The Omicron Legion

Chapter 10

“…Please wait for the tone to speak.”

Patty Hunsecker left the same message yet again, this one perhaps a bit more harried and frantic, because she felt something was dreadfully wrong.

Of course, she had felt that way for some time now, but this was different. She found herself lingering by the upstairs study window that overlooked the front of the family’s Laurel Canyon home, seeing nothing but the dark.

Nothing.

That was what Captain Banyan of the Los Angeles Police Department had thought of the story she had brought to him, passing it off as sheer fabrication. The FBI and the Justice Department had agreed. Most recently her collected tear sheets, now a bit ragged around the edges, accompanied her to the office of her congressional representative. The man’s chief aide promised to get right back to her.

He hadn’t.

There was only one place left to turn, the place she probably should have gone to in the first place: Blaine McCracken. Why not? He owed her, didn’t he? Hadn’t he said as much in Guam eighteen months before? Maybe he had forgotten. In any case, he hadn’t returned the emergency calls she had been leaving on his private answering machine.

Call back, McCracken, goddamn you! Call me back! She looked away from the window toward the phone. It didn’t ring.

Her mind drifted to the time in her life when she had first met McCracken. She’d left Stanford after her junior year and used the trust fund left to her by her grandmother to purchase and outfit the Runaway, a research vessel crammed with scientific equipment. She was going to spend her life at sea, dedicating herself to studying the oceans and preserving their ecological balance. It was a good dream. But her parents had resisted even discussion of the issue, so she hadn’t included them in the decision. Strange people, her parents. They’d married young, and had had her barely a year later. Around the time she turned thirteen, they decided to have more children. Her first brother was born later that year, her second brother two and a half years after. The boys were not even of school age when she left the house for college; they were still strangers when she took off for the Pacific.

But now her parents were both dead, and the boys were fully in her charge. There was so much to consider, so much to do. She had inherited not only her brothers, but also her family’s great wealth.

Phillip Hunsecker had been one of the original makers of the Silicon Valley complex that later made him. His business interests were wholly diversified now and all successful. The same could be said for the others who had perished as he had. And now, at last, she had found a link between them. Tenuous, yes, perhaps even a bizarre coincidence. Nonetheless, it was there, and still, no one would listen. But Blaine McCracken would, once he called, if he called….

Patty could do nothing now but wait for that call. Standing by the window in the isolated two-and-a-half-story Laurel Canyon house, she could see the winding canyon road at the end of the driveway. Patty realized that since she’d been away the trees had grown so thick that a clear view of the street was now all but impossible. Only when an occasional stiff breeze parted them could she see the road beyond.

During one of these sharp breezes, she saw the car for the first time. Normally nobody parked on this street. They parked in driveways if they had any business being in the neighborhood at all. Her brothers were doing their homework. There were no guard dogs, no servants, just a security service that did regular drive-bys. Their car maybe? No. The security company drove metallic silver sedans with light assemblies on top. The one she had glimpsed outside was black. Patty stayed by the window waiting for the wind to part the trees. Each time it did, the black car was still there. She heard her thirteen-year-old brother, David, playing the latest from Guns and Roses; the eleven-year-old, Tyler, yelling to turn it louder so he could hear, too.

The black car was still outside. Probably nothing.

Fuck that.

If you didn’t trust your feelings, what good were they to you? A feeling had assured her there was far more to her father’s death, and now the same uneasiness in her stomach returned about the car. She’d call the police and make something up to draw them here. Maybe just call the security company direct. For what the family paid monthly, they’d better send a car around. Let their imitation cops play it for real. Patty moved to the Queen Anne desk in the library and picked up the phone.

No dial tone.

It was dead.

Enough of this shit. There was a panic button rigged into the security system, and she rushed to the keypad and hit it, ears braced for the high-pitched wailing.

Nothing.

She barely had time to consider fear, let alone feel it, when the lights died — and the big house was plunged into darkness.

“Must be the circuit breakers,” Patty’s brother said as he reached the halfway point of the circular stairway.

Patty bounded upward and stopped him there. Tyler was standing still in the dark at the top.

“Hold it,” she told David.

“Hold what?”

“It’s not the circuit breakers.”

“How do you know?”

“I do, that’s all.”

Just then Tyler screamed, and Patty raced up the rest of the stairs.

“Outside!” the boy wailed, gesturing fearfully toward the huge bay window in the front. “I saw someone moving outside!”

“Get back in your room!” Patty ordered.

“No!”

“David!” she shouted. “Take your brother and get into his room.”

The elder of her two brothers, incredibly, didn’t look scared. “Dad had a gun,” was all he said.

“Where?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know where he kept it. Somewhere in his room. That’s where it’s gotta be.”

Patty weighed her options. The phone and alarm were useless to her. To escape on the ground would be impossible with her brothers in tow. There were two family cars parked in the garage, but the garage was detached, and it would take a dash from the house to get there. Even if they made it, they would have confined themselves to an unacceptably small space, and for what? If the parties beyond had the resources to knock out the best security system California money could buy, it was a cinch they’d like nothing better than to trap their prey in the garage.

“Want me to look?” David was asking.

“No,” Patty said. She wasn’t much good with guns anyway.

Blaine McCracken was, damn him. Why hadn’t he returned her calls? All that stuff about owing her after Guam, and this was what it came down to. He hadn’t listened; no one had listened.

As David began to protest her decision, Patty saw with horror that Tyler had edged closer to the huge glass window.

“No!”

Even as she screamed, Patty had hurled herself into motion. Two quick steps and then a lunge. She engulfed Tyler with her body and took him down just as segments of the window shattered into spiderweb patterns.

“Get down!” she yelled at David.

“Those were bullets!” he screeched back from the floor.

“Stay down!”

Dragging Tyler with her, she moved toward David, reaching him just as more glass popped inward with soft pffffffft sounds. The bastards outside had made it difficult for themselves by killing the lights. She continued pulling her brothers to the nearest doorway as glass continued to spray over them. At least they’ll know I’m telling the truth now, she reasoned. Banyan and the rest of them. She could see it on her gravestone now: HERE LIES PATTY. NOBODY GAVE A FUCK UNTIL SHE WAS DEAD.

But there were her brothers to think about here, as well. If she couldn’t be there for her mother or father, at least she could be here for them now.

As soon as she closed the door to her father’s upstairs study, she realized what a lousy place it was to make a stand. Feeling cornered, Patty tried to think of something, anything…

Her eyes fell on the brick chimney above the fireplace on the near wall. What she saw there determined her next series of moves.

“Dad’s gun,” she said to David.

“I can go find it.”

She grabbed his shoulder. “Can you fire it?”

“He took me to the range. Twice.”

“Find it and come back here to your brother. Anyone comes up the stairs besides me, shoot them.”

David swallowed air, “What about you?”

“They gotta get in to hurt us, pal,” she said as her eyes returned to the crossed Civil War swords hanging over the mantle. “I’m gonna be waiting when they do.”

The sword was heavier than it looked. Patty tested its tip with a finger; a tiny drop of blood proved its sharpness. Moving back into the corridor with it, she felt quite absurd. The closest she had ever come to wielding a sword had been an underwater knife, and that wasn’t very close at all. She crept down the circular stairway with her body tensed to spring, the sword gripped too tightly in her right hand.

She felt certain the house had not yet been penetrated. The outside doors showed wood veneer exteriors, but boasted a heavy steel core. The windows were triple-paned, easily penetrable by a bullet, but not at all easily by a man. There would be noise when penetration was attempted, and when she heard it, her best hope was that she and her sword would be close enough by to act.

At the foot of the stairs, she crawled toward the main entrance. Barely two minutes had passed since the gunmen had shot out the upstairs window. Time was on their side. Patty and her brothers weren’t going anywhere, and no help was in the offing. A waiting game, then.

For all of them.

She had almost reached the front door when the faint scent of cigar smoke reached her nostrils. She passed it off initially to a stale odor from her father’s most unfortunate habit. But the scent was nothing like his Havanas. Patty took a deep breath, grasped the sword in both hands, and raised it over her head. Then she leaped into the doorway of the library.

A man was sitting there in one of the burgundy leather chairs, a cigar stub smoldering in his mouth.

“There were three of them,” he said. “There aren’t anymore.”

Patty stood rigid, sword still held high. The man was wearing a black suit and his nose looked mashed.

“Name’s Sal Belamo,” the man said. “Blaine McCracken sent me.”

“You can put the sword down now,” Sal said.

“I think I’ll just keep it like this for a while.”

“You’ll end up with a pair of sore shoulders, lady.” The ashes from Belamo’s cigar stub fluttered to the hardwood floor. “Say, you wouldn’t happen to have an ashtray anywhere around? Not much holdin’ these damn Parodies together.”

“How do I know you’re not one of them?”

“I told you, lady. They’re gone, finito. I tried not to make a mess. McCracken wouldn’t’ve had to kill the fucks, but that’s why he’s McCracken.”

The sword came down a little. “What’d you say your name was?”

“Sal Belamo.”

“How’d you get in?”

“I’m good with locks.”

“And he sent you? Blaine sent you?”

“Well, not exactly. See, lady, one of your messages reached my desk, and when I couldn’t reach McCracken, I figured I’d better come out here and check up on ya. Been outside since sunset.”

Patty remembered the car parked precariously on the canyon road. At last the sword came down all the way.

“Saw the fucks lurking about just before your lights went bye-bye. Sorry ’bout your upstairs windows. Guess I don’t move as fast as I used to. I was a boxer, you know. Fought Carlos Monzon twice, and he busted my nose both times. Can’t tell shit from lilacs out of the right nostril, and the left’s not much better.”

“You came here just to guard me?”

“Your message sounded like you were pretty spooked.”

“But I was only trying to reach McCracken.”

“Yeah, well, his friends are my friends, and he doesn’t like to see his friends in trouble.”

“Which makes you his friend.”

“You ask me, everything’s relative. You get offed when I coulda done something about it and I got McCrackenballs to answer to.”

“Not a warm prospect.”

“Let me put it this way, lady: Given the choice of facing a pissed-off McCracken or climbing into a meat oven, I’d get the tenderizer ready every time.”

Chapter 11

The Blackhawk helicopter sped McCracken and Wareagle north out of the jungle and Brazil. They crossed the border into Venezuela and landed at a small airfield, where a twin-engine plane was waiting. This brought them to a larger military airport just south of Caracas, where they were locked in a steaming, windowless room for nearly eight hours before being escorted back to the tarmac. Resting there was an unmarked 707, which had obviously been dispatched to pick them up.

“Where we headed, soldier?” Blaine asked a lieutenant who seemed to be in charge.

“I’m not at liberty to say, sir.”

“Classified info, is it?”

The lieutenant shrugged. He had been supervising the eight-man team that had attached themselves to Blaine and Johnny from the time they’d been lifted out of the jungle. On the plane the soldiers kept their guns at the ready. The men were keeping their distance, too, which told Blaine they had been briefed on exactly whom they were dealing with.

He didn’t bother contemplating the details of what had brought the Blackhawks into the jungle. There could have been any number of causes, including the ravaging of the complex and the loss of contact with Ben Norseman’s team.

Blaine asked the lieutenant no further questions, and the flight passed in silence, which gave him the chance to get much-needed rest. When the beginning of the jet’s descent jolted him awake, he could see the Washington skyline ahead in the early morning light. It was Friday, according to Blaine’s watch, 6:30 A.M. It wasn’t much of a surprise that they were going to Washington. Word had obviously reached the capital that McCracken had interfered in the operations of a foreign government. A diplomatic nightmare, reparations certain to be demanded. The Brazilian authorities needed to be somehow appeased.

Through it all, when Blaine and Johnny’s eyes met the message was clear: The Wakinyan had fled the jungle ahead of them. They had somehow survived the fuel air explosive that had torn away a patch of the Amazon Basin. They had stolen Luis’s boat and escaped. Above everything else, whoever was waiting for Blaine in Washington had to be made to understand the ramifications of that. The Omicron Project had to be fully investigated. Somebody’s problem was running free now, and, if what Blaine had seen was any indication at all, the mayhem was just beginning.

The 707 came in for a landing at Dulles Airport and pulled up to the diplomatic terminal situated off by itself to the south of the main complex. Again Blaine and Johnny glanced at each other and nodded.

Blaine looked out his window and saw a black stretch limousine parked just off the tarmac. He could see nothing through its blacked-out windows. The lieutenant came down the aisle and beckoned him to rise.

“Let’s go, Mr. McCracken.”

“I still hold my rank, soldier. It’s captain to you.”

“Yes, sir.”

Blaine realized a congestion of soldiers had taken up positions enclosing Wareagle.

“He goes or neither of us does, soldier.”

“I have my orders, sir.”

“They come from that limo out there?”

“I wouldn’t know, sir.”

“Wanna go out and check?”

“Negative, sir.”

“Look, son. The Indian and I have been nice to you fellas. Didn’t embarrass you all by escaping, and didn’t give you any trouble at all. Now there’s eight of you and two of us, and you got guns, sure. But either you let the Indian walk off with us, or he and I will end up walking out of here together and alone. Capisce, Lieutenant?”

The soldiers stood there like mirror images of each other, thoughts straying to the guns they would still have to raise or draw to make use of. McCracken looked at Wareagle and watched him tighten just a little.

The lieutenant relented with the slightest of smiles, his own way of saving face. “I can take the two of you as far as the limousine, Captain. From there on, you’ll have to deal with whoever’s inside.”

“For sure.”

One of the limo’s rear windows slid down as they approached.

“I should have known better than to expect a private conference,” came a woman’s voice from within.

“Maxie,” said Blaine, “what a pleasant surprise.”

“Save it, Blaine, dear, and just get in here with your Indian friend.” And then, to the soldiers, “They’re in my charge now. You’ve done well to all still be in one piece.”

Virginia Maxwell opened the door herself so Blaine and Johnny could step inside the limo. Maxwell was an elegantly dressed and coifed woman in her mid-forties, her glamour evidently better suited for a different post. Barely six years before she had taken over the directorship of the most secret of the country’s secret organizations. Several years prior to that, when the CIA had come under increasing scrutiny and the methods of the NSA under fire, a gap resulted in what the intelligence community needed to accomplish and what it could effectively get away with. The new organization created to handle the stickiest matters worked between traditional three-letter organizations in order to fill the gap. Hence its name: the Gap.

Virginia Maxwell was only its second director, and she had proved to be an effective one. Her most important contribution had been to pull the Gap even further out of the mainstream, away from jurisdictional squabbles and congressional scrutiny. She held no meetings with presidents or their advisors unless she was the only person in attendance. If the Gap was to deal with what slipped into the crevices, then it had to be treated as a crevice itself.

Of course, this did not mean Virginia Maxwell had any desire to reside in a crevice herself. Her hair was perfectly styled, perfectly blond. Not a wrinkle showed anywhere on her face, including the soft skin around her eyes. Her teeth were actress bright, the same shade, it seemed, as the pearl necklace around her neck. She wore a mink coat and the biggest diamond McCracken had ever seen. One wrist showed a sapphire bracelet, the other a diamond-studded Rolex watch.

Wareagle followed McCracken inside and had trouble positioning his head comfortably under the big car’s roof.

“I only wanted him to wait in the jet for his own comfort,” said Virginia Maxwell.

“Whatever you say, Maxie,” Blaine followed.

“But as long as he’s here…”

“Just why are we here?”

“Patience, my dear. Look at you, Blaine. All that time in gorgeous Brazil and not a bit of tan to show for it.”

“The jungle makes for a great sunscreen.”

“There’s less of it to make for anything now, I’m told,”

“The Indian and I got careless roasting marshmallows.”

“Not the only thing that got roasted I’ve heard.”

“Just what have you heard, Maxie?”

“Let’s take a drive, shall we?”

“Whatever you say.”

The limo left Dulles and headed for Washington. Traffic was just beginning to thicken, and they made decent time.

“Awful the things we get that no one else wants to touch, my dear,” Virginia Maxwell told him.

“I know the feeling.”

“Ben Norseman — I think you know him?”

“Not anymore.”

“Of course. In any case, he sent out a distress signal that reached several of our South American strongholds. Had the big brass scrambling, let me tell you, dear. But that doesn’t mean they knew how to handle it, or that they wanted to. They woke me out of a sound sleep, and I wasn’t too happy about it.”

“The troops in the Blackhawks…”

“Gap men, dear. Finding you was quite a surprise to them. That gorgeous young lieutenant opted to ferry you out in one of his birds, while the other went to survey Norseman’s last known position. Actually it’s quite a coincidence, because I’ve been trying to track you down for days.” Virginia Maxwell reached into her Gucci briefcase and came out with a handful of file folders. “Do you play Trivial Pursuit, Blaine, my dear?”

McCracken shook his head. “I wasn’t around for too much of the trivia.”

“Then let’s play our own version, shall we? I’ll hand you a file, and you tell me what you know about the subject, starting with this one….”

McCracken accepted the first folder and opened it. A thick Oriental face looked back at him. The photo was grainy, obviously pulled from another source and enhanced by computer.

“Hired killer named Khan,” Blaine said, without checking the nameplate. “A Mongolian. Especially brutal. Big man. Bigger than me. Not as big as Johnny.”

“One for one, my dear. Now number two.” Virginia Maxwell handed him the second folder.

“Israeli named Moshe Berg. Killed lots of Arabs illegally and then disappeared before he could be brought to trial. Has been a free-lancer ever since and does quite well.”

“Two for two,” the head of the Gap said, and handed him a third folder.

McCracken opened it. “Here’s a good one. Female killer known only as Mira. Lots of aliases. Specialist in political assassinations. Equally legendary in bed.”

“Let’s move on to number four, Blaine.”

“This is Nelson Fox, the size of a whole offensive line. Big-time mercenary and now an equally big-time assassin. Maxie, what the hell is going on here?”

“Still two to go, my dear, and you’re batting a thousand.”

Blaine accepted number five. “Shahim Tafir. Learned his trade under Abu Nidal and graduated to the international contract arena. Money is most dear to him. He’s even worked for Israel on a few occasions. Maxie—”

“Just one more, dear.”

“Jonathan Weetz. Got his start in the mob before he had hair on his balls. Killed his first man at the age of fourteen. This guy’s an anachronism, built for the days when the five families would hit the mattresses and war it out with one another. He likes to kill, and if the price is right, he’ll kill anyone.”

Virginia Maxwell slapped her well-creamed hands together. “You made a perfect score.”

“What gives, Maxie?”

“What would you say if I told you all six were in this country at the same time?”

“I’d say maybe Disneyland appeals to them as a vacation spot.”

“And if it didn’t?”

“I’d say, given their backgrounds, that it was impossible.”

“Almost. Odds of roughly a million and a half to one against it happening. Except it did. Each of these killers has been positively identified sometime in the past ten days.”

“On business, you think?”

“That’s what I need you to find out. Just how good are they, my dear?”

“Six of the ten best in the world maybe, and you’re looking at two of the others right here.”

“My, my, my…Eight of the top ten in my jurisdiction as we speak. Two working for me…and the other six for someone else.”

“That’s jumping to conclusions, Maxie.”

“Not really. They couldn’t all be in America if the circumstances were any different. The odds, remember?”

“I meant about Johnny and me working for you.”

“You’re the only ones capable of finding out what they’re doing here. You’re the only ones who can stop them.”

“Running short of field men at the Gap?”

“None of them are fortunate enough to be in the top ten, Blaine, dear,”

“Love to help, Maxie, but the Indian and I’ve got some other concerns on our mind.”

“Brazil?”

“Not anymore.”

“Pray tell. I’m dying to hear.”

“Lots of people are going to be dying, Maxie. Lots more than already have….”

McCracken proceeded to outline everything that had happened. He started with receiving Carlos Salomao’s phone call, springing Wareagle from jail, and then their trek into the Amazon. He became more specific when it came to the ravaged complex and their cat-and-mouse game with the Wakinyan.

“They escaped the jungle because they had somewhere else to go,” Blaine said at last.

“Interesting conclusion, dear.”

“And obvious.”

“Thirteen of them, you say?”

“That’s how many cubicles there were.”

“Twelve along the corridor and one behind a door at the end of it.”

“You’re a good listener, Maxie.”

“Apparently not good enough. I lost you somewhere around the time you claimed these — what did you call them?”

“Wakinyan.” Blaine nodded toward Johnny. “Indian word that means Thunder Beings.”

“So you claim these Thunder Beings lived at a secret American research station they later destroyed.”

“And it’s part of something called the Omicron Project.”

Virginia Maxwell seemed to lose the slightest bit of her legendary composure. “As in the Greek letter?”

“For sure. Believe me, I’ve had experience with Greek letters before.” And he produced the leathery report cover recovered from the complex’s shredder.

“The Omicron Project,” read Virginia Maxwell, both bemused and mystified.

“Ever hear of it?”

“Absolutely, my dear. The Gap, and thus the humble I, was in charge of security for the project.”

“Not up to your usual standards, Maxie.”

“You didn’t let me finish. I spoke in the past tense for good reason. The Omicron Project was abandoned three years ago.”

“Then what did Johnny and I come across in the jungle?”

“Haven’t the foggiest, but let me check something….”

She shifted over to the center of the limo, where a seat faced a CRT screen and computer. She pressed a few keys, selected the proper menu entry, and waited for her selection to appear.

“Pentagon liaison for the Omicron Project was General Berlin Hardesty.”

“Is that supposed to mean something to me?” McCracken asked her.

“It will. General Hardesty was murdered in his home ten days ago by a woman believed to be Mira.”

“So Hardesty gets whacked, then a week later the installation under his jurisdiction gets wiped out.”

“Omicron was under his jurisdiction, my dear, not this installation.”

“Use your imagination.”

“Why should I bother when you’ve used it for me by drawing a connection between my pursuits and yours? One of these killers we learned was in the country was behind the death of the military liaison for the secret project you stumbled on in the Amazon…Or I more accurately should say the remnants of the project. Do I have it straight, dear?”

McCracken chose to ignore her sarcasm. “Could he have kept it going on his own?”

“You know how Washington works. It’s certainly possible.”

“It’d be helpful if you told me exactly what the original Omicron Project was all about.”

Virginia Maxwell slid back to where she had been sitting. “I’ll give you the short version, my dear. I don’t have to tell you about the shocking events that have occurred in what used to be the Communist Bloc over the last two years. I do have to tell you that to plenty of the true policymakers of this nation it didn’t come as any great surprise. They predicted it almost to the month a number of years ago. With that in mind, a new approach to national security and deployment seemed to be required. For the first time in our history, the United States would be without a standing enemy. The future lay not in prolonged entanglements but in minor squabbles of the kind we were woefully ill-equipped to deal with.”

“Terrorism,” Blaine interjected.

“And its many cousins, my dear. That, of course, would include warfare in arenas that posed strategic dilemmas.”

“Like the desert?”

“For one, yes. The Omicron Project was funded with an open checkbook to pursue alternative means to deal with these kinds of engagements, new strategies for combating what would become this nation’s collective, if you will, standing enemy. It was dropped three years ago with nothing much accomplished — with the exception of some work by a Professor Reston Ainsley.”

“The name rings a bell.”

“His specialty was robotics, and that was the line he was pursuing when the funds got yanked.”

“Or misdirected.”

“Possibly.”

“Not possibly. I was down there, Maxie. I saw a different line Omicron had proceeded on, and I saw its results. Jesus Christ, don’t you get the point? The Indian and I met up with something in the woods that isn’t in the woods anymore. I don’t think the members of this Omicron legion are waiting down in Rio for the festival season to start, either. They’re here in America, because someone wants them here.”

“For what, pray tell?”

“Too bad we can’t ask Hardesty.”

“We can ask your Indian friend — who up to now has yielded the floor to you.”

Johnny Wareagle hesitated before speaking. “They live for what they have been created to do,” he said finally.

“And for what were they created, Mr. Wareagle?”

“To perform the tasks demanded of them. The process stripped them of their manitous and replaced them with something else.”

“You’re conceding they’re just men.”

“In appearance maybe, but not within, where the truth of the being resides. Within they are as different from man as the tiger and the jackal.”

“Predators, Mr. Wareagle?”

It was Blaine who took up the task from there. “You weren’t down there to witness their handiwork, Maxie. Believe me, predators is a good word for them. A few minutes ago you showed me pictures of six of the most successful paid killers in the world. Well, none of them can even hold a candle to the thirteen members of our Omicron legion.”

“And can the members of this legion hold one to you?”

Blaine glanced at Wareagle before responding. “They managed to somehow survive a blast just short of a tactical nuke. I’d say that qualifies them.”

“And just what do you propose we do about them now?”

“Find who dispatched Norseman and we learn who’s really running things.”

“I’d already checked, my dear. His routing orders couldn’t be traced back to their original source. Too many shields and screens in place. Not terribly unusual, under the circumstances. Where does that leave us?”

“Back to the connection with Hardesty. Since Mira was one of six killers, we can count on the fact that there have been other violent deaths. Have you been able to lock on to any pattern?”

“There have been several other isolated incidents involving government officials, but no link among them we can find. A congressman was beaten to death, an undersecretary of state was run off the road and crushed in his car. But the three incidents had nothing in common that we can find.”

“Then we start with Omicron — and that professor you mentioned.”

“Reston Ainsley.”

“Right. How soon can I get to see him?”

“Immediately. He lives right here in Washington, though he’s become somewhat of a recluse. I can get you a file on him if—”

“Don’t bother. An appointment will suffice. Besides, you’ve got more important matters to attend to. Since the first you heard of that research lab in the jungle was from us, I assume your team missed it. Better send them back in, Maxie, with a vengeance.”

“What am I telling them to look for, pray tell?”

“Anything that might tell us what the hell went on in there…and who in Washington might have been responsible. This whole thing smells like someone’s power play all the way. The proverbial fine-tooth comb might be in order. Send only the best.”

“I only use the best, my dear. Why else would I have called on you?”

Chapter 12

The yacht swayed easily in the calm waters of the Atlantic. Takedo Takahashi sat in his study with the lights dim enough to soothe his eyes. He had grown up hating the sun and embracing the night. Somewhere, buried deep, was a memory of a blinding flash and a rush of heat crumbling everything in its path.

Of course, Takahashi couldn’t possibly have remembered; he was barely a fetus that dark day that had so violently altered the rest of his life. But his mind’s eye made it a memory and, who’s to say that consciousness does not begin early enough to allow for the dim recall of such a trauma.

The milk-white skin and snowy crop of hair were constant reminders — even if the mind’s eye had been dim. So, too, the pinkish eyes that detested light of every kind, the sun most of all. As much as possible, he slept through the day. It was a vampire’s life.

Every moment of his life had been lived with the White Flash in mind. It had made him the freak that he was — had ultimately determined the path his life would take. He was on this yacht now because of it. The six killers had been dispatched because of it. The ninety-six Americans had to die because of it. Once again he heard the familiar shuffling of Tiguro Nagami’s feet as his associate approached the door.

“Come in, Tiguro,” he called even as Nagami was raising his hand to knock.

Nagami entered, dressed as impeccably as always. He was slight but broad-shouldered, and had all his suits custom-made in London. Unlike Takahashi, he had lived among the Americans for the better part of his life, and therefore his English was perfect.

“You have brought word of more successes for me to punch into my computer, no doubt,” Takahashi said. “Who has called in?”

“It is not that, Kami-san.”

“Weetz, then. Has Weetz arrived?”

“He is waiting on deck, Kami-san. But I have come with unfortunate news.”

Takahashi’s pinkish eyes bore into him. “What is this unfortunate news?”

“The people we dispatched failed to eliminate the Hunsecker woman.”

“You’re telling me she was too much for them?”

“She had help. That much we know. From whom, we don’t.”

“You assured me no one had placed any credence in her story.”

“No one we were aware of,” Nagami said, and swallowed hard.

“This is not good, Tiguro.”

“Our sources are searching for her even now. She has dropped out of sight.”

“What of her brothers? Perhaps we could use them….”

Nagami shook his head. “Also no trace.”

Takahashi’s face crinkled in disgust. “You will keep me abreast of your progress in this matter, Tiguro.”

Nagami bowed slightly. “Yes, Kami-san.”

“Do not disgrace me.”

His head was still lowered. “Of course not, Kami-san.”

“Now send the American down to see me immediately.”

Nagami bowed again and was gone. Weetz strutted in with the grace of a cat. His suit was a dark gray Italian, perfectly tailored. He was a tall man with eyes like razors. He was chomping, as always, on a piece of chewing gum, when he sat down facing the albino’s desk.

“Your work goes well, I understand,” Takahashi said to him.

“You called me here to compliment me?”

“Hardly. You recall I said there were ninety-six targets?”

“Sure.”

“There are ninety-seven. I left one out — one that requires special attention.”

Takahashi slid a file folder toward the killer. Weetz took it, eyes never leaving the Japanese until the folder was open on his lap. Takahashi watched those razor-sharp eyes narrow.

“I see what you mean,” said Weetz.

“Yes.”

“So why me?”

“This is your specialty, I believe.”

“It also entails more risk than the other sixteen kills combined.”

“Can it be done?”

Weetz smirked. “Look, mister, hide a man down in a mine shaft and I’ll shoot him through the air hole. We’re talking levels here.”

“This level requires your expertise.”

“Won’t come cheap, boss.”

“Name your price.”

“Five million.”

“Make it seven point five. That’s what I was prepared to offer.”

“When?”

“You’ll have forty-eight hours notice. You will not act until given the word.”

Weetz gazed back down at the folder in his lap. “Hits like this take time to set up.”

“You’ll have to make do,” said Takahashi.

“Seven point five on completion, right?”

“You’re well worth it, Mr. Weetz.”

Chapter 13

Professor Reston Ainsley lived in a brick house enclosed by a narrow yard on the outskirts of Georgetown. Virginia Maxwell had arranged a car for McCracken, and he squeezed it into a space just beyond a tow zone. The Ainsley residence seemed well kept, if undistinguished. The first of the fall leaves had already been swept off the walkway and stacked in piles, waiting to be bagged. Blaine climbed to the porch and rang the doorbell.

“Ainsley residence,” a mechanical voice responded through a speaker. “Good afternoon. What can I do for you?”

“I’m here to see the professor. He’s expecting me.”

“State your name.”

“Blaine McCracken.”

“Yes, he is expecting you.”

There was a click, then the solid wood door swung mechanically inward. Blaine stepped through and heard a soft whirring sound an instant before a hulking mass of steel and wires approached from the right. He tensed as the robot drew directly up to him.

“Professor Ainsley is waiting for you in the study. Please follow me.”

The robot’s head was an opaque oblong attached to a flexible steel neck. The words emerged from a plate just above a host of flashing diode lights in its chest. Its midsection was chiseled into the form of a man’s, and its arms were lifelike as well, albeit connected by visible wires and fittings instead of sinew and tendons. Its hands ended in steel pincers. Its torso and legs were covered with wires and what looked like Kevlar tubing. The thing actually walked like a man, right down to a slight flex in its metallic knees. Its feet pads were rimmed by steel pods that flattened out as it lowered its weight. The thing could look Blaine in the eye at six-two, and it seemed incredibly nimble for a machine.

“Mr. McCracken to see you, Professor.”

“Show him in, Obie One,” responded a nasal human voice, and the robot extended its hand outward to bid Blaine on.

“Thank you,” he found himself saying.

“You’re welcome, sir.”

Blaine eased past the robot through a pair of double doors that led into a den cluttered with machines. It had the feel, strangely, of a child’s playroom, where the toys had been left out long after the boy or girl was finished with them.

“Drat,” came the nasal voice again, and McCracken watched as a man seated near the window dumped the contents of his lap onto the floor. Professor Reston Ainsley spun his wheelchair around and rolled toward McCracken, crunching bits of previously discarded materials beneath his wheels. “I see you’ve met Obie One, Mr. McCracken.”

Blaine remained fascinated by the robot. It was advanced far beyond anything he thought science had achieved.

“Actually, we haven’t been formally introduced.”

“Then, allow me,” offered the man in the wheelchair. Ainsley’s wild white hair made him look like a first cousin to Einstein. His right ear was totally concealed by jagged curls, the left uncovered. “Blaine McCracken, this is Obie One, short for Operational Ballistic Droid.”

On cue, the robot extended its right hand and opened its steel fingers all the way.

“Right.” Blaine met the robot’s grasp with his own. “Likewise, Obie One.”

The robot gave him enough of a squeeze for McCracken to feel its incredible power. It could have crunched his bones had it wanted to.

“Would you like me to remain, Professor?”

“That won’t be necessary, Obie One. But please inform Obie Three Mr. McCracken and I will require some refreshments.” The old man turned his wild eyes to Blaine. “Some lunch, perhaps?”

“Just a soft drink will be fine.”

Ainsley looked back at Obie One. “And I will have my usual, Obie One.”

“Yes, sir.”

McCracken watched the robot swing around on its heels and stride away noisily.

“Now, Mr. McCracken, what can I do for you?”

“Incredible…”

“Excuse me?”

“I was just admiring your work. Obie One, I mean.”

Ainsley accepted the compliment with a faint smile. “At one point I envisioned an army of them; resilient, indestructible. Not subject to the effects of nuclear fallout or chemical warfare. Impervious to pain. Capable of sight, hearing, even smell a thousand times more sensitive than a man.”

“Developed as part of the Omicron Project.”

Ainsley’s shoulders flinched as if he’d been shocked by a thousand volts. His features tensed. “Developed as the Omicron Project, Mr. McCracken.”

“Blaine, Professor.”

“Please, why don’t you sit down?”

McCracken searched around for a spot. Every chair or sofa was covered with manuals, computer printouts, and fragments of things waiting to be built. Tools littered the floor; computer floppy disks covered a desk built into the farthest wall. Seeing Blaine’s problem, Ainsley spun his wheelchair around again and motored toward a leather armchair. A single sweep of his arms brushed its contents onto the Oriental rug.

“There,” pronounced Ainsley, and he backed up his wheelchair in order to face Blaine from a comfortable distance.

McCracken took the chair. “Am I wrong or does modern science say a robot like Obie One won’t exist for another generation?”

The professor smiled boyishly. “No, you’re quite right, Blaine. In fact, so far as the scientific community knows, Obie One and his brothers don’t exist yet.”

“Brothers?”

“Six, to be exact, though only three are currently functional. All prototypes for what I foresaw would become an extended family. Alas, though, the family extends only as far as this house. No more were ever produced. Omicron stands today where it stood three years ago.”

“Why was the project scrapped?”

“Lots of reasons…Mostly lack of vision on the part of the check writers. They are creatures of extremes. Well over two billion dollars went into my work during the initial four years that produced the Family. But there were problems in the testing end. Nothing I couldn’t have handled, you understand, but they had lost their patience. Suddenly it was over. No more checks. No more production facilities. The problem in the end, I suppose, was money. They looked at what Omicron was supposed to do, and less nimble minds realized they could operate fifty thousand men for that price. Only problem was a corps couldn’t pull off what the Family could.”

“The Family,” Blaine echoed.

“Obie and his brothers, of course. You understand the basic concepts of Omicron, I’m assuming.”

“Limited entanglements in a confined arena. Maybe the first attack wave in less than desirable arenas. The counterinsurgency of the future.”

“Yes, as opposed to past war-zone strategies. The global arena has been reduced to minor microscopic grids, and that is where the battles of the future will be fought. Israel’s West Bank, the center of Beirut, the Kuwaiti desert, a terrorist seizing of a school or an oil field. Rapid deployment forces aren’t really that rapid at all — and once they get where they’re going, they’re really too bulky to do much about most things.”

“Hence the perfect rationale for the Family.”

Reston Ainsley looked appreciative. “Very good, my boy, you’re catching on. All of the droids I developed under Omicron had a specialty, a key part of a greater whole. Strategies could be developed along any number of scenarios, relying on these specialties to a greater or lesser degree.”

Just then McCracken felt something graze his leg. He looked down, expecting to see a cat, and froze when what emerged from beneath the chair was what looked like a huge steel snake. “There you are,” said Ainsley, beckoning the thing toward him. “Come right over here now, you scoundrel.”

The snakelike thing continued to emerge. It was as long as a boa constrictor and at least as wide. It was silver in color, and McCracken could not see how it propelled itself.

“Another of the Operational Ballistic Droid series, obviously,” he concluded.

“Obie Four, to be precise, Blaine.”

The thing reached Ainsley’s wheelchair and nudged his leg. Then what McCracken had perceived to be an eyeless head rose like a cobra’s and looked the old man in the eye.

Ainsley stroked its head as if it were an affectionate pet. “Obie Four’s specialty is reconnaissance. He can burrow under any surface and disable mines en route to his target area. His antennae can pick up conversations while buried a good ten feet underground, and he’s also equipped with a camera that can transmit video signals when appropriate.

“And he likes to wander.”

“You noticed.”

“I hope he’s housebroken.”

Ainsley laughed at that. “How much do you know about artificial intelligence, Blaine?”

“About as much as you just told me.”

“Let me give it to you in a nutshell. Artificial intelligence is simply programming machines to learn from their mistakes and make logical choices when presented with a series of options.”

“Nothing simple about that, Professor.”

“Depends on your perspective. For the Obie series to have any chance of succeeding in the kind of encounters it was designed for, the droids had to be able to make their own decisions. Their instinctive decision-making had to be on a par with that of seasoned troops. All input had to be weighed in the blink of an eye, the correct alternative selected.”

“Like I said, nothing simple.”

“Let me finish. The options a man is confronted with in a situation of crisis are exceedingly small in number. You of all people should understand that.”

“Me?” responded McCracken.

Ainsley smiled. “Obie One,” he called out, in a conversational tone. Seconds later the humanlike droid was standing in the doorway. “Tell Mr. McCracken what we learned about him before he dropped by for a visit.”

The robot’s voice emerged in a droll, electronic monotone, as if it had no interest at all in the information it was relating. “Blaine McCracken. Following graduation from high school, started basic training in September of 1967 at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Transferred from there to Fort Polk, Louisiana, for Advanced Individual Training and infantry training. Volunteered for Jump School at Fort Benning, Georgia, where he was accepted into Special Forces training with highest GT score ever recorded. Remained at Benning for Pathfinder and Ranger schools. Upon completion, subject was sent to Camp Mackall at Fort Bragg for Special Forces Qualification course, followed by graduation with honors from Recondo training. Assigned then to Fifth Special Forces Group and sent to JOTC at Fort Sherman Canal Zone. Entered Vietnam in 1969 at Lang Vei, where subject was recruited by CIA for the Phoenix Project. After five months in field, received field promotion to captain following death of—”

“Very good, Professor,” Blaine interrupted.

“Thank you, Obie One.” The robot turned and took his leave. “I do believe he’s jealous, Mr. McCracken.”

“Tell him the feeling’s mutual.”

Reston Ainsley seemed ready to bounce out of his chair. “You’re getting the idea, I can tell! You reached the level you did — and survived at it — because you chose the correct options when confronted by crises.”

“Sometimes I got lucky.”

“But the point is you responded without thinking. Well, technically machines can’t think, either. But teach them to recognize and choose options, and basically you take the guesswork out.”

“So you just drop your Obies into a given entanglement and let them do their thing.”

“We’re talking about two billion dollars worth of machinery here, Blaine, not simple robots.”

Before McCracken could respond, a new whirring sound drew his attention to the door of the study. Passing over the threshold was yet another of the professor’s OBD series, this one a boxlike, waist-high contraption with multiple arm and pincer extremities emerging from slots in its top. It was carrying a plate containing some sort of sandwich and a pair of soft drinks. The sandwich was perfectly layered and cut. The soft drinks were still fizzing over four ice cubes.

“Meet Obie Three, Blaine.”

“An excellent delivery boy. If Domino’s had a few of these, they’d be able to guarantee delivery in fifteen minutes.”

“He didn’t just deliver my lunch and the drinks. He also prepared them.”

Blaine was astonished.

“His pincers and hand extremities are a hundred times more agile and precise than our paltry fingers, Blaine. Imagine him wiring explosives…or dewiring them.”

“Then this is your explosives droid.”

Ainsley nodded. “His hull is composed of titanium steel alloy with Kevlar coating on the outside and an inside layer of copper to reduce heat. His shell allows for the storage of sixteen cubic feet of explosives, supplies, anything.” The old man removed his sandwich from the droid and placed it on his lap. “Now take Mr. McCracken his drink, Obie Three.”

With no hesitation at all, the droid rolled six feet forward and spun so the soft drink was conveniently within Blaine’s reach.

“Thank you,” said McCracken.

“I’m afraid this one doesn’t talk.”

“Each one’s a specialist, kind of like a George Lucas version of The Magnificent Seven. If one of them looks like Yul Brenner, I’m leaving.”

“No, you won’t, because clearly something important has drawn you here. It’s been two years since anyone in the government’s come to see me for any reason other than to check if I’ve finally gone round the bend. They’re not crazy about me keeping the droids, but they know it’s the only thing that keeps me happy…and quiet. So when a man like you shows up on my doorstep with two hours notice, I can only conclude that somewhere something has gone very much awry.”

“In a word, yes.”

“I’m not a violent man, Blaine. But I understand violence, and I understand the need for it. I lost the use of my legs in a car accident when I was twenty. Maybe the creation of these droids is my subconscious way of working out the physical limitations thrust on me by fate.” Ainsley pointed at Obie Three and then Obie Four. “Each represents a different device my handicap has torn from me. They each carry a part of me in them, you see.” He smiled. “I know you, Blaine, better than you think. God made man in his own image, while I made my droids in images I cannot touch. But you are as close to one of them as I ever could have envisioned.”

“Obie One?” Blaine asked.

“Not quite,” Ainsley responded.

He pressed a button and a set of bookshelves built into the right-hand wall parted to reveal a darkened compartment. The old man hit another button and the compartment was instantly alight. Blaine’s eyes bulged at the steel-gray shape revealed within.

“Obie Seven,” the professor said.

The final entry in the OBD line was nearly as tall as the eight-and-a-half-foot ceiling. Its head was a globe dominated by a pair of red glowing lights. Its midsection was rectangular, a pair of arms extended forward, ending with open holes. Its bottom was a pod that widened into a housing for wheels or treads. Maybe both.

“Klatu barata nikto,” was all Blaine could think of saying, struck by the robot’s likeness to Gort in the science-fiction film, The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Professor Ainsley was gazing forward with intense pride. “You are looking at a simple killing machine. Perhaps not as fancy or elaborate as some of the other Family members, but equally effective in its own right. Those arm assemblies are fitted for Vulcan 7.62-mm miniguns—”

“I know Vulcans,” broke in Blaine, “but comparing me to this guy is a bit disconcerting.”

“I was talking in terms of effectiveness, and I meant it as a compliment. You’ll have to forgive me. I don’t have guests often, Blaine. What I’m trying to say is how much I enjoy meeting with someone who can appreciate what I’ve done.” The old man took another bite of his sandwich and spoke between chews. “And now that you know what Omicron was, you can tell me what it has to do with your coming here.”

McCracken’s eyes lingered briefly on Obie Seven before turning back to Ainsley.” What if Omicron wasn’t abandoned? What if the project was started up again after your work was squashed?”

“Under whose auspices?”

“Good question. I’m going to tell you a story about a different legion, Professor. Finish your sandwich…Maybe even have Obie Three make you another. This may take a while.”

In the end it took just over an hour, McCracken leaving nothing out and becoming especially explicit in his retelling of what happened after he and Wareagle had reached the Amazon. Ainsley’s reaction evolved from trepidation to befuddlement to a fear that set his hands trembling with Blaine’s depiction of their encounter with the Wakinyan.

“What do you think, Professor?” he asked finally, after allowing a few minutes for the story to sink in.

“Well, you’ve given me a wealth of information. I need time to think.”

“You’ve already got some notions. I can tell.”

“I’m a scientist, Blaine, and a scientist never speaks until he’s certain what he postulates has some merit.”

“A lot of people have died already. Plenty more may be about to.”

“I understand.”

“I hope so. What was going on down there wasn’t called Omicron for nothing. Whoever was behind it could only have had the same concerns in mind as you did when you created the OBDs, at least originally.”

Ainsley looked hurt. “My concerns never included murder, Blaine.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. But I need to know what was going on down there, Professor, and right now you’re my best bet. I’ll have a shorter version of my story transcribed and sent over.”

Ainsley smiled. “Don’t bother.” He stroked the neck of the snakelike reconnaissance droid affectionately. “I believe Obie Four got it all.”

Chapter 14

“Is that all you’ve got to say, Indian?”

Wareagle faced McCracken from the window. “This professor spoke words of science that have no bearing on what must be done.”

“He gave us our first insight into what this Omicron legion might be about.”

“The legion is about many things, Blainey — none of which he has any insight into.”

They were speaking in the living room of the suite Virginia Maxwell had provided for their use in a safe house used exclusively by members of the intelligence community. Blaine had heard from Sal Belamo that morning and accommodations had been arranged for Patty Hunsecker as well, something McCracken saw as an unwelcome distraction at this point. She was clearly in trouble, though, and Blaine wasn’t about to forget the debt he owed her. Sal had already stashed her brothers under guard back in California, but Patty had steadfastly refused to stay with them, insisting she had to see Blaine.

“You’ve lost me, Indian.”

“It is not for you to understand, Blainey, not this time. The system needs you — and to accomplish what you desire, you must work within it.”

“Which indicates you plan to do otherwise.”

“I went to Brazil in search of something that is now in this country. My search must continue.”

“Sounds personal. And you’re the one always telling me to detach myself, to let my will be directed by the spirits.”

Wareagle twirled a finger through his ponytail and walked to the window. He gazed out as he spoke.

“Blainey, the hellfire was a beginning. It revealed to us the blackness of men’s souls. But a beginning requires an end. I waited all those years for you to come back into my life because I knew your lot was to lead me to the truth of my existence. Our journeys together have confronted us with Black Hearts in many forms. But this time we face the enemy I was reunited with you to face. Everything the spirits have shown and made me — everything I have done — has built to this. The Wakinyan are out there, and I must find them.”

“Not alone, Indian.”

Wareagle swung slowly back to McCracken. His massive shoulders blocked the sun from the window.

“My people have a test for all braves seeking to become warriors. It is called Hanbelachia — vision quest — a series of rituals through which the brave must pass to enter manhood.” The big Indian’s eyes bored deeply into McCracken’s. “Blainey, facing the Wakinyan is part of my vision quest.”

“Aren’t you a little old to be entering manhood, Indian?”

“It is a difficult path and never truly complete.”

“Where will you start?”

“Wherever the spirits direct me.”

They stood there staring across the room at each other, even after a repeated knocking came on the door. At last McCracken walked over and opened it.

“Jesus H. Christ, McCrackenballs,” said Sal Belamo. “What I gotta do, scrape my knuckles raw to get your attention?”

Patty Hunsecker followed Belamo into the room and wrapped her arms around McCracken.

“Good to see you up and around again,” Blaine said, easing her away.

“I’ve been up and around for a year and a half now.”

“But the last time I saw you, you were lying in that hospital bed in Guam.”

“Thanks to you,” Patty said only half jokingly.

In point of fact, McCracken had saved Patty’s life, but only after he had nearly lost it for her. He had procured use of her original Runaway because it was the only ship on the island with deep-salvage equipment. A battle with a twin-engine Cessna had sunk it — and nearly sunk them — Blaine managing to keep both of them afloat until help arrived.

“Yeah,” Blaine said, “but apparently you didn’t learn from my mistakes. Almost getting yourself killed is getting to be a habit.”

Patty’s stare hardened. “On the ocean you told me you were doing things for individuals these days. For people in trouble.”

“Mostly.”

“I need your help. My…father died a week ago.”

“Oh, Jesus. I’m sorry. Really.”

“He was killed, Blaine. He was murdered.”

McCracken could see her struggling to hold back the tears. Eyes glistening, she looked toward Sal.

“My brothers and I would be dead, too, if it wasn’t for him. You’ve got to help me. I’m all they’ve got. My mother died, too. Before. A year ago.”

Patty broke down, collapsing into Blaine’s arms. He held her tight and spoke softly.

“I didn’t know. You should have called me. I wish you had called me.”

Patty eased herself away from him, looking embarrassed. “Recent experience shows you’re not an easy man to get hold of.”

“You’re here, aren’t you?”

“And I’ve got something to show you….”

Patty pulled the crinkled manila envelope from the inside pocket of her leather jacket. She held it tight, as if to let go was to relinquish something much more important than paper.

“They wanted me dead because I was stirring up trouble, talking to the wrong people. No one listened, but I guess that didn’t stop them.”

“Listen to what?”

“Something’s going on. My father’s not the only one. There’ve been others, lots. Men killed, made to disappear. Important men, powerful men, influential men.”

McCracken stole a glance at Wareagle. His nod affirmed he was thinking just what Blaine was: Virginia Maxwell had mentioned a pattern as well. Six assassins who had killed General Berlin Hardesty and others. He pried the envelope from Patty’s grasp and opened it.

“You scared me in Guam, McCracken. Scared me because of what you were, what you could do. I’d never seen so much rage. It was repressed, yeah, but always there, right below the surface.”

Blaine lifted his eyes from the envelope’s contents to meet hers.

“I understand now. They killed my father. And when I went after them, they didn’t just go after me, McCracken. They would have killed my brothers, too. A couple of kids. Kids!”

“You’re right, Patty. You do understand.”

“This proves I’m onto something, doesn’t it?” she asked as he began to scan her tattered tear sheets. “This proves I’m not crazy!”

“Jesus Christ,” Blaine said as he flipped through them.

“I know that look, McCracken. I’ve seen it before. You know I’m right!”

Blaine looked at Johnny. “All these incidents have occurred in the past ten or eleven days.”

“Since the entry of the six killers, Blainey.”

“What killers?” demanded Sal Belamo. “You ask me, there’s a party goin’ on here old Sal ain’t been invited to.”

Blaine finished skimming the tear sheets and handed them to Wareagle, who started looking them over quickly.

“This must be the Indian friend you told me about,” Patty remarked. “You should introduce us.”

“Johnny, meet Patty. Patty, meet Johnny.”

Wareagle’s huge hand swallowed Hunsecker’s. “You must excuse Blainey’s insolence.”

“I’m used to it, believe me.”

“Let’s get back to these tear sheets,” McCracken broke in. “Did your father know any of the other victims?”

“Not that I can find any evidence of. But there is something I realized a few days ago. Nobody else thought it meant anything, which—”

“What is it?”

“Age. All the victims were between forty-two and forty-five.”

McCracken looked at Wareagle. “Berlin Hardesty was forty-four, Indian.”

“What the fuck’s going on here?” Belamo asked, a whine creeping into his voice.

“Plenty, Sal. We’ll tell you all about it in good time.”

“You ask me, good time ended when I stepped through the door.”

“Who’s Berlin Hardesty?” demanded Patty. “You know something. What is it, McCracken?”

“Simply this, Hunsecker. We know six killers who rival Johnny and me for downright meanness are at large in this country. It looked like the victims were limited to government types, but you’ve opened up a whole new door.”

“I tried to go through it, but—”

“You had it slammed in your face. Don’t worry, you’ve come to the right place.”

“I want a computer,” Patty said suddenly, after a pause.

“Come again?”

“I want a computer with access to a data bank that can help me find more links between the victims. Maybe I can find more victims…and potential future ones.”

“U.S. taxpayers pay good money for pros to do that.”

“The pros don’t have a stake in this. I do.” When Blaine started to protest, she talked right through it. “This is my trail, McCracken, in case you’ve forgotten. My father’s the one who’s dead. My brothers were almost killed.”

Blaine turned to Belamo. “Sal?”

“I can make the arrangements no sweat. Maxie’ll be pissed, though.”

“Be good for her complexion. Okay, Hunsecker. You’re in.”

Patty looked relieved, and a new sense of determination replaced the sadness on her face. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

The phone rang, and McCracken answered it. “Such a dear man,” said Virginia Maxwell, “making me wait for only two rings.”

“I had an enlightening meeting with Reston Ainsley, Maxie.”

“So he told me…. after you failed to. Oh, well, now that you’re working for us again, I suppose I can forgive a few such lapses.”

“With, Maxie, not for.”

“Either way, my dear, your best interests would be served by getting yourself to Gap headquarters on the double.”

“We going to have torrid sex, Ms. Maxwell?”

“Better. The report from my team in the Amazon just came in.”

Takahashi gazed closer at the face displayed on the computer monitor. It looked fierce and hard even through the graininess of the reproduction, the beard a dark splotch the same black color as the eyes.

“This man’s name again?” he asked Tiguro Nagami, who stood just to his right.

“Blaine McCracken.”

“I have read about him, haven’t I? When we were selecting our team, his name surfaced.”

“Rejected immediately, Kami-san. He does not do this kind of work.”

Takahashi scrolled through the classified file. “Apparently, he does.”

“Only by his own choosing. He could be a dangerous foe.”

Takahashi stopped scrolling and read in detail the selection on the screen. “I see he spent a year in our country.”

“He studied under Hiroshi.”

The albino’s skin seemed to pale even more. “That explains much.”

“McCracken is many things, Kami-san, but mostly he is a warrior. Those who failed to recognize that have paid dearly.”

“You’re telling me this is the man who rescued the Hunsecker woman?”

“An associate of his did. Our sources indicate that the associate has now delivered her to his protection. Our report indicates he owes the woman from the past. He is a man who pays his debts.”

Takahashi’s pink stare turned distant. “Aren’t we all? She has told him everything, I presume.”

“And he will probably pay attention. I have also learned that McCracken met with Virginia Maxwell. Therefore, he is probably aware of our six killers. That places their missions in great peril.”

“We can send word out. They can be warned.”

Nagami took a deep breath. “May I speak frankly, Kami-san?”

“You may, Tiguro.”

“Kami-san, there is too much going on here beyond our control. Blaine McCracken is onto the pattern of our killings.”

“There is no pattern!”

“There is…enough.”

“What would you have me do, Nagami? What would you have me do?”

“Recall the killers. Suspend their work until we are able to deal with McCracken.”

Takahashi gazed again at the face wavering on his computer monitor. “Do you truly think we can?”

“I think we must try.”

Takahashi rose from behind his desk and walked methodically to the centrally placed portal in the yacht’s large study. Beyond him, there was only the sea.

“I do not have the right to do as you suggest, Nagami. This is not just my battle; it is the battle of our people. Since the war…I should not belabor the details. You know what suspending our work would mean.”

“I know what continuing it now can mean.”

“There is only one certainty, Nagami, and that certainty gave birth to something forty-six years ago. Are we to ignore that fact? Are we to forget the truth?”

“Recent events have changed that truth.”

“No,” Takahashi said staunchly as he swung from the portal. “They have only redefined it. We are all that is left, my friend. We are alone in a battle we must see completed.”

“There is still McCracken, Kami-san.”

Takahashi’s pink eyes flamed red. “Our work will go forth until I have punched all ninety-six of the names into my computer. Not a single one can be spared. Do you hear me? Not a single one!”

Chapter 15

As head of the gap, Virginia Maxwell had moved its headquarters from downtown Washington to the Oyster Point district of Newport News, Virginia. The Gap’s secret, unchartered existence had made its Washington location an impediment. Too much scrutiny threatened to make politics a concern where it was never supposed to be.

The Oyster Point office was situated amid banks and business and professional offices in the center of the Newport News peninsula. Most of the buildings were modest, modern structures, two to four stories high. The Gap, on the other hand, was located in a spanking new office high rise on Thimbal Shoals. Two nearly completed smaller high rises flanked it on either side.

At twenty-four stories, the Gap building was the tallest in the city. Floors fourteen to eighteen, where the Gap actually had its offices, were serviced by a different elevator bank from the rest of the building. They also had an internal elevator system and stairways that linked the floors together, totally isolating them from the rest of the building.

McCracken drove to Newport News through the last of the early evening traffic. He had left Belamo to arrange a computer for Patty; Johnny Wareagle pursued his own agenda. Blaine followed Virginia Maxwell’s instructions for gaining access and found her waiting at the elevator when he stepped out on the eighteenth floor.

“Right this way, my dear.”

She led him down the sparsely traveled hall, high heels clip-cloping softly on the imitation marble flooring. Somewhere in the maze of Gap budgeting, Maxie had found the funds to gradually transform her headquarters into an Italian art deco showplace. Desks curved and sloped. Everything was thin and shiny, ageless, like Virginia Maxwell herself. Even though night had fallen, workers remained at computer terminals sorting through information. They sat on soft leather chairs.

Maxie was dressed in brown tweed tonight, and her bracelets clanged lightly together as if in rhythm with her heels. She said nothing until they had entered a screening room where they took chairs in the front row. Each chair had a remote control device built into its arm. Video had become a prime component of the kind of work the Gap was often called on to do. Much better for reconnaissance than stills and computer-enhanced satellite overviews. Sign of a whole new age in the intelligence business.

“The base was wiped clean, just as you suspected,” Virginia Maxwell reported as she closed the door behind them.

“I wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t found something, Maxie.”

She nodded. “They should have torched the place. Don’t ask me why they didn’t. Anyway, your description of the physical layout was accurate as always, except this time you missed something: two additional floors to be exact.”

“Didn’t see an entrance.”

“With good reason. The elevator compartment was built into the wall. My people almost missed it, too. Let’s make ourselves comfortable.”

They settled into seats that felt airline stiff. Blaine found himself fingering the controls on his armrest, but he left it to Maxie to punch in the proper commands.

“I’ve fastforwarded ahead of the floors you’ve already seen. I’d like to hear what you make of this.” Virginia Maxwell touched a button on her armrest that gave the screen a black sort of life. The next button filled it with the jittery motions of the cameraman proceeding down the corridor of the second underlevel, past the dormitorylike cubicles. At the very end of the corridor, where a segment of the wall had been, the team members had managed to locate the elevator the Gap head had spoken of. The camera jiggled once more during the descent, but steadied again as the doors slid open. Its lens became Blaine’s eyes as it surveyed what was revealed.

McCracken leaned forward. The base’s third underlevel was nothing more than an elaborate, high-tech gymnasium. He recognized some of the machines from health clubs he had worked out in, others from drawing-board sketches he did not know were in production. In addition to the machines, there was an assortment of punching bags, treadmills, and Lifecycle exercise bikes. The camera panned to the right rear corner, and McCracken fumbled at his armrest for the Stop button.

“Freeze it there,” he told Virginia Maxwell.

The picture on the screen locked in place.

“What do you see?”

“The way those mats are laid out there on the floor. It’s got to be martial arts. And there, furthest to the right, zoom in.”

Virginia Maxwell obliged.

“Markiwara,” said Blaine. “Pad-covered boards for striking practice used in hand-conditioning. They’ve been pretty much beat to hell.”

“Hand-to-hand combat, my dear?”

“At a very advanced level.”

“Let’s fastforward, shall we?”

Fresh thoughts formed in Blaine’s head as the pictures whizzed by on the screen.

“I assume your people found nothing more in writing.”

“You assume correctly. Ah, here we are….”

Virginia Maxwell changed the tape speed back to normal, and Blaine recognized the elevator compartment once more. Almost immediately the doors slid open on what must have been the fourth sublevel. A brief walk followed, taking the recon team into a room bathed in darkness. The searching beam of a flashlight could be seen, then the slow blooming of fluorescent ceiling lights.

“Look familiar?” asked the head of the Gap when the picture was fully illuminated.

“I’ll say. It’s a target range. For small arms and rifle fire.” He looked at Maxwell. “Any shell casings?”

“Not so much as a smidgeon of powder, my dear. Did you expect any less?”

“Just lost my mind for a minute.”

What he had gained, though, was, at last, a clearer understanding of what the secret base had been designed to create.

Not monsters at all, but the next best thing.

Somebody was training killers, an elite group on a par with any Blaine had faced before. In itself that was not unusual. What was unique was what had preceded the training. His mind strayed back to the pictures Virginia Maxwell had skipped over of the first two underground levels. The ultra high-tech laboratories and examination rooms. Broken glass, remnants of syringes and specimen bottles. The link between those two levels and the two he was seeing today was undeniable.

“What do you make of these?” Virginia Maxwell was asking.

On the screen was a progression of normal-sized rooms, each containing only a single chair. A few of the rooms had window slats high up on the walls, either for observation of the subject or perhaps projection of a video display inside. The camera zoomed in on one of the chairs.

Leather straps dangled from every part of it. Blaine could see some were cracked and broken, evidence of severe stretching.

“Sensory deprivation?” he suggested. “Some sort of mind control or brainwashing?”

“Your guess is as good as mine, my dear.”

Virginia Maxwell continued the tape, but McCracken’s mind had locked on those thirteen cubicles he and Johnny had found on sublevel two. His image of the prisoners they had held was beginning to gain substance.

“That about does it,” Maxwell said. She switched the video off and turned to look at him. “There’s more, but I’ve given you the highlights.”

“What about the bodies Johnny and I found?”

“Fasten your seat belt, darling. They were all on the government’s payroll. They all had top security clearance.”

“Specialties?”

“This is where it gets interesting. Eliminate nine whom we’ve IDed as members of the Marine Corps or the Special Forces. They were there to provide security.”

“Alas, not very successfully.”

“That leaves nineteen, and at least half of those came straight out of the upper echelons of the bio-tech sector. Strictly top drawer. Best in their field. Plenty of chemical engineers, too, along with a trio who specialized in computer microcircuitry.”

“And the rest?”

“Brain surgeons and specialists.”

“Specialists as in shrinks, Maxie?”

“Anything but, my dear. Specialists in brain function — what specific part of the brain controls which attributes and emotions, and how those parts combine to form a magical whole.”

“Interesting group to have gathered in the Amazon.”

“And one name kept surfacing at the top of their routing orders.”

“Don’t tell me,” interrupted Blaine. “The late General Berlin Hardesty.” He paused. “There’re still thirteen residents of the installation unaccounted for.”

“There’s no evidence suggesting anyone else was even there. We did microscans for fingerprints and came up with only twenty-nine sets.”

The anomaly struck Blaine suddenly. “But Johnny and I only counted twenty-eight bodies.”

“Very observant, my dear. One escaped death, obviously, because he was not present at the installation when your Thunder Beings struck. His name is Jonas Parker. I’ve got his file right here.”

“And if he’s still alive…”

“We’ll have someone who can tell us exactly what was going on down there.”

“Very good, Maxie.”

“Finding him would be better, my dear.”

“Leave that to me.”

Chapter 16

“Professor Ainsley is expecting you, sir,” Obie One said, as it opened the front door for McCracken.

“Obie One,” a voice bellowed from the study, “bring him in here now!”

“Yes, sir.”

The edge in the old man’s voice was unmistakable. When Blaine had spoken to Ainsley earlier in the day, he had been smooth and calm. Something had obviously changed. As Blaine moved toward the professor’s study, he noticed that Obie One was staying put by the door. At McCracken’s urging, Virginia Maxwell had sent over a copy of the videotape taken at the installation in the jungle. Ainsley had called to demand his presence three hours later.

Ainsley was waiting for him inside his study, now even more littered than before with papers, gadgets, and fragments of abandoned droids. Blaine noticed instantly that the gargantuan Obie Seven had been moved into the open against the far wall. Its square eyes glowed red. McCracken could see Vulcan 7.62-mm miniguns had been fitted into its extremities.

“What gives, Professor?”

“They’re not going to take me without a fight.”

“Who’s not?”

“You’re in danger, too, Blaine. I should have expected this as soon as you told me your story.”

“Expected what?”

“You knew about them and you told me. They’ll be coming for us before long, both of us. We’re threats to them.”

“Them?” McCracken echoed.

Ainsley regarded him anxiously. “You really don’t know what it is you’ve stumbled onto here, do you?”

“Not yet.”

“Suppose I can’t fault you for it, Blaine. After all, this isn’t your field. You couldn’t know.”

“I’m a quick study.”

“Omicron! The key is Omicron! When I began developing it, do you remember the purpose, the goal?”

“Devising the perfect solution for limited, specific entanglements.”

“Hence the Obie series. But it was canceled because of costs. And because of something else: an alternative.”

Blaine just looked at him.

“I should have suspected as much from what you told me this morning. All the clues were there. It couldn’t have been anything else, but I held to the hope it would be. Then, when the information came from the Gap…”

The old man’s voice trailed off. His eyes were fixed on the monstrous shape of Obie Seven.

“I called my work Omicron because it represented the fifteenth attempt at achieving the project’s goals. I wondered at first why the force you uncovered in Brazil hadn’t changed the title. Now I realize it’s quite fitting they left it as is. We were both going about things the same way, you see. Creating machines to do what previously only men had done.”

“There were no Operational Ballistic Droids found in the jungle, Professor.”

“No, Blaine, there weren’t…Because they escaped on your boat. Thirteen of them.”

“Machines?”

“What is a machine, Blaine? How shall we define it? In terms of mechanical parts formed of steel and diodes like my Obies, no. But in terms of being brought into existence and programmed toward a specific end, yes. A machine exists merely to perform a task that it will perform tirelessly until told to stop.”

The old man’s head bobbed madly as he spoke, wild white hair tossed about as if it were a mop.

“The purpose of the Obie series, the purpose of Omicron, was to imbue machines with more of the qualities of men — to better enable them to perform certain tasks. What if, instead, men were imbued with more of the qualities of machines?”

McCracken shuddered. He didn’t reply.

“What you discovered in the Amazon, Blaine, was a twisted version of my project. Thirteen men, created in whatever image some perverse man-god determined.”

“Created?”

“Poor choice of words on my part. Refined would be closer to the point.”

“Robots?”

“In a figurative sense, yes, but not a literal one. No hardware was involved, at least nothing beyond—”

“Beyond what?”

“I can’t account for the presence of the microprocessing experts. But they were there for a reason; that much is for sure.”

“Get back to the Wakinyan, Professor.”

“I’m speculating here, so bear with me. Say the primary purpose of what you’re creating — refining — is to kill. You would start with a thousand or so possible subjects and eventually narrow them down to a couple dozen before beginning.”

“You mean a single dozen.”

“Not at all. A dozen of the cubicles you found were unoccupied, remember? But that wouldn’t have always been the case.”

“Then what happened to—”

“I’ll get to that in good time, Blaine. You move your two dozen subjects to one of the most secluded spots on the face of the earth to avoid detection. Money is no object. Your complex is fitted with whatever it requires.”

“And there you train them to be perfect killing machines,” Blaine concluded. “The gymnasiums, the firing range.”

“But you’d be limited, wouldn’t you? You’ve known this kind of man, Blaine. Good Lord, you’ve killed plenty of them. Something more was needed than just training and conditioning.”

With that, Ainsley spun his wheelchair around rapidly and screeched toward his wall-length worktable. The wheels bounced over debris several times, and the chair itself rocked right and left. The old man took something from a large open drawer and spun back toward McCracken.

“This is the brain, Blaine,” he announced, motoring back. “A plastic model of it, anyway.”

Ainsley held the mass of yellow-gray sectional pieces together. It looked real enough for Blaine to wonder whose skull it had been lifted from.

“The list Ms. Maxwell provided me with, of logged researchers at the complex — together with your story and my own analysis of the videotape — can only mean they were working on brain manipulation down there. Neurosurgeons, chemical engineers, biotechnicians, DNA experts — it all fits. With the exception of those microchip people, of course.” Ainsley pulled several of the top sections of his model brain off and tossed them to the floor with the rest of the debris. “Truly a wonder of nature, Blaine. The wonder of nature. No one knows what percentage of the brain’s capacity has yet to be tapped. Estimates range from fifty to as high as ninety-five percent. The point is that the final frontier lies not in outer space. It lies quite literally within our own heads.

“The frontal lobe, the parietal lobe, the occipital lobe, the temporal lobe,” Ainsley said, pointing in turn to each of the sections of the brain. “I could go on naming sections and subsections for hours. But all you need to know is that research these last several years has concentrated on identifying the specific parts of the brain that control specific functions, emotions, and abilities. How does a professional athlete’s brain, for example, differ from that of an overweight man with a sedentary life-style? A murderer’s from a priest’s? A musician’s from a laborer’s? And if that specific determining region can be identified, then perhaps it can be manipulated, stimulated, to refine or enhance skills already possessed by the subject.”

“Sounds farfetched.”

“In a sense it is. The sedentary man could not duplicate the actions of the professional athlete because he has not been properly trained to carry them out. But add training to an artificially altered brain pattern and credibility becomes quite within reach.”

“Training,” Blaine murmured.

“Exactly. Tell me the features of an ideal killer, Blaine.”

“I could go on naming them for hours.”

“Start with the physical.”

Blaine seemed reluctant. “It’s hard to say. Of the best I’ve run into, I’ve never run into two who were alike.”

“But there must be certain common factors.”

“I guess,” Blaine said. “Reflexes…A kind of instinctive quickness that eliminates lag time.”

“Lag time?”

“The gap between realizing what you have to do and doing it. Killers who stay out there the longest have the shortest lag times. They can almost be in two places at one time. You can’t move faster than a bullet, but you can move faster than the man firing it.”

“I understand. Proceed.”

“Awareness. Great reflexes don’t help unless you stay in tune with what’s around you. The attack can come from anywhere. Recognizing it in time to respond determines your life expectancy.”

“Ah, so if an attacker can move faster than you can respond, he wins.”

“Or she. In a nutshell, yes. Like…”

“Like what?”

“An animal. They don’t think, so the lag between determining an action and undertaking it is nonexistent.”

“And if that same lag could be eliminated in a man? If there was a way to somehow stimulate and alter the area of our brain controlling response and reaction time?”

McCracken looked down at the plastic model in Ainsley’s lap. “You’re saying that’s what they created down there?”

“That and more, Blaine.”

“Yes, physical skills. The strength and quickness of the Wakinyan have been enhanced, too.”

“Enhanced to a hyperdegree, I should suspect, in subjects selected for already possessing large degrees of both,” Ainsley confirmed. “But there’s even more. The new makers of Omicron wanted to create machines, remember? You saw the handiwork of the Wakinyan. What comes to mind about it first?”

“They enjoyed it,” Blaine said, without thinking.

“You’re quite certain of that?”

“Oh, yeah.” McCracken’s thoughts drifted back to finding the Tupi boys’ bodies, then the ravaged corpses at the complex, and finally the corpses of Ben Norseman’s men. “No question about it. They loved every minute of their work.”

“Interesting,” commented Ainsley. The fear in his face had been replaced by contemplation. The darkened room seemed to lighten ever so slightly.

“Why?”

“Killing for pleasure, my boy, is not something well documented in the animal kingdom — and certainly not in the world of the machine. We have come to our first anomaly in the equation.”

“Meaning?…”

“Meaning a rule the makers of this Omicron legion had to write themselves to accomplish their task. It wasn’t enough to refine and expand the skills of their subjects. To achieve total success, the subjects had to be conditioned to enjoy killing. Don’t you see?”

“See what?”

“The deaths of all those Tupi Indians that brought your friend to the Amazon. The Omicron subjects stalked their prey not just to practice their skills, but also to provide positive reenforcement. A reward, if you will.”

“I’ve known plenty of individuals who enjoy killing, Professor, thrive on it even — and there was no biochemical engineering behind it.”

Reston Ainsley shrugged. “Perhaps not. Then again, if my theories are correct, it was their brain chemistry that was behind it. Granted, there was no engineering involved, but that doesn’t mean there couldn’t be.”

“No,” Blaine argued, glancing briefly at the cold black finish of Obie Seven, “there’s got to be more, something beyond enjoyment.”

“I believe you might be quite right, my boy. The conditioning chambers on the fourth sublevel bothered me. I can account for virtually everything else, but not this.”

“Brainwashing,” Blaine proposed.

“More like mind-conditioning. Different terms, same effect. And in this case, the results are what matter. What if killing was made an addiction for this legion? What if they actually needed to kill to survive? Think of drug addicts. They may love their chosen poison, but their addiction is more a question of hating the consequences of being without it.” Ainsley raised his plastic-and-rubber model of the brain to catch the light. “So now we have our two dozen subjects, carefully selected for already possessing an overriding capacity for violence, whose brains have been fine-tuned, so to speak, and skills refined to a great extent.”

“Two dozen.”

“Only for a time. To truly create a perfect legion of killers, an element of uncertainty would have to be factored in. The twenty-four subjects would know only twelve were to be chosen, thus only twelve could survive.”

“You’re saying the dozen that came up short were executed?”

“I’m saying that one dozen were killed by the surviving dozen. The Amazon Basin was not chosen at random. The final field tests might have involved matched competition in the jungle. The twelve survivors became the legion.”

“Except you’re forgetting about that extra cubicle Johnny and I found at the end of the hall. What lived in there, Professor? Why was it kept separate from the rest?”

Reston Ainsley had no answer.