Chapter 18

The Roseville Police Department, being one of the more affluent agencies in the Sacramento area, owned a large motor home that had been converted into a command vehicle for major incidents. Inside, most of the furniture had been removed and replaced by banks of computers, radio equipment, coffee makers, and detail maps of the surrounding region. The command vehicle had been taken out of storage for the first time in more than a year and was now sitting in a parking lot at the intersection of Roseville Parkway and Englewood Avenue, the point where the white van they were looking for had entered the residential tract and disappeared. Lieutenant Don Michaels-the night watch commander for Roseville PD-sat in the command chair facing a radio microphone and two computer screens. One screen displayed a map that outlined the positions of all of the units he had sitting on the perimeter. The other screen displayed the dispatch software that allowed him to send and receive messages. He sipped from a cup of coffee and monitored the radio traffic, waiting for word that the two SWAT teams he'd assembled-one from his agency, one from the Sacramento Sheriff's Department-were ready to move into the perimeter and begin their search.

"Phone call for you, El-tee," said Sergeant O'Hara, who was normally the dispatch supervisor but was now serving as Michaels' secretary. "It's Bailey over at the hospital."

"Thanks, John," he said, taking the phone from him, feeling a worm of dread going through his guts. This would be the call regarding Officer Vic Singer, the officer who had been... well, they weren't sure what had happened to him, other than he'd been hauled into the ER completely unresponsive. Was Bailey going to tell him Singer had been declared dead? Roseville PD-which was basically a suburban department-hadn't had a line of duty death in nearly ten years. "Michaels here. What's the word?"

"He's awake, El-tee," Bailey said.

"What did you say?" he asked, sure that he had heard wrong.

"He's awake," Bailey repeated. "Awake and talking. I just came out of his room. He has a little bit of a headache, but other than that he feels fine."

"You're kidding," Michaels said, feeling more uneasy than elated. Something very strange was going on with this situation.

"I wouldn't kid about something like that, Lieutenant," Bailey told him, sounding a bit miffed. "He's wide awake and remembers everything, right up to when... well, when whatever happened to him happened."

"What do the docs say?" Michaels asked. "Did they find out what happened to him? Was it a taser gun they hit him with? Was he shot? What?"

"There's nothing wrong with him that they can find. Not a damn thing. No marks on his body whatsoever. CT scan was negative. Tox screen was negative. Blood sugar was normal. All of the labs and exams show nothing. There was no reason whatsoever why he should've been unconscious like that, but he was. He was so unconscious that he wouldn't even withdraw from pain."

"And just like that, he woke up?"

"Just like that," Bailey said. "And that's not all."

"What else?"

"I had security pull the tapes from the security cameras covering that entrance, just like you asked."

"Uh huh?"

"Both of the cameras malfunctioned just before it happened, about thirty seconds before it, in fact. And both of them came back on line two minutes after it was over. The security supervisor said he's never seen anything like it before, that he didn't even think it was possible. The camera maintenance guy is coming in... but... well... you know."

"Did any of the other cameras in the system malfunction?" Michaels asked slowly.

"No," Bailey responded. "Everything else was working fine."

"I see," Michaels said slowly. "Did Vic give you a statement?"

"Nothing official yet," he said. "I figured I'd let the detectives take the official one, but like I said, he remembers everything right up to the moment it happened. He says he saw two guys who looked like soldiers or professional wrestlers but they were dressed in housekeeping uniforms. One of them was carrying a briefcase. He says there was no way in hell they were really housekeeping staff. Three other people, two chicks and a dude, all of them dressed in housekeeping uniforms, too, met them and... flashed them with the same sort of thing that took Vic down. He says he saw two blue flashes and the guys dropped like they'd been shot. He went over to detain them and something touched him on the chest. He thinks it was a wire or a strand of metal coming out from the cell phone the blonde chick was carrying. The next thing he knows, he's waking up in the ER with an IV and tubes sticking out of him."

"That matches what the paramedic saw," Michaels said.

"Uh huh," Bailey said. "You know that Vic was tapping the paramedic, right?"

"No," he sighed, "but it doesn't really surprise me. Vic is one of our more... uh... active officers off-duty, isn't he?"

"That's what they say," Bailey said diplomatically.

"Not my concern," Michaels said. "It doesn't seem like she's covering up for anything, does it?"

"No," he said. "She's a hot looking piece but there's not a whole lot of personality there. I mean, she bought that whole 'my wife doesn't understand me' bullshit Vic laid on her. I don't think she's capable of lying on that sort of level."

"Let's just try to keep their relationship, whatever it might have been, away from the boys and girls in the press, shall we? It's not their concern either."

"You know it, El-tee. In any case, I don't think there's any funny business going on with the story. Who would make up some bizarre shit like that?"

"My feelings exactly," Michaels said, leaning back in his seat and stifling a yawn. He sat back up again. "You know something, Bailey?"

"What's that, El-tee?"

"I've been a cop for twenty-four years and I've seen a lot of strange shit, but I think I'm looking at the strangest thing I've ever encountered tonight. What in the fuck happened at that hospital? Why would two men who look like soldiers show up at a hospital in the middle of the night dressed like janitors and carrying a motherfuckin' leather briefcase? Why would another group of people dressed in the same clothes attack them with some weapon we've never seen or heard of before and then drag them off in their van? Why would they burn down a car in the parking lot before they left? Did you hear who the car was registered to?"

"John Smith," Bailey said. "A man who lives at 1234 Main Street in Sacramento and works at 3456 Main Street in Sacramento-except there ain't no fucking Main Street in Sacramento."

"Right," Michaels said. "How in the fuck did they get that address through DMV? And the date of birth? January 1, 1980? You ever heard a more pathetic alias before?"

"No," he said. "Actually I haven't."

"Yet, somehow, they got DMV to accept that crap. The license wasn't forged-it was valid, backed up by the computer and everything, which means there's a birth record on file with social security somewhere." As he articulated it, the strangeness of the whole thing struck him anew. He shook his head. "None of this makes any sense."

"We need to get our hands on these people," Bailey said. "How's it looking for that?"

"We've got a solid perimeter over the whole residential tract. We're pretty certain they're in there somewhere. We got a solid witness statement from some residents who saw them pass through this intersection and we got our perimeter up quick enough that they couldn't have come out the other side. It's just a matter of sniffing them out. Our SWAT team and Sac sheriff's are about to head in from opposite sides. Six K-9 units will be going in with them."

"Hopefully they'll resist arrest," Bailey said, meaning, of course, that he hoped the cops who finally took them into custody would beat the shit out of them first.

"No comment on that," Michaels said, his voice conveying that he very much hoped for the same thing. "Keep me updated if you learn anything else."

"Will do," Bailey told him.

Michaels hung up the telephone and looked at his computer screen again, his eyes appraising the positioning of the perimeter units for about the twentieth time, looking for holes the suspects could potentially slip through. There were none that he could see, especially not with four helicopters circling overhead, probing with their FLIRs.

"Lincoln-one," said the voice of the dispatcher. She sounded excited.

He picked up the microphone and keyed up. "Lincoln-one, go ahead."

"We're online with a female resident from 2406 Pussywillow. She's reporting several males just climbed the fence into her backyard and went out the other side."

He looked immediately at the map, his finger tracing over the screen until it was resting on Pussywillow Street. It was in the southeastern corner of the residential tract, near the very edge of the inhabited portion of Roseville, well inside the perimeter. He decided he would send one of his air units to go check it out. More than likely it was a false report called in by a nervous Nellie who had heard all of the commotion and was starting to imagine things.

His opinion began to weaken a moment later when the dispatcher reported another call, two houses over, in which yet another woman complained of several men jumping her fence and running through her backyard. The third and fourth calls-three and five houses down respectively-erased all doubt. The men who had hospitalized one of his cops, who had burned up a car in a hospital parking lot, who had possibly kidnapped two even more mysterious men, were on the move, heading for the edge of the perimeter.

"All units on the perimeter, this is Lincoln one," he said into the microphone. "We have multiple reports of several men moving through backyards in the vicinity of Pussywillow and Deer Creek. Air units, move in and see if you can spot them. Ground units, let's move the main perimeter in." He consulted his map and began ordering his core units inward, tightening up the noose around them. He shuffled his mutual aid units-cars from Sacramento County, Placer County, Citrus Heights, and Rocklin-around to different positions, creating a looser perimeter on the outside in case some of the men had separated from the main group.

He listened to all of the units acknowledge his orders and then used the mouse to update their positions on the map. His eyes looked for any holes, especially in the outer perimeter. It was a little loose out there, but he saw no patch of ground where someone could walk out without passing before the peering eyes of at least one patrol unit.

"We've got you, motherfuckers," he whispered. "We've got you."

In the empty house under construction, an exact duplicate of Michaels' map floated in the air before Ken's eyes, captured by the Martian hacking technology and generated by the holographic hardware in his cell phone. He was disappointed but not terribly surprised that an outer perimeter had been left in place as a just-in-case measure. It was what he would have done had he been in the incident commander's place and had access to so many units.

"How we looking, Frazier?" enquired Sampson up on Calistoga. "Do you see any holes that I don't see?"

"Well," he said, "the perimeter's been loosened up quite a bit, but it's still intact. We're not gonna be able to just stroll on out of here."

"How much time before they discover we're not really where they think we are?"

"If they don't find a trace of us after fifteen or twenty minutes, they'll start talking to some of the residents where the 911 calls came. Once they realize those calls were never made... well, I don't really know what will happen. It depends on what the guy in charge of things makes of it. From what I see here, though, he seems pretty competent at what he does. If I could get inside his head a little, maybe I could come up with something, but other than that, I don't see an easy way out."

"I can help you get inside his head," Sampson said. "The incident commander is Lieutenant Donald William Michaels, age 48. Hired by the Roseville Police Department August 2, 1983. He's got a bachelor's degree in Criminal Justice with a minor in Business Administration. Two children, both of whom are in college. Night watch commander since a promotion to lieutenant five years ago. Before that, he spent fourteen years as a patrol sergeant and five years as a rank and file patrol officer. Belongs to the First Presbyterian Church of Roseville, though not a frequent patron of the establishment. On his second marriage and his current wife is being pharmaceutically treated for clinical depression. He has a mistress named Doreen Johnson, age 31, whom he has been seeing secretly for the past two years. He has two alternate names on his Internet access that he uses to subscribe to various pornographic sites with. His sexual kinks-based on the type of material he stores on his computer-seems to be submissive sexual games involving women dressed in black leather outfits and tying him up to a bed. He also..."

"Whoa," Ken interrupted. "Hang on a second. How do you know all of this shit?"

"It's standard Intelligence doctrine to gather all possible information about one's adversaries. Our hacking software pulled up his personnel file, Internet habits, and even looked through the hard-drive of his home computer. We've not only done this for Michaels, but for every officer staffing the perimeter."

"Really?" Ken asked. "Every officer?"

"As I said," Sampson told him. "It's standard doctrine. Is there anything in Michaels' file that might help you predict his next move? That's why we do it."

"No... it's very interesting, but it doesn't really help much."

"Maybe there's something about one of the other officers then," Sampson suggested. "One of the ones on the perimeter. The computer automatically outlines information that's potentially compromising against the current moral standards."

"Huh?" Ken said, not quite getting him, and certainly not seeing how any of this would help.

"For instance," Sampson said. "Officer Michelle Ringer with the Sacramento Sheriff's Department has a husband who often hits her, sometimes hard enough to get her hospitalized. Officer Jim Edwards with the Placer County Sheriff's Department has an addiction to a prescription drug called Xanax and often uses a false Internet identification to get it. Officer Todd Madison with the Rocklin Police Department is a pedophile with an extremely large collection of child pornography stored on his home hard-drive. Officer Randolph Smith of the Citrus Heights Police Department is embezzling money from the police union. Officer..."

"Hold up a second," Ken interrupted, a glimmer of an idea flashing through his mind. "Go back to the child molester guy. Tell me more about him."

"Officer Todd Henry Madison," Sampson said. "Born July 7, 1971. Joined the Rocklin Police Department in 1993. We have evidence of the standard psychological problems that such people go through in their adolescent years. It seems he came to grips with his desires right around the time of his college graduation. His target group is eight to eleven year old boys. We have no actual incidents on file of him fulfilling his urges to have sex with young boys but that's only because such things are not generally documented. There is anecdotal evidence to suggest he does engage in such activities on a regular basis. He is unmarried and only dates single mothers with eight to eleven year old male children. He volunteers as a little league baseball coach and as a Boy Scout leader-both activities that pedophiles frequently pursue in this society as it puts them in close proximity with their target. Cross references of several children he's been in contact with over the years show classic psychological profiles consistent with those who have been molested by people such as Todd. And the pornography collection on his hard-drive, as I've mentioned, is quite extensive. He has over six thousand images of naked boys alone, engaging in sex acts with each other, and engaging in sex acts with men. Ninety-six percent of these images are classified as illegal under current federal and state law."

"Can you access those images?" Ken asked. "Did he leave his home computer turned on?"

"He didn't leave it turned on," Sampson said, "but that doesn't matter to us. It's still hooked up to an Internet access line. That means we can get into it. Is there something we can use here, Frazier? I don't have to tell you that time is rankin' short."

"Where is he on the perimeter?" Ken asked, his mind whizzing along at a mile a minute, trying to formulate a plan.

"He's holding the intersection of Whistling Oak and Black Oak," Sampson told him.

Ken looked at the map, his eyes going to that intersection. Yes! That point in the perimeter was not visible to the surrounding units. He expanded the map view so it showed the streets beyond the perimeter. Yes again! If they could get by that particular point they could get out to an unguarded main artery without being seen. He expanded the map even further, looking for potential pitfalls, looking for the quickest route out of the area. It could work. With a little luck, it could work.

"Frazier?" Sampson asked. "You still with me, Dawg?"

"I'm here," Ken said. "Listen up. This is my plan..."

Todd Madison sat slumped behind the wheel of his patrol car, his eyes tracking over the landscape before him. His point in the outer perimeter sat at the edge of the developed area. To the south of him were empty lots where construction had yet to begin. To the north of him was a row of silent, darkened model homes and a few lots where the frames of houses had started to go up. In the far distance, several miles away, he could see the lights of the circling helicopters as they tried to flush out the suspects that had assaulted a Roseville PD officer and put him in the hospital.

Todd was only semi-interested in the great scheme of which he was a part. He hoped they would catch the people who had taken down one of his colleagues but he was more interested in a quick end to the situation so he could go back to Rocklin and find a dark parking lot and catch a few winks. He hated working the goddamned night shift but he was doing his time, making the good-old-boy network that ran Rocklin PD happy so he could maybe get his dream assignment sometime next year. If he played his cards right he would be the next Rocklin Elementary School District resource officer when that fuckstick John Stevenson finally retired. The very thought caused his cock to stiffen in excitement. He would be the cop assigned to all of Rocklin's elementary schools! Oh the young boys he would come into contact with in that assignment! The most troubled of them-which meant those who were his most likely targets-would actually be assigned to counseling sessions with him. He had worked his entire career to achieve such a posting. The opportunities it would produce would be much greater than his Boy Scout gig or his youth baseball gig. He might get his hands on some young, hot, innocent piece of boyhood once a month instead of the two to three times a year he now averaged.

"Oh God," he sighed, his cock now fully erect as he imagined the possibilities. Talk about your dreams come true.

A beep emanated from the computer terminal mounted between the front seats. He turned toward it absently, figuring it was a personal message from one of the other Rocklin PD units staffing the perimeter. But it wasn't. His breath caught in his throat as he saw what was on the screen. His erection instantly wilted, driven away by the burst of adrenaline that surged through his body.

Rocklin PD, like many upscale suburban police departments with budget money to burn, made a point to utilize the latest in technology. As such, the mobile communication terminals in each patrol car were more than simple text screens. They were fully functional notebook computers, powered by the latest Intel computer chip and the latest version of Windows. Though they weren't normally used for displaying digital photograph files, they were certainly more than capable of that function, as evidenced by the fact that a high-resolution picture in full color was now gracing Todd's screen. He recognized the photo instantly. It was one that he had stored on his hard-drive at home, one he had acquired by means of a false identity and stolen credit card data. It was a picture of a young boy, around nine years old, naked and kneeling before a hairy, fully grown, and equally naked man with a large, erect cock. The boy had this cock in his hand and was about to put it in his mouth. The expression on the boy's face was one of nervous anticipation.

"What the fuck?" he whispered in horror. What was this picture doing on his MDT? How had it gotten there?

Before he had time to fully comprehend these questions, there was a beep and the picture disappeared, only to be replaced by another image-this one of a naked eleven year old boy bending over in the classic position of sexual submissiveness. This image was also one that was on his hard-drive, was in fact one he frequently used for masturbation.

There was another beep, and another image appeared, and then another, and then yet another. They began to go by quickly, each appearing for about two seconds and each an image from the collection he kept on his hard-drive-images he had collected over a ten-year period from a variety of Internet sources. With each beep, with each new shot on his work screen, more adrenaline surged through him and his sense of panic increased. How was this happening? Who was doing it? And, most important, how had they found his collection? He had always been so careful to hide the shots in secure, password-protected files. How in the hell was this possible?

The slide show went on for almost two minutes, displaying all of his favorite shots in what seemed to be the order of preference. He could not tear his eyes away from it. Finally, the images stopped and a message appeared instead. FIVE TO TEN YEARS IN PRISON, TODD, it said. THAT'S WHAT THE KIDDY PORN ON YOUR COMPUTER ALONE WILL GET YOU, BUT IT WON'T END THERE, WILL IT?

"Whuu... whuu," he stammered, now trembling from fear. Todd! They had called him by name.

Another message appeared. IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING THAT YOU'LL LOSE YOUR JOB AND THAT YOUR NAME WILL BE ALL OVER THE PAPERS. BUT IT WON'T END THERE. THEY'LL KNOW YOU'VE DONE MORE THAN DOWNLOAD ILLEGAL PORN. THEY'LL START LOOKING AT THE BOY SCOUTS YOU'VE HAD IN YOUR TROOP, AT THE BOYS YOU'VE COACHED IN BASEBALL, AT THE SONS OF THE WOMEN YOU'VE BEEN DATING. YOU'RE A COP. HOW LONG DO YOU THINK IT WILL TAKE BEFORE THE FIRST KID COMES FORWARD? HOW LONG DO YOU THINK IT WILL TAKE BEFORE THE DOMINOES START TO FALL AFTER THAT?

He was now completely incapable of speech. He had never been more terrified in his life. Everything that his MDT was telling him was correct. He could not begin to delude himself that it wasn't. If his collection of pictures came to light it would be a matter of weeks before some kid somewhere would spill his guts. He would go to prison, probably not for life, but his life would be ruined and he would be required to register as a sex offender forever.

There was another beep. BUT IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY, the message read. THERE IS A WAY OUT OF THIS MESS.

A way out? How? How could there be a way out? What in the hell was going on here?

WE DON'T GIVE A RAT'S ASS ABOUT YOU OR YOUR KIDDIE PORN, TODD. THERE ARE THINGS GOING ON HERE TONIGHT THAT ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOUR PERVERTED LITTLE BRAIN COULD EVER HOPE TO CONCEIVE OF. THE PERIMETER YOU ARE STAFFING IS JEOPARDIZING AN ONGOING GOVERNMENT OPERATION RELATED TO THE WAR ON TERROR. THE PATRIOTIC MEN AND WOMEN TRAPPED IN THIS PERIMETER MUST BE ALLOWED TO COMPLETE THEIR MISSION WITHOUT INTERFERENCE. ONE OF OUR AGENTS IS GOING TO APPROACH YOU FROM THE WEST, JUST BEHIND THE MODEL HOME. YOU WILL ALLOW HIM TO COME CLOSE ENOUGH TO CONVERSE WITH YOU. YOU MAY KEEP YOUR WEAPON BELT ON BUT DO NOT ATTEMPT TO DRAW YOUR PISTOL AND DO NOT COMMUNICATE WITH ANYONE VIA YOUR RADIO. IF YOU COOPERATE, YOUR LITTLE HOBBY WILL REMAIN YOUR SECRET. IF YOU DO NOT, YOU WILL BE IN A JAIL CELL AWAITING TRIAL WITHIN 24 HOURS. IF YOU AGREE TO THIS, STEP OUTSIDE OF YOUR VEHICLE AND STAND AT THE FRONT OF IT.

A government operation! he thought, his terrified mind grasping at this straw. That made perfect sense! He had always suspected the United States Government was more powerful than it let on. Who else would know about his... well... his habits and computer files? And the bizarre circumstances of what had happened at the hospital tonight served to lend credence to this explanation. When you came down to it, it really made no sense that a group of men dressed as janitors would attack another group of men with some unidentified weapon and then burn down their car before leaving. Unless, there was some sort of shadowy government conspiracy behind it.

The MDT beeped again. TIME IS SHORT, TODD AND WE'RE DONE FUCKING AROUND WITH YOU. STEP OUTSIDE YOUR VEHICLE IN THE NEXT FITEEN SECONDS OR THE OFFER IS WITHDRAWN AND A COMPLETE COPY OF YOUR COMPUTER HARD-DRIVE WILL BE SENT TO EVERY POLICE AGENCY IN THE GREATER SACRAMENTO AREA, INCLUDING THE FBI AND THE DOJ! MOVE IT, ASSHOLE!

He had no time to think things over or try to analyze the situation. There was only one clear course of action, and that was to do what he was told and hope that whoever was communicating with him was sincere. He opened his car door and stepped out, keeping his trembling hands well away from his holstered pistol. He walked over to the front of the car and stopped, his eyes looking over at the model homes. A few seconds passed and there was movement from that direction. A man stepped out of the darker shadows and started heading toward him, not running but not exactly walking either. As he got closer Todd's police-trained eyes automatically catalogued him. White male, mid-twenties, six feet, maybe 180 pounds, wearing blue jeans and a short-sleeved shirt. He held something in his right hand but it wasn't a gun. When he got about twenty feet away-just out of effective pistol range-he stopped.

"What now?" Todd asked, his voice shaky.

"As enjoyable as it would be to castrate you with a rusty knife," the man said conversationally, "the message on your MDT was truthful. You will not be harmed and your secret will not be revealed as long as you cooperate."

"You want me to just let you and your people walk through here?" he asked. "I can do that, but chances are you'll get picked up again before you can..."

"That's not exactly what I had in mind," the man interrupted, pointing his hand at him.

Todd instinctively dropped his hand down to the butt of his gun, his thumb releasing the snap that held it in place.

"Get that fucking hand back up!" the man barked. "I told you, I'm not going to hurt you."

Todd did as he was told, though reluctantly. He saw something extend from the object in the man's hand, something that looked like a rigid piece of wire. It glinted in the moonlight as it traversed the distance between the man and himself. It nestled up against his chest, touching him just below the badge. He tried to back away.

"Stay where you're at and listen carefully if you want to get out of this," the man told him. "As I said, time is short. You down with it?"

"Uh... well... yeah, I'm uh... down with it," he said, eyeing the piece of metal that was touching him.

"This is a stun gun of sorts," the man said. "It will put you out like the cop at the hospital was put out and you'll wake up in thirty minutes or so no worse for wear."

"I don't want to... I mean, you can just..."

"Shut your ass," the man barked. "It doesn't hurt. I just need you out of the way and I need your car. When you wake up, tell them someone snuck up on you and that's the last thing you remember. Got it?"

"Uh... yes, but, can't we..."

"No," the man said. "We can't."

Todd had the vaguest impression of a blue flash and then he knew no more. He was unconscious even before he hit the pavement.

Ken stepped over the prostrate body of the pedophile cop, resisting the urge to deliver a swift kick to his groin. He opened the driver's door of the blue and white Crown Victoria and sat down in the driver's seat. A wave of fresh nostalgia washed over him as he settled in. He was in a police car again after all these years! Although he was stealing it instead of working in it, it still smelled the same as he remembered, still felt the same, was still full of familiar equipment.

"No time for sentimental bullshit," he whispered to himself. He set his cell phone down in his lap and turned the ignition key, hearing the engine roar to life with eight cylinders of power. He dropped the gearshift into reverse and backed around for a few feet so he wouldn't run over his good friend Todd. He then dropped it into drive and put the accelerator down, tearing down Whispering Oak Street at high speed. He kept the headlights off as he drove, navigating by moonlight. Once he was well underway he picked up the cell phone again and dialed up Spankworth.