one of the gunmen shouting in German or some other language after being hit, so we might be looking at a foreign terrorist group. I’ve been in contact with the FBI and Interpol, but we don’t have much to go on except their outfits, weapons, and MO. All of the gunmen hit during the shootout were carried off.”
Chandler stopped. Barona looked at him in surprise. “That’s it, Chandler? That’s all you have?”
“ ‘Fraid so, Chief.”
“Tom, that’s completely unacceptable,” Barona said angrily. “It’s been over a week and we haven’t got an arrest in sight. We need to get some action going on this case or the city’s going to eat all of our lunches for us. Now get me some arrests.” The chief stormed out of the conference room.
Chandler ran his fingers through his hair in exasperation. “Anything else I can frustrate you gents with today?” he asked.
“We know you’re stretched to the limit, Tom,” said one of the deputy chiefs. “Put everybody you got on finding this Mullins guy. We’ll see about tossing some uniforms your way to ease the workload. What do you have in mind?”
“I’ve already wasted the next two months’ overtime budget,” Chandler said. “Any more and I trash the entire next quarter’s budget almost before it starts. I’ve got enough manpower for round-the-clocks at just two places. Posties and Sutter Walk are private clubs; Bobby John’s is public. Mullins’s more likely to turn up at one of the private clubs.”
“Then put your surveillance units there,” the deputy chief said. “Then as soon as you can, get someone on the Bobby John Club too. We’ll send out a notice to watch sergeants to circulate Mullins’s description to their patrols. But if he has any brains at all, he’s long gone out of this town. We’ll try to juggle some money around for overtime, but don’t count on it. Do the best you can, Tom.”
“ ‘Do the best you can,’ he says,” Patrick McLanahan mused as the recording fell silent. “How can he? Every one of those cops in the entire division is already working twelve-hour shifts.”
“Yeah. We’ve heard talk about that ‘Major’ guy before. He’s starting to sound like the mastermind of that robbery.”
“Sure does,” Patrick agreed. He paused for a moment, then added: “We need to bug the Bobby John Club. No telling how long it’ll take for SID to start up surveillance there.”
“Sounds good to me,” Masters said. “You know anything about the place?”
“Just enough to stay away from it,” Patrick replied. “Having a drink or shooting pool with the bikers at the Bobby John Club used to be the cool thing to do in high school, but I never went. They certainly were never any competition for the Sarge’s Place’s business.”
“Well, Chandler said it was a public bar,” Jon pointed out. “I suppose you have as much right as anyone to go in there. If there’s a million motorcycles parked out front, we’ll just go in another time.”
Bobby John Club, Del Paso Boulevard,
North Sacramento, California
Tuesday, 30 December 1997, 0127 PT
Bobby John’s had been around a long time in the Del Paso Heights neighborhood of Sacramento. Several big Harleys were parked out front. The wind had kicked up, and it felt raw and blustery, heightening the sudden sense of dread Patrick felt as he opened the door and stepped inside, four surveillance bugs tucked away and ready to go.
Although his family had run a bar for years, Patrick never liked going into them-especially strange bars, in lousy parts of town, at night, and alone. Even when it’s dark outside, there’s always a time after walking into a bar when your eyes aren’t adjusted to the gloom within. Patrick felt vulnerable: Everyone inside could see him, but he couldn’t see them-or danger coming. Tables and people were shadows. He felt on display, naked, a stranger invading unknown territory-it was like walking into a cave knowing there were bears lurking inside. He could run headlong into the guy he was looking for and never recognize him.
Patrick decided to withstand the heads turning toward him, the stares, and the muffled comments, and just wait in the doorway until his eyes adapted. If his target tried to leave, at least he’d have a chance to intercept him. Standing there, he realized that to the hostile watchers he must look like some kind of Wild West gunfighter, but there was no other solution.
As his eyes adjusted, the details of the place grew clearer. It was small and narrow. The bar stretched almost the entire length of the wall to the right. Two pool tables dominated the room to the left, with a few tables and chairs scattered around. At the far side of the bar, a dark hallway led to the back of the building. Patrick could hear loud voices from back there-more patrons, he guessed. A biker was leaning against the hallway wall; he appeared to be guarding a private room. Patrick saw a shaft of light briefly illuminate the hallway and guessed there was a back door at the end leading to the alley-way in the rear.
The walls were covered with posters of naked biker women, motorcycles, and other typical barroom art, plus some not very typical stuff: a collection of Confederate States, Third Reich, neo-Nazi, White Power, and Ku Klux Klan flags and posters. Patrick even recognized several national flags, including Russia, the Afrikaner flag of South Africa, the flags of the old East Germany, the Ukraine, and Belarus. No doubt about the theme of this place.
Just plant the bugs and get the hell out, Patrick told himself. One at the bar-it should be able to pick up male voices for ten to twenty feet in all directions-one at a pool table, one in the bathroom, and one in the meeting room in back if he could get there.
There was no place open at the bar, so Patrick stood at the waitresses’ pickup station. The bartender ignored him. He could make out the faces in the bar now. Some glared at him with undisguised hostility. To his surprise, a few others seemed to be looking at him with fear, as if he might be a cop coming to arrest them or a leg-breaker coming to collect a debt. Most paid no attention. It was dim enough for no one to notice as he attached the first listening device under the edge of the counter.
But his luck didn’t last for long. The huge, fat, bearded biker on the stool nearest him looked up from his beer. “Hey, sweet cheeks, the faggot bar’s down the street,” he growled drunkenly. Patrick ignored him, enraging the biker. He reached out and gave Patrick a shove hard enough to push him back a few feet. “I said, the faggot bar’s down the street, rump ranger. Hit the fucking road.” Patrick decided he’d better move to a table back behind the pool tables, but the biker looked as if he wasn’t going to let him go.
“Hey, Rod, knock it off,” the bartender ordered. He put another beer in front of the guy, who promptly forgot about McLanahan. The bartender scowled at Patrick. “This ain’t no tourist stop, sport,” he said. “What do you want?”
“Use your bathroom?”
“The john’s only for paying customers.”
“I’ll take a beer.”
“Five dollars.”
“Five?”
“You just bought Rod there a beer too.”
Patrick put a five on the bar. “Where’s your bathroom?”
“Coffee shop two blocks down,” the bartender snapped. “Now get the fuck out.”
Patrick tried to keep his voice steady. He had dealt with a few badasses at the Shamrock Pub, mostly college kids after a few too many or lowlifes trying to pick a fight with a cop. He’d thought he could handle this one. Nevertheless, he was already starting to feel events spinning out of control, and he had been here only a few moments. “I’ll take that beer and then hit the road,” Patrick said.
The bartender reached down to the cooler behind the bar, pulled out a bottle of beer, and put it on the bar. But before Patrick could take it, a gloved hand reached past him and picked it up. Patrick turned and saw a guy not much taller than he was, with long brown hair, a beard, a leather jacket, and dark, dead-looking eyes, standing right beside him. Another biker, this one with a shaved head and a goatee, had crossed behind the guy and was standing to Patrick’s right.
“Who are you, asshole?” the first guy asked, taking a swig of beer.
“I’m nobody,” Patrick replied. “Just came in to get a beer and take a piss.”
As the guy nodded, Patrick’s world exploded right in his face. A boot kicked the side of his left knee, sending
