The Tin Man

I’m going to recommend we stay off the radios or go to a tactical channel because whoever’s got Rusty’s radio can monitor us.” LaFortier typed: SUPP 1JN21 POSS 207 SECURITY 17 971 VEHICLE CALREG 1734BD21 POSS 503 IN ALLEY N OF K STREET LAST RPT POWER FAILURE SAC LIVE RECOMND MDT OR TAC CHANNEL 6 211 SUSPCTS MAY BE MONITORING FREQ.

“Now what do we do next?” LaFortier asked. It took Paul’s whirling mind a moment to catch up. “C’mon, rook, what’s next?”

“We gotta go in and check on Caruthers,” McLanahan finally replied. “Officer safety first.”

“Very good. Now…” At that moment, another squad car, this one with an S designation beside the car number, signifying the patrol-sector sergeant’s car, pulled up alongside theirs. The windows between the two cars rolled down. LaFortier recognized the downtown graveyard-shift sergeant, Matt Lamont. “Hey, Matt. This is my trainee, McLanahan. Paul, Sergeant Matt Lamont, downtown patrol.”

“What’s going on, Cargo?” Lamont asked. His eyes registered McLanahan but he didn’t bother to greet him. “What are you doing downtown?”

“Was coming from the jail and heard that Rusty was doing an off-duty gig here at Sacramento Live!,” LaFortier replied. “I was going to stop by and visit, but I couldn’t raise him on the radio. I drove around and found a truck in the alley. The plates don’t match the vehicle registration. Someone answered Rusty’s radio, but it didn’t sound like him.”

“Yeah, I heard that too,” Lamont said. He was in charge of all the off-duty officers in his sector as well as the downtown graveyard-shift units. He picked up his radio and keyed the mike: “Security One-Seven, Edward Ten.” He tried several times; no response. Lamont turned back to LaFortier: “Where’s Rusty’s car? On the mall?” LaFortier nodded. “All right, Cargo. Let’s put your rookie in the mall in a cover position next to Rusty’s car. Cargo, I want you on the J Street alley exit. I’ll stay here and monitor the alley on this end. This’ll be a loose perimeter only. Once we’re set up and the other units arrive, we’ll have a look inside. Let’s go.”

LaFortier drove forward to the K Street Mall. “Okay, Paul, listen up,” he said. “Your job will be to watch the K Street Mall exits, report anything you see, and, most importantly, protect yourself. You take cover behind Caruthers’s car-behind the engine block, remember, because it gives you more protection. You’ve got three exits onto the mall, so watch all three as best you can. Stay out of sight. Don’t let anyone out of the building unless their hands are up in the air. Call for backup before you do anything. Just stay calm and think before you move. Got it?”

“Got it, Craig.”

“Good. Out you go.”

McLanahan retrieved his nightstick and left the squad car, then trotted across Seventh Street and down the K Street Mall to the empty squad car. He knelt beside the right front fender, oblivious to the rain.

He found his heart racing, his breathing shallow and rapid, and his forehead and neck sweating as if he had just sprinted a hundred yards instead of jogging a hundred feet. He had stationed himself between the right front tire and the right door, with the engine block between himself and the doors across K Street. Visibility was poor in the rain, but he could make out all three Sacramento Live! doorways that emptied out on the K Street Mall.

Paul turned up his radio, but it was silent. Was it working? Were the batteries charged? Did he leave the South Station with dead batteries in his radio? He double-checked that he was on the correct channel, then turned the squelch knob and got a loud rasping rumble of static. Shit! Enough to alert bad guys for three blocks around. He turned the volume down a couple of notches, then turned the squelch knob until the static disappeared. Leave the friggin’ radio alone, he told himself.

Now what? Draw his weapon? Why? There was no threat in front of him. What if a wino or a transient wandered onto the mall? Should he break cover and move him, or stay hidden and hope he’d pass? And if he did either, what if the bad guys decided to make a break from the building right then? Or what if the wino was one of the bad guys?…

Snap out of it, Paul! he told himself. Stop confusing yourself with endless scenarios. Just pay attention and stay alert.

Paul tried the squad car’s door-it was locked, as it should be. He saw that the 12-gauge Remington police- model shotgun was still in the electric quick-release clamp on the front seat, and filed that info away in his head in case he’d need it-he had a set of car keys on his key ring, and all of the department’s car doors and trunk locks were common-keyed so he had access to the car if necessary. He scanned the street, looking for escape routes, hazards, and other places for cover and concealment. Not much out here-a couple of concrete traffic barricades, some concrete trash cans, a few directory/advertisement kiosks. There were few places to hide along the mall.

More help would be arriving any minute. Good. Something was bound to happen soon.

“All right, out there!” the general manager of Sacramento Live! shouted from inside the cash room on the second floor. “We’re coming out! We’ll open the door, then the guards will toss their guns out, and then we’ll be unarmed. Do you hear me? We surrender! We’re coming…”

The claymore mine blast slammed into the steel door, ripping it from its hinges and hurling it inside the cash room like a two-hundred-pound leaf being tossed around by a tornado. One security guard inside died instantly, crushed by the flying door; the body of a second one shattered as the force of the blast hit him square-on. The third guard was just picking himself up off the floor, leveling his weapon at his attackers, when he was killed by a burst of automatic gunfire from their assault rifles.

The Major now had his helmet on. A grenade launcher was slung over his shoulder and he was carrying an AK-74 combat assault rifle with a laser aiming sight; a small backpack held additional ammunition. He went into the devastated cash room with his heavily armed personal guard and Mullins, the renegade watchman.

The general manager and his three club managers were cowering on the floor, blood seeping from wounds on their faces and hands and from their ruptured eardrums. The Major scanned the room. None of the money bins were visible-apparently they had all been locked away in the safe at the back. He raised his rifle and aimed it at the man in the middle. “Who is the general manager?” he shouted.

Mullins pointed to the man on the left, who was crouched over the mangled body of one of the guards. “He is,” he said, praying it would help save these poor bastards’ lives.

“Sie!” the Major said in a loud voice so they could hear him through his gas mask and through their shattered, blood-filled ears. “Open the safe now or you will die.”

“I can’t,” the general manager said. “It’s on a time lock. It won’t open until nine tomorrow morning. Any attempt to open it will trigger an alarm, and it can’t be-”

“Liar! Idiot!” The terrorist pulled the trigger of his assault rifle, and the head of one of the club managers burst open like an overripe melon. The general manager, showered with blood and brains, screamed, then stared in horror at the destroyed head.

“Open that safe or you will watch the rest of your employees die.”

The general manager was on his feet in an instant, fumbling for keys. He inserted a key into the combination dial with shaking fingers, turned it, entered a combination, turned the key again, completed the combination, and pulled the safe door open.

“Schweinehund! You needlessly caused the death of one of your workers to save your profits!” the Major shouted, and shot the general manager point-blank in the groin with a three-round burst from his assault rifle. The burn from the muzzle blast was a full foot in diameter, and the noise in the small cash room was deafening-but not as loud as the agonized screams of the emasculated manager until he finally bled out and died.

“Schnell!” the Major shouted, and three more of his men rushed in, as heavily armed as their leader. “Get the bins to the truck!” They pulled the steel cash bins out of the vault and wheeled them outside. The Major ignored the two surviving club managers, issued more instructions through his radio, then turned to Mullins. “How will the police deploy outside? Will they use heavy weapons?”

“I don’t think… no, they won’t,” Mullins replied, more afraid than ever of saying he didn’t know to a guy who had just killed five men in cold blood right in front of him. “I haven’t heard any reports of a SWAT call-out, and anyway this city’s SWAT teams are only on fifteen-minute alert during graveyard shifts-it’ll take them at least a half hour to get here. The shift sergeant might have a semiautomatic M-16, but they don’t train with it much…”