The Omega Command

by Jon Land

  “This is great,” McCracken said in disbelief. “He’s got a plan to double-cross you and you’ve got a plan to double-cross him. Now, that’s a match made in heaven if ever I’ve heard one. You really want to beat Krayman? Then call your troops in. Call off the Christmas Eve strike now. His mercenaries will be frozen in place, unable to mobilize because there will be nothing to mobilize against.”

  “Even if these mercenaries exist, they will play right into my hands,” Sahhan returned, his eyes glowing. “Yes, their battles with my front-line troops will spur the rest of the oppressed into even faster action. I should have considered such a scenario myself.” His stare sharpened. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, my patience grows thin. …”

  McCracken saw his finger move and lunged forward. Too late. The button beneath his desk had been pressed and the office door sprung open, a parade of guards charging through. Blaine grabbed Sahhan by the shoulder and jammed the silenced gun barrel against his temple. The guards froze, unsure, but held their own guns steady.

  Then Sahhan broke the silence.

  “Take him,” he ordered his guards. “He won’t kill me if it means he has to die himself.” His eyes shifted briefly to McCracken. “I know his kind.”

  Blaine wanted to kill him just for that, but couldn’t pull the trigger. Sahhan’s guards approached slowly. McCracken turned his gun from the fanatic’s head and raised his hands in the air.

  A sea of huge arms were upon him, grips as sure as iron. They yanked Blaine viciously toward the door, and he didn’t bother to protest, didn’t bother with one last-ditch attempt to sway the radical fool who sat grinning behind his massive desk.

  “Deal with him in the usual manner,” Sahhan ordered his men. “But be especially careful. He may have friends watching him.” He slid the sunglasses back to the bridge of his nose. “See that they don’t have a chance to intervene. Now get him out of my sight.”

  McCracken let himself be swept into the corridor toward the elevator. Guns were poking into him. He was shoved up against the wall and his janitor’s uniform searched as the compartment began to lower toward the garage level. Blaine’s senses sharpened. He would try his escape once in the garage, probably when a number of the guards’ hands were occupied with the doors of a car. If luck was on his side and the garage was dark enough, he might make it.

  The compartment’s doors slid open at the garage level. One of the blacks hung back by the elevator, while the others escorted Blaine forward through the dark underbelly of the PVR building. One of them moved beyond the pack to scout ahead. That left four—two on each side, all huge and well armed.

  They reached a dark Oldsmobile sedan. Two of the men stayed with Blaine while two others went for the doors. If Blaine was going to move, this was the time.

  At that instant the man on his right reeled backward, his chest spewing a fountain of red. A muffled sound like the echo of a single heel clicking against pavement found Blaine’s ears as he plunged to the garage floor out of what he realized now was someone’s line of fire. A second black collapsed near him, his face gone.

  The remaining guards rushed around, screaming to each other, one struggling to free his walkie-talkie. A pair of long, silenced bursts came, followed by a shorter one. There was a pause, after which two more shorter bursts ensued. The last of the blacks crumpled to the floor near the elevator. Blaine heard the sound of shoes rushing in his direction and rolled closer to the body of the first guard who’d been downed. His gun was still clutched in his hand. McCracken was reaching for it just as a man dressed all in black and holding an Uzi huffed to a halt over him.

  “We’re on the same side!” the man screamed, but his words didn’t convince Blaine as much as the fact that he let the Uzi dangle by his side.

  Then McCracken saw his watch, its luminous face glowing a strange blue in the darkened corner. He recognized the glow from Newport. This was the man who had saved him there! He pulled his hand away from the dead guard’s pistol.

  “I’ve got a car waiting,” the man said. “Come on!”

  “Who are you?” Blaine managed as he rose to his feet.

  “Everything will be explained to you in time. Right now we’ve got a plane to catch.”

  Francis Dolorman had been in his bedroom stuffing a large suitcase full of clothes when the call from Wells came.

  “You’re certain?” Dolorman asked after the big man had completed his report.

  “Our rebels have grown desperate,” Wells said, “and their desperation has led to their exposure. The evidence is irrefutable. Several are in custody and the rest are known to have gathered at the site in question.”

  “And our response?”

  “Already in the works. Just a few more hours and we’ll be ready. Dawn at the latest.”

  “None of them can be allowed to escape, Wells. Crush them all.”

  “Consider it done.”

  The long drive northwest toward Louisiana and Arkansas had proved an exercise in frustration for Sandy Lister. The late afternoon hours had grown into early evening, then night, and finally midnight had come and gone. She had tried questioning the man who had saved her life and was now driving without rest, but his answers were evasive when he bothered to respond at all. Finally he began ignoring her altogether. That had been at least five hours before, when they crossed into Louisiana. Sandy remembered specifically because that was when she had given up asking. She tried to sleep but came quickly awake each time. The drive with a mysterious stranger who had saved her life was too unsettling to close her eyes to.

  The brush with death was bad enough, never mind that it had come at the hands of a man she trusted. But Stephen Shay had probably belonged to Krayman all along. When one of his people had stepped severely out of line, it had become Shay’s responsibility to right matters. She felt little pity for his passing. No, what concerned her now was that somewhere an hour glass was emptying its sands, and when the last grain slithered down, an operation would begin that somehow involved a killer satellite in orbit around Earth.

  Placed there by Randall Krayman, the man behind it all. Since the driver in the cream-colored suit would not answer her questions, Sandy was forced to make assumptions. Obviously, he worked for some force opposing Krayman. She had felt from the start that Kelno was part of something bigger, and now she was about to learn precisely what that something was.

  Sandy amused herself by mentally charting their journey toward Little Rock, a route purposely erratic so the driver could watch constantly for tails in the rearview mirror. They passed the outskirts of Little Rock just before four A.M. and continued north on Route 40 and later 65. Past Greenbier, they swung onto a desolate, unpaved road. Sandy leaned forward over the dashboard to see what must be their final destination.

  It was an ancient abandoned airport, its few buildings left to the whims of the elements. …

  No, wait. It wasn’t abandoned. There were cars. And people. Specifically, men with guns watching from the shadows.

  The driver drew the car to a halt apart from the others. Sandy climbed out and followed him forward. He waited for her to catch up and escorted her into a spacious lounge that was surprisingly well maintained. The man took his leave and closed the door behind him. Sandy heard something stirring and noticed a figure rising from a vinyl couch in the corner of the lounge.

  “Welcome to the inner sanctum,” the man said as he stretched his arms. He was dark and virile-looking, his face creased and bearded. His eyes were the darkest Sandy had ever seen.

  “I’m Sandy Lister,” she said.

  “Blaine McCracken,” the man replied. The woman looked familiar to him, but he wasn’t sure from where. He had long before discarded the janitor’s overalls, but the clothes he had worn beneath them still felt greasy and stiff with dried sweat. “You come here often?” he asked the woman.

  “Only under escort … and duress.”

  “Yup. I know the feeling.”

  “Then I guess we have something in com
mon.”

  “I’m beginning to think more than we realize. But, how was it put to me? ‘It will all be explained soon.’ ”

  “Sounds familiar,” Sandy agreed.

  The man moved closer to her. “Does the name Randall Krayman mean anything to you?” he asked suddenly.

  Sandy felt her shoulders sag. “What made you—”

  “Just testing.” McCracken smiled, and was about to say more when a voice from the doorway caught his and Sandy’s attention.

  “The final exam is yet to come, unfortunately,” the voice said.

  And into the room stepped Simon Terrell.

  Chapter 26

  MCCRACKEN COULD TELL from the woman’s face that she recognized the man who had just entered. The stranger stepped closer and extended his hand.

  “The name’s Simon Terrell. I won’t bother introducing myself to Miss Lister, because we’ve met before.”

  Blaine took Terrell’s hand. “I got your name. But who are you?”

  Sandy answered before Terrell had a chance to. “Head of a rebel faction from deep within Krayman Industries, the common denominator in our individual pursuits.”

  “Miss Lister is not far off the mark,” Terrell acknowledged. “We couldn’t risk contacting either of you directly.”

  “So you waited for me to contact you,” Sandy realized. “In Seminole.”

  “I had faith in your initiative, but I had a man prepared to aid you just in case. You bought him a beer at the bar and grill.”

  “Then when we met, why didn’t you tell me more? The truth, for instance.”

  “Because your subsequent actions would have given me away. I knew then they were watching you. Seeking me out was a logical move on your part, and I had to make sure your moves continued to seem logical.”

  “They still tried to kill me.”

  “Your interview with Dolorman forced their hand. You had become more than a simple aggravation for them.” Terrell paused. “But there is much more you need to know, both of you. Between the two of you, you have almost all the pieces of the puzzle. Perhaps we can all help each other.” Terrell’s eyes focused on Sandy. “You first, Sandy. Tell us all what you’ve discovered.”

  She had to think only briefly. “Basically that about ten years ago Krayman Industries stole an ultra-density microchip apparently to provide them with control over the telecommunications industry and later, somehow, the country. They’ve also got something up in the sky disguised as a satellite that destroyed the space shuttle Adventurer ten days ago.”

  “This feels like show-and-tell,” Blaine quipped.

  “Your turn, Mr. McCracken,” Terrell told him.

  “Krayman is financing two armies,” Blaine started. “One is a black radical group poised for a Christmas Eve strike against major urban centers across the country. The other is a mercenary group devoted to wiping out the radicals once they’ve accomplished their task.”

  “Which is?”

  “Causing disorder, chaos, ‘total paralysis’ as their leader puts it.”

  “And could they accomplish all that?”

  “By themselves, no. But they could come damn close, kill an awful lot of people and terrify even more.”

  “But what would stop them from succeeding at creating this total paralysis?”

  “Channels of emergency response would be slower on Christmas Eve, but eventually they’d call up retaliation Sahhan and the PVR couldn’t hope to contend with. The army could mobilize a hundred thousand troops in a matter of hours. It wouldn’t be much of a fight. The country would be aware of what was happening within an hour of its start. People would know the situation was under control. That would cut down the effects of the strike significantly.”

  Terrell was nodding now. “And if all the channels of communication suddenly broke down … or were broken down? What then, Mr. McCracken?”

  Blaine felt stymied. “It’s … hard to say.”

  “But unfortunately not so hard to bring about. Not anymore.” Terrell paused and traded stares with each of them. As if on cue, all three sat down stiffly. “The two of you have just exchanged twin sides of a plot that aims to control America. I worked closely on it for the final two years I spent with Krayman Industries. It wasn’t until four years after leaving that I realized the true scope of what I’d been involved in, so I went to the one man capable of stopping it: Randall Krayman. I made Randy realize that his dream had been perverted. He promised to put a stop to it.”

  “So they killed him,” Blaine concluded.

  Terrell nodded. “And concocted the entire ruse of his withdrawal from society. He had outlived his usefulness to them anyway, like so many others involved in Omega.”

  “Omega?”

  “The name of the plot the two of you have uncovered. By five years ago, the time of Krayman’s ‘disappearance,’ the wheels of Omega were already in motion.” Terrell hesitated and looked at Sandy. “You were right about why Krayman stole Hollins’s discovery. He needed control of the ultra-density microchip.”

  “But why?” Sandy asked him.

  Terrell’s hand stroked his chin. “Have either of you ever heard of a computer virus?”

  “Vaguely,” McCracken responded. “Lab personnel can make themselves indispensable by putting bugs only they know about into programs.”

  “In a simplistic sense, you’re not far off,” Terrell confirmed. “Let’s say an employee is worried about being fired or laid off. He programs a virus into the computer that will become active only if his password is deleted from the system. Once the computer registers the deletion, the virus begins to infest every major program in the company’s loop, deleting files, scrambling memory, and causing general havoc, possibly even including turning the entire system off.”

  “So obviously,” McCracken noted, “this Omega involves Krayman Industries discovering a way of doing the same thing on a wider scale.”

  “Much wider, Mr. McCracken,” Terrell added. “The whole country, to be exact.”

  “How?” Sandy asked.

  “You’ve got to know more about computer viruses in general to understand the answer to that,” Terrell told her. “Basically, a computer virus is not unlike a biological virus. Both invade a host’s body for the purpose of reproducing. Both are incredibly small at the time of initial entry: in the case of a computer virus, two hundred bytes of memory would be sufficient to get the process rolling. And both spread remarkably fast. A computer virus could infest every program in a major system in a matter of weeks by transmitting itself from program to program—from host to host. But the virus would be undetectable during this, its incubation period. Then when certain preprogrammed conditions are met, like the deletion of a password in the case of that disgruntled employee, the virus is released to attack the system with all its power, creating a kind of epidemic. By the time desperate programmers find the virus in their system, it will in effect be the system. The attack takes over the machine as easily as a biological virus makes its host sick.”

  Terrell leaned forward. “There are two ways to create a computer virus. Either you program it into a chip already in place … or you make it part of that chip even before it’s installed into the computer.”

  “Oh, my God,” Sandy moaned, goosebumps prickling her flesh. “The Krayman Chip …”

  Terrell’s eyes confirmed she was right. “In Seminole, Sandy, I told you Krayman abandoned the direct-appeal approach for gaining control over the nation in favor of a technological one. The type of computer virus his scientists discovered provided this means. Keep in mind now that the key to any computer virus is a preprogrammed set of conditions stored inside a chip. The computer is waiting for something to happen or not to happen, depending on the individual programmer. Krayman scientists discovered a way to build a shutdown response into a memory chip. A billion microchips all waiting for the same signal which would cause them all to shut down their respective systems—that’s the essence of Omega. The only thing Krayman lacked the
n was the chip itself and, more, total control over the production market. He needed both if Omega was going to succeed.”

  “Spud Hollins,” Sandy muttered.

  “Exactly.” Terrell nodded. “There’s a saying in the computer industry that if you can’t come up with your own idea, steal someone else’s. Well, COM-U-TECH not only stole Hollins’s chip, they marketed it at a cost so low that they effectively became the sole supplier of this particular chip.”

  “Used exclusively in telecommunications?” Blaine asked.

  “And its various offshoots, yes. You’re starting to catch on to the scope of this plot, the utter monstrousness of it. So now we have a billion microchips in place all over the country in everything related to data transmissions, from television, to telephone, to commercial air travel. The chips are in place in all the machines, doing what they’re supposed to do, all the time waiting for the signal to come instructing them to shut down their systems.”

  “And I suppose Krayman recruited a hundred thousand computer programmers to push the right button at the right time,” Blaine said incredulously.

  “Not quite. It would take only one man with one button.”

  “How?”

  “Why don’t you tell me?”

  It was Sandy who spoke, though. “COM-U-TECH’s satellite that destroyed Adventurer. The signal to all those microchips is going to come from space.”

  Terrell nodded deliberately. “It takes the satellite approximately sixteen minutes to cover the entire continental United States. During that time it will send a high frequency beam signal the chips are keyed into. When they receive it, all television and radio stations will cease broad-casting. The telephone will become useless and you can forget all about most business dealings, especially in the area of banking. Banks won’t have access to their computer logs, which means customers won’t have access to their money.”