“I work for a defense contractor in San Diego. We produce communications, surveillance, and space systems for the US military.”
“You mean satellites? I don’t see how a satellite can help us. If you’ll excuse me…”
“We make other things as well, Chief,” Patrick said. “Weapons. Sensors. We can access information from all over the globe. If you can tell me what you need or what your special objectives might be, I’m sure we can design a system that can help you.”
Barona regarded Patrick with complete exasperation. “Mr McLanahan, you’re not trying to sell me a communications system, are you? Are you a salesman? If you are, this is hardly the time…”
“I’m not trying to sell you anything, Chief,” Patrick retorted. “I’m trying to give you something. I can give you any kind of exotic weapon, sensor, or electronics system you might need to help locate and capture the bastards who killed those cops and put my brother in the hospital. I can outfit your officers so they’d never have to enter a building without knowing exactly how many people are inside and where each and every one is. I can give them the ability to paralyze a roomful of criminals with a single shot. I can make it so an officer would never have to fear a bullet ever again. I can give a single officer the power of-”
“Mr McLanahan, please,” Barona interrupted, rubbing his eyes tiredly. “This all sounds fascinating, but I don’t have the time to-”
“Chief Barona, I’m not making any of this up-I can do all of what I’m saying,” Patrick said. “But it would be better if you gave me some kind of idea about what we’re up against…”
“ ‘What we’re up against’?” Barona mimicked. He closed his eyes, then stepped past Patrick, poised to head away. “Listen to me carefully, Mr McLanahan,” he said. “Let me caution you about something. Interfering with a police investigation is a crime. This crime will also be investigated by agents of the US military, ATF, FBI, the state police, and by volunteers from agencies all across the West. No one kills a cop anywhere in America without brother officers coming to help. But civilians are not permitted to participate. You’d be needlessly endangering yourself and those around you. You don’t have the training and experience it takes to-”
“But I do have the training-and I’ve got the advice, assistance, and equipment necessary to do the job,” Patrick said. “Let me talk to you about this in more detail. I can demonstrate technologies that will astound you.”
“No thank you, Mr McLanahan,” Barona said. “Again, I must warn you-stay away from this investigation. I would hate to punish any family member of a fallen cop, but I will if I must to protect the lives of other cops. Take care of your family and your brother, sir, and leave the investigation to us.” Barona snapped up the collar of his coat, signaling an end to the conversation, and strode off. Chandler nodded to Patrick, looking a little embarrassed by his chief’s tone, and followed behind.
Patrick could do nothing more. He went up to Paul’s room once more and looked through the door window. His brother was asleep. He could see his slow heartbeat and respiration registering on the monitors near the bed. Nurses had access to the room from an interior door that opened on the central nurses’ corridor, and a nurse’s aide was busy recording vital signs right now. The officer was back on duty outside the room, and he gave Patrick a look that clearly warned him to stay away. Now he’s doing his job, thought Patrick bitterly. He nodded to the officer and left.
The drive over to the hospital where Wendy was recuperating was twenty minutes by freeway, and after three days of shuttling back and forth, he could do it in his sleep. It gave him ample time to think.
Barona seemed completely befuddled by this incident. He was good at feeding the press plenty of reassuring and meaningless tidbits, but he seemed more concerned about looking good and engaged and in control rather than actually doing anything to capture the cop-killers. Barona wasn’t the one to talk to, Patrick decided. He had to find the guy in charge of the investigation itself. Maybe he’d be more willing to accept some unconventional assistance from a secret source.
When Patrick entered Wendy’s room a few minutes later, he found her asleep-and Jon Masters sitting in a chair beside the bassinet, cradling the baby in his arms with an expression of unabashed awe. “Jon!” Patrick exclaimed. “What a surprise!”
“Hey, Patrick, look at this little guy,” Jon said, his voice low and a big grin on his face. “He’s great, man, really great. Wendy said it was okay I hold him, and then she fell asleep, so here I am, stuck on baby patrol. Is it okay? You want him back?”
“As long as you don’t plan on keeping him, you’re welcome to hold him,” Patrick said with a smile. He kissed Wendy gently on the forehead, then took a seat beside Jon in the foldout chair-bed he had been sleeping in over the past few days.
They both gazed at the child as if he were a radiant being-which of course he was, at least in his dad’s eyes. He had a mass of soft wavy blond hair with tinges of red all through it, so much of it that it framed his face under his little knitted cap. He had tiny ears, round little shoulders, and solid arms like his father, but a soft, gentle face and a pert little chin like his mother. He opened his eyes when he sensed his father near him, and the two men found themselves looking into the clearest, roundest, most liquid blue eyes either had ever seen. Then he closed them, pursed his lips as if in approval, and fell asleep again.
“What are you going to name him?” Jon asked. “You know, Jon is always a good name…”
“Bradley,” they heard Wendy reply. They turned to see her struggling to sit up in bed. Her stomach muscles were almost useless after the cesarean, so moving was still painful, but she appeared determined to test her muscles more and more every hour. She had gathered her long hair into a ponytail again to keep it in check, and she looked as beautiful and as vibrant as ever. Patrick sat on the bed beside her. “I think we decided that months ago, whether it was a boy or a girl,” she told Jon, holding her husband’s hand. “And since James was my dad’s name…”
“Bradley James McLanahan?” Jon Masters exclaimed, rolling his eyes in mock disbelief. “You gave your son, this cute, innocent, tow-headed little boy, the same name as the scourge of the United States Air Force? Shame on you.” He grinned at them both, then asked, “What about your brother? How is he?”
“They say his condition is improving,” Patrick replied, “but of course that was before we sneaked him out of the hospital to go to the memorial service. He was just about unconscious when we got him back there. The doc prescribed bed rest and no visitors, not even family, for twenty-four hours.”
“How bad is he?”
Patrick shrugged. “He’s alive, thank God. He was shot at close range with a nine-millimeter submachine gun on full automatic. The bulletproof vest saved his life, but he’s still in very serious condition. He’s got a cracked sternum, damaged esophagus, and some internal bleeding in his left lung that might require more surgery. A bullet grazed off his left collarbone and lodged in his larynx, so they had to remove it…”
Jon Masters shrugged. “No sweat. We can replace it.”
Patrick blinked. “What?”
“His larynx. We can replace it with an electronic one. A lot better than the ‘buzzers’ they use now. All internal microchip design. A pretty good duplication of human speech-he won’t sound like a dime-store wind-up robot. What else?”
Patrick looked at Wendy with surprise, and continued: “Some broken ribs, his left shoulder’s gone, his left arm might be destroyed, and his right leg was pretty badly injured…”
“We can fix all that too, Patrick,” Jon said confidently. “Sternum, ribs, scapulas, collarbones-easy. Lightweight fibersteel bone, stronger than steel but lighter than natural bone. Won’t set off any X-ray security machines like Brad’s stuff did.”