by Dale Brown
“You’re… you’re Townsend, aren’t you?” Jon asked at last, warmer now. The doctor was hovering nearby, and periodically checked his heart rate.
“Yes, Doctor.” Townsend saw the distrust, then the fear, building in Jon’s eyes. Jon looked at him hard, and what he saw in his face was pity and apprehensiveness. “Don’t worry,” Townsend said. “Major Reingruber is gone… for now.”
“Let me go,” Jon pleaded. “I swear I won’t tell anyone about you guys. I’ll pay any ransom you want, anything. Just let me go.”
The doctor spoke up: “Let’s not talk about that now. What you need, young man, is rest.”
“Of course.” Townsend gave Masters a reassuring tap on the shoulder. “We’ll speak later,” he said as he left.
“That was Gregory Townsend, wasn’t it?” Jon asked the doctor. “The international terrorist?”
The doctor scoffed. “Oh, sure. That’s what the various governments and tabloids have labeled him,” he said, “a terrorist, like Carlos the Jackal or something. Nonsense.”
“Really.” Jon narrowed his eyes. “That’s bullshit. This is an act, a ploy to get my confidence. You’re butchers, all of you, like that Reingruber asshole.”
At the mention of Reingruber’s name, the doctor blanched. “Take care, Dr Masters,” he said. “Major Reingruber is a dangerous man, very dangerous. Colonel Townsend keeps him on a very short leash, but he is unpredictable. Be very careful around him.”
“And Townsend is Mother Teresa’s sainted uncle, I suppose?”
“The colonel saved your life, young man,” the doctor said. “He came in just in time and saw what Reingruber had done. You could have drowned.”
“I fell asleep? Hypothermia?”
“Yes. You were in the water for about ninety minutes, and possibly three to four minutes underwater. Thankfully, your heart and breathing rates were already slowed down to next to nothing. Colonel Townsend dragged you out of the water and performed CPR on you until you came to.”
“Oh shit,” Jon exclaimed. The world’s master terrorist and arms smuggler saved his life? This was unreal-crazy-yet it had to be true. He had certainly been moments away from drowning. He looked at the physician, baffled. “And who are you?”
“Dr Richard Faulkner, internal medicine,” the physician said. He extended a hand. “Recently of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute…”
“Boston?” Faulkner nodded. “I’m an MIT grad. Where’d you go to school?”
“Dartmouth Medical School. Before that, Dartmouth College. I…”
“You’re kidding! I went to Dartmouth too! What in the world are you doing here?”
“Gregory… Colonel Townsend… did me an extraordinary favor years ago,” Faulkner said. “My father was in deep with loan sharks to pay off medical bills for my mother. They threatened to kill me, my sister, and my mother if we didn’t pay up. Gregory stepped in and got the loan sharks off my father’s back. In return, I help him whenever I can.”
“But… but Townsend’s a killer, a terrorist…”
“Never,” Faulkner said. “I know what’s said about him, but I promise you it isn’t true. He’s a professional soldier. He wants to do his job. Unfortunately, he has a tendency to get in with the wrong elements-Major Reingruber is an example. Reingruber’s the enemy here. This entire state would be in flames were it not for Gregory.”
“That’s sure as hell not what I heard about the guy.”
“Don’t believe the falsehoods, young man,” Faulkner said. “But you do need to watch out for Reingruber. He’ll be very angry now that Gregory has reproved him in front of you. Gregory will protect you, but you have to trust that this is so and you have to be watchful. Do you understand?” Jon nodded. “Good. Let’s get you out of here and into some warm clothes.”
Still puzzled and uneasy, Jon tried one more plea. “Why don’t you just let me go?” he asked. “It could be set up. We could make it look like I conked you on the head…”
“No way. Major Reingruber would kill me for sure,” Faulkner said. “No. Our best chance is with Gregory, believe me. I trust him with my life. I have reason to. We’d better get out of here before Reingruber catches us alone.”
Faulkner helped Jon out of the back room and into the central part of the building. The place resembled a small warehouse, with rooms like small offices opening off the main area. They glimpsed Reingruber in one of the rooms, cleaning guns. He got to his feet when he saw them, his rage at Masters evident in his eyes, but he did not come out. Faulkner led Jon into a small windowless room equipped with a cot, blankets, a floor lamp, and a couple of chairs. “You’ll be safe here, Jon,” Faulkner said. “The door locks.” From a pocket under his jacket he pulled out a newspaper conspiratorially. “Here,” he said. “Hide this under the blankets. You don’t want Reingruber to know you have it. I’ve got to go.”
“That bastard will come after me…”
“I’ll be right outside, and Gregory is nearby,” Faulkner said. “Don’t worry. Again, you can rely on us. Gregory’ll get you out of this in fine shape, but you’re going to have to do as he says and place your trust in him. Do you understand? Will you do that, Jon?”
What choice did he have? “I’ll try, Doc.”
“Good. Lock the door after I leave. You must open it when they demand entry, but you’ll have some privacy.”
Jon locked the door instantly, then sat down on the bed and wrapped himself in the blankets.
This is crazy, he said to himself. Reingruber is a madman. Even if what Faulkner said about Townsend was true, what kind of jerk was he, hanging around wackos like that? He’d saved his life, for which he was grateful, but it was baffling nonetheless. Still, he had the two of them to keep the psycho away from him, and they certainly seemed to mean it.
He unfolded the paper carefully. It was today’s pages 3 and 4 of the Sacramento Bee, tattered but still readable, with late-breaking details on the explosion in Wilton. As he read, he froze. He could not believe what he was seeing.
The coverage spelled out what it described as the Tin Man’s reign of terror. Patrick McLanahan had killed several Wilton residents, whom he suspected of being terrorists. He had misidentified the house as a hideout for meth cookers and terrorists when it was actually rented out by an itinerant farmer, his family of three kids, and his brother’s family with four kids. He had killed several of them, including three children, then set an explosive charge on a propane tank outside, causing the huge explosion.
Jon was stupefied. Their intelligence had been perfect, impeccable, accurate-yet, there it was in black and white: They had made a terrible mistake and eleven people had died because of it. There was a Reuters account, an Associated Press piece about the attack. And there was a big article from the Bee news service about Patrick’s death in the Sacramento County Jail, characterizing it as a kind of “suicide by inmate”-Patrick had apparently sought out a Satan’s Brotherhood prisoner and taunted him into the attack that led to the retaliatory killing. The story suggested he was so schizoid that he thought he still had the suit on-was invulnerable-when he attacked the inmate, proclaiming his innocence all the while. The body, it ended, was to be cremated and the remains taken to an undisclosed location.
Jon folded away the paper and sat on the bed, his face a mask of horror. Eleven innocent people had died at their hands. They were murderers.
“He’s falling for it,” said Faulkner. With Townsend and Reingruber, he was watching Masters on a closed-circuit TV monitor, broadcast via a pinhole camera in his room. “It was a great idea to have the computer print it out on newsprint. And can you believe how he took in all that crap about me being a doctor from Dartmouth? Now I’m his goddamn best friend. Still, I don’t see why you don’t just beat the information out of him, Colonel. He’s as sensitive as a pansy.”
“Because he will faint at the slightest injury and be quite useless to us,” Townsend replied. “The tank wiped him out. And drugs will only dull his mind, and we
need that mind to be as sharp as possible. No, physical or chemical techniques will not work. This is the way to proceed. Scientific genius though he may be, he is obviously not trained in misinformation, propaganda, or interrogation-resistance techniques. He is reaching out for a friend, and he has found one in you, and soon in myself.
“His internal clock should be running on our timetable soon-that was programmed when we convinced him he was in the water for ninety minutes, not the fifteen it actually was. And as soon as that occurs, it will be easy to get the information we need.” Townsend walked over to the rack and examined the BERP suit hanging there. “You have not succeeded in discovering how it works?” he asked Faulkner.
“I discovered how to plug in the power and turn it on from the outside, and how to keep it recharged,” Faulkner said. “There are sensors inside the helmet that activate functions that are displayed inside. But I’ve got to figure out how to break the code. Well, we can probably get it from him. The way it’s going, you’ll have him babbling like a kid and squawking like a parakeet in no time.”
“There’s no certainty about that,” said Townsend sharply. “These misinformation and psychological techniques are not foolproof. I am relying on you to break the code and activate that suit. Masters can then fill in the pieces. You had better get back to work. We’ll discuss our next scene with Masters when that is done.”
He turned to Reingruber. “Gute Arbeit, Herr Major.”
The major clicked his heels and bowed.
“Status of the target?”
“Still under full security, Colonel,” Reingruber replied. “Departure has been delayed because of the explosion at the ranch. Security has been increased slightly, but not with any specially trained forces.”
“We may have to implement Phase Three of our plan after all,” Townsend said. “We must be sure the targets are not in ferry or decommission configuration. The weapons systems must be in maintenance preload status or else we may not be able to upload all the weapons we require.”
“I understand, Herr Oberst. Our informants are keeping close scrutiny on the targets at all times. The weapons systems remain in full maintenance preload status, and are not expected to go to ferry status until just prior to departure.”
“Very good,” Townsend said. “Keep me advised. Have you been able to get me confirmation on McLanahan’s death? Is it accurate that he was killed by a Satan’s Brotherhood member in the Sacramento County Jail?”
“It is accurate, Herr Oberst. It has been confirmed. The county coroner pronounced him dead this morning, and a state justice-department official also examined the body as well.”
“But not an independent report? I had hoped for word from an outside source, Major,” Townsend said. “Well, we cannot spare the manpower or risk discovery. But it does not seem he was an important factor in any case-without the suit, simply another desk-bound engineer.”
“I do not understand why we are wasting any time with Masters and his suit, sir,” Reingruber said. “It is not essential to our purposes.”
“Because it represents another profit opportunity for us,” Townsend said. “You need not worry, Major. It will not interfere with our timetable. Masters and his contraption are distractions; at best, the suit will prove to be useful. Your task is to keep careful watch on the targets and advise me as soon as they are ready.”
County Morgue,
Sacramento County Coroner’s Office,
Stockton Boulevard and Broadway,
Sacramento, California
the same time
“Welcome to hell, General.”
Patrick McLanahan opened his eyes, blinking through the pain. He saw Hal Briggs’s face beaming at him. “Where am I?”
“Dead,” Briggs replied. “How do you feel?”
“Dead.” Patrick touched his face gingerly and winced at his broken nose. Briggs helped him sit up on the table. “What happened?”
“What happened was either the most elaborate ruse ever created, or the strangest set of circumstances I’ve ever witnessed, General,” said another voice. Patrick was startled to see Sacramento Police Chief Arthur Barona standing next to him. “I’m still trying to make up my mind which is which.”
“You’re at the county morgue, Patrick,” Briggs said. “We set the whole thing up after we listened to your wiretap tapes and heard Captain Chandler talking to Gregory Townsend-that British guy who confronted you…”
“Townsend got to Chandler?” Patrick said.
“Looks like it. He found out about Chandler’s gambling debts, and he got Chandler to grab Jon Masters and the suit. No one’s seen Masters since he was released from jail yesterday morning. He never met his assigned driver.”
“Police security cameras photographed him getting into a car,” Barona added. “We couldn’t identify the driver or the passenger in the car, but we think it must have been Chandler-we haven’t been able to contact him. I notified your legal team of Dr Masters’s disappearance, and they contacted your guys Briggs and Wohl at the facility out at the airport.” He looked at Briggs and Wohl suspiciously and said icily, “Colonel Briggs then told me of his plan to spring you from the jail.”
Patrick looked at Briggs, who grinned. “Hey, nobody tries to frame my friends. What we decided was to give the chief your wiretap tapes. Then we let him know of my plan, and he got the sheriff on board. We had Sergeant Wohl dress up as a biker-how’d you like those tattoos?-and we planted him on your floor to ‘kill’ you.”
Patrick felt his nose again. “Good job, Chris. Very realistic.”
“My pleasure, sir,” said Wohl, looking pleased with himself.
“With a little help from some theatrical blood and a mild nerve agent that slowed down your breathing and heart rate enough to pass you off as dead, we got you out of there,” Briggs finished up. “But Jon’s disappeared. If he’s in Townsend’s hands, that’s bad news-we’ve got to find him and Chandler.”
“We can find Townsend,” Patrick said. He struggled shakily to his feet. “He probably took all of Jon’s gadgets away from him so we can’t use them to locate him, but we can use the suit’s tracking system to locate it. Assuming Jon stays near the suit.”
“I still find it hard to believe any of this,” Barona said. “The suit Jon Masters created makes the wearer almost invulnerable. He’s part of your team. Why would he go off with it to a guy like Townsend, who’s got some kind of secret organization? He’s a madman-he was associated with Henri Cazaux. And if it’s his operation that’s attacking the city and the motorcycle gangs, for what purpose? What’s he up to?”
“We don’t know yet,” said McLanahan. “I was told that Townsend and his so-called Aryan Brigade are not what they appear to be, but my informant died before he could tell me more than that. He’s a dangerous bastard. It’s urgent to locate Jon; that’s where we’ll find Townsend. Hal, I need one of your Pave Hammer tilt-rotors out at McClellan. What’s their maintenance status?”
“They haven’t started yet,” Hal said. “They’re just finishing work on the F-117 Night Hawk stealth fighters out there. Whatever you need, you got.”
“I want one MV-22, armed and ready to fly,” McLanahan said. “I’ll mount a locator unit to find the suit. Once we pinpoint it, we’ll send a Skywalker reconnaissance drone overhead to scope out the hideout, then hit it.”
“Hold it, hold it!” said Barona. “What are you jokers talking about? First of all, McLanahan, you’re not going anywhere, especially not on some secret armed aircraft. If you disappear, my ass is in deep trouble. Second, I can’t allow you to use any of these men, these commandos, to stage an operation in the state of California without coordination and permission of the proper authorities. Third…”
“You can stop right there,” McLanahan said. “In case you haven’t figured it out yet, Chief, we’re in charge of this operation, and we’re going to do whatever it takes to get out friend back, and that suit. If you continue to tell us what we can’t do, we’ll be happy
to lock you in a nice cozy room in some undisclosed location until we’re finished. Or, you can cooperate.”
“Don’t you dare threaten me, mister,” Barona said. “I’m risking my career to help you. But I can’t stand by and watch you take the law into your own hands.”
Patrick considered it for a moment; then: “All right, Chief. We’ll cooperate as much as possible. Tell us what you want us to do. But you need to know I will not allow anything or anybody to get in the way of this rescue. That’s firm.”
Barona nodded. He spelled out what McLanahan needed to do so that this could look like an officially sanctioned joint law-enforcement operation. Then they all went on the phones to the various agencies, sometimes literally begging for cooperation and clearance. Patrick hung tough, and eventually they got what they needed.
“One more thing, McLanahan, and all of you,” Barona said sternly. “I need results, and I need them right away. My ass is already on the line for you. We could have prevented all this if you’d brought me the wiretaps on Chandler earlier. I’m going to have to explain not only why McLanahan is not in jail, but why he’s not dead as well. I’m going to give you twenty-four hours to wrap this caper up, and then I’m going to the district attorney and attorney general, tell my story, and let the chips fall where they may. If that’s the way I end up, I guarantee you I’ll do everything in my power to fry you all. I’ll come away with an embarrassing bloody nose for trying to cooperate with you-but you: You’ll all be in prison.”
Research and Development Facility,
Sacramento-Mather Jetport,
Rancho Cordova, California
Thursday, 2 April 1998, 0649 FT
Those brutal sons of bitches, Tom Chandler thought. This he’d never anticipated. Someone needed to teach those assholes a lesson.