Tin Man
Page 16
"I work for a defense contractor in San Diego. We
produce communications, surveillance, and space
systems for the U.S. military."
"You mean satellites? I don't see how a satellite
can help us. if you'll excuse me
"We make other things as well, Chief," Patrick
said. "Weapons. Sensors. We can access information
from all over the globe. if you can tell me what you
need or what your special objectives might be, I'm
sure we can design a system that can help you.
Barona regarded Patrick with complete exasperation
. "Mr. McLanahan, you're, not trying to sell me
a communications system, are you? Are you a salesman
? if you are, this is hardly the time
"I'm not trying to sell you anything, Chief," Patrick
retorted. "I'm trying to give you something. I
can give you any kind of exotic weapon, sensor, or
electronics system you might need to help locate
and capture the bastards who killed those cops and
put my brother in the hospital. I can outfit your
officers so they'd never have to enter a building
without knowing exactly how many people are inside
and where each and every one is. I can give
them the ability to paralyze a roomful of criminals
with a single shot. I can make it so an officer would
never have to fear a bullet ever again. I can give a
single officer the power of-"
"Mr. McLanahan, please," Barona interrupted,
rubbing his eyes tiredly. "This all sounds fascinating
, but I don't have the time to-"
"Chief Barona, I'm not making any of this up-I
can do all of what I'm saying," Patrick said. "But it
would be better if you gave me some kind of idea
about what we're up against
"'What we're up against'?" Barona mimicked.
He closed his eyes, then stepped past Patrick, poised
to head away. "Listen to me carefully, Mr. McLanaban
," he said. "Let me caution you about something
. Interfering with a police investigation is a
crime. This crime will also be investigated by
agents of the U.S. military, ATF, FBI, the state police
, and by volunteers from agencies all across the
West. No one kills a cop anywhere in America without
brother officers coming to help. But civilians are
not permitted to participate. You'd be needlessly endangering
yourself and those around you. You don't
have the training and experience it takes to-"
"But I do have the training-and I've got the advice
, assistance, and equipment necessary to do the
job," Patrick said. "Let me talk to you about this in
more detail. I can demonstrate technologies that
will astound you."
"No thank you, Mr. McLanahan," Barona said.
"Again, I must warn you-stay away from this investigation
. I would hate to punish any family
member of a fallen cop, but I will if I must to protect
the lives of other cops. Take care of your family
and your brother, sir, and leave the investigation to
us." Barona snapped up the collar of his coat, signaling
an end to the conversation, and strode off. Chandler
nodded to Patrick, looking a little embarrassed
by his chief's tone, and followed behind.
Patrick could do nothing more. He went up to
Paul's room once more and looked through the door
window. His brother was asleep. He could see his
slow heartbeat and respiration registering on the
monitors near the bed. Nurses had access to the
room from an interior door that opened on the central
nurses' corridor, and a nurse's aide was busy
recording vital signs right now. The officer was back
on duty outside the room, and he gave Patrick a
look that clearly warned him to stay away. Now
he's doing his job, thought Patrick bitterly. He nodded
to the officer and left.
The drive over to the hospital where Wendy was
recuperating was twenty minutes by freeway, and
after three days of shuttling back and forth, he could
do it in his sleep. It gave him ample time to think.
Barona seemed completely befuddled by this incident
. He was good at feeding the press plenty of
reassuring and meaningless tidbits, but he seemed
more concerned about looking good and engaged
and in control rather than actually doing anything
to capture the cop-killers. Barona wasn't the one to
talk to, Patrick decided. He had to find the guy in
charge of the investigation itself. Maybe he'd be
more willing to accept some unconventional assistance
from a secret source.
When Patrick entered Wendy's room a few minutes
later, he found her asleep-and Jon Masters
sitting in a chair beside the bassinet, cradling the
baby in his arms with an expression of unabashed
awe. "Jon!" Patrick exclaimed. "What a surprise!"
"Hey, Patrick, look at this little guy," Jon said,
his voice low and a big grin on his face. "He's great,
man, really great. Wendy said it was okay I hold
him, and then she fell asleep, so here I am, stuck on
baby patrol. Is it okay? You want him back?"
"As long as you don't plan on keeping him,
you're welcome to hold him," Patrick said with a
smile. He kissed Wendy gently on the forehead,
then took a seat beside Jon in the foldout chair-bed
he had been sleeping in over the past few days.
They both gazed at the child as if he were a radiant
being-which of course he was, at least in his
dad's eyes. He had a mass of soft wavy blond hair
with tinges of red all through it, so much of it that it
framed his face under his little knitted cap. He had
tiny ears, round little shoulders, and solid arms like t
his father, but a soft, gentle face and a pert little
chin like his mother. He opened his eyes when he
sensed his father near him, and the two men found
themselves looking into the clearest, roundest,
most liquid blue eyes either had ever seen. Then he
closed them, pursed his lips as if in approval, and
fell asleep again.
"What are you going to name him?" Jon asked.
"You know, Jon is always a good name
"Bradley," they heard Wendy reply. They turned
to see her struggling to sit up in bed. Her stomach
muscles were almost useless after the cesarean, so
moving was still painful, but she appeared determined
to test her muscles more and more every
hour. She had gathered her long hair into a ponytail
again to keep it in check, and she looked as beautiful
and as vibrant as ever. Patrick sat on the bed
beside her. "I think we decided that months ago,
whether it was a boy or a girl," she told Jon, holding
her husband's hand. "And since James was my dad's
name . . ."
"Bradley James McLanahan?" Jon Masters exclaimed
, rolling his eyes in mock disbelief. "You
gave your son, this cute, innocent, tow-headed little
boy, the same name as the scourge of the United
&n
bsp; States Air Force? Shame on you." He grinned at
them both, then asked, "What about your brother?
How is he?"
"They say his condition is improving," Patrick
replied, "but of course that was before we sneaked
him out of the hospital to go to the memorial service
. He was just about unconscious when we got
him back there. The doc prescribed bed rest and no
visitors, not even family, for twenty-four hours."
"How bad is he?"
Patrick shrugged. "He's alive, thank God. He was
shot at close range with a nine-millimeter submachine
gun on full automatic. The bulletproof
vest saved his life, but he's still in very serious condition
. He's got a cracked sternum, -damaged esophagus
, and some internal bleeding in his left lung
that might require more surgery. A bullet grazed off
his left collarbone and lodged in his larynx, so they
had to remove it . . ."
Jon Masters shrugged. "No sweat. We can replace
Patrick blinked. "What?"
"His larynx. We can replace it with an electronic
one. A lot better than the 'buzzers' they use now.
All internal microchip design. A pretty good duplication
of human speech-he won't sound like a
dime-store wind-up robot. What else?"'
Patrick looked at Wendy with surprise, and continued
: "Some broken ribs, his left shoulder's gone,
his left arm might be destroyed, and his right leg
was pretty badly injured . . ."
"We can fix all that too, Patrick," Jon said confidently
. "Sternum, ribs, scapulas, collarbones-easy.
Lightweight fibersteel bone, stronger than steel but
than natural bone. Won't set off any X-ray
security machines like Brad's stuff did."
"Sky Masters builds prosthetic devices too, Jon?
Wendy asked.
"Are you kidding? With Brad Elliott on the staff?
That was one of his pet projects," Jon replied. "In
typical Brad Elliott fashion, he buttonholed a bunch
of folks on the board and badgered them into giving
him a budget-he even got some grant money. He
got a bunch of guys in R D experimenting with
prosthetic devices, and they've made a lot of progress
. The arm and leg will be the most exciting. The
prosthesis Brad Elliott had for his right leg is like a
scurvy pirate's peg leg compared to the devices
we've got now
"We're hoping he won't need any prostheses,
Jon," Patrick said. "The docs can't say for sure, but
they're hopeful. His leg isn't that bad-he might get
seventy-five percent back. The arm, the shoulder
. . . well, it's just too early to tell."
"What I'm trying to say, guys, is don't worry
about Paul," Jon said. "All he has to do is hold on to
his will to live-and when I heard he actually talked
you into putting him in a wheelchair and taking
him to the church to be with his partner, I thought,
This kid wants to live, all right! But I don't want to
hear this 'seventy-five percent' crap. Let me help
him, and I can make him better than new. Like they
said in the TV series, 'We can rebuild him. We have
the technology."'
"This isn't a TV series, Jon, and this is not an
experiment. He's my brother, and it's his life we're
talking about," Patrick said seriously.
"I know, Patrick," Masters said. "We'll let the
doctors care for him. He'll need surgery, rehabilitation
, and time. But if he needs anything more, I just
want to let you know that our company's resources
are available to help him. I don't want you to
worry.
Patrick nodded in appreciation, though the anger
still seething deep within him was almost palpable.
"Thanks, Jon," he murmured.
They all fell silent, watching the baby sleep.
Wendy finally broke the silence: "Tell us, how did
the BERP demonstration go?"
Masters lowered his eyes to the floor, then
shrugged. "No word yet. I thought it went really
well. Awesome, in fact. The technology works perfectly
."
"Still got that glitch with the energy discharge
through the material?" Patrick asked.
"Uh . . . yes, that problem's still with us," Jon
admitted after a rather lengthy pause. "But good
news: Your buddies Hal Briggs and that big scary
Marine stopped by."
"They did? Where are they?"
"They're out at McClellan. They said something
about servicing their aircraft
"Yep," Patrick said. "McClellan does a lot of
nondestructive inspection on aircraft, mostly highvalue
or classified aircraft like the stealth fighter,
cruise missiles, stuff like that. Hal Briggs's Madcap
Magician cell uses stealth C-130 cargo planes for
infiltration and extraction missions, and only McClellan
can do maintenance on the stealth skins."
"It sounds as if their organization is interested in
pursuing some of your ideas for additional applications
for BERP."
"Great," Patrick said. "But I still agree with you:
This technology belongs on the world's airliners.
We can sell it to the government or the military
later." Jon looked a bit uncomfortable, but said
nothing. -
"Where's Helen?" Wendy asked. "Is she still
meeting with the FAA and the airline reps, or is she
back in San Diego?" Jon hesitated again. Patrick and
Wendy looked at each other quizzically. "Jon? . . ."
"She . . . she resigned," Masters said sheepishly
.
"She what?"
"She resigned. She's going to take her stock and
go form her own company again."
"What happened? Did you have an argument?"
"No!"
"Then what, for God's sake?"
"Oh, she was a little upset because I didn't play
kiss-ass with the FAA and didn't show them the
proper amount of subservience," Masters said, a
touch of his childish whininess showing in his
voice. But he could see that neither Patrick nor
Wendy was buying this, so he added, his voice almost
a whisper, "She might have been a little upset
at me because I stayed on board the test fuselage
during the BERP demo."
"You what?" Wendy exclaimed. She looked at
her husband, but to her surprise, he didn't seem angry
. His expression was more like wonder, like curiosity
But the baby seemed to register her tension, and
started to squawk. She cradled him in her arms. "I
don't believe it!" she said. "Jon, you could have gotten
yourself killed. No wonder Helen was upset!
And you televised the whole thing for the folks in
Washington-my God, do you realize you could
have forced them to watch your death if something
had gone wrong? No wonder there's no word from
the FAA or the airlines. They probably think we're
all a bunch of crazies or scam artists."
Wendy glanced at Patrick again. He was wearing
his one-thousand-yard stare, the look he got wh
en
his mind was far away. "Patrick?"
"I'll talk to Helen, ask her to stay on," Patrick
said, shaking himself from his abstraction. "Jon,
you've got to talk to the board and tell them what
happened, then convince all the members to talk to
Helen. Not only would we be losing our most valuable
designer and engineer, but the information she
could take with her might cost the company billions
."
Wendy was disappointed in Patrick's lack of out-,
rage, but she decided to ignore it-he certainly had
enough on his mind right now. Besides, Jon seemed
genuinely sad and sorry at the prospect of Helen
Kaddiri's leaving the company. It had always
seemed to Wendy that Jon took delight in tormenting
Helen, but perhaps that was just a facade.
Bradley was getting restless; it was time to feed
him. Wendy pulled her hospital gown off her shoulders
. Jon's mouth dropped open as the baby latched
on and hungrily began to nurse. Wendy made no
effort to cover herself. "Whoa," Jon said, snapping
to his feet and looking embarrassed. "I think that's
my cue to exit."
"It's okay, Jon But he was out the door in a
flash.
Wendy smiled as she cuddled her son against her
breast. "Maye you should go talk to him, Patrick,"
she said. "He seems pretty confused right now."
"Good idea. He might have to apologize to Helen
in front of the board, and we all know how good Jon
is about apologizing-not."
"Thanks," Wendy said.
Jon Masters was standing in front of the window
at the end of the hallway, looking lost. Patrick
walked over to him, a slight smile on his face. "You
really didn't have to leave, Jon," he said. "She's only
feeding the baby."
"I know."
Patrick's grin broadened. "It's not a striptease,
Jon.
"I know, Patrick," Jon insisted. "It's just . . .
well, I . . . I've never
"What? Never seen a woman breast-feed a baby
before? Women breast-feed in public all the time
nowadays."
"Not that I've noticed."
"There's nothing to be uncomfortable or embarrassed
about. Sheesh, you sound like a prude or a
virgin or something." As soon as the words were
out, Patrick regretted it-Jon's face turned beet-red.
"Ah, shit, Jon, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to poke fun