The Tin Man

offer you safe havens anywhere in the world, a new identity, a place of safety for your family and your brother.”

“You can take your offers and shove them up your ass.”

“I expected you to say no less, General-few men of worth decide right away to turn against their country and their uniform,” the terrorist said. “As a professional courtesy, one military man to another, I will give you three days to think about my offer. Take your brother, your wife, and your son, go to your company’s headquarters in San Diego or wherever your secret command is located, and consider my offer. Formulate any questions you wish and ask me when I contact you again.

“But if you refuse, you and I are at war, and I will hunt you and everyone in your family down and slaughter them. This is your one and only warning. If you go to the authorities, I will assume that you have chosen to do battle with me, and then you and yours will all be considered combatants and will be executed. That includes your mother in Arizona, your sister in Texas, and your other sister in New York. Do you understand, General?”

“Yes.”

“Very good. Now, General, down on your face, hands behind your neck.”

Patrick reluctantly did as he was told, realizing now that he should have risked shooting the bastard when he had the chance. The earset was plucked out of his ear, and he felt an object being set on his back. “Attention in the hallway,” the terrorist said into the earset. “I will betaking my leave now. I suggest you hold your position and do not interfere. I have left an explosive device with the general. It is battery-powered and can be set off either by remote control, if the general moves, or if the device’s sensor detects anyone approaching it. It will certainly kill everyone in this room, including the general and his lovely family. If it is not disturbed, it will deactivate itself in about thirty minutes. I think you know what to do. Good day.”

It was a huge relief for Patrick to realize that the man had departed. His greatest fear now was that Wendy or the baby might wake up and set off the explosive. It seemed like only minutes later that he felt a touch on his side, then a crawling sensation up his right thigh. Christ, a rat or a cat or something, he thought in panic. An animal could probably set off the explosive! He fought hard to control his breathing and muscle tremors. The… the thing, or whatever it was, had moved right up onto his back-oh shit, he realized, it was actually sniffing around the object sitting on his back…

“Go! Go!” came a shout seconds later. But before he could even move, Hal Briggs was pulling Patrick to his feet.

“Jesus!” Patrick shouted. “Hal, what are you doing?”

“It’s clear, Patrick, it’s clear,” Hal Briggs said. One commando was checking the rest of the apartment, while the other was checking out the window and covering the front, trying to determine the terrorist’s escape route. “There’s no bomb in here.”

“What the hell was that crawling around on my back?” Patrick said as he shot over to his wife and son.

“My little Rover,” Briggs said. “He comes complete with an explosives-detection sensor.” He held up a tiny device the size of a small mouse, trailing a length of thread-thin optic cable. “Rover” had a pinhole camera and microphone, and had little legs so it could crawl up furniture and even walls. “Sorry, but I had to take the chance.”

Patrick raced over to Wendy and the baby, heard the soft sound of their breathing, and began to gently pull off the duct tape. He realized that it was tomato sauce covering them. “Jesus, it’s not blood, thank God!” he cried to Briggs. “That bastard is a fucking monster! What was it he planted on my back?”

“This,” Hal replied grimly. He held up a hand-lettered note that read, DON’T FORGET OUR DEAL, GENERAL, and then-oh God!-a tiny baby index finger. It looked as if it had been cut free with a pair of scissors.

“No!” Patrick shouted, frantically feeling Bradley’s little hands for the wound, tears flooding his eyes.

“Patrick! Patrick, it’s all right!” Briggs shouted. “It’s fake! It’s plastic!” The baby’s hands were fine. “My God, what a son of a bitch.”

Patrick pulled off the last of the duct tape, freeing his still-sleeping wife and child. Moments later, after a quick check to make sure they hadn’t been booby-trapped or wired with a tracking or eavesdropping device, he carried them in his arms out of the grisly apartment and into a waiting car, Briggs and the two Madcap Magician commandos with them.

The car sped toward Sacramento-Mather Jetport. “We’ll have you airborne and out of here in ten minutes, Patrick,” Briggs told him.

“Change the plane’s routing,” Patrick said, his arm tight around his wife and child.

“Change it? To where?”

“Arkansas,” Patrick said. “I want Wendy, Paul, and Bradley out of this state. As far away and as fast as possible.”

Briggs nodded. “You got it, Patrick.” He couldn’t blame Patrick one bit for wanting to get his family as far away as he could from the madness and mayhem in Sacramento.

Behind Toby’s Market, E Street,

Rio Linda, California

that night

It was the only all-night convenience store for miles around. Despite being in one of the highest-crime-rate areas in all of northern California, however, Toby’s Market had experienced virtually no robberies or burglaries in over twenty years. The reason was simple: No one in his right mind would dare mess with a Satan’s Brotherhood establishment.

Behind the store and down a hundred-yard-long dirt driveway was a small, scruffy farm, with a ramshackle five-room house, several large storage sheds, and a small barn scattered around the property. Even though the market was in the middle of a semirural residential neighborhood, bikers could drive up to the market, grab a six- pack or bottle, then discreetly drive around back to the house without being noticed-assuming anyone even bothered to take notice. That night, more than a hundred motorcycles and another two dozen cars were parked around the farm behind the market. A special meeting of the Rio Linda chapter of the Satan’s Brotherhood Motorcycle Club was under way.

Almost two hundred members, pledge members, and guests of the Brotherhood gathered in the barn and looked on as the big German ex-commando explained the operation of the portable hydrogenator in halting English. The device was disguised as a typical covered eight-foot U-Haul trailer, complete with an authentic paint job and logos. A gasoline-powered generator had been detached from the trailer and set up thirty feet away.

“Is very simple,” the soldier explained. “You not touch any chemicals. You attach chemical tanks here and here… attach power plug here…” He worked the controls as he explained the hookup procedures, while a dozen senior Brotherhood members, highly experienced in cooking methamphetamine, stood right beside him watching every step. They would be the ones who would teach the other chapter members how to use the device. They marveled at its cleanliness, efficiency, and safety.

An hour later the tank was opened up, and the specialists examined the result of the first stage of the process. Inside the mixing tank were more than thirty pounds of clean, pure chloropseudoephedrine. “Is ready for hydrogenation,” the Aryan Brigade soldier said. “We leave inside. No touch, no filter, no dry. The machine, it do everything.” The Brotherhood cookers couldn’t believe it-thirty pounds of absolutely pure chloropseudoephedrine in the tank ready for hydrogenation, and they didn’t have to race against deadly sulfur dioxide or risk being burned by hydrochloric-acid gas. There was no smell, no residue outside the tank, nothing. The waste byproducts of the first reaction were collected inside a separate tank, ready for burial.

Even as the second step of the process was begun, discussions started about how the batch was going to be distributed, how much would go to each designated member, and how the money was going to be paid. Thirty pounds of almost-ready methamphetamine was worth between two and three hundred thousand dollars, maybe more, and every one of the members and pledges was arguing about getting his fair share-plenty of customers were out there waiting. As the hydrogenator was being sealed up and pressurized, money was already being collected.

“I wait here,” the German commando said. “We inspect product together. I am responsible for unit until you pay.”