catch your ass out on my streets again, you're
dead."
"I advise you to listen to these guys, Sandman,"
Bennie said. "They mean business."
"Oh, I'm sure they do," Harrison said, talking to
Bennie but facing Townsend. "I'm sure the Angels,
the Riders, the wetbacks, and the slopes meant
business too. But they're not in control around here
either. The Brotherhood is in control of this state."
He shook his head. "You're a piece of work, limey.
I First you kill two of our brothers and steal our
chemist, then you off one of our recruits, then you
set up meetings and want to be the big boss. We
don't need no foreigners trying to muscle in on our
operation."
"You are going to produce more methamphetamine
in one month than you previously could in a
year, Mr. Harrison," Townsend said. "Easy, safe,
and guaranteed to make us all rich in a very short
period of time."
"And this deal includes hosing off a couple of
cops, Townsend?" Harrison asked angrily. "You
cost us plenty with that holdup of yours."
"I see Mr. Mullins felt free to talk about our operation
with you," Townsend said, his confident
smile dimmer. "It seems our decision to terminate
Mr. Mullins's miserable life was a sound one."
"Mullins was a Brotherhood recruit, asshole,"
Harrison said. "He was one of ours, and you knew
it. He gave us plenty of access to businesses, warehouses
, and events. Killing him was like attacking
all of Satan's Brotherhood. You owe us."
"Mullins was a weasel who would sell his
mother to make a dollar," Townsend said angrily.
"He did the Sacramento Live! job for five thousand
lousy dollars. How much was he supposed to pay
you out of that?"
At Harrison's blank face, Townsend added, "Or
perhaps you didn't even know he was doing this
inside job? The latter, I suspect. So Mullins was cutting
the Brotherhood out of your share of his action.
He was a lying, cheating bastard. You should have
had him killed long ago."
"Maybe so, Townsend. But I got one message for
you shitheads: Get out of town now, and stay out,
or we'll fuck you over real bad. Capish?"
"Aren't you even interested in my proposal?"
Townsend asked.
"Does it involve you making or selling meth?"
"Fortunately, no," Townsend said dryly. "Manufacturing
drugs, especially methamphetamine,
seems to be a very hazardous undertaking, best left
to you and the Mexicans."
"If I find out you doin' any deals with the fuckin'
Mexicans, asshole," Harrison said, "I'll kill every
last one of you myself. Your hard-ass German
friends won't be able to help you one fucking bit."
"Major Reingruber would like nothing better
than to go to war with you, the Mexican cartels, the
police, and anyone else who opposes us," Townsend
said sternly, affixing his one good eye squarely on
Harrison. "But I prefer cooperation to war. Since we
have somewhat similar political and cultural views,
shall we say, we prefer to work with you."
"But you got Bennie the Chef," Harrison argued.
"That means you're cooking. You cook crank in
Brotherhood territory, you die."
"Mr. Reynolds is serving as my technical expert
and adviser to streamline methamphetamine production
," Townsend said. "We have devised a
means to manufacture meth in vast quantities with
safety, security, and profitability in mind-but we
do not wish to do it ourselves. We will leave that up
to you. Care to see what we have in mind?"
By this time, Harrison's curiosity had taken over.
He nodded his assent. Townsend led the way into
the barn behind the house, which was guarded by
four heavily armed soldiers. There, lined up like
barrels in a brewery, were twenty black steel drums,
mounted on small trailers. "What the hell's this,
Townsend?" Harrison asked. "This your idea of a
joke?
"This is the core of my new operation, Mr. Harrison
," Townsend replied. "These are meth hydrogenators
."
"Hydrogenators," Townsend repeated. "Thirty
gallons each, with built-in agitators' pressure monitoring
, leak detection, air filtration, and productpurification
apparatus. The trailer contains a power
unit and vacuum-pressurization equipment."
Harrison still looked confused, so Bennie clarified
it for him. "Big bucks, Sandman. We're talking
two, three hundred thousand dollars a day from
each one of 'em. Fully portable, fully selfcontained-you
can practically set one of these
things up in your backyard next to your barbecue
grill and no one would know you're cooking. It's as
easy to use as a Suzy fuckin' Homemaker oven."
That kind of information Harrison understood.
He walked over to one of the units and ran his hand
over the dull black steel surface. "Cool. I'll take
'em. How much?"
"They're not for sale, Mr. Harrison," Townsend
said. "But you can have them. All of them, if you
like."
Bennie looked thunderstruck. Harrison's bearded
face broke into a wide grin. "Wrap 'em up, limey."
"All I ask is that you pay my organization a modest
sum of one thousand dollars a pound for every
pound you produce," Townsend said. Harrison's
grin vanished as he tried to do the math in his head,
so Townsend did it for him: "That's twenty percent
of the wholesale price but only eight percent of the
retail price per pound. You can buy the chemicals
and catalysts, from us if you wish, or you can supply
your own. We even provide the security for each
unit, courtesy of the Aryan Brigade."
"But I get the cookers for free?" Harrison asked
incredulously.
"Absolutely free," Townsend said. "Each unit reports
every time a hydrogenation cycle is completed
."
"Does this asshole ever speak plain English, Bennie
?" Harrison complained.
"What he means, Sandman, is that the unit can
tell us when somebody cooks up a batch," Bennie
said, falling back into his prerehearsed script even
though he was still in a state of shock. "The colonel
gets paid by the pound you cook up. just so everyone
stays on the up-and-up, the unit tells us how
much you cook."
"Precisely," Townsend replied. "The unit can tell
us how much was made, and when. Each cycle can
produce up to thirty pounds of product. You pay us
thirty thousand dollars every time you make a full
batch, and whatever else you earn is yours to keep.
We even provide maintenance for the units-if they
ever break down, we will fix them without charge.
We will become the Microsoft of the methamphetamine
trade."
"The what?" Harrison grunted,
still running his
hands lovingly across the surface of the hydrogenator
.
"Never mind," Townsend said. "Is it a deal,
then?"
Harrison was clearly impressed. "I'll take this
deal to the chief," he said. "I think he'll like it."
"Good," Townsend said. "Then you'll be off."
Again Harrison looked at Townsend as if he were
speaking a foreign language, but when Townsend
headed for the door, he understood the tour was
over.
Bennie Reynolds was absolutely speechless.
When the five Brotherhood bikers had left, he
turned on Townsend and asked, "What the hell are
you doing? You're going to give away thirty hydiogenator
units? We just spent a quarter of a million
dollars building these things! They're worth millions
of dollars a month4"
Townsend shrugged off the protests, "It's a good
deal for us as well as the Brotherhood," he said. "Of
course, we'll give a few to the Mexican gangs and a
few of the other biker gangs as well. After all, Satan's
Brotherhood isn't the only gang in the West."
"You're going to do this deal with other gangs?
That's suicide! If the Brotherhood finds out, they'll
go to war."
"I don't think there'll be a war, Bennie," Townsend
said with a confident smile. "There's too much
money to be made. We have another ten hydrogenators
to build, and then we can start scheduling
training sessions for each chapter that will get one.
My plan is to distribute and train all of the Brotherhood
and Mexican-gang chapters in one night, all
throughout California, Nevada, and Oregon. Let's
get started, shall we?"
MARRIOTT-INTERCONTINENTAL MARINA,
SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA
SATURDAY, 14 FEBRUARY 1998, 1915 PT
H elen Kaddiri glanced briefly at the good-looking
guy who opened the hotel door for her before she
walked out toward the docks. She had been born
and raised in San Diego, but she hadn't been down
to the waterfront in years. It was much more
crowded than she remembered, but still just as
beautiful. The weather was perfect, dry and mild,
with just enough of a breeze to bring in the salt air
but not enough to require a coat.
She allowed herself to enjoy the weather and the
scenery for a moment before her mind returned to
the situation at hand: Namely, what in hell did Jon
Masters want? His phone call the day before yesterday
was the first she had heard from him since the
BERP demonstration up in Sacramento. The rest of
the board of directors and every one of the senior
officers and managers had either spoken or met
with her, pleading for her to return-everyone but
Jon Masters. Pig-headed as usual.
She had tossed a grenade on their picnic by having
her attorney draw up a proposed three-milliondollar
settlement agreement. The deal included
cashing in some of her preferred-class stock, converting
the rest into common stock, and transferring
ownership of some of the patents and other
technologies still in development that rightfully belonged
to her. She wasn't looking to gut the company
, although she certainly could if she wanted.
"Helen?" She turned. To her astonishment, she
realized that the young, nicely dressed man who
had held the door open for her was Jon Masters. It
was practically the first time she had ever seen him
in anything but jeans and tennis shoes. His hair was
neatly trimmed and combed in place, and-this was
almost too much to believe-he was wearing a
necktie! She never imagined he would even own
one, much less wear one!
"I I'm sorry, Jon," she said, completely
taken off guard. "I didn't recognize you. You look
so . . . so
"Normal?"
Helen smiled. "Something like that, yes." That
was unusual too-Jon never made fun of himself.
just the opposite, in fact-he thought he was God's
gift to the Western world. Helen looked down at her
slacks, casual blouse, and plain jacket. "I feel underdressed
standing next to you, Jon, and that's certainly
something I never thought I'd say. It feels
weird."
"I'm very glad you're here, Helen," Jon said. He
held out a bouquet of red roses. "Happy Valentine's
Day," he said, looking into her eyes.
A puff of wind could have knocked Helen Kaddiri
over. She accepted the flowers with a stunned expression
. The most he had ever given her in the past
was a hard time. "Thank you," she said in a tiny
voice. "I'm flattered. Now tell me: Who are you,
and what have you done with the real Dr. Jonathan
Colin Masters?"
"No, it's me, all right," Jon said. "We're this
way." He motioned toward the marina.
"We're not meeting in the hotel?" said Helen.
"I've asked my attorney to join us. He'll be here in a
few minutes." Jon looked confused. "I assumed this
was in response to my settlement agreement, Jon."
"No. I hadn't planned on bringing any lawyers,"
Jon said. "You can bring him if you want, but it
might spoil . . ."
"Spoil what?"
"Spoil . . . the mood," he said, a little embarrassed
.
"The mood?" Helen retorted. She had been
intrigued at first, even titillated by what Jon was
doing; now she was getting angry. This sounded like
yet another Masters prank. But it wasn't the fact
that he was pulling another prank that made her
angry-it was her sense that this wasn't a prank,
and then realizing that she had deluded herself.
"Jon, what is this? What's going on? If this is some
kind of gag, so help me, I'll brain you!"
"It's not a joke, Helen," Jon said. "Follow me."
"Where are we going?"
"It's a surprise," Jon said. He led her down the
steps to the hotel marina. A man in a white waiter's
outfit smiled, bowed, and opened the wharf security
gate for them. "I'd ask you to close your eyes," Jon
said, "but the thought of you closing your eyes on
this dock makes me dizzy."
"Jon, where are we going?" Helen asked irritably.
"This is crazy. If we can't discuss our differences
like rational human beings, we should just . . ."
"Here we are," Jon said. He had stopped beside
the most beautiful yacht Helen had ever seen. It had
to be sixty-five feet in length-it looked as big as a
house. A waiter in crisp white was standing in the
aft cockpit, ready to help them board, and opposite
him was a violin player. Up a short ladder was the
covered aft deck, on which Helen could see a table
laid with a gleaming white tablecloth and place settings
for two. The yacht's engines were running,
and dock crews were holding the lines, ready to get
under way.
"Jon, what in the world are you up to?" Helen
asked
.
"We'll talk on board," Jon said. "Let's go."
"Where are we going?"
"Oh, I thought we'd go to Catalina for the weekend
," Jon said. "Depends on the weather. Or we can
go to Dana Point, or Mexico . . ."
"Mexico?" Helen asked. "Jon, what is all this?"
"Helen, we can talk on board," Jon said again. He
looked up and down the wharf.. Attracted by the soft
violin music, a small crowd of gawkers had stopped
to watch, which was making Jon uncomfortable.
"Your chariot awaits, madame."
"We're not going anywhere until you answer
me," Helen demanded. "What's going on? Is this another
one of your elaborate pranks? If it is, I haven't
got time for any of it."
"This is no prank, Helen," Jon said. His face was
beginning to show the dejection of someone realizing
his grand plan maybe wasn't going to work.
"This is a night out for both of us. A chance to be
together, to talk, to have a nice dinner, to see the
coast at night."
"No one else?"
"No one else."
"What makes you think I'd fall for any of this,
Jon?" Helen asked.
" 'Fall' for this? There's nothing to 'fall for/
Helen," Jon responded. "We have a lot to talk about.
There's so much I want to tell you . . ."
"This isn't about the settlement agreement,
about the buyout?"
"No, it's not about any of that," Jon replied.
"Well, what then?"
"It's about . . . it's about you and me, Helen.
About us."
"Us? There is no 'us,/ Jon.//
"I want there to be an 'us/ Helen," Jon said sincerely
. "Can't we go on board?"
"Talk to me right now, Jon," Helen insisted.
"What are you saying?"
Thankfully, the crowd had started to go on its
way. The violin player stepped inside but continued
to play. "Helen, I sensed something in you during
the. BERP demonstration up.in Sacramento," Jon
said. "I don't know if I'm right or not, but I know
what I sensed. And when I thought about it,
thought about you, I felt really good."
"You mean ... you mean, you like me?" Helen
asked, sounding perhaps a bit more incredulous
than she meant. "As in, romantically like me?"
Jon took her hands in his. "Yes, Helen. Romantically
. I want to see if there's anything there, you
know?"
Helen paused, looking into Jon's eyes. This was