The Omega Command (30 page)

Her first step caused her right ankle to give out beneath her. The injury might not be serious, but it was enough to slow her down and that made it serious enough. She started down the fourth staircase, relying on the bannister now, though careful not to lean against it.

If Shay and the hulk had followed by way of the roof, they would now have to negotiate past the hole left by her plunge through the staircase, and that would slow them down considerably. That thought fueled her resolve even as she heard the first sounds of footsteps from above. Sandy turned onto the third flight.

A burly monster reached out for her. One hand grasped her throat, and as the other joined it, Sandy realized she had forgotten about the man Shay had left in the lobby of the other building, a costly oversight, because now he had her.

Sandy used her nails as weapons, digging as deeply as she could into his eyes and flesh. The man screeched in pain but held tight and slammed her hard into a wall. She felt plaster crack behind her and tried to knock the man’s hands aside, but he was too strong for her. Her legs would have made able weapons, except with one rendered useless it took all her strength just to keep the other from collapsing. She moved sideways across the wall, trying to keep the man’s grip from shutting off her air totally. She went for his face again, but he extended her at arm’s distance and she couldn’t reach him.

His fingers closed tightly on her throat, his raw cheeks dripping blood. Sandy felt her breath choked off, felt the tremendous pressure in her head an instant before she began to grow numb. Her hands flailed frantically, finding nothing.

Sandy realized she was dying. Her eyes remained open, but her sight was dimming. Her ears heard only the raspy breathing of the man who was killing her.

Suddenly there was a crash and a scream from behind her. Distracted, her killer’s grasp slackened. Sandy found the strength to struggle, swinging her entire body around to break free. She didn’t understand what had happened, but she knew she had an opening, a chance to live, and she grabbed for it.

Sandy threw herself toward the staircase as the killer grasped for her again. When he shoved her toward the bannister, though, instead of resisting, Sandy just twisted into his motion so his force carried him by her. She pushed against him with all her strength while he was still off balance and heard his scream mix with the shattering of wood as he crashed through the railing and plunged three floors down.

She swung around and came face-to-face with the fat hulk’s body impaled on some of the boards her fall had splintered. He had fallen through the same hole to his death. His limbs were twitching. Blood poured from his mouth.

That left only Stephen Shay between her and escape. She limped down to the next level. Just one more staircase to go and she was free. Suddenly she stopped.

The staircase leading to the lobby was totally rotted out. She swung as quickly as she dared and limped down the hallway, past doors splintered or missing. Her eyes and ears were alert for Shay’s approach. She fought to imagine the layout of the building based on what she had seen of it. Part of the fire escape was still intact, accessible from rooms just a little farther on.

The floor gave way on her next step. She felt herself plunging downward and reached out with her hands, grabbing hold of what remained of the flooring. Her feet dangled in the black air beneath her. She looked down.

There was a wide, jagged hole below that went all the way to the cellar, a drop of almost thirty feet, with a pile of sharp, pointed wood and cement chunks waiting for her. Sandy felt panic seize her at the same time her grip on the rotting wood above began to slip. Somehow she had to find the strength to pull herself up with her throbbing fingers.

Sandy began to hoist herself upward, raising her upper body to take as much strain from her fingers as possible. It did little good. The pain was phenomenal and she had little power left in her arms and hands.

A shadow loomed above her. Sandy gazed up and saw Stephen Shay move emotionlessly to a position directly over her hands.

“Help me, Steve,” she said softly, not pleading. “Help me.

His initial expression had given her hope, but it evaporated before her words were finished. Saying nothing, he brought the soles of his scuffed and dusty European loafers in line with her fingers and raised the tips. He would crush the fingers and she would plunge to her death, or to a crippled agony in which she would linger for hours before death claimed her. Resistance was futile. The end had come.

The tips of Shay’s loafers had just reached her fingers when a muffled spit found Sandy’s ears. Above her, Shay’s face seemed to disintegrate into nothing as he rocked backward, freeing her fingers. One of her hands nonetheless lost its perch, and the second was sliding off, when a set of powerful hands locked onto her wrists and in one swift motion yanked her up through the cavern that had threatened to swallow her.

Breathless with relief, tears streaming down her cheeks to mix with the blood, Sandy found herself gazing at a man who looked somehow familiar. No, not the man, just his suit.

A cream-colored suit. It was the man who had followed her from the hotel!

He retrieved his silenced, still smoking pistol from the floor as he spoke.

“We’ve got to get out of here. More of them will be coming.”

His words emerged with measured concern, not panic. His cream-colored suit showed barely a stain or tatter from the rotted building. His eyes swept the corridor like a light-house beam guiding ships through the night.

He holstered his gun. “You’re hurt,” he said, moving toward Sandy. “Here, lean on my shoulder. There’s a fire escape that’ll get us out of here just up ahead.”

“Who are you?” she asked, finally finding her voice.

“Later,” the man said, and he led her off.

Chapter 24

MCCRACKEN HEADED THE
cleaning van through the Atlanta darkness toward the headquarters of the People’s Voice of Revolution. Sahhan’s nonprofit institution owned a modern ten-story office building located on the outskirts of the Fairlie-Poplar District in the shadow of the famed Peachtree Center. An hour before, the heavy security outside and in the building’s lobby had convinced Blaine that Sahhan was inside. His problem then became how to gain access to the building.

The cleaning van had provided his answer. The real janitor was now unconscious in the back. His baggy overalls made a good enough fit on Blaine’s frame.

He had been met at the airport by a man contacted by Sal Belamo. There was nothing official about the arrangement. Just an agreement between friends. The man would not provide backup, his job being only to deliver a gun to McCracken and then take him to Sahhan’s headquarters.

Blaine swung the van around in a wide U-turn and brought it to a halt directly before the main entrance to the building.

“I’m new,” he shouted to one of the guards. “Can you tell me where the service entrance is?”

“Around to the side that way,” the guard shouted back, pointing.

“Thanks,” Blaine said, and drove off again.

The service entrance was located just past a ramp that led into a private parking garage. Two guards stood on either side of the door. Blaine climbed out of the van and without acknowledging them moved to the rear doors and hoisted a floor polisher out. The real janitor’s body lay under furniture covers.

“You got a pass, man?” one of the men asked.

Blaine fished in his pockets for the picture ID belonging to the real janitor. He had been hoping displaying it wouldn’t be necessary to gain access into the building. He bore only a slim resemblance to the man he was impersonating.

The guard checked his face against the ID. “This don’t look much like you, man.”

“It’s the beard. Didn’t have it six months ago.”

The guard was still looking.

“Hey, look,” Blaine said suddenly, coolly, “you want me to leave, I get right in the van and head for home. Don’t mean shit to me, boss. I got two guys out sick and I just as soon watch the Hawks game on TV. Up to you.”

The guards exchanged glances, then shrugged.

“Keep the badge pinned on you anyway,” the first one told him. “And wear this under it.”

He handed Blaine a visitor’s badge and Blaine immediately clipped it onto his pocket and started to back the floor polisher toward the door. One of the guards held it open. Then he was inside, the pounding in his chest starting to slow down. He wondered what might have happened if they had checked the machine before letting him enter. Would they have found the pistol he had wrapped inside the coils of the cord? No matter now. Blaine pulled it free and jammed it into one of his spacious pockets.

He dragged the floor polisher across the tile, his mind searching for a means to locate Sahhan and get in to see him. It seemed crazy, but back in New York Blaine had concluded that his best strategy now lay in convincing the black radical that he was being used, that he was merely a tool for a white billionaire. McCracken would offer his own knowledge of the plan as proof and hope Sahhan believed him. If he found Sahhan, he would have to find a way to convince him. It was as simple as that. Tomorrow was Christmas Eve.

Without realizing, Blaine had pushed the floor polisher straight into the lobby, which was congested with guards. Too late to turn around; that would draw even more attention to him. So he crossed the floor en route to the elevators.

A pair of Sahhan’s guards appeared on both sides of him. Blaine looked up briefly, then back at his polisher. His heart was thudding against his chest again. He followed them into the elevator.

One of the men hit the button marked 10 for the top floor. McCracken feigned pulling his hand back as if that were his choice as well.

“Sorry, that floor will have to wait for tomorrow,” an icy voice informed him.

“I don’t work Christmas Eve, boss,” Blaine said.

The speaker just shook his head. “Not tonight.”

Without protest, Blaine hit the 9. The tenth floor was closed to him. He had found Sahhan. But which office? Where on the tenth floor would he be? Each floor contained yards and yards of corridors. There was no way he could check the room arrangements on the tenth.

The elevator stopped on nine. Blaine backed out and dragged his floor polisher after him. This level seemed deserted. All the doors along the corridor were closed, and only the standard night lighting was in use. His quarry was above him. Somewhere. Well guarded, too well guarded to reach easily. There had to be a way.

McCracken started to unwind the polisher’s cord, pretending to search for an outlet in case his actions were being viewed on the building’s closed circuit television monitors. His mind kept working, though. He could take the stairwell up but it, too, would be guarded and even if he overcame the guards, there would still be too many obstacles to surmount before he reached Sahhan. He needed a direct route into the fanatic’s office, but how?

His first thought was to make an approach from the outside by scaling the building. Its design, though, was quite modern, the side little more than a sheet of glass.

Blaine looked up at the ceiling and felt a thin smile cross his lips. If this was of the standard office building design, there would be an insulated crawlspace between each floor. The top floor, the tenth in this case, would have an attic over it containing duct work, wire conduits, and plenty of room to maneuver if he could get up there. Blaine logged the options through his mind. The stairwell was out, as was the elevator. …

Wait! The elevator! Certainly he couldn’t use it in the traditional sense, but what if he improvised? With the polishing machine behind him, he moved to the elevator bank and pushed the down button.

The doors chimed open thirty seconds later and Blaine breathed easier at the sight of an empty compartment. He entered routinely, machine in tow. Once inside, he flipped the switch that would lock the doors open and, more important, hold the elevator in place.

McCracken’s eyes focused on the trapdoor above him. There was no sense worrying about the possible discovery of the inoperative elevator on the ninth floor and the subsequent investigation. He would have to hope that with everything else on their minds, the security guards wouldn’t notice until it was too late.

The trapdoor was well out of his reach, and Blaine did not want to venture into an office for a chair or something to provide a boost. Then he realized he already had just that in his faithful floor polisher. It was certainly heavy and sturdy enough to support his weight. With the base propped against the wall, it would do fine as a makeshift ladder.

Blaine had to get a yard off the floor and the polisher enabled him to do it. His hands pushed the trapdoor open and shoved it aside. Hanging tightly on to the edge of the opening, he pulled himself up into the shaft above the compartment, eyes widening to grow accustomed to the suddenly dim light. The smell of grease and oil flooded his nostrils as he climbed atop the elevator’s roof and reached out to test the cables. They were slippery but strong. His eyes probed around him.

What he sought lay fifteen feet up, an opening in the shaft half the size of a door. The opening would permit him access to the attic that lay directly above the tenth floor, thereby providing him with a direct route to Sahhan’s office from above. Blaine tested the cables one last time and started to climb.

The going was extremely slow. The grease on the cables coated his hands and made it hard to get a grip. Every time he removed a hand from the cable, he had to lower it to his white uniform and wipe it clean. Then he would pull himself up a bit more and lower the other. He found a twisted rhythm to the process and finally reached the doorway. It was latched but not locked. Blaine held tight with his hands on to the cable as he thrust his legs out and forced the door open.

He maneuvered his body through and crawled inside. In the near darkness he made out miles and miles of wire conduits and overlapping duct work, all in neat and orderly patterns. The heat was stifling, adding sweat to the grease coating his flesh, and Blaine started pulling himself along on his stomach, skirting some obstacles and passing under others. The tenth floor would be deserted except for Sahhan and his guards. He needed to find a reasonable cluster of activity, at least voices, to tell him he had found his mark.