burning rage. "Man, I knew Sacramento had problems
, but I never dreamed it was this bad," he went
on. "The drugs, the abuse, the violence-they're beyond
belief. It's like a battle zone."
"I'm just glad you're in one piece, bro," Masters
said. "I was worried." He went south on Stockton
Boulevard. They could see a knot of headlights and
blue flashing fights up ahead and guessed it was the
first police roadblock. Jon made a right onto Thirtyseventh
Avenue and Patrick steered him through
neighborhood streets, hoping the turn hadn't attracted
attention. Before long they were safely
headed northbound toward downtown Sacramento.
"How did it go, Patrick?" Jon repeated. "Why didn't
you rendezvous with me?"
Patrick started the generator in, the back of the
Hummer, then retrieved the power cord from the
generator and plugged it in. But the backpack power
unit was not charging, and the environmental
system was completely shut down. "The suit's
damaged," he replied. "A knife cut it. I lost the environmental
control system and power drained out
at three to four times the normal rate. I was lucky
to get out of there." Patrick took a deep breath and
leaned back against the headrest. "I think I hurt a
little girl too," he said.
"What? Oh no, Patrick! Christ-how did it happen
?//
"The bomb," Patrick explained. "The bomb I
used to bust open the front door destroyed paurt of
the bathroom where the little girl was."
"They had a child in there, where they sell and
make drugs? How badly was she hurt? Did you call
an ambulance?"
"Yes," Patrick responded. "She was bleeding, a
little shocky-but she screamed pure holy terror
when she saw me." Jon was relieved; a child's death
would have been unendurable. "Jon, you should
have seen that house. It was filthy. The child, she
was sleeping in a bedroom that they used to make
drugs. I could smell the chemicals. She was sleeping
on garbage, eating leftovers off the floor, breathing
fumes that would've knocked out an adult. It was
horrible
"Patrick, it's all right," Masters said. "For all you
know, you might have saved her life by doing that
raid. You didn't put a child in harm's way. They
did." He paused, unsure whether to ask Patrick
what he wanted to know; then: "What happened
with the suit? How was it damaged?"
"It was a knife attack,". Patrick replied. "I was
struggling with this guy who looked like a cornmando
, complete with face mask, combat harness,
the works. He pulled a knife, I grabbed his arm, but
I couldn't stop him, he was too strong. The blade
touched the suit and just went right on through.
Power levels dropped off sharply after that, but the
system remained intact. But I also discovered that
the cops could wrestle with me and win. Any slow
action and the suit couldn't activate. I barely got
out of there without being handcuffed."
"It must be the nature of the BERP process," Jon
surmised. "We never tested the system with a soft
or slowly penetrating force, only a sharp impact.
The same characteristic of the suit that allows you
to move freely means that a slowly penetrating
force won't activate the electro-reactive collimation
."
"So a bomb blast won't kill me," Patrick said,
"but a knitting needle pushed in slowly will go
through my heart with ease?"
"We should be able to fix that," Jon said, cringing
at the image. "We might be able to have you selectively
harden sections of the suit. What about the
power levels?"
"Dropped way down after the cut in the suit,"
Patrick said again, "especially after being hit repeatedly
.//
11MV11
"Hit . . . as in shot," Patrick said.
Jon's gulp was audible. "How many times were
you shot, Patrick?"
times in the space of six minutes. Plus I got hit by a
baseball bat a couple of times and bitten by a pit
bull-I nearly killed it too. " He said all this so
matter-of-factly, Jon noticed, that he could have
been a piece of stone relating what had happened.
"So we need to bump up the power reserves a bit,
and reprogram the power-monitoring logarithms,"
Masters said. "We still haven't cured those dis-
charges inside the suit, have we?" No reply. "Patrick
, are you sure you're okay?"
Patrick's tone changed a bit as he went on: "You
know what I did, Jon? When I planted that charge by
the door, I didn't take cover. I just stood there and
let it rip. It was almost as if I was thinking, If this
bomb kills me, fine. If I survive, fine, I'll do this
mission. I survived. I don't know why I did that.
Maybe I thought it was like a test or something, a
validation, proof that what I was doing was the right
thing." Patrick was quiet for a long moment, but
Jon could actually feel the tension, the rage building
in the backseat. "Those son of a bitches," Patrick
went on in a low, angry voice. "They kill, they terrorize
, they poison others, they abuse their children-I
want to kill every last one of them!"
Then he added, "I got some information on
where the Major might be hiding. There was a
German-speaking commando already inside that
house when I arrived. I think he was there to take
out the surviving Satan's Brotherhood members.
Another biker gave me information on a hideout in
Wilton. I want to go there. Tonight. Right now."
"Patrick, you can't and you know it," Jon said.
"The reason we were successful today is because we
did pretty good intelligence work and planning. We
don't have another target planned right now. You
have some initial intel on a potential target. Fine.
Let's build on that. But now is not the time to do it.
Your suit is damaged, it's not taking a charge, and
there are cops and National Guard troops every
where. The only reason we haven't been bothered
so far is because there are already so many Hummers
on the streets right now that we blend in.11
Patrick thought for a long moment. "You're
right," he said at last. "And we've got to get the
cops involved in this too. I realize I'm fighting the
cops even more than I'm fighting the bad guys.
That's no good. Let's get the suit fixed, and then
we'll plan our next move."
SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS DIVISION
HEADQUARTERS, BERCUT DRIVE,
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA
A SHORT TIME LATER
What in the hell is going on?" Arthur Barona thundered
as he strode into Tom Chandler's office at
Special Investigations Division headqua rters. His
suit was rumpled; he had clearly dressed in a hurry.
; Chandler was on the phone, trying to listen to the
information being passed to him and to the bellowing
chief of police at the same time. "I just got
tossed out of bed by the damned mayor himself,"
Barona went on. "He's been getting calls about a
rogue Narcotics cop killing civilians and busting up
people's homes and businesses? I want answers, and
I want them now!" He stormed out of the office to
the conference room across the hall.
Chandler put the phone down and went to join
Barona. "That was Deputy Chief Ohrman, Chief,"
he said. "He's ordered Homicide to take over the
investigation."
1,1"at in hell is going on?" Barona repeated. "Reports
of an officer in body armor and full riot gear
blowing up somebody's home, killing the occupant
and nearly killing a youngster? Another cop in riot
gear breaking into the Bobby John Club, nearly killing
three patrons? Cops not trying to apprehend the
suspect as he flees on foot?
"That's inaccurate information, Chief," Chan-
dler said. He started from the beginning, detailing
the two incidents of the strange invader in body armor
who appeared to be rushing around the city in a
Hummer going after drug dealers and biker-gang
members. "That's all we know right now," he
ended.
"What about this Hummer?"
"A witness reported the suspect getting into a
Hummer on Arden Way shortly after the Bobby
John Club incident."
"Arden? That's several blocks from Del Paso
Boulevard."
"The guy moves fast," Chandler said. "He's got
some kind of jet thing in his boots that lets him
jump ...
"Or there's more than one of them," the chief
said. "It's not any of your men, is it?"
"I've started a telephone recall of the entire division
and ordered Property to do a full inventory of
our property rooms," Chandler replied. "I don't
think it's any of my men, but I'm going to do a full
accounting just in case. Every man has to account
for his whereabouts tonight. But I can tell you, it's
not any of them."
"What about you?" Barona asked. "Where have
you been tonight?"
"At home with my wife, Chief," Chandler replied
irritably. That wasn't entirely accurate-until
about eleven-thirty, he was with a woman friend up
near Folsom Lake. But his wife would vouch for
him if anyone bothered to check. She was accustomed
to putting up with his antics. "Yeah, DC
Ohrman thinks I was the guy, as if I've got nothing
better to do these days than to run around in tights
busting heads. That's bullshit. I was home."
"All right, Tom, all right," Barona said. "What
else? What about the witnesses?"
"Witnesses and officers on the scene describe an
individual, probably male, five eight or five nine,
medium build, wearing what appeared to be a dark
gray tight-fitting outfit similar to a wetsuit, stiff but
flexible; a strange high-tech-looking helmet that altered
and amplified the suspect's voice; and a thin
backpack, similar in size and shape to a sportjumping
parachute but thinner," Chandler answered
, checking his notes. He paused, then added,
"Our officers at both the Del Paso Heights and Elder
Creek scenes report that the outfit worn by the suspect
was probably some sort of new lightweight
body armor. Several officers reported, discharging
their weapons at the suspect and hitting him, but
the suspect appeared unhurt or only slightly injured
The chief asked something, but Chandler's mind
had drifted off momentarily. High-tech, hightech
. . . it reminded him of a conversation he'd
had with someone not too long ago. Who was it?
Chandler couldn't remember . . .
"Chandlerl What about weapons?"
Chandler shook himself from his reverie. "No
weapons reported, Chief, except my surveillance officers
said the suspect planted a satchel charge at
the door of a known meth house in the Rosalee section
of Elder Creek that was under surveillance at
the time."
"So what it looks like is that we have a vigilante
or some well-equipped militia type with explosives
roaming the streets," said Barona, "taking out the
last of the Satan's Brotherhood with more explosives-this
time delivered in person by a soldier in
body armor. Sounds like whoever booby-trapped
those drug machines is looking to finish the job by
picking off the survivors one by one."
"Looks that way to me too, Chief," Chandler said
absently. He was still trying to tease out that memory.Revenge
. . . high-tech . . . soldier . . . what in
hell was it?
"And the DC is turning this over to Homicide?"
Chandler nodded. He couldn't tell whether Barona
was perturbed by this news or not. "Okay, but I still
want you working with them. I want to know the
results of your division internal investigation too. f
We might have to do the entire department. We've
got to make sure this wasn't a rogue cop."
"I can guarantee it wasn't," Chandler said. "And
if it was a cop, he's a pretty stupid, sloppy onehe'll
get caught soon enough."
"Better make that happen, Chandler," Barona
said. "Find him and throw his ass in jail. Whoever
this guy is, I want him hung out to dry."
Good for you, Chief, Chandler said to himself as
Barona stalked out. You bust my hump even though
I've been taken off the case-and you'll proudly
take all the credit for busting the guy if you have
the chance.
Chandler looked over the notes of his conversations
with his surveillance teams. It seemed incredible-too
incredible to tell the chief: a guy who
seemed invulnerable to bullets. A guy who had an
outfit that moved like nylon but could instantly
harden into a suit of armor. A guy who could leap
fifty feet away and twenty feet up. It was a vigilante
or militiaman, all right-but a vigilante unlike anyone
ever seen before. Either this was some kind of
joke, a ploy by his officers in the field to cover for
the work of a vigilante or militia group, or it was a
science-fiction movie come true.
And if it was true, this guy could be the ultimate
police officer, the ultimate weapon in the hands of
law enforcement--or the ultimate nightmare for
them.
SWAN CREEK ROAD,
GRANITE BAY, CALIFORNIA
WEDNESDAY, 25 MARCH 1998, 0213 PT
Vomen. Can't live with 'em, can't live without
em-can't shoot 'em.
After all the shit that happened in the past couple
of months, Tom Chandler thought, and just when it
seemed as if he'd be able to come up for air-hell,
now Kay wanted a commitment from him, wanted
to stop sneaking around, wanted him to divorce his
wife. Shit
.
He had come to his girlfriend's house to get away
from the craziness and relax. Some welcome. They
had a good thing going here. Why'd Kay want to
screw it up by wanting a commitment? Of course,
that still didn't stop them from dropping down and
doing it doggie-style right on the living room floor,
but Chandler was glad to get the hell out.
It was a long, dark drive from Kay's place overlooking
Folsom Lake to Douglas Boulevard, which
would take him back toward the interstate and
home. The heavy runoff from the deep snows in the
Sierra Nevada Mountains, combined with nearly
forty straight days of rain, filled Folsom Lake, a onemillion-acre
man-made reservoir thirty miles east
of Sacramento, almost to capacity. They were releasing
water from four of the eight big steel gates
on the dam, but the water level in the lake was still
rising. It was an annual balancing act for water officials
in this area: measure releases from the dam to
keep the reservoir full to supply the fast-growing
Sacramento Valley with water through the upcoming
long, dry summer) release enough water to keep
the forty-year-old dam from rupturing; but don't release
so much as to cause flooding down the Ameri-
can River and inundate the city of Sacramento.
State and federal water officials were not always
successful keeping all three properly balanced.
Folsom Lake had always been special for Chandler
. As a kid, he used to skip school, ride his bike
more than twenty miles, and hang out at the lake,
trying to stay one step ahead of the truant officers.
He lost his virginity at Folsom Lake; he met his first
two wives at Folsom Lake. It could look like a raging
ocean, as it did now; in four months it could
look like a desert wadi with a little stream running
down the middle, as it did the year one of the gates
on the dam broke and three-quarters of the lake
spilled out. it didn't matter to Tom Chandler-he
would always be drawn to it.
Chandler was on a shoulderless, unlit road just
west of the lake when he heard a loud ban felt his
steering wheel jerk to the right, and heard the sickening
flopflopflop of a flat tire. Shit! He hadn't
changed a flat tire in forever, but it would take at
least half an hour for a wrecker to get out here. It