“Please put the gun down, General McLanahan,” the British voice said.
Patrick spun toward the dining room to the right-empty. But as he turned, he felt the barrel of a gun on the back of his head. The guy was behind him, dammit!-I’m dead!…
“Please don’t do anything rash, General, or more will be hurt needlessly. Decock your weapon, and keep your hands extended.” Patrick thumbed the decock lever on the SIG Sauer P226, which dropped the hammer without firing the weapon. “Very good. Now hold still or you will die.” A gloved left hand reached out and, as the muzzle of the gun continued to press into his head, closed over Patrick’s SIG and plucked it from his hands. “Thank you. Fine weapon. Step forward, hands behind your neck… stop right there.”
Patrick was facing the dining room, but out of the corner of his eye he could see his wife and baby. The hatred and anger bubbled up from his chest and came out in a low growl. “You bastard!” he said. “First a cop-killer, then a baby-killer. You had better kill me now, because if you don’t, I’ll dedicate the rest of my life to hunting you down and killing you.”
“Give me a bit more credit than that, General McLanahan,” the voice answered. “I would never purposely kill non-combatants, especially women and babies. Your wife and beautiful child are alive and sleeping-sedated. I set up this little display for you in case I was not here to greet you upon your return. But I promise I will kill you without hesitation if those men in the hallway try to enter the apartment. I would hate to have noncombatants hurt in a gunfight.” Patrick closed his eyes and said a silent prayer.
“Let me go and check my wife and child.”
“All in good time, General,” the terrorist said. “I have a proposition for you first.”
“Who are you?”
“My name is not important, although I have a feeling you or your associates in the hallway will soon match a name with the voice. You seem to be a very resourceful man.”
“What in hell do you want?” Patrick barked. “You already killed my brother…”
“Nice try, General. I wish that were true,” the terrorist said, “but my men report that we missed. Two decoy vehicles-very clever, very effective. I believed you would not use more than one. And the actual escape was not from the hospital heliport, which we had covered as well. This company you work for, this Sky Masters, Incorporated, appears to be serving you well.
“But the men you had stationed here to guard your family were obviously professional soldiers, highly trained and well-equipped, although young and inexperienced,” the voice went on. “So you appear to still have some connection to the military. Curiouser and curiouser, as they say.”
“Why don’t you just leave us alone?”
“I would be most happy to leave you and your beautiful family alone and conduct my business,” said the Brit, “but you apparently chose to personally involve yourself in my business when you showed up at the Bobby John Club, asking questions about the Sacramento Live! incident.
“We could have passed that little episode off as the deranged, futile efforts of a vengeful sibling, and left it at that. But once we found out who you were, we performed with our usual due diligence and began to discover some very unusual and interesting facts about you-or, to be precise, even more interesting was what we did not find out about you. Such fascinating tidbits of information, like the colorful pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. One source claims you are an ex-military man working for a military contractor, but other sources say you are an Air Force one-star general. But what one-star general does not have a command of his own? You apparently do not, at least not one that my sources can identify. But here we find these obviously military or ex-military men, guarding your family-and more soldiers outside ready to burst in. Very curious.”
“What do you want?”
“A simple request, General McLanahan: We form a partnership. You obviously have special military contacts, far more extensive and secretive than I could ascertain in a short period of time. All you need to do is sell some weapons or information to me. I guarantee to make it worth a great deal to you.”
“What in hell makes you think I have access to anything of value to you?”
“An educated assumption on my part,” said the voice. “But I have learned that general officers typically have access to things that sometimes even they are not aware of. My network is vast and growing quickly, and your access combined with others all over the world may prove very valuable. I would be willing to share the profits of our association with you, a fifty-fifty split, if you agree to join me. I can guarantee that you will make hundreds of thousands of dollars a month-in fact, I am so sure of it that I am prepared to advance that amount to you. I can offer you safe havens anywhere in the world, a new identity, a place of safety for your family and your brother.”
“You can take your offers and shove them up your ass.”
“I expected you to say no less, General-few men of worth decide right away to turn against their country and their uniform,” the terrorist said. “As a professional courtesy, one military man to another, I will give you three days to think about my offer. Take your brother, your wife, and your son, go to your company’s headquarters in San Diego or wherever your secret command is located, and consider my offer. Formulate any questions you wish and ask me when I contact you again.
“But if you refuse, you and I are at war, and I will hunt you and everyone in your family down and slaughter them. This is your one and only warning. If you go to the authorities, I will assume that you have chosen to do battle with me, and then you and yours will all be considered combatants and will be executed. That includes your mother in Arizona, your sister in Texas, and your other sister in New York. Do you understand, General?”
“Yes.”
“Very good. Now, General, down on your face, hands behind your neck.”
Patrick reluctantly did as he was told, realizing now that he should have risked shooting the bastard when he had the chance. The earset was plucked out of his ear, and he felt an object being set on his back. “Attention in the hallway,” the terrorist said into the earset. “I will betaking my leave now. I suggest you hold your position and do not interfere. I have left an explosive device with the general. It is battery-powered and can be set off either by remote control, if the general moves, or if the device’s sensor detects anyone approaching it. It will certainly kill everyone in this room, including the general and his lovely family. If it is not disturbed, it will deactivate itself in about thirty minutes. I think you know what to do. Good day.”
It was a huge relief for Patrick to realize that the man had departed. His greatest fear now was that Wendy or the baby might wake up and set off the explosive. It seemed like only minutes later that he felt a touch on his side, then a crawling sensation up his right thigh. Christ, a rat or a cat or something, he thought in panic. An animal could probably set off the explosive! He fought hard to control his breathing and muscle tremors. The… the thing, or whatever it was, had moved right up onto his back-oh shit, he realized, it was actually sniffing around the object sitting on his back…
“Go! Go!” came a shout seconds later. But before he could even move, Hal Briggs was pulling Patrick to his feet.
“Jesus!” Patrick shouted. “Hal, what are you doing?”
“It’s clear, Patrick, it’s clear,” Hal Briggs said. One commando was checking the rest of the apartment, while the other was checking out the window and covering the front, trying to determine the terrorist’s escape route. “There’s no bomb in here.”
“What the hell was that crawling around on my back?” Patrick said as he shot over to his wife and son.