The Tin Man

Reingruber is a dangerous man, very dangerous. Colonel Townsend keeps him on a very short leash, but he is unpredictable. Be very careful around him.”

“And Townsend is Mother Teresa’s sainted uncle, I suppose?”

“The colonel saved your life, young man,” the doctor said. “He came in just in time and saw what Reingruber had done. You could have drowned.”

“I fell asleep? Hypothermia?”

“Yes. You were in the water for about ninety minutes, and possibly three to four minutes underwater. Thankfully, your heart and breathing rates were already slowed down to next to nothing. Colonel Townsend dragged you out of the water and performed CPR on you until you came to.”

“Oh shit,” Jon exclaimed. The world’s master terrorist and arms smuggler saved his life? This was unreal- crazy-yet it had to be true. He had certainly been moments away from drowning. He looked at the physician, baffled. “And who are you?”

“Dr Richard Faulkner, internal medicine,” the physician said. He extended a hand. “Recently of the Dana- Farber Cancer Institute…”

“Boston?” Faulkner nodded. “I’m an MIT grad. Where’d you go to school?”

“Dartmouth Medical School. Before that, Dartmouth College. I…”

“You’re kidding! I went to Dartmouth too! What in the world are you doing here?”

“Gregory… Colonel Townsend… did me an extraordinary favor years ago,” Faulkner said. “My father was in deep with loan sharks to pay off medical bills for my mother. They threatened to kill me, my sister, and my mother if we didn’t pay up. Gregory stepped in and got the loan sharks off my father’s back. In return, I help him whenever I can.”

“But… but Townsend’s a killer, a terrorist…”

“Never,” Faulkner said. “I know what’s said about him, but I promise you it isn’t true. He’s a professional soldier. He wants to do his job. Unfortunately, he has a tendency to get in with the wrong elements-Major Reingruber is an example. Reingruber’s the enemy here. This entire state would be in flames were it not for Gregory.”

“That’s sure as hell not what I heard about the guy.”

“Don’t believe the falsehoods, young man,” Faulkner said. “But you do need to watch out for Reingruber. He’ll be very angry now that Gregory has reproved him in front of you. Gregory will protect you, but you have to trust that this is so and you have to be watchful. Do you understand?” Jon nodded. “Good. Let’s get you out of here and into some warm clothes.”

Still puzzled and uneasy, Jon tried one more plea. “Why don’t you just let me go?” he asked. “It could be set up. We could make it look like I conked you on the head…”

“No way. Major Reingruber would kill me for sure,” Faulkner said. “No. Our best chance is with Gregory, believe me. I trust him with my life. I have reason to. We’d better get out of here before Reingruber catches us alone.”

Faulkner helped Jon out of the back room and into the central part of the building. The place resembled a small warehouse, with rooms like small offices opening off the main area. They glimpsed Reingruber in one of the rooms, cleaning guns. He got to his feet when he saw them, his rage at Masters evident in his eyes, but he did not come out. Faulkner led Jon into a small windowless room equipped with a cot, blankets, a floor lamp, and a couple of chairs. “You’ll be safe here, Jon,” Faulkner said. “The door locks.” From a pocket under his jacket he pulled out a newspaper conspiratorially. “Here,” he said. “Hide this under the blankets. You don’t want Reingruber to know you have it. I’ve got to go.”

“That bastard will come after me…”

“I’ll be right outside, and Gregory is nearby,” Faulkner said. “Don’t worry. Again, you can rely on us. Gregory’ll get you out of this in fine shape, but you’re going to have to do as he says and place your trust in him. Do you understand? Will you do that, Jon?”

What choice did he have? “I’ll try, Doc.”

“Good. Lock the door after I leave. You must open it when they demand entry, but you’ll have some privacy.”

Jon locked the door instantly, then sat down on the bed and wrapped himself in the blankets.

This is crazy, he said to himself. Reingruber is a madman. Even if what Faulkner said about Townsend was true, what kind of jerk was he, hanging around wackos like that? He’d saved his life, for which he was grateful, but it was baffling nonetheless. Still, he had the two of them to keep the psycho away from him, and they certainly seemed to mean it.

He unfolded the paper carefully. It was today’s pages 3 and 4 of the Sacramento Bee, tattered but still readable, with late-breaking details on the explosion in Wilton. As he read, he froze. He could not believe what he was seeing.

The coverage spelled out what it described as the Tin Man’s reign of terror. Patrick McLanahan had killed several Wilton residents, whom he suspected of being terrorists. He had misidentified the house as a hideout for meth cookers and terrorists when it was actually rented out by an itinerant farmer, his family of three kids, and his brother’s family with four kids. He had killed several of them, including three children, then set an explosive charge on a propane tank outside, causing the huge explosion.

Jon was stupefied. Their intelligence had been perfect, impeccable, accurate-yet, there it was in black and white: They had made a terrible mistake and eleven people had died because of it. There was a Reuters account, an Associated Press piece about the attack. And there was a big article from the Bee news service about Patrick’s death in the Sacramento County Jail, characterizing it as a kind of “suicide by inmate”-Patrick had apparently sought out a Satan’s Brotherhood prisoner and taunted him into the attack that led to the retaliatory killing. The story suggested he was so schizoid that he thought he still had the suit on-was invulnerable-when he attacked the inmate, proclaiming his innocence all the while. The body, it ended, was to be cremated and the remains taken to an undisclosed location.

Jon folded away the paper and sat on the bed, his face a mask of horror. Eleven innocent people had died at their hands. They were murderers.

“He’s falling for it,” said Faulkner. With Townsend and Reingruber, he was watching Masters on a closed- circuit TV monitor, broadcast via a pinhole camera in his room. “It was a great idea to have the computer print it out on newsprint. And can you believe how he took in all that crap about me being a doctor from Dartmouth? Now I’m his goddamn best friend. Still, I don’t see why you don’t just beat the information out of him, Colonel. He’s as sensitive as a pansy.”

“Because he will faint at the slightest injury and be quite useless to us,” Townsend replied. “The tank wiped him out. And drugs will only dull his mind, and we need that mind to be as sharp as possible. No, physical or chemical techniques will not work. This is the way to proceed. Scientific genius though he may be, he is obviously not trained in misinformation, propaganda, or interrogation-resistance techniques. He is reaching out for a friend, and he has found one in you, and soon in myself.

“His internal clock should be running on our timetable soon-that was programmed when we convinced him he was in the water for ninety minutes, not the fifteen it actually was. And as soon as that occurs, it will be easy to get the information we need.” Townsend walked over to the rack and examined the BERP suit hanging there. “You have not succeeded in discovering how it works?” he asked Faulkner.

“I discovered how to plug in the power and turn it on from the outside, and how to keep it recharged,” Faulkner said. “There are sensors inside the helmet that activate functions that are displayed inside. But I’ve got to figure out how to break the code. Well, we can probably get it from him. The way it’s going, you’ll have him babbling like a kid and squawking like a parakeet in no time.”

“There’s no certainty about that,” said Townsend sharply. “These misinformation and psychological techniques are not foolproof. I am relying on you to break the code and activate that suit. Masters can then fill in the pieces. You had better get back to work. We’ll discuss our next scene with Masters when that is done.”

He turned to Reingruber. “Gute Arbeit, Herr Major.”

The major clicked his heels and bowed.

“Status of the target?”