The Omega Command

by Jon Land

  McCracken felt a chill at Sahhan’s fateful metaphor. How many in this auditorium suspected the truth? What thought was the PVR leader trying to plant in their heads?

  Sahhan moved slowly to the front of the stage and then moved around it as he continued.

  “Brothers and sisters, there is a conspiracy in this nation, a conspiracy so large in scope that it threatens to choke off the life blood of an entire people. I am speaking of us, brothers and sisters, the blacks of America. Those in the audience whose flesh is not black, search your hearts for pain and injustice. You are here because you, too, have been hurt and cheated, unrighteously stripped of something precious that belongs to you. You may stand against my words and my cause, but beware someday that you are not a victim of the same offenses I have come here to speak of today. For these offenses and cruelties and injustices are not limited to race or culture. They are spreading and soon, very soon, color will no longer divide us.”

  Sahhan raised his free hand, as if to God. “Yes, there is a conspiracy and my people have fallen victim to it. Those who have walked these roads before me, men like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, were all struck down for their words and deeds, for speaking the truth. They were men of peace and they offered a hand of friendship to the society that scorned them only to be destroyed.” He pulled his hand from the air and balled it into a fist. “I will make no such offer. The time for extending unilateral friendship is past. We must make a stand and refuse to accept the awful conditions under which we have been forced to live.”

  Sahhan moved back toward the podium and slammed his fist down upon it. The room shook from the pressure of the echo coming through the speakers.

  “Do not listen to their lies!” he screamed into the microphone. “Do not think for one moment that urban renewal or affirmative action have made a difference. They are merely screens put in place by the conspirators to distract your attention from the truth. And the truth is that there never was any such plan as the Great Society. I was there those many years ago when all the papers were signed and promises made. But the promises wilted and the papers gathered dust and the Great Society became just another screen.” He lowered his voice and seemed to relax a little. “So where does that leave us, brothers and sisters?” Sahhan asked from behind his dark glasses, hesitating, as if he expected someone to answer. “It leaves us living on the outskirts of society with no hope of ever being allowed in. The roadblocks will be in place permanently, always impeding our way, denying our hope. The roadblocks will remain forever … unless we take steps to move them ourselves.”

  Applause splintered the end of Sahhan’s words. Blaine heard a few screams and whistles of support, but also noticed more than a few members of the audience rising to leave. He realized for the first time that Sahhan was speaking without benefit of notes or prepared text, which added all the more fire to his presentation.

  “And so who do we count among the guilty, brothers and sisters? Who do we take as the enemies we must strike down? Look at the Shylocks who own the heatless buildings we share with rats. We pay them rents we can’t afford and they return the favor by selling their roach-infested buildings and sending us out into the street when it serves them better financially. They own the banks, and the newspapers, and the television stations. They carry politicians in their back pockets and those politicians insure that the roadblocks remain in place. They …”

  Blaine was beginning to understand how truly dangerous Sahhan was. For the audience he was a mirror of their deepest frustrations. For most the feeling would not linger. For others these radical preachings would be hard to shrug off. For a few, by far the smallest segment of all, action would be demanded.

  These were the ones Sahhan had come here to reach.

  “So, my brothers and sisters,” he went on, “we remain a people without a home of our own. In this world of the few over the many, we must draw our line and stand firm. It is not just the landlords and bankers who stand on the other side, of course, but countless others who think and act against us. All of them, too, are our enemies. All of them, too, must be shown that we will take no more pain and injustice. …”

  Sahhan continued to spout off his rapid-fire teachings at a machine-gun pace. To Blaine he seemed to be repeating himself now, rehashing old ideas. McCracken let his eyes wander along with his mind. He wasn’t expecting to find anything in particular and was thus quite surprised when he caught a glimpse of a fat black man standing just in front of the backstage area Sahhan had first emerged from.

  The man’s name was Luther Krell.

  And he was an arms broker.

  Chapter 13

  BLAINE HAD KNOWN Luther Krell during his tenure in Africa in his last days of good standing with the Company. Krell had brokered deals for various revolutionary groups, arranging shipments, transfers, and all the rest for an exorbitant fee. Krell played no favorites, and politics mattered to him only so far as it could fill his pockets. Liberal or conservative, reactionary or radical, it mattered not at all.

  A growing reputation as a double-crosser had forced Krell to flee Africa for South America. Then he dropped out of sight. But rumor had it he had always remained available to the right party at the right price to broker arms deals. Mohammed Sahhan was certainly the right party, and the random violence promised by the PVR was right up Krell’s alley. If he was in with Sahhan, he should know where the guns and armaments were. Seize them and Christmas Eve would stay peaceful.

  The problem was how to confront Krell while he was alone and vulnerable. Blaine was considering the best way to make his move when Sahhan’s speech abruptly ended after forty-five minutes. In the course of it, Blaine estimated, a good third of the audience had lost interest. The remaining 400 or so applauded Sahhan as he exited slowly, some with levels of enthusiasm so high that their hands threatened to snap from the effort.

  Sahhan’s bodyguards immediately fronted the stage to keep everyone back. That ruled out this moment for approaching Krell and left Blaine with only the reception as an option.

  George Washington University was located in the heart of the capital, bordered by Pennsylvania Avenue on one side and Virginia Avenue on another. The entrance to Alumni House was just down from the Lisner Auditorium on Twenty-first Street. Blaine waited outside, watching people enter, before being satisfied there was a sufficient number to hide himself among. He climbed the steps and displayed his invitation to the uniformed guard, who eyed him warily.

  The reception was being held in a suite of rooms usually reserved for the most exclusive alumni functions. The furniture and decor were surprisingly extravagant. For the moment Blaine could spot neither Sahhan nor the fat arms broker. Women in black and white outfits walked around balancing trays bearing champagne glasses and various hors d’oeuvres. For those guests who preferred something other than champagne, a pair of bars had been set up at the end of the spacious room.

  There was a stirring in the rear and McCracken didn’t have to see him to know that Sahhan had arrived. The white guests, campus and local officials probably, lingered noticeably back while others flocked to congratulate Sahhan on the success of his speech and catch any further words he might utter.

  Still no Krell. This kind of gathering had never been the fat man’s cup of tea. Blaine would have to draw him out, and that meant taking the offensive. Ordinarily such a move in such an atmosphere would have been out of the question, the risk of exposure to the enemy hardly worth the bother. But Christmas Eve was too fast approaching to save anything for tomorrow, so Blaine started across the room toward Sahhan with no real idea yet of what he was going to do when he got there.

  He managed to down a pair of champagnes on the way to the group surrounding the PRV leader as he politely answered questions. A pair of monstrous bodyguards flanked him. The sunglasses, of course, were still on, and he was holding a glass of what looked like soda water in his hand. Sahhan made a weak joke and the group laughed almost on cue. Blaine was the only white among them, and when
the black leader rotated his concealed eyes around, they locked on him long enough to provide the opening Blaine needed.

  He stepped forward. “I enjoyed your speech very much, Mr. Sahhan, but I do have one question.”

  Sahhan looked surprised. His head tilted a bit to the side. “Please.”

  Blaine didn’t hesitate. “Do you honestly believe that crap about a conspiracy of landlords and bankers, or do you just use it as propaganda to give your followers a concrete enemy?”

  With that there was dead silence broken only by a single champagne glass sliding to the carpet. The huge bodyguards looked first at each other and then at Sahhan uncertainly. Other guards, sensing trouble, approached from the doorways.

  Sahhan held them off with a wave of his hand and cracked a slight smile which broke the tension. “An insolent question, sir, but one I suppose I am obliged to answer. Who asks it, though?”

  Blaine edged a bit more forward. “Sam Goldstein of the Associated Press.”

  Sahhan’s smile vanished at that. He eyed Blaine like a boxer sizing up his opponent before the opening bell.

  “Yes, Mr. Goldstein,” he said smoothly, “I believe everything I said to be based in truth.”

  “ ‘Based in truth’ or true? There’s a difference, Mr. Sahhan.”

  “None that I can see.”

  “Then you must not be looking too hard.”

  Silence spread through the rest of the room. Other guests approached slowly, forming a circle around the two verbal combatants the way kids do for a schoolyard fight. Blaine knew the crowd was against him and didn’t care. He needed to keep the conversation going until Krell made his appearance among the rest.

  Sahhan closed the gap between them to barely a yard, with his two bodyguards riding every step. “Let me tell you what I see, Mr. Goldstein. I see black unemployment standing at nearly twenty percent, more than three times that of whites. I see continually successful attempts by Congress and the judicial branch to take back what little we gained in the sixties. I see civil rights cases now decided before a trial ever takes place. Tax exemptions are granted to schools that discriminate and we have lost ground with the Voting Rights Act instead of gaining it.”

  “All true and all unjust,” Blaine agreed, “but hardly conspiratorial.”

  “But I’m not finished, Mr. Goldstein.” Sahhan knew he had the crowd now and worked it. “Look out the window and I’ll tell you what you’ll see. The proportion of black families headed by women has increased to almost fifty percent. One out of four black babies today is born to a woman nineteen or younger and nearly ninety percent of these mothers are unmarried. Hundreds of thousands of blacks every year are cut off from food stamps, and the school lunch program is dwindling to nothing. People like you are filled with questions and challenges, but would you pose them after witnessing a baby die from rat bites? Or a family of eight bundled up in motheaten blankets in front of a kitchen stove in the middle of winter? I could list more examples, hundreds more, but I know you wouldn’t hear them because you’re still not listening. No one ever listens … until they are made to.” Then, to his bodyguards, “Remove him from here. He reeks of everything we despise, everything that has caused our desperation.” Sahhan thrust a skeletal finger in McCracken’s direction and returned his attention to the crowd. “It is his kind who will soon know a day when we will fight them on their own terms. Their chances have been exhausted. Their fate is sealed. Remove him!”

  Blaine felt the powerful hands of the two giant bodyguards grasp him at the shoulders and begin shoving backward. He was able to hold his ground against them long enough to utter one last sentence.

  “Merry Christmas, Sahhan.”

  Their eyes met through the dark sunglasses, and Blaine could feel Sahhan’s panic. The fanatic had grasped his meaning. His mouth dropped, but before he could respond, if he had meant to, the huge bodyguards had yanked Blaine toward the rear exit. McCracken guessed there would be a beating in store for him outside and had to decide how much of it to take before putting the two men down.

  Not much, he decided after they had tossed him down a set of steps in the back of Alumni House. He was rising slowly from the cement, when a familiar voice froze him.

  “I got orders to take over from here.”

  The bodyguards held their ground. A fat man passed down the steps between them, followed by a pair of men who seemed smaller but just as deadly. He stopped on the second step, so as McCracken stood up their heights were equal, and Blaine found himself staring into the yellow eyes of Luther Krell.

  “Hello, Krell. Long time no see.”

  Krell motioned Sahhan’s bodyguards back inside. They retreated subserviently. “I knew I’d get my shot at you if I was patient, McCracken.”

  “You’re still waiting, Krell. Today’s not your day.”

  The fat man smiled. The men behind him on the steps showed their guns. The area was surrounded by large buildings deserted for the Christmas break, so passersby were not a concern.

  “Today is my day, McCracken.”

  As if on cue, a black Cadillac sedan pulled around the corner of Alumni House and stopped just before them.

  “We’re going for a ride,” Krell said. “You’re on your way to hell.”

  “What are they wearing there this time of year?”

  “Try something tropical.”

  Then Krell’s men were upon him, shoving him against the car and searching him thoroughly. When they found nothing, the fat man seemed disappointed.

  “Not carrying today?” he teased.

  “I was expecting metal detectors at every door. Didn’t want to go and cause a scene. …”

  Blaine had barely finished the sentence, when he was pushed into the backseat between Krell’s two men. The fat man climbed into the front along with the driver, who started the big car around the other side of Alumni House and then swung right onto Twenty-first Street.

  “I hear you’ve fallen on bad times, McCracken,” Krell said. “You’ve become a joke in the field. I’m surprised they let you back in the States.”

  Blaine fixed his eyes on Krell’s. “I’ve got friends in low places.”

  “Someone sent you to assassinate Sahhan, didn’t they?”

  “Not at all. It’s you I was after, and I’m going to do you a favor. Have these clowns pocket their pistols right now and talk to me and I’ll let you live. Otherwise, you’ll be leaving me no choice.”

  Krell swung enough of his hefty frame over the seat to lash a backhand across McCracken’s face.

  “Why, you cocky son of a bitch!” he snarled, eyes glowing.

  Blaine felt the blood dribbling from his mouth. The Cadillac turned right onto G Street. “Using big words and everything, fat man. Wouldn’t be going respectable now, would you?”

  “You’re in no position to ask questions, McCracken. I’ve been waiting for this day for a long time.”

  “Last chance, fat man …”

  “It’s going to hurt, McCracken. I’m going to make it hurt.”

  Blaine swept his tongue over his back teeth and freed a crown-size capsule that had been lodged in a molar.

  “Just promise you won’t sit on me, all right?”

  Krell had leaned forward to strike him again, when Blaine bit down on the capsule and fired its contents forward. To the two guards it looked as if he were simply spitting at the fat man and, in fact, the capsule’s contents were projected in saliva. Once they reached air, though, the contents turned into a gas similar in effect to the mustard variety outlawed in World War I. The gas struck the fat man’s face and he howled in pain, clawing for his eyes and mouth. The agony forced his head to slam back, and he smacked solidly into the driver.

  The Cadillac careened out of control down G Street. Other cars spun to avoid it as it skidded sideways, tires screeching.

  The guard on Blaine’s left was struggling to steady his pistol, when McCracken grabbed his wrist and slammed the steel barrel into his face. He felt the cartil
age and bone give at the same moment his other hand shot out and forced the second guard’s gun up as it fired. The bullet cut through the heavy steel roof, filling the small compartment with the sharp smell of sulphur.

  The second guard was going for another shot when the Caddy crashed into a row of parked cars on G Street, pitching all of its occupants forward. The driver struggled to regain control, but it was much too late. The Caddy shoved a whole line of cars up onto the sidewalk and then came to a rubber-ripping halt against them.

  Blaine saw the first guard’s gun on the floor and grabbed it just as the second guard was recovering his bearings. Blaine pumped two bullets into his head. Blood splattered against the windows. Krell was still screaming. The driver started to reach into his jacket for something, and McCracken didn’t wait to find out what. One bullet tore out the back of his skull and slammed him up against the windshield.

  Then Blaine lunged through what remained of the rear door of the passenger side and yanked Krell out after him through the front. He dragged him down the G Street sidewalk until they reached a collection of dormitories off to the right. He pulled Krell onto a narrow cement walk running between two dorms and thrust him to the ground. The fat man was writhing, puking, still clawing for his face. Blaine made sure he saw the gun in his hand.

  “Anything,” Krell begged between rasping breaths. “I’ll tell you anything.” Spittle and drying vomit caked the corners of his mouth.

  Blaine pressed the pistol against his temple. “What do you know about Sahhan’s army?”