happened to your face?”
Patrick gingerly touched the cuts on his swollen, bruised cheeks and mouth. “Some bikers got hold of me,” he said.
“Are you all right?” Patrick nodded. “If they can’t protect you in there, I’ll get the attorney to have you transferred somewhere else…”
“I’m in an isolation cell now,” Patrick said.
“Thank God.”
“Isolation means that only one out of every three gobs of spit hits me now,” Patrick said with a wry smile. “Now they just
“Patrick, how can you make jokes at a time like this?”
“I’ll be all right, Jon,” Patrick said reassuringly. “Half of them think I killed their buddies, but the other half think that if they mess with me, my friends will go after their families. It’s a part of being in the gang-harassing me shows the other members that they’re solid. I can handle it.” Jon’s face was ashen, as if he could scarcely believe what he was hearing. Patrick pointed a warning finger at the phone, then at the sign behind Jon stating that their conversations could be monitored. “Have you spoken with Wendy?”
“Yes,” Jon replied, signaling that he understood. “She’s all right. She’s real worried about you.”
“How’s Bradley?”
“Just fine,” Jon replied. He smiled, then added, “A lot of folks in your… your
“That’s nice,” said Patrick. “Ask the family to talk with Wendy and reassure her that everything will be all right. I’ll be out of here soon enough. I can’t wait to tell my side of the story to a jury. Are you meeting with anyone from the legal department?”
“I’m meeting Henry Fowler, the senior partner in the law firm that does our legal, in about an hour,” Jon said. “They’ve got all the police reports, and they say we have a good chance of getting all the charges dismissed. He’s going to introduce me to the criminal-defense team they’ve retained. They’ll have someone over later this morning to talk with you.” He looked a little embarrassed, then added, “I brought over the money you asked for last night, but they took it from me. They said they have to log it in. Have you gotten it yet?” Patrick shook his head. “God, Patrick, this is a nightmare.”
“Everything will be all right, bro,” Patrick said. “Just tell Wendy and the family that I’m all right.”
“You got it, bro,” Jon said, watching helplessly as Patrick was led away. A big, mean-looking prisoner tried to get up out of his seat as Patrick was passing, bumped him, and screamed an obscenity before the deputies pushed him back down.
There were reporters waiting out in front of the jail, so Jon was led out a rear exit that bordered on the H Street parking garage, and the heavy steel door locked behind him. He made his way warily around toward the front and looked for the company car that was to meet him, but there was no sign of it. The rain started to come down, a dull, chilly mist at first, then heavier.
Man, he thought, life pretty much sucked right now. Patrick was in jail, charged with murder; the Ultimate Soldier project was compromised, perhaps destroyed; and his company was without a leader, drifting aimlessly. He didn’t even have Helen Kaddiri to torment him anymore…
Helen. It was the first time he had thought about her in many days, and he realized that the thought of her warmed him inside. For the first time in his life, Jon felt truly alone. For all those years before, he had kept himself surrounded, first with academia, then with the government, then with the company. Now all were gone. He needed Helen. He wanted her. Once the idea was laughable, then unthinkable-and now, all he could think about was her.
He pulled out a cellular-phone earset, a tiny device that looped onto the ear and picked up vocal vibrations in the skull for transmitting. He used voice commands to dial her home number in San Diego and got her answering machine. “Helen, this is Jon,” he said after taking a deep breath. “I don’t know if you’ve heard all the news lately, but I’m here in Sacramento. I just got out of the Sacramento County Jail on bail. Patrick is being held without bond. We…”
He was going to make a full “report” to her and fill in the circumstances, but he found he couldn’t continue-his heart wouldn’t let him use the company “we” again, wouldn’t allow him to be so impersonal. “Helen, I need you,” he said. “The company does, sure, but I need you more. I need your support, your guidance, and your friendship. I don’t know where you are-probably out making a deal to launch your new company-but please, come up here to Sacramento. I’ll probably be at the R amp; D facility at Sacramento-Mather Jetport, the old alert facility. I won’t blame you if you don’t show up, but please don’t leave me now. I… I love you, Helen. I probably sound like the biggest geek in the world, but I don’t care. I love you. Bye.”
Jon ended the call and put the earset away. A few minutes later he heard a car horn beep across the street. He looked over and saw a hand waving to him. His ride at last. The driver was unfamiliar and the windows were tinted so he couldn’t see in, but he crossed the street and went around to the passenger side. He was surprised to see Tom Chandler in the front passenger seat.
“Hello, Dr Masters,” Chandler said. “Care for a ride?” He noticed Masters’s quizzical expression as he looked at the unfamiliar driver. “This is Officer Williams of my division. I rate a driver today, and he’s it. Need a ride?”
“I’ve got one coming, thanks.”
“Dr Masters, listen, I know what you and Patrick are going through,” Chandler said. He lowered his voice so the driver wouldn’t overhear. “Don’t castrate me because I’m doing my job. It would look worse if I showed any favoritism at all. If I let my opinion that Patrick is a hero leak out, I’d be off the case and you and Patrick would have to swim with the sharks alone.”
“You think Patrick is a hero? The other night you thought he was a criminal.”
“I think both you and Patrick are heroes,” Chandler said, “taking on the dirtbags in this city like this. It shows courage, real courage. But Patrick’s in jail, and the city that you and he tried to protect wants to make an example of him. That’s not right. We need to get together and strategize. Come over to my office so we can talk. You can call your people from there and tell them where to pick you up.”
“I don’t know…”
“Hey, c’mon, Doc, I’m doing everything I can on my end to make sure that you and Patrick get every break possible,” Chandler said. “The DA doesn’t have much of a case. They’ve been hammering me and my guys for hours, trying to find even the smallest piece of incriminating evidence. They don’t have it. But now I need your help.”
“Shouldn’t I have my attorney present?”
“This is not an interrogation,” Chandler said. “I’m not going to ask you anything that will incriminate either you or Patrick. You can refuse to answer anything you feel uncomfortable with.” He saw Masters still hesitate. “All right, if it would make you feel better, you can call your attorney and have him present. But I’m not going to Mirandize you, because this is not part of the investigation. In fact, it’s the opposite-I want to talk about ways I can help you and Patrick get out of this mess. Believe me, there are a lot of cops in this town who are very thankful for what you two did.”
“There are?”
“Absolutely,” Chandler said. “Even if it gets to trial. But they want to hear from you. Will you do this for Patrick?”
“Of course I will!” Jon exclaimed. “Man, I’m so glad you came by! I thought you were more concerned about making an arrest than helping us.” Jon hopped into the rear seat as soon as Chandler got the door unlocked.
They headed down I Street toward Interstate 5. Just before they reached the freeway, there was a beeping sound. Chandler turned around and saw Masters retrieve what looked like a Cross pen from his pocket. “Is that your pen beeping, Doctor?”
“My pager,” Masters said with pride. “My own design.” He checked the tiny LCD display on the barrel. “It’s my driver. Probably wondering where I am. I’ll give him a call and let him know where I’ll be.” He retrieved his cellular-phone earset. “What I do is punch up the phone number on my wristwatch. There’s a wireless connection between the earset and the watch. The number I retrieve on my watch is the one that gets dialed. Or I can use voice commands.”
