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 bikerhow'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 Ion'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-1 17 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 our 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 PT
Those brutal sons of bitches, Tom Chandler
needed to teach those assholes a lesson.
When Chandler had heard that some woma I n was
here to see Jon Masters, he figured it was his wife or
girlfriend. He'd make up an excuse, maybe flash his
badge, and send her on her way. When it turned out
she was a high-ranking company officer, he shifted
gears: She might prove useful for putting the pressure
on, make a pretty good hostage, someone to
help guarantee their safety until they made their escape
. But Townsend's men had different plans for
her, once they too learned she was the corporate
vice president, and they notified Townsend in Newcastle
.
Chandler had listened to the sounds of Kaddiri's
cries echoing through his closed door from the
chief-engineer's room across the corridor until he
could stand it no longer. He was barred from the
scene, but it took no imagination to work out what
was going on. He broke communications silence,
picked up the telephone, and called the Newcastle
number.
"Hey, Townsend, I am not going to be your goddamn
wet nurse for another day." He was calling
from Patrick McLanahan's office. Outside the office
, several of Townsend's people were hunting
through the computer files at the workstations. But
the heavy-duty work was going on in the office opposite
, where two of the soldiers were busy working
not on computer workstations, but on Helen Kaddiri.
When Townsend learned that the woman Chandler
had captured was the company's vice president-that
this was the organization that had
developed the astounding weaponproof suit-he had
given orders to postpone the evacuation of the
R D center. If threats, torture, or bribes succeeded
in pressuring Kaddiri to unlock the company's extensive
computer files, he would have access via the
Internet to thousands of companies and government
agencies all over the world. One password from
Kaddiri-that was all it would take-to open many
of the West's most critical engineering and research
files: data on weapons, aircraft, new designs in the
pipeline, intelligence information. And there it
would be, at Gregory Townsend's fingertips.
keep this up," Chandler warned. "For Christ's sake,
"Your soldiers are going to kill Kaddiri if they
pull them out of there."
Townsend was furious. "You are not in charge,
Chandler. I am! I must have access to those cornputer
files before we evacuate. I need access long
enough to change the password or enter in my own
back-door password."
"We can't wait. This is Masters and McLanahan's
company. Look at the charges against them! I can
hold off the sheriff's department and DA investigators
only so long," Chandler warned. "In case
you've forgotten, I'm out of my jurisdiction. What
do we do when more investigators show up? And
Masters has government military contracts herewe're
likely to have the FBI and the Defense Investigation
Service here any minute."
"Then I'll turn Kaddiri over to you. You get
across to her the grave situation she's in. You get
her to cooperate. Tell her anything you want, but
get that password."
"You're going to kill her anyway, aren't you?"
Chandler asked.
"Once I have what I want,'Kaddiri is free to
leave," said Townsend. "I prefer not to kill women,
but I will do anything necessary to protect my organization
. Now go!"
Chandler slammed down the receiver. Bullshit,
he thought. Kaddiri was going to die-and probably
so was he-the second they got access to those files.
In fact, Kaddiri was far more valuable to Townsend
than he was. He had twenty thousand dollars waiting
for him in a Cayman Islands bank account-not
nearly enough. For another hundred thousand it had
seemed worth the tricky effort of keeping the DA
and the sheriff's department out of the facility, but
now that he'd actually seen Townsend in action, he
realized he wasn't likely to live to get his hands on
the money. Past time to get the hell out.
of the FBI. It rang once, then a voice with a German
accent came on the line: "Who are you trying to
call?" He slammed down the receiver. Shit! Townsend's
men were monitoring all phone calls from the
security office. His life span was even shorter than
he expected. He had to get a message out to somebody
, fast!
Looking at the phone at McLanahan's desk,
Chandler saw a button marked wENDY vm. He picked
up the phone and hit the button. It was a direct
computerized link to Wendy McLanahan's voicemail
system-it could not be intercepted or cut off
by the security office. He spoke fast into the recording
. "This is Tom Chandler. I'm at the Sky Masters
research facility at Mather jetport. Townsend's men
are trying to break into the company's computers.
You'd better get someone out here, right now, or
Helen Kaddiri is dead. There are twelve of Townsend's
men here. They're
The office door burst open. "You!" shouted a
German soldier. "Stop! Hang up that telephone immediately
! Orders from Oberst Townsend! He
complied. There was a submachine gun pressed
against his face.
Time had just about run out.
MOUNT VERNON ROAD,
NEWCASTLE, CALIFORNIA
THE SAME TIME
Townsend hung up the phone after speaking with
his lieutenant in charge at the Mather site. Sure
enough, Chandler had tried
to call someone right
after he got off the phone with him. He ordered the
lieutenant to cut off all communications from the R
D facility except for secure radio communications
, and to place Chandler under arrest. He had
outlived his usefulness. He would dispose of him
before long.
It was just about time to complete the final phase
of this operation and get out of the area.
He went into the mess hall. Reingruber was waiting
for him, ready to give a report, and Richard
Faulkner came over and sat down. "How are you
progressing, Faulkner?" Townsend asked. "We need
to be able to operate that suit now."
"Not quite yet, Colonel," Faulkner replied. "But
Masters is falling into line very well. I think he is
cooperating fully."
Reingruber agreed. "It does appear that he has
turned into a proper little soldier, sir."
"Small doses of you and large doses of me do
seem to be working," Townsend said. "But it is going
much too slowly. I want a demonstration outdoors
in two hours, Major. If Masters is not ready,
you will ask the reason for the delay-forcefufly
ask. Then I will pull you out before he turns into a
blubbering infant. That will put the pressure on.
That suit must be working for us before the final
phase of our plan is put into motion. Get in there
now, Faulkner."
After Faulkner left, Reingruber warned Townsend
: "We may be running short on time, sir. Our
informants tell us that the targets are entering final
inspections prior to buttoning up. Sign-offs could be
completed by this afternoon or tomorrow morning.
The targets could be ready to depart within twentyfour
to thirty-six hours."
"No better estimates than that, Herr Major?"
"I am sorry, sir," said Reingruber. "Security is
still very tight, especially with the National Guard
troops. The normal security forces appear to be deployed
the same, but the forces outside the target
area have increased."
"Very well then, we will put the Phase Three
contingency plan into action at once. Assemble
your men, Major. H-hour will be at zero two hundred
hours local time. Instruct your men at the Sky
Masters research facility to start confiscating all the
materials they can carry and rendezvous with us
here immediately. Have them bring Kaddiri with
them-and execute Chandler just before they depart