The Tin Man (36 page)

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.

S
acramento-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 southwest-bound.
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.

T
he 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?”