one-way window scowled. "They could be talking
about buying Girl Scout cookies, for chrissakes/I he
muttered. He knew there was nothing in their conversation
so far to hold up in court. "C'mon, boys,
do the deaP,
An exchange was made, and the officers got pictures
. The twenty-dollar bag of a white crystalline
powder looked like a speck of white paint, a fraction
of the normal size of a hit of meth. "They'd laugh
that buy right out of the courthouse," the surveillance
officer said. "We need some weight, boys.
These mouse-shit-size buys aren't going to cut it."
There's hardly any dope on the streets," another
officer said resignedly. "Everyone's scared to be
holding any weight. They think whoever took out
the Brotherhood might go after them."
"We should give this thing another week, when
the brave cookers start gearing up," said another officer
as the buyer moved off and the seller went
back inside., "Nothing worthwhile is happening
now."
"Politics," the officer watching the front door
said. "The chief and the mayor want something for
their press conferences, something so they can
show folks they're in control. Election day is coming
, and . . .
"We got another guy," the officer with the camera
interjected. "Sheesh, I must be getting tired. I
didn't even see him walk up." He looked up from
the eyepiece, rubbed his eyes, then went back on it:
"Medium height, about five-nine; husky build . . .
looks like he's wearing a full set of leathers, jacket
and pants. How the hell can those guys wear those
things? He's wearing his helmet too. One of those
full-face jobs."
"I didn't hear a Harley," the other officer remarked
. "Usually you can hear those things three
blocks away."
"I don't see a bike."
"No bike, huh?" Now they were all interested.
"What's he doing?"
He's . . . uh-oh, he just walked right through
the front gate. That pit bull's going to have him for
breakfast-I don't care how much leather he's wearing
."
"This oughta be good." The -second officer lifted a
set of binoculars and peered through the one-way
mirror. "Here comes doggie booking around the
house." They could hear the angry barks and
growls. "The guy must be a regular. The dog must
know him."
"That dog's still on the hunt ... oh shit, looks
like he's going to pounce! Better hop the fence,
dude!"
The pit bull pounced, all right, jaws extended,
teeth flashing in the fight of the front porch, going
right for the newcomer's left wrist-then let go as
soon as he clamped on. They watched the dog shake
his head, bark, growl again, and then leap for the
stranger's left ankle. The same thing happened-the
dog bit but did not hold on. At this angle they could
see that the guy was holding a small backpack in his
right hand. A third leap, and this time the dog
clamped down hard on the fingers of the guy's left
hand. The force of the bite jerked him around to the
left and downward-but then, as casually as swatting
a mosquito, the stranger slapped the dog on the
side of his head. They heard him yelp in pain and
saw him knocked to the ground as if he'd been hit
with a baseball bat. Weird. The slap didn't look that
forceful.
"And the dog is down!" one of the surveillance
officers proclaimed. "Ha! Never saw a pit bull run
with its tail between its legs like that before!
What'd he use on the dog-a Vulcan nerve pinch or
something?"
"Mace, probably," said another officer.
"I didn't see him spray. Anyway, sometimes
badass dogs like pit bulls aren't affected by pepper
spray. He's a lucky bastard, though. He might be
cranked up already, and the pain is going to hit him
is worth it. Maybe we can just go and pick this guy
up and see how his hand is doing, and ask him what
he did to that dog."
"I don't really give a shit," said the head surveil-
lance officer. "Wonder what he's got in the backpack
? He just set another bag down by the front
door. His hands are clear. Maybe this is a delivery."
Through the front door? Yeah, like Domino's or
so ething-your crank delivered in thirty minutes
or less or it's-"
A huge explosion rocked the van. The cops' heads
flew back as if they had been stabbed in the eyes,
the brilliant flash temporarily blinding them. "Shit,
what the hell was that?" one officer shouted, trying
to rub the flash out of his eyes. "He set off a bomb?"
"Sure as hell did!" said another officer. "Looks
like he tried to plant it, but it went off before he
could get away." He scrambled for his handheld radio
, hoping it was set to the right channel because
he couldn't see the selector knob if it wasn't.
"KMA, Special Unit Four-Four, roll backup, fire and
bomb squad on our location for a nine-two-seven
bomb explosion. Notify all units of nine-ninefour
circumstances, repeat, nine-nine-four circumstances
." The sergeant in charge of the south area
sector got on the radio and repeated the 994 call,
reminding everyone responding to the call to use
bomb threat procedures: no radio, MDT, or
cellphone calls within two blocks of the scene.
It took several long moments before the cops in
the van could get the use of their eyes back. When
they finally peered through their telephoto lenses,
they could see the stranger lying on his back, blown
about ten feet away by the force of the blast. "Looks
like the biker got a faceful," one officer said. "I hope
the ambulance guys bring spatulas-they're gonna
need
He stopped, and his jaw dropped in disbelief. The
stranger who had planted the bomb and looked as if
he had been smashed flat by the explosion struggled
to his feet and a moment later was standing in the
blown-apart doorway of the crank house.
Patrick heard the dog's bark through his sound
amplification system and he even picked up the
sound of its pads racing across the muddy grass
from the backyard, but he didn't actually notice the
pit bull until it grabbed his wrist, then his ankle,
then leaped for the fingers of his left hand. There
was no pain, but the sight of the big dog latched
onto his hand frightened him. All he'd meant to do
was dislodge the jaws, but the sound he heard when
his other hand hit the poor creature's head was sickening
. The dog yelped and dropped to the ground,
blood oozing from his ears.
Sons of bitches, Patrick cursed into his helmet,
sending a dog out to fight their battles! He fought to
suppress the anger spreading through his head b
ut
he was furious. He hurled the backpack full of explosives
against the door, selected the short-range
FM channel to the detonator, and keyed the transmit
switch.
At the explosion just a few feet in front of him,
the light-sensitive visor in the helmet instantly
dimmed so the flash wouldn't blind him, and the
environmental system inside the suit began circulating
more coolant to drench the blast of heat. But
the blast pushed him back and off his feet, and
when he opened his eyes, the rage that had seared
into his head was burning red-hot throughout his
body. He moved his arms, then legs, then torsoeverything
worked fine, no pain anywhere. A quick
systems check: battery already down by half, to four
hours remaining. It had been at six hours just before
he approached the door, so the blast mustve sapped
a lot of juice. Everything else reported normal.
The explosion had blown open the door, taken
out some of the wall to the left and right of it, and
cut off all power in the house, but there was enough
light from outside for Patrick to realize he was in a
living room, with the kitchen visible beyond. The
place was a pigsty-the explosion didn't help, of
course, but it had to have been unfit for human
habitation before that. Garbage was scattered everywhere
, and he could make out spray-painted graffiti
on the walls.
A tall, lean figure dressed like a commando or
special-operations infantryman in a black combat
suit, balaclava, and combat harness rounded the
corner of the hallway to the left, leveled a small
automatic machine pistol at Patrick, and fired. He
rocked backward as the triple-round burst hit him,
more from surprise than pain or the impact of the
bullets, since all he felt were the powerful electric
shocks coursing all across his body. Damn, Patrick
swore, I thought that problem was fixed! The electric
current blurred his vision, and when he rocked
back, he stumbled against a piece of debris and sank
down against the wall.
"Stirb, du Teufel!" he heard the commando
shout. He pointed the gun right at Patrick's head
and fired again.
This time, Patrick felt the impact of the blast
against the helmet-but it was a love tap compared
to the surge of electricity that shot through his
body. The pain was exquisite, as if every nerve ending
was firing like the spark plugs in a race car-but
most of all it felt so goddamn good . . .
The commando looked as though he were seeing
a ghost rise out of a gravesite. "Wer bist du?" he
shouted.
Patrick charged, forearms up. The commando
screamed and fell backward into the tiny kitchen. In
rage, Patrick bent over him, grabbed his face in his
left hand, and pushed his head against the floor. His
fingers felt like steel spikes. He ripped off the
balaclava and saw a young, fair, chiseled face staring
at him in terror. "The drugs," Patrick said through
his electronic helmet. "Where did you get the
drugs?11
"Drogen? Ich weiss nichts!" the soldier cried.
"Lass mich los!"
"Who the hell are you?" Patrick demanded. "Are
you a German? Deutsch?" There was no answer.
"Who are you? Do you work for the Major? Kommandeur
? Der Major?"
The look on the soldier's face gave him his answer
. He had struck home at last.
"Where is the Major?" Patrick racked his brain
for remnants of his German-it had been years
since he'd used it. "Vere ... no, shit, wo ist der
Major, asshole?"
"I will not answer!" the soldier said in broken
English, and in a flash pulled a knife from a boot
sheath with his left hand and shot it toward Patrick's
chest. Patrick caught his wrist, but not in
time to stop the thrust, only slow it ...
, , and the knife blade inched toward the suit,
touched it, then pierced it.
A warning tone sounded in the helmet. Cooling
fluid from the environmental control system
spurted out, and then the knife pierced the thin cotton
lining of the suit and touched flesh. At the pulse
of electricity discharging through the suit, and his
panic, Patrick cried out and rolled away. The soldier
leaped to his feet and scrambled for the rear door
beyond the kitchen.
The suit didn't work-the knife had penetrated
it! Patrick felt for the breach. It was small, a slit less
than an inch long-how in the hell could the BERP
suit protect him against bomb blasts and gunshots
but not protect him against a simple knife jab?
Patrick did a systems self-test. He would lose all
of his coolant in a few minutes, and after that the
sealed-up suit would probably become too uncomfortable
to wear. But he was relieved to see that the
system integrity was still intact-a cut in the BERP
fabric didn't render the entire system inoperative.
He still had A couple of hours of power left.
He was going to catch the German, torture the
hell out of him until he told what he knew about
the Major. He activated the low-light sensor in his
helmet and stopped in his tracks at the entrance to
the kitchen. A body was lying on the blood-soaked
floor-a big guy with long, stringy hair, his arms
and shoulders covered in tattoos, bullet holes in his
head. From the commando's gun? What was a German
commando or soldier doing here in a known
Satan's Brotherhood house? The Major was German
too. A connection? Could be that the terrorists who
had engineered the bomb blasts throughout the Sacramento
area were mopping up the rerrmants of the
Brotherhood they'd missed. It felt like a clue at last.
He heard a sound in the back of the house and
went down the hallway. It was coming from the vicinity
of a small bedroom on the right, which had a
smell even the suit's environmental systems
couldn't filter out-but all he could see was debris
and garbage, and evidence of some strong chemicals
too, probably from cooking drugs. Then he spotted a
little nest of soiled blankets and a filthy pillow,
with some empty fast-food containers next to it. It
looked as if a small child had been sleeping there.
Fucking animals, Patrick saidto himself. Allowing
a child to live like this . . . it's subhuman.
The bathroom on the left had been partially
blown in by the explosion, and he realized this was
where the heart-wrenching sounds of a child's sobs
were coming from. When he pushed open the broken
door, he found a tiny little girl inside, half covered
in debris from the blast. She couldn't have been
more than two or three, and she was a waif, skinny
as a straw, and as dirty and as uncared-for as the
house. He could make out bloody cuts on her head;
s
he must have been in there when the explosion hit.
"Easy, sweetheart," Patrick said softly. "I'll help
you out of here." But the child began to scream, a
long, wild, piercing scream, and he saw her eyes bug
out and her little body shake in terror. She tried
frantically to claw her way out of the debris, but
only succeeded in bringing more of it down around
her. Patrick ignored the screams, eased her free, and
gently laid her down on the threadbare carpeting in
the hallway.
Using his laser holographic heads-up display, he
selected the VHF frequency of the UC-Davis Medical
Center emergency dispatch center, which he had
discovered while with Paul in the hospital. "Davis
Dispatch, have an ambulance respond to the
residence at Sixty-fifth and Rosalee Heights," he
radioed. "Victim is a female child, approximately
age two, with lacerations on the back and head and
possible head trauma. How copy? Over."
"Unidentified caller, this is Davis Medical Dispatch
Center, this channel is for official use only. If
you require emergency medical assistance, please
clear this channel and dial 911 on any telephone."
"Listen, Dispatch, I'm in a drug flophouse in
Rosalee with a dead drug dealer and a young girl
who's been hurt in an explosion and is probably going
into shock," Patrick radioed back. "The police
are on their way. Send an ambulance right now."
Patrick terminated the call and turned to the now
unconscious child. He had to try to give her first aid
until the medics got there.
Suddenly Patrick heard a cry, "You bastard! Get
out!" and something hit his helmet. A half-naked
woman was standing at the end of the hall, clutching
an aluminum softball bat. He couldn't guess her
age-she might have been young and maybe even
pretty, but the drugs had left her ravaged face
seamed, gaunt' ' and covered with sores, and her hair
hung thin and lifeless. "Fucking cops! Leave us
alone!" she shouted, and swung the bat again. Patrick
let it bounce harmlessly off his right shoulder.
"Is this your daughter?" he asked. "Is this your
child?"
"Fuck you!"
How can you let your own child live in a place
like' this?" Patrick shouted at her. "How can you let
her sleep in a room where you cook drugs?"