The Tin Man (27 page)

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police sketch artist can usually tell when the composite drawing begins to match the witness’s recollection. The witness’s eyes narrow, the lips pinch, the body tenses, and the skin turns pale when that critical nuance appears on the sketch. Finally, and usually suddenly, the sketch seems to leap to life, bringing suppressed memories to the fore, painting images of the incident across the face of the witness. And that was what the Sacramento Police Department’s sketch artist saw as he put the
finishing touches on the computerized composite drawing.

“That’s him,” Paul McLanahan said. “That’s the guy I hit with the shotgun.”

SID Captain Thomas Chandler got up from his seat in the corner of the hospital room and took a look at the laptop computer screen. Patrick McLanahan came closer to take a look too, hoping that the sketch matched one of the men he had seen in the Bobby John Club. It did not, and he moved away. Chandler scowled at him. He didn’t like Paul McLanahan’s brother, and he disliked him even more today. “You sure, Officer McLanahan?”

“Positive,” Paul replied. “He was illuminated perfectly in the streetlight.” Chandler nodded—his investigators had been out to the scene of the shooting several times, and the positioning of the lights along the K Street Mall would have made them shine directly on the attacker.

“Any chance at all you can identify any of the assailants you hit with your car, or the one who shot you?” Chandler asked.

“Sorry, Captain,” Paul replied. “They all had gas masks. I might be able to estimate height and weight, but not enough to make an arrest. A good defense attorney could blast me off the witness stand with ease.”

“You let us worry about the trial—let’s get as many of these creeps as possible behind bars first,” Chandler said. He remembered that Paul McLanahan was an attorney as well as a policeman, and he was now thinking more like a lawyer. “But you’re absolutely positive about the guy in this sketch?”

“Yes, sir,” Paul said. “Absolutely positive.”

“Good,” Chandler said, nodding to the sketch artist. “We’ll circulate the composite and send it to the FBI and Interpol. We’ll also bring in more mug
books for you to look at. We might get lucky.” He turned to Patrick to include him in the discussion. “Now explain to me where you’re going again?”

“A private hospital on Coronado,” Patrick responded, “near San Diego …”

“I know where the hell Coronado is,” Chandler snapped. “Explain why.”

“I already did,” Patrick said. “My company is going to do reconstructive surgery on Paul’s left shoulder …”

“You mean he’s going to get an artificial arm, a prosthesis?” “Yes.”

“Now explain why that can’t be done in Sacramento, where he stays under protective custody.”

“Because our medical facility is standing by ready for Paul,” Patrick said. “It would take too long, be too expensive, and not help Paul one bit for us to move our surgical staff and facilities up here.”

“You realize the danger you’re placing your brother in, don’t you?” Chandler asked. “He’s under twenty-four-hour guard here.”

“He’ll be under careful guard down there too,” Patrick said. “I’ll see to that personally.”

“The city won’t pay for this surgery. Paul has to accept all the risks involved—and that means he’s in danger of losing his survivor’s benefits and medical retirement if something goes wrong.”

“I know that, Captain,” Paul said.

“The city has made Paul, me, and almost every employee of my company sign affidavits agreeing to all that,” Patrick said. “My company is accepting all the responsibility.” He paused, looking carefully at Chandler, then asked, “What’s the real reason you’re bringing all this up again, Captain? You getting a little pressure from the chief?”

Chandler scowled again at Patrick. This was certainly
not the same whining Milquetoast that had come into his office a blubbering wreck back after the shooting. Maybe the shooting shook this guy up, made him get off the sauce and take some responsibility for his family. But it was also possible he hadn’t changed, and that he was giving Paul some bad advice by taking him out of Sacramento. Chandler took a deep breath in resignation and said, “It would look real bad if Paul was hurt …”

“Look bad for the city and the chief, you mean.”

“It would look like we weren’t there to protect him,” Chandler said. “The chief is already under pressure for what these gangs have been doing in Sacramento. If we leave Paul’s safety in the hands of a private, non-law-enforcement company and they get to Paul, everybody loses.”

“The chief gets embarrassed, the city looks bad—but Paul gets dead,” Patrick said. “Don’t expect me to feel sorry for you.”

“I could get a judge to order Paul to stay in protective custody,” Chandler said angrily. “It would be for his own safety. If there was an arrest and a trial, Paul would be a key witness, and it would be up to the city to protect him so he could testify. We can compel Paul to stay …”

“We’re going to fit Paul for an artificial limb—you think a judge is going to deny that, especially if you haven’t made an arrest yet?” Patrick asked. “Exactly how long would you and the chief and the city plan on denying my brother a new left arm?”

“Give me a break, Mr. McLanahan!”

“Shut up, both of you!” Paul shouted, his electronically synthesized voice raised for the first time. “Captain, I’ll return to Sacramento any time it’s necessary to do a lineup or testify in court. I trust my brother and his company to keep me safe until I return.”

“Well, I don’t,” Chandler said. “Paul, what do you know about this Sky Masters, Inc.? We did a check on them. Their corporate headquarters are in a little Podunk town in Arkansas. We can’t get any financial records off the computers. We can’t verify any income, get tax returns, or even positively verify that the company is a real business entity. We get no responses on our inquiries from the FBI, the Commerce, Treasury, Labor, or Defense departments …”

“Captain Chandler, the decision’s been made,” Patrick said resolutely. “If the city is going to try to force Paul to stay, go ahead—we’ll see you in front of any judge in the state. Otherwise, we have an ambulance waiting downstairs. What’s it going to be?”

Chandler had no option. McLanahan was right: Chandler’s office had already talked to a judge about compelling Paul to stay, and had been denied. “Then your decoy ambulance and the car that will carry Paul will have motorcycle escorts to block off the intersections. You can’t say no to that.”

“Not the car,” Patrick insisted. “The Suburban is armored, and we’ll have armed security officers inside.”

“Those robbers had anti-tank weapons,” Chandler pointed out. “Even an armored car won’t have a chance.”

“This one will,” Patrick said.

“You’re making a big mistake.” Chandler jabbed a finger at Patrick. “You’re endangering yourself and Paul needlessly.” No response. He was still shaking his head as he departed with the computer sketch artist.

Soon afterward, under police guard, a heavily disguised man in a wheelchair—with a bulletproof vest under his hospital gown—was brought down
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elevator to the underground parking facility and quickly transferred to a waiting Suburban utility vehicle. It looked ordinary, but it was armored with Kevlar, the windows were bulletproof Lexan, and it rode on run-flat reinforced tires. A private ambulance was parked directly in front of the Suburban. Its lights flashing, with two California Highway Patrol motorcycle officers escorting it front and rear, the ambulance sped out of the parking garage and onto Stockton Boulevard. The Suburban followed a moment later, a Sacramento Police Department motorcycle officer behind it.

Just as the Suburban pulled onto Stockton Boulevard, shots rang out and tires exploded on both vehicles. The ambulance screeched to a stop on shredded tires. The Suburban’s driver gunned his engine to escape, but a large blue Step Van delivery truck pulled out of a side street right in front of it, blocking its path. Before the Suburban could pull into reverse, four armed men, each wearing body armor, helmets, and black combat outfits, raced out of the Step Van. The motorcycle officers laid down their bikes and dived for cover as the assailants opened fire on the two vehicles. The ambulance driver and his assistant leaped out the passenger-side door away from the gunfire and ran for their lives.

One of the terrorists lifted a short rocket launcher to his shoulder, shouted, “Die, McLanahan!” and fired an anti-tank rocket into the ambulance, which exploded in a ball of fire. Then all four assailants ran to inspect the Suburban. They found a driver, unconscious but alive, in the front seat—and a headless mannequin, dressed in a hospital gown, in the backseat. The vehicle had taken a point-blank hit from an anti-tank rocket yet was undamaged.
Swearing hotly in German, all four ran off to waiting escape vehicles nearby and disappeared.

T
he wheelchair was just reaching the private helicopter waiting on the roof of the Wells Fargo Building, several blocks west of the UC-Davis Medical Center, when the first reports of the attack came in. “Holy shit!” Hal Briggs shouted. “Both the decoy ambulance and the decoy car were ambushed!” With his 45-caliber Colt automatic in his hands, he checked in with his security team on the rooftop and stationed around the building, and received an all clear. “The ambulance drivers made it out okay; the Suburban driver is hurt but he’ll be okay,” Briggs said to Patrick McLanahan as he received more updates. “That BERP stuff you put on the Suburban saved his life.”

While Paul and the other security men were being loaded aboard, Patrick turned to Briggs and shouted over the roar of the idling helicopter, “What about the security units at the apartment? Have they checked in?” Members of Hal Briggs’s ISA action team were stationed at Paul McLanahan’s apartment in Old Sacramento, where Patrick, Wendy, and their baby had been staying. Hal keyed his microphone, ordering all his security units to check in.

All the teams checked in except one.

H
al Briggs and two of his Madcap Magician commandos, both öf them experienced U.S. Marine Corps Special Operations Capable soldiers, moved as one through the stairwell and hallways of the third floor of the Harman Building in Old Sacramento, above the Shamrock Pub. Patrick followed,
carrying a SIG Sauer P226 9-millimeter handgun, which looked like a popgun compared to the commandos’ Uzis and MP-5 submachine guns.

There was no sign of the commandos assigned to guard the third floor and the apartment itself. They reached the front door and Briggs tried it silently. It was unlocked. Patrick had briefed the team on the layout, so they were all familiar with the traps inside the apartment: lots of big closets and cabinets, lots of windows on the river side, a large porch on the west side, thin walls, multiple doors to many of the rooms.

Briggs slid a flat fiber-optic camera beneath the door and activated the TV monitor. He gave hand signals to his commandos of what could be seen within: two hostages, one target visible, straight ahead in the living room. Nothing else visible. Open doorways all along thè hallway on both sides—an almost impossible gauntlet. Bad guys could pop out of half a dozen doorways the minute they entered.

Briggs’s mind was racing, trying to formulate a plan, when the front door swung open. Guns snapped up to the ready, safeties flicked off …

“Only McLanahan may enter,” the astonished commandos heard, in a British-accented voice. “If anyone else tries to enter, Mrs. McLanahan and the child die.”

“Shit,” Briggs whispered. He looked around the entryway as if expecting to spot the wireless TV camera or microphone the intruders used to see them coming. He adjusted his earset commlink and …

“Don’t,” Patrick McLanahan whispered, touching Hal’s shoulder. “I’ll go in. Alone.”

“It’s suicide, Patrick.”

“If he wanted to kill us, I think we’d already be dead by now,” Patrick said. He stood, the P226 in
his right hand. He raised it, imitated Hal Briggs’s Weaver pistol grip as best he could, and entered. The sight before him made his blood turn cold. Wendy was seated on a dining room chair, holding the baby, duct-taped in place with more duct tape over her eyes and mouth—both of them covered in blood. Blood was everywhere—down the hallway, splattered across the walls, all over the floor. “Jesus, Hal,” he whispered over his earset commlink. “Wendy, Bradley … my God, I think they’re already dead.”

“Oh Christ!” Briggs cursed. “God, no …”

Patrick continued forward, past the hall closet—empty—past the open door to the first bedroom on the left—empty—and then to the kitchen on the right. There he saw the two Madcap Magician commandos, their throats slit, staring lifelessly into space. The floor was slippery with their blood. On the left the guest bathroom was empty, as was the …

“Please put the gun down, General McLanahan,” the British voice said.

Patrick spun toward the dining room to the right—empty. But as he turned, he felt the barrel of a gun on the back of his head. The guy was
behind
him, dammit!—I’m dead! …

“Please don’t do anything rash, General, or more will be hurt needlessly. Decock your weapon, and keep your hands extended.” Patrick thumbed the decock lever on the SIG Sauer P226, which dropped the hammer without firing the weapon. “Very good. Now hold still or you will die.” A gloved left hand reached out and, as the muzzle of the gun continued to press into his head, closed over Patrick’s SIG and plucked it from his hands. “Thank you. Fine weapon. Step forward, hands behind your neck … stop right there.”

Patrick was facing the dining room, but out of the corner of his eye he could see his wife and baby. The hatred and anger bubbled up from his chest and came out in a low growl. “You bastard!” he said. “First a cop-killer, then a baby-killer. You had better kill me now, because if you don’t, I’ll dedicate the rest of my life to hunting you down and killing
you.”

“Give me a bit more credit than that, General McLanahan,” the voice answered. “I would never purposely kill noncombatants, especially women and babies. Your wife and beautiful child are alive and sleeping—sedated. I set up this little display for you in case I was not here to greet you upon your return. But I promise I will kill you without hesitation if those men in the hallway try to enter the apartment. I would hate to have noncombatants hurt in a gunfight.” Patrick closed his eyes and said a silent prayer.