The Tin Man

“All right, all right, I’m in. I don’t know how in hell you expect you and a hundred hired guns to go up against five thousand Brothers, but I’m in.” Be

It lasted only a few seconds, but Be

Sure as shit, the bikers pulled their weapons, one a shotgun, the other a pistol. Never mind that Be

The German had the bikers zeroed in long before they leveled their guns. He withdrew a small machine pistol from his coat and pulled the trigger three times. The first three-round burst missed, but it caused both guys to freeze-not flee, not run for cover, not dive for the ground, just freeze. They made easy targets then, and the next two bursts did not miss. The biker with the shotgun pulled the trigger on his weapon seconds before his lifeless body pitched over backward and hit the ground.

The echoes of the brief gun battle were still ringing in Be

“Sehr gut, Major,” Townsend said wearily. “I hoped that could be avoided.” He had never reached for his own weapon, Be

“Wait!” Be

The three men ran upwind of the meth cooker until Be

Townsend spat an order in German into his walkie-talkie, warning his other men to stay away from the hydrogenator and take cover, but to keep it in sight at all times. Then he turned back to Be

All three of them were behind sturdy oak trees, but the blast still knocked them off their feet. They felt the searing heat as the hydrogen fireball swept above them. Then they looked up. The grass and the trees around them had been blackened by the intense heat and the fireball-even the hair on the back of Reingruber’s head was singed. The truck, the hydrogenator unit, and the two bikers were indistinguishable black lumps in the middle of the charred field. Every standing object for two hundred feet around the hydrogenator had been leveled, even trees with trunks up to three inches in diameter.

“Well then,” said Townsend as he picked himself up off the ground and surveyed the blast area. “This will be a good place for the helicopter to pick us up.”

“Jeez, my cooker!” Be

“We will have to get you some more working capital, won’t we, Mr Reynolds?” Townsend said, as if he had decided to order a nice bottle of wine. “We should start with at least one million dollars. That should get you under way building the first ten reactors we need, plus provide us with sufficient operating funds.”

“How in hell are you go

A helicopter appeared out of nowhere over the trees, swooping down over the blast area in front of them. Townsend waited until the racket died down. “We will be back in operation within a month, Mr Reynolds,” he replied crisply. “And you will address me as Colonel or Oberst from now on. I run my organization like a military unit, and even my civilian subordinates must comply. Now, the fewer questions you ask from now on, the better. Follow Major Reingruber aboard that helicopter, find a seat, strap yourself in, and keep your damn mouth shut.”

Chapter One

Sacramento, California

Friday, 19 December 1997, 2146 FT

Patrick Shane McLanahan stood at the head of the long table and raised his glass of Cuvйe Dom Pйrignon. “A toast.”

He waited patiently as the sexy young waitress, Do

The brothers were as different as could be, on the inside as well as the outside. Patrick was of just below average height, thick and muscular, fair-haired, a masculine and worldly version of their soft-spoken, sensitive mother. Patrick had graduated from California State University at Sacramento with a degree in engineering and a commission in the United States Air Force, then was lucky enough to stay in Sacramento for the next eight years, becoming a navigator student, B-52 Stratofortress navigator, radar navigator-bombardier, and instructor radar navigator.

After wi

Then, just as suddenly, he was retired and back in Sacramento tending bar at the family pub with his new wife, Wendy, a civilian electronics engineer who had been seriously injured in an aircraft accident-again, there was very little explanation. No one knew exactly what had happened to Patrick or Wendy, or why two such successful and rewarding careers suddenly ended. Patrick said little about it to anyone.

But then, Patrick preferred not to talk about himself or call attention to himself in any way. He was a loner, a book-worm, and the “go-to” guy everyone wanted on their team, but who never would have been chosen as team captain. He even preferred solo sports and pastimes, like weight lifting, cycling, and reading. Although he was a fit and hearty forty-year-old, he could not bowl a strike or hit a softball to save his life.