Tin Man

by Dale Brown

  burning rage. "Man, I knew Sacramento had problems

  , but I never dreamed it was this bad," he went

  on. "The drugs, the abuse, the violence-they're beyond

  belief. It's like a battle zone."

  "I'm just glad you're in one piece, bro," Masters

  said. "I was worried." He went south on Stockton

  Boulevard. They could see a knot of headlights and

  blue flashing fights up ahead and guessed it was the

  first police roadblock. Jon made a right onto Thirtyseventh

  Avenue and Patrick steered him through

  neighborhood streets, hoping the turn hadn't attracted

  attention. Before long they were safely

  headed northbound toward downtown Sacramento.

  "How did it go, Patrick?" Jon repeated. "Why didn't

  you rendezvous with me?"

  Patrick started the generator in, the back of the

  Hummer, then retrieved the power cord from the

  generator and plugged it in. But the backpack power

  unit was not charging, and the environmental

  system was completely shut down. "The suit's

  damaged," he replied. "A knife cut it. I lost the environmental

  control system and power drained out

  at three to four times the normal rate. I was lucky

  to get out of there." Patrick took a deep breath and

  leaned back against the headrest. "I think I hurt a

  little girl too," he said.

  "What? Oh no, Patrick! Christ-how did it happen

  ?//

  "The bomb," Patrick explained. "The bomb I

  used to bust open the front door destroyed paurt of

  the bathroom where the little girl was."

  "They had a child in there, where they sell and

  make drugs? How badly was she hurt? Did you call

  an ambulance?"

  "Yes," Patrick responded. "She was bleeding, a

  little shocky-but she screamed pure holy terror

  when she saw me." Jon was relieved; a child's death

  would have been unendurable. "Jon, you should

  have seen that house. It was filthy. The child, she

  was sleeping in a bedroom that they used to make

  drugs. I could smell the chemicals. She was sleeping

  on garbage, eating leftovers off the floor, breathing

  fumes that would've knocked out an adult. It was

  horrible

  "Patrick, it's all right," Masters said. "For all you

  know, you might have saved her life by doing that

  raid. You didn't put a child in harm's way. They

  did." He paused, unsure whether to ask Patrick

  what he wanted to know; then: "What happened

  with the suit? How was it damaged?"

  "It was a knife attack,". Patrick replied. "I was

  struggling with this guy who looked like a cornmando

  , complete with face mask, combat harness,

  the works. He pulled a knife, I grabbed his arm, but

  I couldn't stop him, he was too strong. The blade

  touched the suit and just went right on through.

  Power levels dropped off sharply after that, but the

  system remained intact. But I also discovered that

  the cops could wrestle with me and win. Any slow

  action and the suit couldn't activate. I barely got

  out of there without being handcuffed."

  "It must be the nature of the BERP process," Jon

  surmised. "We never tested the system with a soft

  or slowly penetrating force, only a sharp impact.

  The same characteristic of the suit that allows you

  to move freely means that a slowly penetrating

  force won't activate the electro-reactive collimation

  ."

  "So a bomb blast won't kill me," Patrick said,

  "but a knitting needle pushed in slowly will go

  through my heart with ease?"

  "We should be able to fix that," Jon said, cringing

  at the image. "We might be able to have you selectively

  harden sections of the suit. What about the

  power levels?"

  "Dropped way down after the cut in the suit,"

  Patrick said again, "especially after being hit repeatedly

  .//

  11MV11

  "Hit . . . as in shot," Patrick said.

  Jon's gulp was audible. "How many times were

  you shot, Patrick?"

  Patrick took a moment to count. "About a dozen

  times in the space of six minutes. Plus I got hit by a

  baseball bat a couple of times and bitten by a pit

  bull-I nearly killed it too. " He said all this so

  matter-of-factly, Jon noticed, that he could have

  been a piece of stone relating what had happened.

  "So we need to bump up the power reserves a bit,

  and reprogram the power-monitoring logarithms,"

  Masters said. "We still haven't cured those dis-

  charges inside the suit, have we?" No reply. "Patrick

  , are you sure you're okay?"

  Patrick's tone changed a bit as he went on: "You

  know what I did, Jon? When I planted that charge by

  the door, I didn't take cover. I just stood there and

  let it rip. It was almost as if I was thinking, If this

  bomb kills me, fine. If I survive, fine, I'll do this

  mission. I survived. I don't know why I did that.

  Maybe I thought it was like a test or something, a

  validation, proof that what I was doing was the right

  thing." Patrick was quiet for a long moment, but

  Jon could actually feel the tension, the rage building

  in the backseat. "Those son of a bitches," Patrick

  went on in a low, angry voice. "They kill, they terrorize

  , they poison others, they abuse their children-I

  want to kill every last one of them!"

  Then he added, "I got some information on

  where the Major might be hiding. There was a

  German-speaking commando already inside that

  house when I arrived. I think he was there to take

  out the surviving Satan's Brotherhood members.

  Another biker gave me information on a hideout in

  Wilton. I want to go there. Tonight. Right now."

  "Patrick, you can't and you know it," Jon said.

  "The reason we were successful today is because we

  did pretty good intelligence work and planning. We

  don't have another target planned right now. You

  have some initial intel on a potential target. Fine.

  Let's build on that. But now is not the time to do it.

  Your suit is damaged, it's not taking a charge, and

  there are cops and National Guard troops every

  where. The only reason we haven't been bothered

  so far is because there are already so many Hummers

  on the streets right now that we blend in.11

  Patrick thought for a long moment. "You're

  right," he said at last. "And we've got to get the

  cops involved in this too. I realize I'm fighting the

  cops even more than I'm fighting the bad guys.

  That's no good. Let's get the suit fixed, and then

  we'll plan our next move."

  SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS DIVISION

  HEADQUARTERS, BERCUT DRIVE,

  SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA

  A SHORT TIME LATER

  What in the hell is going on?" Arthur Barona thundered

  as he strode into Tom Chandler's office at

  Special Investigations Division headqua rters. His

  suit was rumpled; he had clearly dressed in a hurry.

 
; Chandler was on the phone, trying to listen to the

  information being passed to him and to the bellowing

  chief of police at the same time. "I just got

  tossed out of bed by the damned mayor himself,"

  Barona went on. "He's been getting calls about a

  rogue Narcotics cop killing civilians and busting up

  people's homes and businesses? I want answers, and

  I want them now!" He stormed out of the office to

  the conference room across the hall.

  Chandler put the phone down and went to join

  Barona. "That was Deputy Chief Ohrman, Chief,"

  he said. "He's ordered Homicide to take over the

  investigation."

  1,1"at in hell is going on?" Barona repeated. "Reports

  of an officer in body armor and full riot gear

  blowing up somebody's home, killing the occupant

  and nearly killing a youngster? Another cop in riot

  gear breaking into the Bobby John Club, nearly killing

  three patrons? Cops not trying to apprehend the

  suspect as he flees on foot?

  "That's inaccurate information, Chief," Chan-

  dler said. He started from the beginning, detailing

  the two incidents of the strange invader in body armor

  who appeared to be rushing around the city in a

  Hummer going after drug dealers and biker-gang

  members. "That's all we know right now," he

  ended.

  "What about this Hummer?"

  "A witness reported the suspect getting into a

  Hummer on Arden Way shortly after the Bobby

  John Club incident."

  "Arden? That's several blocks from Del Paso

  Boulevard."

  "The guy moves fast," Chandler said. "He's got

  some kind of jet thing in his boots that lets him

  jump ...

  "Or there's more than one of them," the chief

  said. "It's not any of your men, is it?"

  "I've started a telephone recall of the entire division

  and ordered Property to do a full inventory of

  our property rooms," Chandler replied. "I don't

  think it's any of my men, but I'm going to do a full

  accounting just in case. Every man has to account

  for his whereabouts tonight. But I can tell you, it's

  not any of them."

  "What about you?" Barona asked. "Where have

  you been tonight?"

  "At home with my wife, Chief," Chandler replied

  irritably. That wasn't entirely accurate-until

  about eleven-thirty, he was with a woman friend up

  near Folsom Lake. But his wife would vouch for

  him if anyone bothered to check. She was accustomed

  to putting up with his antics. "Yeah, DC

  Ohrman thinks I was the guy, as if I've got nothing

  better to do these days than to run around in tights

  busting heads. That's bullshit. I was home."

  "All right, Tom, all right," Barona said. "What

  else? What about the witnesses?"

  "Witnesses and officers on the scene describe an

  individual, probably male, five eight or five nine,

  medium build, wearing what appeared to be a dark

  gray tight-fitting outfit similar to a wetsuit, stiff but

  flexible; a strange high-tech-looking helmet that altered

  and amplified the suspect's voice; and a thin

  backpack, similar in size and shape to a sportjumping

  parachute but thinner," Chandler answered

  , checking his notes. He paused, then added,

  "Our officers at both the Del Paso Heights and Elder

  Creek scenes report that the outfit worn by the suspect

  was probably some sort of new lightweight

  body armor. Several officers reported, discharging

  their weapons at the suspect and hitting him, but

  the suspect appeared unhurt or only slightly injured

  The chief asked something, but Chandler's mind

  had drifted off momentarily. High-tech, hightech

  . . . it reminded him of a conversation he'd

  had with someone not too long ago. Who was it?

  Chandler couldn't remember . . .

  "Chandlerl What about weapons?"

  Chandler shook himself from his reverie. "No

  weapons reported, Chief, except my surveillance officers

  said the suspect planted a satchel charge at

  the door of a known meth house in the Rosalee section

  of Elder Creek that was under surveillance at

  the time."

  "So what it looks like is that we have a vigilante

  or some well-equipped militia type with explosives

  roaming the streets," said Barona, "taking out the

  last of the Satan's Brotherhood with more explosives-this

  time delivered in person by a soldier in

  body armor. Sounds like whoever booby-trapped

  those drug machines is looking to finish the job by

  picking off the survivors one by one."

  "Looks that way to me too, Chief," Chandler said

  absently. He was still trying to tease out that memory.Revenge

  . . . high-tech . . . soldier . . . what in

  hell was it?

  "And the DC is turning this over to Homicide?"

  Chandler nodded. He couldn't tell whether Barona

  was perturbed by this news or not. "Okay, but I still

  want you working with them. I want to know the

  results of your division internal investigation too. f

  We might have to do the entire department. We've

  got to make sure this wasn't a rogue cop."

  "I can guarantee it wasn't," Chandler said. "And

  if it was a cop, he's a pretty stupid, sloppy onehe'll

  get caught soon enough."

  "Better make that happen, Chandler," Barona

  said. "Find him and throw his ass in jail. Whoever

  this guy is, I want him hung out to dry."

  Good for you, Chief, Chandler said to himself as

  Barona stalked out. You bust my hump even though

  I've been taken off the case-and you'll proudly

  take all the credit for busting the guy if you have

  the chance.

  Chandler looked over the notes of his conversations

  with his surveillance teams. It seemed incredible-too

  incredible to tell the chief: a guy who

  seemed invulnerable to bullets. A guy who had an

  outfit that moved like nylon but could instantly

  harden into a suit of armor. A guy who could leap

  fifty feet away and twenty feet up. It was a vigilante

  or militiaman, all right-but a vigilante unlike anyone

  ever seen before. Either this was some kind of

  joke, a ploy by his officers in the field to cover for

  the work of a vigilante or militia group, or it was a

  science-fiction movie come true.

  And if it was true, this guy could be the ultimate

  police officer, the ultimate weapon in the hands of

  law enforcement--or the ultimate nightmare for

  them.

  SWAN CREEK ROAD,

  GRANITE BAY, CALIFORNIA

  WEDNESDAY, 25 MARCH 1998, 0213 PT

  Vomen. Can't live with 'em, can't live without

  em-can't shoot 'em.

  After all the shit that happened in the past couple

  of months, Tom Chandler thought, and just when it

  seemed as if he'd be able to come up for air-hell,

  now Kay wanted a commitment from him, wanted

  to stop sneaking around, wanted him to divorce his

  wife. Shit
.

  He had come to his girlfriend's house to get away

  from the craziness and relax. Some welcome. They

  had a good thing going here. Why'd Kay want to

  screw it up by wanting a commitment? Of course,

  that still didn't stop them from dropping down and

  doing it doggie-style right on the living room floor,

  but Chandler was glad to get the hell out.

  It was a long, dark drive from Kay's place overlooking

  Folsom Lake to Douglas Boulevard, which

  would take him back toward the interstate and

  home. The heavy runoff from the deep snows in the

  Sierra Nevada Mountains, combined with nearly

  forty straight days of rain, filled Folsom Lake, a onemillion-acre

  man-made reservoir thirty miles east

  of Sacramento, almost to capacity. They were releasing

  water from four of the eight big steel gates

  on the dam, but the water level in the lake was still

  rising. It was an annual balancing act for water officials

  in this area: measure releases from the dam to

  keep the reservoir full to supply the fast-growing

  Sacramento Valley with water through the upcoming

  long, dry summer) release enough water to keep

  the forty-year-old dam from rupturing; but don't release

  so much as to cause flooding down the Ameri-

  can River and inundate the city of Sacramento.

  State and federal water officials were not always

  successful keeping all three properly balanced.

  Folsom Lake had always been special for Chandler

  . As a kid, he used to skip school, ride his bike

  more than twenty miles, and hang out at the lake,

  trying to stay one step ahead of the truant officers.

  He lost his virginity at Folsom Lake; he met his first

  two wives at Folsom Lake. It could look like a raging

  ocean, as it did now; in four months it could

  look like a desert wadi with a little stream running

  down the middle, as it did the year one of the gates

  on the dam broke and three-quarters of the lake

  spilled out. it didn't matter to Tom Chandler-he

  would always be drawn to it.

  Chandler was on a shoulderless, unlit road just

  west of the lake when he heard a loud ban 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