by Jon Land
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 a
nd 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.
“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.