The Tin Man

by Dale Brown

  The guards raked the Jeep with their submachine guns. A tire exploded and the vehicle swerved momentarily, then kept on its collision course. One of the guards leveled an antitank rocket launcher at it. It exploded, flipped over, and hit one of the outbuildings near the house.

  “Where is he?” There was no sign of life in the vehicle and a quick survey of the house and grounds showed they were clear as well. “We’d better radio the lieutenant,” said one of the guards as he removed the spent magazine and retrieved a fresh one from his ammo pouch. At that moment a helmeted figure flew at them, body-tackling them like a rocket-powered battering ram. In seconds they were disarmed by hammering blows that felt like steel batons, cracking fingers and wrists.

  “Wo ist der Major?” the intruder demanded. “Wo ist der Englдnder?”

  “Go to hell!”

  Patrick heard Jon Masters’s voice through his radio. “Hey, I’ve got several vehicles heading this way, heading east on Grant Line, moving fast! How’s it coming?”

  “These guys aren’t talking,” Patrick radioed back. “There’re a lot of weapons here, including a rocket launcher-I’ll bet they match some of those used in the Sacramento Live! shootout. Can you reach the sheriff’s department?”

  “Already called,” Jon reported. “I’m going to change position, get farther to the west away from these newcomers. Let me know if you find anything. I’ll signal you when you’ll have visitors.”

  Patrick secured the guards with nylon handcuffs and began to search the ranch area. He hit pay dirt right away. “Jon, I got something,” he radioed. “The barn is full of chemicals. Barrels of it. Ether, acetone, thionyl chloride, phosphorous-3-iodide-oh shit, tanks of hydrogen gas, enough to blow half the county sky-high. You better warn the sheriff’s department to bring a HAZMAT crew out here-there’s enough poisonous stuff here to kill ten thousand people.”

  “Copy,” Masters responded. “On the way.”

  Patrick swung around at a sound off to his left. To his astonishment a scrawny little man carrying a nylon gym bag was running as fast as he could down the long main driveway toward Grant Line Road. Patrick caught up with him with a single thruster jump.

  “Jeez!” the man yelped. “Who the hell are you?”

  “I’m the one who’s putting you out of business,” Patrick said, yanking away the nylon bag. “Who are you?”

  “Nobody!” the little man shouted. “Let me go!”

  Patrick rapped him once on his bony chest, and the guy screeched and hit the ground. “I said, who are you?”

  “You broke my chest!” the man whimpered.

  “I’ll break your head if you don’t answer me!”

  “I’m Bennie Reynolds.” The man struggled to his feet despite the pain and cried, “We’ve got to get out of here!”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I work here. I work for Townsend and the Aryan Brigade. Listen, there’s no time…”

  “Townsend?” said Patrick. Christ, the pieces were finally starting to fit together. “The British terrorist? You mean Gregory Townsend, the weapons dealer?”

  “I told you who, asshole.” The guy was sounding panicky. “Jesus, we’ve got to get out of here! The barn has been booby-trapped!”

  “What?”

  “Don’t ask questions, stupid-just run!” Patrick didn’t hesitate. He grabbed Reynolds and hit his thrusters. Even though the guy didn’t weigh very much, the leap was only seventy or eighty feet. But it was a spectacular ride for the drug-cooker. “Hol-ee shit!” he cackled. “Awe-some! You can fly!”

  It would take several seconds for the thrusters to recharge. “Okay, now talk,” Patrick demanded. “Where is Townsend? Where’s the Major?”

  “They bugged out maybe twenty minutes ago,” Reynolds said. “I don’t know where they were headed. You went into the barn, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then we’re dead unless we can get at least a mile away from here,” Reynolds said. “For sure you tripped a switch. Townsend has that barn booby-trapped seven ways to Sunday. Hit those jets and let’s get the hell out of here!”

  “Can’t quite yet,” Patrick said. They started down the road as fast as Patrick could half-carry, half-drag Reynolds. He switched over to his secure channel: “Jon, we’re on the move,” he said. “I’ve got one prisoner.”

  “Copy,” Jon replied. “I’m heading toward you.”

  Patrick called up the GPS tracking device on Jon’s location and saw he was around a mile and a half away. He grabbed Reynolds, turned in the direction of the Hummer, and hit the thrusters…

  … and just as he was about to touch down from the first eighty-foot leap, a massive explosion erupted behind them. A delayed-action bomb exploded inside the barn, rupturing the hydrogen tanks and sending up a huge cloud of fire.

  They were lifted off the ground by the shock wave and thrown another hundred feet. The concussion from the blast landed them across Grant Line Road in a shallow cow pond and covered them with eighteen inches of muddy water, just as the white-hot fireball rolled over them like a tsunami. The fireball vaporized the six-acre pond, turning it into a blackened hole-but as the water vaporized it sucked away enough of the heat from the fireball to keep the two of them from instantaneous incineration.

  Then the suit’s environmental system kicked in, and-barely-kept enough of the residual heat away from Patrick’s skin to prevent his being burned. But he could not protect Reynolds. He covered him with his body as best he could, but when the fireball rolled over them Bennie’s clothes burst into flames, the hair on his head turned into white ash, and his skin reddened, then turned dark, then peeled like burned paper.

  It was over as quickly as it began. The vegetation as far as Patrick’s eyes could see was blackened down to the earth. The ranch house and the buildings around it were gone. On the other side of Grant Line Road, over a half mile away, other buildings were on fire. The ground around him was crusty and smoldering. He did a systems check-the suit was still functioning, although the environmental system was guzzling power at a tremendous rate. He took off his helmet to help it vent excess heat.

  “Nice try, flyboy.” To Patrick’s astonishment, Reynolds was still alive. “You almost got me out.”

  “Try to relax. I’ll get you to a hospital as fast as I can.”

  “Never been to a hospital, and I don’t intend to go now, buddy,” Reynolds said. “Damn, now I know how those salmon feel sitting in my skillet.” He looked at Patrick, his face just visible in the faint glow from the fires. “You look like a good guy, brother. I seen you before, haven’t I?”

  “Don’t know,” said Patrick. “Maybe on TV-there was some stuff when my brother was in the hospital. Paul McLanahan, one of the cops who was shot by the Major. Is he part of Townsend’s organization?”

  “Yeah. The Aryan Brigade, they call themselves,” Reynolds said. “Although they don’t do much Nazi shit except when there’s visitors.”

  That was an interesting tidbit, thought Patrick, filing it away. “They were the ones who staged that robbery at Sacramento Live!?” he asked. “They set up those explosions around Sacramento?”

  “Yeah. Townsend… what a piece of whacked-out work,” Reynolds said. “Kills two cops to steal enough money to build meth hydrogenators, then gives them away to the bikers, then blows them all up. Squandered hundreds of thousands of dollars. He tells me we can start up production again out here at the ranch, then booby-traps thousands of dollars’ more worth of chemicals. One sick motherfucker. I knew I should’ve stayed away from him.”

  “Where is he now? Where can I find him?”

  “Don’t know,” Reynolds gasped. He was having difficulty drawing breath by now. “Only place I ever been is right here.” He was looking at Patrick, but his eyes were focused far away. “Hey, man, I’m sorry… sorry about your brother an’ those cops,” he said weakly. “I never meant to hurt no cops. All I wanted to do was go about my business…”

  It was a
n apology, Patrick realized; the poor guy was trying to make his confession. But Patrick felt only disgust. “I guess your business is over,” he said, then realized Reynolds had died before he could hear those words.

  Minutes later, Jon Masters arrived in the Hummer. He was as excited as a kid in Disneyland. “Oh man, did you see that explosion?” he asked as Patrick climbed in, turned on the generator, and plugged in the backpack. “It looked like a mushroom cloud, just like those old photos of aboveground nuclear tests in Nevada, except it was all fire! How close were you to the blast?”

  “About a hundred yards.”

  “A close shave-awesome!” Jon exclaimed. “Hey, where’s your prisoner?”

  “Dead,” Patrick said. “Didn’t you see his body lying there? He got burned up by the fire after the blast. But he talked before he died-he was the guy in charge of cooking drugs and building the equipment for a group called the Aryan Brigade.” Patrick filled Jon in on what he’d seen at the Wilton hideout.

  “It looks to me like it must be over now,” Jon said. “With his base of operations gone, this Townsend guy must be heading for the hills.”

  “I’m not sure about that. Some things that Reynolds said make me wonder. Look-he said that Townsend staged the Sacramento Live! shootout to raise money to build the meth generators. Then he gave the generators away to the gangs-and blew them all up. The deal would have been worth hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. Why would he give all that up so Reynolds could go back and start making drugs all over again? It doesn’t make sense. There’s got to be some other agenda. And Reynolds said that Townsend and his group don’t act like neo-Nazis except when there’s someone around from outside their organization. I wonder what that means.”

  “It means he’s crazy,” said Jon. “Maybe he thought he’d lose control of the Brotherhood unless he killed them all. Maybe he wanted to make his mark with the cops and the gangs, you know, sort of be the capo di tutti capi or something. Or maybe it was some kind of tactic to run the price of meth up on the street, then make his own and make more money. Who knows? Who cares?”

  Patrick let it drop. They took Douglas Road west to the east entrance to the Mather airport, which gave them a shorter drive to the old SAC alert facility on the southeast side of the runway. The roads were completely deserted. They turned down the long access road that led to the entrapment gate. As they pulled up, Jon activated his earset cellular telephone and dialed the number for the guard shack so they could open the outer gate, but the line was busy. “Busy?” Patrick asked. “That doesn’t sound right. You’d better let me…”

  There was a tap on Jon’s window. They turned in surprise. To their astonishment, there was Tom Chandler, the muzzle of his 9-millimeter automatic pressed against the glass. He made a circular sign with the gun, and Jon reluctantly rolled down the window.

  “Good evening, Dr Masters,” said Chandler. “You’re out late tonight.” He looked into the backseat and saw a wiped-out Patrick McLanahan sitting by himself. He was in that Tin Man suit Chandler had last seen as he leaped away from the headquarters parking area. “And good evening, Mr McLanahan-or should I say, General McLanahan. You’ve been very busy tonight, I see.”

  “Go to hell, Chandler,” said Patrick.

  “Easy, General.” Chandler gestured behind him, and several sheriff’s deputies in full SWAT assault gear emerged out of the scrub bushes and surrounded the Hummer. Simultaneously a dozen squad cars with lights flashing and sirens wailing roared down the access road toward them. “Party’s over, boys. You’re both under arrest. You have the right to remain silent.” He held up a sheaf of papers. “I have a warrant to search this facility and take you and the suit. You and the suit are considered a lethal weapon and we can use any amount of force in our discretion in the name of officer safety. We won’t hesitate to kill you if you try to resist. Dr Masters, step out of the vehicle. General McLanahan, stay right where you are.”

  SWAT officers opened the doors of the Hummer and leveled H amp;K MP-5 submachine guns at Patrick. The helmet on the seat beside him was taken away. “Aim for the head only, boys,” Chandler said. “Okay, General. Do whatever you need to do to deactivate that getup and take it off.”

  Patrick had no choice. He removed the gauntlets, then detached the backpack power supply. Chandler grabbed him and hauled him out of the Hummer. “Hands on the vehicle, spread-eagle.” He began to search Patrick.

  “How did you find us, Chandler?” Patrick asked.

  “Give me a little credit, General,” Tom Chandler said. “I may be a desk jockey, but I can still add two plus two.

  “First of all, of course, you told the chief exactly what you were going to do-in the hospital after the funeral, when he barged into your brother’s room without checking with the doctors. Remember? You told the chief about what you did, the stuff you work with, the gadgets you could supply the department with. The chief probably doesn’t remember that conversation, but I do. I didn’t do anything about it, though. Even when you showed up in my office, I thought you were just an angry, frustrated relative who had a few too many beers back at the Sarge’s Place.

  “But that image was so different from the guy I saw when you were getting ready to move your brother,” Chandler went on. “You looked and sounded like a guy in control. You got Paul out of the hospital right out from under our noses. That took an organization and resources and training. That’s when I knew you were much more than an angry brother and ex-bartender. I had my suspicions about you after that, but I expected you to just find a biker somewhere and shoot him with a handgun. But then I did a little checking, hit up my FBI friends, and found out about your military background-even about your stint with the Border Security Force. Now you got my full attention.

  “You screwed yourself with those two attacks last week, McLanahan. My lieutenant briefs me on two specific locations that she wants surveillance set up, and a couple of days later a mysterious guy wearing some kind of lightweight body armor shows up at those very same two places and busts them up. Way too coincidental. You got my division bugged? You bribe a few dispatchers? Hell, my detectives are so pissed off these days, they might’ve volunteered information for you. You’ve menaced this city, McLanahan. You’ve broken the law.”

  “Oh yeah? With who? Murderers, cop-killers, robbers, drug dealers, child abusers…”

  “So now you become judge, jury, and executioner, right?” Chandler asked. “You killed a man, McLanahan…”

  “I did not,” Patrick said. “I told you, it was some guy dressed in a black combat outfit who spoke German. He had a face mask on, like a commando. The two guys suspected as being part of the Sacramento Live! shootout, with the broken legs, the two you let go-they were Germans too. That’s no coincidence, Chandler!”

  “These Germans plant the bomb in front of the doorway too?”

  “Okay, that was me, but I didn’t kill that biker and I didn’t try to rape that woman. I saw those drug deals at that house in Rosalee go down just like your surveillance officers did. I saw that child in danger too…”

  “Oh bullshit.”

  “I acted the way any good citizen would,” Patrick argued. “I acted the best way I could with the resources at my command. It may have been illegal, it may have even been wrong, but it sure felt appropriate. I have seen my family torn apart by these creeps and whoever is supplying and feeding all the chaos in this city. Hordes of innocent people have been killed. I had the power to act, so I did.”

  “Sounds like a confession to me, boys,” Chandler said. “Place your hands behind your back.” Patrick did as he was told, and Chandler snapped handcuffs on his wrists. “Frankly, General, I thought you’d offer a bit more resistance. An Air Force general officer, with his own private security team surrounding us and a special suit that he could’ve used to snap my neck in half-I expected you to put up much more of a struggle.”

  “I want to talk with a lawyer,” Patrick said flatly.

  “Good boy-that’s th
e right thing to say,” Chandler said. “But I think we already got enough to put you away for a very, very long time. Let’s go.”

  Office of the Mayor,

  Sacramento, California

  Monday, 30 March 1998, 0747 PT

  All the local TV and radio stations, plus a number of national shows, went live at seven-thirty that morning Pacific time in the office of the mayor of Sacramento. Surrounding Edward Servantez were the chief of police, the sheriff of Sacramento County, the captain of the police Special Investigations Division, and the district attorney of Sacramento County.

  The mayor cleared his throat and began: “I am pleased to announce that an arrest has been made in connection with the bombings around the state, the recent invasion-style assaults here in the city of Sacramento, and the large-scale meth-lab explosion in south Sacramento County. Thanks to the efforts of the Sacramento Police Department, in particular Police Chief Arthur Barona and Captain Thomas Chandler of the Special Investigations Division, working together with the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department, a new and significantly dangerous menace has been removed from the streets of our city. This arrest may also shed some new light on the wave of bombings, shootings, and gang and drug violence that has plagued this city for the past several months.

  “Arrested this morning was forty-one-year-old Patrick S. McLanahan, last known residence and occupation unknown,” Servantez went on. “McLanahan is the son of retired veteran Sacramento Police Department sergeant Michael Thomas McLanahan, deceased, and the brother of recently retired police officer Paul McLanahan, who as you might remember was seriously injured in the Sacramento Live! shootout with police last December. Also arrested was Jonathan Colin Masters, age thirty-seven, last known residence in Arkansas. Masters is the president of a defense weapons research and development firm. Let me ask District Attorney Scurrah to outline the charges against the accused.”

  The district attorney, Julianne Scurrah, continued: “Patrick McLanahan was booked early Saturday morning into the Sacramento County Jail, charged with second-degree murder in connection with the slaying of Joseph Brolin, a resident of Elder Creek and a suspected illegal-drug maker and dealer,” she said. “He is also charged with the attempted murders of five Sacramento Police Department officers, three civilians, and one child; four counts of assault with a deadly weapon; breaking and entering; and three counts of malicious mischief with the intent to do great bodily harm and for exploding incendiary devices within the county. Masters has been charged with conspiracy to commit murder and aiding and abetting in the commission of a felony.