The Tin Man (28 page)

“Let me go and check my wife and child.”

“All in good time, General,” the terrorist said. “I have a proposition for you first.”

“Who are you?”

“My name is not important, although I have a feeling you or your associates in the hallway will soon match a name with thé voice. You seem to be a very resourceful man.”

“What in hell do you want?” Patrick barked. “You already killed my brother …”

“Nice try, General. I wish that were true,” the terrorist said, “but my men report that we missed. Two decoy vehicles—very clever, very effective. I believed you would not use more than one. And the actual escape was not from the hospital heliport, which we had covered as well. This company you work for, this Sky Masters, Incorporated, appears to be serving you well.

“But the men you had stationed here to guard your family were obviously professional soldiers, highly trained and well-equipped, although young and inexperienced,” the voice went on. “So you appear to still have some connection to the military. Curiouser and curiouser, as they say.”

“Why don’t you just leave us alone?”

“I would be most happy to leave you and your beautiful family alone and conduct my business,” said the Brit, “but you apparently chose to personally involve yourself
in
my business when you showed up at the Bobby John Club, asking questions about the Sacramento Live! incident.

“We could have passed that little episode off as the deranged, futile efforts of a vengeful sibling, and left it at that. But once we found out who you were, we performed our usual due diligence and began to discover some very unusual and interesting facts about you—or, to be precise, even more interesting was what we did
not
find out about you. Such fascinating tidbits of information, like the colorful pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. One source claims you are an ex-military man working for a military contractor, but other sources say you are an Air Force one-star general. But what one-star general does not have a command of his own? You apparently do not, at least not one that my sources can identify. But here we find these obviously military or ex-military men, guarding your family—and more soldiers outside ready to burst in. Very curious.”

“What do you want?”

“A simple request, General McLanahan: We form a partnership. You obviously have special military contacts, far more extensive and secretive than I could ascertain in a short period of time. All you need to do is sell some weapons or information to
me. I guarantee to make it worth a great deal to you.”

“What in hell makes you think I have access to anything of value to you?”

“An educated assumption on my part,” said the voice. “But I have learned that general officers typically have access to things that sometimes even they are not aware of. My network is vast and growing quickly, and your access combined with others all over the world may prove very valuable. I would be willing to share the profits of our association with you, a fifty-fifty split, if you agree to join me. I can guarantee that you will make hundreds of thousands of dollars a month—in fact, I am so sure of it that I am prepared to advance that amount to you. I can offer you safe havens anywhere in the world, a new identity, a place of safety for your family and your brother.”

“You can take your offers and shove them up your ass.”

“I expected you to say no less, General—few men of worth decide right away to turn against their country and their uniform,” the terrorist said. “As a professional courtesy, one military man to another, I will give you three days to think about my offer. Take your brother, your wife, and your son, go to your company’s headquarters in San Diego or wherever your secret command is located, and consider my offer. Formulate any questions you wish and ask me when I contact you again.

“But if you refuse, you and I are at war, and I will hunt you and everyone in your family down and slaughter them. This is your one and only warning. If you go to the authorities, I will assume that you have chosen to do battle with me, and then you and yours will all be considered combatants and will be executed. That includes your mother in Arizona,
your sister in Texas, and your other sister in New York. Do you understand, General?”

“Yes.”

“Very good. Now, General, down on your face, hands behind your neck.”

Patrick reluctantly did as he was told, realizing now that he should have risked shooting the bastard when he had the chance. The earset was plucked out of his ear, and he felt an object being set on his back. “Attention in the hallway,” the terrorist said into the earset. “I will be taking my leave now. I suggest you hold your position and do not interfere. I have left an explosive device with the general. It is battery-powered and can be set off either by remote control, if the general moves, or if the device’s sensor detects anyone approaching it. It will certainly kill everyone in this room, including the general and his lovely family. If it is not disturbed, it will deactivate itself in about thirty minutes. I think you know what to do. Good day.”

It was a huge relief for Patrick to realize that the man had departed. His greatest fear now was that Wendy or the baby might wake up and set off the explosive. It seemed like only minutes later that he felt a touch on his side, then a crawling sensation up his right thigh. Christ, a rat or a cat or something, he thought in panic. An animal could probably set off the explosive! He fought hard to control his breathing and muscle tremors. The … the
thing
, or whatever it was, had moved right up onto his back—oh
shit
, he realized, it was actually sniffing around the object sitting on his back …

“Go! Go!”
camera shout seconds later. But before he could even move, Hal Briggs was pulling Patrick to his feet.

“Jesus!” Patrick shouted. “Hal, what are you doing?”

“It’s clear, Patrick, it’s clear,” Hal Briggs said. One commando was checking the rest of the apartment, while the other was checking out the window and covering the front, trying to determine the terrorist’s escape route. “There’s no bomb in here.”

“What the hell was that crawling around on my back?” Patrick said as he shot over to his wife and son.

“My little Rover,” Briggs said. “He comes complete with an explosives-detection sensor.” He held up a tiny device the size of a small mouse, trailing a length of thread-thin fiber-optic cable. “Rover” had a pinhole camera and microphone, and had little legs so it could crawl up furniture and even walls. “Sorry, but I had to take the chance.”

Patrick raced over to Wendy and the baby, heard the soft sound of their breathing, and began to gently pull off the duct tape. He realized that it was tomato sauce covering them. “Jesus, it’s not blood, thank God!” he cried to Briggs. “That bastard is a fucking monster! What was it he planted on my back?”

“This,” Hal replied grimly. He held up a hand-lettered note that read,
DON’T FORGET OUR DEAL, GENERAL
, and then—oh. God!—a tiny baby index finger. It looked as if it had been cut free with a pair of scissors.

“No!”
Patrick shouted, frantically feeling Bradley’s little hands for the wound, tears flooding his eyes.

“Patrick! Patrick, it’s all right!” Briggs shouted. “It’s fake! It’s plastic!” The baby’s hands were fine. “My God, what la son of a bitch.”

Patrick pulled off the last of the duct tape, freeing his still-sleeping wife and child. Moments later, after a quick check to make sure they hadn’t been booby-trapped or wired with a tracking or eavesdropping
device, he carried them in his arms out of the grisly apartment and into a waiting car, Briggs and the two Madcap Magician commandos with them.

The car sped toward Sacramento-Mather Jetport. “Well have you airborne and out of here in ten minutes, Patrick,” Briggs told him.

“Change the plane’s routing,” Patrick said, his arm tight around his wife and child.

“Change it? To where?”

“Arkansas,” Patrick said. “I want Wendy, Paul, and Bradley out of this state. As far away and as fast as possible.”

Briggs nodded. “You got it, Patrick.” He couldn’t blame Patrick one bit for wanting to get his family as far away as he could from the madness and mayhem in Sacramento.

I
t was the only all-night convenience store for miles around. Despite being in one of the highest-crime-rate areas in all of northern California, however, Toby’s Market had experienced virtually no robberies or burglaries in over twenty years. The reason was simple: No one in his right mind would dare mess with a Satan’s Brotherhood establishment.

Behind the store and down a hundred-yard-long dirt driveway was a small, scruffy farm, with a ramshackle five-room house, several large storage sheds, and a small barn scattered around the property.
Even though the market was in the middle of a semirural residential neighborhood, bikers could drive up to the market, grab a six-pack or bottle, then discreetly drive around back to the house without being noticed—assuming anyone even bothered to take notice. That night, more than a hundred motorcycles and another two dozen cars were parked around the farm behind the market. A special meeting of the Rio Linda chapter of the Satan’s Brotherhood Motorcycle Club was under way.

Almost two hundred members, pledge members, and guests of the Brotherhood gathered in the barn and looked on as the big German ex-commando explained the operation of the portable hydrogenator in halting English. The device was disguised as a typical covered eight-foot U-Haul trailer, complete with an authentic paint job and logos. A gasoline-powered generator had been detached from the trailer and set up thirty feet away.

“Is very simple,” the soldier explained. “You not touch any chemicals. You attach chemical tanks here and here … attach power plug here …”He worked the controls as he explained the hookup procedures, while a dozen senior Brotherhood members, highly experienced in cooking methamphetamine, stood right beside him watching every step. They would be the ones who would teach the other chapter members how to use the device. They marveled at its cleanliness, efficiency, and safety.

An hour later the tank was opened up, and the specialists examined the result of the first stage of the process. Inside the mixing tank were more than thirty pounds of clean, pure chloropseudoephedrine. “Is ready for hydrogenation,” the Aryan Brigade soldier said. “We leave inside. No touch, no filter, no dry. The machine, it do everything.” The Brotherhood cookers couldn’t believe it-—thirty pounds of
absolutely pure chloropseudoephedrine in the tank ready for hydrogenation, and they didn’t have to race against deadly sulfur dioxide or risk being burned by hydrochloric-acid gas. There was no smell, no residue outside the tank, nothing. The waste by-products of the first reaction were collected inside a separate tank, ready for burial.

Even as the second step of the process was begun, discussions started about how the batch was going to be distributed, how much would go to each designated member, and how the money was going to be paid. Thirty pounds of almost-ready methamphetamine was worth between two and three hundred thousand dollars, maybe more, and every one of the members and pledges was arguing about getting his fair share—plenty of customers were out there waiting. As the hydrogenator was being sealed up and pressurized, money was already being collected.

“I wait here,” the German commando said. “We inspect product together. I am responsible for unit until you pay.”

“We want you to wait outside, Himmler,” said the president of the Brotherhood chapter. “We don’t need you listening in on our distribution plans.”

“Ich gehe nicht!
I not leave until product is inspected!”

“You leave now because I tell you to leave!” the biker ordered. The unarmed German had no option. They gave him a bottle of whiskey and the woman of his choice to keep him company, then escorted him to the propane-refill station in front of Toby’s and told him to wait until summoned. A Brotherhood pledge was? assigned to guard him.

While the commando and his guard took a seat on a picnic bench behind the propane tank, the biker woman went into Toby’s to pee, buy a pack of cigarettes, and chat with the clerk. She was gone no
more than ten minutes, but when she came back, she found the Brotherhood pledge dead and the German gone. In panic, she dashed back to the barn to tell the Brotherhood members.

Just as she reached the barn, the world dissolved into a ball of blue-yellow fire and a searing blast of heat that she felt for a fraction of a second before she was vaporized. The mile-wide fireball consumed the barn, the farmhouse, Toby’s Market, the propane tank, and thirty houses and businesses surrounding the blast site. The column of fire stretched two thousand feet up into the night sky. The concussion shattered windows and awoke people from their sleep for miles around.

But that was not the only such blast. Throughout the night, in sites all over the state of California, enormous mushroom-cloud-like fireballs erupted without warning. In locations as far north as Chico, as far south as Los Angeles, as far east as Death Valley, and as far west as Oakland and San Francisco, huge explosions ripped the night sky, instantly killing hordes of drug cookers and dealers and not only wiping out members of the Satan’s Brotherhood, but devastating other biker gangs as well. In several areas, the methamphetamine hydrogenators were located in the basements of apartment complexes and in the middle of crowded urban areas. Hundreds of innocent bystanders and residents died in the blasts.

In a few short hours, the Satan’s Brotherhood Motorcycle Club, as well as much of the membership of several other biker gangs and many Mexican and Asian methamphetamine gangs, had virtually ceased to exist.

I
n 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 béen 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 under-sheriff 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 multi-family 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 hydrogénation 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, Madame 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 heed 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.”