“The list is pretty long, Chief,” Patrick said. “By the way: you haven’t seen that woman I was with yesterday around here, have you?”
“Sorry, General.”
Patrick nodded his thanks and departed.
They drove the ten miles to town, checking the bus terminal, casinos, motels, and hospital, hoping to see Gia somewhere, but still no luck, so they headed back to the base. After they arrived at his office, he took a phone call: “Hi, Patrick, Darrow here,” Darrow Horton said. “I’m on my way to Reno to talk with the U.S. attorney in person, and I should be in Battle Mountain by seven P. M. I’m bringing a couple of associates. Can you get us rooms somewhere?”
“Sure — I’ll put you up right here on base at the transient lodging facility. It’s just as nice as the casino hotels in town, and the all-ranks club has great food and is begging for business,” Patrick said. “It’ll be nice to see you. What’s going on?”
“Based on my discussions with the U.S. attorney, I think he’s reluctant to indict you,” Darrow said. “I’m pushing for probation and a fine in exchange for a misdemeanor plea, but he’s getting pressure from guys like former president Gardner to push for a felony prosecution. So I’m going to apply a little pressure of my own:
“Jon Masters has arranged to fly in to Battle Mountain to surrender his equipment to the FBI tomorrow morning,” she went on. “I’ve called a news conference with you, me, Jon, Brad, the robot, and the Tin Man, and we’re going to explain our side of the story and tell what crazy, irresponsible, and probably illegal foolishness the FBI has been doing out there. I want to tell the whole story, right from the very beginning — how the FBI was supposed to be going after extremists and ended up going after
“Sounds good to me,” Patrick said. “I’m ready and anxious to tell my side of the story to a judge, but I’m more than happy to tell it in front of news cameras too.”
“You bet we will,” Darrow said. “We’ll be in their face every week polluting the jury pool until the trial starts. We’ll make everyone in America thinks Gardner has a vendetta against you — which he probably does.
“Now, I probably can’t protect you from what the Tin Man and CID did to those agents, and we might even be facing a felony plea, but I think we can avoid confinement,” Darrow went on. “My plan is to have you admit that the Tin Man and CID were operating under your orders — I’m not even referring to the operators as persons. The U.S. attorney would rather focus on you than Macomber and Turlock, although they might get misdemeanor charges as well.”
“I agree,” Patrick said. “They were definitely following my orders.”
“But you were protecting yourself and protecting your son from Chastain and Brady, the best way you knew how. Good. It’ll be easy to make them the bad guys and the robot and Tin Man the defenders. So, how’s Gia? Am I finally going to meet this woman?”
“She left sometime yesterday morning, after we got back from Scottsdale. I think seeing the trailer destroyed was too much for her.”
“I’m sorry. Try not to let her distract you too much. Tomorrow will be a big day.”
“Okay. Give me a call when you get close and I’ll meet you at the front gate.”
“Can’t wait to see you again, Patrick,” Darrow said, and she sounded
“Well, I can’t see anything from here,” Leif Delamar said. Leif was a retired mail carrier and avid hunter, and his rugged six-foot-five frame, creased face, and weathered hands were living portraits of his longtime love for the outdoors. He was looking through a pair of binoculars at the base of Judah Andorsen’s Freedom-7 mine. He and Michael Fitzgerald were in Leif’s Land Rover about a half mile from the mine at a barbed-wire fence that marked the edge of Andorsen’s land. He handed the binoculars to Michael. “What do you see, Fid?”
Michael searched for a few minutes, then lowered the binoculars and gave them back. “Nothing. Looks like business as usual.”
Leif studied the printout he made of the computer image, rotating the page so it was oriented the same way they were facing, then started tracing the different roads snaking up and down the face of the open-pit mine. “Okay, I see the two main truck roads going in,” he said, “and the west terraces here.”
“They’re called ‘benches,’ ” Michael said.
“Well, aren’t we the mining expert today?” Leif quipped. “Anyway, I see the haul roads, and the benches, and…” He picked up the binoculars and looked again. “I see a couple tunnels built into the sides of the pit. Do you know what they’re for?”
“Usually they’re just relief bores to keep water from loosening the rock,” Michael said. “They sometimes reinforce the walls with cables or shotcrete from inside the bores. If this mine ends up becoming a landfill in the future — most of them do — they also have to dig drainage tunnels to keep the pit from becoming a lake.”
“You are just a veritable font of fascinating information this morning, Fid,” Leif said. He focused in on one of the bores indicated as an activity spot on the printout. “Well, those bores look pretty big — almost like tunnels. I do see a lot of water coming out, and… hey, I think I see a couple cars lined up near one of those bores.” He looked more carefully. “Why, I think one of those cars is a sheriff’s cruiser.”
“What?” Fid took the glasses and looked. “It sure does. What in heck is the sheriff doing down in an open-pit mine?”
“Doing his job, I hope,” Leif said. “That’s the first sheriff’s car I’ve seen in days. Very weird.” He took the glasses back. “I don’t see anything else all that unusual. Maybe the sheriff is investigating something they found inside the bore, or they’re…
“What?”
“There’s a panel truck coming out of that bore!” Leif said. He studied the scene carefully for a few moments, tracking the newcomer, then exclaimed, “It’s a blue Air Force maintenance truck!”
“A
“It’s one of those big blue Air Force ‘bread trucks’ we see all the time on the flight line,” Leif said. “The ones usually driven by the maintenance supervisor. Now what in heck would… ?” At that moment Leif was interrupted by the sound of a vehicle driving up the dirt road behind them. It was a two-door Jeep Wrangler, with two men aboard.
“Looks like a couple of Andorsen’s guys,” Michael said. “No sweat — we’re not on Andorsen’s property here.”
Leif lowered the binoculars, folded up the image printout, stuffed it in a pocket, and watched the Jeep approach. It roared to a stop a few yards away, and the passenger got out while the driver started talking on the radio. “Hey, guys,” Leif said. “We’re just out here checking deer trails. What’s going on?”
The passenger walked up to Leif and Michael, pulled a.45-caliber semiautomatic pistol from a hidden holster, and fired two shots.
The cameras were rolling and the media crews were ready as the C-57 Skytrain II glided in for a landing and taxied over to where the podium was set up outside the Civil Air Patrol hangar. It shut down engines, the landing gear extended to make room underneath the plane to unload cargo, and the cargo-bay doors opened. Meanwhile Jon Masters walked out of the belly hatch and came over to the podium, followed by Wayne Macomber, wearing the Tin Man armor but carrying his helmet in the crook of an arm. Behind them, Jason Richter and Charlie Turlock retrieved the folded Cybernetic Infantry Device and carried it over to the podium.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is Dr. Jonathan Masters of Sky Masters, Inc., a major American defense contractor and aerospace engineering firm,” Darrow Horton said into the microphones. Beside her were Patrick and Brad McLanahan, already at the podium. “He is here complying with an order from a federal judge in Reno to surrender this aircraft, various electronic components, computers and storage media, and these two pieces of technology: the Tin Man armor system, being worn by Mr. Wayne Macomber of Sky Masters, Inc., and this: the Cybernetic Infantry Device manned robot, of which I think you’re aware after one was attacked by extremists
