Tin Man
Page 41
facedown onto the concrete floor. The handcuffs
were refastened behind his back, and he was lifted
up and shoved into a metal drum. As icy water
poured over him, he cried out in shock. It filled the
drum to the level of his mouth, and a grilled lid was
snapped onto the drum.
"We know from experiments the Third Reich did
during World War Two that a human can survive
immersed in water like this for about an hour ' /1
Reingruber said. "Of course, their subjects were
concentration-camp prisoners, probably in far
poorer physical condition than yourself. We shall be
back in an hour and see how well you did.
"You should also know that we shall be exploring
the spectrum of physical, psychological, and emotional
torture. We shall learn together, we and you,
of your fears, your nightmares, your weaknesses,
and your thresholds of pain and stress."
"Why are you doing this to me?" Jon cried
through chattering lips. "What do you want?"
"Why, Doctor, you may feel free to tell me anything
that you might think I would like to know,"
said the Major. "But you are being punished because
you seem to have this macho image of yourself that
will undoubtedly prevent us from dealing with each
other in a civil manner. You need to accept that this
attitude is counterproductive and will not do."
"Hey, you kraut bastard, face me like a real
man!" Masters screamed. "Screw you!"
"Oh, and one more fact that I thought should be
brought to your attention," Reingruber said. "I have
learned through my sources that your friend and
colleague Brigadier General Patrick McLanahan was
killed yesterday in the Sacramento County jail."
"What?" Jon Masters cried out, raising his head
in shock and crashing against the lid. As he re-
bounded underwater, he inhaled a great snoutful of
water, coughed, and fought for breath. "Patrick is
dead? How? . . ."
"Apparently he angered a fellow inmate who
happened to be a member of the biker gang he attacked."
"You mean the one you attacked!" Masters
screamed. "You killed those bikers! And they've
killed Patrick because of you? Oh God, no!
"Most unfortunate," Reingruber said in mock
sympathy. "We are informed he is being cremated
the day after tomorrow. If you cooperate, perhaps
you may still have time to pay your last respects to
your friend."
"Wait!" Jon cried out. "You haven't asked me
anything! You haven't told me what you want!
Wait!" But Reingruber had already departed.
Jon screamed for help until his throat turned
hoarse. He could not straighten his legs, but he
pressed up against the lid with his head as hard as
he could to force it open. It didn't budge. If that
wasn't going to work, the important thing was to
cope with the cold. He could handle it. Sure, it was
cold now, but eventually his body heat would warm
the water enough to prevent hypothermia. He
swished back and forth like a washing machine, and
sure enough, the sting in his legs and arms started
to go away. The sonofabitch, Jon thought, he's not
going to beat me! Townsend's goons might be coldblooded
terrorists, but they weren't the sharpest
knives in the drawer.
If he stopped strii-l-ling, he found he could
breathe slowly and moic iaturally while keeping
his face above water. Perfet.. No point in trying to
escape; it wasn't possible. Don't panic. Relax. He
closed his eyes, dreaming, remembering trips to
Guam, to Australia, to southern California . . .
He woke up with a scream, then gurgled as water
geysered out of his throat. He tried to take a breath
and found his lungs filled with water. He panicked,
fought the arms trying to hold him underwater.
"Easy, young man, easy," said a soothing voice.
He opened his eyes. A kind-looking gray-haired man
was looking at him. "Don't panic. I'm a doctor. I'll
help you." The doctor's hands pressed on his stomach
, and great quantities of water poured from his
mouth. He coughed, and found he could breathe
again.
"Is he going to be all right, Doctor?" a British
voice asked.
"Yes, yes," the doctor replied. "He wasn't under
very long. The cold water slowed his breathing and
heart rate, so there should be no brain damage."
"We are just in time-you are very lucky, Major
, " said the British voice, which then spewed out a
stream of invective in German. Jon turned his head.
Reingruber was standing at attention, his face impassive
. "Get out of here before I throw you in that
barrel!" Then the Brit stooped over Jon. "Are you all
right, Dr. Masters?" he asked, concern etched on his
face. Jon's teeth were chattering too hard for him to
respond. "Get those blankets, Doctor, now" He
wrapped Jon in two large blankets, sat him up, and
gave him a cup of chicken broth.
"You're . . . you're Townsend, aren't you?" Jon
asked at last, warmer now. The. doctor was hovering
nearby, and periodically checked his heart rate.
"Yes, Doctor." Townsend saw the distrust, then
the fear, building in Jon's eyes. Jon looked at him
hard, and what he saw in his face was pity and apprehensiveness
. "Don't worry," Townsend said.
"Major Reingruber is gone . . . for now."
"Let me go," Jon pleaded. "I swear I won't tell
anyone about you guys. I'll pay any ransom you
want, anything. just let me go."
The doctor spoke up: "Let's not talk about that
now. What you need, young man, is rest."
"Of course." Townsend gave Masters a reassuring
tap on the shoulder. "We'll speak later," he said as
he left.
"That was Gregory Townsend, wasn't it?" Jon
asked the doctor. "The international terrorist?"
The doctor scoffed. "Oh, sure. That's what the
various governments and tabloids have labeled
him," he said, "a terrorist, like Carlos the jackal or
something. Nonsense."
"Really." Jon narrowed his eyes. "That's bullshit.
This is an act, a ploy to get my confidence. You're
butchers, all of you, like that Reingruber asshole."
At the mention of Reingruber's name, the doctor
blanched. "Take care, Dr. Masters," he said. "Major
Reingruber is a dangerous man, very dangerous.
Colonel Townsend keeps him on a very short leash,
but he is unpredictable. Be very careful around
him."
"And Townsend is Mother Teresa's sainted uncle
, I suppose?"
"The colonel saved your life, young man," the
doctor said. "He came in just in time and saw what
Reingruber had done. You could have drowned."
"I fell asleep? Hypothermia?"
"Yes. You were in the water for about ninety
minutes, and possibly three to four minutes underwater
. Tha
nkfully, your heart and breathing rates
were already slowed down to next to nothing. Colonel
Townsend dragged you out of the water and performed
CPR on you until you came to."
"Oh shit," Jon exclaimed. The world's master
terrorist and arms smuggler saved his life? This
was unreal-crazy-yet it had to be true. He had
certainly been moments away from drowning. He
looked at the physician, baffled. "And who are
you?11
"Dr. Richard Faulkner, internal medicine," the
physician said. He extended a hand. "Recently of
the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute . . ."
"Boston?" Faulkner nodded. "I'm an MIT grad.
Where'd you go to school?"
"Dartmouth Medical School. Before that, Dartmouth
College. I . . ."
"You're kidding! I went to Dartmouth too! What
in the world are you doing here?"
"Gregory . . . Colonel Townsend did me
an extraordinary favor years ago," Faulkner said.
"My father was in deep with loan sharks to pay off
medical bills for my mother. They threatened to kill
me, my sister, and my mother if we didn't pay up.
Gregory stepped in and got the loan sharks off my
father's back. In return, I help him whenever I can."
"But . . . but Townsend's a killer, a terrorist
"Never," Faulkner said. "I know what's said
about him, but I promise you it isn't true. He's a
professional soldier. He wants to do his job. Unfortunately
, he has a tendency to get in with the wrong
elements-Major Reingruber is an example. Reingruber's
the enemy here. This entire state would be
in flames were it not for Gregory."
"That's sure as hell not what I heard about the
guy. /I
"Don't believe the falsehoods, young man,"
Faulkner said. "But you do need to watch out for
Reingruber. He'll be very angry now that Gregory
has reproved him in front of you. Gregory will protect
you, but you have to trust that this is so and
you have to be watchful. Do you understand?" Jon
nodded. "Good. Let's get you out of here and into
some warm clothes."
Still puzzled and uneasy, Jon tried one more plea.
"Why don't you just let me go?" he asked. "It could
be set up. We could make it look like I conked you
on the head . . ."
"No way. Major Reingruber would kill me for
sure," Faulkner said. "No. Our best chance is with
Gregory, believe me. I trust him with my life. I have
reason to. We'd better get out of here before Reingruber
catches us alone."
Faulkner helped Jon out of the back room and
into the central part of the building. The place resembled
a small warehouse, with rooms like small
offices opening off the main area. They glimpsed
Reingruber in one of the rooms, cleaning guns. He
got to his feet when he saw them, his rage at Masters
evident in his eyes, but he did not come out.
Faulkner led Jon into a small windowless room
equipped with a cot, blankets, a floor lamp, and a
couple of chairs. "You'll be safe here, Jon," Faulkner
said. "The door locks." From a pocket under his
jacket he pulled out a newspaper conspiratorially.
"Here," he said. "Hide this under the blankets. You
don't want Reingruber to know you have it. I've got
to go.
"That bastard will come after me
"I'll be right outside, and Gregory is nearby,"
Faulkner said. "Don't worry. Again, you can rely on
us. Gregory'll get you out of this in fine shape, but
you're going to have to do as he says and place your
trust in him. Do you understand? Will you do that,
Jon?
What choice did he have? ' "I'll try, Doc."
"Good. Lock the door after I leave. You must
open it when they demand entry, but you'll have
some privacy."
Jon locked the door instantly, then sat down on
the bed and wrapped himself in the blankets.
This is crazy, he said to himself. Reingruber is a
madman. Even if what Faulkner said about Townsend
was true, what kind of jerk was he, hanging
around wackos like that? He'd saved his life, for
which he was grateful, but it was baffling nonetheless
. Still, he had the two of them to keep the psycho
away from him, and they certainly seemed to
mean it.
He unfolded the paper carefully. It was today's
pages 3 and of the Sacramento Bee, tattered but
still readable, with late-breaking details on the explosion
in Wilton. As he read, he froze. He could not
believe what he was seeing.
The coverage spelled out what it described as the
Tin Man's reign of terror. Patrick McLanahan had
killed several Wilton residents, whom he suspected
of being terrorists. He had misidentified the house
as a hideout for meth cookers and terrorists when it
was actually rented out by an itinerant fartner, his
family of three kids, and his brother's family with
four kids. He had killed several of them, including
three children, then set an explosive charge on a
propane tank outside, causing the huge explosion.
Jon was stupefied. Their intelligence had been
perfect, impeccable, accurate-yet, there it was in
black and white: They had made a terrible mistake
and eleven people had died because of it. There was
a Reuters account, an Associated Press piece about
the attack. And there was a big article from the Bee
news service about Patrick's death in the Sacramento
County jail, characterizing it as a kind of
Iisuicide by inmate"-Patrick had apparently
sought out a Satan's Brotherhood prisoner and
taunted him into the attack that led to the retaliatory
killing. The story suggested he was so schizoid
that he thought he still had the suit on-was invulnerable-when
he attacked the inmate, proclaiming
his innocence all the while. The body, it ended, was
to be cremated and the remains taken to an undisclosed
location.
Jon folded away the paper and sat on the bed, his
face a mask of horror. Eleven innocent people had
died at their hands. They were murderers.
e's falling for it," said Faulkner. With Townsend
and Reingruber, he was watching Masters on a
closed-circuit TV monitor, broadcast via a pinhole
camera in his room. "It was a great idea to have the
computer print it out on newsprint. And can you
believe how he took in all that crap about me being
a doctor from Dartmouth? Now I'm his goddamn
best friend. Still, I don't see why you don't just beat
the information out of him, Colonel. He's as sensitive
as a pansy."
"Because he will faint at the slightest injury and J
be quite useless to us," Townsend replied. "The
tank wiped him out. And drugs will only dull his
mind, and we need that mind to be as sharp as possible
. No, physical or chemical techniques will not
work,. This is the way t
o proceed. Scientific genius
though he may be, he is obviously not trained in
misinformation, propaganda, or interrogation- 1,
resistance techniques. He is reaching out for a
friend, and he has found one in you, and soon in
myself.
"His internal clock should be running on our
timetable soon-that was programmed when we
convinced him he was in the water for ninety minutes
, not the fifteen it actually was. And as soon as A
that occurs, it will be easy to get the information
we need." Townsend walked over to the rack and
examined the BERP suit hanging there. "You have
not succeeded in discovering how it works?" he
asked Faulkner.
"I discovered how to plug in the power and turn
it on from the outside, and how to keep it
recharged," Faulkner said. "There are sensors inside
the helmet that activate functions that are displayed
inside. But I've got to figure out how to break
the code. Well, we can probably get it from him.
The way it's going, youll have him babbling like a
kid and squawking like a parakeet in no time."
"There's no certainty about that," said Townsend
sharply. "These misinformation and psychological
techniques are not foolproof. I am relying on you to
break the code and activate that suit. Masters can
then fill in the pieces. You had better get back to
work. We'll discuss our next scene with Masters
when that is done."
He turned to Reingruber. "Gute Arbeit, Herr Major
.
The major clicked his heels and bowed.
"Status of the target?"
"Still under full security, Colonel," Reingruber
replied. "Departure has been delayed because of the
explosion at the ranch. Security has been increased
slightly, but not - with any specially trained forces."
"We may have to implement Phase Three of our
plan after all," Townsend said. "We must be sure
the targets are not in ferry or decommission configuration
. The weapons systems must be in maintenance
preload status or else we may not be able to
upload all the weapons we require."
"I understand, Herr Oberst. Our informants are
keeping close scrutiny on the targets at all times.
The weapons systems remain in full maintenance
preload status, and are not expected to go to ferry