A Time for Patriots (34 page)

It was the most difficult practice Brad ever remembered since he started playing football, but he made it through it. He limped back to the scooter and loaded up. He seriously thought about skipping work, but he needed the money. A couple more aspirins would probably take the edge off enough for him to make it through work. He started up the scooter, readjusted the equipment bag on his shoulder one more time to find a more comfortable position, headed out of the parking spot toward the exit . . .

. . . and before he could react, a car screeched backward out of its parking spot and crashed into the front of his scooter, traveling about ten miles an hour. Brad was thrown backward off the scooter from the weight of his equipment bag. The car kept on going, backing right over the scooter.

“Hey, asshole!”
Ron Spivey shouted, running up to Brad. The car was about fifteen feet away, revving its engine. He saw two guys in the front seat, both wearing sunglasses, both with baseball caps. The guy in the passenger side was yelling something that Ron couldn't understand, gesturing with his right hand like a knife blade at the driver as if he was stabbing him.
“Someone call the cops!”
Ron shouted, and threw his football helmet at the car, cracking the windshield. More players ran toward them, shouting. The car suddenly shifted into gear and roared out of the parking lot. “
Jesus,
Brad, are you okay?”

“I don't know,” Brad said, holding his left leg.

“Stay down, Brad,” Ron said. “I'm calling 911.” He pulled out his cell phone. “Man, that guy was
haulin'
out of that parking space! What in hell was he doing? And he didn't have any license plates either!”

Brad felt a creaking and grinding when he tried to move his left leg, and the pain shot through his entire body all the way to the top of his head. “Shit, I hope it's not broken,” he grunted through clenched teeth.

“It's just not your day, hombre,” Ron said. “First you get beat up, and then you get run over. What's next for you, pal?”

Brad didn't even want to think about
that
.

Andorsen Memorial Hospital, Battle Mountain, Nevada

A short time later

T
imothy Dobson walked into the hospital room, noting that there were no other persons in the room except Patrick and Brad. Patrick was seated on Brad's bed beside him; Brad had his left leg slightly elevated in a temporary cast, his left arm also in a temporary cast, and his torso wrapped. Patrick saw Dobson enter, and his face immediately filled with concern. “Hello, General,” Dobson said. “Hi, Brad.”

“Tim? What's going on?”

Dobson turned and locked the door. “How are you, Brad?” he asked.

“Okay.”

“He's lucky—no broken bones, just sprains, bruises, and scrapes,” Patrick said. “They're keeping him overnight for observation. We're waiting for X-rays on internal injuries.” Dobson nodded. “What's up, Tim? Do you have information on who hit Brad?”

“Not yet,” Dobson said. “We've got a good description of the car from witnesses, and we're checking freeway, intersection, and security cameras. We'll know something soon.” He looked at Brad. “Any idea who might have done this, Brad? Ever seen the car before?”

“No.”

Dobson nodded, a very somber look on his face. “While you were getting X-rays, Brad, your dad told me about getting beat up at the bowling alley last night.” Brad looked down at his hands. “I asked around, thinking the same guys that ran you over might have beat you up . . . but no one saw you at the bowling alley last night.”

“Brad?” Patrick asked. “Why the story? Where were you last night?” Brad said nothing. “I said: Where were you?” He was getting angrier by the moment. “Damn it, Brad answer me! What the hell is going on?”

“I can't tell you.”

“Why the hell not?” But Brad only kept his eyes averted. Patrick turned to Dobson. “Well?”

“Maybe this is between you two, sir.”

“Where was he, Dobson?”

The agent hesitated for a moment, then said, “We tracked his cell-phone signals from your hangar . . . to the hangar the FBI is using on the base.”

“What?”
Patrick exclaimed. He whirled back to stare in astonishment at his son. “Why in hell would you go there?” Still no answer. “Damn it, Brad, I'd rather hear it from you than from Mr. Dobson, but I
am
going to hear what happened, one way or another. Were you arrested? What were you doing there?” No answer. Patrick jumped to his feet and yelled,
“Answer me, damn it!”

“I was told not to tell you,” Brad said. “They told me I'd be arrested and taken to jail in San Francisco if I told you.”

“
Jail?
What are you talking about? Told me what?”

Brad sniffed away a silent sob. Patrick knotted his fists, fighting to keep his anger in check. He whirled back to Dobson. “Well?”

“His cell-phone records have a call last night to Special Agent Cassandra Renaldo from Homeland Security.”

“
Renaldo?
You were going to meet Renaldo? What for?” Brad didn't answer, but he didn't need to—the whole thing was becoming clear to Patrick now. “Jesus, Brad, you were seeing Renaldo?” Brad nodded. “But you didn't see her last night, did you?” Brad started to cry, his shoulders shaking. “Chastain and Brady? They did this to you?” His son was sobbing, and Patrick's heart broke, spilling red-hot acidic fury through his veins. “What did they do to you?”

“They thought I broke into the hangar and was going to steal their computers,” Brad said through the sobs. “They handcuffed me and searched me. Then they found the airsickness medicine Cassandra gave me and told me it was cocaine.” Patrick's hands flew up to his eyes in horror. “They told me if I didn't do as they said, they were going to arrest me and take me to jail in San Francisco, and you wouldn't know where I was for days. They said I'd go to prison for a long time.”

Patrick sat back down on the bed and hugged his son, letting him weep for several long moments. “What did they tell you to do, Brad?” he finally asked.

“They . . . they told me to tell them what you were doing,” Brad said. “I was supposed to spy on you. I didn't want to, Dad, but I didn't want to go to prison, and I didn't want Cassandra to get into trouble.”

“It's okay, Brad, it's okay,” Patrick said. “You're not going to prison.”

“I didn't break into the hangar,” Brad said. “I didn't try to burglarize the hangar. And it wasn't cocaine, I swear!”

“I said don't worry, Brad,” Patrick said. “Don't worry about Chastain, Renaldo, or Brady. They're going to be gone from here shortly, and you won't have to worry about them again.”

“Cassandra?” Brad looked up at his father. “She . . . she was in on it, wasn't she? She didn't like me—it was all a setup to get me to spy on you.” He started to cry again. “Why am I such a dork, Dad?” he said, burying his face into Patrick's chest. “I don't know crap about
anything
!”

“It's not your fault, big guy,” Patrick said, holding his son closely again. “Brad, there are people out there who just victimize other people, take advantage of them for their own purposes, no matter how badly it hurts others. We have to learn to watch out for people like that and stop them whenever we can.” He took a deep breath, then said, “I know I wasn't around for you much when I was in the Air Force and working outside, Brad, and even after we moved here, I wasn't here for you as much as I should have been. I was pretending I was still in the Air Force, flying Civil Air Patrol and Angel Flight West missions, when what I should have been doing is being your dad and teaching you about scumbags like Chastain, Brady, and Renaldo. All that is going to change.”

He stood up, touched Brad's face, then laid him back on his pillow. To Dobson, he said, “Can you arrange protection for Brad, Tim?”

“U.S. Marshals should be arriving in a few hours,” Dobson said. “I can stay with him until they get here. The vice president wants to move him to—”

“We're not leaving,” Patrick said. “We're going hunting.” He pulled out his cell phone and started making calls.

Joint Air Base Battle Mountain

That night

B
rady and Renaldo were seated at the desk in the FBI hangar, watching the latest images on their laptops being transmitted from the FBI agents conducting video and photographic surveillance of the Knights of the True Republic's compound; Chastain was in the communications room taking a nap. Brady heard a rattle on the main hangar door. “What was that?” he asked.

“Sounds like the thunderstorms are kicking up,” Renaldo said. “We're supposed to get some big ones tonight.”

“These are nothing,” Brady said. “When I was assigned to the Dallas office, we'd get every possible kind of storm—snow, hurricanes, tornadoes, and these huge towering thunderstorms that would hang around for—”

Suddenly they heard the screeching ear-shattering sound of ripping metal, and the two flew to their feet and turned toward the hangar door. A huge twenty-foot-high seam of torn metal opened up right in the center of the hangar door, and like a pair of curtains being opened, the metal seam burst apart . . . and the Cybernetic Infantry Device robot stepped through the newly created opening as easily as a child walking through the curtain onto the stage at a kindergarten recital.

“What the hell are you doing?”
Brady shouted. “Who is that in there?”

The robot rushed forward with incredible speed. As Brady and Renaldo scrambled to get out of its way, it reached out, put its armored hands on either side of the desk, and brought its hands together. The desk and computers were squished together into one lump in a shower of sparks and flying wood and metal. It then grabbed Brady and Renaldo by the throat and lifted them off their feet.

“What's going on in here?”
Philip Chastain thundered, running from the comm room. “What's that thing doing in here? It's tearing the place apart!”

At that instant the side hangar door flew off its hinges and sailed across the hangar like a leaf tossed about in a hurricane, and a man in a gray outfit whom Chastain had never seen before, with a multifaceted helmet and devices on his waist, stepped through the opening. He walked toward Chastain. The special agent drew a semiautomatic pistol and fired three times at him, but the man kept on coming. Chastain kept on firing until the pistol was empty, but the figure still advanced. It appeared as if it was going to walk right past him, but instead it reached around behind Chastain's neck, picked him up, and carried him over to the CID, suspending him two feet off the hangar floor. Both figures stood with their struggling prisoners, facing the destroyed hangar door . . .

. . . as Patrick McLanahan stepped through the newly created opening.

“McLanahan!”
Chastain grunted through the pressure on his neck. The others were desperately trying to chin themselves up the best they could to keep from being strangled. “What in hell do you think you're doing?”

“Issuing you a warning, Chastain,” Patrick said. He walked up to Chastain, and the armored figure lowered him down so they were face-to-face. “Your operation here is at an end. You are going to leave this state, or you're going to die.”

“
Die?
You're threatening to
kill me
? Are you
crazy
? I'll see you're put in prison for the rest of your life!”

“I don't think so, folks,” Patrick said. The Tin Man commando squeezed Chastain's neck a little tighter, which made his mouth open and his tongue protrude like a drowning victim gasping for air. Patrick shoved a tiny capsule into his mouth, and when the Tin Man relaxed his hold on his neck, Chastain involuntarily swallowed the capsule when he took a gulp of air. Patrick did the same with Brady and Renaldo.

“What the hell was that, McLanahan?” Chastain shouted. “Are you poisoning us?”

“I gave you each a nanotransponder,” Patrick said. “It's the same capsule given to legal U.S. guest workers. I can track your position at any time, and you can't stop it, because your body will be filled with microscopic electronic transmitters that will report your position as long as you're alive.” He stepped closer to Chastain. “You are going to leave Nevada and terminate your surveillance of the Knights' compound.”

“Like hell I will!” Chastain shouted. “I have an operation under way—”

“And you will cancel it as of tonight,” Patrick said. “All of your agents will move out of Nevada. If anyone asks, you will tell them that the Knights are not a threat and you will conduct your surveillance elsewhere.”

“Like hell I will!”

“If you don't, Agent Chastain, I will kill you, and I will kill Brady and Renaldo too,” Patrick said simply. “They will eventually find your decomposing bodies in the desert, perhaps months, maybe years from now, or maybe never. The FBI may eventually trace the murders to me, but by then you will be long dead.”

Patrick moved to within a breath's distance from Chastain. “You touched my son, you son of a bitch, and you threatened him, and you hit him,” he said, his eyes wide with rage, a vein in his temple pulsing with fury. “I should kill you right now, just for that. I'm within a red cunt hair's breadth of ordering the Tin Man to scrunch you up into a tiny round red ball of goo and drop-kick you across to the other side of the base. I'll gladly trade ten years in prison for the privilege of watching him do that—and, I assure you, he's done it before, with
great
enthusiasm, for a lot less motivation than this. Or, I could just take the videos of you and my son you claim to have to the U.S. attorney, and see what would happen to you. I'd put enough pressure on him and the attorney general to fire you, maybe even bring you up on criminal charges.