Omega Blue

by Mel Odom

  Scuderi turned and walked away, reloading as she went. “I’ll take dinner tonight,” she said. “At Duke Zeibert’s.”

  He stopped.

  “Oh, and make sure it’s a reservation for one. I don’t want to spoil my appetite.”

  The string of curses that followed were passionate and gender specific, but Scuderi didn’t think any of it was particularly unique or original.

  *

  Graveside services for Emmett Newkirk were held at seven P.M. at Arlington National Cemetery, and the list of guests was small. The agent was buried in the land annex that had been added when the cemetery filled up.

  Standing under the canopy spread over the site, Slade Wilson stared out over the precise rows of tombstones. From his position he could see the flickering flame that marked President John F. Kennedy’s grave. Twilight was heavy now, and he could barely make out the members of the Third U. S. Infantry Regiment that stood guard over the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Even though he couldn’t see them clearly, he knew the guards would still be carrying out the twenty-one-step, twenty-one-second-pause pattern that had been going on for decades. His father had taken him there as a small child to visit the grave of an uncle he’d never known, and he’d been fascinated by the routine of the guards.

  He listened to the priest’s words as the final prayer was said, trying to find solace in them. There was none. Newkirk wasn’t the first friend he’d buried.

  Earl Vache stood behind the priest. Darnell January and Bob McDonald stood under a tree together just in back of the small group of mourners. Quinn Valentine stood alone to their left. Wilson reflected that he hadn’t even said anything to the younger agent, and made a note to take care of that. Things were getting tense enough without straining them further.

  Wilson sat with Newkirk’s surviving family of three daughters in the line of folding metal chairs closest to the casket. Vivian, the oldest, had only known Wilson superficially, but had invited him to sit with them. Maggie Scuderi, wearing a simple black dress, sat beside him with tears glinting on her cheeks. She kept her hands in her lap.

  There was no sign of Lee Rawley.

  The smell of fresh earth filled Wilson’s nostrils as he looked at the gleaming metal casket. Normally graveside services weren’t done this late in the evening. At this time of year the cemetery closed at five P.M. Despite the planned assault on Boston that would begin in the morning, Wilson felt tired and empty, and he knew part of the reason was that familiar smell of turned earth.

  The service finished and the priest closed his Bible.

  Wilson said a small prayer to himself for Newkirk, then stood up. The husbands of Newkirk’s daughters took their wives away, some of them holding small children in their arms. Vivian said good-bye, then took the single white rose her husband had clipped for her from the wreath on top of her father’s casket and walked away.

  Silently, Wilson walked up to the casket and touched it lightly. Scuderi was at his side. His voice was tight when he spoke. “I don’t know what to say anymore. You know?”

  “I know,” Scuderi said. She linked her arm through his for support. “Just keep in mind that it doesn’t end here. Emmett wouldn’t have wanted that.”

  Wilson nodded. A small spark of familiar lightning was reflected in the chrome finish of the casket’s trim. Instinctively, he turned and pushed Scuderi down, falling over her body. They rolled against the carpet-covered mound of dirt waiting to cover the casket.

  Flame sizzled from the metal surface of the coffin, and the sound of a heavy-caliber rifle shot echoed across the cemetery a heartbeat later.

  Pushing himself to his feet, his Delta Elite in his hand as he used his other hand to trigger the SeekNFire circuitry, Wilson yelled, “Sniper!”

  The rest of the team had already bolted into action, moving out to push the rest of the mourners to the ground. The priest dropped out of sight on the other side of the coffin. Vache had drawn his gun as well.

  A rapid series of rifle shots raked the grounds, clearly focused on Wilson.

  Scrambling for position, Wilson scanned the tree line for muzzle flashes. He slipped the T-jack from his pocket, activated the electromagnetic pulse that adhered it to his jawline, and blew into the mike. “Does anybody have a fix on that guy?”

  “No,” Darnell January radioed back.

  “The trees,” Quinn Valentine said. “I’m on him.”

  Wilson glanced at the position where he’d last seen the younger agent. Valentine was in motion, streaking for the tree line while trying to hug the ground.

  The rifle shots continued.

  “Cover him!” Wilson said. He located the sniper’s position and started firing but knew it was too far away for pistol fire to be effective. The guy had them pinned down.

  The sound of a different rifle cracked through the air.

  Straining his eyes against the encroaching darkness, Wilson saw a prone figure drop from the trees.

  “He’s down,” Lee Rawley’s calm voice said over the T-jack.

  “Was he alone?” Wilson asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Rawley?” Scuderi asked. She was only now getting her T-jack in place.

  Wilson nodded.

  “Guess he made it after all.”

  “Yeah.” Wilson saw Rawley’s slim form separate from the shadows of the tree line in the distance and move toward the fallen sniper. He guessed that Rawley had actually gotten there before the mourners and set up to wait, but whether the man had come to pay his last respects to Newkirk or to spring close the trap he’d set up, Wilson didn’t know. A lot of times with Rawley it was better to view the results of an action than to speculate on the motivations behind it.

  He holstered his weapon, switched off the SeekNFire circuitry, and moved out to help reassure the mourners and evacuate them from the immediate vicinity. If the team didn’t make the jump into the Boston war zone the following morning, it looked like the war zone was fully prepared to come to them.

  *

  Cold, gray fog filled with spitting rain rolled into Boston before dawn. Slade Wilson and the Omega Blue team followed it in, touching down at Logan International Airport only minutes later as other airline arrivals were starting to get stacked up. They unloaded the special gear for the operation from the transport jet into the three Ford vans waiting for them, including the four military-style Kawasaki KLR-250 Enduro motorcycles Wilson had requisitioned. Boston traffic was notoriously hard to get around in and he wanted the team to have mobility.

  By eight o’clock Wilson was at Boston Police Headquarters. The seven-story building looked old and hard, and weathered well past its years. Wilson and Scuderi walked into the building, leaving the others to work out the parking. They were to stay with the equipment and the vehicles to ensure that nothing was tampered with.

  After showing their IDs on the bottom floor and confirming their appointment with Police Commissioner Cyril Isaacs, they were escorted up to the sixth floor by a PR woman who seemed to have had a smile grafted onto her face. Uniformed officers who were caught staring at them quickly shifted their gazes.

  Wilson ignored the attention. He was sure the police force knew about the arrival of the FBI agents, and if the rest of the city didn’t know about it yet, they would before lunch.

  The PR woman left them in the hands of Isaacs’s personal secretary, who offered them coffee and Danish. Scuderi and Wilson opted for the coffee but passed on the sweets.

  Seventeen minutes later, they were ushered into Isaacs’s personal office.

  Police Commissioner Cyril Isaacs was a florid-faced man with a military haircut and hands that looked like shovels. His blunt features showed that the last fifty-plus years had been hard ones. He wore a well-fitted double-breasted dark brown suit and smelled of bay rum.

  “Special Agent Wilson,” Isaacs said, extending his hand.

  Wilson took it. The man’s grip was impressive.

  Wilson introduced Scuderi.

  Dressed in a
midthigh-length skirt, simple white silk blouse, and a business jacket under her yellow raincoat, Scuderi looked like window dressing, which was the impression they’d wanted to give. While she occupied a large portion of Isaacs’s attention, Wilson would have a better chance of observing the police commissioner.

  Isaacs had a good record. At least nothing had ever been filed against him successfully. But there were a lot of questions, and Wilson needed some good guesses about the answers before he trusted the man.

  “Have a seat,” Isaacs said, waving to the pair of chairs in front of his spacious desk. He tried not to be too obvious as he watched Scuderi cross her nylon-encased legs.

  Wilson gazed around the office, taking in the Boston Celtics basketball trivia. Pictures hung in neat frames, showing the police commissioner shaking hands with various players who’d been on the team and were acknowledged to be the best in their field. But the office was not the work of a fan. It looked more like a showcase of winners, and that attitude was reflected by the man behind the desk.

  “What can I do for you?” Isaacs asked.

  “We’re here to investigate Sebastian DiVarco,” Wilson said.

  “On what grounds? Your office was kind of vague about that.”

  “A jackal network was uncovered in Atlanta, Georgia. DiVarco was pulling the strings.”

  “You’re sure about that? DiVarco has been strictly small-time for years.”

  “That’s in transition,” Wilson replied. “And, yeah, I’m sure about the jackal network. I was there. One of my people died there.”

  Isaacs settled back heavily into his chair and it squeaked under his weight. “Have you got anything to back you up on that?”

  Reaching into his briefcase, Wilson produced the packet of information he’d prepped for the meeting, then dropped it on the desk.

  The police commissioner opened the manila folder and started sifting through its contents.

  Wilson tried to wait patiently. Twelve minutes later, Isaacs pushed the folder back across the desk. “What you’ve got there is a laundry list of circumstantial evidence and creative supposition.”

  “What I’ve got,” Wilson corrected in a soft voice, “is a foundation for the case I’m going to be building.”

  Isaacs leaned forward and clasped his hands over his stomach. “I hope you didn’t come to this office looking for help.”

  “No.”

  “Because if you blow this investigation, the FBI is looking at a lawsuit.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Every man’s entitled to his own opinion, but my advice to you, son, is to do a little poking around, then if you don’t turn up something quick, pick up and get out of this city.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “You do that. And you keep something else in mind.” Isaacs pushed himself out of his chair and sat on the corner of the desk, leaning over into Wilson’s personal space. “When I heard you and your little entourage were coming to Boston, you could say I was less than thrilled. People have a way of getting hurt around you, Wilson. Your investigations have a tendency to run a high profile, run high in property damage and in lives lost.”

  “We’ve never lost a civilian.”

  “Yeah, but what is a civilian to you people?”

  Wilson let the barb pass unchallenged.

  “I don’t want that kind of grief to descend on my city. The people here depend on me to protect them, and I will. Even if it has to be against you. Sure, you come here with your warrants and your Justice Department credentials, but overall that doesn’t count for diddly. I run this town when it comes to the streets.”

  “At some point I’m going to need some help processing the collars we make. Holding cells. Paperwork. Interrogation room. Maybe even some backup if that’s not too much to ask.”

  “Make your case first, then come to me. If you’re legit, the PD will be there. I do a good job when it comes to police work. Check my record.”

  Wilson reached into his briefcase and came up with another file. “Yeah, you’ve got a great record on the surface. Your arrests are netting you an eighty-two percent conviction rate through the DA’s office.”

  “We’ve got a good working arrangement with the DA’s office.”

  Wilson glanced at other figures on the page. “You’ve also got a twenty-nine percent unemployment rate in this city. Judging from national averages, even though your conviction rate looks impressive, the police department here is making fewer arrests than comparable cities with the same area and population.”

  “Arresting a suspect and keeping a criminal off the streets are sometimes two entirely different things. I figured the FBI would have taught you that. My team plays hard, and they play to win. We get an iffy case, we let it slide and only make arrests when a conviction looks pretty good.”

  “That kind of reasoning makes me wonder what else you let slide.”

  Isaacs’s face purpled. “You’re out of line.”

  Wilson shrugged. “I am. I apologize.”

  “I hear any of that crap filtering out through the media of this town,” Isaacs warned, “the Bureau’s going to be served a defamation suit stemming from this office.”

  Wilson nodded, gathered his papers, and shoved them back into his briefcase. He stood but didn’t offer to shake hands. “I think we’re through here.”

  “We are.” Isaacs thumbed the intercom button and hailed his secretary. “Get someone up here on the double to escort these agents out of the building.” He turned to the newspaper and coffee on his desk.

  *

  A uniformed policeman picked Wilson and Scuderi up in the outer office and silently escorted them to the street. Wilson used his T-jack to find out where the team had parked, and struck off in that direction.

  Inside his vehicle, he paired up with Rawley, leaving January with Valentine, and Scuderi partnered with McDonald. “You have your assignments,” he told them over the T-jack frequency. “We’re still not sure exactly what it is we’re up against, so if there are any doubts, trust your instincts.” He shrugged out of the suit and reached for the street clothes he had in the back, along with the Kevlar-lined motorcycle jacket. “Don’t depend on the police department to back you. For now, just think of the team as being on its own.”

  The team radioed back their acknowledgments, then rolled toward their destinations.

  Wilson dressed, then started stashing his weapons on his body. He could smell the alcohol based fuel coming from the motorcycle engines in the rear of the van. The plan was to shake up the perimeter around DiVarco and see what fell out. There was nothing fancy about the operation-yet. He’d found over the years that the simplest things worked best. Later, he felt certain, there would be more to work with.

  Rawley accelerated as Scuderi’s van cleared the area. Wilson slid a pair of amber-tinted aviator sunglasses on to block the midmorning sun. For better or worse, the battle had been joined.

  13

  “There she is.”

  Darnell January looked at the crowd already milling in front of the copper-domed Quincy Market building. They were seated on some of the benches built around the huge flowerpots and areas roped off for individual trees. Canopies of glass and bright canvases shrouded the Bull Market, and some of the vendors had wheeled carts that sported gaily striped umbrellas with the name of their business or wares hanging from cards underneath. Voices filled the air between the three buildings linked to Faneuil Hall, some of them advertising what was to be had, and others calling out orders.

  “Do you see her?” Valentine asked.

  The younger agent was excited. It showed in the suddenly sharp lines of his body. But his age, January knew, would also make people ignore the interest he was showing. It was nothing out of the ordinary for a young man to be caught staring at a woman.

  “Where is she?” January asked.

  “At that deli. She’s wearing jeans and an orange-and-white patterned top. Cream-colored jacket. Her hair’s shorte
r than what we saw in her NCIC picture.”

  Casually scooping another portion of chow mein from the paper container in his hand, January looked in the direction Valentine had indicated. He found the woman easily. “Chill out. You don’t want her to look back over her shoulder and catch you watching her.”

  Valentine shifted his attention back to the cherrystone clams in the paper dish he held on his thigh.

  January surveyed the woman in a series of quick glances as she pointed out what she wanted to the cashier and stepped to the till. Her peroxided hair, sallow skin scarred by a childhood bout of chicken pox, and hunched shoulders proved that life hadn’t gotten any easier since her picture had been logged with the NCIC computers. She’d dropped about ten to fifteen pounds that she really couldn’t spare.

  Her name was Cynthia Hollister. She’d turned up in further investigative questioning of the young jackal McDonald and Rawley had broken in .Atlanta. She hadn’t been involved directly with the jackals, but the man had given Hollister’s name as being the current love interest of Mitchell Dodd, one of the red market medtechs that had performed the organ strip in Miami. Dodd was a known Boston resident, but none of the Bureau’s computers could find a current address for him.

  Hollister had been a different matter. After checking her Social Security file, they’d found out she was currently working at Browser’s, a used-book store around the corner. The address they’d gotten on her belonged to an apartment complex in West Roxbury was no longer in use.

  January finished his chow mein and crumpled the carton as the cashier creased the top of the brown bag and handed it to Hollister. She gave the cashier a grin and a quick good-bye, then moved through the crowd in the direction of the book store.

  “Two chili dogs,” Valentine said with sarcasm. “The breakfast of champions.”

  Without commenting, January stood and tossed his empty containers in a nearby waste receptacle. He knew from the way Valentine had eaten his yogurt and bran flakes this morning and optioned not to eat the sausages and eggs most of the rest of the team had had that breakfast was something his teammate took seriously. But then, Valentine seemed to take everything seriously.