The Omicron Legion (2 page)

On the big screen, the woman strained agonizingly against her bonds as her left nipple was severed.

Hardesty gasped as the woman took him in her mouth. Onscreen the masked figure drew the girl’s head back to expose her throat. Blood slid down from the right corner of her mouth. Terror and pain had silenced her rage, but her whimpers were delicious in the general’s ears. The camera drew in to capture her pleading face, then pulled back to include the knife poised for its next thrust. Hardesty’s hands dug into the head sliding back and forth over his groin.

Mira drew her hands upward, smiling to herself. Men were weak creatures, truly weak, so vulnerable to pleasure, so lost in it. This was the first of her allotted victims. How fitting that the kill would allow her to make use of the most special skills she had developed over the years.

And the special weapon.

She had gotten the idea watching a television commercial for artificial fingernails. A bit of glue, press on, and voila! Mira made her own, frosted the tips with melted steel, let them harden, and then filed them razor sharp. A glancing twitch to any major artery was all it would take.

Mira waited. She could follow the action on the screen from the general’s responses. She knew his moment would mirror that of the blade being drawn across the throat of the Vietnamese girl.

It was all Mira could do to keep from laughing as her fingers of death crawled up his chest.

Hardesty watched the steel blade touch the throat of the woman on the screen. In his ears her final pleas emerged weakly, hopelessly, in that bastard language. Her breath would be rank with their awful food. Her skin and hair would smell of the oils of that filthy country.

Just like the guards.
Just like the guards!

The general saw the knife begin its arc, saw the spurt of blood leap toward the camera. The woman’s gasp filled his ears. His pleasure in that instant was so great that he felt only a slight twinge at his throat. In the next instant the screen was splattered with his blood, seeming to mix with the blood of the dying woman. Hardesty’s last thought was to free the air bottlenecked in his throat. He realized the gurgle in his ears was his own, since the Vietnamese girl was silent. She stared blankly at him, just as he stared at her. Soon his corpse was lit only by the pulsing glow off the television screen, which had turned to static with the end of the tape.

Bailey didn’t enter the study until he was sure he heard the sound of static. His key slid the deadbolt aside, and he opened the door and burst in. What he saw shocked and numbed him.

The general was sitting in his chair, blood pouring down his chest from the neat tear in his throat. His dead eyes bulged open. Bailey saw the open window. His soldier’s mind took it all in, prioritized his actions. Using the phone on the general’s desk was the first order of business. The woman was gone; she could only be found by marshaling forces that would lead to embarrassment and disgrace. The number he dialed had nothing to do with alerting them.

“Disposal unit required,” he said. Coolly he provided the general’s address.

“My God,” he heard the voice mutter. “How many?”

“One.”

“Stay on scene. Thirty-minute arrival time.”

Click.

Bailey pressed the button only long enough to get a fresh dial tone. Things would get cleaned up; the general’s good name and reputation would be preserved through it all. But the complications created by his passing could not be denied or ignored. Bailey knew what he had to do next. He calmly punched out another number.

“Section Twelve,” a voice said.

“I need Baxter.”

“One moment…”

“Baxter here.”

“Do you know my voice?”

“Yes.”

“I’m with the general. We’re running at Code Seven.”

“Oh…
Christ!
”

“Listen to me. You know what has to be done. Shred Omicron. Every file, every paper. It never existed. You hearing me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then get to it, son…And don’t fuck up!”

Chapter 2

CARLOS SALOMAO LEANED
across the table. His eyes darted around the restaurant as he spoke again in a hushed voice.

“You must understand,
Senhor
McCracken. They would kill me if they knew I was meeting with you.”

Blaine McCracken leaned across the table also, his arms nearly resting against those of the Brazilian. “Just who
are
they, Carlos? You haven’t told me that yet, either.”

“
Não sei, senhor.
I don’t know…at least not for sure. It would be best if we start from the beginning.”

“That means with Johnny. I want to know where the hell they’ve got him stashed.”

“Please
senhor.
I must tell it my way.”

Blaine shrugged and pulled back. “
Muito bem.
As long as you tell me first where I can find Johnny Wareagle.”

Carlos Salomao’s eyes continued to scan the nearly empty restaurant. Every time the door opened, his shoulders tensed and his spine arched. Meeting in downtown São Paulo had been his idea. McCracken had expected him to choose a spot where he felt more at ease. Unless there wasn’t one.

“He is being held at a jail outside the city. We call it
Casa do Diabo.
”

“The house of the devil? “

“Many years ago prisoners were tortured within its walls. It is just a jail now, though fear of it still discourages crime.”

“If anything bad’s happened to Johnny, I’ll teach the jailers plenty about fear.”

McCracken had flown into Cumbica Airport some two hours before, after a flight lasting more than half a day. He had returned from London to Maine early Thursday. His Thanksgiving at home was uneasy, with Johnny Wareagle nowhere to be found. The call from Carlos had come yesterday evening, Friday, with a shadowy explanation as to why the Indian hadn’t been around as planned. Blaine had been able to make a Varig flight out of Kennedy Airport with a single stop in Miami. But if one hadn’t been available, he had been fully prepared to charter a jet to make the trip.

Carlos Salomao did his best to look Blaine in the eye, but his eyes kept drifting—first to the unsightly scar running through McCracken’s left eyebrow, then back in the direction of the front door.

“
Senhor
McCracken, your friend is in jail because Brazilian customs officials denied him entry into the country. He lacked a visa. They had no choice, but he took exception to their denial.”

“By exception, you mean…?”

“Several of the police officers attempted to restrain him. He injured a number of them.”

“Which doesn’t tell me what he was doing down here in the first place.”

“I sent for him,
senhor,
just like I sent for you.”

“
You
sent for him? Just who the hell are you, Carlos?”

Salomao tried to smile and failed. “I am many things, much like you.”

“What do you know about me?”

Salomao looked confident for the first time. “Before Vietnam or after?”

“Let’s try after.”

“Let’s see…You spent the rest of 1972 in Japan and then joined the CIA. You led the covert U.S. assistance effort for Israel during the October Yom Kippur War of 1973, then remained in Israel until the early part of 1974. From there, you took part in activities in South America, Africa, Germany, and Italy. You were suspended from active duty following an incident of gross insubordination in London, 1980.”

“Like to hear about it, Carlos? British feet dragging cost a plane load of people their lives. I decided to voice my displeasure by shooting the groin area of Churchill’s Statue in Parliament Square. Won me the nickname ‘McCrackonballs’.”

“
Senhor,
I—”

“And yours are next on my hit list—unless you tell me how you happened to come by some supposedly classified information.”

“I am in the information business,
senhor.
It is how I found your friend.”

“Found him for who?”

“I am part Tupi Indian,
senhor.
I was born in the Amazon Basin. I left, but my roots remain strong.” Salomao’s lips quivered. “Just over a month ago, three members of my tribe vanished in the woods. Since then, the killings have continued. No matter what steps they take, no matter what defenses they erect, some nights one or two of my people disappear. Sometimes hunters go out during the day and never return. When they are found—what is left of them, that is—it is terrible,
senhor.
They believe a demon has risen from the underworld to punish them, a demon they call
Ananga Teide,
the Spirit of the Dead. They asked for help, but only a special person from outside the tribe would be trusted.”

“Johnny Wareagle…”

Salomao nodded. “They accepted him as the living incarnation of Tupan, the Tupi god. He came down here to help, but he never got the chance to try. Now he is in
Casa do Diabo
—and there he will remain for a considerable time…without your help.”

“And how do you expect me to bring this off?”

“With your influence perhaps. And if that falls short…” Salomao’s shrug completed his thought.

“Yeah, bust him out so he can go up to the Amazon and finish what you called him down here to do. Thing is, I know he never would have told you or anyone else about me.”

“
Não.
I was able to get a look at his passport. Your name was listed as next of kin.”

Blaine smiled in spite of himself. “Close enough.”

“I am responsible for this,
senhor.
It is a wrong I must right.”

“Bullshit, Carlos. If you knew Johnny Wareagle at all, you’d know that he’s not about to walk away from an unfinished job. He’ll head straight for your Tupi tribe even if he has to plow through the whole Brazilian militia en route. And since you’re so up on my file, you know that I’ll be with him.”

Salomao didn’t bother denying it. “What I don’t know,
senhor,
is whether the two of you will be enough.”

São Paulo is a thriving, bustling metropolis, the center of Brazil’s banking and commerce. By far the largest and most modern city in South America, it seems a combination of the pace of New York and the expanse of Los Angeles. Skyscrapers dominate the horizon in jagged concrete clusters, while below, the din of screeching brakes and honking horns are common sounds within the ever-present snarl of traffic.

Because of this traffic, the drive from the airport had taken an interminable sixty-five minutes. But the traffic was lighter leaving the city; eventually giving way to a freshly paved four-lane divided highway leading north to Atibaia. As the miles sped by, the modern look of the city gave way to simpler and more rural forms of construction. Whitewashed stone and terra-cotta replaced steel and glass as the dominant building base.

The jail Johnny Wareagle was being held in, on the outskirts of Atibaia, was rectangular in structure and three stories high. The building had the look of an old fort, except for the chain-link fence topped with barbed wire that enclosed it and the blacktop parking lot within. Blaine’s papers were found to be all in order and, after a casual frisk revealed him weaponless, he was escorted down a long corridor. The walls smelled of must, mold, and age. McCracken figured the mere running of his finger across them would cause the years to peel back, layer by layer. He felt his nostrils clog with the dust filling the air and noticed that the loose-grouted floor tiles were producing a rattling echo underfoot. His escort opened the door to a small windowless room and told Blaine to enter.

McCracken did as he was told, but elected not to take one of the two chairs at a thick wood table. Except for these, the claustrophobic cubicle was barren.

Christ, Johnny. What the hell happened?

It made no sense, none of it. Johnny Wareagle was the most rational man Blaine had ever known, and their friendship stretched back over twenty years. Always, though, it was Blaine coming to Johnny, his mystical Indian friend, for help.

Until today. The tables had turned now. It was Wareagle who needed help, and Blaine was here to provide it.

He heard the already familiar rattling echo and turned back toward the door. As the rattling grew closer, a second sound joined it—that of clanging metal. Its origin was obvious even before the door was thrust open to reveal Wareagle, his wrists and legs chained in irons. He had to duck his seven-foot frame to make it under the doorway. The pair of accompanying guards shoved the big Indian inside and closed the door behind him.

“Hello, Blainey.”

“Hello, Indian. Nice digs you got here.”

McCracken’s humor seldom gained any reaction from Wareagle, and today was no exception.

“I’m sorry you were bothered,” the Indian apologized as he bowed his coal-black ponytailed head. “It was not my choice.”

“I’m here, Indian. Now tell me, what gives?”

“What did the little man tell you?”

“That he asked you to come down to Brazil to help out some Indians. That you landed here after busting up some Brazilian authorities who didn’t welcome you into the country with open arms. Accurate?”

“More or less.”

“Which?”

Wareagle gazed down at him, the stare unlike any Blaine had seen from him before.

“He should not have involved you, Blainey.”

“Too late. I’m here.” McCracken pulled back one of the wobbly chairs. “Let’s sit down.”

Wareagle obliged, settling himself uneasily in the chair that was much too small for him. Its legs creaked from the strain.

“You’re in a hell of a mess, Indian. Two of the cops you put in the hospital are gonna be there for a while. Not like a man of your experience to lose control.”

Wareagle hesitated. “I have never experienced anything like that which drew me down here.”

“Carlos drew you down here—and the biggest mistake you made was not calling me before you left.”

“You were in England. I did not think it fair to disturb you.”

“My holiday could have been postponed.”

Johnny looked at him somberly. “I needed to come alone.”

“I missed you Thanksgiving, Indian. I’m not much good in the kitchen,” Blaine said, instantly aware that his attempt at humor had failed again.