The Tin Man

by Dale Brown

  “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.”

  Research and Development Facility,

  Sacramento-Mather Jetport,

  Bancho Cordova, California

  later that afternoon

  The 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. Bine 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…”

  Sacramento County Jail,

  651 I Street, Sacramento, California

  later that evening

  The 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 pape
r 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…

  … and one of the tattoos, the biggest one, on his left arm-was a Satan’s Brotherhood tattoo. Oh shit…

  The biker was hunched over his tray, enveloping it with his arms as if protecting it from a thief. This was a good time to get the hell out of the common area, Patrick decided. He got up quickly. “Hey!” the biker snapped, fixing wild, psychotic eyes on him. “You! Who are you?”

  “Nobody, chief,” Patrick said.

  “The fuck you are,” the biker said. “I know you. I hearda you. You’re the guy who was goin’ around killing Brotherhood.”

  The two old guys scattered as fast as they could. The biker got to his feet, eyes burning. Patrick looked up at the guard tower, but the guards up there were busy. “Listen, chief,” Patrick said, “you’ve got it wrong. I didn’t kill any Brotherhood members.”

  But the biker exploded like a volcano. “Die, motherfucker!” he screamed, and launched himself at Patrick. He tackled him to the ground, rolled on top of him, pinned his arms, and pummeled his face. “This-is-for-the-Brotherhood!” he shouted with each blow of his fists.

  By now the other prisoners had joined in the fray. “Get him!” they shouted. “Kill the cocksucker! Kill him for the Brotherhood!”

  Patrick felt something warm on his face, and through his blurry eyes saw blood all over the biker’s fists and shirt. Then the biker wrapped his huge hands around Patrick’s neck. In a daze, Patrick heard a whistle blow and the PA system blare out something about a lockdown. Then the biker squeezed harder. He felt a hand on his throat, another on the side of his head, then a sharp push-and everything went dark.

  Chapter Four

  Mount Vernon Road,

  Newcastle, California

  Wednesday, 1 April 1998, 0905 FT

  Jon Masters awoke to blackness. He found his hands and feet handcuffed to what felt like a chain-link gate, and a thick hood over his head. He had been stripped naked. He had a colossal headache, a result of the gas they had used to put him asleep, and he could smell vomit on the inside of the hood.

  He lay there for what seemed like hours. Then he heard a door open and footsteps approaching him. “Guten Morgen, Dr Masters,” said a voice.

  “You must be one of Townsend’s goons,” Masters shouted. “Let me go, jerk-face.”

  A blow from a leather whip struck him across the face. “You will call me Major or sir,” said Bruno Reingruber. “You will conduct yourself like a man and not a comicbook character in my presence. Your situation is already dire enough without the added unpleasantness of being punished for rudeness.”

  “Fuck you,” Jon said. “Let me go right now! Help! Someone help me! Help! Some goddamn German guy is going to kill me!”

  “Sehr gut. Have it your way, Herr Doktor,” Reingruber said. Several pairs of rough hands grabbed Masters, unfastened his handcuffs, and forced him facedown onto the concrete floor. The handcuffs were refastened behind his back, and he was lifted up and shoved into a metal drum. As icy water poured over him, he cried out in shock. It filled the drum to the level of his mouth, and a grilled lid was snapped onto the drum.

  “We know from experiments the Third Reich did during World War Two that a human can survive immersed in water like this for about an hour,” Reingruber said. “Of course, their subjects were concentration-camp prisoners, probably in far poorer physical condition than yourself. We shall be back in an hour and see how well you did.

  “You should also know that we shall be exploring the spectrum of physical, psychological, and emotional torture. We shall learn together, we and you, of your fears, your nightmares, your weaknesses, and your thresholds of pain and stress.”

  “Why are you doing this to me?” Jon cried through chattering lips. “What do you want?”

  “Why, Doctor, you may feel free to tell me anything that you might think I would like to know,” said the Major. “But you are being punished because you seem to have this macho image of yourself that will undoubtedly prevent us from dealing with each other in a civil manner. You need to accept that this attitude is counterproductive and will not do.”

  “Hey, you kraut bastard, face me like a real man!” Masters screamed. “Screw you!”

  “Oh, and one more fact that I thought should be brought to your attention,” Reingruber said. “I have learned through my sources that your friend and colleague Brigadier General Patrick McLanahan was killed yesterday in the Sacramento County Jail.”

  “What?” Jon Masters cried out, raising his head in shock and crashing against the lid. As he rebounded underwater, he inhaled a great snoutful of water, coughed, and fought for breath. “Patrick is dead? How?…”

  “Apparently he angered a fellow inmate who happened to be a member of the biker gang he attacked.”

  “You mean the one you attacked!” Masters screamed. “You killed those bikers! And they’ve killed Patrick because of you? Oh God, no!…”

  “Most unfortunate,” Reingruber said in mock sympathy. “We are informed he is being cremated the day after tomorrow. If you cooperate, perhaps you may still have time to pay your last respects to your friend.”

  “Wait!” Jon cried out. “You haven’t asked me anything! You haven’t
told me what you want! Wait!” But Reingruber had already departed.

  Jon screamed for help until his throat turned hoarse. He could not straighten his legs, but he pressed up against the lid with his head as hard as he could to force it open. It didn’t budge. If that wasn’t going to work, the important thing was to cope with the cold. He could handle it. Sure, it was cold now, but eventually his body heat would warm the water enough to prevent hypothermia. He swished back and forth like a washing machine, and sure enough, the sting in his legs and arms started to go away. The sonofabitch, Jon thought, he’s not going to beat me! Townsend’s goons might be cold-blooded terrorists, but they weren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer.

  If he stopped struggling, he found he could breathe slowly and more naturally while keeping his face above water. Perfect. No point in trying to escape; it wasn’t possible. Don’t panic. Relax. He closed his eyes, dreaming, remembering trips to Guam, to Australia, to southern California…

  He woke up with a scream, then gurgled as water geysered out of his throat. He tried to take a breath and found his lungs filled with water. He panicked, fought the arms trying to hold him underwater.

  “Easy, young man, easy,” said a soothing voice. He opened his eyes. A kind-looking gray-haired man was looking at him. “Don’t panic. I’m a doctor. I’ll help you.” The doctor’s hands pressed on his stomach, and great quantities of water poured from his mouth. He coughed, and found he could breathe again.

  “Is he going to be all right, Doctor?” a British voice asked.

  “Yes, yes,” the doctor replied. “He wasn’t under very long. The cold water slowed his breathing and heart rate, so there should be no brain damage.”

  “We are just in time-you are very lucky, Major,” said the British voice, which then spewed out a stream of invective in German. Jon turned his head. Reingruber was standing at attention, his face impassive. “Get out of here before I throw you in that barrel!” Then the Brit stooped over Jon. “Are you all right, Dr Masters?” he asked, concern etched on his face. Jon’s teeth were chattering too hard for him to respond. “Get those blankets, Doctor, now.” He wrapped Jon in two large blankets, sat him up, and gave him a cup of chicken broth.