by Dale Brown
McLanahan undid his Velcro key holder and retrieved his set of keys-cops were issued a whole wad of them for various rooms, lockers, call boxes, and dozens of other things. He had secured his keys with a thick rubber band to keep them from rattling, leaving only the squad-car key outside the band so it could be retrieved easily. Yep, this kid knew his shit and kept his eyes and ears open. The Sarge had probably rubber-banded his toy keys when he was a youngster, LaFortier thought.
“Very good. Now all you have to do is do the same for the next twenty or thirty years, and you’ll be in good shape.” He turned serious for a moment. “Now, what’s this I hear about you sitting in on an MDT class this afternoon?”
“Yes, sir, I did,” McLanahan said. “They didn’t give us much MDT training in the academy-”
“I know that,” LaFortier interrupted. “You’ll be scheduled for it soon enough. But you need permission from your sergeant before you can request overtime.”
“I didn’t want any overtime-I did it on my own time.”
“For you, there is no ‘own time,’ rook,” LaFortier said. “You work for eight hours and eight hours only, from nine P.M. to five A.M. I had to get permission just to get you in here one hour early. Neither the city nor I want dead-tired rookies on the street. Graveyard is tough, McLanahan. You need every hour of sleep you can get. But more importantly, you did something that I didn’t know about, something I had to hear about from my boss.”
LaFortier leaned forward, getting right in McLanahan’s face so his new partner could look nowhere but in his eyes. “If I don’t teach you anything else in the next six months, rook, you will learn this: We must, we will communicate with each other. We need to act like one out there. I’m not one of those FTO’s who’ll tell you to just shut up and listen and stay out of the way. We need to be each other’s eyes and ears. When one of us is occupied, the other is watching, listening, always on guard. We never work alone. You want something, even if it’s trivial or personal or anything, you tell me. You talk, you tell me what’s on your mind, and you verbalize. You don’t think of yourself, you think of us. Understand?”
“I understand, Craig,” Paul responded. “I was just trying to get pumped up, sir, you know, get a little ahead…”
“I know you’re gung ho, McLanahan,” LaFortier said. “All you McLanahans have a reputation of being bulldogs. But reputations don’t count for shit until you earn yours. Don’t go off freelancing. You got an idea you want to do something, talk to me about it first. I’m your FTO, but I’m also your partner. We work as a unit. Remember that.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Clipboard,” LaFortier said, holding out his hand and taking McLanahan’s metal clipboard.
Good job, LaFortier thought as he studied its contents. McLanahan had indeed put himself ahead of his peers by sneaking into that Mobile Data Terminal class. The department usually took weeks to schedule that class, so the rookies had to absorb as much as they could about the complicated system as they went along. It felt good to be riding along with a rookie who wasn’t afraid to take some initiative, who knew what he didn’t know and went out and got it on his own.
Even the clipboard was put together pretty well. But he could never let McLanahan slide that much, not on the first day. “You’re missing several forms in here, rook,” he said. “I’ll show you what you need to bring. Forms are written in point-five millimeter B lead pencil, not in pen, not in HB lead. And you better have more than one pencil-you’ll probably lose at least three a night. Follow me.”
Mercy San Juan Hospital,
Citrus Heights, California
several hours later
The obstetrician completed his examination. “Still only three centimeters-maybe four,” he said.
Wendy McLanahan was too exhausted to register any reaction except to close her eyes as another contraction began. Patrick’s jaw dropped open. “Doc, you said she was three centimeters eight hours ago. Wendy has had a contraction every three or four minutes since three P.M.! What’s going on?”
“It’s a difficult delivery, that’s all, Mr McLanahan,” the doctor said. “We’ll go ahead and give her some oxytocin to speed things up. That might help.”
“I’m not on a timetable here, Doc, but she’s already exhausted-she’s shaking, she’s sweating like crazy but she’s shaking and white as a ghost and complains of being cold. It looks like she’s going into shock. What are we going to do?”
The obstetrician studied the monitor readouts. “I wouldn’t worry too much, Mr McLanahan,” the doctor said. “Wendy seems strong, and so does the baby. It’s important that she not push…”
“She’s too exhausted to push, Doc,” Patrick protested. “What about an epidural? Something to reduce the pain?…”
“Normally we don’t do an epidural until she’s dilated at least five centimeters,” the doctor said. “We can give her something to take the edge off, but an epidural at this stage would be asking for trouble. She may not be able to push when the time comes. We’ll start the oxytocin-that’ll get things moving a little more quickly-and I’ll give her a mild painkiller in her IV. As soon as she’s at five centimeters, in one or two hours at most, we’ll…”
“One or two hours?” Patrick exclaimed. “It’s almost twenty hours now!”
“I don’t think she was in active labor when you brought her in, Mr McLanahan,” the obstetrician said. “In any case, we have to let things take their course. We want to avoid too much intervention. Accelerating labor is a big enough step. We want to avoid having to do a cesarean if at all possible.”
“We can’t do a cesarean at all, Doc,” Patrick said. “Wendy had wanted this to be as natural a childbirth as possible, with minimum drugs and maximum mobility…”
“I know that, Mr McLanahan,” the doctor said, “but things are obviously not going as planned. We may have no choice…”
“Read the records, Doc,” Patrick said. “She can’t have a cesarean.”
“I read the records Dr Linus faxed to me, Mr McLanahan, and I read his annotation about abdominal injuries and damage to her circulatory system. I also read that Dr Linus recommended terminating the pregnancy because of the severe risks to Wendy’s health if there were complications during delivery.” The doctor saw the guilt that spread across Patrick’s face and felt sorry for him. They obviously wanted a child badly enough to risk the life of the mother. He looked at the chart and frowned, then studied Patrick warily. “I’m a little confused about a few things, Mr McLanahan,” he said. “I see evidence of scarring, perhaps burns, and damage to her lungs, abdomen, and heart, but no cause listed. How did your wife get injured? A car accident?”
Patrick swallowed hard, obviously conflicted and apprehensive. “I… I can’t tell you,” he responded.
“Excuse me?”
“I can’t give you any details, Doc,” Patrick said. “I thought Dr Linus was going to include a note with the medical records explaining…”
“There’s a note saying something about sensitive and classified government information,” the obstetrician said, “but I need to know what has happened to your wife before I can treat her and the baby. You’re asking me to work in the dark, Mr McLanahan, and that’s dangerous. Do you want that for your wife and new baby? Which is more important-national security or the lives of your wife and child?”
“My family, of course,” Patrick said resolutely. “I’ll tell you anything you need to know. What about this oxytocin stuff, about speeding up labor?”
“The drug will supplement, then eventually take over, the frequency and intensity of her contractions-we’ll have better control,” the obstetrician said. “Things will happen fast after that. If they don’t, we’ll start considering our options…”
“Not a cesarean,” Patrick said emphatically.
“If you won’t consider a cesarean, then you risk the health, even the life, of the baby…”
“I said no C-section,” Patrick said, his voice hard, his eyes pier
cing the doctor’s. “I’m not going to risk Wendy’s life. Period.”
The doctor nodded. He saw the pain on Patrick’s face. “All right, I hear you. We’ll make that decision later-that probably won’t be for a few hours. But first, we need to talk. Sit down…”
Seventh and K Streets, Sacramento
the same time
The complex was called Sacramento Live! and it was the biggest thing to hit the downtown area in years: ten night-clubs and ten movie theaters, all in one location on K Street. Everything was in one place, from quiet, elegant, relaxing steak houses that served fine wine and cigars, to pizza places with games and cartoons for the kids, sports bars, jazz, rock and roll, funk, country-western, and Generation X. Patrons could do one-time parking or take Light Rail right to the mall, see a movie, then spend an evening in one place, or circulate among all of them, and never go outdoors. The place was packed all year long, but during the holidays it was shoulder-to-shoulder, with mall-weary shoppers taking refuge in the movie theaters and then enjoying dinner and a drink before heading home.
The doors closed at midnight. It normally took the small army of cleanup crews less than an hour to straighten up, but during the holiday season they needed extra crews, and it took the seasonal workers longer to do the job of cleaning up the huge complex. The night managers of the clubs were usually finished counting the receipts, checking the time cards, doing a closing inventory, and preparing the books by one A.M., so several cleanup crews were still inside when the day’s receipts were boxed up in large locked steel containers by each club’s manager and an armed private security officer and wheeled over to the bookkeepers and general manager in the cash room on the second floor of the complex.
Security was tight inside Sacramento Live!, especially when the cash was on the move. Off-duty Sacramento Police Department officers patrolled the complex when it was open, but all but one of them went home at midnight, leaving only private security forces on duty. A private elevator, guarded on the first floor by an armed security officer and controlled by the chief of security from the second floor, took the steel cash bins upstairs to the cash room. Other security officers monitored cameras mounted throughout the complex, keeping watch over the area around the private elevator while the cash bins were in motion. Watchmen armed only with radios and flashlights patrolled inside and outside until all the regular employees had left the building and the cash was secure. The lone off-duty police officer was stationed with the chief of the private security company on the second floor during the receipts transfer; the radio he carried was a standard-issue police radio, linked to Central Dispatch. The private security officers and watchmen were connected to each other via radio, as well as to the chief of security on the second floor.
The elevator could only take three cash bins and their escorts at a time, so five boxes were left waiting on the first floor as the first group of three went upstairs; and three boxes had yet to come out of their respective clubs. The first three boxes had already made it to the second floor when the main lights dimmed, then flickered out. The battery-powered emergency lights immediately snapped on.
“Power failure procedures, power failure procedures,” the chief security officer announced over the emergency public address system. One guard blew a whistle, and the cleanup crews on the first floor instantly stopped what they were doing and headed to the front door, escorted by an armed security guard. He had the easy job. The other guards groaned, because the alarm meant that the elevator was shut down-and that meant they would have to lug the heavy cash bins up the stairs to be secured in the cash room until the main power was restored.
“First floor, all secure?” the chief of security radioed.
“Secure,” came the reply from one of the guards, signaling that the cleanup crews had been escorted outside and the doors were closed, locked, and checked. The chief of security opened the stairwell door on the second floor, which locked behind him, and walked downstairs. The door to the first floor was locked on the other side, so that occupants of the second floor could use the stairwell as a fire escape, but no one on the first floor could walk upstairs unless it was opened by security. The chief security officer knocked on the door three times, received two knocks in response, then gave one more knock before pushing it open. Carlson, one of the newer security officers, was on the other side of the door. “Okay, boys, the sooner we get these boxes upstairs, the sooner we…”
A man in a dark outfit, a military-style helmet, and a dark face mask appeared out of nowhere. The chief of security had just enough time to register his shock before the intruder raised a gun with a thick suppressor fitted to the muzzle to his forehead. There was a bright flash of light, then nothing.
“Security One-Seven.”
The off-duty Sacramento Police Department officer at the desk on the second floor of the complex retrieved his radio from the desk and keyed the mike: “Security One-Seven, go.”
“Are you 908 yet?”
“Negative,” the officer replied. It was common for off-duty officers to forget to report in to Dispatch when they completed an off-duty assignment, and since it was thirty minutes past his scheduled off time, Dispatch was checking up on him. “They have a power failure here. It’ll be another thirty minutes.”
“Check. You got a call from your sitter. No problems, just a status check. Let us know when you’re 908.”
“Roger.”
“KMA 907 clear.”
The exasperated officer tossed the radio on the desk with a thud. His life was heading down the shitter pretty fast these days. As if the holidays weren’t bad enough, his old lady had decided she didn’t want to be married to a cop anymore-or be a mom, or be a housewife-so she took off for L.A. with her new poke, leaving him with their five-year-old daughter and a mountain of bills. He had already burned out one baby-sitter with all the overtime and off-duty jobs he had signed up for, and he guessed he was going to burn out another one before his folks could come from Montana to help him out. Before she left, his old lady had cleaned out the checking account too, so it looked like the only presents his little girl got this year would be charity stuffed toys normally reserved for the city’s homeless kids, or presents from his folks. Merry fucking Christmas.
There were three knocks at the locked stairwell door. The cop circled the security desk and knocked twice in response. There were two knocks in response, the correct reply. He pushed open the door… and was dead before he hit the ground.
Sacramento County Main Jail,
651 I Street, Sacramento, California
the same time
In all the years Paul McLanahan had lived in Sacramento, he never even knew exactly where the new county jail was downtown. Now, on his first night on the job, he had been inside it twice. It was said that the new jail looked like a luxury hotel and the Hyatt Regency downtown looked like a jail, but to Paul the place just looked bleak, sterile, and miserable.
He and LaFortier drove into the underground parking garage of the jail under a large steel roll-up door. After securing their weapons in the trunk of their car, they escorted their prisoner to the thick steel-and-glass door of the jail, which was guarded by a sheriff’s deputy sitting behind bulletproof glass. Because this prisoner was suspected of carrying drugs, they donned latex gloves, escorted him to a secure bathroom, and conducted a strip search-including the unappealing process of ordering the prisoner to drop his pants, bend over, spread his cheeks, and cough several times so they could look up his anus for any sign of hidden drugs. One look at this guy’s ass made Paul want to take a steaming hot shower, and he considered double-gloving if the guy decided to fight. But the ten-block chase they did to catch him-he had started running as soon as he saw LaFortier and McLanahan slow down as they passed him on the street-had obviously taken the fight out of him.
“That law practice is looking better and better all the time, isn’t it, rook?” LaFortier asked Paul with a grin. Paul went on shaking out clothes and sneaker inserts.
Paul had managed to do much of the paperwork at the scene of the arrest and in the car on the way over to the jail, so he finished it a few minutes later, with the prisoner handcuffed to a nearby bench. LaFortier checked it over. “Looks pretty good,” he said. “But only four bindles of low-grade meth, less than a hundred dollars’ worth-with the overcrowding they’ve got here, he’ll be released in an hour.”
“But he’s got priors, Cargo,” McLanahan said, waving the suspect’s computer printout rap sheet. “He’s been convicted before for possession with intent to sell…”
“But he wasn’t caught with enough to get him on a new intent charge this time,” LaFortier said. “Four bindles, no payo sheets, no wad of cash, not found in a high-crime area-although he was pursued into an area where his probation says he’s not allowed to go. Of course, that’ll be our fault, not his. He’ll get five thousand bail on a felony possession charge, his girlfriend or wife will put up the five hundred bond, and he’ll be free. I’ll testify as an expert witness that his intent was to sell, but if he’s got a good lawyer, they’ll plead it down to a misdemeanor possession long before his court date and he’ll skate with a slap on the wrist, maybe a month or two in jail for the probation violation…”
