Tin Man

by Dale Brown

  a ricochet, the bullet spinning after it hit

  a wall or the ground, and not a direct hit.

  Paul tried to run but then the wound got himnow

  he felt the goddamn pain! He sank down to his

  right knee. The gunmen were reloading, flipping the

  big banana magazines upside down to reload from

  fresh clips taped against the first ones. He aimed

  and fired again, missing. This time they did not return

  fire, evidently satisfied that they had gotten

  him enough so that he was no longer a threat. He

  saw them head back north on Seventh to catch up

  with the others, who were still sweeping the streets

  with volleys of gunfire, covering the Step Van until

  it could pull up beside them.

  No fucking way! Paul McLanahan shouted to

  himself. You're not getting away, not after killing

  my partner! But all he had was his 9-millimeter pistol-no

  match for submachine guns. But something

  else was. IF

  Paul grabbed for his keys, thankful that he had

  rubber-banded all but the car key together so he

  could find it easily. He unlocked Caruthers's squad

  car from the passenger side, leaned inside, started

  the engine, and put it in gear. Then he laid himself

  across the fr6nt seat, left hand on the steering

  wheel, right hand down on the gas pedal, pushed on

  the accelerator, and shot forward.

  The two gunmen who thought they had disposed

  of him turned, aimed, and fired, but they were too

  late. Paul mowed both of them down under the

  squad car, hurling them up, then under the fender

  like corn stalks under a harvester. More automatic

  gunfire hit the car. The windshield shattered. Without

  letting up on the accelerator, Paul shifted the

  car into reverse. Tires screeched. He was shoved forward

  under the dash by the momentum, losing his

  grip on the steering wheel. With the right front tire

  shot out, the car looped to the right and crashed

  into the corner of a building on K Street. The engine

  died. He was trapped.

  Paul looked up. There was another attacker less

  than ten feet away, his submachine gun raised, aiming

  right at him, moving closer for a cleaner shot.

  Paul hit the tiny switch on the radio console and

  the electro-clamps released on the big Remington

  12-gauge shotgun mounted on the dashboard. Now

  lying on his back in the front seat facing the approaching

  terrorist, Paul racked the action, leveled

  the shotgun, aimed for the face and neck, and pulled

  the trigger.

  Nothing but a dull click! Christ, the shotgun

  wasn't loaded. Caruthers, doing an off-duty job, obviously

  hadn't thought he needed to bother loading

  it. In desperation, Paul tossed the shotgun at his assailant

  . The muzzle caught the assailant right in the

  middle of his gas-mask lens, shattering it.

  -ich bin verlete Helft mirr The terrorist

  screamed something in a foreign language-was it

  German? Paul didn't know.

  The gunman ripped off the broken mask, lifting

  his helmet off with it. Paul got a good look at a very

  young, chiseled face, square jaw, close-cropped

  black curly hair, dark bushy eyebrows, and a nose

  twisted awkwardly to the right, obviously broken.

  The guy seemed frozen, paralyzed with fear, as if

  realizing that Paul could identify him. Paul reached

  for his SIG Sauer P226 sidearm . . .

  but it never cleared leather. Another

  masked and helmeted figure pushed the unmasked

  guy aside, shouted, "Zeit zu schlafen, Schweinehund

  !" and opened fire with his MP-5 submachine

  gun from fifteen feet away, raking the rookie cop

  with a three-second full-auto burst at point-blank

  range.

  Mr. McLanahan!" the nurse shouted from the

  door of the operating room. "Come with me!

  Hurry!"

  Patrick felt his heart lurch. "Is Wendy all right?"

  "Put on your mask and follow me," the nurse

  ordered. My God, Patrick thought, what in hell

  have we done? He didn't hear a baby's cry-what in

  God's name had happened?

  Gowned and masked figures surrounded the operating

  table. All he could see was Wendy's head. Her

  eyes were closed, and a large white drape hid her

  body from his view from the shoulders down. A

  plastic bonnet covered her hair, and he could see her

  arms fastened down to the sides of the table with

  Velcro straps. The anesthesiologist was at the head

  of the table, his eyes fixed on an array of monitors

  and several automatic fluid-metering devices. There

  were two IV stands with empty whole-blood and

  plasma bags hanging from them. He motioned Patrick

  to an empty stool next to Wendy's head.

  . "Mr. McLanahan," the obstetrician began, not

  looking up from his work, "this is Dr. jernal, our

  chief of surgei-y. I asked him to be here for this delivery

  .//

  "Chief of surgery?" Patrick asked. "Is Wendy all

  right, Doc?"

  "She suffered a uterine rupture and serious internal

  bleeding at the beginning of this procedure,"

  jernal began. "The scarring on her abdomen was extensive

  . She must have been in some degree of pain

  throughout the entire pregnancy, to have those

  scars on her belly stretching like they were."

  "But will she be all right?"

  The anesthesiologist spoke up: "Ask her yourself

  ." Patrick turned and saw Wendy looking up at

  him, with an expression that said nothing but love.

  "Hi, sweetheart," she said. Her eyes were clear

  and alert, and her slight smile lit up the room more

  brightly than all the operating spotlights together.

  "Wendy . . . oh God, Wendy, how are you?

  Patrick asked, his eyes welling with tears as he bent

  over to kiss her. He looked over at the obstetrician.

  "Dammit, Doc, can you tell me what's going on

  here?

  "Can't . . . right . . . now . . . Dad," the doctor

  said. A startled Patrick saw jernal standing on a

  low stool, pressing down on Wendy with all his

  might. Then the room filled with the glorious

  sounds of a squalling baby.

  "You've got a son, Mr. McLanahan; a nice

  healthy boy." The obstetrician held the tiny form

  out for the nurses. "He's just fine. The bad news is, I

  think you've lost your uterus, Wendy. We'll have to

  do a hysterectomy, I'm afraid. But you've made it

  through okay. Congratulations!"

  Patrick watched in fascination as the nurses

  clamped and cut the cord, briskly rubbed the baby

  down, suctioned his nose and mouth, and placed

  him in a small heated booth on a table. He was

  weighed, footprinted, and had silver nitrate drops

  placed in his eyes to prevent infection, then swaddled

  in two blankets and topped off with a whiteand-blue

  knitted cap that covered his head. Then

  the nurse picked up the little bundle and handed it

  to Patrick. />
  Patrick Shane McLanahan had handled fourhundred-thousand-pound

  warplanes, nuclear devices

  , and multimillion-dollar weapons. Now,

  holding the seven-pound bundle that was his son in

  his arms, he felt helpless, stunned.

  He held the baby up so Wendy could see him, and

  they wept tears of joy together as the baby opened

  his bright blue eyes, looked first at his mother, then

  at his father, and started to cry. Patrick nestled him

  back into his arms and the crying stopped. He bent

  down and kissed his wife. "You did it, sweetheart,

  you did it!" he said proudly. "Good job."

  "We did it, Patrick." She reached for his hand.

  "As soon as we get back in the room, page your

  brother. I can't wait until he hears the good news."

  F

  rom Seventh Street, the Step Van with the

  gunmen on board sped south to Capitol Avenue,

  then west to the Tower Bridge. It stopped when it

  was a third of the way across, and two men got out,

  set four satchels on the roadway, then ran back to

  the truck. Seconds after the Step Van had cleared

  the bridge, the satchel charges blew, sending the entire

  eastern third of the span down into the Sacramento

  River and eliminating the major pursuit

  route out of the city of Sacramento.

  The Step Van continued down SR-275, then got

  onto Interstate 80 and drove westbound on the freeway

  . The pursuing California Highway Patrol and

  the Sacramento police thought it was the terrorists'

  first real mistake. Units from Davis to the west as

  well as from Sacramento started to converge on the

  Step Van. Roadblocks near Davis blocked the eastand

  westbound lanes of 1-80, and dozens of units

  rolled westbound on the freeway, ready to chase the

  van down.

  But the chase did not last long. Reports filtered in

  that the Step Van had stopped in the middle of the

  westbound lane on the Yolo Causeway, the twomile-long

  section of divided interstate stretching

  over the farmlands that formed the flood plain west

  of the Sacramento River before it reached the San

  Joaquin Delta. The truck was trapped. There was no

  way off the elevated causeway, and no connectors

  between the eastbound and westbound lanes. Police

  units would arrive in a matter of minutes. If the

  terrorists tried to make a run for it by climbing

  down off the causeway, they'd be easy to chase

  down in the flat, marshy rice and barley fields below

  .

  Led by the Highway Patrol, the units converged

  on the Step Van. Apparently the terrorists had figured

  out where they were, because they had driven

  almost to the far western end of the causeway,

  stopped, then thrown the lumbering truck into reverse

  and headed back eastbound. Too late. There

  was no escape now . . .

  Several tremendous explosions shook the causeway

  . Once again, satchel charges had been set, this

  time at the ends of both lanes of the interstate, effectively

  sealing off the lanes in both directions.

  The cops couldn't get to the Step Van but neither

  could it go anywhere. Before long . . .

  Minutes later, the real escape plan became obvious

  . A military-surplus UH-1 Huey helicopter

  swooped out of the night sky and touched down in

  the middle of the causeway. The police watched,

  helpless, from a mile away, as the paper money was

  taken out of the cash bins, transferred to duffel bags,

  and loaded aboard the helicopter. A Sacramento

  County Sheriffs Department helicopter with two

  SWAT deputies riding the landing skids and two

  more inside tried to approach, but the terrorists

  were prepared. A streak of yellow fire from a Stinger

  anti-aircraft missile hit the helicopter's engine,

  sending the aircraft out of control and crashing into

  the rice fields south of the causeway. One deputy,

  riding the skids was killed by the engine explosion

  when the missile hit; the other was pulled inside

  the helicopter as it was falling. The three deputies

  who survived suffered moderate to severe injuries

  during the crash landing.

  Ten minutes later, the Huey was airborne. It

  headed east, flying a few hundred feet above the

  ground to avoid being tracked by air-traffic-control

  radar until it reached the foothills of the Sierra Nevada

  Mountains. Then it vanished.

  At Placerville Airport, forty miles east of Sacramento

  , several trucks were waiting for the chopper

  when it lit down. Major Bruno Reingruber was the

  first to step off the helicopter, and he exchanged

  straight-armed salutes with Colonel Gregory

  Townsend. "Willkommen zuhause, Major, " Townsend

  said as the terrorists began transferring the duffel

  bags to the trucks. He counted the men as they

  emerged, then frowned as four wounded were carried

  off. "It did not go well, I take it."

  "They all fought like lions, Herr Oberst," Reingruber

  said grimly. "The police fought with desperation

  , and they were lucky. I promise I will slaughter

  ten policemen for every one of our soldiers killed."

  "You will get your chance, Major," Townsend

  said. "The city of Sacramento has not yet even begun

  to bleed.'This is a small haul compared to the

  penalty we will take from this city before we are

  finished. The city of Sacramento will learn to fear

  us. They will surrender to us-or the death toll will

  rise. But remember our ultimate objective. Tearing

  this city apart is only a means to an end."

  SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA

  TUESDAY, 23 DECEMBER 1997, 1100 PT

  Over two thousand cops from hundreds of departments

  and agencies throughout the United

  States snapped to attention and saluted as the

  three caskets carrying the two dead Sacramento

  Police Department officers and one Sacramento

  County Sheriffs deputy were carried into Blessed

  Sacrament Cathedral in downtown Sacramento for

  the memorial service. An estimated one thousand

  spectators came out in the blustery cold to join the

  officers and watch the solemn procession. Led by

  two uniformed officers playing bagpipes, another

  thousand mourners including the governor of the

  state of California, two U.S. senators, all the local

  congressional, state assembly, and state senate

  members, and the mayor and the chief of police of

  Sacramento, followed behind the caskets and took

  seats inside the cathedral as they were placed before

  the altar. Each casket was draped with an American

  fiag, with the officer's service cap, badge, and nightstick

  placed on top. The Christmas decorations in

  the cathedral and on the route through town offered

  a strange yet inspiring contrast to the mournful occasion

  The service had just begun when there was a rustle

  of surprised voices in the back of the church.

  Heads tur
ned to watch as a heavily bandaged young

  man in a wheelchair rolled down the long aisle. The

  man pushing the chair positioned it beside the casket

  on the left, and the young man laid his right J

  hand on the flag. Then he sat quietly, his eyes on

  the altar.

  Amid the rising murmur in the cathedral, the

  chief of police of the city of Sacramento rose from

  his seat in i front pew and walked over to the

  wheelchair. As usual, Arthur Barona. was wearing a

  dark suit rather than his chief's uniform, and like

  most of the higher-ranking politicians attending the

  funeral, he had a bulletproof vest underneath his

  jacket.

  "Hold it," Barona said in a low voice. "What's

  going on here?,"

  The young man in the wheelchair looked up at

  the chief through swollen eyes. His head, neck,

  torso, left arm and shoulder, and right leg were

  wrapped in bandages, but his uniform tunic was

  draped over his shoulders, with all insignia and devices

  removed except for the shoulder patches and

  his silver badge, which had a black band affixed diagonally

  over it. He saluted the chief, then looked

  up at the man who had pushed the wheelchair, silently

  asking him to speak for him.

  Sir, Officer Paul McLanahan requests permission

  to stay by his partner," Patrick McLanahan

  said, his voice almost a whisper.

  "His partner? Who is that? Who are you?"

  "My name is Patrick McLanahan, Paul's brother,

  sir," Patrick responded. "Corporal LaFortier was

  Paul's partner, his training officer."

  "He's McLanahan?" the chief sputtered. His face

  went white as the name registered. "Wasn't he

  shot?" He was confused and embarrassed. There

  were so many wounded, so many press conferences,

  so much to do trying to track down the suspects,

  that Barona had not yet visited the hospital to

  see his injured officers. "Officer McLanahan, you

  should be in the hospital," Barona said.

  The murmur of voices in the cathedral grew

  louder. When Barona looked up he saw a sea of faces

  looking at him. The sympathy for the officer in the

  wheelchair was visible on the faces of the VIP's

  seated in the front of the cathedral-as was the open

  hostility on the faces of the Sacramento cops toward

  the back.

  "Sir, please-" Patrick started.