Authors: Jon Land

Day of the Delphi (25 page)

BOOK: Day of the Delphi

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“We’ll be moving out now,” a voice told him.

The man gazed again at the head of the alley where the huge Indian had been visible just an instant before. “Bring an army.”

Sal Belamo was waiting just where Blaine had left him when he and Kristen reached ground level in the alley.

“Looks like you just saw a ghost, boss.”

“Close enough,” said Blaine. “Anything?”

“Nada.”

“Johnny?”

“I can’t see him, but—”

“We must get out of here, Blainey,” said Wareagle, emerging from the shadows.

“Indian?”

“Quickly.”

McCracken didn’t question Wareagle further. Johnny turned and started back toward the head of the alley, the others falling in behind. They reached Good Hope Street and McCracken noticed instantly that the threatening young men they had passed en route here were gone. The night seemed to have grown even darker.

Wareagle stiffened. McCracken slid Kristen behind him. They started down the sidewalk in single file. Suddenly a trio of massive floodlights snapped on at the east end of the block.

“Holy shit,” gasped Belamo.

“Get out the other way,” Kristen heard Wareagle mutter back to them. “I will hold them at this end.”

Before they could even swing all the way round, though, more floodlights burned toward them from the west end of the block. The distinctive clacking of rifles being slammed against shoulders into the ready position echoed in the night. Then a pair of helicopters sliced through the dark over the rise of buildings, converging from the north and south.

“Drop your weapons and put your hands in the air!”
a voice ordered through a bullhorn from one of the choppers.

McCracken, caught in the spill of one of the floods, let his pistol fall to the ground. Belamo and Wareagle followed suit with their rifles. All of them raised their arms above their heads.

“Do not move! Stay where you are!”

“We make a run for it, boss?” Belamo whispered Blaine’s way.

“One of us has to get out with a little present Carlisle gave me.”

“Six snipers with Starlight scopes atop the buildings, Blainey,” Wareagle reported. “Under strong cover.”

“Kristen,” Blaine whispered.

“I’m ready. Tell me what to do.”

She was their only chance. With the focus of the rifles unquestionably on the three of them, she might make it if they provided a significant enough distraction.

“Johnny,” McCracken muttered. “Sal.”

Wareagle nodded, shoulders tensing slightly.

“Fuck,” rasped Sal.

McCracken started to lower his hand toward the pocket containing the 3.5-inch floppy disk Carlisle had given him. Kristen was trembling, fingers held even with her shoulders.

“Wait, Blainey,” Wareagle said suddenly.

McCracken turned to follow the big Indian’s eyes. While the choppers hovered overhead, a phalanx of armed troops were approaching from the east end of Good Hope Street, boots clacking against the street. The man leading the way carried no gun. The soldiers behind him had theirs unmenacingly shouldered. The man in front came to within six feet of the tensed McCracken and saluted.

“Sorry for the inconvenience, Captain. But this seemed the safest way to avoid a misunderstanding. I’m Colonel Ben Power.”

Blaine returned his salute. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been addressed as captain, Colonel.”

“Then let me be the first to welcome you back to the ranks. But enough small talk, Captain. You’re already late for an appointment I’m supposed to deliver you to.”

“Appointment?”

“With the President. Let’s move.”

CHAPTER 29

“I thought it best we speak alone initially,” the President said to Blaine McCracken.

The news that McCracken had been spotted by one of the teams assigned to watch for him had reached the President as he tried unsuccessfully to sleep. He dressed quickly, kept abreast of what was transpiring down on Good Hope Street in Anacostia, and was waiting in his office when Colonel Ben Power personally ushered McCracken in.

“Please, make yourself comfortable,” the President said, offering him one of the matching wing chairs in his private office.

“That’s a bit difficult for me.”

“Under the circumstances, I quite understand.”

“Not just these circumstances, sir.” Blaine groped for the correct explanation. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been on the inside.” His eyes swept through the room. “Especially this far in.”

“Your file forewarned me of that.”

“How did your people find me, Mr. President?”

“It begins with a tape … .”

The President went on to explain how a former KGB chief’s bugging of the CIA director’s office had provided them with a recording of the final conversation between Tom Daniels and Clifton Jardine. The conversation had ended with the director giving tacit approval to Blaine’s utilization. Accordingly, the assumption was that Daniels had come to Rock Creek Park for a meeting with him.

“At that point,” elaborated the President, “our thinking
was that you could provide us with the specifics the recording left out.”

“At that point, I didn’t know any more than you did. Less, even.”

“We learned of your ‘appearance’ in the Coconut Grove the previous night and that it was Daniels who had expedited your release from police custody. Later we became aware of your near-disastrous plane ride back to Miami. Someone wanted you dead, very likely the same party behind the murders of Daniels and Jardine.”

“They got two out of three.”

“And you dropped out of sight. Not surprisingly, we were unable to find you. But we assumed the quest you were on could only lead you back to the capital, and we blanketed the city with men armed with your picture.”

“You’ll need an army of men armed with more than that to stop this government from falling, sir.”

The President stood up and grasped the back of his chair. “Who’s behind it? Just tell me that.”

“Mr. President, how much do you know about the Trilateral Commission?”

By the time Blaine had finished his tale, leaving out mention of the Delphi’s nuclear stockpile for the time being, the President had sunk into the chair. His shoulders all but disappeared into its high back. His features paled. His lower lip was trembling.

“You say that Carlisle furnished you with the names of those who were part of this Delphi when he disappeared,” he raised when McCracken had at last finished.

Blaine’s response was to pull a 3.5-inch floppy disk from his pocket. “Some of which would have later left on the same terms he did. Since his information stops at 1980, others listed will be dead, and undoubtedly there’ll be a number of names missing.”

“Like Samuel Jackson Dodd’s, no doubt. What about the when and how? Did Carlisle have any notion about that?”

“No, but Tom Daniels did,” Blaine told him, recalling
Daniels’s final plea to him in Rock Creek Park. “Six or seven days from now.”

The President’s face paled. “Of course.”

“Sir?”

“One week from tonight I’m scheduled to address a joint session of Congress on my new strategy for economic revitalization.”

“The entire leadership of the nation together at the same time … Lambs to the slaughter, sir.”

The President gripped the arms of his chair. “And instead of those actually responsible, the Midnight Riders will be blamed.”

“In an apparent revolution,” Blaine picked up, “that will leave the military no choice but to assume control.”

“Only until they can circumvent the Constitution to call for a special presidential election.”

“Which Dodd has positioned himself to win. But he’s not going to be elected president, sir, he’s going to be elected savior. And the people will accept anything he and the Delphi force upon them.”

The President’s face regained its color. He shook his head deliberately. “No, in spite of everything, I still don’t buy all of this. I don’t care how deep the Delphi’s reach into government extends, they’ve misjudged the country’s reaction. They’ll never get away with this.”

McCracken was suddenly struck by something he’d forgotten, one of the last words spoken by Tom Daniels.

“Mr. President, what is Prometheus?”

What little color remained in the President’s face drained out instantly. His eyes grew frightened. He rose and walked stiffly to the room’s bar. He started to pour himself a glass of water from a pitcher and then changed his mind. He spoke without looking directly back at McCracken.

“Prometheus is a national version of the emergency broadcast system. A communications network built to endure even the severest electromagnetic pulse in space and
provide reliable communication in the event of the unthinkable.”

“Sounds like an unnecessary extravagance in this era.”

“But we have no idea what the future might bring, do we? The system was on the verge of completion when I took office. But I made sure the public and Congress thought it had been abandoned, another multi-billion-dollar albatross that didn’t work.” The President stopped and looked back at Blaine. “In actuality it couldn’t have worked better. I renamed it Prometheus. Besides you, there aren’t five other people in this country who know of it by that name.”

“Tom Daniels knew.”

“And by connection the Delphi. Only—”

“How does Prometheus work?” Blaine interrupted.

“Satellite relays with dozens of redundant systems along with the most advanced software and hardware ever put into orbit,” the President answered, watching McCracken nod his head. “What I’ve just said doesn’t seem to surprise you. Why?”

“Dodd Industries, sir. Check the contractors. That’s where they’ll all lead back to.”

“Even so,” the President followed, “Prometheus’ existence would only facilitate strategic communications. How could that possibly aid the Delphi’s plan?”

“Look, sir,” Blaine answered, moving toward him, “I don’t know a down-link from an up-link. But I do know that everything with communications today comes down to satellite relays. Big machines talking to each other. Without an electromagnetic pulse to spoil the mix, Dodd links Prometheus up with standard orbiting broadcast satellites and replaces their signal. Like magic, the Delphi take over the airwaves to facilitate the taking of control by the military. And thus Dodd.”

“The country left with no choice but to listen.” The President regarded McCracken quizzically. “Wait, there’s something
you’re not telling me, something you’re holding back.”

“I wasn’t a hundred percent sure until this moment. But now the rest of their plan makes perfect sense.”

“Rest of their plan? Good Lord, what more could there be?”

“In a nutshell, sir, the Delphi is presently one of the major nuclear powers on the face of the planet.”

The President’s face sagged and he headed slowly back to his chair.

“Miravo Air Force Base,” Blaine continued.

“Retasked to dismantle short-range nuclear artillery shells.”

“No, retasked to allow a number of the warheads to be smuggled off the base and stockpiled.”

The President sat down. “Five other bases have been retasked as well. Can we assume the same holds true for them?”

“I think the enemy we’re facing got all of what they needed from Miravo. But their salvaged stockpile isn’t going to be used inside our borders.”

“Where, then?”

Blaine took a deep breath. “I started down this trail in the wrong direction, sir. It wasn’t the lunatic fringe doing the plotting, it was another fringe … .”

“An international cadre of madmen from the radical right,” the President summed up succinctly after Blaine had finished the explanation passed on to him by Carlisle.

“Whom the Delphi will help bring to power and then utilize to help control and manage the entire world. The Trilateral Commission itself was founded on a doctrine that wasn’t much different.”

“I don’t think the Trilat’s charter said anything about a council of lunatics running civilization.”

“A means to an end and nothing more. Even if they fail, the resulting disruption makes the Delphi winners because
other nations will be ill equipped to respond to the disaster that has taken place in the United States while the transition takes place.”

“The question becomes, Can all this still be stopped?”

“Bill Carlisle gave me the name of the only international Delphi representative he was sure of: Travis Dreyer.”

“Also known as the South African Hitler.”

“Dreyer will be able to fill in the missing details, maybe even the identities of the remainder of the Delphi’s chosen lot overseas.”

“You plan on going to South Africa and making him talk?”

“Ideally, I can come up with the information without him ever knowing I was there.”

The President thought for a moment. “There’s one week left before my address to Congress. That’s all the cushion I can give you.”

“And you can make good use of that same cushion at home, sir, while I’m in South Africa,” said Blaine as he held up the floppy disk Bill Carlisle had given him.

“The members of the Delphi.”

“Preempt them, sir. Arrest them on any charges you can come up with. They couldn’t know about my meeting with Carlisle. The advantage is ours. Surprise them and maybe we avoid the day of the Delphi altogether.”

The President looked anything but optimistic. “If we fail, I’m afraid I’ll only have one option left: moving the entire government to the proper emergency locations. The Delphi can’t kill who they can’t get to.”

“No, but you’ll end up with a national panic on your hands, and those you’re trying to save from the Delphi will be questioning your sanity.”

“I’ll take that over sitting by while Washington gets overrun by illegitimate troops who have orders to assassinate the country’s elected and appointed leaders. Let Congress impeach me. At least the country is saved.”

“But for how long? Dodd will still be out there, and he’ll
find a way to get his special election. The point is that for every strategy we undertake, short of total preemption, they have a contingency.”

“We’re not giving up, Mr. McCracken.”

“Not at all, sir. We’re just getting started.”

Blaine met with Johnny Wareagle inside an empty White House office twenty minutes later, as soon as his meeting with the President had concluded.

“Didn’t want you and Sal to feel left out, Indian,” McCracken started, “and there happens to be a task that’s right up your alley. The way I see it, the Delphi would never have shipped their entire store of nuclear weapons to their international representatives. They’d want to keep plenty in reserve as a future bargaining chip, as well as backup.”

“I understand.”

“The bulk of the weapons must still be in the United States and we’ve got to find where they’ve been stored. Otherwise the Delphi lives to fight another day.”

“Leave it to Sal Belamo and me, Blainey.”

“With the President’s blessing, by the way.” McCracken paused. “It’s strange, Indian,” he continued uneasily, “here we are working on the inside, as far inside as you can get, with the resources of the entire nation behind us, and we’re still alone.”

“There is a point in that, Blainey.”

“Love to hear it.”

“The inside is a state of mind, not one of being. From our beginnings in the hellfire we have always worked outside the system, but only to better accomplish what the system needs. I came to Sandcastle One last night after Traggeo. But when I saw he was part of something much bigger, I realized he had only been a lure the spirits had cast before me to draw me there.” Wareagle stopped and took a long look at McCracken. “To you and what we face now. What we must save.”

“Save
them
, right? Those who’ve denounced us, red-flagged us, denied we even exist. We’ve prevailed in spite of them.”

“Then who are the true outsiders? We see ourselves as part of a country, and a world, that sometimes must be saved from itself and its own excesses. Those in power created these excesses, or at least allowed them to be. They steer and manage an entity they stand beyond,
without
, to watch evolve. But they don’t see what that evolution has wrought within.”

“We do.”

“Then you understand.”

“I think so. Next thing you know the spirits will be trying to speak in my ear, too.”

BOOK: Day of the Delphi

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