by Dale Brown
“McLanahan and Masters were arraigned this morning in Sacramento Superior Court before Judge Richard Rothchild,” Scurrah went on. “They both pleaded not guilty. They are being represented by attorneys from San Diego. Bail in the amount of one million dollars was given for Masters; McLanahan is being held without bail in the Sacramento County Jail. Masters must surrender his passport and may not leave Sacramento County.
“If found guilty on all charges, McLanahan will have been convicted on more than three felony charges. If this occurs, the ‘three-strikes’ repeat-offender law would be invoked and he would have to spend a minimum of twenty years in prison, plus a mandatory additional seven years for each conviction of attempted murder against a police officer,” Scurrah concluded. “He can be found guilty on the lesser charge of manslaughter in the Brolin death. But my office is seeking a second-degree murder conviction and the maximum penalty because of the particular viciousness of the attack, and also because we want to show the people of Sacramento County that we will not tolerate vigilantism. The death penalty does not apply in this case. That’s all the information I have at this time. Thank you.”
Scurrah stepped aside and let Servantez step up to the microphones again. “We are investigating the possibility that McLanahan and Masters are part of a militia movement and may have masterminded the recent explosions in and around northern California and indeed around the entire state, in coordination with other extremist militia groups,” he said. “It appears that McLanahan was trying to avenge the attack on his brother by planning and executing a series of attacks and assaults on suspected gang members and drug dealers in and around Sacramento. He was apparently using sophisticated weapons and devices developed by Dr Masters, weapons manufactured for use by the military, to hunt down, capture, interrogate, and then kill those who he thought might be involved in the attack on his brother and other police officers.”
Police Chief Barona took his turn at the microphones. “I cannot comment any more about this case because of the investigation, but I would like to make one very important point: This city, this county, will not tolerate vigilantes. The city and county of Sacramento have some of the finest law-enforcement organizations in the country. We don’t need anyone, no matter who or what they are, taking the law into their own hands and disrupting our streets with hatred and violence.
“We are a society of law. We will not tolerate anyone, no matter what his background or personal motivation, tragedy, or reasoning might be, to take the law into his own hands. McLanahan and Masters, if found guilty of the crimes of which they are charged, will be punished to the fullest extent of the law. I urge the citizens of this county not to be swayed by what the two suspects might claim are their reasons for doing what they did. If they broke the law, they should be punished for it. Thank you.”
Sacramento County Jail,
651 I Street, Sacramento, California
Tuesday, 31 March 1998, 0815 PT
A sheriff’s deputy led Patrick McLanahan into the visiting room and escorted him to the seat farthest down the row of phone cubicles that connected the prisoners with their visitors on the other side of the Plexiglas barrier. Patrick was wearing a white T-shirt that looked two sizes too small, with the words PRISONER, SACRAMENTO COUNTY JAIL stenciled front and back, baggy blue jeans that looked three sizes too big, white socks, and floppy black canvas slip-on shoes. The deputy walked between him and the row of prisoners seated in the phone cubicles, but this didn’t stop several white prisoners from turning to look at him, muttering threats and flashing obscene and gang gestures at him.
Jon Masters was waiting for him, dressed in a suit and tie. When Patrick sat down at the cubicle, Masters looked at him in shock. He picked up the phone on his side. A recorded warning announced that conversations might be recorded. “Jesus, Patrick!” Jon exclaimed after the recording stopped and the connection opened. “What happened to your face?”
Patrick gingerly touched the cuts on his swollen, bruised cheeks and mouth. “Some bikers got hold of me,” he said.
“Are you all right?” Patrick nodded. “If they can’t protect you in there, I’ll get the attorney to have you transferred somewhere else…”
“I’m in an isolation cell now,” Patrick said.
“Thank God.”
“Isolation means that only one out of every three gobs of spit hits me now,” Patrick said with a wry smile. “Now they just tell me they’re going to rip my balls off, instead of actually trying to do it.”
“Patrick, how can you make jokes at a time like this?”
“I’ll be all right, Jon,” Patrick said reassuringly. “Half of them think I killed their buddies, but the other half think that if they mess with me, my friends will go after their families. It’s a part of being in the gang-harassing me shows the other members that they’re solid. I can handle it.” Jon’s face was ashen, as if he could scarcely believe what he was hearing. Patrick pointed a warning finger at the phone, then at the sign behind Jon stating that their conversations could be monitored. “Have you spoken with Wendy?”
“Yes,” Jon replied, signaling that he understood. “She’s all right. She’s real worried about you.”
“How’s Bradley?”
“Just fine,” Jon replied. He smiled, then added, “A lot of folks in your… your family have contacted me.” He emphasized the word family, and Patrick picked it up. “They’re all very concerned and will do anything necessary to get you out of here and clear your name.”
“That’s nice,” said Patrick. “Ask the family to talk with Wendy and reassure her that everything will be all right. I’ll be out of here soon enough. I can’t wait to tell my side of the story to a jury. Are you meeting with anyone from the legal department?”
“I’m meeting Henry Fowler, the senior partner in the law firm that does our legal, in about an hour,” Jon said. “They’ve got all the police reports, and they say we have a good chance of getting all the charges dismissed. He’s going to introduce me to the criminal-defense team they’ve retained. They’ll have someone over later this morning to talk with you.” He looked a little embarrassed, then added, “I brought over the money you asked for last night, but they took it from me. They said they have to log it in. Have you gotten it yet?” Patrick shook his head. “God, Patrick, this is a nightmare.”
“Everything will be all right, bro,” Patrick said. “Just tell Wendy and the family that I’m all right.”
“You got it, bro,” Jon said, watching helplessly as Patrick was led away. A big, mean-looking prisoner tried to get up out of his seat as Patrick was passing, bumped him, and screamed an obscenity before the deputies pushed him back down.
There were reporters waiting out in front of the jail, so Jon was led out a rear exit that bordered on the H Street parking garage, and the heavy steel door locked behind him. He made his way warily around toward the front and looked for the company car that was to meet him, but there was no sign of it. The rain started to come down, a dull, chilly mist at first, then heavier.
Man, he thought, life pretty much sucked right now. Patrick was in jail, charged with murder; the Ultimate Soldier project was compromised, perhaps destroyed; and his company was without a leader, drifting aimlessly. He didn’t even have Helen Kaddiri to torment him anymore…
Helen. It was the first time he had thought about her in many days, and he realized that the thought of her warmed him inside. For the first time in his life, Jon felt truly alone. For all those years before, he had kept himself surrounded, first with academia, then with the government, then with the company. Now all were gone. He needed Helen. He wanted her. Once the idea was laughable, then unthinkable-and now, all he could think about was her.
He pulled out a cellular-phone earset, a tiny device that looped onto the ear and picked up vocal vibrations in the skull for transmitting. He used voice commands to dial her home number in San Diego and got her answering machine. “Helen, this is Jon,” he said after taking a deep breath. “I don�
��t know if you’ve heard all the news lately, but I’m here in Sacramento. I just got out of the Sacramento County Jail on bail. Patrick is being held without bond. We…”
He was going to make a full “report” to her and fill in the circumstances, but he found he couldn’t continue-his heart wouldn’t let him use the company “we” again, wouldn’t allow him to be so impersonal. “Helen, I need you,” he said. “The company does, sure, but I need you more. I need your support, your guidance, and your friendship. I don’t know where you are-probably out making a deal to launch your new company-but please, come up here to Sacramento. I’ll probably be at the R amp; D facility at Sacramento-Mather Jetport, the old alert facility. I won’t blame you if you don’t show up, but please don’t leave me now. I… I love you, Helen. I probably sound like the biggest geek in the world, but I don’t care. I love you. Bye.”
Jon ended the call and put the earset away. A few minutes later he heard a car horn beep across the street. He looked over and saw a hand waving to him. His ride at last. The driver was unfamiliar and the windows were tinted so he couldn’t see in, but he crossed the street and went around to the passenger side. He was surprised to see Tom Chandler in the front passenger seat.
“Hello, Dr Masters,” Chandler said. “Care for a ride?” He noticed Masters’s quizzical expression as he looked at the unfamiliar driver. “This is Officer Williams of my division. I rate a driver today, and he’s it. Need a ride?”
“I’ve got one coming, thanks.”
“Dr Masters, listen, I know what you and Patrick are going through,” Chandler said. He lowered his voice so the driver wouldn’t overhear. “Don’t castrate me because I’m doing my job. It would look worse if I showed any favoritism at all. If I let my opinion that Patrick is a hero leak out, I’d be off the case and you and Patrick would have to swim with the sharks alone.”
“You think Patrick is a hero? The other night you thought he was a criminal.”
“I think both you and Patrick are heroes,” Chandler said, “taking on the dirtbags in this city like this. It shows courage, real courage. But Patrick’s in jail, and the city that you and he tried to protect wants to make an example of him. That’s not right. We need to get together and strategize. Come over to my office so we can talk. You can call your people from there and tell them where to pick you up.”
“I don’t know…”
“Hey, c’mon, Doc, I’m doing everything I can on my end to make sure that you and Patrick get every break possible,” Chandler said. “The DA doesn’t have much of a case. They’ve been hammering me and my guys for hours, trying to find even the smallest piece of incriminating evidence. They don’t have it. But now I need your help.”
“Shouldn’t I have my attorney present?”
“This is not an interrogation,” Chandler said. “I’m not going to ask you anything that will incriminate either you or Patrick. You can refuse to answer anything you feel uncomfortable with.” He saw Masters still hesitate. “All right, if it would make you feel better, you can call your attorney and have him present. But I’m not going to Mirandize you, because this is not part of the investigation. In fact, it’s the opposite-I want to talk about ways I can help you and Patrick get out of this mess. Believe me, there are a lot of cops in this town who are very thankful for what you two did.”
“There are?”
“Absolutely,” Chandler said. “Even if it gets to trial. But they want to hear from you. Will you do this for Patrick?”
“Of course I will!” Jon exclaimed. “Man, I’m so glad you came by! I thought you were more concerned about making an arrest than helping us.” Jon hopped into the rear seat as soon as Chandler got the door unlocked.
They headed down I Street toward Interstate 5. Just before they reached the freeway, there was a beeping sound. Chandler turned around and saw Masters retrieve what looked like a Cross pen from his pocket. “Is that your pen beeping, Doctor?”
“My pager,” Masters said with pride. “My own design.” He checked the tiny LCD display on the barrel. “It’s my driver. Probably wondering where I am. I’ll give him a call and let him know where I’ll be.” He retrieved his cellular-phone earset. “What I do is punch up the phone number on my wristwatch. There’s a wireless connection between the earset and the watch. The number I retrieve on my watch is the one that gets dialed. Or I can use voice commands.”
“What other gadgets do you have back there, Doc?” Chandler asked.
“Oh, I got a million of ‘em,” Jon replied. “I can…”
A car pulled out of the on-ramp from I Street and cut in front of their car, and with a screech of the wheels the driver swerved to miss him, blurting out, “Schweinehund!”
“Cool,” Masters said. “Your driver swears in German. About all the German I know is ‘ein Bier, bitte.’” The driver shot a panicky look at Chandler. “German always sounds so mean. A naked woman can be whispering sweet nothings in your ear in bed, and if she’s talking in German it sounds like she wants to rip your heart out with a fork. I once heard…” Jon stopped abruptly, noticing where they were. “Hey, aren’t we supposed to be heading north on I-5?”
“No,” Chandler said. “Dr Masters, give me that cellphone and your watch right now.”
“You want to see how it works?”
“No, I want to take them from you,” Chandler said patiently.
“Why?”
Chandler half-turned in his seat, aiming a SIG Sauer P226 pistol at Masters in the back. Jon blanched. “Dr Masters, you are either a very good actor or just about the most naive and scatterbrained Ph.D. I’ve ever met.” Jon handed over the earset cellphone, his wireless transceiver wristwatch, and the pager pen with shaking hands. “We are going to meet up with some friends of mine. They would very much like to talk with you.”
Jon looked at the driver’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “I suppose they’re German-speaking friends, right? Maybe with a guy who speaks with a British accent?”
“I think you’re finally getting the picture,” Chandler said. “Swing around in the seat and put your hands behind your back. I don’t think my friends would want you to know where we’re going.” Masters did as he was told, and the SID captain reached back and snapped handcuffs on him.
“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…”