Do you understand?”
“Yes,” McLanahan said in a low voice.
“You might actually get all the information you need from the press,” Chandler said.
“But it would really help if I-”
“I think your time would be better spent with Paul and your family,” Chandler said sternly, hoping McLanahan would wuss out again. But it looked as though he was standing fast on his request, so Chandler added, “But if it’ll make you and your mother feel better, give me a call before you come down, and we’ll meet and talk. Fair enough?”
“Yes,” McLanahan said. He extended a shaky hand; Chandler found it cold and clammy. “Thank you. I’ll get out of your hair now. And I promise I won’t bother you unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
“Fine. Good night.” Chandler couldn’t wait to hustle this guy out the door. He watched him until he climbed into his car and drove off. He probably shouldn’t have let the guy drive, and he prayed he didn’t get into an accident.
Paul McLanahan lived in a roomy three-bedroom apartment over the Shamrock Pub on the waterfront in Old Sacramento, the one in which Patrick and Wendy had lived earlier that year, before they moved to San Diego. Patrick had decided to move his family into the apartment until Paul was out of the hospital. He had already converted the second bedroom into young Bradley’s nursery, complete with crib, changing table, and a chest of drawers filled with baby supplies and clothes, and he had fixed up the master bedroom for Wendy and himself. He wanted to duplicate their Coronado apartment as best he could so she would feel as much at home as possible. When Paul was closer to being discharged from the hospital they’d move into a short-term executive apartment, and once he was on his feet, they would go home to San Diego.
The third bedroom, Paul’s office, had been converted too-into a command center. That was where Patrick found Jon Masters when he arrived back from the meeting with Chandler. “How’s it sound, Jon?” Patrick asked.
“Loud and clear,” Masters replied. “Good job. Where did you plant them?”
“Captain’s office, break room, bathroom, and conference room,” Patrick replied.
“Good. Listen.”
Jon hit a button on a tape recorder on the desk, and they heard Tom Chandler’s voice, a little scratchy but clear enough, talking on the phone to his wife: “I’m on my way now, hon. I was going to be home twenty minutes ago, but the brother of that rookie cop that was hurt in the shootout? He showed up in the parking lot… yeah, that’s the guy, the one on TV. Big tough guy on TV, right? He demands information, and then when I tell him where to stick it, he starts blubbering all over me. What a baby. I think he was drinking too. So I sat him down and held his hand for a few minutes. Then he almost blows lunch in my office. I finally told him to go home and sleep it off. So I’m on my way home… okay… great… sure, I’ll pick it up on my way back. See you in a few, hon. Bye.” And the line went dead.
“I caught another few minutes of Chandler making basketball and Super Bowl bets with a bookie-that information might come in handy someday,” Jon added. “Kinda dumb, making bets on an office phone that’s probably being monitored, but I guess you don’t need to be a genius to be a police captain.” He shut off the tape recorder, rewound the tape, then set it to auto, which would automatically record any conversations picked up by the electronic eavesdroppers. “You should be an actor, Muck,” Jon remarked with a smile.
“I thought I was going to barf after swishing that whiskey in my mouth,” Patrick said. “What’s the range of this system?”
“Only a couple of miles,” Masters said. “We’re at the extreme range limit now. I want to put up a relay on a nearby building-the one adjacent to his would be the best, but it can be anywhere within a half mile of the bugs. The relay will increase the range to about ten miles. Then we can pick up the transmissions from anywhere. Maybe we can launch a NIRTSat constellation and get the taps downloaded to us anywhere on the continent.”
“I don’t think we’ll need to do that,” Patrick said with a wry smile. He knew Jon Masters’s appetite for technological overkill; he’d do it with the least bit of encouragement. “Will they be able to detect the bugs?”
“They might,” Jon admitted. “They’re voice-actuated, which means they don’t activate unless there’s sound in the room. Most times when security teams sweep a room for bugs, they try not to make any noise, so the bugs should be undetectable, but they do carry a very low power level all the time in standby mode so there’s still a chance a bug sweeper might detect it. The bugs store information in packets, then microburst the packets out in irregular intervals to try to confuse a passive detection system. So it’ll be harder to detect the bugs when they transmit too.”
Masters paused, then added, “But it’s usually not bug detectors that find the bugs, Patrick. Most times it’s just plain ol’ good counterintelligence work. Someone will eventually realize information is getting out. A local PD might not have sophisticated detection or backtracing gear, but all they need to do is plant false information to try to ferret out a snooper. Once you start using the information you get, your days of bugging offices will be numbered. They’ll just swoop down on you one day and it’ll all be over. Might be hours, might be days.”
But Patrick wasn’t listening. “Thanks, Jon,” he said. “I’ll start monitoring the taps, and I’ll talk to you after we get some worthwhile information. Once we find out who the enemy is, we’ll plan our next move.”
Masters nodded. Patrick McLanahan always knew what he was doing. “Wendy called while you were out,” he said. “They’re going to keep her in the hospital for another few days to be safe. They’ll discharge her on the thirtieth.”
“Good,” Patrick responded.
Jon was startled. “ ‘Good’?”
“That’ll give us more time to come up with a plan,” Patrick said. “I want to move before the police do. I want first shot at these dirtbags.”
“Are you trying to hide this from Wendy?” Jon asked incredulously. “You’re not going to tell her what you’re doing?”
“Not now,” Patrick said. “Not right away. I want to formulate a plan of action before I tell her. I’m hoping they’ll catch the terrorists before too long, and if I tell Wendy about this, it’ll upset her for no reason.” Jon shook his head at this backward logic, but decided not to argue the point. “I’m off to Mercy San Juan. I’ll be back later.”
He knows what he’s doing, Jon Masters told himself for the third or fourth time that evening. It’s Patrick McLanahan. He always has a plan. He always knows what he’s doing. Always…
Special Investigations Division Headquarters,
Bercut Drive, Sacramento, California
Monday, 29 December 1997, 0925 PT
“Here’s what we have so far, Chief,” Captain Tom Chandler began. He was giving an update briefing to the chief of police, Arthur Barona, as well as to the deputy chief of investigations and the deputy chief of operations of the city of Sacramento. “It’s not much:
“The private security company for the Sacramento Live! complex has still not heard from one of the guards who was on duty the night of the shootout, Joshua Mullins. He’s being sought as a material witness, but we’re looking at him as an accomplice to the robbery. Mullins is ex-Oakland PD, resigned while under suspension. Lived in an apartment downtown, but the place was cleared out. He has some ties to local biker gangs, so we did some interviews in some of his hangouts. No one’s seen him.”
“I want him,” Barona said. “Send out his description on the wire to all state agencies. He’s probably headed back to the Bay Area.”
“Already out,” Chandler said. “We’re setting up surveillance on local biker bars-the Bobby John Club, Sutter Walk, Posties, a few others, as much as manpower allows. Sacramento County is cooperating with us in setting up surveillance on biker bars in the county, and we’re working with Yolo, Sutter, Alameda, San Francisco, and Placer County DA’s to gather intelligence on biker bars in their jurisdictions.
“Our informants are giving us information on a guy that Mullins may have been in contact with who goes by the name of the Major. No information yet on who he is, where he comes from, what he’s up to, or why he might have wanted Mullins. The sergeant in charge at the Sacramento Live! shootout says he thinks he might have heard
