button. “Security One-Seven, go ahead.”
“Security One-Seven, roger, One John Two-One is requesting a 940 at your 925.”
Oh shit, he thought-Sacramento uses nine-codes instead of ten-codes. It had been ages since he’d used any radio codes at all. He figured that 925 meant “location,” but he had no idea what a 940 was. Probably some sort of meeting. “Ah… roger, tell One John Twenty-One that I’ll be done here in thirty minutes and I’ll meet him at…”-he remembered that the county jail was only about three blocks away-“…at the jail. Out.”
“Roger, Security One-Seven. KMA clear.”
“That was
“Maybe it was one of the private security guys, answering Caruthers’s radio,” Paul McLanahan offered.
“Then why didn’t he say so? Why didn’t he say, ‘The cop’s in the bathroom, I’ll tell him you want him to call in ASAP,’ or something,” LaFortier said. “No. This guy tried to answer the radio
“
“He bought it,” Mullins said nervously.
“
“Attention in the cash room,” the Major shouted. “You are surrounded. My men and I have taken your guards and police officers prisoner, and we have already taken the other eight cash bins. You will come out of that room immediately and surrender yourselves. If you come out now, you will not be harmed.”
“We called the police!” a voice called from inside the cash room. “They’re on their way!”
“We have disabled the phone lines, alarms, and power to the entire complex,” the Major said. “The police were already here, but we convinced them all is well. No help will be arriving. It is advisable you surrender and come out at once. If we become too impatient, we may have no choice but to execute our hostages. The decision is yours.” He turned to Mullins and asked in a low voice, “Where would the money be kept right now?”
“They’re probably locking the uncounted money away in the bins, getting ready to put it all in the safe,” Mullins replied.
“Does the manager have access to the safe once it is locked? Is it on a time lock?”
“I don’t know,” said Mullins. The leader looked angry, so he decided he’d better answer with something more than this real fast. “But I think… yes, it is.”
“Then we need to blow that door open at once, before they put the money in the safe,” the Major said. “The dynamite, right away!” His men moved quickly to set explosive charges on the cash room door.
Patrick McLanahan was still waiting in the hallway outside the surgical suite, dressed in his plastic surgical outfit. It had been more than twenty minutes since the obstetrician, the anesthesiologist, several nurses, and another doctor Patrick did not recognize finished scrubbing and entered the OR.
A nurse came trotting down the hallway with a cart. He held out a hand to get her attention. “I’m the father,” he said. “What’s happening? I’m supposed to be in there with my wife…”
“The doctor will let you know as soon as possible,” she said.
Patrick held the door open after the nurse rushed inside. The scrub area was to the right, separated from the operating room by a curtain. It was pulled aside, and he saw a cart with what he recognized as a defibrillator-a device used to shock an irregularly beating heart back into a normal rhythm-being pushed over to the operating table. Gowned and masked medical personnel surrounded the table. “What’s going on?” Patrick shouted.
Several heads turned in his direction. He heard the obstetrician’s voice shout, “Close those doors!”
“Dammit, tell me what the hell’s going on!” Patrick shouted.
“Mr McLanahan, let us do our work now,” the obstetrician said. “Nurse…” The doors to the surgical suite were dosed, and a moment later a nurse came out, took Patrick by the arm, and instructed him to remain in the hallway.
“What’s happening?” Patrick repeated. “Is Wendy all right?”
“It’s a critical moment, that’s all,” the nurse said.
“What in hell does that mean?” Patrick exploded. “Is she all right?”
“The doctor will let you know as soon as he can,” the nurse said. “Please wait here.” And she hurried back in without saying anything else.
It was a nightmare, Patrick thought, an absolute nightmare…
As expected, they found Caruthers’s squad car parked on the K Street Mall itself, on the south side of the Sacramento Live! complex. Off-duty officers were allowed to use city squad cars to transport prisoners if necessary; and although the K Street Mall was a pedestrian mall, off-limits to all vehicles, the K Street Mall shop owners and the public welcomed cops parking there.
Sacramento Live! occupied almost an entire city block, between Sixth and Seventh streets and K and J streets. Along L-shaped alley that snaked around the complex from Seventh Street all the way to J Street cut off the northeast corner of the block. From Seventh, LaFortier shined his searchlight down the alley and saw only Dumpsters. “Looks okay to me,” McLanahan said.
“The alley curves around back there-we can’t see all the way around,” said LaFortier. He pulled the car into the alley. LaFortier aimed the searchlight on the doors along the complex. They all appeared secure. When they made the turn around the curve, they saw a large Step Van delivery truck parked near the loading dock on the east side of the complex.
McLanahan unbuckled his seat belt. “I’ll check it out…”
“Stay in your damn seat,” LaFortier ordered. He drove past the truck without stopping or slowing, then exited from the alley on J Street and turned right on the oneway street.
“Aren’t we going to check out that truck?” But LaFortier was already typing on the MDT computer terminal-he had memorized the plate number on the drive-by. By the time he turned right back onto Seventh Street, the 913 check reply came in: “Commercial plates,” McLanahan said, reading off the terminal display. “Two-ton truck, registered to a rental company in Rancho Cordova…”
But LaFortier was also scanning the screen. “Wrong kind of truck,” he said. “Wrong make, wrong size. Probably stolen plates.” He stopped the car just north of the entrance to the alleyway on Seventh Street and swung the MDT terminal toward himself. He typed: 1JN21 TO POP3 927 CIRCUMSTANCES SAC LIVE POSS 211, and sent the message through with the urgent-call button, which would send out a loud beep on all other officers’ terminals. Seconds later, the terminal came alive with the radio designations, names, and badge numbers of the downtown-sector patrol units. Moments later several units responded to the call with ENRTE, including the downtown-sector sergeant.
Paul could feel his pulse racing and his heart pounding as LaFortier worked the terminal. He knew something was happening, but it was all going on via the computer. “Talk to me, Cargo,” Paul said.
“Here’s what I’ve got,” LaFortier told him. “I sent in a 927, ‘suspicious circumstances,’ with a possible 211, ‘robbery in progress,’ and I sent it with an urgent-call message prefix because we’ve got an off-duty cop inside who could be in trouble. The urgent-call message causes the MDT to respond with a readout of all of the sector units, and anyone who might be available checks in. Here it says the sector sergeant is en route too-he knows that there’s a fellow cop inside, and he knows that Sacramento Live! is a hot location, and he knows from my call sign that I’m not a downtown-sector corporal, so he’ll take charge of the scene himself when he arrives. A 211 call always gets a lot of cops’ attention too.
“But because I called it in and I’m the senior guy on the scene, it’s my job to feed info to the en-route units so they have an idea of what’s going on and what to do. I’m going to tell the sergeant that I think Rusty has been kidnapped; I’m going to tell them about the Step Van; I’m going to run down the report of the power failure; and
