“First floor, all secure?” the chief of security radioed.

“Secure,” came the reply from one of the guards, signaling that the cleanup crews had been escorted outside and the doors were closed, locked, and checked. The chief of security opened the stairwell door on the second floor, which locked behind him, and walked downstairs. The door to the first floor was locked on the other side, so that occupants of the second floor could use the stairwell as a fire escape, but no one on the first floor could walk upstairs unless it was opened by security. The chief security officer knocked on the door three times, received two knocks in response, then gave one more knock before pushing it open. Carlson, one of the newer security officers, was on the other side of the door. “Okay, boys, the sooner we get these boxes upstairs, the sooner we…”

A man in a dark outfit, a military-style helmet, and a dark face mask appeared out of nowhere. The chief of security had just enough time to register his shock before the intruder raised a gun with a thick suppressor fitted to the muzzle to his forehead. There was a bright flash of light, then nothing.

“Security One-Seven.”

The off-duty Sacramento Police Department officer at the desk on the second floor of the complex retrieved his radio from the desk and keyed the mike: “Security One-Seven, go.”

“Are you 908 yet?”

“Negative,” the officer replied. It was common for off-duty officers to forget to report in to Dispatch when they completed an off-duty assignment, and since it was thirty minutes past his scheduled off time, Dispatch was checking up on him. “They have a power failure here. It’ll be another thirty minutes.”

“Check. You got a call from your sitter. No problems, just a status check. Let us know when you’re 908.”

“Roger.”

“KMA 907 clear.”

The exasperated officer tossed the radio on the desk with a thud. His life was heading down the shitter pretty fast these days. As if the holidays weren’t bad enough, his old lady had decided she didn’t want to be married to a cop anymore-or be a mom, or be a housewife-so she took off for L.A. with her new poke, leaving him with their five-year-old daughter and a mountain of bills. He had already burned out one baby-sitter with all the overtime and off-duty jobs he had signed up for, and he guessed he was going to burn out another one before his folks could come from Montana to help him out. Before she left, his old lady had cleaned out the checking account too, so it looked like the only presents his little girl got this year would be charity stuffed toys normally reserved for the city’s homeless kids, or presents from his folks. Merry fucking Christmas.

There were three knocks at the locked stairwell door. The cop circled the security desk and knocked twice in response. There were two knocks in response, the correct reply. He pushed open the door… and was dead before he hit the ground.

Sacramento County Main Jail,

651 I Street, Sacramento, California

the same time

In all the years Paul McLanahan had lived in Sacramento, he never even knew exactly where the new county jail was downtown. Now, on his first night on the job, he had been inside it twice. It was said that the new jail looked like a luxury hotel and the Hyatt Regency downtown looked like a jail, but to Paul the place just looked bleak, sterile, and miserable.

He and LaFortier drove into the underground parking garage of the jail under a large steel roll-up door. After securing their weapons in the trunk of their car, they escorted their prisoner to the thick steel-and-glass door of the jail, which was guarded by a sheriff’s deputy sitting behind bulletproof glass. Because this prisoner was suspected of carrying drugs, they donned latex gloves, escorted him to a secure bathroom, and conducted a strip search-including the unappealing process of ordering the prisoner to drop his pants, bend over, spread his cheeks, and cough several times so they could look up his anus for any sign of hidden drugs. One look at this guy’s ass made Paul want to take a steaming hot shower, and he considered double-gloving if the guy decided to fight. But the ten-block chase they did to catch him-he had started running as soon as he saw LaFortier and McLanahan slow down as they passed him on the street-had obviously taken the fight out of him.

“That law practice is looking better and better all the time, isn’t it, rook?” LaFortier asked Paul with a grin. Paul went on shaking out clothes and sneaker inserts.

For Craig LaFortier, booking a prisoner was a chance to meet up with buddies and swap stories, which was what he did while he helped Paul fill out the reports. There were at least three other city police officers in the booking room, along with eight Sacramento County Sheriff’s deputies, four California Highway Patrol officers, and a smattering of officers from other agencies that Paul couldn’t identify right off. The holding cells were full, so prisoners were handcuffed to benches around the perimeter of the booking room while the arresting officers asked them questions, filled out paperwork, and shot the shit. Since this was Paul’s second trip to the jail that night, he fell under the rookie officer’s basic on-the-job training schedule: first time, observe; second time, do it; third time, be prepared to teach it to somebody else. The learning curve out here, he decided, was as steep as Mount Everest.

Paul had managed to do much of the paperwork at the scene of the arrest and in the car on the way over to the jail, so he finished it a few minutes later, with the prisoner handcuffed to a nearby bench. LaFortier checked it over. “Looks pretty good,” he said. “But only four bindles of low-grade meth, less than a hundred dollars’ worth-with the overcrowding they’ve got here, he’ll be released in an hour.”

“But he’s got priors, Cargo,” McLanahan said, waving the suspect’s computer printout rap sheet. “He’s been convicted before for possession with intent to sell…”

“But he wasn’t caught with enough to get him on a new intent charge this time,” LaFortier said. “Four bindles, no payo sheets, no wad of cash, not found in a high-crime area-although he was pursued into an area where his probation says he’s not allowed to go. Of course, that’ll be our fault, not his. He’ll get five thousand bail on a felony possession charge, his girlfriend or wife will put up the five hundred bond, and he’ll be free. I’ll testify as an expert witness that his intent was to sell, but if he’s got a good lawyer, they’ll plead it down to a misdemeanor possession long before his court date and he’ll skate with a slap on the wrist, maybe a month or two in jail for the probation violation…”

“Almost doesn’t seem worth it,” Paul said.

“Getting a little war-weary already, rook?” LaFortier asked, amused. “A few hours on the street and you’re already feeling frustrated? Welcome to the world. Don’t worry about the prosecution-worry about the arrest and the evidence. Cops blow more cases from sloppy field work than DA’s blow in court-or at least that’s what they like to tell us. Let’s get this guy booked and get back on the street.” Paperwork in hand, LaFortier and McLanahan escorted their prisoner through the booking process. The place was packed, so it was a slow business.

First, a nurse did a quick medical examination. Old hypodermic needle track marks were found on the guy’s arms, so he had to submit to a blood test for HIV antibodies. After another twenty-minute wait, they escorted him to the booking window, where they presented the arrest and evidence reports to the booking sergeant. The prisoner was booked, strip-searched once again by sheriff’s deputies, and placed in a special isolation holding cell to await pictures, prints, and the results of his AIDS test to determine whether he’d be placed in a cell with other prisoners or segregated in a medical isolation cell. With that, LaFortier and McLanahan headed back out to the garage.