Tin Man

by Dale Brown

  a swig of beer.

  "I'm nobody," Patrick replied. "Just came in to

  get a beer and take a piss."

  As the guy nodded, Patrick's world exploded

  right in his face. A boot kicked the side of his left

  knee, sending him crashing against the bar in pain

  and buckling him halfway to the floor. He heard the

  sound of shattering glass, and a second later felt the

  jagged edge of a broken beer bottle against his

  throat, drawing blood. A hand with the grip of a

  steel vise clamped around the back of his neck,

  hauling him up tightly against the bar. Several more

  bikers had come over, surrounding them.

  "You know, you're one stupid motherfucker

  commg in here like this, " the guy with the beer

  bottle said. "You think you can just march in here

  and feed us a line of crap? Who the fuck are you,

  pretty boy?"

  "I'm nobody," Patrick repeated. "I came in for a

  lousy beer!"

  "Fucking liar!" the biker shouted. By now, Patrick

  was looking for the first opportunity to make a

  run for the door, but the hand squeezing his neck

  tightened still more, and he cried out in pain.

  "Talk!"

  "I'm the brother of one of the cops that got shot

  downtown," Patrick said through the sheet of pain

  slicing through his head.

  "What in hell do you want?" Patrick kept his

  mouth shut. The grip tightened even more, and he

  thought he was going to pass out. "You better talk,

  candy-ass, or I'll snap your neck in two!"

  "Mullins," Patrick murmured against the pain

  and terror. "Mullins set up that robbery. I want

  him."

  The grip on his neck didn't subside, but Patrick

  was relieved to hear some laughter behind him.

  "What do you want to do with him?" asked a different

  voice.

  "I want to question him about the Major, about

  who staged that robbery," Patrick gasped out, trying

  to struggle free. "And then I want to kick his fucking

  ass."

  There was another round of laughter. "Hey,

  pretty boy, that's good," the guy with the broken

  beer bottle said. "But today's not your lucky day.

  Because Mullins's got hold of your neck right now,

  and in a minute he's going to take you in back. If

  you're lucky, he might just fuck your white-bread

  ass and carve his initials in your face. But if he takes

  what you just said personally, you're going to end

  up in a garbage truck on your way to the dump."

  Patrick strained to see over his shoulder. The guy

  holding his neck was the biker with the shaved

  head and the goatee. He didn't look like the police

  intelligence description at all. Even his eyebrows

  were different; he had colored them with mascara,

  like the goatee. "Hey, cop-killer," Patrick said.

  "You and me, motherfucker. Let's see how tough

  you are without your army."

  Mullins laughed in his face, then shoved his head

  down onto the bar. Patrick turned his head just in

  time to avoid a smashed nose. "Killing those cops

  was business, asshole," Mullins said. "But fucking

  you up is going to be personal."

  "The cops have this place under surveillance,"

  Patrick said through clenched teeth, his voice shaking

  . He couldn't believe how scared he felt right

  now. "They've photographed everyone coming in

  and out of this place. If I turn up dead, all of you'll

  be murder suspects."

  "Maybe so, asswipe," said the guy with the bottle

  . Patrick felt hands going through his pockets.

  They took his wallet and some cash, but thankfully

  missed the tiny quarter-sized listening devices.

  "But you'll still be fuckin' dead. Now you're going

  to tell me how you found out about Mullins and the

  Major, and you'd better talk or I'll-"

  "Hey! Look at this! " A different biker ripped

  something from Patrick's clenched right hand. He

  held up a tiny object-what looked like a shont,

  thick cylinder, white, with a round rubber tip. Patrick's

  arms were twisted behind his back, and his

  head was jerked upward.

  "What is this, asswipe?" the guy with the beer

  bottle yelled, holding the object up to Patrick's face.

  "This looks like a rubber bullet, or some kind of

  shotgun shell. You better tell me, asshole, or Mullins

  there will twist your fucking head off!"

  "Let me go!" Patrick shouted. The tiny shell was

  his last hope, Patrick thought grimly, his only

  chance to escape. He had hesitated to use it and he

  was going to pay for it now. "I'll get out of here. I

  won't come near this place again. just let me go."

  The guy with the beer bottle gave Patrick a backhanded

  swat across the face, drawing blood from a

  cut lip. "I guess I'm just going to have to beat it out

  of you, sport . . ."

  "It's a nerve-gas grenade!" someone said in a loud

  voice. They turned to see a figure standing in the

  doorway in front of the rear hallway. Jon Masters

  was holding up an object like the one taken from

  Patrick. "Just like this one. Twenty-five-millimeter

  cartridge, filled with a half a milliliter of Novichok,

  a V-class anticholinesterase agent that will paralyze

  you in about eight seconds. It uses a nitrogen pro-

  pellant so it will spray the gas through the entire

  room and easily disable just about everyone here.

  Here-catch!" And he threw the grenade as hard as

  he could across the bar and against the wall.

  The grenade burst with a loud pop! and exploded

  into a thick white cloud of gas that spread throughout

  the entire room with astonishing speed. It

  looked like an instant fog. It tasted of acidity, like

  sulfur, burning the eyes and throat.

  The bikers scattered. Patrick dropped to the

  floor-but not because of the gas. It burned and it

  tasted funny, but it wasn't disabling. He was free!

  "Jon!"

  "Here, Muck, he-!"

  As Patrick looked up, the biker with the beard

  ran headlong into Masters coming toward him and

  grabbed him. The broken beer bottle flashed in the

  foggy air. "Jon!" Patrick screamed. He struggled to

  his feet, trying to catch the biker's arm as it lashed

  out, but he was far too late. "Jon!" he screamed

  again.

  Masters's jacket was ripped open across the

  chest, and Patrick saw blood spilling out of the

  wound. Jon's hands clutched at it ineffectually,

  blood seeping through his fingers. "Patrick?" he

  said weakly.

  "C'mon, Jon, let's get out of here!" But he was

  frozen in place. Patrick grabbed him around the

  waist and half-pulled, half-dragged him outside. He

  felt someone clutch at him from behind, and in a fit

  of rage he swung back with his right hand. He connected

  with thin bone and tissue, and they heard

  the assailant yelp as he let go.

  With Patrick half-carrying Jon, the two men


  made their way down Del Paso Boulevard to a

  Safeway supermarket parking lot, where a rented

  Dodge Durango sport-utility vehicle was waiting for

  them. "Okay, we can slow down now," Patrick said,

  pulling Jon back.

  They turned around. Half a dozen motorcycles

  were roaring down Del Paso Boulevard, and they

  saw men running down the street. "We gotta get out

  of here now, Patrick!"

  "Calm down," Patrick said, wiping blood from

  Jon's jacket front. "Running will only attract attention

  now. Try to stay upright, Jon. just a few more

  steps. Hang in there, brother."

  "I . I need help here, Patrick

  "C'mon, let's keep going. You'll be okay." They

  forced themselves to walk casually toward the car.

  Patrick was out of breath by now, gasping from the

  effort of supporting Jon and the aftereffects of the

  adrenaline pumping through his veins. When police

  cars zoomed past, the two of them stopped to

  watch, just like normally curious onlookers.

  Patrick helped Jon into the passenger seat and examined

  his wound under the dome light. It was a

  deep cut, but it was not bubbling or pumping,

  which meant that it had not pierced a lung or a

  major blood vessel. He eased off Jon's jacket, pressed

  it against his chest, used the seat-belt shoulder harness

  to anchor it tightly in place, then got into the

  driver's seat and started the engine. They pulled out

  onto the street. More police cars were racing in

  toward Bobby John's, and fire trucks too, but there

  was no sign of pursuit. They drove away from the

  scene, careful not to speed. They got on the Interstate

  5 freeway through the downtown area, then

  merged onto the Highway 50 freeway heading east,

  away from the city.

  Neither man spoke for a long time. The enormity

  of what happened had silenced them. Finally, Patrick

  said, "Thanks for getting me out of there."

  "You're welcome, Muck," Jon answered. "But it's

  your contingency plan that did it-those wireless

  mikes so I could listen in and carrying those practice

  bomblet target markers." Patrick pressed Jon's

  hand against his chest to staunch the bleeding further

  . This was one contingency he hadn't planned

  on.

  "Man, that was a close call," he said shakily.

  "Jesus, was I scared. I thought I was going to die. All

  I could think about was Wendy, and Bradley, and

  how we would die in the middle of a filthy beersoaked

  barroom floor. God, Jon, I'm so sorry . . ."

  "It's not your fault, Muck," Masters said. "It was

  a good plan."

  "But I didn't mean for you to get hurt

  "Hey, c'mon, Patrick. I'm not an innocent bystander

  or your blind, faithful sidekick. If I didn't

  think I could stay safe, I wouldn't have gone in

  there.,,

  "But you could've been killed

  "Nah. They were just trying to scare us. But we

  don't scare that easy, do we, General?" But Patrick

  could see through all the bravado that Jon was badly

  shaken. God, when he saw that blood spurt out of

  Jon's wound . . . Patrick had seen death before,

  had even caused death before, but not at this close

  range, and never so personally as this.

  He wasn't going to allow him to ever go into

  harm's way like that again, Patrick decided. Jonathan

  Colin Masters was more than one of America's

  truly great scientists and engineers, he was his newfound

  brother. There was no way he could allow

  him to risk his life in Patrick's personal vendetta.

  Sky Masters, Inc. had rented office and hangar

  space at Sacramento-Mather Jetport when it was obvious

  that the McLanahans were going to be in

  town for a while, and they had planned that it

  would be their destination after the bugging opera-

  tion. They took the Mather Field Road exit from

  eastbound Highway 50 a few minutes later and

  drove around the east end of Mather's eleventhousand-foot

  runway to the former Strategic Air

  Command alert facility, now converted into a secure

  research and development site. The facility

  still had its twelve-foot-high chain-link fences

  topped with barbed wire and fitted with cameras

  and intrusion sensors; the vehicle entrapment and

  inspection area; the two-story underground buildmg

  , complete with offices, conference halls, and a

  kitchen; and the alert-aircraft parking area, now

  with two large jumbo-jet-sized hangars at the south

  and west sides. A right turn past the deserted

  weapon-storage area, down a long road, past the

  alert-crew picnic grounds, and they were at the

  front gate of the old B-52 bomber alert facility,

  where B-52 bombers and KC-135 aerial refueling

  tankers once sat nuclear ground alert, ready at any

  time to fight World War M.

  Sky Masters security personnel were on duty,

  and one of them, Ed Montague, confronted Masters

  and McLanahan at the vehicle entrapment gate.

  "Evening, Dr. Masters, General McLanahan. How's

  Dr. McLanahan and the new . . ." He stopped short

  when he saw Jon's blood-soaked jacket. "MY God!"

  He looked at Masters, whose face was as white as a

  ghost. "What the hell happened, sir?" He waved to

  the guard shack, and they admitted the Durango

  into the entrapment area.

  "Ed, we're going to need a first-aid kit," Patrick

  said. Montague retrieved a large kit from his office,

  and administered first aid while the vehicle and Patrick

  were searched. Once inside, they brought Jon to

  the security office, where they spent the next

  twenty minutes cleaning and dressing the six-inch

  gash that the biker had carved in Jon's chest.

  "Want me to call the sheriff's department, General

  ?" Montague asked.

  "No thanks, Ed," Patrick replied as he put a clean

  shirt on. "But we do need that industrial-medicine

  doctor we hired, Dr. Heinrich I think his name is, to

  look at Jon. Get him on the phone and get him out

  here, and make sure he brings a surgical kit."

  "I'm fine, Muck," Jon protested.

  "It doesn't look too bad, but I want him to look

  you over anyway," Patrick said.

  "Doc's on the way," Montague reported a few

  moments later.

  "Good," Patrick said. "If he releases you, Jon, Ed

  will take us back to Paul's apartment in a security

  vehicle. Ed, then I want you to get the Durango

  cleaned up and turn it back in to the rental company

  first thing in the morning. I want you to take

  care of it personally." The security officer nodded

  that he understood.

  They met the doctor twenty minutes later. He

  was, needed. Heinrich, who had been hired as a

  consultant and to oversee safety and medical operations

  at the temporary Mather operations plant, put

  a total of forty stitches in Jon Masters's chest, fifteen

  of them in
ternal dissolving sutures. Despite

  plenty of local painkillers Jon passed out three

  times during the procedure-the first time when he

  saw the doctor threading the first needle. He was

  like a little kid at the doctor's office, flinching at the

  slightest touch and muffling a cry whenever the

  needle pierced his skin.

  Not that he didn't have good reason. The bottle

  had cut about a quarter of an inch into his chest at

  the initial blade-impact point, piercing two inches

  of muscle, and then slashed another four inches of

  skin across to his shoulder, leaving bits of glass

  along the hideous gash. The doctor had to lay open

  the deepest part of the wound to work on it from

  the inside out. To Patrick, watching and at times

  assisting Heinrich, the wound looked so deep and so

  red that he swore he could see down to Jon's lungs.

  Heinrich prescribed antibiotics, a mild painkiller,

  and bed rest for the next three days, and sent them

  home.

  Patrick felt devastated. Even worse than the hell

  of watching it was the recognition that he alone was

  responsible for the assault.

  With Montague at the wheel, they headed for

  Paul's apartment downtown; it would be easier to

  watch over Jon there than in his hotel room. Police

  cruisers were all over the downtown area when they

  reached there half an hour later-it looked as if martial

  law had been imposed on the city. They were

  stopped at the intersection of I and Second streets.

  A sign read DUI Checkpoint-All Vehicles Must

  Stop. Two Sacramento police officers surrounded

  the car.

  "Good evening, folks. We're conducting a routine

  check of all vehicles for compliance with underageand

  impaired-driving laws," the officer on the

  driver's side said as if reading off a cue card. The

  other officer shined a flashlight into the two faces in

  the backseat, the powerful beam easily penetrating

  the tinted windows. "We won't take up any more of

  your time than is necessary. Where are you folks

  coming from tonight?"

  Patrick noticed that the officer who spoke to

  Montague didn't stick his head right down close to

  his face so he could sniff for alcohol on the driver's

  breath, as was usual at most DUI checkpoints Patrick

  had encountered. Ed Montague noticed it too.