Tin Man
Page 15
Barona put a fatherly hand on Paul McLanahan's
right shoulder and bent down to talk to him. "It's
all right, Officer," Barona. said, his voice sympathetic
. "Your partner is in God's hands now. You're
relieved of duty for now."
Patrick was surprised by Barona's response. Why
was he denying Paul this simple request? It didn't
make sense. "Sir," Patrick said, raising his voice so
more people could hear him, "Officer Paul McLanaban
respectfully requests permission to stay by his
partner."
"I'm sorry, but I can't allow
"Chief Barona, please let Paul stay." It was Craig
LaFortier's widow, seated in the front pew directly
behind her husband's casket. She stood, bent down
to hug Paul gently, gave him a kiss on the cheek,
returned to her seat, then reached over to hold his
bandaged arm as if prepared to keep him in place
should the chief try to pull him away. All eyes were
back on him again, Barona realized, as if waiting to
see what he was going to do.
What had started out as if it might be some sort
of grandstanding demonstration had turned into a
scene deeply touching to those in the church, and it
appeared as though Chief Barona was trying to pre-
vent it. Patrick-who had objected from the start to
his wounded brother's leaving the hospital and, after
losing that argument, had insisted that he accompany
him to the service-watched Barona as in
sequence anger, then confusion, then embarrassment
and worry passed across his face. The chief
felt very exposed; he had to extricate himself from
this scene gracefully-and fast. He put on his best
fatherly expiession, gave permission with a nod,
and laid his hand on Paul's right shoulder again before
returning to his seat.
Being the chief of police for the capital of California
, a city of almost half a million people, was certainly
no popularity contest, Patrick acknowledged,
but shouldn't the guy at the least recognize one of
his own officers, especially one who had been
wounded in the line of duty, and not object to his
display of loyalty?
The ceremony was designed to move and uplift
the listeners. The amplified voice of the bishop of
the archdiocese of Sacramento sounded the reassuringly
familiar prayers. The music of the organ resonated
through the great space. The speakers told of
how LaFortier had killed one attacker before he was
murdered, and they spoke about the heroic but futile
actions of the police and sheriff's units as they
i d to stop the heavily armed robbers. Inevitably,
tne
politics entered into some of the eulogies. There
were appeals for a total confiscation and ban on all
assault rifles in the state of California, and calls for
more prisons, more executions, and more funding
for everything from the police to education to welfare
programs-even a call to close the downtown
entertainment complex for fear it might attract further
violence. Patrick ignored it all. What moved
him were not the voices or the prayers or the ceremony
or even the organ, but the bagpipes.
When the two uniformed officers, one from the
Sacramento Police Department and the other from
the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department,
played their bagpipes, the keening soared above the
utter s ence throughout the huge cathedral. There
was something about the sound of a bagpipe, Patrick
thought, that reached very deep into the soul.
The eerie wails were sad yet stirring. Haunting.
That was the word. The sound of the bagpipes mesmerized
him. Patrick knew that for centuries armies
of Scotland, England, and even America had
marched into battle with bagpipes blaring, the
sound inspiring and terrifying at the same time.
As he looked at the coffins, then at his injured
brother in the wheelchair, he felt the anger surge in
his chest. The wail of the pipes touched a rage
within him, something evil, something angry. He
had been away from Sacramento for many years,.
but it was still his home-and his home was under
attack. For U.S. Air Force Brigadier General Patrick
McLanahan, the pipes were not a tribute to the
fallen police officers-they were a rallying call. The
homeland was under siege. It was time to take up
arms and defend it.
The ferocity of the assault on the police had startled
Patrick. He knew of nothing else on so drastic a
scale within the United States. He had fought with
ex-military drug smugglers when he flew for the
Hammerheads of the U.S. Border Security Force, but
Salazar and his former Cuban-military "Cuchillo"
pilots had not dared to venture into America's cities
. Henri Cazaux was the only exception, but he
had confined his attacks to simple kamikaze-like
aerial bombardments of major airports, quickly
stopped by federal and military forces. The recent
robbery-shootings in Hollywood, in which heavily
armed gunmen kept a hundred police at bay for
nearly thirty minutes, were little more than a "suicide
by cop" incident-the robbers wanted to shoot
up the city, and they wanted the police to kill them.
From press accounts of the shootout, the guys
who robbed Sacramento Live! were clearly military.
They certainly hadn't used pure military tacticsmarching
out into the open in columns of two
abreast with guns blazing had not been used in combat
since the redcoats were kicked out of the Colonies
. But their weapons, their armor, and their
brazenness meant they knew right from the start
that they had the upper hand.
How would the police stop nutcases like these
guys? Would cops on the beat now carry automatic
rifles? Would armored vehicles replace squad cars to
protect against antitank rockets? What if the robbers
decided to use even heavier weapons? Would
the streets of Sacramento eventually turn into a battlefield
? Would the National Guard or the regular
Army replace the police?
Patrick McLanahan knew military combat strategies
. He knew what would be needed to analyze the
enemy and plan an offensive. But he had to have
information, intelligence, and reconnaissance. He
had to find out more. He would get all the information
he could from the police and the federal authorities
investigating the attack, and then map out a
counteroffensive strategy of his own.
Patrick could see that Paul, now white with fatigue
, was paying the price for leaving. his hospital
bed to come to the memorial service. After the ceremony
, Patrick allowed him to accompany Craig
LaFortier's casket-empty, of course; since the terrorists
' brutal attack left no remains-down the
aisle and to the outer doors of the church. Bu
t as
the caskets were borne to the hearses, he turned the
chair and wheeled Paul out a side entrance to a
waiting police department ambulance, which raced
Code Three back to the University of CaliforniaDavis
Medical Center in downtown Sacramento.
Paul, now barely conscious from exhaustion, was
quickly taken back to his room.
Patrick stayed next to his brother until a doctor
examined him. The doctor ordered complete bed
rest and no visitors for the next twenty-four hours.
A police officer on duty outside his room was given
strict orders not to let anyone inside but medical
personnel. ,
Patrick made his way to a nearby waiting room,
got a cup of coffee from the vending machine, and
sank wearily into a chair. The TV in the room was
set to a local channel and showed aerial shots of the
funeral procession, nearly a mile long, as it moved
through downtown Sacramento toward City Cemetery
. They also showed the Sacramento Peace Officers
Memorial in Del Paso Heights, which was
getting ready for its own memorial service for the
three slain officers. The memorial was ringed by
Ionic columns, with a tall stone obelisk in the center
of the circle and bronze plaques of Sacramento's
slain officers on the outside of the circle. As the sun
moved across the sky, the shadow created by the
obelisk pointed at each officer's plaque at the precise
time he had died. Spotlights on the columns
created the same effect at night.
Patrick had been to many formal military funerals
. The last one, a secret service in the desert of
central Nevada just four short months ago, had been
for his friend and superior officer Lieutenant General
Bradley James Elliott, who had been killed in
a crash of his experimental EB-52 Megafortress
bomber while on a top-secret strike mission inside
the People's Republic of China. The President of the
United States and the president of the newly inde-
pendent Republic of China on Taiwan attended that
service. Brad Elliott was buried in a small graveyard
in the Nevada desert near the secret base now
named for him, a graveyard reserved for those who
died while test-flying America's newest and most
top-secret warplanes.
But cop funerals were different. The police usually
strive to stay low-key, even anonymous, on a
day-to-day bais, but when a cop is killed the display
of solidarity and strength is anything but lowkey
. Was this for the public's benefit, their attempt
to show the public that the police might be hurt but
they weren't defeated? For the law-enforcement
community's benefit, an attempt to rally their
strength in the face of death? For the crooks' benefit-again
, demonstrating the sheer power, strength,
and brotherhood of their adversaries? Patrick
couldn't begin to guess.
Hearing a commotion out in the corridor, Patrick
got up and headed for the door. To his surprise, -he
saw Arthur Barona striding down the hallway with
a knot of aides, cops, and reporters with microphones
, tape recorders, and TV cameras following
close behind. At the door to Paul's room the cop on
duty, who had been instructed just minutes earlier
not to let anyone in, moved out of the way without
a word. Barona and another cop with captain's bars
on his uniform, whom Patrick recognized as
Thomas Chandler, walked right in.
"Hey!" Patrick shouted. "You can't go in there!"
Everyone ignored him. Enraged, he sped down the
corridor, pushed past the cop on duty, and stormed
inside. Barona was already seated beside Paul's bed,
holding his left hand. Paul was awake but clearly
groggy-and when Patrick saw his eyes begin to roll
up into his head in exhaustion, he exploded. "Hey,
you motherfucker," he snapped, "get the hell out of
this room! The doctor ordered no visitors!"
Cameras and microphones swung in Patrick's direction
, and a couple of reporters fired questions at
him while warily staying out of his reach. The cop
on duty grabbed him from behind, pinning one arm
behind him with a come-along grip, and pressing a
finger into the mandibular nerve behind his jaw.
Patrick yelled in pain. The cop had him but goodhe
could go in no direction except straight down at
the floor, right in front of all the reporters and cameras
"Hold it, Officer, hold it," Barona said quickly.
"Let him go. That's Officer McLanahan's brother."
Patrick fought to keep from swinging back at his
attacker. The cameras and microphones were
squarely on him now. Barona said, "I'm very sorry,
Mr. McLanahan, but the police force is at a very
high state of readiness and alert, and anyone can be
considered a threat. Now, what was it you had to
say to me?"
"The doctor ordered uninterrupted rest, no visitors
at all, for twenty-four hours. That order includes
family, friends, and chiefs of police and
reporters. Look at him. He's totally wiped out. You
should have checked with the doctor before barging
in like this."
Barona looked down at Paul as the cameras
swung back toward him. He gave his hand a
squeeze, patted him on the head, and nodded. "Let's
let this brave officer rest now, guys. Everyone outside
." He led the reporters out of the room, then
stood in front of the door as if on guard himself.
"That's one tough rookie cop in there, folks," he
said to the reporters, who had arrayed themselves
around him, with Paul visible over Barona's shoulder
through the windowed panel in the door. "He
wounded three terrorists in the Sacramento Live!
shootout before being gunned down himself. Seriously
injured, he still had the toughness and spirit
to get up out of that hospital bed and attend his
partner's funeral. That's a Sacramento cop for you:
the best of the best." He turned toward the
windowed panel, gave a thumbs-up, and said, "Get
well soon, Officer McLanahan. We need more soldiers
in blu6 like you out there protecting our
streets." As he averted his head as if hiding a tear,
his aides used the moment to end the photo opportunity
, and the reporters were quickly hustled
toward the elevators.
When they were well out of range, Barona said to
Patrick, "My staff should have checked first. He
shot a sideways glance at Tom Chandler, as if
lently blaming him. Chandler extended a hand,
Patrick took it reluctantly. "I'm sorry for the intrusion
, Mr. McLanahan," Chandler said, "and I'm
sorry for what's happened. I promise you we'll find
out who did this."
Patrick didn't think any more of either apology
than he did of the grandstanding in Paul's room, but
he let it slide. "No problem," he said, and tu
rned to
Barona-"Paul's doing okay. He's tough. ---only to
find he had already turned to speak with his aides.
He took a step toward him and the aides noticed.
"Excuse me, Chief Barona. I was wondering if I
could speak with you for a moment?"
Barona wiped the instant look of irritation off his
face-he didn't want to seem impatient with any
member of a cop's family. "Of course, Mr. McLanahan
," he answered. They stepped away, far enough
to feel as if they were carrying out a private discussion
, but near enough to be overheard. Chandler
joined them. "What can I do for you, sir?"
"I was wondering if you could give me any more
details of the incident in which Paul was hurt," Patrick
asked. "Any details about the robbers, where
they came from, where they went, who they areanything
that might help to explain how something
like this could happen here in Sacramento."
"It's not just in Sacramento, Mr. McLanahan,"
Barona responded. "It's a nationwide problem. The
increase in crime, in gang violence, in the use of
assault weapons, in the brazenness of the criminal
element-it's happening all over the country."
Christ, a political statement at a time like this.
Patrick felt that flush of anger again. "I understand,
Chief, but about the robbers-are you saying they
were gang members? As in Crips or Bloods? What
kind of gangs? Do you know specifically who did
thisr
"We don't have that information yet, Mr. McLanahan
," Barona said with an edge of impatience. "My
deputy in charge of public affairs will provide that
information when it becomes available. If you'll excuse
me, sir, I'd better get back to my office so I can
organize the hunt for those bastards that attacked
your son . . ."
"My brother," Patrick corrected him curtly. "Listen
, Chief Barona, I want to help with the investigation
. From what the press and the speakers at the
memorial service said, they were heavily armed
military types. I can help track them down and fight
them. I'd like to speak with you and your investigators
about ways I can help . . ."
Barona again glanced at Chandler, as if asking,
Why in hell are you allowing weirdos like this near
me? "What is it you do, Mr. McLanahan?" he said.