“We’re going to fit Paul for an artificial limb-you think a judge is going to deny that, especially if you haven’t made an arrest yet?” Patrick asked. “Exactly how long would you and the chief and the city plan on denying my brother a new left arm?”

“Give me a break, Mr McLanahan!”

“Shut up, both of you!” Paul shouted, his electronically synthesized voice raised for the first time. “Captain, I’ll return to Sacramento any time it’s necessary to do a lineup or testify in court. I trust my brother and his company to keep me safe until I return.”

“Well, I don’t,” Chandler said. “Paul, what do you know about this Sky Masters, Inc.? We did a check on them. Their corporate headquarters are in a little Podunk town in Arkansas. We can’t get any financial records off the computers. We can’t verify any income, get tax returns, or even positively verify that the company is a real business entity. We get no responses on our inquiries from the FBI, the Commerce, Treasury, Labor, or Defense departments…”

“Captain Chandler, the decision’s been made,” Patrick said resolutely. “If the city is going to try to force Paul to stay, go ahead-we’ll see you in front of any judge in the state. Otherwise, we have an ambulance waiting downstairs. What’s it going to be?”

Chandler had no option. McLanahan was right: Chandler’s office had already talked to a judge about compelling Paul to stay, and had been denied. “Then your decoy ambulance and the car that will carry Paul will have motorcycle escorts to block off the intersections. You can’t say no to that.”

“Not the car,” Patrick insisted. “The Suburban is armored, and we’ll have armed security officers inside.”

“Those robbers had anti-tank weapons,” Chandler pointed out. “Even an armored car won’t have a chance.”

“This one will,” Patrick said.

“You’re making a big mistake.” Chandler jabbed a finger at Patrick. “You’re endangering yourself and Paul needlessly.” No response. He was still shaking his head as he departed with the computer sketch artist.

Soon afterward, under police guard, a heavily disguised man in a wheelchair-with a bulletproof vest under his hospital gown-was brought down a service elevator to the underground parking facility and quickly transferred to a waiting Suburban utility vehicle. It looked ordinary, but it was armored with Kevlar, the windows were bulletproof Lexan, and it rode on run-flat reinforced tires. A private ambulance was parked directly in front of the Suburban. Its lights flashing, with two California Highway Patrol motorcycle officers escorting it front and rear, the ambulance sped out of the parking garage and onto Stockton Boulevard. The Suburban followed a moment later, a Sacramento Police Department motorcycle officer behind it.

Just as the Suburban pulled onto Stockton Boulevard, shots rang out and tires exploded on both vehicles. The ambulance screeched to a stop on shredded tires. The Suburban’s driver gunned his engine to escape, but a large blue Step Van delivery truck pulled out of a side street right in front of it, blocking its path. Before the Suburban could pull into reverse, four armed men, each wearing body armor, helmets, and black combat outfits, raced out of the Step Van. The motorcycle officers laid down their bikes and dived for cover as the assailants opened fire on the two vehicles. The ambulance driver and his assistant leaped out the passenger-side door away from the gunfire and ran for their lives.

One of the terrorists lifted a short rocket launcher to his shoulder, shouted, “Die, McLanahan!” and fired an anti-tank rocket into the ambulance, which exploded in a ball of fire. Then all four assailants ran to inspect the Suburban. They found a driver, unconscious but alive, in the front seat-and a headless mannequin, dressed in a hospital gown, in the backseat. The vehicle had taken a point-blank hit from an anti-tank rocket yet was undamaged. Swearing hotly in German, all four ran off to waiting escape vehicles nearby and disappeared.

The wheelchair was just reaching the private helicopter waiting on the roof of the Wells Fargo Building, several blocks west of the UC-Davis Medical Center, when the first reports of the attack came in. “Holy shit!” Hal Briggs shouted. “Both the decoy ambulance and the decoy car were ambushed!” With his.45-caliber Colt automatic in his hands, he checked in with his security team on the rooftop and stationed around the building, and received an all clear. “The ambulance drivers made it out okay; the Suburban driver is hurt but he’ll be okay,” Briggs said to Patrick McLanahan as he received more updates. “That BERP stuff you put on the Suburban saved his life.”

While Paul and the other security men were being loaded aboard, Patrick turned to Briggs and shouted over the roar of the idling helicopter, “What about the security units at the apartment? Have they checked in?” Members of Hal Briggs’s ISA action team were stationed at Paul McLanahan’s apartment in Old Sacramento, where Patrick, Wendy, and their baby had been staying. Hal keyed his microphone, ordering all his security units to check in.

All the teams checked in except one.

Hal Briggs and two of his Madcap Magician commandos, both of them experienced US Marine Corps Special Operations Capable soldiers, moved as one through the stairwell and hallways of the third floor of the Harman Building in Old Sacramento, above the Shamrock Pub. Patrick followed, carrying a SIG Sauer P226 9-millimeter handgun, which looked like a popgun compared to the commandos’ Uzis and MP-5 submachine guns.

There was no sign of the commandos assigned to guard the third floor and the apartment itself. They reached the front door and Briggs tried it silently. It was unlocked. Patrick had briefed the team on the layout, so they were all familiar with the traps inside the apartment: lots of big closets and cabinets, lots of windows on the river side, a large porch on the west side, thin walls, multiple doors to many of the rooms.

Briggs slid a flat fiber-optic camera beneath the door and activated the TV monitor. He gave hand signals to his commandos of what could be seen within: two hostages, one target visible, straight ahead in the living room. Nothing else visible. Open doorways all along the hallway on both sides-an almost impossible gauntlet. Bad guys could pop out of half a dozen doorways the minute they entered.

Briggs’s mind was racing, trying to formulate a plan, when the front door swung open. Guns snapped up to the ready, safeties flicked off…

“Only McLanahan may enter,” the astonished commandos heard, in a British-accented voice. “If anyone else tries to enter, Mrs McLanahan and the child die.”

“Shit,” Briggs whispered. He looked around the entryway as if expecting to spot the wireless TV camera or microphone the intruders used to see them coming. He adjusted his earset commlink and…

“Don’t,” Patrick McLanahan whispered, touching Hal’s shoulder. “I’ll go in. Alone.”

“It’s suicide, Patrick.”

“If he wanted to kill us, I think we’d already be dead by now,” Patrick said. He stood, the P226 in his right hand. He raised it, imitated Hal Briggs’s Weaver pistol grip as best he could, and entered. The sight before him made his blood turn cold. Wendy was seated on a dining room chair, holding the baby, duct-taped in place with more duct tape over her eyes and mouth-both of them covered in blood. Blood was everywhere-down the hallway, splattered across the walls, all over the floor. “Jesus, Hal,” he whispered over his earset commlink. “Wendy, Bradley… my God, I think they’re already dead.”

“Oh Christ!” Briggs cursed. “God, no…”

Patrick continued forward, past the hall closet-empty-past the open door to the first bedroom on the left-empty-and then to the kitchen on the right. There he saw the two Madcap Magician commandos, their throats slit, staring lifelessly into space. The floor was slippery with their blood. On the left the guest bathroom was empty, as was the…