anesthesiologist was at the head of the table, his eyes fixed on an array of monitors and several automatic fluid- metering devices. There were two IV stands with empty whole-blood and plasma bags hanging from them. He motioned Patrick to an empty stool next to Wendy’s head.
“Mr McLanahan,” the obstetrician began, not looking up from his work, “this is Dr Jemal, our chief of surgery. I asked him to be here for this delivery.”
“Chief of surgery?” Patrick asked. “Is Wendy all right, Doc?”
“She suffered a uterine rupture and serious internal bleeding at the beginning of this procedure,” Jemal began. “The scarring on her abdomen was extensive. She must have been in some degree of pain throughout the entire pregnancy, to have those scars on her belly stretching like they were.”
“But will she be all right?”
The anesthesiologist spoke up: “Ask her yourself.” Patrick turned and saw Wendy looking up at him, with an expression that said nothing but love.
“Hi, sweetheart,” she said. Her eyes were clear and alert, and her slight smile lit up the room more brightly than all the operating spotlights together.
“Wendy… oh God, Wendy, how are you?” Patrick asked, his eyes welling with tears as he bent over to kiss her. He looked over at the obstetrician. “Dammit, Doc, can you tell me what’s going on here?”
“Can’t… right… now… Dad,” the doctor said. A startled Patrick saw Jemal standing on a low stool, pressing down on Wendy with all his might. Then the room filled with the glorious sounds of a squalling baby.
“You’ve got a son, Mr McLanahan, a nice healthy boy.” The obstetrician held the tiny form out for the nurses. “He’s just fine. The bad news is, I think you’ve lost your uterus, Wendy. We’ll have to do a hysterectomy, I’m afraid. But you’ve made it through okay. Congratulations!”
Patrick watched in fascination as the nurses clamped and cut the cord, briskly rubbed the baby down, suctioned his nose and mouth, and placed him in a small heated booth on a table. He was weighed, footprinted, and had silver nitrate drops placed in his eyes to prevent infection, then swaddled in two blankets and topped off with a white-and-blue knitted cap that covered his head. Then the nurse picked up the little bundle and handed it to Patrick.
Patrick Shane McLanahan had handled four-hundred-thousand-pound warplanes, nuclear devices, and multimillion-dollar weapons. Now, holding the seven-pound bundle that was his son in his arms, he felt helpless, stunned.
He held the baby up so Wendy could see him, and they wept tears of joy together as the baby opened his bright blue eyes, looked first at his mother, then at his father, and started to cry. Patrick nestled him back into his arms and the crying stopped. He bent down and kissed his wife. “You did it, sweetheart, you did it!” he said proudly. “Good job.”
“
From Seventh Street, the Step Van with the gunmen on board sped south to Capitol Avenue, then west to the Tower Bridge. It stopped when it was a third of the way across, and two men got out, set four satchels on the roadway, then ran back to the truck. Seconds after the Step Van had cleared the bridge, the satchel charges blew, sending the entire eastern third of the span down into the Sacramento River and eliminating the major pursuit route out of the city of Sacramento.
The Step Van continued down SR-275, then got onto Interstate 80 and drove westbound on the freeway. The pursuing California Highway Patrol and the Sacramento police thought it was the terrorists’ first real mistake. Units from Davis to the west as well as from Sacramento started to converge on the Step Van. Roadblocks near Davis blocked the east- and westbound lanes of I-80, and dozens of units rolled westbound on the freeway, ready to chase the van down.
But the chase did not last long. Reports filtered in that the Step Van had stopped in the middle of the westbound lane on the Yolo Causeway, the two-mile-long section of divided interstate stretching over the farmlands that formed the flood plain west of the Sacramento River before it reached the San Joaquin Delta. The truck was trapped. There was no way off the elevated causeway, and no connectors between the eastbound and westbound lanes. Police units would arrive in a matter of minutes. If the terrorists tried to make a run for it by climbing down off the causeway, they’d be easy to chase down in the flat, marshy rice and barley fields below.
Led by the Highway Patrol, the units converged on the Step Van. Apparently the terrorists had figured out where they were, because they had driven almost to the far western end of the causeway, stopped, then thrown the lumbering truck into reverse and headed back eastbound. Too late. There was no escape now…
Several tremendous explosions shook the causeway. Once again, satchel charges had been set, this time at the ends of both lanes of the interstate, effectively sealing off the lanes in both directions. The cops couldn’t get to the Step Van but neither could it go anywhere. Before long…
Minutes later, the real escape plan became obvious. A military-surplus UH-1 Huey helicopter swooped out of the night sky and touched down in the middle of the causeway. The police watched, helpless, from a mile away, as the paper money was taken out of the cash bins, transferred to duffel bags, and loaded aboard the helicopter. A Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department helicopter with two SWAT deputies riding the landing skids and two more inside tried to approach, but the terrorists were prepared. A streak of yellow fire from a Stinger anti-aircraft missile hit the helicopter’s engine, sending the aircraft out of control and crashing into the rice fields south of the causeway. One deputy riding the skids was killed by the engine explosion when the missile hit; the other was pulled inside the helicopter as it was falling. The three deputies who survived suffered moderate to severe injuries during the crash landing.
Ten minutes later, the Huey was airborne. It headed east, flying a few hundred feet above the ground to avoid being tracked by air-traffic-control radar until it reached the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Then it vanished.
At Placerville Airport, forty miles east of Sacramento, several trucks were waiting for the chopper when it lit down. Major Bruno Reingruber was the first to step off the helicopter, and he exchanged straight-armed salutes with Colonel Gregory Townsend.
“They all fought like lions,
“You will get your chance, Major,” Townsend said. “The city of Sacramento has not yet even begun to bleed. This is a small haul compared to the penalty we will take from this city before we are finished. The city of Sacramento will learn to fear us. They will surrender to us-or the death toll will rise. But remember our ultimate objective. Tearing this city apart is only a means to an end.”
Chapter Two
Sacramento, California
Tuesday, 23 December 1997, 1100 PT
Over two thousand cops from hundreds of departments and agencies throughout the United States snapped to attention and saluted as the three caskets carrying the two dead Sacramento Police Department officers and one Sacramento County Sheriff’s deputy were carried into Blessed Sacrament Cathedral in downtown Sacramento for the memorial service. An estimated one thousand spectators came out in the blustery cold to join the officers and watch the solemn procession. Led by two uniformed officers playing bagpipes, another thousand mourners, including the governor of the state of California, two US senators, all the local congressional, state assembly, and state senate members, and the mayor and the chief of police of Sacramento, followed behind the caskets and took seats inside the cathedral as they were placed before the altar. Each casket was draped with an American flag,
