by Jon Land
Blaine knew it was a nurse, knew her presence here was all wrong. Adrenaline surged through his veins, reviving him, providing the thrust he needed to regain motor capacities.
Scola’s needle dug deep into the IV pouch and a clear liquid began flowing out immediately, heading straight for her target’s veins.
The suddenness of his movement shocked her, but she thought it was more a spasm than an action until she saw he was clearly reaching out for her. Scola recoiled and slammed into her cart.
Blaine had almost made it from the bed when the numbness grasped him. It seemed to start in all his limbs at once, leaving his brain frustrated and confused. The white figure was hovering back over him now and it should have been so easy to reach up and choke the daylights out of her. But when he tried to reach, there seemed to be nothing to reach with, as if his mind and body had become two separate entities.
He tried for a scream, but all that emerged was a muffled rasp. Then, as if to preclude further effort on his part, the white figure threw something down upon him—a hand, that was it, a hand over his mouth, and Blaine felt his head rocking helplessly back and forth. With an incredible effort he shook the hand from his mouth and, using the last reserves of his strength, twisted the arm bearing the needle that was killing him violently enough to strip it from his flesh.
The white figure groped for it while Blaine flailed with a heavy arm for the nurse’s call button. He had almost reached it when the white figure snatched his arm and pinned it to the bed. He tried to roll free, tried for anything, but his motions came one frame at a time, which was how he saw the white figure grasp the pillow and lower it toward him.
Help, somebody, help!!!!!!!!!!!!
Blaine had screamed the plea only in his mind. The pillow was over his face and it took a few seconds before his dulled brain registered that he couldn’t breathe. He tried to use his arms, but they were heavy and slow. Consciousness skipped and darted but strangely he felt no pain, just emptiness.
There was a sudden smack in his ears, followed rapidly by two more, a pause, and then a last. The pressure eased up on the pillow and Blaine realized he could breathe again. Then the pillow was yanked from his face, exposing his eyes to sudden stinging light. They closed reflexively, then opened slowly again to find a familiar face looming over him wearing a half-smile.
“That makes it two you owe me, pal.”
And Blaine caught the wink of Sal Belamo.
It was two hours later before he came fully around and faced the chauffeur who had driven him to Sebastian’s boat in the harbor.
“It was you who pulled me out of the water,” Blaine said in what had starred out as a question.
Sal Belamo nodded, the light emphasizing that bent nose. “You ask me, this whole assignment was weird from the start.”
“You were almost too late tonight.”
Sal’s eyes tilted toward the bloodstained floor, where earlier the fake nurse’s body had been. “Fucking bitch locked the damn door. I had to run back and grab a key. Her name was Scola. Used to work for the Company.”
“Stimson set this whole thing up?”
Sal Belamo got up from his chair and stretched. “He didn’t send Florence Nightingale with the poison bedpan, if that’s what you mean.”
“I mean you.”
Belamo nodded. “He had a watch put on your phone line at the hotel two days back. When you called for a limo, he figured he might as well take the opportunity to provide some backup.”
“Why not tell me?”
Sal shrugged. “You got me on that one, pal. I was just followin’ orders. Maybe he didn’t want you behavin’ any different ’cause I was around. Tonight he figured someone would try to whack you, and I had orders to keep you safe and sound. ’Course, that brings us to the next stage of the plan. You ask me, it’s a little much, but orders again.”
“What?”
“Boss wants to make sure you’re dead.”
“You mean, it’s supposed to look like Scola was successful,” Blaine realized after a few breathless seconds.
“And got offed herself in the act,” Belamo acknowledged. “Should give you room to move around, stretch your legs a little.”
“I gotta hand it to Stimson.”
“Yeah, like I said, he knew somebody’d be coming to finish the job the explosion started. The thing was, I had to let them make the attempt. You ask me, it got a little close. I mean, if there’s no one with keys at the nurse’s station …”
McCracken sat up a little more in bed. Twin sledgehammers went off in his head.
“We gotta head down to Washington, pal. You okay to travel?”
“Give me till sunrise and I’ll be fine. Right now I want you to get Stimson’s private number for me.”
Belamo’s cold eyes showed he didn’t approve. “You’re supposed to be dead, remember? Hospital lines are open, pal, and corpses don’t talk much.”
“Stimson will understand. I’ll take the responsibility.”
“Damn right you will.” Belamo moved reluctantly to the phone on Blaine’s nightstand. “I just do what I’m told. You ask me, life’s a lot simpler that way.” He pressed out the proper series of numbers and handed the receiver over to Blaine. “It’s your neck, pal. Be a shame if he chops it off after I just saved it.”
“Stimson,” came the Gap chief’s groggy voice after four rings. Obviously the call had reached him at home. It must have been later than Blaine thought.
“This is your wake-up call, Andy. Coming straight from the Pearly Gates.”
“Blaine! I left orders with Belamo not—”
“Pipe down and get your pants on, Andy. You’re gonna want to get right down to the office after you hear what I’ve got to tell you. The computers couldn’t figure out the fiche because you sent them in the wrong direction. It’s so simple we almost missed it. I had it right from the beginning and I didn’t even know it.”
“Am I dreaming all this?”
“Yup, and it’s a nightmare.” Blaine paused. “Christmas Eve dinner for 15,000—the fiche is a goddamn shopping list. But not for food, Andy. The list is for weapons. Each food represents a different armament. I’ll give you the specifics later, but according to the menu, Sahhan’s got enough to outfit an army of, you guessed it, fifteen thousand or so.”
Chapter 12
SAL BELAMO DROVE McCracken to LaGuardia an hour past dawn on Saturday. At the hospital they made use of service elevators and exits, so that no one would see Blaine leave. Meanwhile, a John Doe that had shown up the night before was being given Blaine’s name, chart, and fake death certificate. The apparent hospital murder would be sealed tight, but Belamo would make sure enough leaked out to reassure Scola’s employers that Blaine McCracken had indeed perished. Belamo, in fact, had set up the whole ruse in the last hours of darkness before they left. He was far more clever than his beaten-up exterior and gravel voice suggested. Blaine should have figured Stimson would never have left him to visit Sebastian on his own, let alone leave him vulnerable at the hospital.
“Be seeing ya, Sal,” he told Belamo at the airport, where he’d be taking a private Learjet to Washington.
“First let me get over the cold I got from jumping in that water.”
“Deal.”
The flight to Washington was smooth and short and, as arranged, McCracken climbed into a cab with the designated license plate outside Washington National Airport. Andrew Stimson was waiting for him in the backseat.
“ ’Morning, Andy.”
Stimson’s face was pale and his eyes were sagging. “This is everything we’ve got on Mohammed Sahhan and the People’s Voice of Revolution,” he said gruffly, flopping three stuffed manila dockets onto the seat between them. “Go over it carefully. There may be something in there that can help you.”
“Was I right about his army?”
Stimson sighed. “Not that we can prove, but that doesn’t mean a thing. You’re right. Everything fits together this way, and for now we
proceed on that premise.” A grim nod. “In which case, a fanatic radical has fifteen thousand troops at his command. …”
“And plenty of weapons,” Blaine added.
“We don’t know he has them now,” Stimson said hopefully. “He may not have taken delivery yet.”
“Maybe not total delivery, but the amount of armaments we’re talking about here would have to be smuggled in and distributed gradually, over a period of months even. And don’t forget that Easton’s menu was for Christmas Eve. That’s only four days from today.”
Stimson’s features whitened still more. His head slipped backward a bit. “My God, a Christmas Eve strike …”
“Like it or not, that’s the indication. It’s a little crazy if you ask me. Where’d he get all those men? Fifteen thousand’s an awful lot of people to inspire to take up arms.”
“Not when you consider there’d still be twenty-five million blacks on the same side of the fence as us,” Stimson explained. “Not a surprising ratio, is it? There’ve probably been plenty on the other side all along. It just took someone like Sahhan to motivate and organize them.”
The cab negotiated through the early morning rush hour traffic.
“That’s where this mess breaks down, Andy: with organization. Armies need lots more than motivation to make their guns work.”
“This isn’t an army in the traditional sense. Most of what they need to know could have been taught to them in small groups, or even privately.”
“But sooner or later they’d have to link up.”
Stimson shook his head. “Not really if Sahhan’s done his homework. The Gap, Company, and Bureau have several recent studies on how many organized terrorists it would take to throw the entire civil order of the country into utter chaos if the timing was right. The numbers we considered were all substantially lower than fifteen thousand.”
“Then you must have considered possible tactics and strategies as well.”
“And all of them are right up Sahhan’s alley. Terrorists wouldn’t have to knock out the whole country, just the major urban centers—say the top thirty. That would mean five hundred per city—organized, well armed, and acting totally with the element of surprise on their side.”
“And striking on Christmas Eve, when all police and reserve units operate on skeleton crews.” Blaine suddenly felt chilled. “With the firepower Sahhan’s got, based on that shopping list, we could have martial law by Christmas morning.”
“Precisely why I’ve already contacted an old friend of mine, Pard Peacher, commander of the Delta Force anti-terrorist commandoes. He’s sending small crack squads undercover into all major cities to locate the individual terrorist cells, a kind of search and destroy mission.”
“So long as word doesn’t get around about their presence,” Blaine pointed out. “Sahhan’s men would only retreat further underground. We’d never find them.”
“Peacher’s a pro and his men are the best, all trained by the Israelis. They know what they’re doing.”
Blaine’s mind had returned to another track “But the key is still weapons, Andy, not men. Assuming Sahhan’s taken delivery of his arsenal, chances are distribution of that kind of firepower is being held to the last minute. So if we can latch on to his supply channels and trace the chain to his storage dumps, we could prevent distribution and stop the bastard in his tracks. No guns—no revolution.”
Stimson’s eyebrows flickered. “I like your thinking. And there’ll be no need for a firing squad now because for all intents and purposes you’re already dead.”
“Does Washington know about your contacting Peacher?”
“No, it’s just between us. I explained the situation to Pard and he agrees. The element of trust doesn’t exist anymore, if it ever did. They did us a favor by trying to take you out in New York. Now we’ll have Washington off your back, as well as Sahhan.”
Blaine hesitated. “Assuming he was the one who hired Scola.”
“Who else would have?”
“I don’t know. But something stinks here and all the smells don’t lead back to Sahhan. Take Scola for example. She doesn’t impress me as the kind of assassin he’d hire or even have access to. But there’s more. I can’t put my finger on the reasons, but I know there’s someone else involved here, Andy. Sahhan’s just a part of what’s going on, connected to something even bigger.”
“We’re talking about a goddamn civil war in five days, Blaine. How much bigger can you get?”
“Plenty. Let’s backtrack. Let’s assume that Easton uncovered what Sahhan was up to, that and nothing else. We know it was Sahhan’s people who set him up through Sebastian and two blacks did carry out the hit. But that’s where the PVR connection breaks down. Chen wasn’t theirs, the carolers weren’t theirs, and neither was Scola.”
“You’re saying that Sahhan has got some sort of silent partner.”
“Someone who also has something to gain from civil unrest. But who? And why?”
Stimson pointed to the date displayed on his watch. “Today’s the twentieth, Blaine. Christmas Eve’s Wednesday. That doesn’t give us a whole lot of time to find the answers.” Stimson pulled an envelope from his pocket and handed it to McCracken. “Sahhan is giving a speech at George Washington University this afternoon. Here’s a ticket to it along with an invitation to the reception following. Might give you some insight into the man we’re dealing with here.”
“I can’t wait.”
Sandy Lister had been over it a dozen times with T.J. Brown, so once more couldn’t hurt.
“You say you left the disk on your desk?” she asked.
“No!” T.J. shouted into the phone. “I put it into my top drawer and locked it. I’m sure I did. I put the disk back in its storage case and locked it away.”
“Did anyone see you do it?”
“For the last time, I didn’t notice. How could I? My office isn’t exactly isolated. Anyone who wanted to could have seen me. Look, I didn’t sleep at my apartment last night. I didn’t even go back there. I’m scared. I think someone’s … watching me. I’ve got this awful feeling that the people Kelno stole the disk from have it back now. That means they know we had it—I had it. And they killed Kelno for the same reason. They killed him!”
Sandy knew there was no sense trying to calm T.J. down. “What do you want me to do?” she asked.
“Call Shay,” he snapped back. “This is all way over my head, yours too. Get him to help us.”
“All right,” Sandy said. “I’m leaving for Texas in a few hours. I’ll call him from there. Just let me get straight what I’m going to tell him. Now, what have you got for me on Simon Terrell?”
“The address in Texas you asked for. Got a pen?”
When Sandy descended the stairs for a late breakfast in the Hollins kitchen, she found her packed bags waiting for her.
“Where you headed next, ma’am?” Spud Hollins asked her as they moved into the kitchen.
“Texas, on the trail of Simon Terrell.”
“Krayman’s assistant until old Randy elected to pull up stakes?”
“The very same.”
“Well, you come back and see us again real soon.” Hollins winked at her. “And don’t forget to bring your camera.”
Sandy stopped just before they reached the table. “Can I ask you one last question, Spud?”
“Fire away.”
“Why are you willing to go on camera about all this after so many years? You’ve got everything any man could ever want, and by your own admission Randall Krayman did you a favor. Yet you’re willing to go public again, risk recrimination, follow-up interviews, even lawsuits. Why, Spud?”
Hollins smiled, but Sandy could tell the gesture was turned inward. “ ’Cause what Krayman’s done ain’t right and I got me a feeling he ain’t finished yet.”
Mohammed Sahhan’s lecture was scheduled for two o’clock in the afternoon in the Lisner Auditorium on the George Washington campus. McCracken had been on the advance secu
rity team for countless heads of state over the years and the precautions taken by Sahhan rivaled most. The only feature his thirty or so bodyguards lacked was the tiny earphones that characterized the Secret Service.
Blaine was able to snare a seat in the VIP section with the help of Stimson’s pass. He had a clear view of the podium, and if he had come here to assassinate the radical, he couldn’t have hoped for a better angle.
He had spent the better part of the morning going over the vast files Stimson had provided on Sahhan. The PVR leader was taking fanaticism and making it almost respectable. He was seen pictured with diplomats, congressmen, foreign leaders, important businessmen. One press clipping reported in depth the story of a predominantly black work crew walking off the job in an Alabama factory. Things got violent in a hurry. Sahhan made peace and kept it long enough for him to work out a new contract with the company which was substantially better than anything the striking workers had reason to hope for. In another instance, when a major urban electric company up north shut off power to poor families in the ghetto who couldn’t pay their bills, Sahhan not only paid the bills for them, he did it by personally delivering an individual check directly to each affected family.
Sporadic clapping began in the front rows as the leader of the People’s Voice of Revolution strode out onto the stage without benefit of introduction. The applause picked up as soon as the remainder of the audience saw him. Sahhan smiled and raised his hand to the crowd as he approached the podium. The spotlights’ glare bounced off his dark sunglasses.
Blaine was not at all impressed with his physical appearance, utterly unlike the prepossessing stature of a Malcolm X or Louis Farrakhan. Sahhan was small and thin. His hair was worn in a tight Afro over skin of a dark copper shade. He wore a medium gray, finely tailored and obviously expensive suit. His hands had barely grasped the microphone and torn it from its stand, when his thick voice filled the auditorium.
“Brothers,” he began, and paused immediately. “That’s right, I address you all as brothers. I wear these glasses so I won’t be able to tell the exact color of your skin and expression on your faces. I assume because you’ve come here today that there is something in your hearts that cries out for justice. Brothers and sisters, I hear those cries and have heard those cries. I’ve traveled this country and seen the pain and the hardship of so many blacks and whites too. I’ve shed tears, but the tears wash away. I’ve changed from a man of prayer to a man of action. I’m a general, brothers and sisters, and I come here today hoping you will find it in your souls to join my army.”