist. Dr Masters, step out of the vehicle. General McLanahan, stay right where you are.”

SWAT officers opened the doors of the Hummer and leveled H amp;K MP-5 submachine guns at Patrick. The helmet on the seat beside him was taken away. “Aim for the head only, boys,” Chandler said. “Okay, General. Do whatever you need to do to deactivate that getup and take it off.”

Patrick had no choice. He removed the gauntlets, then detached the backpack power supply. Chandler grabbed him and hauled him out of the Hummer. “Hands on the vehicle, spread-eagle.” He began to search Patrick.

“How did you find us, Chandler?” Patrick asked.

“Give me a little credit, General,” Tom Chandler said. “I may be a desk jockey, but I can still add two plus two.

“First of all, of course, you told the chief exactly what you were going to do-in the hospital after the funeral, when he barged into your brother’s room without checking with the doctors. Remember? You told the chief about what you did, the stuff you work with, the gadgets you could supply the department with. The chief probably doesn’t remember that conversation, but I do. I didn’t do anything about it, though. Even when you showed up in my office, I thought you were just an angry, frustrated relative who had a few too many beers back at the Sarge’s Place.

“But that image was so different from the guy I saw when you were getting ready to move your brother,” Chandler went on. “You looked and sounded like a guy in control. You got Paul out of the hospital right out from under our noses. That took an organization and resources and training. That’s when I knew you were much more than an angry brother and ex-bartender. I had my suspicions about you after that, but I expected you to just find a biker somewhere and shoot him with a handgun. But then I did a little checking, hit up my FBI friends, and found out about your military background-even about your stint with the Border Security Force. Now you got my full attention.

“You screwed yourself with those two attacks last week, McLanahan. My lieutenant briefs me on two specific locations that she wants surveillance set up, and a couple of days later a mysterious guy wearing some kind of lightweight body armor shows up at those very same two places and busts them up. Way too coincidental. You got my division bugged? You bribe a few dispatchers? Hell, my detectives are so pissed off these days, they might’ve volunteered information for you. You’ve menaced this city, McLanahan. You’ve broken the law.”

“Oh yeah? With who? Murderers, cop-killers, robbers, drug dealers, child abusers…”

“So now you become judge, jury, and executioner, right?” Chandler asked. “You killed a man, McLanahan…”

“I did not,” Patrick said. “I told you, it was some guy dressed in a black combat outfit who spoke German. He had a face mask on, like a commando. The two guys suspected as being part of the Sacramento Live! shootout, with the broken legs, the two you let go-they were Germans too. That’s no coincidence, Chandler!”

“These Germans plant the bomb in front of the doorway too?”

“Okay, that was me, but I didn’t kill that biker and I didn’t try to rape that woman. I saw those drug deals at that house in Rosalee go down just like your surveillance officers did. I saw that child in danger too…”

“Oh bullshit.”

“I acted the way any good citizen would,” Patrick argued. “I acted the best way I could with the resources at my command. It may have been illegal, it may have even been wrong, but it sure felt appropriate. I have seen my family torn apart by these creeps and whoever is supplying and feeding all the chaos in this city. Hordes of innocent people have been killed. I had the power to act, so I did.”

“Sounds like a confession to me, boys,” Chandler said. “Place your hands behind your back.” Patrick did as he was told, and Chandler snapped handcuffs on his wrists. “Frankly, General, I thought you’d offer a bit more resistance. An Air Force general officer, with his own private security team surrounding us and a special suit that he could’ve used to snap my neck in half-I expected you to put up much more of a struggle.”

“I want to talk with a lawyer,” Patrick said flatly.

“Good boy-that’s the right thing to say,” Chandler said. “But I think we already got enough to put you away for a very, very long time. Let’s go.”

Office of the Mayor,

Sacramento, California

Monday, 30 March 1998, 0747 PT

All the local TV and radio stations, plus a number of national shows, went live at seven-thirty that morning Pacific time in the office of the mayor of Sacramento. Surrounding Edward Servantez were the chief of police, the sheriff of Sacramento County, the captain of the police Special Investigations Division, and the district attorney of Sacramento County.

The mayor cleared his throat and began: “I am pleased to announce that an arrest has been made in connection with the bombings around the state, the recent invasion-style assaults here in the city of Sacramento, and the large-scale meth-lab explosion in south Sacramento County. Thanks to the efforts of the Sacramento Police Department, in particular Police Chief Arthur Barona and Captain Thomas Chandler of the Special Investigations Division, working together with the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department, a new and significantly dangerous menace has been removed from the streets of our city. This arrest may also shed some new light on the wave of bombings, shootings, and gang and drug violence that has plagued this city for the past several months.

“Arrested this morning was forty-one-year-old Patrick S. McLanahan, last known residence and occupation unknown,” Servantez went on. “McLanahan is the son of retired veteran Sacramento Police Department sergeant Michael Thomas McLanahan, deceased, and the brother of recently retired police officer Paul McLanahan, who as you might remember was seriously injured in the Sacramento Live! shootout with police last December. Also arrested was Jonathan Colin Masters, age thirty-seven, last known residence in Arkansas. Masters is the president of a defense weapons research and development firm. Let me ask District Attorney Scurrah to outline the charges against the accused.”

The district attorney, Julianne Scurrah, continued: “Patrick McLanahan was booked early Saturday morning into the Sacramento County Jail, charged with second-degree murder in connection with the slaying of Joseph Brolin, a resident of Elder Creek and a suspected illegal-drug maker and dealer,” she said. “He is also charged with the attempted murders of five Sacramento Police Department officers, three civilians, and one child; four counts of assault with a deadly weapon; breaking and entering; and three counts of malicious mischief with the intent to do great bodily harm and for exploding incendiary devices within the county. Masters has been charged with conspiracy to commit murder and aiding and abetting in the commission of a felony.

“McLanahan and Masters were arraigned this morning in Sacramento Superior Court before Judge Richard Rothchild,” Scurrah went on. “They both pleaded not guilty. They are being represented by attorneys from San Diego. Bail in the amount of one million dollars was given for Masters; McLanahan is being held without bail in the Sacramento County Jail. Masters must surrender his passport and may not leave Sacramento County.

“If found guilty on all charges, McLanahan will have been convicted on more than three felony charges. If this occurs, the ‘three-strikes’ repeat-offender law would be invoked and he would have to spend a minimum of twenty years in prison, plus a mandatory additional seven years for each conviction of attempted murder against a police officer,” Scurrah concluded. “He can be found guilty on the lesser charge of manslaughter in the Brolin death. But my office is seeking a second-degree murder conviction and the maximum penalty because of the particular viciousness of the attack, and also because we want to show the people of Sacramento County that we will not tolerate vigilantism. The death penalty does not apply in this case. That’s all the information I have at this time. Thank you.”

Scurrah stepped aside and let Servantez step up to the microphones again. “We are investigating the possibility that McLanahan and Masters are part of a militia movement and may have masterminded the recent explosions in and around northern California and indeed around the entire state, in coordination with other extremist militia groups,” he said. “It appears that McLanahan was trying to avenge the attack on his brother by planning and executing a series of attacks and assaults on suspected gang members and drug dealers in and around Sacramento. He was apparently using sophisticated weapons and devices developed by Dr Masters, weapons manufactured for use by the military, to hunt down, capture, interrogate, and then kill those who he thought might be involved in the attack on his brother and other police officers.”

Police Chief Barona took his turn at the microphones. “I cannot comment any more about this case because of the investigation, but I would like to make one very important point: This city, this county, will not tolerate vigilantes. The city and county of Sacramento have some of the finest law-enforcement organizations in the country. We don’t need anyone, no matter who or what they are, taking the law into their own hands and disrupting our streets with hatred and violence.

“We are a society of law. We will not tolerate anyone, no matter what his background or personal motivation, tragedy, or reasoning might be, to take the law into his own hands. McLanahan and Masters, if found guilty of the crimes of which they are charged, will be punished to the fullest extent of the law. I urge the citizens of this county not to be swayed by what the two suspects might claim are their reasons for doing what they did. If they broke the law, they should be punished for it. Thank you.”

Sacramento County Jail,

651 I Street, Sacramento, California

Tuesday, 31 March 1998, 0815 PT

A sheriff’s deputy led Patrick McLanahan into the visiting room and escorted him to the seat farthest down the row of phone cubicles that connected the prisoners with their visitors on the other side of the Plexiglas barrier. Patrick was wearing a white T-shirt that looked two sizes too small, with the words PRISONER, SACRAMENTO COUNTY JAIL stenciled front and back, baggy blue jeans that looked three sizes too big, white socks, and floppy black canvas slip-on shoes. The deputy walked between him and the row of prisoners seated in the phone cubicles, but this didn’t stop several white prisoners from turning to look at him, muttering threats and flashing obscene and gang gestures at him.

Jon Masters was waiting for him, dressed in a suit and tie. When Patrick sat down at the cubicle, Masters looked at him in shock. He picked up the phone on his side. A recorded warning announced that conversations might be recorded. “Jesus, Patrick!” Jon exclaimed after the recording stopped and the connection opened. “What happened to your face?”

Patrick gingerly touched the cuts on his swollen, bruised cheeks and mouth. “Some bikers got hold of me,” he said.

“Are you all right?” Patrick nodded. “If they can’t protect you in there, I’ll get the attorney to have you transferred somewhere else…”

“I’m in an isolation cell now,” Patrick said.

“Thank God.”

“Isolation means that only one out of every three gobs of spit hits me now,” Patrick said with a wry smile. “Now they just tell me they’re going to rip my balls off, instead of actually trying to do it.”

“Patrick, how can you make jokes at a time like this?”

“I’ll be all right, Jon,” Patrick said reassuringly. “Half of them think I killed their buddies, but the other half think that if they mess with me, my friends will go after their families. It’s a part of being in the gang-harassing me shows the other members that they’re solid. I can handle it.” Jon’s face was ashen, as if he could scarcely believe what he was hearing. Patrick pointed a warning finger at the phone, then at the sign behind Jon stating that their conversations could be monitored. “Have you spoken with Wendy?”

“Yes,” Jon replied, signaling that he understood. “She’s all right. She’s real worried about you.”

“How’s Bradley?”

“Just fine,” Jon replied. He smiled, then added, “A lot of folks in your… your family have contacted me.” He emphasized the word family, and Patrick picked it up. “They’re all very concerned and will do anything necessary to get you out of here and clear your name.”

“That’s nice,” said Patrick. “Ask the family to talk with Wendy and reassure her that everything will be all right. I’ll be out of here soon enough. I can’t wait to tell my side of the story to a jury. Are you meeting with anyone from the legal department?”

“I’m meeting Henry Fowler, the senior partner in the law firm that does our legal, in about an hour,” Jon said. “They’ve got all the police reports, and they say we have a good chance of getting all the charges dismissed. He’s going to introduce me to the criminal-defense team they’ve retained. They’ll have someone over later this morning to talk with you.” He looked a little embarrassed, then added, “I brought over the money you asked for last night, but they took it from me. They said they have to log it in. Have you gotten it yet?” Patrick shook his head. “God, Patrick, this is a nightmare.”

“Everything will be all right, bro,” Patrick said. “Just tell Wendy and the family that I’m all right.”

“You got it, bro,” Jon said, watching helplessly as Patrick was led away. A big, mean-looking prisoner tried to get up out of his seat as Patrick was passing, bumped him, and screamed an obscenity before the deputies pushed him back down.

There were reporters waiting out in front of the jail, so Jon was led out a rear exit that bordered on the H Street parking garage, and the heavy steel door locked behind him. He made his way warily around toward the front and looked for the company car that was to meet him, but there was no sign of it. The rain started to come down, a dull, chilly mist at first, then heavier.

Man, he thought, life pretty much sucked right now. Patrick was in jail, charged with murder; the Ultimate Soldier project was compromised, perhaps destroyed; and his company was without a leader, drifting aimlessly. He didn’t even have Helen Kaddiri to torment him anymore…

Helen. It was the first time he had thought about her in many days, and he realized that the thought of her warmed him inside. For the first time in his life, Jon felt truly alone. For all those years before, he had kept himself surrounded, first with academia, then with the government, then with the company. Now all were gone. He needed Helen. He wanted her. Once the idea was laughable, then unthinkable-and now, all he could think about was her.

He pulled out a cellular-phone earset, a tiny device that looped onto the ear and picked up vocal vibrations in the skull for transmitting. He used voice commands to dial her home number in San Diego and got her answering machine. “Helen, this is Jon,” he said after taking a deep breath. “I don’t know if you’ve heard all the news lately, but I’m here in Sacramento. I just got out of the Sacramento County Jail on bail. Patrick is being held without bond. We…”

He was going to make a full “report” to her and fill in the circumstances, but he found he couldn’t continue-his heart wouldn’t let him use the company “we” again, wouldn’t allow him to be so impersonal. “Helen, I need you,” he said. “The company does, sure, but I need you more. I need your support, your guidance, and your friendship. I don’t know where you are-probably out making a deal to launch your new company-but please, come up here to Sacramento. I’ll probably be at the R amp; D facility at Sacramento-Mather Jetport, the old alert facility. I won’t blame you if you don’t show up, but please don’t leave me now. I… I love you, Helen. I probably sound like the biggest geek in the world, but I don’t care. I love you. Bye.”

Jon ended the call and put the earset away. A few minutes later he heard a car horn beep across the street. He looked over and saw a hand waving to him. His ride at last. The driver was unfamiliar and the windows were tinted so he couldn’t see in, but he crossed the street and went around to the passenger side. He was surprised to see Tom Chandler in the front passenger seat.

“Hello, Dr Masters,” Chandler said. “Care for a ride?” He noticed Masters’s quizzical expression as he looked at the unfamiliar driver. “This is Officer Williams of my division. I rate a driver today, and he’s it. Need a ride?”

“I’ve got one coming, thanks.”

“Dr Masters, listen, I know what you and Patrick are going through,” Chandler said. He lowered his voice so the driver wouldn’t overhear. “Don’t castrate me because I’m doing my job. It would look worse if I showed any favoritism at all. If I let my opinion that Patrick is a hero leak out, I’d be off the case and you and Patrick would have to swim with the sharks alone.”

“You think Patrick is a hero? The other night you thought he was a criminal.”

“I think both you and Patrick are heroes,” Chandler said, “taking on the dirtbags in this city like this. It shows courage, real courage. But Patrick’s in jail, and the city that you and he tried to protect wants to make an example of him. That’s not right. We need to get together and strategize. Come over to my office so we can talk. You can call your people from there and tell them where to pick you up.”

“I don’t know…”

“Hey, c’mon, Doc, I’m doing everything I can on my end to make sure that you and Patrick get every break possible,” Chandler said. “The DA doesn’t have much of a case. They’ve been hammering me and my guys for hours, trying to find even the smallest piece of incriminating evidence. They don’t have it. But now I need your help.”

“Shouldn’t I have my attorney present?”

“This is not an interrogation,” Chandler said. “I’m not going to ask you anything that will incriminate either you or Patrick. You can refuse to answer anything you feel uncomfortable with.” He saw Masters still hesitate. “All right, if it would make you feel better, you can call your attorney and have him present. But I’m not going to Mirandize you, because this is not part of the investigation. In fact, it’s the opposite-I want to talk about ways I can help you and Patrick get out of this mess. Believe me, there are a lot of cops in this town who are very thankful for what you two did.”

“There are?”

“Absolutely,” Chandler said. “Even if it gets to trial. But they want to hear from you. Will you do this for Patrick?”

“Of course I will!” Jon exclaimed. “Man, I’m so glad you came by! I thought you were more concerned about making an arrest than helping us.” Jon hopped into the rear seat as soon as Chandler got the door unlocked.

They headed down I Street toward Interstate 5. Just before they reached the freeway, there was a beeping sound. Chandler turned around and saw Masters retrieve what looked like a Cross pen from his pocket. “Is that your pen beeping, Doctor?”

“My pager,” Masters said with pride. “My own design.” He checked the tiny LCD display on the barrel. “It’s my driver. Probably wondering where I am. I’ll give him a call and let him know where I’ll be.” He retrieved his cellular-phone earset. “What I do is punch up the phone number on my wristwatch. There’s a wireless connection between the earset and the watch. The number I retrieve on my watch is the one that gets dialed. Or I can use voice commands.”

“What other gadgets do you have back there, Doc?” Chandler asked.

“Oh, I got a million of ‘em,” Jon replied. “I can…”

A car pulled out of the on-ramp from I Street and cut in front of their car, and with a screech of the wheels the driver swerved to miss him, blurting out, “Schweinehund!”

“Cool,” Masters said. “Your driver swears in German. About all the German I know is ‘ein Bier, bitte.’” The driver shot a panicky look at Chandler. “German always sounds so mean. A naked woman can be whispering sweet nothings in your ear in bed, and if she’s talking in German it sounds like she wants to rip your heart out with a fork. I once heard…” Jon stopped abruptly, noticing where they were. “Hey, aren’t we supposed to be heading north on I-5?”

“No,” Chandler said. “Dr Masters, give me that cellphone and your watch right now.”

“You want to see how it works?”

“No, I want to take them from you,” Chandler said patiently.

“Why?”

Chandler half-turned in his seat, aiming a SIG Sauer P226 pistol at Masters in the back. Jon blanched. “Dr Masters, you are either a very good actor or just about the most naive and scatterbrained Ph.D. I’ve ever met.” Jon handed over the earset cellphone, his wireless transceiver wristwatch, and the pager pen with shaking hands. “We are going to meet up with some friends of mine. They would very much like to talk with you.”

Jon looked at the driver’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “I suppose they’re German-speaking friends, right? Maybe with a guy who speaks with a British accent?”

“I think you’re finally getting the picture,” Chandler said. “Swing around in the seat and put your hands behind your back. I don’t think my friends would want you to know where we’re going.” Masters did as he was told, and the SID captain reached back and snapped handcuffs on him.

“Why are you doing this, Chandler?” Masters asked. “Why are you working for the bad guys?”

“Simple, Doc: money,” Chandler replied. “It was an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

“Oh yeah-those gambling debts,” Masters said. “What were they-thirty, forty grand?”

“So you did have my office bugged. The department doesn’t even have enough money in the budget for us to sweep our offices of listening devices. Yes, the last time I ever bothered to total ‘em up, forty thousand in gambling debts was about right. Add in a few thousand in back alimony and child support, some maxed-out credit cards, an apartment, car, an allowance for my girlfriend in Las Vegas…”

“Don’t forget Kay in Granite Bay,” Masters said.

“Oh, she’s low maintenance compared to Edie in Las Vegas,” Chandler said casually. “Anyway, even a year of my salary wouldn’t bail me out of this mess, assuming I cared to get bailed out at all-not to mention the fact that I’d join a lot of real hard-timers in prison if any of this ever came out. That’s why I’m doing this, Masters. And it all goes away today. Just deliver you and the suit to Townsend.”

“You’ve got the suit too?”

“Of course I’ve got the suit-it was locked in my property room,” Chandler said. “My new employers want you to show them how to use it, perhaps modify it to fit Townsend himself. Let’s face it, McLanahan is not exactly of average dimensions. I’m sure he has the strength and the endurance to wear it, but let’s be honest, Doc, an army of Tin Men like McLanahan would not be much of an army. It certainly would not strike fear into my heart.”

“You are so full of shit, Chandler,” Masters said. “How can you turn your back on your city and your career? Don’t all the years you spent as a cop mean anything to you?”

“Not a thing,” Chandler said. “In fact, I’ve worked harder over the last five years than I did in my previous thirty years, and I’ve seen this city-and this entire state, for that matter-slide down into the crapper faster than I ever thought possible. What have I been slaving away for?”

Chandler was all worked up by now. “A friend of mine retired after thirty-one years on the force. He gets up to receive his plaque from the city and they’ve misspelled his name and service dates on the plaque. Then he gets home and he’s the victim of a home-invasion robbery. He goes into a coma and dies two weeks later. No recognition from the city, no tribute, not even flowers for his gravesite. I stood over his damned grave and I saw myself staring up from that hole in the ground. I decided right then, no way I was going to check out like that.”

“Your friend checked out as the unfortunate victim of a violent crime,” Masters said. “You’ll check out as a traitor who sold out.”

“At least I’ll check out grabbing for the brass ring, instead of having it shoved up my ass,” Chandler said.

“Real mature attitude,” Masters said. “You ever stop to think that I might not help you out at all?”

“Dr Masters, you won’t be helping me out, you’ll be helping yourself out,” Chandler said. “I get my money when you get delivered to Townsend. Whatever happens to you then is up to him and you. The colonel is an honorable guy…”

“Oh sure. Is he the one with the British accent who tied up and threatened to kill Patrick’s wife and child, or is he the one who got two cops killed and several others wounded in the Sacramento Live! shootout?”

“He may be ruthless to his enemies,” Chandler retorted, “but he stands up for his friends. He’s assured me that if you do what he says, he’ll let you go free. You keep breathing, and you’re free to build more Tin Man suits and beeping pens and earset cellphones and whatever the hell else you build.”

“And you call me the naive one,” Masters said. “You’re worm food the second the suit and I get delivered. Then as soon as this colonel bozo figures out how to use the suit, I’m toast. And if he starts using the suit, the entire city of Sacramento could be toast. You know it and I know it. I’ve just accepted the fact that I’m going to die today, Chandler. You still think you’re going to have some naked bimbo on your lap tonight. Give it up. You got the gun. Kill that German guy driving the car, and let’s get back to town. You tell your side of the story to the cops, you get immunity from prosecution, and…”

“Nice try, Doctor,” Chandler said. “But I’ve already received a down payment for my services, and I can’t disappoint Colonel Townsend. I advise you not to disappoint him either. Do what he says and you’ll live through this. Act like a hero, you’ll end up dead, and your technology will be in his hands anyway.”

Research and Development Facility,

Sacramento-Mather Jetport,

Bancho Cordova, California

later that afternoon

The visitor picked up the phone mounted on the outer fence outside the research facility that Sky Masters, Inc. was leasing. It rang a few times, then: “May I help you, ma’am?”

“Yes,” the visitor replied. “I’m Dr Kaddiri, Helen Kaddiri. I’m supposed to meet Dr Masters. I’m not sure where he’s staying or where he is. Can you help me find him?”

“Of course, Dr Kaddiri,” the guard said. “One moment, please.” He buzzed open the outer entrapment door to let her in.

As Helen walked toward the guard room, the security guard picked up a walkie-talkie and radioed, “Kontrolle, Wache drei. Bine Dr Helen Kaddiri ist hier. Was sind Ihre Anweisungen.”

“Lassen Sie sie rein,” came the response a few moments later. “Sie soll warten.”

“Okay,” the guard responded. He opened the ID port. “May I please see a picture ID and your company ID badge, Dr Kaddiri?” She still had her badge-she had no intention of surrendering it before her resignation was legally finalized-and she handed it to the guard with her driver’s license. He did a cursory check, then gave them back. He pressed the button to unlock the revolving security gate. “Thank you, ma’am. Please step through the gate. Someone will meet with you right away.”

Helen stepped through the gate and was greeted by a good-looking man in a suit and tie. “Dr Kaddiri?”

She did not recognize him. “Yes, I’m Helen Kaddiri. I am the corporate vice president of…” She stopped, realizing he didn’t have a Sky Masters ID badge. “Who are you?”

“I’m Captain Thomas Chandler, Sacramento Police Department,” the man replied. “I am the officer who assisted in the arrest of Dr Masters and General McLanahan the other night.”

“Can you please explain what’s going on?”

“Of course,” Chandler said. “Did you bring your car in? Is there anyone else with you?”

“I left the car outside, and no, there’s no one else with me,” Helen replied. “I didn’t know if I’d be leaving right away. Where’s Jon?”

“He’s out on bail, as you know,” Chandler said. They walked toward the semi-underground research facility. “He and his attorney are assisting me in my investigation of your company’s activities here.”

“Then I don’t think I should be talking to you,” Helen said. “Anything I have to say to you should be with the company’s attorney present.”

“Dr Kaddiri, I know what you, Patrick, and Jon are going through,” Chandler said. “I’m here to help them.”

“By arresting them?”

“I think both of them are heroes. I had to arrest them because it’s my job. But even though they’re guilty of most of the lesser charges against them, I can make sure they get the most lenient sentence possible. But I can’t do it alone.”

“But shouldn’t I have our attorney present?”

“This is not an interrogation,” Chandler said. “I’m not going to ask you anything that will incriminate either Jon or Patrick. You can refuse to answer anything you feel uncomfortable with.”

Kaddiri still looked apprehensive. “If you don’t mind, Captain, I’d like to meet up with Jon and our attorney first, before I talk with you,” she said warily. “He didn’t tell me where he was staying, only that he… wanted me here, with him.”

Chandler nodded, looking into Kaddiri’s eyes. “He mentioned that he’d called you,” Chandler lied. “He thinks a great deal of you.” He paused, then added, “Obviously you think very much of him too, or you wouldn’t be here.”

“We’ve had our differences,” Helen said, “but… yes, I guess that’s true.”

“That’s nice,” Chandler said. “That’s very nice.” They passed two men dressed in black battle-dress uniforms and carrying submachine guns, but Helen barely noticed them, or that they weren’t wearing Sky Masters ID badges either. “I’m not sure when Jon was going to be back,” said Chandler, “but we’ll just go up to General McLanahan’s office inside and wait for him to call. If he isn’t coming back, we can take you to his hotel. Please, this way…”

Sacramento County Jail,

651 I Street, Sacramento, California

later that evening

The Sacramento County Jail in downtown Sacramento was a fairly new, modern facility. Each of the four inmate floors had a common area, surrounded by twenty-four cells, each holding up to six prisoners depending on its capacity. Each cell had a steel door with a large, thick glass window in the center, and an unbarred narrow window looking outside. A guard tower overlooked the entire floor. An exercise room and medical holding facility were on the fifth floor, and booking and administrative offices on the first. The common area served as the dining hall, indoor rec room, and meeting hall.

The dynamics of the downtown jail made for a tense atmosphere. It was where prisoners were held from the time of their arrest and arraignment until they were convicted, after which they would be transported to the larger Rio Cosumnes Correctional Facility in Elk Grove to serve their sentence. All the prisoners at the downtown jail were thus innocent in the eyes of the law, and mostly innocent in their own eyes as well. Many came from violent or oppressive environments, often of their own making. They were fresh from the hurt, ignominy, indignity, and betrayal of the arrest and the cold indifference of arraignment, and were now faced with the arcane babble of legal proceedings and the uncertainty of their future while the trial process creaked along.

That tension was pervasive even in peaceful, so-called normal times. But there was nothing normal about what was going on in Sacramento County these days. Within the confines of the jail, the threat of retaliation and escalating gang violence following the deaths of the Satan’s Brotherhood members sent the level of fear sky-high. It was just as pervasive among the jail authorities, who increased the number of guards, dogs, and weapons to compensate, and in a snowball effect generated still more fear.

Actually, today had been a fairly quiet day for Patrick, When he was in solitary, he was more or less out of the minds of the bikers, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other wackos who were looking to kill him. When he was out among the other prisoners, he kept his distance, with more or less success. Usually one guard was assigned to watch over all the isolation inmates and try to prevent trouble.

The common area on each floor of the jail had ten steel star-shaped tables fixed to the floor, with five fixed chairs at each table. Hot meals were prepared in the kitchen, then placed on paper plates on fiberglass trays and wheeled out to the common area on large carts. Utensils were cardboard. Prisoners selected a meal, either vegetarian or nonvegetarian, a beverage, and a dessert, then found a seat.

Except for sick or very violent prisoners, there was normally no preplanned segregation of any kind in the jail. The prisoners did their own segregating-blacks sat with blacks, whites with whites, Hispanics with Hispanics. There was usually enough available seating at meals to allow the members of rival gangs to be seated apart. But even when space was relatively tight, the prisoners knew that meals were not the time to get into a fight. Besides, despite the dangerous tension level, the jail was not a hard-core facility. These were prisoners awaiting trial, not yet convicted and sentenced. Most of them minded their own business and stayed out of trouble.

Patrick took the first available tray; he didn’t want to appear picky or slow the line for those behind him. He poured himself a cup of water, grabbed a carton of milk from a large tub of ice and a brownie from the dessert counter, and found a seat between two older-looking guys. The meal was what they called Salisbury steak: a piece of indeterminate meat floating in a puddle of slimy gravy, along with sodden boiled carrots, reconstituted mashed potatoes with more gravy, and a slice of white bread that had to be one or two days old but had been steamed into a semblance of freshness. The two guys on either side of him glanced at him but said nothing.

Everything on the plate tasted pretty much alike, which really characterized life in jail, Patrick thought. In a way, it reminded him of pulling strategic nuclear alert years ago: your life regulated by horns, bells, whistles, shouted voices, and the PA system; the sameness of everything, from the food to the uniforms; the regimentation; and most of all, the lack of freedom. Of course, there was no real comparison. But it was remarkably easy for Patrick to put his mind back to those days when, for seven days every three weeks, he was a virtual prisoner of the Strategic Air Command jailers, serving an unwanted but self-imposed sentence in support of the laws of nuclear deterrence. He had always passionately hated alert, hated the wasted time and wasted resources, and he found it ironic that he was relying on those memories to help keep his sanity now.

He left half of his plate untouched, finished the brownie, and drank up the milk and water. Seconds weren’t allowed, so he looked around for someone who might want his leftovers. The two old characters next to him declined. He asked the other guy at the table, “Hey, want any more?”

“Leave me the fuck alone,” the guy spat. Patrick was sorry he’d said anything. The man was big, lean, and tall, with cropped salt-and-pepper hair. He looked as though he’d been beaten up-his nose was broken and twisted and his face bruised. There were tattoos on his arms-and not tattoo-parlor ones but prison tattoos, made by inmates with sharpened ballpoint pens…

… and one of the tattoos, the biggest one, on his left arm-was a Satan’s Brotherhood tattoo. Oh shit…

The biker was hunched over his tray, enveloping it with his arms as if protecting it from a thief. This was a good time to get the hell out of the common area, Patrick decided. He got up quickly. “Hey!” the biker snapped, fixing wild, psychotic eyes on him. “You! Who are you?”

“Nobody, chief,” Patrick said.

“The fuck you are,” the biker said. “I know you. I hearda you. You’re the guy who was goin’ around killing Brotherhood.”

The two old guys scattered as fast as they could. The biker got to his feet, eyes burning. Patrick looked up at the guard tower, but the guards up there were busy. “Listen, chief,” Patrick said, “you’ve got it wrong. I didn’t kill any Brotherhood members.”

But the biker exploded like a volcano. “Die, motherfucker!” he screamed, and launched himself at Patrick. He tackled him to the ground, rolled on top of him, pinned his arms, and pummeled his face. “This-is-for-the-Brotherhood!” he shouted with each blow of his fists.

By now the other prisoners had joined in the fray. “Get him!” they shouted. “Kill the cocksucker! Kill him for the Brotherhood!”

Patrick felt something warm on his face, and through his blurry eyes saw blood all over the biker’s fists and shirt. Then the biker wrapped his huge hands around Patrick’s neck. In a daze, Patrick heard a whistle blow and the PA system blare out something about a lockdown. Then the biker squeezed harder. He felt a hand on his throat, another on the side of his head, then a sharp push-and everything went dark.