The Omega Command (31 page)

He wanted to do his best to avoid the corridor. Guards would be poised there, and they might be alerted by scraping noises coming from above. Stiff and cramped, the heat cooking his flesh, McCracken crawled cautiously forward. He stopped when he heard a voice beneath him, muffled by the insulation, precise words indistinct. The words came in spurts lined with pauses. Sometimes the spurts were long, sometimes not. A phone conversation, Blaine realized. It had to be Sahhan, which meant he was directly over the militant’s office.

A few yards later, over what he judged to be the room next to Sahhan’s office, Blaine found a trapdoor which, when opened, revealed the layers of fiber glass insulation below. He stripped them away until the white drop ceiling panels were revealed and reached down to slide one back.

Beneath him was an empty room lit by a single lamp. He slid the panel back farther and lowered his head through to gain a better view.

It was a meeting room, dominated by a large conference table surrounded by chairs. McCracken’s eyes, though, went straight to an inner door connecting this room with the one next to it: Sahhan’s office. Blaine praised his luck.

He slid the ceiling panel all the way out and lowered himself softly onto the conference table below. He stepped down from it just as lightly. The carpet swallowed what little sound his stride made as he moved to the connecting door.

The knob gave enough to tell him it was open. He could hear Sahhan’s voice clearly now coming from the other side.

Blaine fit the silencer onto the barrel of the automatic Belamo’s contact had provided. He moved his shoulder against the door and grasped the knob tightly.

Then he burst into Sahhan’s office.

Chapter 25

“PUT IT DOWN
. Slowly.”

McCracken’s rapid inspection of the dimly lit office showed no guards, only Sahhan seated behind his desk holding the telephone receiver tightly to his ear and wearing sunglasses as usual. Blaine stepped closer and made sure the fanatic saw his gun.

“Tell whoever you’re talking to that something demands your immediate attention. Not a word different. Say one and I’ll kill you now.”

Sahhan obeyed the instructions exactly. Blaine could sense the fear in his eyes behind the dark lenses. The receiver clicked into its cradle.

“But you haven’t come here to kill me, have you?” Sahhan asked.

“Not unless I have to.”

The radical shook his head and turned his chair to better face McCracken. “No, if you had meant to kill me, you would have done so already. You’re a professional. Professionals do not need to arouse their anger to motivate their kills.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“I meant it as one.” Sahhan leaned forward, his face screwed up into a tight ball. “Wait, I know you. You were at the reception a few days ago at George Washington. Mr. Goldberg, wasn’t it?”

“It was Goldstein.”

“And so, Mr., er, Goldstein, if you have not come here to kill me, what can I do for you? Surely you know that there are guards everywhere in this building, so you cannot possibly hope to get away with whatever it is you expect to.” Sahhan moved his sunglasses lower on his nose, as if to get a better look at the man holding the gun on him. “But then, that wouldn’t bother a man of your resources, would it? After all, you discovered a way in here. I’m sure you’ve devised a way out as well.”

“You’re going to escort me out yourself, Sahhan.”

“Kidnapping?”

Blaine shook his head. “A decision you’ll arrive at yourself after you’ve heard what I’ve come to say.”

“If you plan to ask more challenging questions, I assure you that the answers will—”

“No questions this time. Just statements. I know about Christmas Eve.”

Sahhan’s expression didn’t waver. “I suspected as much when you mentioned it at the reception. The proper people were alerted. Apparently they failed to eliminate you.”

“You called Randall Krayman or one of his representatives, am I right?”

Sahhan’s mouth dropped. Any words that might have been about to emerge were lost.

“Don’t bother answering, Sahhan, I already know the truth. Krayman’s financing your private army. He’s bankrolled this entire Christmas Eve rampage of yours and even set you up with Luther Krell to make sure your men were outfitted with the proper weapons.”

Sahhan looked away. “Knowledge can be a dangerous weapon itself, sometimes a mortal one.”

“So can guns. And in this case you know about only half of them.” Blaine moved behind the desk until he was barely a yard from Sahhan. He could see the fanatic stiffen. “Listen closely, Sahhan, because here’s where the fun begins. Krayman’s been using you all along. You’re part of a much greater plan. I’ve just come back from an island in the Caribbean called San Melas. Krayman owns it. He’s been training mercenaries there for God knows how many months, training them to destroy your troops once they’ve accomplished their purpose. I’m not talking about just your troops either. You personally will pose too much of a threat for him to leave around. Krayman’s after some kind of ultimate control. The PVR was important to him only because it would give him an excuse to mobilize his private army into the nation’s streets.”

Sahhan looked at him calmly. “You have your facts wrong, Mr. Goldstein. It is
I
who am using Krayman. This entire affair was my idea.”

“No,” Blaine insisted. “Think back to your dealings with Krayman and his people. Weren’t they too neat, too clean? How many ideas did they put into your mind, how many words into your mouth? Where did you come up with the logistics for this strike? This is a large-scale operation, professional all the way. Krayman arranged consultations for you. Advice was given, so subtly perhaps that later you might have thought the ideas originated with you. There are men who specialize in such areas. Believe me, I know.”

“You know nothing!” Sahhan flared, his voice rising slightly. “You think I haven’t considered everything you’ve said? Krayman and I are working together to achieve mutual goals, but when all this is over, only mine will be achieved. There are fifteen thousand of my followers out there waiting for Christmas Eve to come. But once they begin to spread the justly deserved chaos throughout this nation, hundreds of thousands more will join them. The poor, the oppressed, the downtrodden, the frustrated—they will rally together against their oppressors. Then whatever else Krayman has planned won’t matter because he won’t be able to accomplish it without me. The paralysis will be total and only I will be in a position to lift it.”

“This is great,” McCracken said in disbelief. “He’s got a plan to double-cross you and you’ve got a plan to double-cross him. Now, that’s a match made in heaven if ever I’ve heard one. You really want to beat Krayman? Then call your troops in. Call off the Christmas Eve strike now. His mercenaries will be frozen in place, unable to mobilize because there will be nothing to mobilize against.”

“Even if these mercenaries exist, they will play right into my hands,” Sahhan returned, his eyes glowing. “Yes, their battles with my front-line troops will spur the rest of the oppressed into even faster action. I should have considered such a scenario myself.” His stare sharpened. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, my patience grows thin. …”

McCracken saw his finger move and lunged forward. Too late. The button beneath his desk had been pressed and the office door sprung open, a parade of guards charging through. Blaine grabbed Sahhan by the shoulder and jammed the silenced gun barrel against his temple. The guards froze, unsure, but held their own guns steady.

Then Sahhan broke the silence.

“Take him,” he ordered his guards. “He won’t kill me if it means he has to die himself.” His eyes shifted briefly to McCracken. “I know his kind.”

Blaine wanted to kill him just for that, but couldn’t pull the trigger. Sahhan’s guards approached slowly. McCracken turned his gun from the fanatic’s head and raised his hands in the air.

A sea of huge arms were upon him, grips as sure as iron. They yanked Blaine viciously toward the door, and he didn’t bother to protest, didn’t bother with one last-ditch attempt to sway the radical fool who sat grinning behind his massive desk.

“Deal with him in the usual manner,” Sahhan ordered his men. “But be especially careful. He may have friends watching him.” He slid the sunglasses back to the bridge of his nose. “See that they don’t have a chance to intervene. Now get him out of my sight.”

McCracken let himself be swept into the corridor toward the elevator. Guns were poking into him. He was shoved up against the wall and his janitor’s uniform searched as the compartment began to lower toward the garage level. Blaine’s senses sharpened. He would try his escape once in the garage, probably when a number of the guards’ hands were occupied with the doors of a car. If luck was on his side and the garage was dark enough, he might make it.

The compartment’s doors slid open at the garage level. One of the blacks hung back by the elevator, while the others escorted Blaine forward through the dark underbelly of the PVR building. One of them moved beyond the pack to scout ahead. That left four—two on each side, all huge and well armed.

They reached a dark Oldsmobile sedan. Two of the men stayed with Blaine while two others went for the doors. If Blaine was going to move, this was the time.

At that instant the man on his right reeled backward, his chest spewing a fountain of red. A muffled sound like the echo of a single heel clicking against pavement found Blaine’s ears as he plunged to the garage floor out of what he realized now was someone’s line of fire. A second black collapsed near him, his face gone.

The remaining guards rushed around, screaming to each other, one struggling to free his walkie-talkie. A pair of long, silenced bursts came, followed by a shorter one. There was a pause, after which two more shorter bursts ensued. The last of the blacks crumpled to the floor near the elevator. Blaine heard the sound of shoes rushing in his direction and rolled closer to the body of the first guard who’d been downed. His gun was still clutched in his hand. McCracken was reaching for it just as a man dressed all in black and holding an Uzi huffed to a halt over him.

“We’re on the same side!” the man screamed, but his words didn’t convince Blaine as much as the fact that he let the Uzi dangle by his side.

Then McCracken saw his watch, its luminous face glowing a strange blue in the darkened corner. He recognized the glow from Newport. This was the man who had saved him there! He pulled his hand away from the dead guard’s pistol.

“I’ve got a car waiting,” the man said. “Come on!”

“Who are you?” Blaine managed as he rose to his feet.

“Everything will be explained to you in time. Right now we’ve got a plane to catch.”

Francis Dolorman had been in his bedroom stuffing a large suitcase full of clothes when the call from Wells came.

“You’re certain?” Dolorman asked after the big man had completed his report.

“Our rebels have grown desperate,” Wells said, “and their desperation has led to their exposure. The evidence is irrefutable. Several are in custody and the rest are known to have gathered at the site in question.”

“And our response?”

“Already in the works. Just a few more hours and we’ll be ready. Dawn at the latest.”

“None of them can be allowed to escape, Wells. Crush them all.”

“Consider it done.”

The long drive northwest toward Louisiana and Arkansas had proved an exercise in frustration for Sandy Lister. The late afternoon hours had grown into early evening, then night, and finally midnight had come and gone. She had tried questioning the man who had saved her life and was now driving without rest, but his answers were evasive when he bothered to respond at all. Finally he began ignoring her altogether. That had been at least five hours before, when they crossed into Louisiana. Sandy remembered specifically because that was when she had given up asking. She tried to sleep but came quickly awake each time. The drive with a mysterious stranger who had saved her life was too unsettling to close her eyes to.

The brush with death was bad enough, never mind that it had come at the hands of a man she trusted. But Stephen Shay had probably belonged to Krayman all along. When one of his people had stepped severely out of line, it had become Shay’s responsibility to right matters. She felt little pity for his passing. No, what concerned her now was that somewhere an hour glass was emptying its sands, and when the last grain slithered down, an operation would begin that somehow involved a killer satellite in orbit around Earth.

Placed there by Randall Krayman, the man behind it all. Since the driver in the cream-colored suit would not answer her questions, Sandy was forced to make assumptions. Obviously, he worked for some force opposing Krayman. She had felt from the start that Kelno was part of something bigger, and now she was about to learn precisely what that something was.

Sandy amused herself by mentally charting their journey toward Little Rock, a route purposely erratic so the driver could watch constantly for tails in the rearview mirror. They passed the outskirts of Little Rock just before four A.M. and continued north on Route 40 and later 65. Past Greenbier, they swung onto a desolate, unpaved road. Sandy leaned forward over the dashboard to see what must be their final destination.

It was an ancient abandoned airport, its few buildings left to the whims of the elements. …

No, wait. It wasn’t abandoned. There were cars. And people. Specifically, men with guns watching from the shadows.

The driver drew the car to a halt apart from the others. Sandy climbed out and followed him forward. He waited for her to catch up and escorted her into a spacious lounge that was surprisingly well maintained. The man took his leave and closed the door behind him. Sandy heard something stirring and noticed a figure rising from a vinyl couch in the corner of the lounge.

“Welcome to the inner sanctum,” the man said as he stretched his arms. He was dark and virile-looking, his face creased and bearded. His eyes were the darkest Sandy had ever seen.