The Omega Command

Chapter 27

“You’re fuckin’ nuts, pal!” the pilot screamed again. “You know that?”

“I’ve been accused of it before,” McCracken told him. “I want one more look at that island, a closer one.”

“The winds over that water will rip us apart. No way. Not for all the money you can whip out of that pocket of yours.”

“Just make one more run up the shoreline. For an extra hundred.”

The pilot hesitated only briefly. “This is the last one.”

And the small plane banked again.

Blaine sat in the copilot’s seat. Sandy huddled in a third chair with her arms wrapped tightly over herself. The temperature was barely out of single digits and the storm had started to intensify savagely when they neared the coast. The snow was piling up in huge drifts. The water stood out dark against the whiteness.

“Satisfied?” the pilot asked.

Blaine looked away from Horse Neck Island and nodded. “There’s a small airfield about twenty-five miles north of here near a town called Stickney Corner. I want you to put down there.”

“No fuckin’ way, pal! This has gone far enough. I’m bringing this junk heap down at home in Portsmouth and putting her to bed. And I don’t care what you say or—”

McCracken didn’t say a word, didn’t even bother tempting the pilot with more money. He just froze him with a stare colder than the air outside the windshield.

“You’ll have to direct me,” the pilot relented.

“No problem.”

The plane headed north.

Blaine had pulled Sandy from the rubble of Terrell’s Arkansas headquarters a little before six that morning. Over two hours of walking and hitchhiking had brought them to Little Rock Airport, where they were able to book a nonstop to Boston. Blaine used his government issued credit card to get plenty of cash from an automatic dispenser in Logan Airport. It was typical, he reflected, that the CIA should wipe his existence off the books but forget to cancel his credit card. With some of the cash he bought winter coats and a change of clothes for himself and Sandy in airport shops, where he also learned that the entire New England coast had been put under a winter storm watch.

It was all rain when they left Boston, a drenching winter downpour. Blaine rented a car and started northward with a still-shaken Sandy in the passenger seat. By northern Massachusetts the rain had frozen to sleet, and before they reached the New Hampshire border, snow had taken over. There were already two inches on the ground, with the intensity increasing by the minute. Road crews struggled to keep up with the mess, but it was rapidly becoming too much for them. Blaine was forced to cut his speed back to forty-five, then forty, hands twitching nervously on the wheel. At this rate they might never reach the Muscongus Bay area in time to pull off what he was planning.

He had spent the flight east going over the bloodied map lifted from Terrell’s pocket. Horse Neck Island was located in the bay due east of Port Clyde. It was a small island close to an isolated peninsula that jutted out into the water. The island’s shape was indeed erratic and its coastline looked to be a dangerous mix of crags and crosscurrents. Even during daylight and in the best of weather, approach would be difficult. And Blaine would be going in at night into the teeth of a killer blizzard.

In the sketch the island was dominated by the fortress Terrell had spoken of. It was a spacious mansion built with its back to a steep, low mountain and its other three sides enclosed by a high stucco wall. A courtyard lay between the wall and the mansion, lots of ground to cover in an open assault. In this weather, and given the limitations of time, approach over the mountain was not feasible. That left getting into the complex over the wall. There would be lots of guards beyond the wall, on it, and within the courtyard itself. If even one of them saw him or suspected something and contacted the people inside the mansion, Blaine’s plan would be destroyed. Luckily, though, the weather would keep patrol boats from the shoreline and that should assure him a free approach.

If he made it safely past the rocks.

If he found a boat to begin with.

Blaine and Sandy had arrived at the private airstrip in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to find their pilot closing up shop. An absurd sum of money waved in his face led to his acceptance of the risk involved in making a run up the Maine coastline, specifically to an area twenty miles northeast of Boothbay Harbor. The pilot started complaining as soon as they were airborne, and Blaine was forced to raise his fee at regular intervals just to keep him quiet.

Now he would drop them at a small airfield near Stickney Corner, because getting there was the key element of Blaine’s plan. He could not possibly hope to take Horse Neck Island alone. He needed help.

There was help available in the woods around Stickney Corner.

Blaine had exchanged few words with Sandy Lister through the duration of the trip. She seemed tense around him, uneasy, not very trusting in spite of the fact that he had saved her life.

“I’ve got to ask you something,” she had said during the drive north.

“Go ahead.”

“Back in Arkansas you said that if I didn’t keep still, you’d kill me. Did you mean it?”

Blaine didn’t hesitate. “Absolutely not. But I had to get you quiet. It worked, didn’t it?” he added with a wink.

“You’ve killed before, though. I can tell that much.”

“It’s my job, lady. And mostly I do it better and cleaner than anyone else.”

“Cleaner?”

“No one innocent gets caught in the middle. I can’t stomach that. Unlike some of my colleagues, I don’t regard dead bystanders as acceptable losses.”

“My God, what kind of world do you live in?”

“The same one you do, lady, only I see it more for what it really is. You’ve seen enough these past few days to understand what I mean. They tried to kill you, didn’t they? And you killed to save your own life. It didn’t feel good, but you did it and I’d bet you didn’t feel any guilt afterward.”

“The difference is, you enjoy it.”

“You really think that?” Blaine asked in disbelief. “Let me tell you, lady, I do what I believe I have to because believing is all I’ve got. There are things greater than you, or me, or all the people I’ve killed.”

“Like the country, for instance, right?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. Sounds trite, doesn’t it? Well, maybe it is. The United States has a lot more enemies out there than she’s got friends. Somebody’s got to do something about the balance.”

A few long minutes passed before Sandy spoke again.

“You said we were meeting someone in Maine. Who is it?”

“Wareagle.”

“Not where, who?”

“Wareagle is a who, Johnny Wareagle. A bad-ass Indian who makes me look like a Sunday school preacher. We worked together in ’Nam for a while. Johnny did four tours, got himself decorated three times, and won two Purple Hearts. Came back home and life just fucked him sideways. When it got too bad, he pulled out altogether and went to live in the woods. Took a few of his Indian soldier friends with him. They live off the land. No power, no telephone. A kind of reservation for battered Vietnam vets.”

“And you think they’ll help us?”

“They might, if they don’t kill us first. Johnny and his boys aren’t too fond of outsiders. I was up here last about eight years ago. Wareagle barely recognized me. He was too busy quoting his Indian philosophy to remember old times. But he’s almost seven feet tall and, between you and me, he’s the only man I ever met who scares me shitless. The guys with him aren’t much different. If anyone can get us onto Horse Neck Island and into that fortress, it’s them.”

“That’s the airfield down there,” Blaine said, directing the pilot with a thrust of his finger.

“It’s not even plowed, goddammit!” the pilot protested. “You’re crazy if you think I’m settin’ this junk heap down on that.”

“We’ve already established the fact that I’m crazy, so don’t push it. Do as I say or your tip will be a bullet in the head.”

The pilot gulped hard and swung into his descent. “I might not be able to make it back up again,” he persisted.

“Then we’ll cover your plane and wait till spring, when the thaw comes. Understand?”

“Asshole,” the pilot muttered under his breath.

The landing came with surprising softness, the plane cushioned by the thickening blanket of snow. The only uneasy time was when application of the brakes caused a skid. The pilot fought with the wheel and managed to keep the plane from pitching off the narrow airstrip into the woods. Blaine checked his watch. It was just after four o’clock; five hours until Sahhan’s troops would begin their assault and less than four to send out the abort signal.

The pilot kept the engine running as Blaine helped Sandy down from the cabin.

“Next time you’re in Portsmouth, don’t look me up,” he called out.

Blaine flipped him an extra pair of hundred-dollar bills. “Buy yourself a new personality.” Then he led Sandy off the snow-covered field into the woods.

“I hope you know where you’re going,” she sighed a few hundred yards of heavy walking later.

“It’s been a while,” Blaine told her, “but things in these parts don’t change much.”

“What about people? Johnny Wareagle could have moved on for greener pastures.”

“He was determined to be buried in these woods last time I saw him. The Indian spirits foresaw it, and he didn’t want to insult their vision. Be a while before it happens, though. This bastard is indestructible. Even the spirits are probably scared of him.”

Another hundred yards passed and the woods thinned out a bit. Trees were missing, cut to their stumps, the work obviously done by man. Sandy caught the bubbling sound of a fast brook and was searching for it when McCracken grasped her arm to restrain her. She looked up at him and saw a finger pressed over his lips to indicate quiet. His eyes glanced up and to the right, and Sandy looked in the same direction.

Creeping slowly up the trail toward a small wooded clearing was the biggest man she’d ever seen. Wareagle’s bulging, bronzed arms were exposed through an animalskin vest, and his long black hair was tied off at the forehead by a colorfully designed bandanna. Sandy noticed his hair was worn in a traditional Indian ponytail. He approached the clearing and suddenly Sandy saw his target.

A deer, a young buck with a season’s growth of antlers, was picking over the ground for food, it haunches hollowed by the thin winter supply.

Wareagle crept closer. The buck raised its head and sniffed the air, as if aware of a presence it couldn’t quite grasp and didn’t feel threatened by.

Wareagle held his ground until the buck returned to the thin patch of frozen grass it had found. Then he started moving again, so slowly and steadily that his progress was virtually undetectable within the falling snow.

Sandy had to fight down the scream of warning that rose in her throat as the huge Indian drew to within arm’s distance. Her heart was thudding hard, the sight in the clearing held her mesmerized.

Wareagle’s hand came up suddenly. Sandy saw it was covered with a leather half-glove which left the fingers exposed. It looked like a club as it came down suddenly, hand slapping on the buck’s hindquarters and startling him into a mad dash forward from the clearing, legs into the snow up to his knee joints.

“It’s called thumping,” Blaine explained softly.

“Huh?” Sandy managed, lifted from her trance.

“An ancient Indian ritual meant to symbolize the unity of strength and stealth. Boys do it to challenge manhood and men do it to challenge themselves. Johnny tried to teach it to me once without much success. I guess it must be in the blood.”

Wareagle had knelt down in the very spot where the buck had been standing, as if to absorb whatever aura the majestic beast had left behind. His huge back was to them, but Sandy could tell that his hands were perched nimbly on his knees and he seemed to be meditating as flakes of snow collected on his hair.

Blaine held a hand up to indicate Sandy should stay where she was, and then he approached the small clearing. He stopped two yards from Wareagle, respecting the giant Indian’s privacy.

“Hello, Blainey,” Johnny said without turning.

“How’d you know it was me, Indian?”

“I felt you approaching from the woods. Your aura is distinct,” Johnny explained, still turned away, hands remaining poised on his knees. “And the spirits have warned me of your coming. They’ve carried your name on the wind.”

“It’s been a long time, Indian. Many moons, as you guys say.”

“And should have been many more.” Wareagle turned his upper body and faced him. “You bring blood in your shadow, Blainey. Your spirit disrupts the peace of the woods.”

“I need your help, Johnny.”

“You must learn to quell your violence, Blainey. The strongest bow does not have to fire an arrow to prove its strength.”

“You didn’t talk that way when you were saving me from a Cong ambush.”

“Karma, Blainey. A month before that you carried me through a mine field.”

“All three hundred goddamn pounds of you. I think the mines shrank away in fear.”

Wareagle smiled and rose to his feet. He stepped forward and grasped McCracken at the shoulders.

“It darkens my spirit to remember those times, Blainey, but I do seek not to forget them. We were many things back then, but mostly we were alive. Survival gave us purpose. Life was simple, so free of the complications that soil the spirit.” He backed off, his expression stiffening again. “I came here to escape those complications, Blainey. You are nothing but a reflection, a trick of the falling snow.”

“How many men have you got with you, Johnny?”

“Six souls in search of peace.”

“Are they good?”

“They are good at breathing, drinking the fresh water that runs clean through these hills, and smelling the air.”

“ ’Nam?”

Wareagle nodded. “The spirits from those days still haunt their sleep.”

“Mine too.”

“Why the questions, Blainey?”

“Because there’s another war on right now, Indian. The front’s about thirty miles from here, and it’s up to us to fight. Again.”

Wareagle nodded again, not seeming surprised. Fresh snowflakes danced around his face. “The spirits warned me of this, even before they warned me of your coming. They spoke of an evil that knows no rival set loose in the world and about to make its mark.”

“That’s as good a way of describing the opposition as any. …”

“They spoke of men who thirst for the blood of power, men who wish to drink it until their bellies burst and then drink some more. Their evil has reached even these woods. I can feel it falling with the snow, scorching the ground.”

McCracken moved closer and brushed the snow from his brow. “The people I’m after — Wells is one of them. He’s on Horse Neck Island.”

The Indian was quiet for a long time and his eyes bore through Blaine’s, as if seeing not Blaine but the massacre at Bin Su and the man who directed it. When Blaine finally broke the silence, his words were barely a whisper. “Will you help me, Johnny?”

Wareagle’s eyes glanced far away. “My spirit died over there in the hellfire, Blainey. I came here to the woods to forge a new one. I was crippled inside, hurting, and the spirits said this was the place to seek healing. So I came. And the healing commenced. Spiritless, without existence, I began the forging process. I reshaped my soul. I kept forging and forging, a new man each day emerging, not better, but different. Then one day not far from this, the stream waters ran still and the spirits let me glimpse the new aura I had forged.” Wareagle paused, face challenging the wind. “It held the same shape as the old, Blainey. The spirits had taught me a valuable lesson: a man cannot change what a man is. One’s manitou is one’s manitou. Refined perhaps, but never altered, refined through the many tests the spirits place in our path.”

“This mission is the ultimate test.”

“Life is the ultimate test. ’Nam, Laos, Cambodia — just minor progressions along the way.”

“And now Maine, Indian.”

Chapter 28

“Who is the woman, Blainey?” Wareagle asked as they started toward Sandy, who stood restlessly beneath a tree that partially shielded her from the snow.

“Someone who’s been involved in this for as long as I have.”

Wareagle nodded understandingly. “Her spirit is disjointed, split apart by fear. She treads in new waters and does not fully control her strokes in even the calmest currents. Be patient with her.”

McCracken started a shrug which gave way to a smile. “I gotta tell ya, Indian, once in a while you really scare me. These words the spirits whisper to you are pretty close to the truth. Someday I’d like to learn how to hear those words. I’d be better at it than I was at thumping. Promise.”

Wareagle stared somberly at McCracken and stopped suddenly. “To hear, Blainey, first you have to listen. And then your manitou must act as a sponge and absorb all the meaning of the words. But your manitou is unyielding. It permits no challenge to the narrow scope it accepts.” The Indian looked far into the distance, beyond the white-frosted branches that crisscrossed the air. “That is how you have been able to stay out there for so long. I envy you for it in a way, for it allows you to endure life without questions. You accept, Blainey, and that is a greater gift than you can possibly know.”

They started walking again.

“Wells,” Wareagle said, as if the name tasted like dirt on his tongue. “His manitou was black and soiled. He had lost that which provides balance.”

“Well, since then he’s lost half his face too. He’ll be in charge of the enemy forces and, balanced or not, he’s a hell of a soldier. That doesn’t help our odds.”

“Odds mean nothing to the spirits, Blainey.”

When they reached Sandy, rapid greetings were exchanged. The giant Indian obviously made her even more uneasy, and Wareagle had been out of civilization too long to feel comfortable around strangers. They walked north about two hundred yards and Sandy caught the smell of a campfire. The Indian led the way into a clearing lined with seven small cabins.

In the center of the clearing another Indian stood tending a fire, spreading the kindling with a stick as he prepared to stack on larger pieces. Something seemed wrong about him, and as they drew closer to the small canopy under which he was sheltered, Sandy saw what it was.

The Indian was missing a hand.

He looked up, noticed Wareagle and the approaching strangers, and stiffened. Johnny moved on ahead and spoke briefly. The smaller Indian nodded and sped off.

“Running Deer will fetch the others,” Wareagle told McCracken. “They are spread through the woods. It will take time.”

Blaine frowned. “If they’re all missing pieces of themselves, Johnny, you might as well tell him not to bother.”

“We are all missing pieces of ourselves,” Wareagle said calmly. “Inside or out. Losses cripple us only if we let them. In the case of Running Deer, his remaining hand is quite good at throwing tomahawks. The spirits have compensated him well.”

“They’ll have to do more for us in the weapons department if we’re going to succeed,” Blaine said.

“Here, as in olden times, Blainey, each man is a master with his chosen tool of death. The ancient weapons are just as effective as the modern ones we left behind us in the hellfire.”

“We’re going up against an army, Indian.”

“Then stealth and silent kills are needed more. Besides,” Wareagle added with a faint smile, “not all of the modem weapons were abandoned.”

He led Blaine into one of the cabins, Sandy following to get out of the cold as much as for curiosity. Once inside, Wareagle slid an army foot locker from beneath a single cot and threw it open. McCracken’s eyes gleamed at the contents.

“Not bad, Johnny,” he said, gazing down on a pair of M-16s, one equipped with a grenade launcher attached to its underside. There were several sidearms as well, along with plenty of ammunition and some thermolite explosive charges; demolitions had been one of Wareagle’s specialties in ’Nam. “Think you still remember how to use all this stuff?”

“Knowledge is like the sun, Blainey: it sets only to rise once more. While the guns might help us, though, I must warn you that most of my men will want nothing to do with them. The spirits have been stricter with them than they have with me.”

“We can’t let them go into this empty-handed, Indian.”

“We won’t. Each embodies the spirit of his weapon. Their prowess will surprise you.”

“Just so long as it keeps us alive. …”

“You must share the details with me now, Blainey.”

McCracken pulled Terrell’s map from his pocket and spread it out on the Indian’s bed. “This is Horse Neck Island in Muscongus Bay. The island’s our target, and we’ve got to reach it no later than seven-thirty tonight.”

Wareagle glanced out the window and inspected the little remaining light. “Just two and a half hours away. A difficult task even if the spirits are with us.”

“You know the area in question?”

Wareagle nodded. “The shorelines of all the islands in these parts are treacherous. But before we can reach that obstacle, there remains a difficult drive ahead of us and an impossible journey across the waters.”

“Impossible?”

“The storm will have forced all worthy boatmen off the docks; their crafts will be worthless to us.”

“Not if we can steal one.”

“Only a seaman familiar with those waters would stand a chance of eluding the rocks in such weather. A boat by itself is useless.”

“Your spirits taking Christmas Eve off, Indian?”

“They advise, Blainey. They do not work miracles.”

“Then let me tell you something. It might take a miracle for us to pull this off. And there’s plenty more at stake than just our lives; it’s the whole goddamn country we fought for in that godforsaken pit and the enemy on Horse Neck Island is worse than any we faced over there.”

Wareagle was nodding, expressionless as always. The snow on his hair had melted to shiny wetness.

“We will get to the docks, Blainey,” he said, “and the spirits will find us a way across the water. They would not have guided you here to me if that wasn’t their plan.”

“So all we need now is one of our own.”

Wareagle began pointing to spots on Terrell’s scale drawing where guards were sure to be posted.

“The problem, Blainey, is that we must approach in a boat. Even the spirits will not be able to hide that from the island lookouts.”

A howling wind whipped through the trees. Blaine’s eyes strayed out the window. “But the blizzard will.”

“Only from a distance. Once we cross the rocks and approach this single dock here, the flakes will no longer shield us.”

“Then we’ll have to think of something.”

A knock came on Wareagle’s cabin door. The big Indian opened it to find Running Deer standing outside, slightly out of breath. Quiet words were exchanged. Wareagle turned to Blaine and then briefly to Sandy.

“My men are waiting for us outside. I think you should meet them.”

There were six of them including Running Deer. They stood in a single row, the light of the fire dancing off their faces.

“They know what’s happening, don’t they?” Blaine asked Wareagle in a whisper as they approached the men.

Johnny nodded. “The spirits have much to say in these parts, Blainey, for all who listen.”

Sandy stopped halfway between the men and Wareagle’s cabin. Something about the group chilled her. Their faces were fearfully stark and barren, eyes darker than the night and shining like a cat’s. Their potential for violence was held in those eyes, a violence they had come here to escape but that once again had sought them out. Only one of them besides Running Deer was physically handicapped. Instead of a hand he was missing a leg and wore a wooden replacement.

“We’re moving out,” was all Wareagle told them. “Ten minutes. Prepare your weapons.”

The six Indians moved away quickly but not in a rush. The one with the wooden leg hobbled to keep up.

“I think we can leave Tiny Tim behind,” Blaine suggested.

“Nightbird was a sharpshooter in the hellfire, Blainey. He will be of great help to us.”

“There’s only two rifles, Indian, one for you and one for me.”

They were walking back toward his cabin. Wareagle shook his head. “For you and Nightbird, Blainey. The bow is much more to my liking these days.”

When they were inside again, Blaine finally looked at Sandy.

“You’ll stay here.”

“Not on your life!” she replied sharply. “I don’t even know where the hell I am. If you guys don’t make it back, I’ll be stuck here for the winter.”

“Then we’ll drop you off along the way.”

Sandy glared at him with both shock and anger. “Maybe you’ve forgotten that they tried to kill me too. You really think I’d be any safer making my way through Maine alone than I would going to the island with you? Let’s face it, if you screw up, I’m as good as dead anyway.”

McCracken looked at Wareagle, who nodded. “Can you fire a gun?” Blaine asked Sandy.

“I can learn.”

McCracken gave her a.45, which she stuck uncomfortably in her belt and also made her responsible for toting two green canvas knapsacks full of extra ammo. The big Indian carried the most potent explosives. Blaine slung the M-16 with the grenade launcher over his shoulder and issued the standard version to the sharpshooter Nightbird. Running Deer boasted an assortment of handmade tomahawks suspended from his belt. Of the other men, one carried a crossbow, another an assortment of throwing knives; a third preferred a long ball and chain, while the fourth opted for a bow and arrow just as Wareagle had.

Ten minutes after the men had separated, two four-wheel-drive, enclosed jeeps pulled up to a halt. The snow was thick on them everywhere but their front windshields and rear windows. The wipers did their best to keep up with the snow still pouring down.

“The spirits cosign the financing for these babies, Johnny?” Blaine asked.

As always, Wareagle ignored his attempt at humor. “Withdrawal from society does not mean an abandonment of reality, Blainey. Emergencies come up. Supplies are needed. Besides, it was not machines that were responsible for the struggles within our souls.”

Sandy and Blaine rode in one jeep with Wareagle and a driver, while the other five Indians crowded into the second. They headed down a snow-covered road that seemed to have been cleared by nothing more elaborate than machetes. Collapsing branches scraped at them as they passed; with the snow intensifying, the visibility was reduced to near zero. Standing still in the woods, they had not realized how savage the storm had become. Johnny guessed ten inches had fallen already with another one likely before they reached the dock on Horse Neck Island.

It was an agonizing ten minutes before they turned east onto Route 17. The driving, even for the four-wheel-drive jeeps, was treacherous. Occasionally a drift appeared nearly as high as the jeeps themselves, and only the nimble reflexes of the drivers saved the vehicles from becoming hopelessly stuck.

They saw not a single other car or snow plow on the road, and the closer they drew to what should have been civilization, the worse the road became. The jeeps’ lights were useless. Sandy had no idea how their driver could possibly anticipate the corners and obstacles, but somehow he did. The journey was maddening, and she could not stop her heart from lunging toward her mouth around each blind curve. The snow lashed against the windshield, sometimes coating it with a thick blanket which temporarily stopped the wipers. They struggled hard, managing to win, but each instance seemed to take more out of them as the snow grew still thicker.

“I’m dreaming of a white Christmas,” Blaine sang in his best Bing Crosby impersonation when they had turned onto Route 1. “Just like the ones I used to know. …”

Sandy wanted to tell him to shut up, then smiled in spite of herself and noticed that even Wareagle had cracked a slight grin. Of all McCracken’s features, it was his sense of humor that confused her the most. It seemed so out of place in the world of violence and death he had been immersed in for so long. Then something occurred to her: perhaps that was how he had survived and kept his sanity at the same time. She recalled the horror she had experienced in Houston of having to become a killer to avoid being killed. It still lingered, and she knew it would haunt her sleep for as long as she lived. Blaine McCracken had lived with such experiences for most of his life. He was cynical and sarcastic, and maybe that kept him going. His sense of humor, she supposed, was a kind of weapon to be used like any other.

Route 1 was no better than 17. Plows had obviously been over the road once earlier in the storm and had produced a thin coat of ice beneath the snow piling up again. The jeeps lunged drunkenly down the road, brakes now as useless as lights. If there were road signs, the snow had long since obscured them. The Indian driver had studied the map to Muscongus Bay and Horse Neck Island only once that Sandy could remember. He took his eyes off the snow-blown road only to check the rearview mirror to make sure the second jeep was still in his tracks.

The jeep slowed finally and Sandy thought she saw water to their right, distinguishable by its dark surface. They had turned off Route 1 some minutes before and seemed to be passing through a small village. Her eyes found few lights and these were dim, behind drawn blinds, as though the village’s residents were hiding from the raging storm outside.

The jeep continued through the town, and Sandy could hear the sounds of waves thrusting violently on a nearby shore. Another few hundred yards later Wareagle signaled the jeep’s driver to stop.

“It’s almost seven o’clock,” McCracken announced. “There’s not much time left.”

“The spirits guiding us do not go by minutes, Blainey. Their view is eternal. The time they provide us with will be enough.”

Blaine just shrugged and climbed out, bearing his personal arsenal. Sandy followed and stood to his rear as War-eagle and the other Indians approached. In the distance across the bay she could make out the dark shape of Horse Neck Island. It lay like a great serpent writhing on the water — an illusion provided by the blowing snow.

“Over there.” Wareagle motioned.

Blaine followed the line of Johnny’s finger to a small, rickety pier extending from the farthest jagged edge of the shoreline. From this distance all was pale except for a trace of darker motion bobbing in rhythm with the wind.

It was a boat, a fishing boat.

“Looks like those spirits of yours are taking care of us after all, Indian,” Blaine said, feeling hopeful again.

Wareagle shook his head. “We’d never make it, Blainey. In calm waters we’d have a chance. But now, tonight, the rocks will feed us to the icy seas. The boat is useless to us. Only a man whose manitou knows these waters by heart could make it.”

“We’ve got to try, Johnny,” Blaine insisted. “Even if we have to swim across the bay, we’ve got to try.”

“Maybe we won’t have to,” Sandy said suddenly, noticing the small clouds of gray wood-smoke billowing from the chimney of a shack just off the pier. A light flickered in the window.“There’s someone in that shack.”

McCracken turned to Wareagle. “The boat’s owner?”

“If the spirits are with us, anything is possible.”

“Then let’s go see if we can hire ourselves a driver.”

Chapter 29

McCracken rapped on the door five times hard before he heard a knob being turned on the inside. The windows were so caked with ice that inspection of the shack’s interior was impossible from the outside. There was a dim light glowing within, but until the knob began to squeak, he had no way of knowing if someone was inside.

“What do ya want?” the boatman asked, opening the door just a crack.

“We need your help,” Blaine told him as the wind blew fresh snow through the narrow opening. He could feel the heat of a warm fire from the inside now, could smell the pine-scented relief it promised from the cold.

“Ayuh,” the boatman drawled in a raspy, weather-scorched drawl. “You fellas best come out of the storm ’fore it freezes ya dead.”

“We haven’t got time.”

“You got time enough to freeze, and that’s just what you’ll do ’less you listen up to me.”

Blaine gave in and entered, followed by Sandy and then Wareagle, who elicited a sharp look from the boatman.

“There’s more of ya out there,” he said. “I heard ’em.”

“If they come in, the cold will only seem crueler when they must go out again,” Wareagle explained. “It was their choice.”

“Ayuh. This night’ll kill what it can. You fellas … and lady … are white-faced. You been out in it for a while. I can tell.”

“We need your boat,” Blaine started.

“My boat ain’t for rent, friend.”

“What about charter? We also need you to drive it.”

“Better men ’an me been lost in coastal blows, friend. Better boats too.”

Blaine followed the boatman closer to a single kerosene lamp, which gave him his first good look at the man’s face. It was a formless face, neither young nor old, features hidden by beard stubble and dull eyes held low beneath a nest of graying hair.

“Money’s no problem,” he offered.

“You’re right, it ain’t,” the boatman snapped, “ ’cause money can’t buy nobody a new life.”

“A new boat, though.”

“I’m happy with the one I got now,” the boatman insisted. “She’s got some life left in her.” He paused. “ ’Sides, where you boys gotta get to so fast in this kind of blow?”

“Horse Neck Island.” Blaine checked his watch. “We’ve got to hurry.”

McCracken briefly considered using his gun as impetus and the boatman must have read his mind, for his dull eyes turned to the M-16 slung over his shoulder.

“You boys fixin’ to fight a war or somethin’?” he asked, scratching at his beard stubble.

“Something,” Blaine replied anxiously.

The boatman nodded. “I know these waters better than any, mister. But this storm’s a killer. It might take us ’fore the rocks even get a chance to.”

“We’re willing to take that risk.”

“How many are you?”

“Nine,” Blaine replied, not bothering to leave Sandy out.

“The boat’ll be weighted down, friend. She’ll be ridin’ awful heavy, low in the water. With the waves out there now, that ain’t hardly advisable.”

“But you’ll do it,” Blaine said, and for some reason he knew this ragged man living in a shack stinking of stale sweat and cheap whiskey would.

“Just let me get my gear, friend.”

Wells had spent most of the afternoon in the surveillance room with the closed-circuit television monitors and communications equipment that linked him to his guards scattered across the island. The blizzard had become a blessing for it totally precluded attack by air. Since approach by water was impossible in this weather even before night had fallen, he should have felt at ease.

But he didn’t. Something was nagging at him. The storm’s lashing snows had rendered the closed circuit cameras virtually useless for nighttime monitoring, which left Wells totally dependent on his guards. Several times he had ventured out beyond the fortress’s walls to check the island himself, searching the swelling waters through a pair of binoculars as if he expected visitors.

Now, though, seven-thirty was fast approaching. In little more than half an hour the computer would exclude the possibility of aborting the mission and Omega would be inevitable. Wells relaxed a bit at that reassuring thought, but only when the moment had come to pass would he be totally at ease. He left the communications room and headed up to the fourth floor command center, where two armed guards stood poised before the door. Wells inserted his ID card into a slot, which caused the door to swing open.

“Ah, Wells,” greeted Verasco from behind a computer console. “I was just running some final checks. Our satellite is operating without a single malfunction.”

The command center had six computer terminals on one side and on the opposite side a large aerial map of the world that constantly displayed the location of the Krayman satellite. At present the white blip representing it was flashing over central Europe. Two men stood before the map, jotting notes onto their clipboards. The terminal operators behind them were responsible for monitoring all vital readouts from the satellite. The room’s single set of double windows looked out toward the mountain. Snow and ice had caked up on them, giving the command center the feel of a tomb.

“Where’s Mr. Dolorman?” Wells asked.

Verasco’s round head tilted toward a heavy door across from the map display. “Making the final preparations.”

As if on cue, the heavy door opened and Dolorman walked gingerly out. “Anything to report, Wells?”

“All stations report no intruders.”

“You still sound worried.”

“Just concerned.”

“About McCracken?”

“McCracken’s dead. There may be others.”

Dolorman smiled up at him. “Save your nerves the bother. Thirty-six minutes from now, nothing anyone can do will be able to change what will commence at nine o’clock.” Then, to Verasco, “Are our communications people prepared to receive reports from the spotters?”

Verasco nodded. “They’re in place now.”

“Then nothing can stop us.”

A phone buzzed on Verasco’s desk. He lifted it to his ear and listened briefly, then turned quickly toward Dolorman.

“He wants you back inside.”

Dolorman moved to the heavy door again, gazing up at the wall clock before he entered. “Thirty-five minutes, gentlemen.”

The boatman’s craft rode the waves sluggishly from the extra weight. The currents battered her sides and spilled cold seawater onto the deck. Blaine and Johnny Wareagle remained on deck, while Sandy and the other Indians huddled in the small cabin. They were two-thirds across the inlet to Horse Neck now, and they could see the island gaining substance up ahead. It looked ominous.

“How long before the men on shore spot us?” Blaine asked the boatman, who stood rigidly behind the wheel, eyebrows and beard stubble speckled with ice crystals.

“Soon as we cross the rocks, I’d figure. Ayuh, that’s when the storm’ll stop covering us.”

“Any ideas?” Blaine asked Wareagle.

“If they see us, they’ll blow us out of the water … unless they see no reason to.”

“What do you mean?”

“No one shoots down a horse without a rider. That must be the way we make it seem with our boat. If the spirits are with us, it might work.”

“And if they aren’t?”

“Then we would have been dead already — a long time ago, Blainey, in the hellfire.”

McCracken turned to the boatman. “After we cross the rocks, would it be possible to drift toward the island’s dock?”

“With the currents, you mean, friend? Hard to figure them on a night like this. Storm winds blow the waters all different ways. But with a little luck, ayuh, I think I could manage it.”

“We’ve got my friend’s spirits with us,” Blaine said with an eye on Wareagle. “That should take care of the luck department.”

A minute later, with the island’s erratic shape now clearly in view, they reached the rocks. The boatman’s eyes were locked forward, though they were virtually useless to him when it came to seeing the deadly obstacles reaching up to tear the bottom from his boat. Instead, he focused on the island’s shoreline. He could then chart the murderous rock formations from memory and steer the boat accordingly. Although he had eased the throttle down almost entirely, the craft was still at the mercy of the lashing waves and was shoved from side to side against the boatman’s concerted efforts to hold the wheel steady.

In the cabin below, Sandy could feel rocks scraping at the hull. She could hear the horrible scraping rasp on the wooden bottom and wondered how long it would be until saltwater began to leak in.

Above, the boatman continued to throw all his energies into avoiding the most dangerous formations and risking abuse from the smaller ones. Occasionally the craft would slow with a grinding snarl to the point where it seemed they were scraping bottom and could go no farther. But always the boatman would twist the wheel just enough for the currents to free the craft so it might continue on its deliberate passage. Blaine felt his heart pounding and knew even Wareagle was fighting to retain his calm. The snow was vicious so close to the island, and they could look into it only for brief periods before the stinging on their faces became too much and they had to turn away.

Suddenly the boat’s progress was arrested, as if a giant hand had clamped onto its hull from beneath the water. The boatman advanced the engine patiently and eased the wheel to the right. The sound below was ear-wrenching, fingernails on a chalkboard, but the craft shifted free of the rock formation into the surging black sea. They had escaped the rocks.

In the cabin below, Sandy felt the cold soak of seawater through her gloves. It wasn’t coming from a central leak, but from many smaller ones. Soon she felt it rushing around her legs. A tremor of fear shook her as the engines switched off and the horrible anticipation of drowning made her breath come fast. Then the cabin door eased quietly open and Wareagle lowered himself in, followed by McCracken. While the giant Indian explained the next phase of the plan to his men, Blaine took Sandy aside and went over her role. She accepted it willingly, glad to have something to take her mind from the panic.

Blaine led her onto the deck, where they covered themselves with a single tarpaulin. She could not find the boatman and realized he, too, had covered himself up somewhere, leaving the craft to the whims of the water. Blaine had positioned them so he could follow their progress through a crack in the tarp, and Sandy was able to steal a few glances herself. They were heading erratically for a white dock that jutted out into the black water. At first it seemed certain they would overshoot it, but the boatman had calculated the currents well and from twenty yards away their route was straight on.

Blaine noticed the single man on the dock, glad he was alone but unhappy that he held his rifle poised. The man’s job was to watch for approaching craft but this one, obviously deserted, must have been stripped away from its mooring and been propelled here by the wind. Miraculously it had escaped the fury of the jagged rocks. There was nothing to report to headquarters until he had inspected the craft more closely. He expected to find nothing but held his gun steady just in case.

Ten yards later the cabin door opened just a crack, enough for Windsplitter, Wareagle’s knife-wielding man, to make a passage for one of his blades. Blaine stilled his breathing and pulled the tarp farther over him and Sandy. He was totally vulnerable from this position, but there was no alternative. If the dock guard noticed anything that made him shoot or contact his base, their mission was forfeit.

The man watched the abandoned craft pick up pace as it neared the dock. It slammed hard against a piling, and the guard noticed it was riding low, its deck sloshed with sea-water. The boat was obviously sinking. He would have to contact headquarters for further instructions. His hand started for the walkie-talkie pinned to his belt.

Windsplitter hurled his knife through the crack in the cabin door.

The blade split the guard’s chest up to the hilt. He stood transfixed for an instant before tumbling down onto the deck.

Blaine stripped the tarp away. Immediately Windsplitter yanked the blade from the guard’s chest and returned it to the sheath on his belt. Then Blaine undid the buttons and snaps on the dead man’s heavy winter coat. If the guard’s killing had been witnessed by any of his fellows, the area would be crawling in seconds with Wells’s men. If not, and if they worked fast enough, Blaine’s plan might work.

He finally managed to tear the bulky jacket from the corpse and held it open for Sandy. She slid her arms through it and let him buckle it up for her. The final touch was to fasten the hood tightly in place, so from a distance in the blizzard she would appear to be the guard on duty on the dock. Less than a minute after Windsplitter’s blade had jammed home, she was standing on the snow-covered dock with a heavy rifle in her gloved hands, glancing down with a shudder at the dark splotch on her chest.

“All you have to do is stand here,” Blaine told her. “If they call you on the walkie-talkie, don’t answer. Better yet, talk with your hand over the mouthpiece and say you can’t hear them.”

The boatman would remain behind as well to make whatever repairs were needed to keep the craft seaworthy. The one-legged Nightbird, meanwhile, would take up a position away from the dock to cover their return from the fortress after completing their mission. Blaine knew the Indian would have fared much better in the guard’s role than Sandy, but his handicap would make the substitution too obvious. He gazed around. The pier jutted out twenty yards from the shore into the water. After that came thirty yards of snow-covered beach and then the woods that would take them to the fortress.

“Let’s go,” said Blaine.

With Wareagle in the lead, they moved quickly away from the waterfront and found a trail at the entrance to the woods.

“You figure there’ll be any electronic traps?” Blaine whispered to Wareagle. “Trip wires or something?”

“Doubtful, Blainey. Too many small animals around to trigger false alarms.”

A few silent minutes later the small group reached a clearing and stopped at its edge. From where they stood, the mansion was visible through the falling snow, along with a number of guards perched atop the tall stucco wall enclosing it.

“They’re going to be a problem,” Blaine said softly. “More than we expected. I count seven.”

“Eight,” said Wareagle.

A branch snapped not far off, forcing them to silent stillness. A pair of boots approached, crunching snow and closing on their position. Wareagle motioned to Thunder Cloud, the Indian whose specialty was a long chain with a steel ball attached to its end, a variation on the ancient bolo. Thunder Cloud freed his weapon from his belt and quickly unwound it as he glided to the front of the clearing.

The approaching guard was still six feet away when Thunder Cloud crouched and whipped his bolo forward. It swished through the air and twisted around the man’s throat, the chain propelled by the heavy ball, until it shut off his air. His hands groped desperately for the chain, his frame reeling backward as Thunder Cloud took up the slack and the gnarled steel tore through the flesh of his throat. The scream he was forming died in the blood and pain. Thunder Cloud yanked his writhing body into the clearing as he started to fall.

“There will be others patrolling the immediate grounds,” Wareagle cautioned. “The spirits tell me six, perhaps seven between us and the wall.” He nodded to Running Deer, Windsplitter, and Thunder Cloud, who had just finished untangling his weapon from the dead guard’s throat. Together the three Indians fanned out ready, with their silent weapons of death, to clear their approach to the mansion’s wall.

“There are still the wall guards to worry about,” Blaine reminded Wareagle. “We’ll have to scale the wall to get to the mansion.”

He stripped the M-16 rifle and rocket launcher from his shoulder. Wareagle grabbed its barrel and held it.

“Bullets bring with them a noisy message, Blainey. There is another way.”

And McCracken watched the giant Indian and his two remaining soldiers, Swift Colt and Cold Eyes, lift their bows nimbly from their backs and ready their arrows.

In the woods beyond, soft sounds reached them through the storm. A grunt, a groan, a whistle through the air, a thud — all of these were repeated several times and each indicated to Wareagle that another of the enemy had fallen at the hands of his troops. But there was no time to relish the success of his tactics. The dead guards would have reports to make and checkpoints to pass. Soon too much would seem wrong to the men on duty inside the mansion.

“We must move now, Blainey,” Wareagle whispered. “The spirits command it.”

Blaine nodded and followed Johnny from the clearing. Cold Eyes and Swift Colt were right behind with bows ready.

Inside the mansion Wells had returned to his perch in the communications room. The closed circuit monitors had him totally frustrated, and squinting his good eye to make sense of their pictures had done him no good at all. Wells stripped back the shades from the windows overlooking the courtyard, but he could make out only the closest shapes at their posts.

The nagging feeling in his gut increased, the icy fingers of foreboding tightening their grasp. Nothing could possibly be wrong. And yet he felt something was. There had been no reports of anything strange or suspicious from his patrols beyond the walls, and surely no assault could come without at least some of them being alerted.

Wells was nonetheless restless. None of the logical assurances could override his feeling of dread. His nerves were getting to him. Maybe his repeated failure to eliminate McCracken had something to do with it. Failure was something Wells seldom experienced. But McCracken had finally been killed in Arkansas. If there was someone here on the island, it wasn’t McCracken.

“Get me the guard on duty at the dock,” he called to the man monitoring the communications console.

Wareagle stopped.

“What’s wrong?” Blaine whispered.

“More men inside the courtyard,” Johnny told him. “If we shoot down the wall guards but do nothing about the men in the courtyard, our presence will be given away to those inside.”

“The element of surprise is all we have. We can’t lose that.” McCracken thought quickly. “We’ve got to attack the men inside the courtyard at the same time we take out the guards patrolling the wall.”

The three Indians Wareagle had dispatched arrived within seconds of one another. Blaine didn’t bother asking how they had located their leader. They behaved like homing pigeons.

Pigeons … Trees …

Blaine glanced up through the falling snow. Trees surrounded the wall, some of them hanging over or close to it. The right men up there with the right weapons could take care of the courtyard and the wall. He explained the plan briefly to Wareagle.

“Can your boys get up in those without being seen, Indian?” he asked finally.

“They can get anywhere without being seen, Blainey, until circumstances force them to appear. Once in the courtyard, their presence will not be secret long from those inside the mansion.”

“Just get me to the front door, Indian,” Blaine told him. “I’ll take care of the rest.”

Sandy heard her walkie-talkie squawk and nearly jumped out of shock. She hesitated, hoping the call was meant for someone else.

“Water guard one, do you read me,” the voice repeated.

She lifted the walkie-talkie from her belt and covered the plastic mouthpiece with her gloved hand just as Blaine had instructed. Taking a deep breath, she began to speak in a deepened voice.

“I can … hardly … hear … you.”

“Say again, water guard one.”

“You’re broken up. I can’t hear you clearly.”

A different voice came on. “Water guard one, you missed your last report. Is everything all right?”

“Yes. I tried to report but I couldn’t make this thing work.” Sandy tightened a portion of her glove over the mouthpiece. “Could you send someone with a replacement?”

“No need, water guard one,” said the second voice. “Just stay alert.”

Wells yanked the headpiece from his ears and turned to a befuddled communications officer. “What was that about, sir? Water guard one wasn’t scheduled to make a report.”

“I know,” said Wells. “Now get me one of the field guards on the radio immediately.”

“Which one?”

“Any! All! It doesn’t matter!”

The radioman made the call, waited, then repeated it. After the third repetition he turned back to Wells.

“They’re not … responding, sir.”

Wells was already moving fast for the door. “Signal an alert!”

The radioman hit the red button on his console.

Chapter 30

It was twenty-two minutes to eight when Wareagle’s men had finally achieved their positions in the trees. Windsplitter and his knives were in one, Running Deer and his tomahawks in another, and Cold Eyes with his crossbow in a third. Blaine gazed up at the trees and honestly couldn’t see them, so complete was their camouflage. They had scaled the branches so adroitly that they barely disturbed the pilings of snow.

Johnny had kept Swift Colt, wielder of the second long bow, with him, and now they separated to find clearer sightlines to their designated targets on the wall. Blaine went with Thunder Cloud to the base of the wall and watched him fasten gnarled lengths of chain to the ends of a pair of ropes. There was a ridge protruding close to the top of the wall, and assuming there was a similar ridge on the inner side, the gnarled chain once tossed over would hook on it. The Indian handed one of the completed climbing ropes to Blaine and kept the other for himself. They’d climb the wall together and drop into the courtyard, with Wareagle and Swift Colt soon to follow if all went according to plan. The others would drop down from their tree perches a bit later. Taking the courtyard guards by surprise should overcome the advantage of their superior weapons.

The sound of an owl hooting came. It was time.

Wareagle and Swift Colt shot the guards closest to them on the wall and had their second arrows loaded before the next closest pair had even noticed their two fellows plunging to the ground. There were six guards patrolling the inner courtyard, and before they could respond, a series of weapons hurtled on target toward their chests or heads. A pair of Windsplitter’s knives found their marks neatly, along with one of Running Deer’s tomahawks and three whistling crossbow arrows courtesy of Cold Eyes.

Blaine and Thunder Cloud had reached the top of the wall just as the last of the guards atop it fell to Wareagle’s and Swift Colt’s arrows. They had just dropped into the courtyard when the alarm bell sounded.

Suddenly the courtyard was ablaze with light that made the snowflakes seem to dance in its beams. The front doors of the mansion crashed open and a horde of men surged out, machine guns already flashing.

McCracken rolled and fired a burst, taking out a few men of the first rush, and then slid back the catch on his grenade launcher. He pulled the secondary trigger and felt the recoil slam him backward. The grenade blasted into the front of the mansion and sent rocks and wood splinters flying everywhere. Running Deer and Windsplitter dropped into the courtyard, Cold Eyes staying at his perch to provide cover with his crossbow.

McCracken ran along the far edge of the wall, firing at the guards rushing forward and trying to angle himself for a dash into the mansion. Wareagle and Swift Colt, still on top of the wall, released a constant barrage of arrows at the troops charging from the hole blasted in the front of the mansion. The one-handed Running Deer managed to take out two others who’d escaped the arrows. Then, down to his last tomahawk, he raised it wildly over his head and hooted a war cry as he charged into a pack of Krayman’s men. He killed a final one before a bullet spilled his blood onto the snow.

Blaine kept firing until his clip was exhausted, then ducked behind the cover of a Land-Rover to snap a new one home. Krayman’s men controlled the courtyard now. There seemed to be hundreds of them, though dozens would have been enough and was probably more accurate. He felt for the thermolite charges in his pocket and wondered if the time had come to make use of them.

He had just fitted his second clip in when one of Krayman’s guards lunged behind the Land-Rover and aimed down at him with a rifle. Blaine started to spin away, aware it was too late, when a whistle split the air and Thunder Cloud’s ball and chain wrapped around the man’s throat. The Indian yanked viciously back, and blood spurted from the guard’s throat as a spray of machine-gun fire cut Thunder Cloud’s torso in half. He fell to the snow with a silent scream drawn over his lips.

McCracken grabbed the dead guard’s automatic rifle and tossed it up to Wareagle, who had just exhausted his supply of arrows.

“Cover me!” Blaine screamed, ripping a pair of thermolite bombs from his jacket and tearing the ring from one. Still running, he hurled it at the largest cluster of Krayman’s men. It had barely landed, when he tossed the second toward another group. The blasts came almost together, coughing up hundreds of pounds of blood-drenched snow into the air. Dashing through the white tunnel of his own creation, McCracken readied a third bomb.

He reached the front steps as the firing began again, and more troops charged through the entrance only to be met by fire from his M-16. They sought refuge down a hallway, and Blaine hurled his third bomb in their direction. A spray of fire from the opposite side stung him with its closeness, and he turned the grenade launcher that way and fired. The thermolite explosion had already sounded, shaking the walls, and with the grenade blast the whole structure seemed to tremble.

Blaine sprinted toward the main stairway. Johnny had three men left and alone they couldn’t hope to overcome all of Krayman’s guards. The best Blaine could hope for was a distraction that would give him enough time to reach the computer that controlled Omega. He stole a glance at his watch. Barely sixteen minutes to get the job done.

He started running up the stairs, taking them two and three at a time.

Wells sealed the steel-reinforced door to the command center behind him. The eyes of all the men at their stations turned toward him, the room silent save for a few beeps coming from computer terminals. Verasco waved a hand, signaling them to return to their work. On the monitor board, the satellite was just reaching Asia.

“What’s going on out there?” Dolorman demanded, his face a mask.

“We’re under attack,” the scarred man reported breathlessly. “I don’t know how many men there are, but they’re damned good.” Wells paused. “It’s McCracken. I can feel it. …”

Dolorman’s eyes shifted to the heavy door Wells had just closed behind him. “For God’s sake, Wells, find him!”

Outside, the firing seemed to be letting up.

“I’ll find him,” Wells said.

McCracken dashed down the second floor hallway. The desperate pounding of feet above and below made it impossible to tell if anyone was giving chase. He assumed he had been seen entering the mansion and could only hope that confusion would remain his ally long enough for him to avoid capture. He didn’t know exactly what he was looking for, only that he would know when he found it. He opened four doors on the floor and found nothing.

The fifth door was the entrance to a nightmare.

Inside was a perfect replica of the Oval Office. Krayman’s operation was sparing nothing. Terrell had said the illusion of control would be maintained through whatever means were available, and he had been right. With the presidential insignia behind him, broadcast over every television station in the country, any man could command attention, the efficacy of his position apparently confirmed by an illusion. It was incredible. But it was about to happen, and only activation of the abort signal within fifteen minutes could stop it.

Blaine quickly searched the rest of the second floor and hurried to the third. The door-opening process and the succession of reconstructed offices continued. The White House pressroom was re-created in one room, a replica of the State Department briefing room in another. In still others sat VCRs with tapes already loaded into huge broadcast consoles containing whatever messages … or illusions … Dolorman and company had prepared.

From within these walls all of America could be controlled. Sahhan’s troops would begin their rampage, the killer satellite would shut down all telecommunications, and then the mercenaries would move in. The rest of Dolorman’s plan would be achieved subtly, the changes all but unnoticeable as his people rose to levels of control. The country would be in the hands of Krayman Industries.

Blaine realized the firing had stopped outside the mansion. Wareagle’s resistance had ended, meaning the troops would be free to concentrate their efforts back inside.

Blaine started up the third stairway. He kept his back pinned to the wall and his M-16 at the ready. He was out of grenades but had a full clip of cartridges.

The fourth floor seemed as quiet as the last two. A low water table would have prevented Dolorman from risking placement of his command center in the more defensible cellar. Nor would he have expected an attack in the first place. So the command center had to be up here somewhere.

Blaine crept forward.

The long corridor was almost totally black when he reached it. The only light came from beneath a door at the very end. The sound of his footsteps swallowed by the thick carpeting, McCracken started to approach. If that was the command center up ahead, there should have been guards everywhere. It made no sense.

Blaine was halfway between the stairway and the lit room when the doors lining the hallway opened simultaneously and men lunged out in all directions, covering him with weapons, the corridor suddenly awash with light. Blaine glanced down at his M-16 and let it slide gently to the carpet.

A path opened amid the guards fronting him, and Wells stepped through it.

“It’s over, McCracken,” the scarred man spit at him, coming closer. “You lose.”

“The odds weren’t exactly in my favor, pretty boy,” Blaine taunted. “Now, if it had been just you against me, then—”

Blaine never saw the kick that smashed into his stomach and doubled him over.

“That Indian band of yours is all dead and I’ve got men sweeping the island to see if any more are waiting in the wings.” Wells grasped his shoulder and pulled him effortlessly upright. “Come on. Mr. Dolorman would like to meet the man who has caused him all this trouble.”

They moved to the door at the end of the corridor which Wells opened by inserting a card into a slot. The steel-coated door swung open.

There were computer consoles everywhere, all of them manned by individuals carefully monitoring the readouts on their screens. Here obviously was the central command point for the satellite about to shut off every television, radio, and telephone across the country. Blaine had finally reached it, for all the good it would do him. He noticed a white blip flashing toward the Pacific Ocean on a giant display of the world. He noted the only means of escape from the room other than the entrance was a single ice-crusted window. Not much good from four stories up. There was also a heavy door in the wall opposite the world display, beyond which Blaine assumed lay still more equipment.

A digital clock on the wall read 7:48.

A white-haired man eased himself slowly from a high-back chair in the room’s farthest corner.

“Blaine McCracken,” began Dolorman, a slight smile crossing his lips. “I wanted Wells to deliver you to me alive so you might witness the moment of your failure before he kills you. The eight o’clock abort signal is now an impossible dream. Despite your heroic efforts, you have failed, and I wanted you to experience the pain of that before your death.”

“And now I say, you’re mad. You won’t get away with this.”

“Spoken halfheartedly because you know it not to be the truth. In point of fact, we have already gotten away with it. Nothing you or anyone else could do can possibly stop us now.”

Blaine gauged his options and found none existed. “So your satellite plunges America into communications darkness while Sahhan’s puppet troops begin a revolution your own mercenaries will swiftly squash. What then, Mr. Dolorman?”

“Quite simply, Mr. McCracken, we take over.”

“Using a fake Oval Office? Somehow I figured you for better.”

“That’s only part of the plan, I assure you. It’s all laid out. The country will see what we want it to see, believe what we want it to believe. There are still a few things you’re not aware of. Come, there’s someone else who wants to meet you… ”

Blaine recalled Terrell’s theory that someone above Dolorman was actually directing the Omega operation. “Yes,” he said, “take me to your leader.”

Blaine felt Wells’s powerful arms grasp him at the elbows and aim him forward toward the heavy inner door. Dolorman twisted the knob and eased the door open.

“This way, Mr. McCracken.”

With Wells still holding tight, Blaine followed Dolorman into a dimly lit room filled with luminous diodes, digital readouts, high speed printers, and CRT monitors. Empty chairs sat before a host of computer terminals — all empty except one, that is. Wells closed the door behind them and McCracken’s eyes locked on the man seated with his back to them.

“He’s here, sir,” Dolorman announced.

The man swung round and stood up, silver-haired and rugged-looking.

“Randall Krayman,” Blaine said, confident he had figured everything out.

“Sorry to disappoint you, son,” the man said, striding over. “But the name’s Alex Hollins.” He stuck out his hand. “My friends call me Spud.”

Chapter 31

Sandy tensed when she heard the rapid footsteps pounding through the snow. Men were rushing toward the shore. What was she to do? Many men, dozens of them. McCracken had said nothing about this.

The footsteps sounded closer. Still she stayed rigid. She thought of the Indian sharpshooter, Nightbird, waiting, rifle in hand, nearby. Would he take action? No, his orders had been to provide cover for Wareagle and company’s return. He could not risk betraying his presence now. The decision of what to do was left to her. But she couldn’t make it.

Suddenly an arm wrapped itself around her shoulder. She turned and found the ragged boatman by her side, his face and hands smeared with grease.

“We’d be best off to hide, miss,” he whispered, tugging at her. “Ayuh, they’ll shoot us down for sure if they find us here.”

He started to lead her from the dock.

“What about the boat?” Sandy asked.

“They won’t pay it no heed,” he told her. “They might not even see it. It’s not what they’re looking for. We’d best hurry.”

“But how can we hide? They’ll look everywhere.”

“There’s a way,” the boatman assured her as their legs sank into the foot-deep snow beyond the dock.

McCracken was still staring. “Sandy Lister interviewed you.”

Spud Hollins jammed his thumbs into the pockets of his faded jeans. “Yup. I guess you see why I had to mislead her a bit. My down-home country boy act never fails.”

“This has been your operation all along,” Blaine surmised. “The satellite, Sahhan, the mercenaries — everything about Omega.”

Hollins nodded. “I always believe in taking credit where it’s due, son, but plenty of it belongs to Mr. Dolorman over there. I went to him with the beginnings of the idea and he fine-tuned it a mite.”

“The Krayman Chip … No one stole it, you gave it to them.”

“Absolutely. It was the key to this whole damned business. But I couldn’t even come close to matching the distribution Krayman Industries offered. The chip gave us control of the telecommunications business. The rest fell into place naturally.”

Blaine looked over Hollins’s shoulder at the giant computer. “Like the satellite up there your mechanical monster is obviously controlling.”

“As you’ve no doubt discovered, that satellite is the key to this entire operation. A few hours from now it’s gonna issue the last command our nation’s computers receive before we take over. The Omega command, son.”

“But Omega didn’t start with a machine, Spud. It started with you. Why?”

“Because I, like Randall Krayman, believed America was being beaten into the ground by shortsighted men who were mismanaging it. We were losing our edge almost everywhere and the few advantages we had left — high tech, agriculture — were starting to decline. Just as bad, we were losing our pride. Something had to be done, something drastic. Krayman had the resources, the facilities, but he didn’t have the guts.”

Blaine’s eyes left Hollins’s for the various consoles built directly into the mammoth computer. Somewhere was the abort mechanism he had to find. It was 7:51.

“So you went to Dolorman and concocted the whole ruse surrounding the Krayman Chip, right? Dolorman sold Krayman on the story so you could get the production and distribution end going, and with that completed you killed him.”

Hollins nodded. “It was five years ago. The car he was riding in was wired with a bomb and he and his driver were both killed. It was around Christmas time, too, as I recall. We arranged the hoax of his withdrawal so Francis could take over the company without question.”

“With you whispering in his ear. You sold out to Krayman because you knew before long you’d be running his consortium. Then you moved out to that ranch in Hicksville so everyone would forget you.”

Hollins winked. “Worked pretty good, didn’t it? I needed room to move around, freedom to arrange all the things that needed to be arranged.”

“Except none of it’s going to work. You can dress up your mercenaries like soldiers, but that’s not gonna make the regular army sit back and watch, no matter how much of the upper echelon you guys control.”

“Who said anything about sitting and watching? They’re going to be mobilized almost from the beginning.”

“What?”

“Oh, not in any way that disrupts the role of the mercenaries, I assure you. Their orders will be confusing. They’ll be serving as perimeter defense in areas away from the real action. And they’ll have no reason to question that assignment since—”

“They’ll think the mercenaries are crack troops sent in to engage the insurgents directly,” Blaine completed.

“Then,” Hollins picked up, “we’ll move the army in to restore and maintain order. Enforce control — our control. Everything they do will be by the same book you’re quoting from, McCracken. They won’t suspect a damn thing has happened besides the quelling of a violent revolution. By then, after the Omega command is issued, this computer will control every bit of communications and data transmission in the country. Without the communications network, every sphere of American life will have come to a dead stop. When things start moving again, son, it will be as we direct. Our people will be in place or moving into place.”

“You say you’re doing this for the country, Hollins. So what about all the people that are going to die starting tonight, innocent people? Or don’t they count for anything?”

Hollins shrugged his broad shoulders. “If there was another way, believe me, son, I would have chosen it.”

The clock read 7:54.

“Now, McCracken, I’m gonna have to ask Mr. Wells to take you back into the control room, while I issue our satellite its final instructions. You go too, Francis.”

Dolorman nodded subserviently.

Wells shoved Blaine brutally toward the door as a twisted smile rose to his lips. “You’re mine,” he said softly. “When this is over, you’re mine.”

Dolorman closed the computer room door behind them. Wells reached into his pocket and came out with a pair of handcuffs, yanking Blaine’s wrists toward him. If he was going to move, it had to be now.

The blip was just a few flashes away from reaching the West Coast. The abort system had to be triggered before it got there.

Blaine was about to pull away from Wells and go for one of the guards’ rifles, when the ice-crusted window at the end of the room exploded. A horrible wailing cry filled his ears and his eyes locked on the most beautiful sight he had ever seen.

Johnny Wareagle dropped into the control room through the shattered glass, machine guns blasting in both hands, slicing up everything that moved. Johnny focused on the armed guards first, so by the time his legs were steady, there was no one left to provide real resistance. A few scampered about, only to be stopped by rapid bursts from Johnny’s guns. Dolorman was struggling toward the computer room door, when a burst made a bloody line up the back that had pained him for so long. He slumped to the floor.

Wells was the only one who responded quickly enough to take evasive action as he went for his gun. But Blaine lunged upon him, pinning him to the floor and grabbing a brass paperweight from a nearby desk. He pummeled the big man’s face again and again, reducing everything he struck to pulp until Wells struggled no more.

Blaine looked up to find Wareagle rushing for the door, machine-gun barrels still smoking.

There was activity coming from outside in the hallway, men battling with the entry system.

Wareagle shot out the plate holding the wires and fuses. The door was sealed.

“The computer’s in there!” Blaine shouted, and rushed for the door that sheltered Hollins. “The abort mechanism, satellite control, everything!”

Blaine twisted the knob. It wouldn’t give. The door had been bolted from the inside!

“Johnny!” he screamed, intent clear.

It was 7:56.

The Indian was breathing hard. Blood dripped from the exposed areas of his neck, face, and arms. Cold wind and snow blew into the control room through the window he had left shattered. In the corridor men were pounding on the entrance to the command center.

Wareagle stripped a green thermolite charge from his belt and tossed it at the computer room door. He hit the floor right next to Blaine.

The door exploded inward, smoke and splinters surrounded them. Together they regained their feet and rushed into automatic fire, obviously from Hollins.

“Don’t kill him!” Blaine screamed to Wareagle. “Don’t kill him!”

Johnny had already made the connection. His knife split the air and lodged in the fleshy part of the shooter’s wrist. Hollins screamed in agony and let the gun slide to the floor. The knife was buried in his flesh up to the hilt, the blade poking out the other side of his wrist, and blood spreading down the sleeve of his denim shirt.

An instant later Wareagle was holding another knife against the soft flesh of his jugular.

“The abort signal!” Blaine demanded. “Where is it?”

Hollins said nothing.

“You haven’t got the guts to die, Hollins,” Blaine shot out at him. “Tell me or the Indian rips your throat out.”

Hollins’s breathing came fast and hard. His eyes fought to see the blade perched on his throat.

“The abort signal!” Blaine repeated. “Now!”

The clock turned to 7:59.

“There’s a key beneath the center console,” Hollins wheezed. “Turn it.”

Blaine rushed to the center console and followed his instructions. A red button popped up on the console.

“Press it and you’ll activate the abort sequence,” Hollins explained between labored breaths.

Blaine depressed the red button. The console seemed to swallow it.

“Abort system triggered,” a mechanical male voice announced. “Contingency plan now in effect. …”

Blaine and Johnny looked at each other. The clock clicked to 8:00.

“Repeat, contingency sequence now in effect. …”

Blaine yanked Hollins free of Johnny’s grasp and shook him hard. “What just happened? What did I just do?”

Hollins looked up at him with strange calm, quivering from the pain in his wrist. “You can’t win, son. You never could. You haven’t aborted Omega, you’ve merely postponed it. Even now, our satellite has begun shutting down all telecommunications for just a few seconds as a signal to Sahhan’s troops not to abandon their mission, but to wait twenty-four hours till when the communications are shut down again — for good this time. That will be the signal for them to launch their strike. Everything will proceed as planned. Only the sequence will have been affected.”

“But the abort sys—”

“There never was any abort system, son. Terrell’s people learned of it because we wanted them to. Disinformation, you might call it, developed as a final security precaution against a successful penetration of our defenses. Did you really think we’d be foolish enough to leave such a hole in our operation?”

“There’s got to be a way to stop it, Hollins, there’s got to be!”

“Then try to make the computer work.”

Blaine touched one of the console keys. His hand was jolted by a surge of electricity.

“Pressing the abort switch automatically shut down the computer once it had issued its final instructions,” Hollins explained triumphantly. “It will accept no more instructions for thirty-six hours and has been programmed, like our satellite, to defend itself against penetration. It has already beamed a signal to the satellite telling it to activate the complete stage of Omega beginning at eight o’clock tomorrow night, eastern standard time. There’s nothing you can do to stop that now. Not even the computer can stop it. The satellite is on its own. You’ve triggered the Omega command, son.”

“Then I’ll blow your fucking computer up!”

And Blaine grasped the machine gun still lying on the floor.

“Go ahead,” Hollins taunted. “Destroy the computer, and the effects of Omega will become irreversible. There will be no way of telling the satellite to reactivate communications once it has shut them down.”

Blaine let the machine gun slide from his hands. “You bastard! There’s got to be a way!”

“There isn’t. It’s over. You’ve lost, son. The satellite is operating on its own, prepared to trigger the entire operation tomorrow night, and it’s beyond even your reach.”

Blaine’s eyes were still locked on the computer, searching for the impossible. The calm certainty of Hollins’s words lulled his attention away from him long enough for Hollins’s good hand to creep from his pocket holding a small pistol. Blaine saw it and saw Wareagle start in motion from the other side of the room. But he knew the Indian could never reach Hollins in time to prevent him from firing, and neither could he.

Blaine’s hands locked on the rolling desk chair in front of one of the computer terminals. In one sudden, swift action he propelled the chair forward as Hollins’s arm came up to aim.

The chair crashed into him. His legs were yanked from under him and he reeled backward.

Hollins struck the computer with enough force to send 30,000 volts charging through his body, frying him as he stood. His flesh turned purple, and his eyes bulged to twice their normal size, jeans and denim shirt smoking. His mouth dropped for a scream which lasted barely a second before death swallowed it, though the current kept him pinned there, writhing, his entire frame a mass of jittery convulsions.

“The main door, Blainey! They’re almost through it!”

That lifted McCracken from his trance and he rushed with Wareagle into the control room toward the shattered window. A series of ropes ran from the roof to six feet above ground level. Obviously, Wareagle had escaped the battle in the courtyard by way of the roof and then had climbed down the top portion of the rope to gain entry into the command center.

They slid down the rope quickly, hands burned raw from the coat of ice on its strands. When they let go, the cushiony snow broke their falls, and Johnny shot the rope down with a single burst from a machine pistol to prevent the guards from imitating their rapid plunge.

They ran together through the woods toward the dock. Wareagle’s instinctive sense of direction gave him the lead, and before the exertion stole too much of Blaine’s breath away, he was able to think out loud.

“The satellite! It’s the key now. If we destroy it, we destroy Omega!”

“The spirits do not roam the skies, Blainey. We must seek help elsewhere.”

“There’s no time! Who would believe us?”

“We must try,” Wareagle shouted as he ran. “No other choice.”

Suddenly Blaine realized there was. “Florida,” he muttered. “We’ve got to get to Florida. Canaveral.”

That was the last of the conversation between them. They drew closer to the general area of the shoreline, where the boat was docked. Johnny gave his hoot-owl signal. Nightbird would be expecting them now.

They could hear the pounding of boots, everywhere, it seemed, all around them. Both freed their machine guns from their shoulders and ran with the barrels poised and ready. The shoreline was just up ahead, under its thick blanket of snow. The storm showed no signs of letup. If anything, the snow was coming down harder than ever. Blaine and Johnny lunged into a clearing.

Forty yards ahead was the pier. Both strained their eyes. Incredibly, the boatman’s craft was still tied up in place.

Suddenly men dashed in front of them and opened fire. Blaine took a few out with a single spurt, but his position was now forfeit and the shore was clearly held by Wells’s troops. Wells might be lying back in the command center with a pulverized face, but he wasn’t finished with them yet.

From his position of cover in the snow, Blaine could see the troops fanning out between him and the pier. No wonder they had left the boat intact. It was the bait for a trap he and Wareagle had stumbled right into. But what of Sandy, the boatman, and Nightbird?

Then he made out rapid footsteps, crushing the snow well behind him, evidence that more of the troops were giving chase from the mansion. He and Wareagle were surrounded, or would be shortly. There was barely enough time to act.

“Any explosives left?” Blaine whispered to Johnny as machine-gun fire whizzed over their heads.

“Two thermolites.”

“Give me one. You take the right. I’ll take the left. We’ve got to reach that boat.”

Wareagle nodded his acknowledgment. More machine-gun fire coughed up snow into their faces. The pounding steps behind them sounded closer.

“Go!” Blaine signaled.

And in unison they rose and sprinted parallel to the shore in opposite directions. Snow spit everywhere around him as Blaine ran. The storm and the darkness were confusing the troops’ aim, but they were sure to lock on to him before long. Blaine estimated there were at least fifteen soldiers facing him, perhaps as many as twenty, most concentrated in the area fronting the pier. He ripped the tab from his thermolite bomb and hurled it at them. Wareagle did the same on his side.

Blaine then circled back for the boat and timed his entry into the open for the moment the explosives would ignite on the beach. His blast came an instant prior to Wareagle’s, and, again, as if on cue, they started moving inward in an attempt to catch as many of the now defensive troops in their crossfire. He rushed right at them, machine-gun hot in his hands.

Then it jammed and he knew he was dead. But he caught the flash of motion at the far edge of the dock, coming from behind the enemy troops’ line. As if in answer to a prayer, a figure covered with snow rose from the white blanket with a rifle in his hands, cutting Wells’s men down as if they were bowling pins falling to a perfect strike. A few turned to offer resistance, but Wareagle, coming fast from the right, used his final burst to kill them. In seconds the bodies were strewn everywhere, warm blood cutting scars in the deep snow.

Blaine discarded his jammed gun and sprinted toward the snowcrusted wielder of the rifle, fully expecting it to be the sharpshooter Nightbird, but this figure looked taller, and as Blaine got closer he saw why.

It was the boatman!

“Never did fancy these things much,” he said, and tossed the rifle to the snow. “If I was you, friend, I’d want to make it off this island real fast.”

The snow stirred below him and Sandy Lister rose to her feet, brushing the white powder from her clothes and coughing it free of her mouth. She was about to speak, when more shots split the air, coming from the woods.

“Get to the boat!” Blaine shouted.

Wareagle was already halfway there, the boatman well on his way. Sandy stumbled and Blaine reached to aid her. Together they started to cover the twenty yards of beach and pier that separated them from the small craft.

“Hurry, Blainey!” Wareagle called out as he untied the ropes from the pilings.

McCracken trudged faster through the thick snow. Sandy slipped and he yanked her back to her feet. Behind him a new series of bullets had begun to sound, smooth and even. The last of the enemy troops had finally come within Nightbird’s patient range and were paying for it. But even Nightbird couldn’t shoot down all of Wells’s men. A stray bullet caught Sandy in the leg and pitched her forward. Blaine knelt to pick up her unconscious frame.

The black shape hurled itself at him through the darkness. A scream punctured the night and Blaine knew before a set of massive hands had closed around him that it was Wells, far from dead, with fury lending him more strength than ever. They rolled in the snow, the scarred man’s hands searching for a grip on his throat. The good side of his face was bruised and bloodied, but his remaining eye still focused well enough to land a fist against Blaine’s jaw, stunning him.

They rolled again, and McCracken ended up on top, cracking the scarred man’s teeth with an elbow and then struggling to regain his feet. Wells reached out when he had almost made it and tripped him up.

A knife flashed in the scarred man’s hand.

It came down swift and sure, and only Blaine’s sudden move to the right stopped it from splitting his throat in two. Wells slashed again, and this time McCracken dodged to the left, at the same time jamming a hand up under the scarred man’s chin.

Wells seemed not to feel it. He plunged the knife down a third time and McCracken caught his wrist early and high, pinning it in the air. Wells’s teeth bared like an animal’s, and he screamed again as his free hand shot down for Blaine’s throat.

McCracken felt the fingers digging into his flesh, trying to tear through. His eyes bulged with fear. He fought futilely to pry the fingers off, the last of his breath choked off and his strength starting to give.

Wells tensed suddenly. The hand locked on Blaine’s throat spasmed, then let go. Wells spilled over backward, an arrow embedded a third of the way up its shaft through his good eye.

Dead this time.

Blaine looked up to see Wareagle kneeling on the dock above the boat, sliding another arrow into place to deal with a guard rushing from the woods, gun clacking. More men followed behind him.

“Come on!” Johnny shouted.

Blaine picked up the unconscious Sandy and ran toward the boat with bullets scorching the air around him. He kept his frame as low as he could and lowered Sandy’s body to Johnny as soon as he reached the boat. The boatman had begun to inch it away from the dock and Blaine jumped to the deck. The bullets followed them from the shore but they kept low and soon gained the full protection of darkness and snow.

“The souls of Bin Su can rest now, Blainey,” Wareagle said softly.

“Twenty years too late,” McCracken replied.

“How is she?” Blaine asked Johnny after the boatman had steered them safely through the rocks.

“The bullet passed through,” the Indian reported. “The spirits deflected it. The woman was not meant to die tonight, Blainey. She is strong, just as I told you this afternoon.”

“She’ll need a doctor.”

“Nightbird will arrange for one.”

“Nightbird’s still on the island.”

“With the spirits guiding his bullets. He will stop them from pursuing us in boats and then he will steal a boat for himself and return to the dock where we started.” Wareagle’s eyes looked up at the boatman. “She will be safe with him until Nightbird returns.”

Blaine accepted because he had to. “I’m sorry about your men, Indian,” he offered lamely.

“They have made their peace with the spirits, Blainey. They are better off than you and I.” He paused. “The spirits laughed when you spoke of going to Florida. I heard them. We must not tempt their good graces. They have helped us get this far. To ask for more would be to mock that favor. Ask for too much and you receive nothing.”

“Then we’ll have to help ourselves, Indian. Cape Canaveral’s our next stop, and we’ve got to get there by late tomorrow morning.”

“What lies there for us, Blainey?”

“Our only remaining means to stop that satellite from activating Omega: an armed space shuttle called Pegasus. It’s scheduled to launch on Friday with a practice run-through tomorrow. We’re going to pay the shuttle a Christmas visit, Johnny.”

“To help it on its way?”

“To hijack it.”

Chapter 32

For Nathan Jamrock it had already been a ten-Rolaids day, and he had stored an extra pack in his pocket in anticipation of things getting even worse.

“Say again, Paul,” he said into his headset from his position in the control room of the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

“I said, screw all the other preparations tests,” came back the voice of Pegasus commander Paul Petersen from the cabin of the shuttle seven hundred miles away in Florida. “Just make sure you get the crappers workin’ this time. Plumbers charge a hell of a price for a house call in outer space.” Petersen was a cornbread southerner from Alabama who’d dreamed of being an astronaut ever since John Glenn orbited the Earth in Friendship 7. Taking care of bodily needs and functions in outer space hadn’t occurred to him much in those days.

Jamrock popped another pair of Rolaids into his mouth. “The commodes check out fine, Paul.”

“Sheeeee-it, that’s what you said last time and I nearly died of spontaneous combustion when I had to hold my crap in for two days.”

“We got the problem fixed.”

“I’m fixin’ on bringing ya back a shoe box full if you’re wrong, boss.”

In spite of himself, Jamrock smiled. Petersen was the right man for this mission. No question about it. Career air force and a military man all the way and this was, after all, a military mission. It was also the most important mission Jamrock had ever been associated with. Pegasus had to go up tomorrow. It was as simple as that. Before that could happen, though, almost a thousand tests had to be successfully completed. After Challenger, NASA could not afford to submit itself to second-guessing. And yet, if Pegasus couldn’t make it up … Jamrock chose not to complete the thought. He’d give himself another ten minutes and then chew two more Rolaids.

“Commander, this is Jamrock, do you read?”

“Dirty books, boss, read ’em all the time. What can I do for ya?”

Jamrock consulted a clipboard his assistant had just handed him. “We have clearance on all primary boosters, fuel flows, and jettisoning outlets.”

“Gonna get to work on the crappers now, boss?”

“Launch countdown stands at T-minus twenty-four hours, thirty-one minutes, Paul. We’ll be ready to start your lift-off run-through anytime you’re ready.”

“Me and Bob would be more than happy to oblige ya, but the weapons officer ain’t made it here yet.”

“Where the hell is he?”

“Since this is a precise run-through, he’s probably taking a crap like he will before lift-off tomorrow. I’ll tell ya, boss, we should be carryin’ diapers up this time just in case.”

“Get back to me when the weapons man is on board, Paul.”

Jamrock stripped off his headset and massaged his temples. He hated run-throughs even more than he hated launches, because although he was in charge, he wasn’t in control. From seven hundred miles away from the launch pad, all he had to rely on were faceless voices and endless dials, gauges, and computer overviews. Once Pegasus was in the air, it was his baby, but until then too many things could go wrong. Not that the situation would be any different once this particular shuttle reached outer space.

Commander Paul Petersen was worried about taking a crap once they achieved orbit.

Jamrock was worried about what Pegasus might find up there.

Forgetting his ten-minute time limit, he chewed two more Rolaids.

Two hours earlier a car holding two NASA inspectors from Houston passed through the high security gate of Cape Canaveral on its way to the Kennedy Space Center. The car’s occupants made their way immediately into the preparations area, where astronauts were given their final tests and meals prior to boarding. Since their passes allowed open access, no one challenged the inspectors. And since their home base was Houston, no one expected to know them, though a seven-foot man with Indian features would certainly make for conversation later.

The route Blaine McCracken and Johnny Wareaeagle had taken from Horse Neck Island to Florida had been long and arduous. The boatman promised to watch over Sandy Lister until Nightbird arrived and agreed to take care of the medical arrangements himself if the sharpshooter failed to make it off the island. Wareagle gave him the name and address of a doctor his people used in emergencies.

“He doesn’t ask questions,” Johnny explained.

The pounding storm ruled out Portland Airport, necessitating a drive to Boston to reach the nearest functioning airport. Before setting out in one of the jeeps, McCracken called a number in New York. He had already catalogued what he would need for Christmas and he knew of only one man who could come up with the goods.

“Wow!” Sal Belamo exclaimed when McCracken had completed his list. “What you fixin’ to do?”

“Long story, Sal.”

“You ask me, cut it short. I think those balls of yours have gone to your head.”

“Can you pull it off?”

“No sweat with the clothes and ID badges. I’ll take a box of Crayolas over to a friend of mine. As for the other stuff …”

“I need it, Sal. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t crucial.”

“It ain’t easy to come by, pal, especially on Christmas Eve.”

“I’ve got faith in you. I’ll call from LaGuardia in about six hours. We’ll drink a Christmas toast.”

“I’ll bring the star from the top of my tree. You ask me, you’re gonna need some magic to pull off whatever you got planned.”

Blaine and Johnny made the long drive south to Boston. The snow had given way to rain when they boarded the shuttle to New York. Their clothes were damp and filthy, but there was no chance of changing until they met up with Belamo. Blaine called him as promised and thirty minutes later they met in a LaGuardia Airport bar. Sal said all the requested merchandise was outside in the trunk of his car. It hadn’t been easy to obtain, he reiterated, and guzzled the rest of his drink.

At four A.M. a suitcase filled with clothes concealing various other items Blaine had requested was loaded onto a plane bound for Miami. McCracken and Wareagle booked separate seats so each could watch for suspicious activity around the other. They rested in prearranged shifts until the plane landed in Miami ninety minutes past sunrise. They booked a room at a roadside motel, showered, and changed into another set of the clothes Belamo had obtained for them. Wareagle’s were a poor fit, but they’d do. All that really mattered were the badges they’d wear pinned to their lapels, and those badges were perfect, a fact later borne out by their swift, unchallenged entry onto the grounds of Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center.

They made themselves scarce until eleven A.M., playing the role of simple observers who checked procedures and jotted down notes. They spoke with few others and did nothing to attract undue attention.

Just before eleven the shuttle commander and first officer, in full gear, made their way to the launching pad with a heavy security escort. Since this was a dress rehearsal for tomorrow’s launch, every step was identical to those to be followed tomorrow.

But tomorrow was too late. By tomorrow Hollins’s killer satellite would have shut down NASA along with the rest of the country.

There were three crew members assigned to Pegasus’s maiden flight. The remaining one — the flight engineer, a cover in this case for weapons officer — was having some trouble with his equipment back upstairs in the preparations building. This was his first flight and he was experiencing the usual jitters. Blaine and Wareagle rode the elevator up to the floor on which he was dressing. The area was under heavy security, and only their badges permitted them access. They were directed to the weapons officer’s dressing room and knocked, then entered without waiting for a reply. The security men in the corridor were told not to interrupt. This was official NASA business. Don’t expect the flight engineer for another twenty minutes, the guards were told.

It was actually almost a half hour later when the helmeted flight engineer emerged from the room toting his air conditioner. The Indian had subdued the weapons officer quietly and applied an ancient hold that would keep him unconscious for hours. They had swiftly loaded the contents of Wareagle’s briefcase into the air conditioner and Johnny, calling upon his expertise in demolitions, made the proper connections while Blaine stripped the space suit off the man whose place he would take. The suit felt heavy and restricting on Blaine, and without Wareagle’s help, he would never have gotten himself into it.

“See you tomorrow morning, Blainey,” Wareagle said fondly before snapping McCracken’s helmet into place.

“Hopefully.”

“Hope has nothing to do with it. Just give yourself up to the spirits. They’ll take care of the rest.”

“I thought you said they don’t roam the skies.”

“The skies will be new for them … as they will for you.”

Blaine shrugged.

He kept his eyes away from those leading him from the preparations building toward the shuttle van that would take him to the launching pad. Wearing a helmet at this point was not an unheard-of practice but not the expected one either. The guards and technicians, though, didn’t seem to be paying much attention. This was, after all, just a dry run. The real thing was tomorrow and they were saving their enthusiasm and emotion for then. Today being Christmas was a blessing as well, an added preoccupation for workers forced to be away from their families.

Wareagle’s mission, meanwhile, was to remain in the preparations building and keep anyone from entering the room in which the real weapons officer lay unconscious until Blaine was safely on board Pegasus.

McCracken was helped into the waiting van that drove across the black tar toward the shuttle. The gantry still rested near it, to be removed as soon as Pegasus’s final crew member was deposited inside. Blaine breathed easier. Besides the driver, only two men had accompanied him in the van, and neither spoke.

Blaine, though, was boiling inside his suit and the confinement of it was nearly unbearable. Never mind the fact that he was about to suffer a launch into deep space with no training or preparation whatsoever. Worrying about that would do him no good at this point. The fact was he would soon be on board Pegasus, leading it on an intercept course with the killer satellite that would begin its deadly pass at eight P.M. that evening.

The two men who had accompanied him helped Blaine down out of the van and joined him in a small elevator that was open in the front. The ride up the gantry to the shuttle’s hatchway seemed interminable. Blaine passed through it uneasily with the men’s assistance and then climbed upward to the front cabin dragging his air conditioner along. As he drew nearer the cockpit, an impatient voice laced with a southern accent found his ears.

“I don’t know where he is, I tell ya. They told me he’s on his way, boss. … Yeah, I know. But I’m just saying that if I get up in space and can’t take a shit, I might open a window and let it fall right on your lap.” The speaker, the commander obviously, turned toward Blaine as he made his way through the doorway into the cockpit, holding tight to the handgrips. “It’s about time, Gus.” Then, back into his headset, “He’s here, boss. We’re ready to begin the launch sequence.”

By the time the captain turned toward him again, McCracken had his helmet off and a nine-millimeter pistol in his hand.

Captain Paul Petersen did a double take, eyes bulging. “What the blue blazin’ fuck is—”

Blaine cut him off with his best rendition of a Spanish accent. “Take thees plane to Cuba, mahn.”

“You’re being what?” Nathan Jamrock emptied a pile of Rolaids onto his desk.

“Hijacked,” came Petersen’s monotonal reply.

“You can’t hijack a space shuttle!” Jamrock shrieked. “The flight’s not even scheduled until tomorrow.”

“We’re bumping things up a bit,” a new voice said.

“Who is this?”

“Santa Claus. I left my sleigh in a tow zone last night and I’ve got to get back to the North Pole pronto. The wife, you know.”

“What?”

“Mr. Jamrock,” Blaine continued in a more serious tone, “I have a bomb on board this shuttle wired to go off with a simple touch of my finger. Twenty pounds of potent plastic explosives. Captain Petersen will confirm all this later. For now, just consider what would happen if Pegasus’s multi-ton fuel tanks went up. Remember Challenger? I’ve heard the effects on ground level would not be unlike a minor nuclear explosion of over three kilotons. Lots of damage. Kiss Cape Canaveral good-bye.”

Jamrock popped four Rolaids into his mouth. The man knew what he was talking about. How he had gotten on board the shuttle was something else again. But he had done the impossible and thus must be assumed capable of anything.

“Okay,” he relented, “how much do you want?”

“Money? None. I want the shuttle. It launches within one hour or I push the button.”

“What? That’s … impossible!”

“A dry run is close enough to the real thing to make the necessary changes, Mr. Jamrock.”

“No, we can’t work that way. The program’s different since reactivation. We can’t take chances. Lives are at stake.”

“My point exactly. One hour.”

Jamrock searched for a way out, couldn’t find one. “Why?” he managed. “Why are you doing this?”

“Is this communication line open?”

“What do you mean?”

“Can anyone else hear what we’re saying, dammit?”

“A few,” Jamrock admitted. “I put out the emergency signal.”

“Well, I hope they’ve got top security clearances,” Blaine said into his mouthpiece, gun still held on the pilot and copilot. “This isn’t a random act, Mr. Jamrock, nor is it political. I know the basis of Pegasus’s mission tomorrow. Only tomorrow will be too late.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Adventurer was destroyed by something in space and you’re sending Pegasus up to return the favor. This shuttle’s armed with laser cannons that may or may not be a match for what it’s going to be taking on upstairs.”

“How do you—”

“It doesn’t matter. I know what we’re fighting here. I know what it’s capable of and I know who put it up there. And I know what’s going to happen at eight o’clock tonight if it isn’t destroyed. But most of all I know the damn thing’s coordinates so you brains down here can plot an intercept course heading.”

“You’re not making any sense,” Jamrock gasped, realizing he was.

“You’ve got to trust me.”

“How can I trust someone who’s trying to hijack a space shuttle?”

“I’m not trying, Jamrock. I’ve already done it. And don’t even bother considering anything melodramatic like a commando raid because it won’t work and a lot of innocent people would get blown up for the effort.”

Jamrock hesitated. He needed to stall while security got a fix on what was going on. The FBI was already on the way.

“I need specifics. Names, dates, explanations of who’s behind these … things you allege.”

“There’s no time. If you haven’t called the President yet, you’re about to. Let me speak to him.” Blaine smiled faintly. “Tell him it’s McCrackenballs, and I’m ready to bust some more nuts.”

Chapter 33

The cubicle containing the direct line to the White House was hot and stuffy, suffering from poor ventilation. Jam-rock completed a summary of what had just happened.

“Did the shuttle commander confirm the existence of these explosives?” the President asked at the end.

“He’s no expert but he said they’ve got the potential to cause a big bang. Security’s already issued me a report on how they could take the shuttle back. We’ve got contingencies for this sort of—”

“No!” the President ordered. “Under no circumstances will you do anything of the kind. You don’t know who we’re dealing with here. Just trust me.”

“That’s what McCracken said.”

“Well, maybe we should.”

“Sir?”

“Patch a line through to him for me, Nate. Let’s hear what he’s got to say.”

“We tried to locate you after you called in from Newport,” the President told Blaine minutes later. “Stimson’s death knocked us for a loop. We didn’t realize it was you he was still running.”

“Somebody made it hard for me to drop by. As they say, there’s a price on my head.”

“Placed by whom?”

“It’s a long story.”

“We’ve still got fifty-one minutes until your launch.”

And Blaine highlighted as best he could the events of the last ten days from Easton’s discovery and subsequent murder, to its connection with Sahhan and the PVR; from the shootout at Madame Rosa’s, to his trip to Paris which led him to San Melas and Krayman Industries’ second army. Here he switched tracks to the discoveries made by Sandy Lister, confirmed and elaborated on by Simon Terrell. Finally, Blaine related the events on Horse Neck Island and his subsequent trip to Florida. In all, the story took twenty minutes to tell, a labyrinth journey of death and violence leading, perhaps irrevocably, to a new system of order in the United States.

“And you say these Krayman people are everywhere?” the President asked.

“They’re Hollins people now but, yes, everywhere it matters. They’re poised to take control. No one’s above suspicion. You’ve got to be as careful as I do.”

“What can I do?”

“Order the shuttle to launch, Mr. President,” McCracken told him. “We’ve got to intercept that satellite before it begins transmitting its signal.”

“And Sahhan’s troops?”

“According to the contingency plan, they won’t mobilize until the satellite does its part. Without the satellite they’ll be neutralized and so will the mercenaries.”

“You make it sound simple.”

“I don’t mean to. It’s anything but. Just because Pegasus goes up doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to succeed. If it doesn’t, you’ll have to stop Sahhan with more conventional methods. I’d recommend putting some contingency wheels of our own in motion now, like preparing the army to mobilize into all major cities. Otherwise lots of people might not be opening their Christmas presents next year.”

“Right,” the President said. Then after a pause he spoke again. “I’m going to order Jamrock to get the shuttle up as soon as he can. I don’t suppose there’s any way of persuading you to vacate the cockpit.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Then have a nice flight.”

“You don’t mind, fella, I’d appreciate you puttin’ that thing down now,” Captain Petersen requested, his eyes on Blaine’s pistol.

“I feel better with it in my hand.”

“Look, I’m on your side. If you can help us find the damn thing we’re supposed to shoot down, I say fuck the rest of ’em. But have you ever been up in a space ship before?”

“I was always good on roller coasters.”

“Yeah, well, multiply that feeling by about five and you’ve got yourself three Gs, which is what we’ll be facing at takeoff. Better men than you have passed out from the pressure.”

“I brought my Dramamine.”

“We are at T-minus twenty-two minutes to lift-off.”

Activity at both the Johnson Space Center in Houston and Kennedy Space Center in Florida became frantic with the announcement that the dry run had become the real thing. Personnel scurried about, the most practical ones stealing a few minutes to toss plastic covers over their cars to prevent damage from the hot dust the launch would scatter over a quarter-mile radius.

“We are at T-minus twenty minutes. …”

The emergency alarm had shrilled through the base for a full minute after the launch order was received from the White House.

“This is not a drill. Repeat, this is not a drill. Emergency launch procedures now in effect. Emergency launch procedures now in effect.”

Since the run-through included all the procedures of the actual launch, the Pegasus crews in both Houston and Florida were able to pick up where the drill left off, albeit with a faster stride and more resolute approach. The only problem encountered thus far had been a burned-out motor in the gantry which had to be moved from the launching pad before Pegasus could take off. The Florida ground crew ended up towing it out of the way with the help of two bulldozers.

“We are at T-minus twelve minutes. …”

“All systems are go. All light are green.”

On board Pegasus Captain Petersen was helping Blaine strap himself into takeoff position, with the gun still making him nervous as he tightened the straps around McCracken’s waist and chest.

“I hope you plan on puttin’ that thing away before we take off, fella.”

“Just as soon as you’re strapped in too, Commander,” Blaine told him, his eyes on the ever-silent copilot as well.

“Yeah, well, since you don’t trust me, you should keep in mind that if I wanted to make this the shortest flight you ever took, all I’d have to do would be to leave one of your straps unfastened. The G-forces at lift-off would send you bouncin’ ’round the cabin wall to wall. But don’t worry, fella, I fastened them all ’cause I believe ya and I know you’re the best chance we got once we hit the sky.”

Blaine flicked his pistol’s safety on and wedged it beneath his seat.

“That’s better,” sighed a relieved Petersen. “Now we can get the final check under way. …”

“We are at T-minus four minutes. …”

When the final check was complete, with all systems operating satisfactorily, Petersen turned back to McCracken.

“You wanna hear the flight plan?”

Blaine found he was squeezing the arms of the seat through his thick gloves. “I’ve got nothing else to do at the moment.”

Petersen smiled. “Two minutes after lift-off, the SRBs— that’s the solid rocket boosters — will be automatically ejected. The main engines — SSME system — will continue blasting us toward orbit for another seven minutes or so. Once they cut off, that monster of a propellant tank will jettison and we’ll enter a low, oval orbit.”

“We are at T-minus sixty seconds to launch. … Fifty-five…”

“I’ll fill you in on the rest later,” Petersen said, and turned back to his three monitors flashing a constantly changing display of data.

“Fifty…”

There was really nothing for Petersen to do at this point. Everything connected with launch procedures was handled by computer from Houston. He felt more like a passenger than a pilot.

“We are at T-minus thirty seconds. Twenty-nine, twenty-eight, twenty-seven …”

Blaine felt his teeth chattering. A horrible sensation of dread filled him. He fought down the urge to tear his straps away and pop the escape hatch to flee this nightmare. He closed his eyes and steadied himself. His whole frame had begun to twitch.

“Good luck,” said Nathan Jamrock into his mouthpiece.

“T-minus twenty seconds and counting. T-minus fifteen, fourteen, thirteen … T-minus ten …”

The monstrous lift-off rockets beneath Pegasus had begun to fire. The spacecraft rumbled and seemed to tremble in eager anticipation of its launch.

“T-minus five … We have gone for main engine start. …”

A thunderous roar found Blaine’s ears. Those in the observation area saw a blinding spout of orange and yellow flames burst out from the shuttle’s base, intermixed with a rush of erupting steam.

“Main engines and solid rocket boosters firing!” a voice said inside Blaine’s helmet.

The ground shook and threatened to break open. A quake of heat rolled across the miles of empty land surrounding the launch pad.

“We have lift-off!” a voice bellowed.

Pegasus rose patiently into the air, seemingly unburdened by all the frantic activity that had preceded her rise. The majesty and glamour of the event was totally lost on McCracken. His entire frame felt as if it had been squeezed into a crate a third its size. There was pressure from both above and below, seeming to compress his head closer and closer to his toes. He tried to scream, but he couldn’t find his voice. He knew he was breathing, but the action felt separate from himself. He was convinced he was choking to death, and he would have groped for his throat had he been able to free his arms from the rests. Finally he gave up and forced his shoulders back against his suit as far as they would go. He was vaguely conscious of a slight smoothing of Pegasus’s track and of words being exchanged rapidly in his headset.

“Pegasus, this is Houston Cap-Com,” came the voice of NASA’s capsule communicator. “You’re flying a few degrees higher than your planned trajectory. Should be no problem, but expect a slightly higher release altitude for SRBs and SSMEs.”

“Roger, Houston,” said Petersen.

A little over two minutes later Blaine heard the Houston Cap-Com announce that the SRBs had been released from the shuttle. This left Pegasus to be carried up by the thrust of its three main engines. McCracken was more relaxed now, breathing easier, but still he felt disjointed, as if he were riding some dizzying amusement ride he couldn’t get off. Three minutes into the flight, Pegasus was traveling at 6,200 feet per second. At six minutes that pace had more than doubled. McCracken’s heart was pounding at twice its normal rate. Through a side window he watched the earth shrinking away.

Less than a minute later the shuttle’s nose angled down to increase velocity. When its tip came up again, its speed had risen to more than 16,000 feet per second.

It was nine minutes into the flight when Blaine felt something buckle, as if someone had applied the brakes briefly.

“Houston, we have main engine cutoff,” Petersen reported.

Blaine felt his stomach make a determined leap for his throat, until a sudden shift in the shuttle’s trajectory forced it to drop for his feet.

“Pegasus, this is Houston. Propellant tank is away. Good work with the wheel, Captain.”

“That’s a roger, Houston. Thanks for your help.”

The sensation Blaine had felt had been an evasive maneuver enacted by the flight computers to steer Pegasus away from the free-falling tank.

He could have used some Dramamine after all.

“What is your altitude, Pegasus?”

“Houston, we read altitude at one oh five miles and climbing. Twin orbital maneuvering engines burning now. Climbing toward one seven five nautical-mile orbit.”

“Roger, Pegasus. We show all systems go. You’ll be passing out of range of our Bermuda tracking station in seconds. We’ll catch up with you over Madrid.”

“Si, señor,” said Petersen.

“What’s happening now?” Blaine asked the commander a few minutes later.

“To begin with, we’ve achieved initial orbit. But we’re still climbing and the orbit will change slightly as we do. Eventually it’ll become elliptical for maximum maneuverability once we reach our cruising altitude and proceed on our intercept heading.” Petersen adjusted his headset. “Here’s the strategy. We’re going to assume the same orbit Adventurer did when it ran into this thing. Since we’ve got the advantage of knowing exactly where it’s gonna be at eight o’clock, thanks to you, the flight computers will time our course to insure that we meet up with the bastard somewhere over the Pacific before it begins its pass over the country. Things happen pretty fast at seventeen thousand miles per hour, but we’ve got a few minutes to play with.”

McCracken’s eyes wandered over the endless rows of gauges, dials, and cathode-ray tube displays on the cockpit’s front and sides. “Yeah, but how well can you control this bus once the time comes?”

“You mean in manual?” When Blaine nodded, Petersen went on. “I’ll spare you the details, but because of its military nature, Pegasus was built to handle like a goddamn Ferrari.”

“So you’ll be able to maneuver once we meet up with our friend.”

“I’ll be able to take you wherever you want to go.”

“You already are, Captain.”

Chapter 34

The minutes passed into agonizingly long hours. Cabin pressure had stabilized, allowing Blaine to remove his confining helmet long before. Still, comfort was a thing not to be found. His motions felt slow and elongated, the fun of being able to float buoyantly at whim totally lost upon him. He had to admit, though, that the view was spectacular. Petersen acted as tour guide for much of the trip’s duration by pointing out various countries and bodies of water as Pegasus passed above them.

They were into their fifth orbit, cruising comfortably toward the mid-Pacific, when Captain Petersen steadied his headset.

“Houston, this is Pegasus. We have reached our cruising altitude of one seventy-five nautical miles and are proceeding on intercept course with Comet X-ray. Final engine burns complete. Cap-Com, she’s riding smooth.”

“Roger, Pegasus.”

“Houston, we should be in the vicinity of Comet X-ray in minutes now. Do your instruments show anything?”

“Negative, Pegasus. All boards and monitoring stations look clear. The sky’s all yours.”

“That’s a roger.”

Because the transmission was open, the true purpose of the shuttle’s mission was being cloaked in seemingly mundane talk. Comet X-ray was their private name for the intruder satellite they were seeking. Petersen held no illusions about Houston’s response to his query, though. He had read all the reports on Adventurer’s destruction in detail and memorized the final transmissions. There had been no warning in that case either. The killer machine had appeared out of nowhere.

“Houston, we will maintain present heading in attempt to sight Comet X-Ray. We will check in every minute. Repeat, every minute.”

“Roger, Pegasus.”

“Give us a buzz if you catch wind of anything down there, Cap-Com.”

It was 7:50 eastern standard time when Pegasus passed over Wake Island. Petersen was steering manually now, simply holding the shuttle on its preprogrammed heading.

“Houston,” said Petersen, “this is Pegasus. I’m going to raise us a mite higher to slow our orbit and give Comet X-ray a fair chance to catch up.”

“Roger, Pegasus.”

Petersen turned to McCracken. “If we do find this thing, Blaine,” he said somberly, “it’s gonna be your job to blast it. I’ll fill you in.” He shifted in his seat to allow Blaine to creep up closer. Then he pointed to a center panel within easy reach of his right hand. The panel was dominated by a monitoring screen and a twin pair of joysticks. “This thing may look like a video game, but it’s the firing mechanism for the laser cannons.”

“Where do I insert the quarter?”

“In Jamrock’s toilet to the rear of the shuttle. Anyway, when the system’s activated, this is what you get.”

Petersen flipped a switch and the viewing screen came to life with a series of three-dimensional angular shapes merging into a single square sliced up into individual boxes.

“Okay,” he continued, “we’ve got two cannons, one inside each side of the front. For security reasons, since no one’s supposed to know we’re armed, the lasers are hidden behind heat shield panels that slide away upon activation. See that green light in the right corner of the panel?”

“Sure.”

“That indicates the panels are open and the cannons are operable. The fail-safe mechanism makes it impossible to fire them if the panels are still closed. Anyway, the cannons’ angle of fire can be changed by manipulating the joystick controls. They’re tied into the same circuit, so moving one is the same thing as moving both.” Petersen’s hand moved onto the screen. “Now, here’s the most important thing. Once we find this satellite of yours, you’ve got to adjust the joysticks so that it fills out the center of the box on the viewing screen. The closer we get and the bigger it is, the more individual cubes it will take up. And, remember, up here it doesn’t take long to cover lots of ground. But the thing’s still gotta be centered in the square to be sure of a hit. Savvy?”

Blaine shrugged. “It would seem a lot safer for you to do the shootin’, Sheriff.”

“I’ve got to drive this baby.”

“What about your deputy over there?” Blaine asked, head tilting toward the copilot.

“He’s gotta track the damn thing and adjust sensor and deflector shield levels.”

“Deflector shields? What is this, another of the continuing voyages of the starship Enterprise!”

“We’re well on the way to that, Blaine, but don’t be too impressed. The deflector shields are just a new toy that work on reverse polarity and it’s not quite perfected yet. We’d be best off not to rely on them.”

“Let’s hope we don’t have to.”

It was 7:52. The Philippines were drawing slowly closer. From this altitude the Pacific looked like a beautiful blue blanket.

Blaine’s chair was set back from the pilot’s and copilot’s, and the weapons mechanism was built into what might have been a sloping desk within easy reach. He shifted about uncomfortably, growing eager for the confrontation that was about to come. His eyes looked out through the shuttle’s elaborate windshield, searching for something, anything. In the profound darkness of space, objects not producing their own light were virtually invisible. If the killer satellite were painted black, it could be almost on top of them and they wouldn’t be able to see it.

“I’d better check in with Houston,” Petersen announced.

McCracken’s fingers flirted with the joysticks.

“Houston, this is Pegasus. We’re just reaching the Philippines now. I’m gonna fire the maneuvering rockets, bring her around, and hold steady as she goes.”

“Pegasus, this is Houston. We read you but you’re a bit garbled. Could you repeat your last sentence?”

“I said I’m gonna bring her around and—”

At the command center in Houston static drowned out the final part of Petersen’s sentence. The interference was getting stronger now. All eyes rose from their terminals and gazed up at the world’s most sophisticated radar board responsible for monitoring the shuttle and anything near it. At present it showed only a single blue blip to indicate Pegasus.

“Pegasus, does your board show anything?”

“Say again, Houston,” requested Petersen through static.

“Is there anything on your board?”

The copilot shook his head. Petersen gave the response. “Negative, Houston. Nothing.” His last word was indistinguishable to the men on Earth.

“Pegasus, you’re breaking up. We’ve lost your television transmission. Repeat, your television transmission is scrambled. … What’s going on up there? Pegasus, please acknowledge.”

Static was the only response.

“Pegasus, please acknowledge.”

More static. The shuttle’s existence was reduced to a tiny blue blip on a huge screen. Every eye in mission control was locked on it, searching for reassurance, fighting against the panic each felt.

“Oh, my God,” Nathan Jamrock said out loud. A handful of Rolaids slipped to the floor. “It’s happening again.”

“Houston do you read me? This is Pegasus. … Come in, Houston.” Petersen finished bringing the shuttle around in a 180-degree turn, so it was now moving backward in its orbit, and looked at McCracken grimly. “We’ve lost them.”

“What happens now?”

Blaine could see Petersen swallow hard. “We hold our course as best we can. The thing should be here any second.”

A red light started flashing on the copilot’s warning board, and a beep started sounding.

“Captain,” the copilot called, “sensors have locked on to something.”

“Where?”

“Twenty thousand meters behind, in front now, and closing.”

“Switch on front deflector shields.” Then, to Blaine, “Looks like the fucker’s about to show itself.” And he pressed a button that activated the weapons system.

The copilot hit four switches, lighting a green signal under each.

“Shields in place, Captain.”

Petersen’s eyes strained out the viewing panels. “Come on out, you bastard,” he urged the thing.

“Fifteen thousand meters, Captain.”

“What’s its heading?”

The copilot hesitated. “Direct intercept.”

Petersen raised his eyebrows. “Looks like it’s gonna be eyeball to eyeball, Blaine. Flip your visor down and get ready on those guns.”

Blaine grabbed the joysticks between warm, sweat-soaked hands and locked his eyes on the now functioning targeting screen. Something had started to fill in the squares.

“Range ten thousand meters,” said the copilot. “Still closing. Should be in view any— Oh my Christ …”

The three men gazed out the shuttle’s windshield and saw it together. The killer satellite looked like a giant bullet rotating in the sky, at least as tall as Pegasus was long. Starting about two thirds of the way down its sleek, dark structure were thick legs like landing nodules linked together in a maze of wire and steel. Its lower third appeared to be wider than the top.

“Looks like somebody fired it out of a fuckin’ giant cannon,” muttered Petersen.

“Range seventy-five hundred meters …”

McCracken was working the joysticks feverishly now, trying to capture the killer satellite in the center of the square. It kept eluding him, changing direction to match Pegasus’s orbit, these slight alterations throwing the weapons’ sensors off.

“I can’t get a fix!” he complained into his helmet, licking the sweat from his upper lip.

“Range five thousand meters and … slowing.” The copilot swung toward Petersen. “The damn thing’s slowing, Captain.”

“Get your fix, Blaine!” Petersen ordered. “For God’s sake, shoot the fucker out of the sky!”

Before McCracken could fire, the thing came to almost a complete stop relative to them in space. Cylindrical attachments popped free of its sides and spread like a fan. The attachments were reflective. The center base rotated, its blackness abandoned for the same shiny surface its extended sides were composed of.

“Jesus Christ,” muttered Petersen.

McCracken gained a brief fix on the satellite and hit both joystick buttons. A pair of ice-blue rays shot out from either side of the shuttle, angling toward intercept right smack in the center of the adversary. Blaine could feel his smile forming.

But not for long. The lasers’ rays bounced off the reflective surface like light off a mirror and cascaded through space.

“Aim higher!” Petersen ordered. “We got to find a weakness in— What the …”

McCracken saw the flash coming from the satellite what felt like a second before it impacted. His face shield went opaque for an instant, saving him from blindness, while Pegasus shook violently. Pieces of white surface material flew off, soaring past the viewing windows.

“We’re breaking up!” Blaine screamed.

“It’s the heat shield,” Petersen corrected him as he struggled to maintain the shuttle’s balance. “Pieces of it anyway. Not enough to do us much harm.”

“Jesus …”

“Deflector shields?” Petersen asked the copilot.

“Still holding. I’ve got four green lights.”

The killer satellite sent out another charge, catching Pegasus just as Petersen lowered her into an evasive dip. Impact rocked her hard and Blaine’s head snapped back in a whiplash. Vibrations rattled through the shuttle, forcing his teeth to clamp together.

“We’ve lost a deflector shield!” the copilot reported, his eyes on a red light that had joined the three green ones.

“I’m gonna rotate the ship to protect the side with the lost shield,” Petersen said, starting the maneuver.

The killer satellite angled itself for another attack. Its shape flirted with the targeting grid square on Blaine’s screen but never quite locked in. He fired on timing and again a pair of ice-blue rays shot out, joining up on one of the thing’s winglike extensions. Once more a dazzling display of white light exploded outward, individual streams crossing and converging into the blackness of space.

“Range thirty-five hundred meters …”

The satellite fired another of what Petersen could only identify as some kind of energy torpedo. Again their visors turned opaque, saving them from the bright flash which seemed everywhere at once, enveloping all of Pegasus in its white-hot aura. The shuttle shook the hardest it had yet, and felt as if it were stumbling in space. The cabin lights flickered, faded, came back on.

“Main battery’s shorted out!” the copilot screeched. “We’re running on emergency power. Second deflector shield’s gone and a third’s weakening!”

“Don’t tell me,” Blaine interrupted, “we can’t take another hit like that one. Scotty, where are you when we need you? Beam us the hell out of here.” Then something occurred to him. “Get me closer to it,” he told Petersen.

“You crazy?”

“Absolutely. Give me a shot at a closer hit.”

Petersen pulled back to minimum speed as his wounded bird continued to float backward in orbit. “Just so you remember it’ll have a closer shot at us too. …”

“Range twenty-five hundred meters,” the copilot reported. “It’s gaining. Two thousand …”

Blaine caught the satellite within his square and fired both cannons. The lasers blasted into the metallic skin, the resulting parade of shooting lights brighter and eerier since Pegasus was closer to them. A few seemed to pass right by the viewing panels, looking like the tails of an all-white fireworks display.

A blinding flash erupted from the satellite’s center. Blaine involuntarily raised his hand to his eyes to shield them. He had barely gotten it up, when the blast came. The copilot’s head slammed against the instrument panel, opening up an ugly gash on his forehead. Once again the cockpit lighting faded and came back on dimmer.

“Range seventeen hundred fifty meters,” the copilot muttered.

“I’m gettin’ us the hell outta here!” shouted Petersen.

“The energy torpedo, did you see where it came from?” Blaine asked rapidly.

“What?” the captain returned as he began to roll the shuttle.

“There was a black spot in the middle of all those reflectors. It’s gotta be a door in the base the thing has to open to fire at us. I saw it!”

“That doesn’t mean you can hit it,” Petersen pointed out.

“But if I can, it’ll mean a direct shot to the guts and kiss that thing good-bye.”

“Terrific,” Petersen moaned.

Pegasus had come all the way around now and was fleeing at top acceleration toward the sharpening California coast.

“Range fifteen hundred meters,” said the copilot. “Auxilliary power’s just about had it. We’ve lost the left laser cannon and can only generate a few more bursts from the right. … Range seventeen hundred fifty.” Then, to Petersen, “We’re pulling away.”

“Only until the gas runs out…”

“That’s it!” Blaine screamed. “Turn this thing around!”

“Huh?”

“Turn it around and kill all the thrust and defensive systems. Just leave me a final burst from the laser cannon.”

“Have you gone fuckin’ nuts?” Petersen challenged.

“No! Think! The thing moved right on top of Adventurer before it fired because she couldn’t defend herself. The satellite sensed that. It doesn’t think, it just responds. We’ve got to make it respond the way it did with Adventurer.”

“Range twenty-five hundred,” from the copilot.

“Captain!”

Petersen squeezed his lips together and fired the maneuvering jets to roll Pegasus around toward the satellite once more. When the maneuver was complete, he killed the main batteries to the shields and cut back to standard computer orbit.

“Range two thousand and closing,” announced the copilot. “Fifteen hundred and closing…”

Blaine locked the thing into the center of his firing grid. He had to be sure, had to make his last burst count. His hands felt stiff as boards, but they’d do the job well enough.

The satellite kept coming at them, growing into more of the individual cubes of the grid as it approached.

“Range one thousand and closing …”

“What the hell are you waiting for?” Petersen shrieked. “Kill the fucker!”

The killer satellite loomed near them like a giant hawk spreading its wings over its prey, the steel support legs looking like talons.

Blaine raised the joysticks so the center of the firing grid was in line with the area of the satellite where the door had opened to release its last energy torpedo.

“Range seven hundred fifty meters …”

Blaine saw a black area in the shape of a square appear amid the thing’s reflective surface, indicating the door had opened again. He closed his eyes and squeezed both red firing buttons.

There is no sound in outer space, but there is vibration, and the one that came when the last burst of Pegasus’s laser cannon pierced the guts of the killer satellite shook McCracken’s stomach up to his mouth. His teeth snapped together and he felt himself slammed backward against his seat. His eyes closed for an instant, and when they opened, he wanted to hoot and holler for joy and would have if he could have found his breath.

Because the viewing windows were filled with a beautiful circle of silent orange which absorbed the remains of the killer satellite into oblivion. What few particles remained showered harmlessly toward the ridge of the Earth’s atmosphere.

“Heeeeeeeee-yahhhhhhhhh!” Petersen shouted, one hand struggling to control Pegasus from the shock waves and the other slapping Blaine on the shoulder. “We did it! We fuckin’ did it!”

And Pegasus passed over the California coast.

The expiration of the blue light on the main monitoring board in Houston had sent most of the mission control personnel to their chairs with heads bowed, weeping silent tears. Nathan Jamrock sat stone-faced amid it all. He held the direct line to the President in his hand and wished there was something encouraging he could say.

Then all at once a voice split through the thick silence and tension in the room, seeming to come from heaven or somewhere almost as high.

“Houston, this is Pegasus. Sorry you boys missed all the fun. …”

Petersen said more, but nobody could hear him through all the shouting and screaming.

“The heat shield’s my biggest worry,” Petersen repeated at the close of his report. “We can get all other necessary functions patched up good enough, but we’ve lost a lot of tiles, maybe as many as a third from the nose area.”

Nathan Jamrock swallowed four more Rolaids. The knots in his stomach didn’t loosen. “What about the bottom?” he asked, aware that the heat shield on the shuttle’s underside was the most crucial.

“Tiles ninety-five percent accounted for, but I can’t tell what reentry might do to them after what this tub’s been through.”

“They’ll hold tight, Paul. I glued them myself. But things will get a little hot.”

“We’ll wear our summer clothes, Nate. Oh, and there’s something else. The shifters sustained some real bad damage. Looks like you guys got an excuse for them not working this time around.”

“I’ll take the responsibility.”

“How’s the weather at Edwards?”

“Clear, calm, and sunny by dawn. That’s 6:03.”

“We’ll set down by seven.”

“I’ll have the band waiting.”

“And a bathroom.”

“A slight change of plans, Paul,” Blaine said softly after they had completed seven hours of grueling repairs that included Petersen having to spend some tedious moments on the outside of the craft to realign Pegasus’s navigational beacons.

“Uh-oh …”

“See, Paul, any way you cut it, I’m still a wanted man. There are still too many people working for the guys who put that thing up in space, and I’m a threat to them. Getting a medal from the President would be nice, but staying alive’ll do just fine for now.”

Petersen shrugged. “I guess you know these people pretty well.”

“Too well. Omega’s not over. It won’t be until all the people in positions of control are exposed. They’ll be waiting for me, if not at Edwards, then somewhere else down the road.”

“I understand. What do you want me to do?”

Blaine told him.

Pegasus reentered the atmosphere right on schedule. The loss of so many heat shield tiles forced the cabin temperature up over 110 degrees, uncomfortable but not life-threatening, and most important the underside shield worked magnificently. The retrieval crew on the ground at Edwards Air Force Base in California broke into spontaneous applause when it was announced that the shuttle was on its way.

In Houston Nathan Jamrock had sworn off Rolaids once again and returned to cigars, which seemed to have an infinitely superior effect at settling the stomach. On the main board, the blue blip represent Pegasus came lower and lower. Then came a three-minute radar lapse before ground spotters at Edwards and the surrounding area would make their first visual sightings.

“You see her yet?” he asked his direct link on the scene in California.

“Is she off your screen?”

“What are you talking about?” Jamrock demanded, tossing his cigar aside. “She’s been off my screen for over three minutes now.”

“There’s no sign of her here, sir.”

Another phone rang on Jamrock’s raised terminal. He picked it up and told his man in California to hold on.

“Houston, this is California tracking. We just picked up your returning shuttle on our screen.”

“Where the hell is it?”

“As near as we can tell, making a descent into the Utah salt flats. …”

Jamrock started grasping for some stray Rolaids tablets.

“Thanks for the lift,” McCracken said as he walked down the steps of the space shuttle Pegasus.

“The pleasure was all ours,” Petersen answered from the doorway. “You can fly with us anytime.”

Blaine begged off. “Once is enough for one lifetime.”

“Suit yourself.”

A Land-Rover driven by Johnny Wareagle raced down the barren flats toward the shuttle’s position. Blaine waved to him.

“Sorry I had to make you miss the reception party at Edwards,” he apologized to Petersen.

The captain winked. “I hate parties.”

They smiled at each other and Blaine walked off. The Land-Rover pulled to a stop and he climbed into the passenger seat next to Wareagle.

“The spirits were with you up there, Blainey.”

“They made pretty damn good astronauts, Indian.”