Joseph E. Rooney Police Facility,

Franklin Boulevard, Sacramento, California

a short time later

Paul met up with LaFortier in the roll call room of the South Sector Substation a few minutes before eight. “Hold it right there, rook,” the big police corporal said. Paul stopped. “Stand ready. Let’s take a look.” Paul stood at parade rest while LaFortier scanned the uniform. “Where’s your damned badge, rook?”

“On my raingear, sir.” Badges were always worn on the outside of outer garments such as jackets or raincoats.

“Let’s see it.” McLanahan handed over his raingear and hat. He was wearing it properly, all right-and he was wearing the badge, the old silver badge. Almost seventy-five years old, it belonged in a museum. Instead, a new cop would be wearing it on the streets of Sacramento, which was as it should be. LaFortier reverently ran his fingers over the heavy silver star for a moment, careful not to get fingerprints on it, then handed the raingear back. “Lots of history behind that star, rook. You better be up for it.”

“I’m ready, sir.”

“Good. And let’s stop with the ‘sir’ stuff unless the LT’s around. I’m Craig or Cargo or partner to you. You ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am’ every other superior officer you see, which will be everyone, until he or she tells you not to or buys you a meal, which will never happen, so keep on doing it.” McLanahan nodded. “Weapon.”

McLanahan unholstered his SIG Sauer P226 semiautomatic service pistol, careful to keep it pointed at the floor with his finger outside the trigger guard. He walked over to a clearing barrel in a corner of the roll call room-a steel fifty-five-gallon drum half-filled with sand and canted at an angle that provided a safe place to load and unload a weapon. Aiming the gun at the sand inside the barrel, he ejected the magazine, opened and locked the slide, retrieved the bullet ejected from the chamber, checked the chamber, and handed the unloaded weapon over to LaFortier. As expected, LaFortier found it spotless-they hammered weapon-care lessons hard at the academy. He checked all of McLanahan’s magazines to make sure each had the maximum fifteen rounds of 9-millimeter subsonic hollow-point parabellum police-load ammo in them. “Lock and load,” he told his new rookie partner as he handed the weapon back. McLanahan reloaded his weapon in the barrel, chambered a round, decocked the action, ejected the magazine, put the sixteenth round back in the magazine to fill it completely again, then holstered and secured the weapon.

Jesus, LaFortier thought, it’s going to be tough to nail this guy on anything. McLanahan didn’t seem to be cocky, but it was always best to nail the rookies on one or two uniform items just to keep them from thinking that their shit didn’t stink. “Handcuffs.”

McLanahan handed over his handcuffs. “One pair? You only expect to arrest one guy at a time?”

“We’re only issued one pair at a time.”

“I know, but I don’t care. Get yourself a double carrier and carry two from now on. Go to Property tomorrow and tell them I told you to get a second one.” He touched the inner claw of each side of the cuffs and spun them; they spun easily. They’d obviously been recently graphited. LaFortier handed them back. “Got a spare handcuff key?” McLanahan reached around behind his back and retrieved a tiny key-in case he was ever handcuffed with his own handcuffs, a hidden spare key could get him out. The Sarge obviously taught his son well, LaFortier thought. “Good. When you get a few pay-checks in the bank, invest in a good Streamlight. The city’s flashlights aren’t worth shit. Keys?”

McLanahan undid his Velcro key holder and retrieved his set of keys-cops were issued a whole wad of them for various rooms, lockers, call boxes, and dozens of other things. He had secured his keys with a thick rubber band to keep them from rattling, leaving only the squad-car key outside the band so it could be retrieved easily. Yep, this kid knew his shit and kept his eyes and ears open. The Sarge had probably rubber-banded his toy keys when he was a youngster, LaFortier thought.

“Very good. Now all you have to do is do the same for the next twenty or thirty years, and you’ll be in good shape.” He turned serious for a moment. “Now, what’s this I hear about you sitting in on an MDT class this afternoon?”

“Yes, sir, I did,” McLanahan said. “They didn’t give us much MDT training in the academy-”

“I know that,” LaFortier interrupted. “You’ll be scheduled for it soon enough. But you need permission from your sergeant before you can request overtime.”

“I didn’t want any overtime-I did it on my own time.”

“For you, there is no ‘own time,’ rook,” LaFortier said. “You work for eight hours and eight hours only, from nine P.M. to five A.M. I had to get permission just to get you in here one hour early. Neither the city nor I want dead-tired rookies on the street. Graveyard is tough, McLanahan. You need every hour of sleep you can get. But more importantly, you did something that I didn’t know about, something I had to hear about from my boss.”

LaFortier leaned forward, getting right in McLanahan’s face so his new partner could look nowhere but in his eyes. “If I don’t teach you anything else in the next six months, rook, you will learn this: We must, we will communicate with each other. We need to act like one out there. I’m not one of those FTO’s who’ll tell you to just shut up and listen and stay out of the way. We need to be each other’s eyes and ears. When one of us is occupied, the other is watching, listening, always on guard. We never work alone. You want something, even if it’s trivial or personal or anything, you tell me. You talk, you tell me what’s on your mind, and you verbalize. You don’t think of yourself, you think of us. Understand?”

“I understand, Craig,” Paul responded. “I was just trying to get pumped up, sir, you know, get a little ahead…”

“I know you’re gung ho, McLanahan,” LaFortier said. “All you McLanahans have a reputation of being bulldogs. But reputations don’t count for shit until you earn yours. Don’t go off freelancing. You got an idea you want to do something, talk to me about it first. I’m your FTO, but I’m also your partner. We work as a unit. Remember that.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Clipboard,” LaFortier said, holding out his hand and taking McLanahan’s metal clipboard.

Good job, LaFortier thought as he studied its contents. McLanahan had indeed put himself ahead of his peers by sneaking into that Mobile Data Terminal class. The department usually took weeks to schedule that class, so the rookies had to absorb as much as they could about the complicated system as they went along. It felt good to be riding along with a rookie who wasn’t afraid to take some initiative, who knew what he didn’t know and went out and got it on his own.

Even the clipboard was put together pretty well. But he could never let McLanahan slide that much, not on the first day. “You’re missing several forms in here, rook,” he said. “I’ll show you what you need to bring. Forms are written in point-five millimeter B lead pencil, not in pen, not in HB lead. And you better have more than one pencil-you’ll probably lose at least three a night. Follow me.”

Mercy San Juan Hospital,

Citrus Heights, California

several hours later

The obstetrician completed his examination. “Still only three centimeters-maybe four,” he said.

Wendy McLanahan was too exhausted to register any reaction except to close her eyes as another contraction began. Patrick’s jaw dropped open. “Doc, you said she was three centimeters eight hours ago. Wendy has had a contraction every three or four minutes since three P.M.! What’s going on?”