The Tin Man

and flopping like a rag doll caught in a twister. He landed hard and awkwardly, and lay there motionless.

“Patrick! Do you read me?” Silence. Jon zoomed the Skywalker cameras in and had a clear view of Patrick lying on the ground, still not moving. Moments later, two Jeeps headed from the house across the meadow toward him. “Patrick! Two vehicles approaching! Can you hear me? Patrick!” Silence. “If you can hear me, Patrick, wake up!” Jon screamed. “They’ll be on you in thirty seconds!”

Wearing night-vision goggles, three German soldiers dismounted when they were fifty feet from where they thought Patrick lay and approached on foot. At thirty feet they deactivated their image-intensifiers so the muzzle- flash of their guns wouldn’t blind them, and fired at the intruder. Then they reactivated their night-vision optics and advanced on him-but no one was there.

A horn beeped behind them. They turned, found themselves staring into the full-bright headlights of one of the Jeeps, and ripped off their goggles in pain. One of them swore, leveled his machine pistol, and fired at the headlights. It took almost an entire clip to shoot them out.

“You missed me!” shouted an eerie electronic voice. The shooter swung his submachine gun left to track the voice.

“Nein! Nein!” came a shout-but too late. The gunman, still blinded, opened fire across the area where the voice had come from and cut down both his fellow soldiers.

Patrick checked his suit’s systems-running perfectly so far, although power levels had been cut in half after the land mine. “Down to three hours already,” he radioed.

“Thank God you’re okay,” Masters answered. “I copy that. Do you want to withdraw and get a full recharge? I can watch the area and let you know if anyone tries to escape.”

“No, let’s press on,” Patrick said. “I’ll try to conserve power every chance I get.”

Inside the ranch house, the two remaining guards heard and saw the gunfire but could not raise their comrades on the radio. “Patrouille zwei, berichten!” one of them called. “What is your status? Have you terminated the intruder? Patrol Two, report!”

“Here’s one heading back,” said the other lookout. “Patrol Three is heading back!” A Jeep was racing back across the meadow, bumping through the furrows. Then he shouted, “Wo wollen die hin? ” The Jeep was headed straight for the ranch house at top speed. “It’s him! It’s the intruder! Open fire!”

The guards raked the Jeep with their submachine guns. A tire exploded and the vehicle swerved momentarily, then kept on its collision course. One of the guards leveled an antitank rocket launcher at it. It exploded, flipped over, and hit one of the outbuildings near the house.

“Where is he?” There was no sign of life in the vehicle and a quick survey of the house and grounds showed they were clear as well. “We’d better radio the lieutenant,” said one of the guards as he removed the spent magazine and retrieved a fresh one from his ammo pouch. At that moment a helmeted figure flew at them, body- tackling them like a rocket-powered battering ram. In seconds they were disarmed by hammering blows that felt like steel batons, cracking fingers and wrists.

“Wo ist der Major?” the intruder demanded. “Wo ist der Englдnder?”

“Go to hell!”

Patrick heard Jon Masters’s voice through his radio. “Hey, I’ve got several vehicles heading this way, heading east on Grant Line, moving fast! How’s it coming?”

“These guys aren’t talking,” Patrick radioed back. “There’re a lot of weapons here, including a rocket launcher-I’ll bet they match some of those used in the Sacramento Live! shootout. Can you reach the sheriff’s department?”

“Already called,” Jon reported. “I’m going to change position, get farther to the west away from these newcomers. Let me know if you find anything. I’ll signal you when you’ll have visitors.”

Patrick secured the guards with nylon handcuffs and began to search the ranch area. He hit pay dirt right away. “Jon, I got something,” he radioed. “The barn is full of chemicals. Barrels of it. Ether, acetone, thionyl chloride, phosphorous-3-iodide-oh shit, tanks of hydrogen gas, enough to blow half the county sky-high. You better warn the sheriff’s department to bring a HAZMAT crew out here-there’s enough poisonous stuff here to kill ten thousand people.”

“Copy,” Masters responded. “On the way.”

Patrick swung around at a sound off to his left. To his astonishment a scrawny little man carrying a nylon gym bag was running as fast as he could down the long main driveway toward Grant Line Road. Patrick caught up with him with a single thruster jump.

“Jeez!” the man yelped. “Who the hell are you?”

“I’m the one who’s putting you out of business,” Patrick said, yanking away the nylon bag. “Who are you?”

“Nobody!” the little man shouted. “Let me go!”

Patrick rapped him once on his bony chest, and the guy screeched and hit the ground. “I said, who are you?”

“You broke my chest!” the man whimpered.

“I’ll break your head if you don’t answer me!”

“I’m Bennie Reynolds.” The man struggled to his feet despite the pain and cried, “We’ve got to get out of here!”

“What are you doing here?”

“I work here. I work for Townsend and the Aryan Brigade. Listen, there’s no time…”

“Townsend?” said Patrick. Christ, the pieces were finally starting to fit together. “The British terrorist? You mean Gregory Townsend, the weapons dealer?”

“I told you who, asshole.” The guy was sounding panicky. “Jesus, we’ve got to get out of here! The barn has been booby-trapped!”

“What?”

“Don’t ask questions, stupid-just run!” Patrick didn’t hesitate. He grabbed Reynolds and hit his thrusters. Even though the guy didn’t weigh very much, the leap was only seventy or eighty feet. But it was a spectacular ride for the drug-cooker. “Hol-ee shit!” he cackled. “Awe-some! You can fly!”

It would take several seconds for the thrusters to recharge. “Okay, now talk,” Patrick demanded. “Where is Townsend? Where’s the Major?”

“They bugged out maybe twenty minutes ago,” Reynolds said. “I don’t know where they were headed. You went into the barn, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Then we’re dead unless we can get at least a mile away from here,” Reynolds said. “For sure you tripped a switch. Townsend has that barn booby-trapped seven ways to Sunday. Hit those jets and let’s get the hell out of here!”

“Can’t quite yet,” Patrick said. They started down the road as fast as Patrick could half-carry, half-drag Reynolds. He switched over to his secure channel: “Jon, we’re on the move,” he said. “I’ve got one prisoner.”

“Copy,” Jon replied. “I’m heading toward you.”

Patrick called up the GPS tracking device on Jon’s location and saw he was around a mile and a half away. He grabbed Reynolds, turned in the direction of the Hummer, and hit the thrusters…

… and just as he was about to touch down from the first eighty-foot leap, a massive explosion erupted behind them. A delayed-action bomb exploded inside the barn, rupturing the hydrogen tanks and sending up a huge cloud of fire.

They were lifted off the ground by the shock wave and thrown another hundred feet. The concussion from the blast landed them across Grant Line Road in a shallow cow pond and covered them with eighteen inches of muddy water, just as the white-hot fireball rolled over them like a tsunami. The fireball vaporized the six-acre pond, turning it into a blackened hole-but as the water vaporized it sucked away enough of the heat from the fireball to keep the two of them from instantaneous incineration.

Then the suit’s environmental system kicked in, and-barely-kept enough of the residual heat away from