an all clear. "The ambulance drivers made it
out okay; the Suburban driver is hurt but he'll be
okay," Briggs said to Patrick McLanahan as he received
more updates. "That BERP stuff you put on
the Suburban saved his life."
While Paul and the other security men were being
loaded aboard, Patrick turned to Briggs and
shouted over the roar of the idling helicopter,
"What about the security units at the apartment?
Have they checked in?" Members of Hal Briggs's
ISA action team were stationed at Paul McLanahan's
apartment in Old Sacramento, where Patrick,
Wendy, and their baby had been staying. Hal keyed
his microphone, ordering all his security units to
check in.
All the teams checked in except one.
al Briggs and two of his Madcap Magician cornN
mandos, both of them experienced U.S. Marine
Corps Special Operations Capable soldiers, moved
as one through the stairwell and hallways of the
third floor of the Harman Building in Old Sacramento
, above the Shamrock Pub. Patrick followed,
carrying a SIG Sauer P226 9-millimeter handgun,
which looked like a popgun compared to the commandos
' Uzis and MP-5 submachine guns.
There was no sign of the commandos assigned to
guard the third floor and the apartment itself. They
reached the front door and Briggs tried it silently. It
was unlocked. Patrick had briefed the team on the
layout, so they were all familiar with the traps inside
the apartment: lots of big closets and cabinets,
lots of windows on the river side, a large porch on
the west side, thin walls, multiple doors to many of
the rooms.
Briggs slid a flat fiber-optic camera beneath the
door and activated the TV monitor. He gave hand
signals to his commandos of what could be seen
within: two hostages, one target visible, straight
ahead in the living room. Nothing else visible. Open
doorways all along the hallway on both sides-an
almost impossible gauntlet. Bad guys could pop out
of half a dozen doorways the'minute they entered.
Briggs!s mind was racing, trying to formulate a
plan, when the front door swung open. Guns
snapped up to the ready, safeties flicked off . . .
"Only McLanahan may enter," the astonished
commandos heard, in a British-accented voice. "If
anyone else tries to enter, Mrs. McLanahan and the
child die."
"Shit," Briggs Whispered. He looked around the
entryway as if expecting to spot the wireless TV
camera or microphone the intruders used to see
them coming. He adjusted his earset commlink
and . . .
"Don't," Patrick McLanahan whispered, touchM
Hal' s shoulder. "I'll go in. Alone."
'It's suicide, Patrick."
"If he wanted to kill us, I think we'd already be
dead by now/.' Patrick said. He stood, the P226 in
his right hand. He raised it, imitated Hal Briggs's
Weaver pistol grip as best he could, and entered.
The sight before him made his blood turn cold.
Wendy was seated on a dining room chair, holding
the baby, duct-taped in place with more duct tape
over her eyes and mouth-both of them covered in
blood. Blood was everywhere--down the hallway,
splattered across the walls, all over the floor. "Jesus,
Hal," he whispered over his earset commlink.
"Wendy, Bradley . . . my God, I think they're already
dead."
"Oh Christ!" Briggs cursed. "God, no
Patrick continued forward, past the hall closetempty-past
the open door to the first bedroom on
the left--empty-and then to the kitchen on the
right. There he saw the two Madcap Magician commandos
, their throats slit, staring lifelessly into
space. The floor was slippery with their blood. On
the left the guest bathroom was empty, as was
the . . .
"Please put the gun down, General McLanahan,"
the British voice said.
Patrick spun toward the dining room to the
right--empty. But as he turned, he felt the barrel of
him, dammifl-I'm dead! . . .
"Please don't do anything rash, General, or more
will be hurt needlessly. Decock your weapon, and
keep your hands extended." Patrick thumbed the
decock lever on the SIG Sauer P226, which dropped
the hammer without firing the weapon. "Very good.
Now hold still or you will die." A gloved left hand
reached out and, as the muzzle of the gun continued
to press into his head, closed over Patrick's SIG and
plucked it from his hands. "Thank you. Fine
weapon. Step forward, hands behind your neck
stop right there."
Patrick was facing the dining room, but out of
the corner of his eye he could see his wife and baby.
The hatred and anger bubbled up from his chest and
came out in a low growl. "You bastard!" he said.
"First a cop-killer, then a baby-killer. You had better
kill me now, because if you don't, I'll dedicate the
rest of my life to hunting you down and killing
YOU.11
"Give me a bit more credit than that, General
McLanahan," the voice answered. "I would never
purposely kill noncombatants, especially women
and babies. Your wife and beautiful child are alive
and sleeping-sedated. I set up this little display for
you in case I was not here to greet you upon your
return. But I promise I will kill you without hesitation
if those men in the hallway try to enter the
apartment. I would hate to have noncombatants
hurt in a gunfight." Patrick closed his eyes and said
a silent prayer.
"Let me go and check my wife and child."
"All in good time, General," the terrorist said. "I
have a proposition for you first."
"Who are you?"
"My name is not important, although I have a
feeling you or your associates in the hallway will
soon match a name with the voice. You seem to be
a very resourceful man."
"What in bell do you want?" Patrick barked.
"You already killed my brother
"Nice try, General. I wish that were true," the
terrorist said, "but my men report that we missed.
TWo decoy vehicles-very clever, very effective. I
believed you would not use more than one. And the
actual escape was not from the hospital heliport,
which. we had covered as well. This company you
work for, this Sky Masters, Incorporated, appears to
be serving you well.
"But the men you had stationed here to guard
your family were obviously professional soldiers,
highly trained and well-equipped, although young
and inexperienced," the voice went on. "So you appear
to still have some connection to the military.
Curiouser and curiouser, as they say."
"Why don't you just leave us alone?"
"I would be most happy to leave you and your
beautiful family alone and conduct my business,"
said the Brit, "but you apparently chose to personally
involve yourself in my business when you
showed up at the Bobby John Club, asking questions
about the Sacramento Live! incident.
"We could have passed that little episode, off as
the deranged, futile efforts of a vengeful sibling, and
left it at that. But once we found out who you were,
we performed our usual due diligence and began to
discover some very unusual and interesting facts
about you--or, to be precise, even more interesting
was what we did not find out about you. Such fascinating
tidbits of information, like the colorful
pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. One source claims you are
an ex-military man working for a military contractor
, but other sources say you are an Air force onestar
general. But what one-star general does not
have a command of his own? You apparently do not,
at least not one that my sources can identify. But
here we find these obviously military or ex-military
men, guarding your family-and more soldiers outside
ready to burst in. Very curious."
"What do you want?"
"A simple request, General McLanahan: We form
a partnership. You obviously have special military
contacts, far more extensive and secretive than I
could ascertain in a short period of time. All you
need to do is sell some weapons or information to
me. I guarantee to make it worth a great deal to
you.//
"What in hell makes you think I have access to
anything of value to you?"
"An educated assumption on my part," said the
voice. "But I have learned that general officers typically
have access to things that sometimes even
they are not aware of. My network is vast and growing
quickly, and your access combined with others
all over the world may prove very valuable. I would
be willing to share the profits of our association
with you, a fifty-fifty split, if you agree to join me. I
can guarantee that you will make hundreds of thousands
of dollars a month-in fact, I am so sure of it
that I am prepared to advance that amount to YOU. I
can offer you safe havens anywhere in the world, a
new identity, a place of safety for your family and
your brother."
"You can take your offers and shove them up
your ass."
"I expected you to say no less, General-few men
of worth decide right away to turn against their
country and their uniform," the terrorist said. "As a
professional courtesy, one military man to another,
I will give you three days to think about my offer.
Take your brother, your wife, and your son, go to
your company's headquarters in San Diego or wherever
your secret command is located, and consider
my offer. Formulate any questions you wish and ask
me when I contact you again.
"But if you refuse, you and I are at war, and I will
hunt you and everyone in your family down and
slaughter them. This is your one and only warning.
If you go to the authorities, I will assume that you
have chosen to do battle with me, and then you and
yours will all be considered combatants and willl be
executed. That includes your mother in Arizona,
your sister in Texas, and your other sister in New
York. Do you understand, General?"
"Yes."
"Very good. Now, General, down on your face,
hands behind your neck."
Patrick reluctantly did as he was told, realizing
now that he should have risked shooting the bastard
when he had the chance. The earset was plucked
out of his ear, and he felt an object being set on his
back. "Attention in the hallway," the terrorist said
into the earset. "I will be taking my leave now. I
suggest you hold your position and do not interfere.
I have left an explosive device with the general. it is
battery-powered and can be set off either by. remote
control, if the general moves, or if the device's sensor
detects anyone approaching it. It will certainly
kill everyone in this room, including the general
and his lovely family. If it is not disturbed, it will
deactivate itself in about thirty minutes. I think
you know what to do. Good day."
It was a huge relief for Patrick to realize that the
man had departed. His greatest fear now was that
Wendy or the baby might wake up and set off the
explosive. It seemed like only minutes later that he
felt a touch on his side, then a crawling sensation
up his right thigh. Christ, a rat or a cat or somethin
he thought in panic. An animal could probably
set off the explosive! He fought hard to control
his breathing and muscle tremors. The . . . the
thing, or whatever it was, had moved right up onto
his back---oh shit, he realized, it was actually sniffing
around the object sitting on his back . . .
"Go! Go!" came a shout seconds later. But before
he could even move, Hal Briggs was pulling Patrick
to his feet.
"Jesus!" Patrick shouted. "Hal, what are you do-
Ing.
"It's clear, Patrick, it's clear," Hal Briggs said.
one commando was checking the rest of the apartment
, while the other was checking out the window
and covering the front, trying to determine the terrorist's
escape route. "There's no bomb in here."
"What the hell was that crawling around on my
back?" Patrick said as he shot over to his wife and
son.
"My little'Rover," Briggs said. "He comes cornplete
with an explosives-detection sensor." He held
up a tiny device the size of a small mouse, trailing a
length of thread-thin fiber-optic cable. "Rover" had
a pinhole camera and microphone, and had little
legs so it could crawl up furniture and even walls.
"Sorry, but I had to take the chance."
Patrick raced over to Wendy and the baby, heard
the soft sound of their breathing, and began to
gently pull off the duct tape. He realized that it was
tomato sauce covering them. "Jesus, it's not blood,
thank God!" he cried to Briggs. "That bastard is a
fucking monster! What was it he planted on my
back?"
"This," Hal replied grimly. He held up a handlettered
note that read, DON'T FORGET OUR DEAL, GENERAL
, and then-oh God!-a tiny baby index finger.
It looked as if it had been cut free with a pair of
scissors.
"No! " Patrick shouted, frantically feeling Bradley's
little hands for the wound, tears flooding his
eyes.
"Patrick! Patrick, it's all right!" Briggs shouted.
"It's fake! It's plastic!" The baby's hands were fine.
"My God, what a son of a bitch."
Patrick pulled off the last of the duct tape, freeing
his still-sleeping wife and child. Moments later, after
a quick check to make sure they hadn't been
&nbs
p; booby-trapped or wired with a tracking or eaves-
dropping device, he carried them in his arms out of
the grisly apartment and into a waiting car, Briggs
and the two Madcap Magician commandos with
them.
The car sped toward Sacramento-Mather jetport.
"We'll have you airborne and out of here in ten minutes
, Patrick," Briggs told him.
"Change the plane's routing," Patrick said, his
arm tight around his wife and child.
"Change it? To where?"
"Arkansas," Patrick said. "I want Wendy, Paul,
and Bradley out of this state. As far away and as fast j
as possible." A
Briggs nodded. "You got it, Patrick." He couldn't
blame Patrick one bit for wanting to get his family
as far away as he could from the madness and may- 'I
hem in Sacramento.
BEHIND TOBY'S MARKET, E STREET,
RIO LINDA, CALIFORNIA
THAT NIGHT
t was the only all-night convenience store for
miles around. Despite being in one of the highest-
"ine-rate areas in all of northern California ' however
, Toby's Market had experienced virtually no
robberies or burglaries in over twenty years. The
reason was simple: No one in his right mind would
dare mess with a Satan's Brotherhood establishment
Behind the store and down a hundred-yard-long
dirt driveway was a small, scruffy farm, with a ramshackle
five-room house, several large storage
sheds, and a small barn scattered around the prop-
erty. Even though the market was in the middle of a
semirural residential neighborhood, bikers could
drive up to the market, grab a six-pack or bottle,
then discreetly drive around back to the house without
being noticed-assuming anyone even bothered
to take notice. That night, more than a hundred motorcycles
and another two dozen cars were parked
around the farm behind the market. A special meeting
of the Rio'Linda chapter of the Satan's Brotherhood
Motorcycle Club was under way.
Almost two hundred members, pledge members,
and guests of the Brotherhood gathered in the barn
and looked on as the big German ex-commando explained
the operation of the portable hydrogenator
in halting English. The device was disguised as a
typical covered eight-foot U-Haul trailer, complete
with an authentic paint job and logos. A gasolinepowered
generator had been detached from the