Authors: Dale Brown
“Why are you doing this, Chandler?” Masters asked. “Why are you working for the bad guys?”
“Simple, Doc: money,” Chandler replied. “It was an offer I couldn’t refuse.”
“Oh yeah—those gambling debts,” Masters said. “What were they—thirty, forty grand?”
“So you
did
have my office bugged. The department doesn’t even have enough money in the budget for us to sweep our offices of listening devices. Yes, the last time I ever bothered to total ’em up, forty thousand in gambling debts was about right. Add in a few thousand in back alimony and child support, some maxed-out credit cards, an apartment, car, an allowance for my girlfriend in Las Vegas …”
“Don’t forget Kay in Granite Bay,” Masters said.
“Oh, she’s low maintenance compared to Edie in Las Vegas,” Chandler said casually. “Anyway, even a year of my salary wouldn’t bail me out of this mess, assuming I cared to get bailed out at all—not to mention the fact that I’d join a lot of real hard-timers in prison if any of this ever came out.
That’s
why I’m doing this, Masters. And it all goes away today. Just deliver you and the suit to Townsend.”
“You’ve got the suit too?”
“Of course I’ve got the suit—it was locked in
my
property room,” Chandler said. “My new employers want you to show them how to use it, perhaps modify it to fit Townsend himself. Let’s face it, McLanahan is not exactly of average dimensions. I’m sure he has the strength and the endurance to wear it, but let’s be honest, Doc, an army of Tin Men like McLanahan would not be much of an army. It certainly would not strike fear into my heart.”
“You are so full of shit, Chandler,” Masters said. “How can you turn your back on your city and your career? Don’t all the years you spent as a cop mean anything to you?”
“Not a thing,” Chandler said. “In fact, I’ve worked harder over the last five years than I did in my previous thirty years, and I’ve seen this city—
and this entire state, for that matter—slide down into the crapper faster than I ever thought possible. What have I been slaving away for?”
Chandler was all worked up by now. “A friend of mine retired after thirty-one years on the force. He gets up to receive his plaque from the city and they’ve misspelled his name and service dates on the plaque. Then he gets home and he’s the victim of a home-invasion robbery. He goes into a coma and dies two weeks later. No recognition from the city, no tribute, not even flowers for his gravesite. I stood over his damned grave and I saw myself staring up from that hole in the ground. I decided right then, no way I was going to check out like that.”
“Your friend checked out as the unfortunate victim of a violent crime,” Masters said. “You’ll check out as a traitor who sold out.”
“At least I’ll check out grabbing for the brass ring, instead of having it shoved up my ass,” Chandler said.
“Real mature attitude,” Masters said. “You ever stop to think that I might not help you out at all?”
“Dr. Masters, you won’t be helping
me
out, you’ll be helping
yourself
out,” Chandler said. “I get my money when you get delivered to Townsend. Whatever happens to you then is up to him and you. The colonel is an honorable guy …”
“Oh
sure.
Is he the one with the British accent who tied up and threatened to kill Patrick’s wife and child, or is he the one who got two cops killed and several others wounded in the Sacramento Live! shootout?”
“He may be ruthless to his enemies,” Chandler retorted, “but he stands up for his friends. He’s assured me that if you do what he says, he’ll let you go free. You keep breathing, and you’re free to build
more Tin Man suits and beeping pens and earset cellphones and whatever the hell else you build.”
“And you call
me
the naive one,” Masters said. “You’re worm food the second the suit and I get delivered. Then as soon as this colonel bozo figures out how to use the suit, I’m toast. And if he starts using the suit, the entire city of Sacramento could be toast. You know it and I know it. I’ve just accepted the fact that I’m going to die today, Chandler. You still think you’re going to have some naked bimbo on your lap tonight. Give it up. You got the gun. Kill that German guy driving the car, and let’s get back to town. You tell your side of the story to the cops, you get immunity from prosecution, and …”
“Nice try, Doctor,” Chandler said. “But I’ve already received a down payment for my services, and I can’t disappoint Colonel Townsend. I advise you not to disappoint him either. Do what he says and you’ll live through this. Act like a hero, you’ll end up dead, and your technology will be in his hands anyway.”
T
he visitor picked up the phone mounted on the outer fence outside the research facility that Sky Masters, Inc. was leasing. It rang a few times, then: “May I help you, ma’am?”
“Yes,” the visitor replied. “I’m Dr. Kaddiri, Helen Kaddiri. I’m supposed to meet Dr. Masters. I’m not
sure where he’s staying or where he is. Can you help me find him?”
“Of course, Dr. Kaddiri,” the guard said. “One moment, please.” He buzzed open the outer entrapment door to let her in.
As Helen walked toward the guard room, the security guard picked up a walkie-talkie and radioed,
“Kontrolle, Wache drei. Eine Dr. Helen Kaddiri ist hier. Was sind Ihre Anweisungen.”
“Lassen Sie sie rein,”
came the response a few moments later.
“Sie soll warten.”
“Okay,” the guard responded. He opened the ID port. “May I please see a picture ID and your company ID badge, Dr. Kaddiri?” She still had her badge—she had no intention of surrendering it before her resignation was legally finalized—and she handed it to the guard with her driver’s license. He did a cursory check, then gave them back. He pressed the button to unlock the revolving security gate. “Thank you, ma’am. Please step through the gate. Someone will meet with you right away.”
Helen stepped through the gate and was greeted by a good-looking man in a suit and tie. “Dr. Kaddiri?”
She did not recognize him. “Yes, I’m Helen Kaddiri. I am the corporate vice president of …” She stopped, realizing he didn’t have a Sky Masters ID badge. “Who are you?”
“I’m Captain Thomas Chandler, Sacramento Police Department,” the man replied. “I am the officer who assisted in the arrest of Dr. Masters and General McLanahan the other night.”
“Can you please explain what’s going on?”
“Of course,” Chandler said. “Did you bring your car in? Is there anyone else with you?”
“I left the car outside, and no, there’s no one else
with me,” Helen replied. “I didn’t know if I’d be leaving right away. Where’s Jon?”
“He’s out on bail, as you know,” Chandler said. They walked toward the semi-underground research facility. “He and his attorney are assisting me in my investigation of your company’s activities here.”
“Then I don’t think I should be talking to you,” Helen said. “Anything I have to say to you should be with the company’s attorney present.”
“Dr. Kaddiri, I know what you, Patrick, and Jon are going through,” Chandler said. “I’m here to help them.”
“By arresting them?”
“I think both of them are heroes. I had to arrest them because it’s my job. But even though they’re guilty of most of the lesser charges against them, I can make sure they get the most lenient sentence possible. But I can’t do it alone.”
“But shouldn’t I have our attorney present?”
“This is not an interrogation,” Chandler said. “I’m not going to ask you anything that will incriminate either Jon or Patrick. You can refuse to answer anything you feel uncomfortable with.”
Kaddiri still looked apprehensive. “If you don’t mind, Captain, I’d like to meet up with Jon and our attorney first, before I talk with you,” she said warily. “He didn’t tell me where he was staying, only that he … wanted me here, with him.”
Chandler nodded, looking into Kaddiri’s eyes. “He mentioned that he’d called you,” Chandler lied. “He thinks a great deal of you.” He paused, then added, “Obviously you think very much of him too, or you wouldn’t be here.”
“We’ve had our differences,” Helen said, “but … yes, I guess that’s true.”
“That’s nice,” Chandler said. “That’s
very
nice.” They passed two men dressed in black battle-dress
uniforms and carrying submachine guns, but Helen barely noticed them, or that they weren’t wearing Sky Masters ID badges either. “I’m not sure when Jon was going to be back,” said Chandler, “but we’ll just go up to General McLanahan’s office inside and wait for him to call. If he isn’t coming back, we can take you to his hotel. Please, this way …”
T
he Sacramento County Jail in downtown Sacramento was a fairly new, modern facility. Each of the four inmate floors had a common area, surrounded by twenty-four cells, each holding up to six prisoners depending on its capacity. Each cell had a steel door with a large, thick glass window in the center, and an unbarred narrow window looking outside. A guard tower overlooked the entire floor. An exercise room and medical holding facility were on the fifth floor, and booking and administrative offices on the first. The common area served as the dining hall, indoor rec room, and meeting hall.
The dynamics of the downtown jail made for a tense atmosphere. It was where prisoners were held from the time of their arrest and arraignment until they were convicted, after which they would be transported to the larger Rio Cosumnes Correctional Facility in Elk Grove to serve their sentence. All the prisoners at the downtown jail were thus innocent in the eyes of the law, and mostly innocent in their own eyes as well. Many came from violent or oppressive environments, often of their
own making. They were fresh from the hurt, ignominy, indignity, and betrayal of the arrest and the cold indifference of arraignment, and were now faced with the arcane babble of legal proceedings and the uncertainty of their future while the trial process creaked along.
That tension was pervasive even in peaceful, so-called normal times. But there was nothing normal about what was going on in Sacramento County these days. Within the confines of the jail, the threat of retaliation and escalating gang violence following the deaths of the Satan’s Brotherhood members sent the level of fear sky-high. It was just as pervasive among the jail authorities, who increased the number of guards, dogs, and weapons to compensate, and in a snowball effect generated still more fear.
Actually, today had been a fairly quiet day for Patrick. When he was in solitary, he was more or less out of the minds of the bikers, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other wackos who were looking to kill him. When he was out among the other prisoners, he kept his distance, with more or less success. Usually one guard was assigned to watch over all the isolation inmates and try to prevent trouble.
The common area on each floor of the jail had ten steel star-shaped tables fixed to the floor, with five fixed chairs at each table. Hot meals were prepared in the kitchen, then placed on paper plates on fiberglass trays and wheeled out to the common area on large carts. Utensils were cardboard. Prisoners selected a meal, either vegetarian or nonvegetarian, a beverage, and a dessert, then found a seat.
Except for sick or very violent prisoners, there was normally no preplanned segregation of any kind in the jail. The prisoners did their own segregating—blacks sat with blacks, whites with
whites, Hispanics with Hispanics. There was usually enough available seating at meals to allow the members of rival gangs to be seated apart. But even when space was relatively tight, the prisoners knew that meals were not the time to get into a fight. Besides, despite the dangerous tension level, the jail was not a hard-core facility. These were prisoners awaiting trial, not yet convicted and sentenced. Most of them minded their own business and stayed out of trouble.
Patrick took the first available tray; he didn’t want to appear picky or slow the line for those behind him. He poured himself a cup of water, grabbed a carton of milk from a large tub of ice and a brownie from the dessert counter, and found a seat between two older-looking guys. The meal was what they called Salisbury steak: a piece of indeterminate meat floating in a puddle of slimy gravy, along with sodden boiled carrots, reconstituted mashed potatoes with more gravy, and a slice of white bread that had to be one or two days old but had been steamed into a semblance of freshness. The two guys on either side of him glanced at him but said nothing.
Everything on the plate tasted pretty much alike, which really characterized life in jail, Patrick thought. In a way, it reminded him of pulling strategic nuclear alert years ago: your life regulated by horns, bells, whistles, shouted voices, and the PA system; the sameness of everything, from the food to the uniforms; the regimentation; and most of all, the lack of freedom. Of course, there was no real comparison. But it was remarkably easy for Patrick to put his mind back to those days when, for seven days every three weeks, he was a virtual prisoner of the Strategic Air Command jailers, serving an unwanted but self-imposed sentence in support of the
laws of nuclear deterrence. He had always passionately hated alert, hated the wasted time and wasted resources, and he found it ironic that he was relying on those memories to help keep his sanity now.
He left half of his plate untouched, finished the brownie, and drank up the milk and water. Seconds weren’t allowed, so he looked around for someone who might want his leftovers. The two old characters next to him declined. He asked the other guy at the table, “Hey, want any more?”
“Leave me the fuck alone,” the guy spat. Patrick was sorry he’d said anything. The man was big, lean, and tall, with cropped salt-and-pepper hair. He looked as though he’d been beaten up—his nose was broken and twisted and his face bruised. There were tattoos on his arms—and not tattoo-parlor ones but prison tattoos, made by inmates with sharpened ballpoint pens …