The Omega Command (6 page)

“The name’s Stimson, Blaine, Andrew Stimson. I run the Gap.”

More surprise flashed in McCracken’s eyes. “The name was sufficient.” He hesitated. “I was expecting the standard Company escort, a couple of twin goons like your driver up there. I guess I should feel honored.”

“The Company doesn’t even know you’re back in the States.”

“What?”

“I brought you in on my own,” Stimson explained. “It was all arranged up front until that business at Orly yesterday soured the President on you real fast. Your file was put on hold. The Company, and everyone else for that matter, think you’re still under detention in Paris. I’ve arranged it so everyone thinks someone else has the key.”

“What about Daniels?” Blaine asked.

“Don’t worry about that. I’m sure Daniels won’t question an order he thinks came from this high up.”

“Thinks?”

“Don’t push it. The point is, since no one talks to anybody else anyway, the ruse could go on indefinitely.”

“Then it looks like you’ve sprung a jailbird, Mr. Stimson.”

“Call me Andy. With what I’m about to tell you, we might as well be on a first-name basis.”

“So what is it?” Sandy Lister asked T.J. after handing over the thin round object she had found in her purse an hour after spending nearly three at the police station.

“You mean the stiff planted this on you and you didn’t give it to the cops?” T.J. asked, flustered.

“The man died giving it to me. I’d like to know what it is first.”

“That doesn’t sound like the girl who gave me the lecture on professional ethics this morning.” T.J. held the object out before him. “Never had much use for computers, have you, boss?”

“As a matter of fact, no. Why?”

“Because this is a floppy disk used for storing programs.”

“Can you find out what’s on it?”

“Just as soon as I switch on my terminal.” T.J. lowered the disk to his desk. “What about the stiff?”

“The first job for your terminal. His name was Benjamin Kelno, but that’s all I know.”

“Just let my magic fingers get to work, boss.”

“I’ll be in my office. Call when you’ve got something.”

A half hour later, after several reroutings and overrides on T.J.’s part, a capsule biography of Benjamin Kelno flashed up on the screen. He read quickly, stopping halfway through, when his lips began to quiver.

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ …”

The limousine turned onto the George Washington Memorial Parkway.

“I guess you had a good reason for springing me,” Blaine said, breaking the silence.

“I understand you have a reputation for getting things done.”

“Sure. Just ask the French for a reference.”

“I wasn’t talking about methods. I was talking about results, and you’re as good at getting them as any operative I’ve ever heard of.”

McCracken just looked at him.

“Ever heard of Tom Easton, Blaine?”

“A Gap man, isn’t he?”

“Was. Somebody killed him in New York yesterday. It wasn’t pretty. He was working on something big and now that work has died with him. We haven’t a clue as to what he was on to.”

“How was he killed?”

Stimson settled back. It didn’t surprise him that a man like McCracken would want to know that first. “There’s a … house in New York called Madame Rosa’s. …”

“I’ve heard of it.”

“Well, Easton was a regular customer,” Stimson said, and went on to relate all the lurid details of the assassination.

“Professional,” was McCracken’s only comment.

“Brutally so,” Stimson added. “Apparently, whoever we’re dealing with isn’t fond of subtle methods. Or the stakes of what Easton uncovered ruled them out.”

“You want me to pick up where he left off,” Blaine concluded.

“And retrace his steps.”

“As long as I can skip Madame Rosa’s. Little boys and girls have never been my style.”

“They knew he was headed there,” Stimson said. “Everything was planned out.”

“You said Easton was a regular customer. It fits.”

“Security at Madame Rosa’s is tighter than anyone’s in the capital, and that includes the Oval Office. If it was breached, you can bet somebody big was behind it, someone who stood to lose a lot if Easton made it in.”

“When was he due?”

“Last night.”

“That’s cutting it pretty close.”

Stimson nodded. “The opposition waited for him to expose himself.”

“Literally,” Blaine added. “Easton’s field was internal subversion, right?”

“His specialty. Terrorist groups, revolutionaries—that sort of thing.”

“Then the implication is one of those paid the visit to Madame Rosa’s.”

“But which? The execution was utterly clean, more worthy of a KGB hit squad than a domestic terrorist group made up of unhappy college students.”

Blaine’s eyebrows flickered. “You’re underestimating them just as Easton did.”

“I’ve been through the Gap files a dozen times. No one listed there could possibly have pulled this off.”

“So we’re dealing with someone new … or someone your files haven’t done justice to.”

“How do we find out who?”

McCracken smiled at Stimson’s use of
we
. Obviously, the Gap director had already assumed he would cooperate, since the alternative was probably a return to detention in Paris. Blaine thought briefly.

“Easton’s car, did you find it?”

Stimson nodded without enthusiasm. “Stripped clean and partially burned.”

“You go over it?”

“There wasn’t much to go over. But yes, we did.” Stimson shook his head. “Nothing.”

“The car’s been brought here to Washington, I assume.”

“Of course.”

“I’d like to have a look at it.”

“Why?”

“Because whoever visited Madame Rosa’s must have known Easton left a bit of security in his car. Otherwise they wouldn’t have bothered to steal it. I’m hoping they didn’t find what they were looking for.”

“In which case, our people would have.”

McCracken smiled knowingly. “It meant more to the killers. If they had found it, they wouldn’t have bothered to torch the car. Obviously, they didn’t want anyone else picking up where they left off and maybe getting luckier.”

Stimson nodded. “Interesting.”

“I’ll check it out first thing tomorrow after a steak dinner and a good night’s sleep.”

“I’ve arranged accommodations.”

“Safe house?”

“The Four Seasons Hotel under an assumed name. Remember, no one else knows I’ve brought you in, and we’ve got to keep it that way.”

“That could provide some complications.”

“I don’t think so. You’ll report to me and only to me.”

“No channel cover or access code? No backup?”

Stimson shook his head. “There isn’t time. And even if there were …” He seemed to be groping for words. “The thing of it is, Blaine, I know all about you. A rogue, a renegade, ‘McCrackenballs’—all that shit. And shit’s just what it is, because when everything’s said and done, you succeed. I’m not holding a leash on you, but also I can’t accept responsibility if this thing blows up and one of my counterparts at a three-letter agency grabs hold of you.” Stimson’s stare held Blaine’s. “Look, I don’t care whose nuts you have to bust to get to the bottom of this, just do it. You’ve got all the resources of the Gap behind you, and when all this is over, I can promise you a position on any terms you dictate.”

Blaine eyed him closely. “You’ve assumed I’d go along with this all along.”

Stimson nodded. “Like I said, I know all about you. They’ve had you stashed in purgatory for five years now. I’m offering a way out.”

“To heaven or hell, Andy?”

“That remains to be seen.”

The President’s meeting with Nathan Jamrock, who in addition to heading the shuttle program served as chief of the controversial Special Space Projects section devoted to the deployment of weapons in space, didn’t begin until six P.M. The militarization of space was considered by most in Washington to be inevitable as well as the one area where America held a distinct strategic advantage over the Soviet Union. If the next war was not fought above Earth, many thought, it would at least begin there. The present Space-Stat alert system had been developed with precisely that in mind.

“Then you’re telling me you’re no further along now than you were two days ago,” the President said dejectedly, after Jamrock had finished his latest report.

“I’m afraid not, sir.”

“What about the tapes?”

Jamrock shook his head and reached into his jacket pocket for a package of Rolaids. This was going to be a six-tablet meeting, he figured. “Computer magnifications and enhancements have yielded nothing new. By the time Caswell had gotten the camera up in the direction of … whatever was coming, the transmission had been jammed.”

“Jammed by what, Nate?”

Jamrock’s teeth sliced into his first pair of Rolaids. “The same sophisticated apparatus we suspect that’s keeping our ground-based radar from tracking the damn thing. It’s nothing our current technology can definitively account for any more than we can account for the means by which the shuttle was destroyed. Of course that doesn’t mean the Russians haven’t come up with something we’re not yet aware of.”

“I’ve already spoken with the Soviets and I’m satisfied that they had nothing to do with what happened. They claimed and I’ve already confirmed that two of their unmanned crafts were destroyed under similar circumstances. Somebody obviously wants control of space for themselves. That still doesn’t tell us what that somebody is up to.” The President paused. “But I’ll tell you this much, whoever it is has got something big up there, and destroying our shuttle was an outright act of war. Why? And what was Caswell trying to describe?”

Jamrock fidgeted impatiently in his chair. “Our only means of learning that will be to send something else up.” He swallowed the grit from his Rolaids. “Mr. President, I can have
Pegasus
ready for launch in nine days.”

The President tapped his fingers on his desk, considering the implications of Jamrock’s suggestion.
Pegasus
was the prototype for what was envisioned as a fleet of laser-armed shuttles that could knock out of the sky anything that strayed too far into American air space. Short of a Star Wars shield, such a fleet would provide the ultimate security from enemy attack, along with being the controversial first step in the militarization of space.
Pegasus
had been tested and deemed ready for deployment. Technologically, all lights were green. Politically, red ones flashed everywhere.

“There’s plenty of demand from the press and on the Hill for another series of hearings, Nate.”

“NASA couldn’t survive them, sir. And even if we could, it probably wouldn’t matter much. Whatever was responsible for
Adventurer’s
destruction is still up there, and I’m betting whoever’s controlling it isn’t finished yet. Forget questionable O-rings and frozen SRBs. What happened up there this time was an act of war.

The President turned his gaze out the window at the night sky. “How many days to get
Pegasus
airborne?”

“Nine.”

“Make it eight, Nate.”

“I still can’t believe it,” Sandy Lister said, rising uneasily from her office chair.

“You’d better, boss,” T.J. Brown told her. “Benjamin Kelno worked for Krayman Industries. Makes you think, doesn’t it?”

“T.J.—”

He stood up and looked at her across the desk. “Just hear me out. He showed up with the computer disk the very day you got approval for the Krayman story, pouring blood all over the sidewalk, but he still made it here because he wanted you to have that disk. Not anybody, just you. What was it he whispered?”

“That time was running out, that I had to stop them.”

“Stop
who
, boss?”

“You want me to say Krayman Industries, but I won’t.”

“But it fits!”

“What fits? You’re grasping, T.J. We don’t even know what’s on the disk yet, do we?”

T.J. shrugged. “It’s some sort of predetermined flight program. For what I don’t know. But that air force friend of mine just might be able to help. I’m having lunch with him tomorrow.”

“Look, Krayman Industries is a major multinational corporation, a Dow Jones blue chip. It’s crazy to think they’d be implicated in anything like this.”

“There’s lots about them you don’t know. Like I told you this morning.”

Sandy sat back down. “Then maybe it’s time I learned.”

Chapter 5

EASTON’S CAR HAD
been taken to the CIA’s forensic laboratory, located not in Langley but on spacious grounds overlooking Rock Creek Park near the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Northwest D.C. That was to be McCracken’s first stop Wednesday morning thanks to a pass secured for him by Andrew Stimson. The pass was made out in a false name, Stimson’s signature being the sole important feature. Clearly, no one could be allowed to learn Blaine was in Washington. Word spread fast in the capital, and if it reached the wrong people, the operation would be blown.

The CIA’s private lab was better known as the “Toy Factory” since its primary task over the years had been to develop new weapons for use in the field. McCracken bypassed these sections, which made up the bulk of the Toy Factory, and moved toward an area reserved for forensic work of a more mundane nature, where Easton’s Porsche was being stored. The car sat in a separate garage bay and McCracken was escorted to it by a man in a white lab coat who seemed intent on charting Blaine’s every move on his clipboard.

“This may take a while,” McCracken said when they reached the bay.

“My orders are to remain with you,” the man said. “But I’ll stay out of your way.”

He unlocked the bay door and slid it up, revealing the formerly flaming red Porsche, now charred black and marred by cracked and bubbled paint. The scent of burnt metal was still in the air. The handles had been stripped and Blaine had to use the inside latch to get the door open.

The car was a shell. Its seats had been ripped out along with just about everything mechanical. The steering column was bent at an impossible angle, as if someone had tried for the wheel as well but then gave up.

Blaine spent the next two hours going over every inch of the Porsche, oblivious to his escort’s claims that it had all been done already. His hands and clothes were grimy from the effort and his enthusiasm waned with each chunk of flesh lost on the spiny underside of the dash. He looked at the escort before starting on the two remaining tires and decided that CIA personnel were more than capable of inspecting the innards of burnt rubber.