The Omega Project

by Ernest Dempsey

  “What can I get for ya, hon?” she asked as politely as she could, but it still came out sour, bordering on annoyed. Her voice was exactly like every person he’d ever met from that region, a sharpness to some of the vowels and a hint of nasal tones.

  Sean didn’t mind it. He’d known several people from North and South Dakota. Whenever he heard that accent, it warmed his heart.

  “I’ll have the turkey melt with a side of fries, please,” he said and flashed her a quick smile. He didn’t want to be too friendly, but this woman clearly needed cheering up.

  “What to drink?” She was all business.

  He didn’t blame her. It was late at night, which meant she was either at the end of her shift or at the beginning of it. He didn’t envy either situation. This diner was one of those twenty-four-hour places. At least in the middle of the night there wouldn’t be too many people coming in, though the ones that did were likely a bit sketchy.

  “I’ll have a Coke, please.”

  “Pepsi okay?”

  “Um…” Sean hesitated. Being from the South, his ordering a Pepsi would absolutely not be okay. A love of Coke was indoctrinated into Southern youth early, and they had but few options when it came to beverages. There was Coca-Cola, Dr. Pepper, and sweet tea. Everything else was off the table. “Got Dr. Pepper?”

  “Sure.” She wrote down his order, spun away, and walked behind the counter where a long horizontal window opened into the kitchen. A line cook was behind it with a cloud of steam churning around him, the sound and smell of sizzling burgers pervading the small diner.

  Sean could smell the grilled onions on the flatiron stove; the peppers, too, gave off a hint of aroma and mingled with the scent of frying meat. Sean’s stomach grumbled in response to the smells as he waited patiently for his food to be prepared.

  The waitress returned with his Dr. Pepper and set it on the table. The straw protruded from the top edge of the glass, with the remaining tube of paper still attached to the top. He glanced at her name tag, something he’d done before, but he wanted to make sure he recalled her name correctly.

  “Thank you, Mary,” he said.

  “Welcome.” She spun around and returned to the counter behind the register.

  Yep. She wasn’t happy.

  Sean removed the paper top from the straw and pulled the drink close. He eyed the other customers in the room as he took a long sip, but not long enough to make much of a dent in the contents. It was more to keep up appearances. Mary didn’t strike him as the type of server that planned on bringing a bunch of refills his way.

  There was an older gentleman at the counter. He looked like a trucker or a farmer, complete with the long-sleeve flannel shirt and a brown Carhartt coat draped over the back of the chair. The coat matched his light brown pants. The secret of the guy’s occupation, Sean figured, was in his boots. They were clean, untouched by dirt, but definitely worn. That meant this guy was a worker but not in a field. Sure, he could have been something else, but Sean pegged him for a truck driver. The hour of night, too, might have given it away. Truck drivers frequented establishments like this, especially after dark since they were the primary travelers on the road, especially desolate roads like the one he’d just been on.

  Sean had gone for twenty minutes before seeing another driver at one point. Plus, it was really cold outside. This time of the year was when travel had pretty much hit its low point. It would kick up hard again at Christmas and then disappear until late spring.

  The other customer in the diner was a younger guy. He had on a red hoodie, brighter than the crimson vinyl of the booth seats, and faded blue jeans. He’d been on his phone when Sean walked in and barely noticed as he passed by. Sean knew the kid hadn’t seen any distinctive features, but now they were facing each other. Fortunately, the guy’s eyes remained locked on the device in his hands.

  Sean pegged him as being nineteen or twenty years old, though he might have been younger. He could have passed for a high school or college student. If he was in high school, it was awfully late to be out at a diner on a school night.

  Instinctively, Sean reached for his phone and pulled it out of his pocket. He glanced at the scores on the ESPN app and then shoved the device back into his pants. The Predators were winning, but that was about all that was happening in the world of sports on that night.

  The line cook placed a plate up onto the steel metal divider. “Order up,” he said in a booming tone.

  Mary whirled around like she’d probably done a thousand times that week and grabbed the plate.

  Sean watched as she strode around the corner of the bar and walked up to him. She slid the plate toward him, put the bill on the edge of the table, and put one hand on her hip.

  “Need anything else?”

  “No, ma’am. I’m good. Thank you.”

  She nodded and turned around to make her way back to the counter.

  Sean pulled the plate a little closer and picked up one half of the sandwich. He took a big bite and savored the different flavors that filled his mouth. It was a crunchy, gooey, meaty, buttery combination that caused his saliva glands to go absolutely crazy.

  He took another bite, set the sandwich down, and picked up the ketchup bottle to his left. He twisted it open and slathered a few puddles onto his plate, then replaced the lid and put the bottle back where he’d found it. As he picked up a French fry, he noticed a car drive up and park directly outside the front door, in one of the spots marked for disabled drivers.

  The lights remained on for several seconds, nearly blinding Sean in the process. He winced at the annoyance, but then the driver switched them off. The guy got out of the car and, from the looks of it, didn’t have a disability at all.

  The passenger door opened, and another guy, shorter and a little thicker than the first, also climbed out and slammed his door shut.

  It was hard to get a good look at them through the windows and into the dark parking lot, but when the men entered the diner, Sean immediately noted that they were probably a similar age to the guy in the red hoodie.

  They, too, were wearing hoodies. The taller one’s was a heather gray, while the squatter one’s was blue. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that these guys probably knew each other. The driver paused at the newspaper rack by the door and pretended to leaf through some of the copies from various sources. The other one helped himself to one of the round stools fixed into the floor at the bar.

  Alarm bells went off in Sean’s head, and he immediately stood and walked to an alcove to his right that housed the men’s and women’s restrooms. He was still chewing on the fry when he pushed through and let bathroom door ease shut behind him.

  Sean knew better than to question his instincts. Some might have called him paranoid or strange to behave in such a way, but those inner warnings had saved him through the years.

  Something was going on with those three young men. If he had to guess, Sean thought they were about to rob the place.

  His actions hadn’t been out of cowardice. That wasn’t his style. Not to mention he doubted anyone had noticed. The customer at the counter hadn’t seen him, and Mary was focused on the incoming patrons. The line cook had his head down, focused on the grill.

  Sean took in his surroundings. There was a sink near the door, a trashcan right next to him. Then there was a urinal and two toilet stalls. Not much he could use in the way of weapons. He walked over to the first stall, opened the door, and checked it out. Nothing. Then he went to the second. He’d have loved to rip the assist bar off the wall, but it was bolted down tight.

  He padded back over to the door and pressed his right ear to it. He wasn’t surprised at what he heard. The voices of the three men were muted, but Sean could hear them clearly enough. They were shouting orders at the people inside the diner, which was—according to his best guess—Mary, the line cook, and the trucker at the counter. He hoped the latter wasn’t going to do anything stupid.

  Sean figured the other two would be
passive enough. These guys were here to rob their boss, not them.

  He’d seen this sort of thing happen a couple of times before. His previous line of work lent itself to some late nights at the Waffle House when he was in the South or at cafés and diners like this one when he was abroad or traveling in different parts of the United States.

  Most of the time, the thieves were after whatever was in the till. He hoped it was that and nothing more. He also hoped they weren’t armed. Sean could take down three yahoos with knives or blunt weapons, but guns? Even a moron could get lucky now and then with a gun.

  Those fears were realized when he heard Mary yell, “Please, don’t shoot me! Please!”

  Sean knew that the guy in the red hoodie who’d been so locked in on his phone had to have seen him. It would only be a matter of time until Red Hoodie realized someone was unaccounted for. To Sean, this was a good thing.

  Charging out of the bathroom door to take on three armed guys wasn’t his idea of a good plan. His weapons were still out in the car. Normally, he’d have one on him, but for some reason he’d stowed everything in his gear bag for the trip. Oh, right: because if he was pulled over he didn’t want a cop asking why he had a gun on him. Every state varied on their concealment laws, and even with the appropriate permits Sean would rather spend as little time with the authorities as possible.

  “Where’s the other guy?” one of the robbers asked.

  It had to be Red Hoodie. The other two likely wouldn’t have noticed him.

  “What other guy?” another voice said.

  “There was another guy. Over there in the corner.”

  Sean imagined the speaker pointing at his empty booth where his half-eaten sandwich and barely touched fries were still sitting next to the Dr. Pepper.

  “He must have gone to the bathroom. Take care of it.”

  Sean guessed it was the stumpy fellow giving the orders. He knew that the first guy would be hurrying his way, which was exactly what Sean had hoped for. If he went out into the main dining area, he’d be outnumbered and outgunned. They’d take the money he had on him, which wasn’t a huge deal in the big picture, but he couldn’t risk them taking his car keys. All his guns, cash, and supplies for the trip were inside the SUV. Lose that and he was done. Sean didn’t care about himself, though he did care more than in the past, probably due to his young marriage. The real concern was for his friend, John Dawkins. If he screwed up, any chance of saving Dawkins was gone. Were these idiots to steal his vehicle, he’d be stranded.

  Sean listened as the clumsy thug rushed toward the bathroom. He could hear the guy’s pants swishing, and his feet stomping on the tile as he moved. These guys couldn’t have been bigger amateurs, but they were armed amateurs, so that meant they still had to be treated like a legitimate threat.

  Sean pressed his shoulder against the wall near the entrance. The door swung open toward the sink, which meant Sean would be concealed for an extra second as the guy came through. A pro would sweep to the right first, making certain any immediate danger wasn’t present in his direct line of sight. Then he’d come back around behind the door to make sure no one was there before clearing the stalls.

  More than likely, that’s not what this guy would do.

  The door burst open with a heavy thud, a result of the thief barging into it with his shoulder and left palm. He charged forward, immediately thinking that anyone in the bathroom would be hiding in one of the stalls. The stumpy guy was the one that had been sent in. He was four inches shorter than Sean, at minimum, and might have been the same weight, if not a few pounds lighter. Sean instantly sized him up, knowing exactly what to do with him. The rest of the plan came into view within seconds.

  The guy had made a fatal error in skipping the sink area to go straight to the toilets. It wasn’t an illogical conclusion for someone to make that had never been in an urban tactical situation, or any sort of combat situation for that matter. Sean, however, was more than glad to see his assessment had been correct.

  Sean moved quickly, padding silently across the floor.

  He saw the gun dangling in the guy’s hand. He was probably the type to twist the weapon sideways and fire it like so many gangster movies he’d surely seen. Sean never understood that. Holding a gun that way made accuracy much more difficult, but hey, it made them look cool—he supposed.

  He swept in like a bird of prey; silent and lethal. The thief never heard a sound until Sean’s arms were wrapped around his neck. The victim gurgled a feeble noise that was meant to be a scream, but only came out as a gasp. His arms flailed around like fish flopping on the deck of a boat. Sean knew what was coming next. The guy would try to fire his weapon. To mitigate that, Sean used his right hand to grab the robber’s wrist. In a quick, sudden jerk, he twisted the man’s arm back around behind his lower back, straining the wrist bone to the point of breaking it. He tried to scream, but again the strong forearm across his Adam’s apple squeezed his windpipe shut. The gun fell to the floor with a clack.

  Sean kept squeezing the man’s throat, knowing that it wouldn’t be much longer now. The guy’s eyes bulged from their sockets, face reddening, then turning white, then blue. The flailing dissipated, and Sean felt the guy getting heavier. Within thirty seconds, he was out.

  After lowering the body to the floor, Sean picked up the gun—a Smith & Wesson 9mm, and stuffed it in his belt. He hated doing that, and knowing that his holster was out in the car made it worse, but he didn’t have a choice.

  He pulled his shirt down over the grip of the gun and took a deep breath. Then he kicked the thief in the ribs just to make sure he wasn’t waking up anytime soon, but not hard enough to do any lasting damage. The man didn’t move.

  Sean stepped to the door, put his hand on it, and pushed it open.

  18

  North Dakota

  Up until the moment he walked out of the bathroom and back into the diner, Sean Wyatt had kept a low profile. Since leaving Atlanta, he’d stayed out of public view and blended in with all the normal people in the world.

  Now, as he strode past the three rows of booths on his way back to his seat, he knew he was drawing the stares of every person in the restaurant.

  He didn’t look over at them, instead keeping his eyes locked on the booth straight ahead and the plate of food on the table.

  Sean eased into his seat, picked up his sandwich, and took a bite. His nerves were steel, and he kept his heart rate at a calm, steady pace. He chewed the bite in his mouth, shoved a couple of fries in, and continued eating while the rest of the people in the diner stared with wide-eyed disbelief.

  Red Hoodie was holding a gun toward the trucker, but he quickly turned it toward Sean, which was exactly what he wanted, unbeknownst to the gunman.

  “Hey!” Red Hoodie said, brandishing the weapon in Sean’s direction.

  Sean took a sip of his drink to wash down the food. His ruse was playing two roles. One, he was still hungry and needed to eat something. Sean had no intention of letting a good meal go to waste, especially since he hadn’t eaten for most of the day. Second, he knew that simply strolling out of the bathroom as if nothing was wrong would throw off the remaining two gunmen.

  Sean took two more big bites of the sandwich to finish it off. His cheeks swelled like a chipmunk’s, full of nuts for the winter. Red Hoodie’s bewilderment was only tamed by his irritation.

  “Hey, I’m talking to you!” he shouted. “Where’s Dan?”

  Sean’s eyebrows climbed up his forehead, and he swallowed hard. Then he put another cluster of fries in his mouth and drew a sip through the plastic straw. He watched as Red Hoodie turned to his lone remaining accomplice and ordered him to watch the trucker and Mary.

  He stalked toward Sean, still aiming the gun at him. The guy was reckless, a total amateur. He could see it from the way Red Hoodie was holding the weapon, the way he walked, the way he sounded brave but was clearly trying to cover up deep, underlying cowardice. This punk didn’t know what he was doing
. Maybe he needed the money for drugs. That was usually the case. They’d knock off somewhere easy, passing over bigger scores for a less risky location that could provide the small amount of cash they needed for their next fix. Other places would have much more money in the till, but they’d also be armed or have cameras and alarms rigged.

  Despite their smart selection for a robbery, these guys were still idiots. Sean knew that the second he realized the situation.

  Now their leader—if he could be given that title—had his sights on Sean. In a weird sort of way, Sean almost felt sorry for the kid. He had no idea who he was messing with. Still, Sean didn’t take anything for granted. He knew better. Caution, even against pathetic people like this, had to always be taken.

  “Are you deaf or just stupid?” Red Hoodie asked as he stopped short of the booth and extended the gun toward Sean.

  Sean didn’t react, instead staring up at the guy as he picked up another couple of fries and shoved them into his mouth. Then he lifted the cup, took another sip from the straw, and swallowed.

  “These fries are pretty good,” he said. “You tried them before?”

  “Are you dim? Where is Dan?”

  Sean thought for a second, letting his eyes drift to the window as if trying to recall a long-forgotten friend’s name. “Dan?” He shook his head. “I don’t think I know him. I mean, I know some Dans from college, but I doubt they’re the guy you’re looking for.”

  “The other guy that came in here!” Red Hoodie shouted. The gun barrel wavered as he spoke, his mannerisms becoming more and more exaggerated. “What did you do to him?”