by Dale Brown
and her face was ashen from the exertion. "How
much longer, Patrick?" he asked.
"I don't know. I hope things start happening
soon. It's kicking Wendy's butt pretty good. They
don't want to give her any pain stuff until she's dilated
to five centimeters."
"I'm sure that will be a big relief-I know it will
be for me," Paul said, wondering if he could ever be
as strong and as together as they were. "I think I'm
having sympathetic abdominal pains." He hesitated
, then asked, "Do you think they'll do a 9,
cesarean if she doesn't dilate any more?"
"We can't do a C-section," Patrick said. "Wendy
has ... er ... has some abdominal injuries. A
C-section would be risky. it'll be a normal vaginal
delivery. We'll give her something to speed up labor
if we need to."
"Injuries? How did she get injured? What happened
?" Then he saw Patrick hesitate, and he held
up a hand to stop him. "I got it, I got it-you can't
talk about it. God, I hope everything turns out
okay." He wrote a number down on a slip of paper.
"Here's my pager number. Call when the big event
Irc
happens and they'll page me." He kissed Wendy on
the forehead, just as another contraction began.
"Deep cleansing breath, swectheart," Paul said with
a"retsmAng smile. "I'll see you soon." Wendy's
smile was contorted by a grimace, but she squeezed
his hand in thanks.
JOSEPH E. ROONEY POLICE FACILITY,
FRANKLIN BOULEVARD,
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA
A SHORT TIME LATER
P
aul met up with LaFortier in the roll call room of
the South Sector Substation a few minutes before
eight. "Hold it right there, rook," the big police
corporal said. Paul stopped. "Stand ready. Let's take
a look." Paul stood at parade rest while LaFortier i
scanned the uniform. "Where's your damned badge,
rook?
"On my raingear, sir." Badges were always worn
on the outside of outer garments such as jackets or
raincoats.
"Let's see it." McLanahan handed over his raingear
and hat. He was wearing it properly, all
right-and he was wearing the badge, the old silver
badge. Almost seventy-five years old, it belonged in
a museum. instead, a new cop would be wearing it
on the streets of Sacramento, which was as it
should be. LaFortier reverently ran his fingers over
the heavy silver star for a moment, careful not to
get fingerprints on it, then handed the raingear
back. "Lots of history behind that star, rook. You
better be up for it."
"I'm ready, sir."
"Good. And let's stop with the 'sir' stuff unless
the LT's around. I'm Craig or Cargo or partner to
you. You 'sir' or 'ma'am' every other superior officer
you see, which will be everyone, until he or she
tells you not to or buys you a meal, which will
never happen, so keep on doing it." McLanaban
nodded. "Weapon."
McLanahan unholstered his SIG Sauer P226
semiautomatic service pistol, careful to keep it
pointed at the floor with his finger outside the trigger
guard. He walked over to a clearing barrel in a
corner of the r6U call room-a steel fifty-five-gallon
drum haff-filled with sand and canted at an angle
that provided a safe place to load and unload a
weapon. Aiming the gun at the sand inside the barrel
, he ejected the magazine, opened and locked the
slide, retrieved the bullet ejected from the chamber,
checked the chamber, and handed the unloaded J,
weapon over to LaFortier. As expected, LaFortier
found it spotless-they hammered weapon-care lessons
hard at the academy. He checked all of McLanahan's
magazines to make sure each had the
maximum fifteen rounds of 9-millimeter subsonic
hollow-point parabellurn police-load ammo in
them. "Lock and load," he told his new rookie partner
as he handed the weapon back. McLanahan
reloaded his weapon. in the barrel, chambered a
round, decocked the action, ejected the magazine,
put the sixteenth round back in the magazine to fill
it completely again, then bolstered and secured the A
weapon.
Jesus, LaFortier thought, it's going to be tough to
nail this guy on anything. McLanahan didn't seem
to be cocky, but it was always best to nail the rookles
on one or two uniform items just to keep them
from thinking that their shit didn't stink. "Handcuffs.11
,
McLanahan handed over his handcuffs. "One
pair? You only expect to arrest one guy at a time?"
"We're only issued one pair at a time."
"I know, but I don't care. Get yourself a double
carrier and carry two from now- on. Go to Property
tomorrow and tell them I told you to get a second
one." He touched the inner claw of each side of the
cuffs and spun them; they spun easily. They'd obviously
been recently graphited. LaFortier handed
them back. "Got a spare handcuff key?" McLanahan
reached around behind his back and retrieved a
tiny key-in case he was ever handcuffed with his
own handcuffs, a hidden spare key could get him
out. The Sarge obviously taught his son well,
LaFortier thought. "Good. When you get a few paychecks
in the bank, invest in a good Streamlight.
The city's flashlights aren't worth shit. Keys?"
McLanahan undid his Velcro key holder and retrieved
his set of keys-cops were issued a whole
wad of them for various rooms, lockers, call boxes,
and dozens of other things.,He had secured his keys
with a thick rubber band to keep them from rattling
, leaving only the squad-car key outside the
band so it could be retrieved easily. Yep, this kid
knew his shit and kept his eyes and ears open. The
Sarge had probably rubber-banded his toy keys
when he was a youngster, LaFortier thought.
"Very good. Now all you have to do is do the
same for the next twenty or thirty years, and you'll
be in good shape." He turned serious for a moment.
"Now, what's this I hear about you sitting in on an
MDT class this afternoon?"
"Yes, Sir, I did," McLanahan said. "They didn't
give us much MDT training in the academy-"
"I know that," LaFortier interrupted. "You'll be
scheduled for it soon enough. But you need permisSion
from your sergeant before you can request
overtime."
"I didn't want any overtime-I did it on my own
time."
"For you, there is no 'own time/ rook," LaFortier
said. "You work for eight hours and eight hours
only, from nine P.m. to five A.M. I had to get permission
just to get you in here one hour early. Neither
the city nor I want dead-tired rookies on the street.
Graveyard is tough, McLanahan. You need every
hour of sleep you can get. But more importantly,
you did
sornething that I didn't know about, something
I had to hear about from my boss."
LaFortier leaned forward, getting right in McLanahan's
face so his new partner could look nowhere
but in his eyes. "If I don't teach you anything else in
the next six months, rook, you will learn this: We
must, we will communicate with each other. We
need to act like one out there. I'm not one of those
FTO's o'll tell you to just shut up and listen and
stay out of the way. We need to be each other's eyes
and ears. When one of us is occupied, the other is
watching, listening, always on guard. We never
work alone. You want something, even if it's trivial
or personal or anything, you tell me. You talk, you
tell me what's on your mind, and you verbalize. You
don't think of yourself, you think of us. Understand
?
"I understand, Craig," Paul responded, "I was
just trying to get pumped up, sir, you know, get a
little ahead
"I know you're gung ho, McLanahan," LaFortier
said. "All you McLanahans have a reputation of being
bulldogs. But reputations don't count for shit
until you earn yours. Don't go off freelancing. YOU
got an idea you want to do something, talk to me
about it first. I'm your FTO, but I'm also your partner
. We work as a unit. Remember that."
"Yes, sir."
"Clipboard," LaFortier said, holding out his hand
and taking McLanahan's metal clipboard.
Good job, LaFortier thought as he studied its contents
. McLanahan had indeed put himself ahead of
his peers by sneaking into that Mobile Data Terminal
class. The department usually took weeks to
schedule that class, so the rookies had to absorb as
much as they could about the complicated system
as they went along. It felt good to be riding along
with a rookie who wasn't afraid to take some initiative
, who knew what he didn't know and went out
and got it on his own.
Even the clipboard was put together pretty well.
But he could never let McLanahan slide that much,
not on the first day. "You're missing several forms
in here, rook," he said. "I'll show you what you
need to bring. Forms are written in point-five millimeter
B lead pencil, not in pen, not in FIB lead. And
you better have more than one pencil-you'll probably
lose at least three a night. Follow me."
MERCY SAN JUAN HOSPITAL,
CITRUS HEIGHTS, CALIFORNIA
SEVERAL HOURS LATER
T
he obstetrician completed his examination. "Still
only three centimeters-maybe four," he said.
Wendy McLanahan was too exhausted to register
any reaction except to close her eyes as another contraction
began. Patrick's jaw dropped open. 'Doc,
you said she was three centimeters eight hours ago.
Wendy has had a contraction every three or four
minutes since three P.m.! What's going on?"
"It's a difficult delivery, that's all, Mr. McLanaban
," the doctor said. "We'll go ahead and give her
some oxytocin to speed things up. That might
help."
"I'm not on a timetable here, Doc, but she's already
exhausted-she's shaking, she's sweating like
crazy but she's shaking and white as a ghost and
complains of being cold. It looks like she's going
into shock. What are we going to do?"
The obstetrician studied the monitor readouts.
wouldn't worry too much, Mr. McLanahan," the
doctor said. "Wendy seems strong, and so does the
baby. It's important that she not push
"She's too exhausted to push, Doc," Patrick protested
. "What about an epidural? Something to reduce
the pain?
"Normally we don't do an epidural until she's
dilated at least five centimeters," the doctor said,
"We can give her something to take the edge off, but
an epidural at this stage would be asking for trouble.
She may not be able to push when the time comes.
We'll start the oxytocin-that'll get things moving a
little more quickly-and I'll give her a mild painkiller
in her IV. As soon as she's at five centimeters,
in one or two hours at most, we'll
"One or two hours?" Patrick exclaimed. "It's almost
twenty hours now!"
"I don't think she was in active labor when you
brought her in, Mr. McLanahan," the obstetrician
said. "In any case, we have to let things take their
course. We want to avoid too much intervention.
Accelerating labor is a big enough step. We want to
avoid having to do a cesarean if at all possible."
"We can't do a cesarean at all, Doc," Patrick said.
"Wendy had wanted this to be as natural a childbirth
as possible, with minimum drugs and maximum
mobility
"I know that, Mr. McLanahan," the doctor said,
"but things are obviously not going as planned. We
may have no choice
"Read the records, Doc," Patrick said. "She can't
have a cesarean."
"I read the records Dr. Linus faxed to me, Mr.
McLanahan, and I read his annotation about abdominal
injuries and damage to her circulatory system. I
also read that Dr. Linus recommended terminating
the pregnancy because of the severe risks to
Wendy's health if there were complications during
delivery." The doctor saw the guilt that spread
across Patrick's face and felt sorry for him. They
obviously wanted a child badly enough to risk the
life of the mother. He looked at the chart and
frowned, then studied Patrick warily. "I'm a little
confused about a few things, Mr. McLanahan," he
said. "I see evidence of starring, perhaps bums, and
damage to her lungs, abdomen, and heart, but no
cause fisted. How did your wife get injured? A car
accident?"
Patrick swallowed hard, obviously conflicted
and apprehensive. "I . . . I can't tell you," he responded
.
"Excuse me?"
"I can't give you any details, Doc," Patrick said.
"I thought Dr. Linus was going to include a note
with the medical records explaining
"There's a note saying something about sensitive
and classified government information," the obstetrician
said, "but I need to know what has happened
to your wife before I can treat her and the baby.
You're asking me to work in the dark, Mr. McLanaban
, and that's dangerous. Do you want that for
your wife and new baby? Which is more impoTtant-national
security or the lives of your wife and
child?"
"My family, of course," Patrick said resolutely.
"I'll tell you anything you need to know. What
about this oxytocin stuff, about speeding up labor?11
"The drug will supplement, then eventually take
over, the frequency and intensity of her contractions-we'll
have better control," the obstetrician
said. "Things will happen fast after that. If they
don't, well start considering our
options
"Not a cesarean," Patrick said emphatically.
"If you won't consider a cesarean, then you risk
the health, even the life, of the baby . . . 11
"I said no C-section," Patrick said, his voice hard,
his eyes piercing the doctor's. "I'm not going to risk
Wendy's life. Period."
The doctor nodded. He saw the pain on Patrick's
face. "All right, I hear you. We'll make that decision
later-that probably won't be for a few hours. But
first, we need to talk. Sit down
SEVENTH AND K STREETS, SACRAMENTO
THE SAME TIME
The complex was called Sacramento Live! and it
was the biggest thing to hit the downtown area in
years: ten nightclubs and ten movie theaters, all in
one location on K Street. Everything was in one
place, from quiet, elegant, relaxing steak houses
that served fine wine and cigars, to pizza places
with games and cartoons for the kids, sports bars,
jazz, rock and roll, funk, country-western, and Generation
X. Patrons could do one-time parking or
take Light Rail right to the mall, see a movie, then
spend an evening in one place, or circulate among
all of them, and never go outdoors. The place was
packed all year long, but during the holidays it was
shoulder-to-shoulder, with mall-weary shoppers
taking refuge in the movie theaters and then enjoying
dinner and a drink before heading home.
The doors closed at midnight. It normally took
the small army of cleanup crews less than an hour
to straighten up, but during the holiday season they
needed extra crews, and it took the seasonal workers
longer to do the job of cleaning up the huge complex
. The night managers of the clubs were usually
finished counting the receipts, checking the time
cards, doing a closing inventory, and preparing the
books by one A.M., so several cleanup crews were
still inside when the day's receipts were boxed up in
large locked steel containers by each club's manager
and an armed private security officer. and wheeled
over to the bookkeepers and general manager in the
cash room on the second floor of the complex.
Security was tight inside Sacramento Live!, especially
when the cash was on the move. Off-duty
Sacramento Police Department officers patrolled
the complex when it was open, but all but one of
them went home at midnight, leaving only private
