The Tin Man

by Dale Brown

  “Excuse me, Chairman Adams, Undersheriff Wilkins, but I disagree,” Chief Barona interjected. “I don’t think it’s necessary to get a lot of federal agencies involved quite yet, and certainly not the National Guard. At least not until we’re sure what we’re up against.”

  Almost everyone in the room looked at Barona in surprise-the most surprised of them the head of SID, Tom Chandler. He was ready to speak up but Servantez beat him to it: “Excuse me, Chief?” Servantez exclaimed. “You don’t want any help in responding to this situation? Did you hear the same briefing I did?”

  “Of course, Mr Mayor,” Barona said. “But we shouldn’t bring in a lot of unnecessary outside help until we’re sure exactly what we’re up against and what we need.”

  “We could use help on the investigation of those explosions, Chief,” Chandler said. “We usually call Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms on any explosives investigations.”

  “Only for bomb explosions, Captain, not lab explosions,” Barona said. “We have four narcotics-investigation teams and four explosions. We can handle our own emergencies.”

  The various officials began to talk urgently among themselves, and Chandler took advantage of the break to go over to Barona. Kneeling behind him, he whispered, “Chief, my teams are already up to their eyeballs in cases-we have half as many guys in SID as we did just three years ago. Plus some of the teams out working these explosions are federal or state grant positions-they’re already committed to other projects outside the division…”

  “I’m recalling them-they stay on the investigations, Captain,” Barona said. “Besides, if these explosions did wipe out a bunch of drug gangs, your division’s caseload probably took a big cut.”

  “But we also usually request help from BNE and nearby counties with big cases,” Chandler argued, “and they’re so swamped too that it’s not likely we’re going to get any help from them. The feds and the National Guard would help…”

  “I am not going to go to the governor and request that he send troops onto the streets of Sacramento with M-16’s to do something that your units should be able to handle well enough on their own,” Barona snapped sotto voce. “I won’t give the bastard the satisfaction. That’s all. Sit down.”

  Chandler returned to his seat, taking a deep breath to try to mask his feelings. He hated to go along blindly with the rumor mill or the department gossipmongers, but the only possible explanation he could fathom for why Barona would refuse outside help was that he didn’t want to spoil his political aspirations by appearing not to be in full control.

  The meeting pulled itself back to order. “That’s well and good for you, Arthur,” the Sacramento County sheriff said wryly, picking up on Barona’s last statement, “but I’ve only got three narcotics-investigation teams to investigate six lab explosions. I could use the help.” To the head table he said, “I’d like to put in a request for state Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement narcotics investigators, ATF hazardous-materials investigators, and FBI crime-scene investigator support, ma’am. As many as we can get, as soon as we can get them. And if the National Guard has any HAZMAT-qualified engineer units handy, we could use them to help in the cleanup too.”

  “I’ll put in the request, and I’ll mark it ‘urgent’,” Chairman Adams said, making a note and passing it along to her staff. “Mr Servantez, if you want to amend my request, you’re welcome to do so. Might save you a little time.” When she noticed Barona’s icy glare and saw Servantez’s hesitation, she leaned over to the mayor so Barona couldn’t hear. “It could cause a problem, Edward,” she said in a low voice. “The governor might be reluctant to call out the Guard if one government agency asks but another doesn’t. We should be united on this.”

  “I’ve got to back up my chief of police and my city council, Madeleine,” Servantez answered. “Calling in the Guard and the federal agencies takes control of the emergency out of our hands-we burn resources but we don’t get any benefit from it. We can ask for plenty of free advice, but I prefer to wait and see exactly what we’ll need before we push the panic button.”

  “I think you’re wrong, Edward,” Adams said. “Put your name on the request and let’s get a handle on this thing early. A little more force on the streets will be much better than too little and having this crisis reignite. I’m sure your chief is competent, but let’s not get pride-or arrogance-in the way of handling this emergency.”

  Servantez nodded reluctantly. Avoiding Barona’s accusing glare, he said, “After consulting with Chairman Adams, in the spirit of cooperation and conservation of resources, I recommend that the city join the county in asking the governor for assistance from the National Guard and assistance from state and federal investigation agencies.”

  Tom Chandler breathed a sigh of relief, thankful that Servantez kept his backbone straight on this one. Barona was as mad as a wet hen. Well, screw him. He’d be proclaiming how great he was right up until the time the gang-bangers and anarchists kicked open his office door.

  In any case, Chandler knew his troops and the entire force would be running full bore for the next few weeks.

  Wilton, South Sacramento County, California

  later that day

  Unless Townsend or one of the others needed him for something, Bennie the Chef usually slept in until noon. It had been a very late night, and he had every intention of letting his growling stomach awaken him whenever. But for some reason he’d woken up early, and something made him get up and flip on the TV around seven A.M. What he saw horrified him. Meth-lab explosions. Dozens of them. Huge explosions, killing enormous numbers of people and damaging or destroying entire city blocks.

  It could only be his portable hydrogenators, Bennie thought. The explosive power of one of those units was tremendous. And he realized the location of each explosion corresponded to a Satan’s Brotherhood chapter site-the exact places that Townsend was going to send each unit.

  Bennie got in his car and drove to the ranch of the Aryan Brigade brain trust in Wilton. Throughout the drive he listened to his car radio broadcasting reports of the explosions all around the state-it reminded him of the news coverage of the Persian Gulf War, when that too took over the radio. The devastation caused by the explosions was enormous. It was no wonder. Nine cubic feet of hydrogen gas mixed with oxygen and detonated with a spark was enough to blow up a two-story house. Put in enough hydrogen gas under forty psi of pressure, and the explosive effect was multiplied forty times. The steel hydrogenation unit would contain some of the blast, but the net effect would be similar to a four- or five-thousand-pound bomb.

  He found Townsend, Reingruber, and several of the organization’s top sergeants conducting firearms training in one of the wooden barns. Townsend’s weapon of choice was a small 9-millimeter Calico automatic, a short, sleek pistol with a huge cylindrical ammo drum on top. Townsend seemed adept at shooting it either one- or two-handed, with either hand, on full-auto or single-shot.

  “What happened?” Bennie shouted as the guards let him approach. Townsend ignored him. Forgetting who he was dealing with in his agitation, Bennie grabbed Townsend by the shoulder. “I asked you, what happened, Townsend?”

  Gregory Townsend shrugged off the hand without turning around and finished his target practice-only one round went astray with the distraction; the others were dead-on-then removed his eye protection and ear defenders. “We didn’t expect you up so early, Bennie. I had a driver arranged to pick you up later.”

  For a moment Bennie was relieved-Townsend didn’t appear to be blaming him for the explosions. Then he felt scared, for exactly the same reason. If Townsend wasn’t angry or upset about the explosions, then he must’ve known about them all along. He looked at Townsend in horror. “You planned this?”

  Townsend unclipped the cylindrical drum from the top of his weapon, clipped a fresh one in its place, and said coolly, “We had two strikes against us from the very beginning, Bennie: We were dealing with drugs, and we were dealing with the Satan’s Brotherhood. Yes
, there’s lots of money in manufacturing and selling illegal drugs, but the people you deal with in the drug business-very unsavory characters.”

  Talk about ironic, Bennie thought grimly-Gregory Townsend calling the Satan’s Brotherhood unsavory.

  “Did you know that four of my men were killed and one seriously wounded when the Brotherhood’s chapter members turned on them while they were delivering the hydrogenators?” Townsend went on. “I abhor anyone who cannot stick to his part of a bargain. Major Reingruber and his men are going to hunt down the surviving Brotherhood members and teach them a lesson.”

  “You didn’t expect some of the Brotherhood to try to rip you off?” Bennie asked incredulously. “You blew up all the hydrogenators and wasted a chance to make hundreds of thousands of dollars a day because a few of the chapter guys killed your troops?”

  “Of course not, Bennie,” Townsend replied. “I was going to kill them all anyway.” The way he said it, so casual and so businesslike, made the hairs stand up on the back of Bennie’s scrawny neck. “Actually, I was quite relieved that the death toll on our side was so small. We were at a considerable disadvantage.” Townsend smiled at the shock on his face. “Bennie, you’re an intelligent man. Tell me: What would have happened to the price of methamphetamine in the state of California if there were over a thousand extra pounds of pure uncut meth on the street per day? That would equate to approximately one hundred thousand pounds of cut meth each day.”

  “The price would drop,” Bennie said.

  “ ‘Plummet’ is the term you Americans use, I believe.”

  “But so what?” Bennie asked. “Your deal with the Brotherhood was a thousand dollars per pound produced, no matter what the street price was.”

  “But if the street price dropped to, say, two thousand dollars a pound rather than eight to ten thousand dollars,” Townsend asked, “what do you think the Brotherhood’s reaction would be?”

  “They’d… they’d try to renegotiate the deal.”

  “Bennie, Bennie, please don’t delude yourself like this, not with me,” Townsend scolded him. “You know as well as I that the Brotherhood would first renege on the deal, then go to war with us to try to cancel it-by killing every last one of us and keeping the hydrogenators for themselves. It was a no-win situation for us right from the start, Bennie. But now answer this: Has California’s appetite for methamphetamine been affected by these explosions?”

  “Hell no. Why should it?”

  “Precisely,” Townsend said. “So with the market for methamphetamine the same, and with almost every Satan’s Brotherhood chapter in the state of California closed or substantially downsized, shall we say, and with the surviving members scattered or eventually hunted down by Major Reingruber and his men, what do you suppose will happen to the price of a pound of methamphetamine that makes it to the street now?” There was a glimmer in Bennie’s eyes as he answered the question in his head, and Townsend saw it.

  “So you have your answer, Bennie. Now, as we all know, the Mexicans and those remaining in the biker gangs will rush to fill the void left by the Satan’s Brotherhood,” Townsend pointed out. “So the window of opportunity for whoever becomes California’s premier meth cooker would be very small, although incredibly lucrative. After a period of time, however, the battle for control of the meth trade in the West will heat up all over again. Meth cookers will be killing each other over a few dollars or a few ounces of white crystals. That will be the time to pack up and take our leave.”

  “I don’t get it,” Bennie said, shaking his head. “Are you offering me the meth dealership?”

  “I am offering you much more than that,” Townsend said. “I’m offering you protection and distribution assistance as well.”

  “All for the price of…”

  “Just three thousand dollars a pound, plus chemicals at our cost plus ten percent,” Townsend said. “For a substance that can sell from between ten and thirty thousand dollars a pound or more, I think it’s an offer too good to pass up.”

  “Three thousand a pound? Why so little?” Bennie asked. “It’s worth two or three times that much.”

  “It is more important for us that we maintain a good working relationship with you, Bennie,” Townsend said with an expression that made the little hairs on the back of Bennie’s neck stand up all over again. “Frankly speaking, you know quite a bit about my organization and recent activities. Since killing you would be akin to killing the golden goose, as it were, I find it better to deal fairly with you rather than go to war. Do we have a deal?”

  “I can cook anything I want, anywhere, anytime?”

  “Supervised by my men, yes,” Townsend said. “I presume you are not planning to use the hydrogenation method to produce methamphetamine this time?”

  “Hell no,” Bennie said. “The law will be all over the dude who tries to buy thionyl chloride or a tank of hydrogen now. If I can get my hands on some five-gallon drums of phosphorus-3-iodide, some condensers, and what’s left of the ephedrine that’s stored out here, I can whip up a couple of dozen pounds in one day. We can restart thionyl chloride synthesization later, when the heat subsides.”

  “Do you need a hydrogenator or special apparatus for this method?”

  “Nope-just the phosphorus, the ephedrine, some water, and a condensing unit,” Bennie replied. “It’s a faster and much safer process than hydrogenation, but it produces forty percent less meth for the same cost. But if the street price for meth takes a jump like I think it will, it’ll be worth it. This would give us a nest egg to set up a few more labs in just a couple of weeks.”

  “Very well,” Townsend said. “But we must be very careful now. I am not so naive as to think that our headquarters, labs, warehouses, and meeting places are free from police scrutiny. I must assume that the ranch and the dozen or so other properties I own throughout the state are under some kind of surveillance. I’ve been fortunate thus far in not encountering any police interrogations, but after this past night all bets are off.

  The police may receive some special powers to arrest or conduct investigations in the interest of public safety-but more likely, they’ll simply barge in wherever they like and the Constitution be damned,” Townsend went on. “You are a known methamphetamine cooker. Almost thirty meth labs just blew up all across the state. The police will want to question you. We want to try to avoid all official inquiries on us at this point. If the police find a connection between you, us, and our two men who were just released from custody, and tie us in to the downtown Sacramento shootings, our operation could unravel very quickly. The police will not rest until the ones responsible for killing their own are found and punished-or eliminated.”

  Bennie nodded that he understood. “Okay, Colonel, okay. No way they’ll connect me with you,” he assured Townsend. The guy was like a chess master, Bennie thought, always thinking several moves ahead. “And I’ll get to work right away.”

  “Very good,” Townsend said. “We’ll get you your chemicals so you can start producing as soon as possible.”

  Bennie had that same damn sensation again-the feeling of a long, slow slide into doom. Dealing with a guy like Townsend had to be like dealing with the devil himself. But the money-Jesus, with most all of the Satan’s Brotherhood out of the way, it would be raining and pouring meth money. And the level of fear would be so high that no one, not even the Mexicans, would dare get into the meth trade in California for a few months at least. Bennie would be raking in money. And clearly Townsend and his army weren’t interested in cooking.

  Bennie held out his hand. “You got a deal, Colonel,” he said.

  Townsend smiled that awful smile again, holding up the Calico as he switched it to his left hand so Bennie could not fail to see it-and shook Bennie’s hand. “Very good. Let’s get to work, shall we?”

  As Bennie moved off to supervise the startup of his new lab, Reingruber came over to Townsend. “I am weary of these greedy idiots, Herr Oberst. We risk all we have to transpo
rt some chemicals so we can make a few dollars, when the real money is sitting there waiting for us to take it.”

  “Patience, Major,” Townsend replied. “The city is not yet in a sufficient panic for our purposes. Continue to monitor the target and report if there is any movement. If the local authorities do not act a bit more decisively soon, we may need to implement Phase Three of our plan. But I have a suspicion that, as the Americans are so fond of saying, ‘The shit will hit the fan’ by itself very soon.”

  Special Investigations Division Headquarters,

  Bercut Drive, Sacramento, California

  Monday, 16 March 1998, 0802 PT

  Captain Tom Chandler stepped into the conference room a few minutes after the morning briefing began and took a seat in a corner. Shielding his face behind his FBI National Academy coffee mug, he surveyed the division members present and his heart sank.

  His guys and gals looked whipped. After ten days of twelve-hour shifts, weekends included, they were ashen and exhausted. Everyone was chugging coffee to try to stay awake. Personnel assigned to SID could dress casually-it was an all-undercover unit-but most of them looked as if they had been sleeping in their clothes, which was probably not far from the truth. Hats, apparently hiding unwashed hair, were everywhere.

  The lieutenant in charge of operations, Deanna Wyler, was giving the morning briefing. She normally dressed like a high-powered executive around the office, emulating the captain; but today she wore black BDU’s, a rangemaster’s cap, and combat boots, and had her sidearm strapped to her waist with a black web belt. Wyler, who was normally responsible for administration, training, and liaison with other divisions in the department, had probably been to more crime scenes and labs in the past week than she had in the entire six months before.

  Chandler had heard through the rumor mill that Wyler was a couple of months pregnant. Selfishly, he had not ordered her to stay away from labs or explosion scenes because he desperately needed the manpower out on the street. She hadn’t told him she was pregnant, so officially she wasn’t-which meant that in effect, she was accepting part of the responsibility for any damage, illness, or birth defects…