The Omicron Legion

Chapter 17

The woman had died much too quickly. She gave up her life to him as easily as passing a quarter to a beggar, and he had packed it away in his pocket with a painful awareness of how little it weighed.

He sat on the edge of the bed, feeling that he owned the darkness. He liked the night, for it made him feel more superior than the day. When it was light he could be seen as well as see. But his eyes could pierce the darkness while his prey had no hope of seeing him. Since leaving Home Base, he had done most of his sleeping in the day.

Of course, he did not sleep much. Sleep meant hours lost to inactivity, and this he did not tolerate very well. Sleep also meant dreams, and these he hated most of all — because they were the one thing he could not control. From the first time he had ventured into the woods and killed the three Indians that night, his dreams had been twisted and difficult to comprehend. He wanted to comprehend; he had to. Control was something he relied on. He had learned anyone, anything, could be controlled. There were always ways.

The name they had given him at Home Base was Abraham. The others had been named after the twelve disciples of Christ. Of course, they were different from him.

He was alone.

Abraham could not have explained why he was different from the others. He could say only that he was better. He had seldom worked with them, and, even more seldom, interacted. Interaction was kept to a minimum, in any case, since it could actually prove counterproductive. Only alone can a man confront that part of himself that must be bettered and better it.

And Abraham was better.

He still had memories of the person he had been before coming to Home Base, but they mostly came only in his dreams. This was another reason to loathe the sleep that brought them. Thoughts themselves made for comparisons, and comparisons made him uneasy. He recalled the time he’d been part of a secret military action against a drug lord in Thailand. A shrapnel blast had torn up his face. Plastic surgeons had had plenty of sewing to do, and, for days after the bandages came off, Abraham had refused to look in the mirror. He was afraid of not recognizing the person he saw.

And now that person was gone. Today he was, simply, what he could do. A man must be defined in terms of his capabilities. More than anything else, it seemed, Home Base had changed his methods of looking at others. They had not had time to prepare him and the twelve disciples for life outside the jungle and it showed. Much of what had impressed him previously, impressed him no more. Money was nothing besides something to help make preparations for what he must do. People lived behind facades that must be meaningless even to themselves. Weakness, everywhere weakness. Could it be this was the same world he had left all those months ago?

How many months?

Abraham tried to pin the answer down, then gave up when it didn’t seem to matter. The hotel’s flickering neon light penetrated the torn slivers of the window curtain. It made the blood on the woman’s naked corpse look shiny. Abraham put his hand in the blood that had pooled on the sheet beneath her. He brought the hand to his nose, expecting it to smell of more than salty copper. Its scent was everywhere, but the scent was meaningless and insignificant.

Insignificant, and yet this was the scent of life itself, freed of its paltriness only in death. How ironic. So much Abraham saw now that had been denied him before Home Base. Once, long ago, in the memories forced upon him by his dreams, he had seen pleasure in life. Now there could be pleasure only in death. Vast pleasure beyond anything he thought possible. He wanted the pleasure as much as he needed it.

Abraham had hoped the woman would last longer. He had found her down on the crowded street. She had arranged for the room while he had hovered out of the desk clerk’s line of vision. If the man ever noticed him, Abraham would simply kill him. He might choose to kill him anyway.

He wiped his fingers on the soiled sheet. The woman continued to regard him with bulging glazed eyes. When Abraham had killed for the first time he thought that the death stare looked strangely familiar, but he couldn’t place it until he looked in the mirror. His own steel-blue eyes held the same emptiness, the same dark vacuum. He wondered what it felt like to be dead, then realized he knew already.

When you were dead, you couldn’t be hurt. The fears and pains of life were at last vanquished. Abraham had no fear. Abraham couldn’t be hurt.

He stared into the woman’s dead eyes. He tried to straighten her head to line up with his, but it wobbled on her neck. He had snapped it like a twig and then, with the woman spasming, had driven his hardened fingers straight into her stomach. Made them rigid and bent them slightly back. Felt the blood soak thick as he probed for a souvenir to take out with him. He locked on something sinewy that resisted at first, but then came free. Abraham had left it there, somewhere in the pool of gore beneath her.

Turning from the corpse, he rose from the bed and moved toward the bathroom. The single light did not work; Abraham regarded himself in the cracked mirror through the darkness. He had to stoop down to get any view at all, since the mirror was positioned for someone considerably shorter than his six foot six. As always, he did not recognize his face. It was not an altogether unpleasant face. It was rather soft, except for the scars that had outlived his several surgeries. A few dribbles of sweat slid down his forehead from his straw-colored hair. Abraham kept it cropped short, brushed straight back.

Only cold water came from the tap, and Abraham washed the blood from his hands as best he could. Even that slight exertion forced the muscles of his arms and shoulders to pulse and ripple. He looked up into the mirror from his bent-over stance and saw his face with the cracks in the mirror down the center of it. The result was a carnival-like impression that should have disturbed him, but didn’t. Abraham felt only then that he was gazing at his true self, and it was a picture he quite liked.

There was a shuffling sound from the corridor, and he spun quickly and tensed. The sound evaporated as quickly as it came, and Abraham found himself facing the door of the dingy room. It was time to leave, anyway. His work for the night was finished. Soon his real work, the work he had been created for, would begin. Abraham looked forward to that with an excitement akin to what he knew in the days before Home Base.

Yes, he reckoned, closing the door behind him in the hallway. Very soon…

The cabin lay in the heart of the woods, blind and isolated. It was simple in design, a two-story structure built against a hillside at the edge of the Rocky Mountains.

A tall man turned from looking out a second-floor window that faced the driveway.

“I can’t see the guards,” he told the others.

“It’s all right,” replied a stout man who was seated on a couch covered in plaid fabric. “They would have called us on the walkie-talkie if there was trouble.”

“What if they didn’t have time?” the tall man demanded. “We could be alone in here, dammit. We could be in danger!” He turned to look out the window again.

“The trip wires would have sent us a signal,” replied the third man in the room, the only one of the three who wore his hair long.

“Trip wires wouldn’t mean anything to them if they got this far. You know that.”

Just then, one of the patrolling guards emerged from the woods and stopped to light a cigarette. The tall man turned away from the window, but did not breathe easier.

“See,” said the stout man on the couch.

“They won’t be able to find us, Benjamin,” said the longhaired man, joining the taller one by the window.

“And what if you’re wrong, what then, Pierce? And don’t try to tell me your security will keep them out if they discovered our location.”

“We’ll be gone from here before they get that chance.”

“Your reassurances no longer hold much weight with me, Pierce,” the fat man said. “Your plan was enacted to guard precisely against this eventuality!”

“And the plan succeeded. To a point.”

“Not a great enough one in my mind. We should strike out at them while we have the opportunity.”

“In time, Benjamin.”

“If we have it, you mean.” The tall man swung toward the stout one seated on the couch. “What do you say to this, Nathan?”

“We have lost track of our pursuers, Benjamin. They could be anywhere now.”

“Stalking us? Searching for us?”

“They have no reason to. You know that as well as I do.”

“All I know is that this hasn’t gone as we expected it to. I refuse to accept anything at face value.”

“Stop whining,” roared Nathan. “You stand there worrying about our lives when there is so much more at stake.” He looked toward Pierce. “We must face the fact that we may have to rethink our entire strategy.”

“All is proceeding as planned, in spite of the setbacks we have suffered,” Pierce responded.

“No,” Benjamin said vehemently. “The final phase has been enacted without proper safeguards, without the very precautions that have dominated our lives.”

“And what choice did we have?” Pierce shot back at him. “I thought we had gotten them all.”

“We all did,” acknowledged Nathan. “But Benjamin is right on that point. The fact is, we didn’t.”

“Could we find him now?” Benjamin asked.

“Eliminating him would not keep the killers from finishing their work. Besides, we have used that very strategy to our own benefit.”

“And how long do you think it is before they realize the truth?”

“Long enough.”

“And in the meantime we stay here. Waiting.” Benjamin looked furtively out the window again.

“We move to our final destination tomorrow.”

“That is supposed to reassure me?”

“I don’t really care whether it does or not.”

Benjamin stormed back from the window. “And what about the door left open back down in Brazil? Are we to feel safe in spite of that, too?”

“On the contrary, we have enlisted the services of a most reliable ally to help us close it.”

“Really?”

“Blaine McCracken.”

Benjamin stood very still and waited for Pierce to explain.

Johnny Wareagle knelt barechested in the cold late autumn air. There may have been a time long past when the chill would have raised goose bumps on his flesh. He actually thought he remembered the last instance. It was a night in the hellfire, when the cold and rain were so bad that the team had to camp for the night. Wareagle took the first guard duty with his waterlogged poncho for company. The cold wetness had brought the gooseflesh.

Then the Black Hearts had come, and the gooseflesh had vanished.

He had never felt it again, he supposed, because his mind associated its rising with the coming of the ambush party that night. Johnny had killed them all himself, before the rest of the unit awoke. Whenever the gooseflesh should have come, his mind retreated into the heat of the battle, and the chill vanished.

The muscles of Wareagle’s massive upper body tensed and relaxed in the breeze. He sought comfort from the trees and brush, from nature, but nature refused him. This was his land, his home, where he came to ground, where the spirits could hold the demons of the past out so he could sample a peace he knew didn’t belong to him. Today, though, the spirits had deserted him, just as they had in Brazil.

Why? Johnny wondered.

The question did not frustrate or perturb him. Their absence implied a lesson he needed to learn. A host of birds landed at the edge of the clearing, and Johnny reached into his pouch for the feed he carried with him whenever he ventured into the woods. He filled his palm and extended it outward, waiting for them to approach and eat from his hand as they always did.

The birds waddled a bit nearer, testing the air, then stopped as if struck by an invisible barrier. They came no closer. Still Johnny held the feed out in his usual way, waiting patiently.

They’re afraid of me.

The realization struck him like a burst from a jackhammer. He was no longer the person the birds knew and trusted. The essence of his manitou had changed.

First the spirits had stopped speaking to him. And now this.

The connection was inarguable. Yet the spirits had not deserted him. Their silence was counsel in itself. They had helped him reconcile himself to the past. But the future they would leave to him. Johnny could see it in all its obscurity, had seen it since first setting foot in Brazil.

Somewhere there was an enemy he had to face, an enemy who would test the very foundations on which he had built his life. All else, from the hellfire on, had been merely the proving ground leading up to this final rite of passage. The guidance of the spirits had taken him this far, but now he must face his Hanbelachia, his vision quest, alone.

He was changing and evolving. Soon he would face an enemy who would determine whether the rest of his days would be spent as a true warrior or with his ancestors. The enemy was vast and powerful, as black as the heart of a moonless night with an ice storm for a soul.

Out there now waiting.

Waiting for him.

Sal Belamo got Patty set up in her own personal office. She had always loved computers. She had never set out to sea without a portable along. This computer was simple enough to use, but it was powerful enough to analyze data coming in from an incredible number of government sources. Sal knew all the right access codes and passed them along.

Patty had started by calling up every bit of information available on the list of victims she already had. There were fifteen now with the names McCracken had added. She read everything on them she could find, much of the information classified.

The first part of the answer came to her quite by surprise. She was simply staring dreamily at the frozen screen when an item caught her eye. A simple fact and nothing more that made her think of her father. But it reminded her of something else, and she scanned fast to another entry.

A chill moved up her spine.

She spent the next hour rechecking seven more of the victims. Here was a connection.

Incredible. But what did it mean?

She resisted the urge to call Sal right now. She was on a roll and she knew it. This clue would lead her to others. The truth was within her grasp.

Chapter 18

“You ask me, chief, be a good idea if you let me ride shotgun with you back to the jungle,” Sal Belamo offered stubbornly. They had stopped outside Dulles Airport in the predawn hours of Saturday, where a government jet was waiting to fly Blaine McCracken to Rio de Janeiro.

“I don’t want Patty left alone, Sal. It’s as simple as that.”

“You don’t trust Maxie’s people to do the job?”

“I don’t trust anyone right now besides you and Johnny. Something about this whole business smells wrong to me, but I can’t pin down where it’s coming from. You and I go to Rio together, there’s no one up here to pick up the pieces.”

“How ’bout the Indian?”

“Johnny’s got his own stake in this.”

“You guys seem to read each other clear as the morning paper.”

“I carried him through a mine field once, and he’s been carrying me ever since.”

When Sal frowned, his twisted nose pointed to the right. He reached into his pocket and came out with a pair of clips for Blaine’s Heckler and Koch 9-mm pistol.

“Well, if you don’t want me tagging along, how about I give you a little going away present?”

“I’ve got plenty of bullets.”

“Not like these, you don’t. Got a friend who makes ’em up special. Puts a glass capsule inside each with a mixture of ground glass and picric acid.”

“Potent stuff.”

“Extremely shock sensitive, he would say. Anyway, mixing it with the ground glass makes it less sensitive and allows it to be fired from a gun. Once it goes bang, the bullet distorts, which breaks the glass capsule and allows the acid to mix with lead.”

“Forming lead picric,” Blaine concluded.

“Big boom when it hits its target. I call ’em Splats, since that’s what happens to whatever they hit.”

McCracken accepted the clips, noticing they were stored in clear plastic, which was carefully molded over their contours.

“Oh, yeah,” Sal added. “Thing is, you don’t want to get them wet. My friend says it undermines the explosives’ stability. Point is, you don’t load Splats until you’re near sure you’re gonna need them.”

Blaine ran his fingers over the plastic. “What kind of firepower we talking about?”

Belamo winked. “Fire one of these into a watermelon and you won’t even have any seeds left to plant.”

“I’m not hunting fruit, Sal.”

“Splats don’t discriminate, chief. They’ll turn anything into paste.”

They parted right after that, and Blaine’s thoughts turned to tracking down the only man he knew of who could shed light on what had gone on at the installation in the Amazon: Jonas Parker. For some reason, Parker had been absent during the time of the massacre. After it, he would have known he was a marked man in grave need of protection. Assuming he had been successful in that quest, he would still be in hiding now. The trick would be finding him.

Toward that end, McCracken called Carlos Salomao, the man who had drawn both him and Johnny Wareagle to Brazil in the first place.

“If you were in Brazil and needed to disappear fast, who would you go to, Carlos?”

“That is simple, amigo. Fernando Da Sa. Ever hear of him?”

“Can’t say that I have.”

Fernando Da Sa, Carlos explained, was the most powerful crime lord in Rio — and thus the entire country. As head of the Commando Vermelho, or Red Command, he controlled narcotics, weapons, gambling, prostitution, even the lotteries in the Rio mountainside slums. The Brazilian police were far more corruptible than their American counterparts and, as a result, Da Sa operated virtually untouched.

“Can you set up a meeting for me?” McCracken asked.

He could feel Salomao’s reluctance over the phone. “Da Sa is not fond of foreigners, amigo.”

“We’ll get along just fine.”

So McCracken flew to Rio determined to reach Da Sa himself if Carlos’ efforts failed. From Galeão Airport, a thirty-minute taxi ride brought him to the São Conrado district, where he would await the call from Carlos at the Rio Sheraton. Blaine chose to stay in American-style hotels wherever possible when he traveled. Ease and comfort were important to him, when danger was always right around the corner.

He checked in at two on Saturday afternoon, and fifteen minutes later he was drinking a virgin guarãna on his room’s terrace. His fourth-floor room offered a magnificent view of the private Vigidal Beach below. It was almost summer, and the temperature in the upper eighties was made pleasant by the breeze off the sea. With his feet propped up on the plastic terrace table, Blaine felt himself starting to slip off to sleep when the phone jarred him. He answered it, expecting to hear Carlos Salomao on the other end.

“I trust your trip went well, Mr. McCracken.” It was a heavily accented voice.

“Fernando Da Sa,” Blaine said.

“I am honored that you have graced my humble surroundings. You require a meeting, no doubt.”

“It won’t take much time.”

“It will take what it must. Come to the Copacabana Beach directly in front of the Hotel Meridien in exactly one hour. My guards will be waiting.”

“How will I know them?”

“They will know you.”

Da Sa hung up without saying any more. He didn’t have to. His people had been watching McCracken since the moment he emerged from the jetway, and they would watch him all the way to the meeting.

Blaine changed into shorts and a loose-fitting shirt, then took a hotel cab the fifteen-minute stretch to the Meridien Hotel at Copacabana Beach. Cars were parked diagonally across the stone walkway separating the street from the sand, and the cab pulled into an open slot. Blaine paid the fee in the Brazilian cruzeiros he had obtained at the Sheraton and stepped out. The beach before him was enormous and, since it was Saturday, crammed with people fighting for every inch of sand. Some boys battled for soccer balls in the sand; others played volleyball.

Blaine strode toward the beach between two of the many thatch-roofed stands along the street. Native fruits and foods were available, as well as Coca-Cola. Nearby a marimba band played. McCracken was about to step out onto the beach as instructed when a pair of strikingly beautiful Brazilian women in bikinis closed in on him from either side. One was black, the other looked more Latin.

“This way,” the black woman said, and moved forward to take the lead. The other woman brought up the rear. He had expected to be met by the typical muscle-bound thugs and found the surprise quite pleasant indeed.

The women escorted him onto the fine sand of the beach. They walked carefully to avoid the cluttered patches of blankets and towels and to avoid soccer balls in flight. Blaine watched as a kicked ball rolled to a stop in front of the first guard. The young players froze. No one made a move or said a word until she had kicked it back at them.

“Obrigado,” one muttered.

“De nada,” she answered.

Close to the sea, they swung left toward a section of the beach that appeared strangely vacant. There seemed to be only a single cluster of beach chairs under a canopy. Four tall, beautiful women were going through patterned dance steps in two pairs. The moves possessed a balletlike grace, but the daring near-misses with hands and feet, along with lightning responses, suggested martial arts kata. As he got closer, Blaine could see the women’s bodies were layered with well-defined muscles. Sweat glistened off their washboard abdominals and bulging bronzed shoulders. In addition to these four, he now noticed three more sunbathing off to the right of the canopy.

A single clap of hands brought the quartet of female practitioners to rigid attention, chests heaving from their exertion under the hot Rio sun. Beyond them Blaine glimpsed a single figure beneath the canopy. He was seated in a half-lounge chair that seemed buried in the sand, and he made no effort to rise as Blaine drew closer.

“Step into my office, McCrackenballs,” Fernando Da Sa said.

He stretched out his long legs and clasped his hands comfortably behind his head. He wore a white shirt unbuttoned to reveal a firm midsection that protruded slightly over his bathing trunks. The flesh was the same dark bronze color as his face, accentuated further by his jet-black hair, which showed gray only at the temples. A thin, shiny mustache graced his upper lip.

McCracken stopped at the entrance to the crime lord’s canopy. A nod from Da Sa, and one of his female guards placed a beach chair directly facing his.

“Please, make yourself comfortable.”

The chair had been placed so Blaine’s shoulders remained in the sun, but the front of his body was shaded by the canopy. “You like my girls, eh, McCrackenballs?”

“Most men with eyes would, Mr. Da Sa.”

“The routine you saw them performing is called Capuela. It was developed by slaves who were forbidden to practice self-defense. Because of its dancelike appearance, the masters paid no attention to it, but it is actually a deadly fighting art.”

Blaine stole a glance at two of the participants who still lingered just beyond the canopy. “I don’t doubt it.”

Da Sa smiled with pride. “My girls are the best fighters in all of Brazil.”

“Tough to conceal a gun in those outfits, though.”

“You did not check beneath the towels, my friend.”

“Perhaps I shall.”

Da Sa laughed gently. “I am glad to see you came unarmed. It is a gesture of good faith on your part and is much appreciated.”

Da Sa bowed his head slightly at that, and McCracken returned the gesture. Obviously the two women who had escorted him here knew he wasn’t carrying without needing to pat him down. That implied a high level of proficiency.

McCracken struggled to get his beach chair settled evenly in the sand.

“Can I offer you a drink, McCrackenballs?” Da Sa asked.

“Absolutely. Something from one of those coconuts. Unleaded.”

Da Sa gave the appropriate signal. “I understand you don’t drink alcohol.”

“Afraid I might get to like it too much.” Blaine glanced around him. “Especially in a place like this.”

“I can understand what you mean.” The crime lord hesitated. “It seems strange to you, doesn’t it?”

“What?”

“That I can conduct business here without any worry.”

“Your counterparts elsewhere in the world couldn’t work this openly.”

“My manner of conducting business is not like the others in my field. I am not a criminal, Mr. McCracken, I am a purveyor, an entrepreneur. To the people I am a hero, but I am at home among them. I am just one of them who has reached a different station.”

“A station that requires nine bodyguards.”

“One has certain enemies, Mr. McCracken.”

“The Red Phalange, for example, Mr. Da Sa?”

Da Sa nodded. “I see you have done your homework, Mr. McCracken. My enemies in the phalange are not welcome here and they know it. Would you care to hear why?”

“Of course.”

“The people. They do not have the support of the people. They have done nothing for them except take their money. You have heard of Esquaderão da Morte?”

“Death squadrons.” Blaine translated.

“With the tolerance — even the support — of the police, these roving bands murder homeless children and dump their bodies in the sewers. They claim the purpose is to reduce street crime. They claim these children have no families. But I am their family, Mr. McCracken. I am family with all of Rio.”

Blaine’s drink came and he accepted it gratefully. It was cold coconut milk, and he drained half of it in the first two gulps. He licked off his upper lip and dabbed with his arm what he had missed.

“You fund orphanages, halfway houses for released convicts, and food banks for the poor.”

“There are a great many in my country.”

“There were a great many more before your war with the Red Phalange.”

“I centralized power, McCrackenballs, and the results speak for themselves. I give back a huge percentage of what I take in from the city. It is good business. I am a good businessman.”

“And it’s important that I know that?”

“It’s important that you know how I function, my friend, in the event I am not able to grant your request.”

“I think it will be in your best interests — as well as the best interests of the party I am seeking.”

“Really?”

“This is beyond your usual sphere of influence, Mr. Da Sa.”

“This is Rio, McCrackenballs.”

“The roots are elsewhere.”

The crime lord shoved his chair closer to McCracken’s. “The roots of what?”

“Sometime within the last week a man came to you, an American. He asked for new identity papers, perhaps for protection.”

“Was this man in trouble?”

“Not necessarily,” Blaine said, the drink cooling his palms. “He was simply part of something that didn’t exist anymore. Maybe if he had walked into the U.S. Embassy, everything would have been all right. But he didn’t.”

“What is this man to you?”

“He has answers I need, answers no one else has. That makes him a valuable commodity, Mr. Da Sa. For both sides.”

“And which side am I on, McCrackenballs?”

“Neither. This time you’re in the middle.”

Without warning Da Sa bounded out of his chair and strode quickly to the water. McCracken drained the rest of his drink and followed close behind, as did the guards, too, at a discreet distance. Blaine stopped next to the crime lord and water lapped over their feet as Da Sa spoke again.

“This is Rio, my friend. I am both sides and the middle.”

“Not this time, Mr. Da Sa.”

“Assuming this man, this American you speak of, is under my protection, I would not force him to meet with you. What do you offer that may encourage him?”

“You can tell him what you know about me. Tell him I’m the one who can get him what he wants.”

“And just what is this?”

“If he’s still in the country, as I suspect, it’s because you learned he was too hot to move. But what the man wants is to get out and go home. That’s where I come in. He cooperates…the arrangements get made tomorrow.”

Da Sa laughed. “My sources were right about you, my friend. You think with your balls.”

“Cuts down on the headaches.”

“And you believe you can succeed in this where I have seen difficulties?”

“I have the advantage of knowing exactly what we’re facing.”

“That might not provide sufficient impetus for the American to accept a meeting.”

“Then tell him the Omicron legion is still at large. Tell him thirteen is my lucky number.”

“That means nothing to me.”

“It will to him.”

Sal Belamo gazed from the screen to Patty Hunsecker and back again.

“In-fucking-credible,” was all he could say. “You sure about this?”

“Absolutely,” she said. “Every one of the victims on the list with my father was adopted, all within a three-year period.”

“Beginning forty-five years ago and ending forty-two?…”

Patty nodded. “For whatever it’s worth, yes.”

“It’s worth more than a kick in the ass, lady, and that’s what it feels like. Damned if I can make any sense of it, though.”

“Wait until you try to make sense of what else my nimble fingers uncovered: All the businessmen, my father included, had extensive dealings with the Japanese.”

“Come again?”

“They brokered deals. They ran interference for buyouts and mergers. Some made a fortune. Some didn’t. The Japanese ended up the biggest winners.”

Belamo hesitated, trying to take it all in. “How many additional victims you say you came up with?”

“Another five at least.”

“You ask me, lady, the thing to do is use your pattern and find out who else might be on the list.”

“I already have, Sal, and one of them is sure to interest you. Here,” she said, sliding back from the monitor screen, “have a look.”

Belamo squinted to read the name clearly, and then his eyes bulged.

“Holy fucking shit,” he muttered.

Chapter 19

McCracken agreed to meet under any conditions Jonas Parker requested.

“The thing is,” he said to Fernando Da Sa, “I won’t be the only one in Rio looking for him.”

“And these others, you think my participation in such matters simply slipped by them? Why would they have not come to me as you have?”

“Because they knew you would have seen through their motives.”

Da Sa grasped his shoulder tenderly. “You need not worry about these others, my friend. This man is under my protection, and that means very much in Rio. In addition, I will dispatch a dozen of my ladies to provide security, assuming, of course, he agrees to meet you.”

Blaine was told to go back to his hotel and wait by the pool. He would be contacted there with the details for the meeting.

It was cool in the late Rio afternoon, the sun having disappeared behind the Sheraton, and Blaine had been lying by the pool for only twenty minutes, when a tall, dark woman lay down casually on the chaise longue next to his.

“Eight o’clock tonight at the Jardim Botanico.”

“The what?”

“Botanical Garden. Enter from the Avenue of the Royal Palms. The gate will be left open for you. Walk until you reach the bronze fountain. The man you seek will appear only if you come alone, make no phone calls, and speak to no one before leaving. If you’re late, the meeting is off.”

She rose and walked away.

“Nice talking to you,” said Blaine.

McCracken reached the Jardim Botanico right on time and found the security gate to the Avenue of the Royal Palms open, just as promised. His path led beneath palm trees of every variety that had been among the seedlings planted by Prince Regent Dom Jaoa in 1808. Since then, samples collected and nurtured over the course of the years included water lilies measuring twenty-one feet in diameter and a spectacular collection of carnivorous and poisonous plants.

With just the moon for illumination, McCracken could only make out the shapes of trees and plants imported from a hundred countries. The wide path that ran between the spreading palms was formed of hard-packed dirt inlaid with rock. Other narrower paths, some enclosed by vine-wrapped steel overhangs, joined the main one to create a serpentine maze of intersecting passageways through the various flora. Blaine could make out a large lake off to his right.

Despite the calm and beautiful scene, McCracken was nervous and wary. Da Sa’s guarantees of protection seemed meaningless because the crime lord’s guards had no conception of what they were up against.

With that in mind, McCracken carried his Heckler and Koch along with Sal Belamo’s twin clips of plastic-covered Splats. He wore baggy, full-fitting trousers for comfort as well as to hide his pistol in an ankle holster. He had asked Da Sa for permission to carry the gun. The crime lord believed the weapon would be superfluous, but Blaine told him he liked playing things safe.

He strolled down the Avenue of the Royal Palms with eight o’clock still several minutes away. He knew he was getting close to the fountain when he heard its dripping sounds. It was nestled in a small open grove, surrounded by many statues and stone benches.

Blaine checked his watch. It was eight o’clock. Perhaps Parker had decided not to show after all. Perhaps something had stopped him en route.

Blaine caught the faint sound of footsteps on the soft ground of the narrow walk to his left. A shape emerged, motions tense and jittery. Blaine stiffened, but he didn’t rise. The figure passed into a patch of moonlight and Blaine recognized the face he had seen in Virginia Maxwell’s file. The man quickly approached and stopped a few yards before the bench where Blaine sat.

“Mr. Parker? Or is it Doctor Parker?”

Parker stood rigid. “Mister will do fine.” A pause, then, “Da Sa says you can help me.”

“You have to help me first.”

“Anything. Everything. I just want this to be over.”

“Then sit down.”

“It won’t make me more comfortable.”

“It will make you a smaller target.”

Each motion long and deliberate, Parker joined McCracken on the bench.

“Of course, we might be safe with Da Sa’s guards posted all around us,” Blaine continued, “but I don’t think so. And I’ve got the feeling you don’t, either.”

Parker’s eyes widened in the moonlight. “How much do you know about them?”

“I know there are thirteen. I know they escaped after killing the rest of the personnel at that installation in the Amazon. I also know you went into hiding because you knew sooner or later someone would realize they missed you. Probably sooner.”

“On my Christ…”

“What made you so lucky, Mr. Parker? Why did you survive?”

“I was project liaison with General Hardesty. My job was to perpetuate the illusion that the project was government funded. It was called Omicron.”

“I know.”

“How much do you know?”

“Not who was above Hardesty.”

“I don’t, either.”

“Bullshit.”

“No! My involvement began and ended with the general. When he died and the shred order came down, I made myself vanish.”

“What shred order?”

“The general’s staff was following S.O.P. With Hardesty dead, his files had to be closed.”

“Ben Norseman…”

“I heard he was coming, and I knew why. They wouldn’t have been his only targets. I knew that, so I ran.”

“But Norseman got down there to find he didn’t have any targets at all. Base personnel had already been slaughtered, and the Wakinyan were gone.”

“The what?”

“Indian word for Thunder Being. Close enough.”

Parker swallowed hard.

“Somehow they got wind of what was going down. Something tipped them off; they took matters into their own hands before Norseman showed up. Then Norseman went after them and got himself butchered. I found the bodies. It wasn’t pretty.”

“But how? How could they know?”

“Tell me what I’m dealing with and maybe I can give you an answer.”

Parker looked puzzled. “You must know. You just said—”

“I don’t know shit, really. I know you were in the warrior business, transforming man into superman. I’ve got a rough idea that it has something to do with biochemical brain alteration and conditioning.”

“The Wakinyan, as you call them, are…disciples.”

“As in the Bible?”

A nod. “There were twelve in the initial stage, and they were given the names of the disciples. But names didn’t matter much to them — not the names they used to have, and not the ones we gave them.” His eyes glinted in the darkness. “You called them supermen before. Well, you’re not far off. The basis of Omicron was the creation of the perfect human fighting machine, men conditioned to behave and respond like machines.”

“More than conditioned,” Blaine said.

“Yes. Processed, reordered, remade. Choose any word you like. We broke down most of what they were and made them into what we wanted them to be. The selection process was as long as any of the phases. Certain predispositions and qualities were required from the outset.”

“A shell from which to build…”

“In a sense, you’re right. Omicron never could have succeeded if the proper preconditions weren’t met. We searched for subjects who fit the profile: soldiers who had already displayed the proper levels of brutality, who, in short, thrived on violence. The project was centered around the chemical stimulation and alteration of existing brain patterns. Back in the States, this theory is being put to use in the treatment of epilepsy. Today the technology exists to implant a computer chip the size of a rice grain into the cerebral cortex to maintain proper chemical balance and prevent seizures.”

“That explains the microcircuitry experts at the base.”

Parker nodded. “The theory was that if such an implant could maintain a balance, it could also change a balance. We were dealing with the very core of the central nervous system, refining and remaking subjects with the proper propensities instead of wiping the slate clean and starting from scratch. Someday maybe, but not yet.”

“You sound proud of it, Parker.”

Resolve replaced fear in his eyes. “Because we succeeded, McCracken. Years of research and testing, of failure and frustration, for once paid off. We had a hundred subjects at the outset. A number died during the early stage of the procedure, their brains short-circuited. Still more were not sufficiently affected by the process. Others, in spite of apparent success, proved untrainable in the mode envisioned for disciples. We ended up with eighteen, of which six were gradually weeded out, bringing our total to twelve.”

“Thirteen,” Blaine said. “Thirteen are known to have walked out of your installation.”

“Abraham.”

“What?”

“Number thirteen was called Abraham. He was the first success of the second phase of Omicron and the prototype for all future disciples. Infinitely more skilled and…changed by the implant and subsequent procedures.”

“The leader?”

“On the contrary. He was the ultimate loner. All the disciples are loners unless instructed to be otherwise. The nature of their tasks demands it.”

Blaine thought back to his final night in the jungle. “They seemed to be getting along just fine when the Indian and me almost ran into them in the jungle.”

“Because it suited their purpose.”

“Which was escape. Because somebody needed them for something somewhere else. They were created for a purpose, Parker, which brings us once again to the people above Hardesty. They knew his death would place the project in jeopardy. So maybe you weren’t the only plant at the base, and the other one learned of the shred order, too.”

“And let them out? Helped them?”

“Only to be killed with the others for his efforts.” Blaine gritted his teeth. “I saw the handiwork of these disciples, Parker. I saw what they did to the Tupis and to Norseman’s team. Next time you want to play God, do it by His rules.”

“That was just the point!” Parker exclaimed excitedly. “Eliminate conscience, inhibitions, all traces of guilt. Replace them with a need to kill, a self-perpetuating love for the act equaled only by the capacity to carry it out. No hesitation. No remorse. Physical abilities tapped and developed to a new degree. Think, McCracken! You of all people…”

“Me, what?”

“I just thought…”

“Thought what, Parker? Go ahead. You won’t hurt my feelings.”

“The way you function, the way you think and operate. The causes you fight for. Tell me you’re not ruthless. Tell me you let anything get in your way.” He lowered his voice. “Tell me you haven’t killed.”

“Only when I have to, and I never enjoy it.”

“A slim distinction.”

“Between me and your disciples?”

“We made them what you made yourself.”

“Bullshit! You let them out into the jungle to kill helpless Indians. I saw a pair of boys with their intestines piled on the ground. Is that what you made?”

“No skill can be trusted until it is practiced.”

“You think all their victims will be unarmed kids?”

Parker hesitated ever so slightly. “Norseman and his men weren’t unarmed.”

“You’re defending these monsters, goddammit!”

“Not defending, just explaining. You wouldn’t be talking like this if you’d seen them work.”

McCracken bounced to his feet, needing to separate himself from Parker. “You’re as crazy as the things you helped create.”

Parker jumped up after him. “And what about you? Look at yourself…who you are, the way you live. Day to day. Always alone. Defining yourself in terms of the task before you. When there is no task, there is no definition.”

“What makes you such an expert on me?”

“You really don’t get it, do you? The profile that was developed for the Omicron legion wasn’t arrived at by accident. Studies were made, features identified and ranked in order of necessary development. Examples were studied, scrutinized.” Parker stopped and looked at him. “You, McCracken.”

The statement sent a tremor up McCracken’s spine. He felt his emotions boiling over, tried to contain them in order to keep his focus on the matter at hand.

“You made your monsters in my image?”

“Partially, yes.”

Blaine thought of Sal Belamo’s exploding bullets. “Guess I’ll have to shed a tear when I blow each of the fucks away.”

Parker shook his head. “Not even you could.”

“I still have a few tricks I reserve for myself.”

“It’s not a question of tricks. The disciples are advanced as much beyond you as you are beyond a thirteen-year-old boy. And it won’t stop there. We learned from the original twelve. Abraham is the prototype now.” The sudden twist in Parker’s train of thought chilled Blaine. “Prototype for what?”

“Don’t be naive, McCracken. Our work in the Amazon was just beginning. The original disciples were ready to be dispatched, yes, but a second phase soon would have taken their place.”

“It’s a shame the installation’s been lost.”

“Only this one. My understanding is that there are a dozen more bases scattered about the world. Whoever Hardesty was fronting for was building an army.”

Chapter 20

His name was Matthew. What his name had been before he probably could have discovered if he dug down deep enough into his brain. But the person with that name was as much a stranger to him as someone he might pass on the street. The slate had been wiped clean. Nothing that mattered remained beneath the new person that he was.

He crouched in a thick nest of bushes in the western quadrant of the Jardim Botanico. He did not know exactly where his twelve targets were; he knew he would find them when the time was right.

Matthew slid in amid the bushes. He was not a large man. He had to look up to see six feet, and before his experiences in the jungle, had not been overly muscular. The training had changed all that. Matthew grew strong beyond his wildest expectations; that is, while he still had expectations. Somewhere along the line he had lost them, too. There were only tasks to perform. All other considerations were superfluous.

At times, Matthew wondered whether the person he had been before had existed at all. The only thing that preserved the memory was the echo of feelings churning in his head. He would see or hear things that would bring him back to another time, and for an instant, he would feel as he had felt before. A fleeting flutter. By the time he thought to grasp for it, it was gone.

Suddenly Matthew emerged from the bushes. He did not know what had told him the time was right. When he moved, the night did not give him up. His motions came like the cat who stalks its prey unseen in the open. There was always cover; the air was cover. The trick was to use it.

He found the first woman fifty yards ahead, behind a massive tree, her body concealed under its umbrella of branches. He smelled her before he saw her, as he moved carefully to avoid being caught in the moonlight that snuck through tree branches. Matthew felt his breathing slow, his heartbeat a mere flutter in his chest. He had his usual weapons, yes, but he would use his hands here. Hands were the best.

Matthew came right up behind the woman and clamped his hands on opposite sides of her head. A single twist was all it took. There was a crack and he kept on twisting. In his mind he could see the cartilage stretched and torn. Muscle and sinew shredded. Matthew had the woman’s face turned all the way around so he was staring at thin rivulets of blood running from her nostrils and lips. Her eyes were bulging. The sight made him smile; he just held her there away from him until her head flopped over between her shoulder blades and stayed kinked at a downward angle.

Matthew let her crumple at his feet and moved onto the next one.

“Where are these other bases?” McCracken asked Parker. “I don’t know. And if I did, I wouldn’t tell you until I was safely in the States.”

“You better give me reason to believe you can help lead me to who’s behind the Omicron legion, if you expect me to get you there.”

“You know as much as I do on that subject.”

“All I know is that Omicron was abandoned three years ago by legitimate authorities before it got reborn down here in another form. That means resources sufficient to make possible technology that plenty of experts had already dismissed as impossible.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m not sure exactly. But it was backed by an enormous supply of funds, and by someone who knew exactly what they wanted; that much is clear. What’s missing is the frame of reference from which it emerged.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’m still putting the pieces together for myself, Parker. For one thing, they had a running start. There was nothing hit-or-miss about Omicron, was there?”

Parker considered the question briefly before responding. “Not in the jungle, anyway.”

“Nor anywhere else is my guess. Whoever’s out to kill you knew exactly what they were doing — which meant they or someone else had done it before.”

“How could I tell? I wasn’t a scientist.”

“Right, but the men and women who were scientists weren’t operating blind. Everything was precise. Someone was directing their every move. Someone who knew.”

“What’s it mean?”

“I don’t know. But I will, you can count on that.” Blaine paused. “I’ll need you to repeat this.”

“Just get me safely back to the States and I’ll repeat it to anyone you sit me down in front of.” He watched McCracken swing around suddenly. “What’s wrong?”

“Keep quiet!”

“You heard something!”

Blaine drew the Heckler and Koch from his ankle holster.

“Stay behind me. We’re getting out of here.”

“Da Sa’s women…”

“Just do what I tell you!” Matthew knew the final snap had been too loud, considering that this was the closest guard to his targets. He had dispatched the first eleven women without a bother: six with his bare hands and five with the knife now pressed back into the sheath wrapped around his ankle. What he wanted to do was break a spine, snap one like a twig, using enough force to double a body over upon itself. He had used the knife to give his hands a rest, but the knife gave him little satisfaction. The hard swish of blade parting flesh was too transitory. The victim spasmed, writhed, and the whole process was much too messy.

The final woman, lying prone in the brook, had looked up an instant before he was about take her. Before she could cry out, Matthew had slapped a hand across her mouth with such strength her front teeth broke from her gums. She struggled, and he jerked her head back. Her neck cracked, then her vertebrae crunched, one after another. At the end, she was bent almost perfectly in two. Matthew discarded her that way and moved on at a faster pace, the sound of the first crack still loud in his ears and, he feared, in someone else’s.

“I don’t think we should leave,” Parker protested. “We should stay until the women—”

“They’re dead,” McCracken interrupted.

“What?”

Blaine swung around to face him. “It’s just you and me.”

“How do you know? How could you know?”

A faint smile crossed McCracken’s lips. “I’m no different than your disciples, remember?”

“But if one of them—”

“Just do what I tell you,” Blaine said. “Just—”

He heard the soft pop an instant before Parker’s left eye exploded in a cascade of blood. Blaine hit the ground and watched as Parker’s right eye was shot in similar fashion; a third bullet caught the man in the center of his forehead before he fell. Blaine spun onto his stomach and fired a rapid burst just beyond the Avenue of the Royal Palms, where the shots seemed to have originated.

Nothing. No sound. No return fire.

McCracken’s mind worked frantically. What he was up against here was clear now. He started to reach into his pocket to exchange the rest of his dwindling clip for Sal Belamo’s exploding Splat shells.

A rustling sounded to his right, and Blaine twisted around. A kick lashed upward and pounded his wrist. The Heckler and Kock went flying. Another foot came toward his face. Blaine ducked and twisted away, saw the foot that missed him ram into the base of a tree and carve a chasm from the bark. Blaine was still rolling when another kick grazed his temple. He managed to get an arm out to block the next blow, which was aimed at his ribs.

“Get up,” instructed a voice that seemed to belong to the looming figure somewhere over him.

McCracken bounded to his feet, facing in the figure’s direction.

“Very good. You knew where I was.”

The figure was five or so inches shorter than he, but incredibly broad, stretching the confines of his black suit and turtle-neck. His clothes were not mussed. He wasn’t even breathing hard.

Not even breathing hard, and he had just offed a dozen of Da Sa’s killer guards!

“I was supposed to kill you, too,” the disciple told him. “But I wanted to talk to you.”

Feigning dizziness, Blaine stumbled around on his feet, his back to the tree near where his gun had been lost.

“I could not kill you from a distance. I respect you too much.”

Blaine lunged. His fingers had barely touched the figure when he felt himself being lifted up and thrown. He crashed into the row of bushes that rimmed the fountain pool. As he started to spring upright, a savage kick to his back drove him forward again. A fist slammed his head from the rear, and stars exploded before him. Then, dazed, he felt a pair of iron-strong hands grasp his shoulders.

“Talk to me, McCracken.”

The speaker waited a few seconds for a reply; when none came, Blaine was hurled headlong over the bushes and into the fountain pool. McCracken felt his insides mashed together.

“You’re very disappointing. I expected so much more. I suppose I should have shot you the same way I shot the traitor.”

And then Blaine was being pitched back, through the bushes this time. He landed halfway between the fountain and the tree. Blaine willed his eyes to focus and saw a slight glimmer of steel near the tree, illuminated by the meager moonlight. Blaine blinked, opened his eyes again. The Heckler and Koch sharpened before him. He fingered the clips of Splats in his pocket.

The disciple emerged through the bushes, and Blaine forced himself not to move, bracing for the kick that shook his ribs and spun him onto his back. He pretended to cower there until the enemy’s powerful hand hoisted him upward and jammed his shoulder against the tree.

“Time to die,” said the figure, rock-hard fist pulled back directly in front of his face.

The fist jumped forward. Blaine shifted his head sideways just before impact, timing it close enough to feel the whoosh of power thundering by. The blow crunched into the tree as McCracken kicked into the figure’s knee, then dropped and rolled away. He retrieved his pistol, twisted, and fired all in the same motion, finger never leaving the trigger. Three bullets missed the figure that, incredibly, had remained in motion. Blaine couldn’t get a fix until the final shot, which grazed the disciple’s shoulder and spun him around briefly before he disappeared into the darkness.

McCracken ejected the spent clip, popped off the plastic coating of a fresh one, and locked Sal Belamo’s Splats home fast.

He listened for a hint of sound that might betray the disciple’s position, but there was nothing. Even if there had been, he couldn’t take a chance until he was certain. Fire a Splat without a sure target and he would give away the true potency of his weapon. He had to out-think this adversary.

A predator, he thought, so comfortable in the role of the hunter….

Why not give it to him, then? McCracken was in motion before completing the plan. He darted from the clearing, down a narrow path enclosed by a massive steel planter covered with vines. He knew the disciple would give chase, so at the first opportunity McCracken would swing around and fire a Splat.

Blaine realized he was running toward the sound of the brook. He charged up a set of stone steps built alongside a thicker patch of woods that promised cover.

When the soft rustling reached his ears, he was not surprised. The disciple was coming fast, closing the gap. When the final stone step was past him, Blaine spun and fired in the same motion, the Heckler and Koch kicking a bit more than usual behind the powerful bullet’s exit.

Twenty yards in front of him a tree exploded with a thunderous jolt. McCracken gazed down and saw a rubber ball; the disciple had used it to create the rustling sound. It rolled to a halt at the foot of the stone steps.

Damn!

A fresh sound came from his right, and he aimed that way. The Splat found a stone bench this time and blew a portion of it apart. The pistol felt heavy in his hand. The wind howled and sounded like laughter.

Just to his left and up a little rise was an ivy-wrapped stone gazebo that overlooked much of the Botanical Garden. Blaine dashed inside and dived low, beneath the waist-high wall. He could see and hear anything from this vantage point, and the position was strongly defensible. The disciple could not possibly approach without him knowing.

Or could he? McCracken couldn’t help thinking he had played straight into this monster’s hands. Maybe he was out there laughing even now, waiting only to compose himself before he struck.

Blaine wasn’t waiting. He threw himself out of the gazebo and down a steep hill that led to another dirt path in the serpentine garden. He slipped and fell, sliding the last measure of the way. He regained his feet with pistol sweeping his perimeters. He backed off, then started to run, looking for the first exit he could find.

The path widened; it was formed of hard dirt and rock, which was why the anomalous soft depression struck him so quickly. He knew the sensation all too well from Nam, and experience sent him into a headlong dive for his life.

The spikes embedded themselves in a tree at just the spot his head would have been. The disciple had attached them to a thick, pliable branch and had bent the thing tautly backward, waiting to be triggered.

Did he know I would come this way?

No, but the disciple had certainly planned for a fight and a chase. In all probability, similar traps would be set all over the garden. That thought drew Blaine’s gaze downward, which was when he saw the wire suspended over the path, affixed to a tree on either side. McCracken hurdled himself over it, then reached back and yanked it with his foot while still lying prone on the ground.

Blaine pawed his way ahead as a net mired with sharp thorns and prickers dropped down from the trees, covering the spot he had occupied just seconds before. Then he did what he knew the disciple eagerly awaited.

He screamed, a bellow of terrible agony, backpedaling on the ground at the same time. Sure enough, a shape was slinking down the path, keeping to one side. Blaine propped himself slightly upward and fired at the disciple.

But the muzzle flash encompassed the entire pistol in the same instant the roar reached his ears. The hot flames singed McCracken’s wrist and palm and he cried out in agony. His dip in the fountain must have soaked through the clip’s plastic coating just enough. He let go of the pistol and struggled back to his feet. It was clear he would have to make a stand somewhere in this garden…Somewhere without a gun.

Fighting to remember the garden’s layout, Blaine regained his feet and charged on. The disciple was no longer in sight, and there was no sense in Blaine looking until he had some weapon to fight him. Their exchange back at the fountain taught McCracken he had no hope of winning a hand-to-hand struggle, though he felt certain that was what his adversary still wanted. It was something he had going for him, perhaps the last thing he had to make use of.

His flight took him around to the north and back to the Avenue of the Royal Palms. Making a dash for it seemed his best chance…until he reached the glass hothouse containing the carnivorous and poisonous plants. Most of them grew in simple pots, looking harmless and innocent in the night. One stood out. Standing upright in the center was a smaller version of a tree Blaine recalled all too well from Africa. It looked like a massive rosebush, its thorns the size of thin fingers. But McCracken knew the thorns were actually deadly spines loaded with a curarelike poison.

McCracken knew he had his weapon now. Making it work was another matter. The substance of the plan still forming in his mind, he kept kicking at the glass until a hole big enough to accommodate his bulk had been formed.

The sound of breaking glass drew Matthew to the hothouse. He had sensed from the beginning it would end here. Too bad, really. Unfortunate.

“I’m not holding my gun, McCracken,” Matthew said calmly, as he approached the hothouse. “I don’t have my knife out, either. I was supposed to kill you back there, but I didn’t. You’re more like us than them. Join us. Tell me you’ll join us, and I won’t kill you.”

Matthew reached the jagged hole in the glass and started through.

“We knew it was you in the jungle. You and that Indian. Only you could have eluded us in the manner you did…The Indian’s idea, no doubt.”

Glass crackled beneath him as Matthew drew further into the small hothouse. There were just a few places to hide.

“Norseman went easy. He was just a soldier, a killer. But you’re different. You understand what we are, what we’re capable of. Join us, McCracken. It’s your only hope. If I don’t kill you, you’ll die anyway — when all of the United States dies. We’re going to kill it, McCracken, and inherit what’s left. Join us and you can be spared.”

Matthew realized that all of the potential hiding places were vacant just as the rest of the glass in the section behind him shattered in the vague outline of the shape hurtling itself forward.

McCracken had the thick shard of glass squeezed into his right hand, held high where the moonlight might catch it.

And the disciple would be sure to notice.

He saw the disciple’s empty eyes sweep toward it and his arm come up instantly in defense. Blaine kept the force of the blow coming, true intention not betrayed as his arm was stopped and twisted over as the disciple went for the break.

Just as McCracken would have done.

Anticipating the move perfectly, Blaine bent his knees and dropped his free shoulder against the disciple’s side. The disciple responded by reaching back for more purchase. That one instant cost him his balance, and McCracken drove him forward. The disciple seemed to flow with the move briefly, then he realized its deadly intent, the truth reflected in his bulging eyes as Blaine rammed him into the bushy tree poised in the hothouse’s center.

The tree’s spines pierced the disciple’s flesh in four separate places. The pain from this alone would not have been enough to even make him waver, but a breath later the poison was flooding his veins, sabotaging his blood and short-circuiting his system. He pounded McCracken twice before the first spasm shook him. His body locked upright as Blaine backed off. His mouth gaped. He gasped just before his throat swelled from the poison and closed. His face turned purple. He tried to free himself from the tree, but succeeded only in flapping his arms before they dropped helplessly to his sides and he slumped.

The disciple was still twitching when he hit the floor, eyes locked open and no more dead, Blaine thought, than when he had been alive.

McCracken backed away, pain racking his body, his eyes on the disciple. When he didn’t stir, Blaine at last backed out of the hothouse.

One battle won meant only another lay out there to be fought. Parker had said an army of them were being created. The process could be infinite, the number of perfect killing machines expanded. Someone had arranged for their escape — not only because of Hardesty’s death, but because their services were needed.

The disciple’s words rang in his ears. “If I don’t kill you, you’ll die anyway — when all of the United States dies. We’re going to kill it.” If the words were true, whoever was responsible for the Omicron legion was also planning something much worse. And what it was had to be somehow connected to the six killers who were systematically eliminating the people on Patty Hunsecker’s list.

McCracken retraced his steps out of the Jardim Botanico, staying in the shadows on the chance the Rio authorities had been alerted by the commotion. None appeared, but he reached the street still wary of every step. He knew his most pressing goal after escaping from the Jardim was to flee Rio before the power controlling the remaining disciples could marshall its forces again.

Fernando Da Sa seemed his best bet for assistance. The crime lord would certainly have his own reasons for joining the fight now; a dozen of his best women guards had been killed in the garden tonight.

It took a few minutes, but Blaine finally managed to hail a cab. He told the driver to take him to the Bali Bar in São Conrado, Da Sa’s current headquarters and the place he had directed McCracken to come to in the event of trouble. Tonight’s adventures certainly qualified….

He considered his plight in the cab’s cramped quarters. Whoever was behind the Omicron legion had known he was coming back to Rio. The disciple he had killed must have been following him all along, waiting for his rendezvous with Parker before making his move. Blaine had played right into the enemy’s hands. They had used him to hunt down the only living person who formed a direct link to the legion, played him for a fool, but he had fooled them in the end by staying alive.

The Bali Bar, as it turned out, was located in the fashionable Itanhanea shopping park. Blaine saw it set off by itself to the far left. Saturday night made for a jam-packed parking lot, and the cab deposited him on the edge of the clutter of would-be patrons milling about trying to determine if and when to enter. The building itself was decorated in a South Pacific island motif. It had the look of a massive bamboo hut wrapped freely with enormous vines. A palm tree grew out of an inner courtyard complete with outdoor bar to handle the overspill of patrons from within. The letters announcing the bar’s name were cleverly slanted and painted in bold, vibrant colors that glowed in the night. As Blaine headed for the entrance, he noticed that the patrons were exceedingly young, some no more than fifteen. Except for a large bouncer posted near the turnstile permitting entry, there wasn’t a single adult to be seen. McCracken felt the young people staring at him — more for his age, he gathered, than his look of disarray. His clothes were still not dry from his plunge into the fountain, and his crash through the hothouse glass had made neat tears through his jacket. His face was bruised, and he was favoring his right side. His wrist was singed and blackened, but not swollen.

McCracken moved through the turnstile and up into the crowded bar area. Blisteringly loud music smacked his ears. Most of the room’s light sprang from four television screens playing the same music video. Everything was dark and brown, the lamps attached to the wooden support beams shedding only candlelight illumination. More young teenagers were milling about, nursing drinks, and Blaine walked over to a set of empty tables in the back of the room.

He chose a table against the wall and sank into a chair. When a waitress finally came over, Blaine asked to borrow her pen and grabbed a napkin from her tray. He wrote quickly.

“Give this to the manager, please,” he said in Portuguese, handing it to the waitress along with a generous tip.

Two minutes later, a curly-haired young man in his mid-twenties approached the table.

“He told me you might be coming,” he said in English. “I was to send you up as soon as you arrived.”

“I’ve arrived.”

The young man pointed to a set of stairs on the left. “His office is on the third floor. To reach it, go up to the second landing and cross the dance floor. The guards will be expecting you.”

“Dance floor?” Blaine asked. He couldn’t wait to ask Fernando Da Sa why he had chosen the Bali Bar as his base. Making it up the stairs was like fighting traffic on the L.A. freeway. The dance floor was packed with bodies twisting and churning beneath flashing multicolored lights. A large man stood guard near a door across the floor, and Blaine found himself dodging bodies as he made his way there.

“McCracken,” Blaine announced to the guard over the din.

The man gestured toward the stairway just behind him with his eyes, the outline of a pistol obvious beneath his sports jacket. Blaine slid by him and climbed the steps. At the top of the stairs, another man directed him to an open door on the right side of the corridor. McCracken headed toward it.

The anomaly actually struck him as he passed inside.

Male guards instead of female guards. Why?

But a half-dozen steps inside the office and the why was made clear.

“Mr. Da Sa?”

The crime lord was seated in a high-backed leather chair behind his desk, immobile because of the neat slice in his throat that had spilled blood down the center of his suit and splattered it over his desk blotter. In the same instant that Blaine put everything together, his ears registered steps pounding his way. A window directly before him was open to the Rio night, and he lunged toward it, a step ahead of the machine-gun fire suddenly struggling for a bead on him.

Rat-tat-tat…

The sound peppered his ears as he hit a narrow strip of the second-floor roof. He tried for balance, but the slippery metal tripped him and he fell, thumping hard to the cobblestone drive below. Wobbly he regained his feet just as machine-gun fire from down the hill came his way. Blaine swung and retreated up the cobblestone driveway. Swinging right at the top, at the Bali Bar’s rear, he crossed into an alleyway that ran between the bar and an athletic club. He was running, but his feet felt heavy. He felt dizzy from the fall and started to crumple, just as he realized the alley came to a dead end.

He was trapped, the guards starting down the alley after him. He fought to get back on his feet, but his strength was gone. The alley swam before him. He reached instinctively into his jacket for the gun he’d lost at the Jardim Botanico. He was too groggy to notice that just behind him the round cover of a telephone-line tunnel had popped open.

Blaine was clawing to hold on to his last bit of consciousness when a pair of hands pulled him down into a dank darkness his mind at last surrendered to.