Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 10 (71 page)

 
          
“John
Landow, assistant security director of Sky Masters Inc., the prime contractor
in this facility.”

 
          
“I
asked to meet directly with Dr. Masters or General McLanahan. Where are they?”

 
          
“They’re
both in the lab right now,” Landow said, “but they can meet you as soon as you
clear security.”

 
          
“I
happen to know that General McLanahan is in
San Diego
,” Willison said angrily, “and Dr. Masters
was told to meet us here. Now I want you to call him and have him meet us right
outside. I’ve been ordered to consider any more delays as obstructing a federal
investigation, and I am authorized to take him, and anyone else who doesn't
cooperate fully, into custody.”

 
          
“Agent
Willison, I assure you, no one is trying to hamper any investigation,” Landow
said. Landow was tall, in his early sixties, with bright blue eyes and a ready
smile—but when the smile vanished, he looked very mean and serious. “I was
informed the general was here—if I’m mistaken, then I apologize. And I promise
you, Dr. Masters will be right outside by the time you clear security.”

 
          
“What
do you mean, ‘clear security’?” one of the other agents asked. “We submitted
all of our credentials yesterday. We’re demanding immediate access. That means
right now”

 
          
“Agent,
if you knew anything at all about this facility, you know that
no one
gets immediate access,” Landow
said. “The security requirements in this facility are established by folks very
much higher than our pay grades or even our boss’s pay grade, and I’m not
allowed to violate them. I faxed your office a copy of the entry procedures—I
trust you received them?” The FBI agents nodded. “That is exactly what we’ll
do. My time estimate is accurate—no more than fifteen minutes to clear
security. Shall we get started?” Willison and the others had no choice but to
agree. “But I want no one else to enter or leave this facility,” he said. “That
outer gate remains locked. All aircraft movement will cease immediately, all
aircraft engines will be shut down, and all external power carts will be
detached from all aircraft. If we see one aircraft with even so much as a
courtesy light on, we’ll arrest each and every individual in this facility.”

 
          
“Your cease-and-desist order and the
search warrant spelled out everything, Special Agent,” Landow said, “and our
attorneys have told us it’s in our best interest to cooperate. I’ve advised all
the labs to comply one hundred percent. Your IDs and firearms go in the
turntable there.” Landow had moved a weapon-clearing barrel into the
guardhouse, and the agents went about unloading and clearing their weapons by
pointing them at the sand inside the barrel, then placing them on a turntable
surrounded with bulletproof glass. The guard inside the secure room collected
the weapons and placed them in lockers, then turned the locker keys back over
to the agents. Meanwhile, another guard began checking IDs and taking digital
photos.

 
          
As
they were waiting for their IDs to be checked and their clearances issued, they
were surprised to see a young girl step into the guardhouse, escorted by a
security officer. The girl was wearing what looked like the proper
identification badges—but it certainly looked strange to see a youngster inside
one of the most secure compounds in the
United States of America
. It was even more surprising when the
officer dropped the girl off in the guardhouse without anyone else appearing to
be supervising her. The biggest, leanest, most menacing Doberman pinscher that
any of them had ever seen accompanied the girl.

 
          
The
girl walked over to Willison; the Doberman sat right beside her and stared at
the FBI agent, “Hi. I’m Kelsey.” She motioned to the dog. “This is my friend
Sasha. Who are you?”

 
          
“My
name is Mr. Willison.”

           
“Pleased to meet you,” she said
politely. Willison turned when the officer checking their IDs offered them
back. “Oooo,” the girl said when she noticed the badge holders. “Are you a
police officer?”

 
          
“Yes,
we are.”

           
“How exciting,” she said. She
reached for his ID as he was putting it back in his jacket. “Can I see?”

           
“Not now,” Willison said curtly. The
girl looked perturbed. Willison went over to the guard window. “Hey, what’s the
story with the kid?”

 
          
“That’s
Kelsey.”

           
“So I heard. W'hat’s she doing
here?”

           
“Her mom is one of the owners. She
comes here every now and then. The dog is her bodyguard.”

           
“A bodyguard? Inside the compound?”

           
“Everywhere she goes, I guess. She
has class-C access.”

           
“How in hell did a little kid—?”

           
“Hey, mister?” the girl asked. She
was back again, a look of determination in her eyes. “Can I please see your
badge?”

 
          
“No,
you cannot,” Willison replied.

           
“But I said ‘please.’ My mommy said
I have to be more polite, and when I’m more polite, I get more things.”

           
“She’s right, but you still can’t
see my badge," Willison said sternly.

           
“But I said ‘please.’ ”

 
          
“I
said no.”

 
          
“Pul-leese?”
She stopped asking and was whining now.

 
          
“No!”
Willison barked. His kids were grown, but when they were even younger than this
girl, they learned respect. “Now go sit down over there.”

 
          
“You
can’t make me. You can’t tell me what to do. You’re not the boss of me!”

 
          
Willison
turned again to the guard. “Where’s her mother?”

 
          
“Somewhere
in the facility. She goes with her kid when they’re getting ready to leave, but
then she usually gets waylaid and sends the kid on ahead. We usually end up
picking her up in the break room and escorting her here.”

 
          
“My
mom won’t like you telling me what to do,” the girl said.

 
          
“I
don’t care. Now go sit down.”

 
          
“Just
let me please see your badge? I promise I won’t hurt it or get it dirty.”

 
          
“For
the fourth time, I said no.”

 
          
Suddenly
the girl reached over and actually tried to pull the badge case from his inside
jacket pocket. Willison practically leapt backward in surprise.
The
other agents were suppressing amused
snickers at the girl’s persistence and Willison’s mounting aggravation. The
girl actually managed to get two little fingers on the badge holder and was
pulling it out of his breast pocket. Willison heard a faint ripping and
realized she was taking most of his breast pocket with her. “Hey! Watch it!” he
shouted, louder than he intended.

 
          
He
may have pushed her a
tiny
bit, just
because he was surprised at her quick move and to keep his pocket from ripping
right off. If he did, he didn’t put any force behind it. But whatever he did,
suddenly the little girl yelped in pain and flew backward as if she had been
body-slammed by a WWF wrestler. She hit the linoleum floor hard. She lay on the
floor, staring straight up; at first, Willison thought—no,
prayed
—that she wasn’t hurt. But he knew kids better than that.
Seconds later, the little girl let out an earsplitting scream so loud that he
thought for sure she had cracked open her skull or fallen on an ax or
something.

           
The only reason they stopped being
concerned for the child’s welfare was that they were more concerned about their
own—because now Sasha the Doberman was all teeth, hair, and eyeballs. None of them
had ever seen a more vicious-looking animal in their lives. They instinctively
backed away and reached for side arms before realizing they no longer carried
them.

 
          
“Get
that animal away from us!” Willison shouted. The girl screamed even louder.
Finally one of the guards behind the counter, a younger one with kids, was able
to pick her up, and he carried her to a chair and let her cry on his shoulder
for a while until the security guard waved the FBI agents through. The dog
watched them, snarling, facing them the entire time. By then, the girl was over
her crying, and she watched silently, tearlessly. With one word from the little
girl, the Doberman stopped snarling and sat down, impassively watching the door
close behind them.

 
          
“For
Christ sake, Larry,” one of the other agents admonished him, going over to the
little girl. “What’d you do?”

 
          
“I
didn’t do anything!” Willison protested. “She came at me, and I—”

 
          
“She
‘came at you’? Who’d you think she was—Freddie Krueger? Hannibal Lecter?”

 
          
“Her
mom probably makes more dough than all of us combined,” another agent said over
the now ear-piercing screams.

 
          
“I
hear the new office in
Greenland
needs a janitor,” another joked.

 
          
“Har
har.” Willison looked mad enough to chew the chain-link fence as he walked
through an X-ray machine, then submitted to a pat-down search. “What in hell is
a little kid like that hanging around this facility, anyway?” he grumbled. “I’m
going to look into that next. This place is not a day-care center. And what the
hell is it with that dog? I thought we were goners!”

 
          
“Let
it go, Larry,” one of the other agents said as they emerged through yet another
chain-link entrapment area into the street behind the hangar complexes. They
saw the assistant security director, Landow, just emerging from a hangar,
coming to meet them. “You just forgot how to handle little kids, that’s all.”

           
“Hey, we’re here on business, not to
entertain some rich bitch’s kid.” He looked around. “Masters is still nowhere
to be found. I want some butts here today, gentlemen. Nothing goes by us. I
don’t put up with this shit from anyone, especially not from some snot-nosed
egghead. I want—” Just then, he heard a high-pitched whine—the unmistakable
sound of heavy jet engines spooling up. “What the hell?” He shouted at Landow,
pointing in the direction of the noise. “I
thought
I ordered no engine starts! What in hell is that?”

 
          
At
that moment, over the growing roar of jet engines not far away, they heard,
“Freeze! Hands in the air! No one move! ”
In the blink of an eye, heavily armed security officers with M-16 rifles
leveled at them surrounded the FBI agents.

 
          
Willison
casually reached for his ID inside his jacket. “Put your guns down, boys. We’re
FB—”

 
          
“I said hands in the fucking air!”
Before they knew it, the officers pounced, using their rifles as pugil sticks
to knock the agents to the asphalt. They spread-eagled the stunned FBI agents
and began patting them down. To their immense shock, Sasha the Doberman was
back, her jaws just inches away, snarling and growling louder and meaner than
ever.

 
          
“What
in hell are you doing?” Willison shouted. “We’re FBI, dammit! We just got
clearance inside!” The dog snapped its jaws, and Willison felt the gush of its
breath on the back of his hand—he thought his bladder was going to let go.

 
          
“Don’t
move!” The guards secured their hands with nylon handcuffs, then continued
pat-searching them.

 
          
John
Landow strolled over to them a few moments later. “Landow! You tell them who we
are,
right nowl”
Willison shouted.

 
          
“I
suggest you stay quiet and cooperate, whoever you are,” Landow said. “You’re in
serious trouble.”