The Omicron Legion Read online

  The Omicron Legion

  Jon Land

  FOR THE GANG AT

  NEW ENGLAND HEALTH & RACQUET

  Contents

  Prologue

  Part One: The Heart of Darkness

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Part Two: Omicron

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Part Three: The Legion

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Part Four: Children of the Black Rain

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Part Five: Vision Quest

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Epilogue

  A Biography of Jon Land

  Acknowledgments

  A Sneak Peek at Strong at the Break

  Prologue

  “DO YOU ACCEPT death?”

  Escerbio gazed at the cup of liquid steaming beneath his nose and nodded.

  “For those not worthy of manhood, this cup brings the bitterness of death,” continued the tribal Gift Giver. “Do you still wish to taste?”

  Escerbio nodded. Across from him, on the other side of the fire, another boy also nodded.

  “Then let us hope the gods are with you,” said the Gift Giver. He handed the wooden mug to Escerbio’s friend first.

  Escerbio watched Javerrera raise the mug to his lips and gulp down some of the liquid. The boy’s face wrinkled and grew pale. Now the Gift Giver offered the cup to Escerbio. He was an ancient man who had somehow tricked the spirits into letting him see a third century of life. His face was creased and worn, like a battered hide barren of oil. The smell of his breath was rancid and bitter, not unlike the noxious liquid Escerbio now accepted from his hand.

  Across the fire, Javerrera’s head was rolling from side to side. His eye sockets had emptied. Escerbio drained the rest of the liquid, and the cup dropped from his hand. He gagged, and it was all he could do to force down the bile that rushed up into his throat. A fire blazed in his stomach. He seemed to have forgotten how to breathe.

  Escerbio had always feared the darkness. As a younger boy, he had trembled through many sleepless nights in his hut. But he did not fear this night. He welcomed it because tonight he would become a man. In the Tupi tribe, the fourteenth birthday marked the beginning of manhood, and midnight would bring that blessed time upon him. That moment would see all his boyish fears and uncertainties vanish in the haze of the mysterious ceremony conducted by the tribal Gift Giver.

  Escerbio tried to open his eyes, then realized they were already open. The Gift Giver had tossed the wooden mug in the fire, where the flames accepted it with a burst of white that cast a youthful glow upon his ancient face. It looked to Escerbio as if the old man had received the fire into his being. The warmth had spread through Escerbio’s body, and he realized he was trembling, though not from fear. He felt extraordinarily relaxed and full. Deep within him the strange liquid was burning away the last of his boyhood.

  The Gift Giver was announcing that the time had come for the spirits to be summoned. They would decide if the boys were worthy. If not, the boys would die.

  The Gift Giver was moving in a circle around the boys, his pace becoming more and more frantic. Escerbio grew dizzy trying to watch him. The old man was chanting in the language of the Forgotten Times, calling upon the spirits to rise and make their choice.

  Across the fire, Javerrera’s frame had gone totally limp. If not for the darting of his friend’s eyes, Escerbio would have been sure he had failed the test and was dead.

  “Assah matay toato,” the Gift Giver chanted. “Assah sem-blah oh santaytah. Oh santaytah tas!”

  The breeze shifted suddenly, blowing Escerbio’s long hair wildly about his head. The fire surged toward him and he closed his eyes against the certainty that its fierce tongues would singe his flesh. He could smell his own fear and he willed it gone, along with the last of his boyhood.

  Be gone…Be gone…

  Escerbio opened his eyes.

  The Gift Giver was standing behind Javerrera now and chanting. His age-ravaged hands circled about the boy’s head.

  “Assah matay toato. Assah semblah oh santaytah. Oh santaytah tas!”

  Behind the Gift Giver and Javerrera, a figure rose from the shadows of the night. Escerbio could distinguish only its huge outline against the blackness of the trees, but that was enough.

  The spirits have heard the Gift Giver and have come! he thought excitedly. They have truly come!

  The spirit descended on the Gift Giver. Escerbio fought through the blurriness of his vision to watch.

  He saw the Gift Giver’s head swallowed by what looked like spade-claw hands.

  He saw the old man’s legs dangling in midair as he was hoisted upward.

  He heard something rip.

  Embers danced from the fire as something dropped into it. Escerbio gazed into the flames.

  The Gift Giver’s head gazed back.

  Escerbio could see that Javerrera was now in the grip of the spirit. Stop! he wanted to scream out. Stop! But his breath caught in his throat. He could form no words. He realized Javerrera was screaming. There was a squishing sound and Escerbio was showered by his best friend’s blood. It streamed over him, and in the next instant he was running.

  He understood that he had failed both himself and his tribe. He was unworthy because of his fear, and this was his punishment.

  Escerbio ran faster. The jungle was a single dark splotch before him. He did not look back. He simply charged through the night, vaguely aware of his flesh being scraped and torn by the tree branches. Whimpering, he stumbled and fell, then dragged himself over the underbrush until he came to a tree. Leaning on it, he regained his feet. Escerbio was sobbing now. The night owned him.

  “Help me! Somebody help me!” he screamed as he rushed forward again. He ventured a glance over his shoulder to see if the vengeful spirit was chasing him, but there were only the tangled branches of the thick undergrowth and the blackness of the night. Escerbio hurtled forward.

  He saw the spirit too late to turn. He started to scream when the spirit drove its spade-claw into him, shredding his abdomen. Strangely he felt no pain, even when the spirit lifted him upward. Escerbio knew his body was now far off the ground. He could feel his legs twitching in the air. His bowels and bladder drained. He looked into the eyes of the spirit and the darkness that had betrayed him for the last time looked back.

  Then there was nothing.

  Part One

  The Heart of Darkness

  Fairfax, Virginia:

  Monday, November 18, 1991; 10:00 P.M.

  Chapter 1

  BAILEY WAS WAITING when the limousine slid around the circular drive in front of the large house in Fairfax, Virginia.

  “Good evening, ma’am,” he said as he opened its right rear door,

  The woman slid out, high heels first, her long legs and hips clad in tight-fitting black pants. “My, you’re a polite one now, aren’t you?”

  Bailey squinted at her. “I don’t believe I’ve seen yo
u here before.”

  “Special order, lover. What the general wants, the general gets.”

  Bailey stiffened. “You’ve been briefed, I assume.”

  “This one’ll go in the Guinness Book.”

  “Come this way,” Bailey said, not bothering to hide the reluctance in his voice. He hated these nocturnal binges the general insisted he needed to maintain his sanity. He hated them, but never breathed a word of his contempt to the general. God, he revered the man, loved him. After all the general had been through in Nam, and with the tremendous responsibility he bore today, he deserved to indulge whatever idiosyncrasies he might have, no matter what anyone else thought.

  Bailey had been there when the general had walked out of the jungle after escaping from a Charlie POW camp. He had served the general as he became one of the most powerful men in the Pentagon. Bailey held the rank of major, but he wore his uniform very infrequently these days, as did the general.

  Bailey led the woman through the foyer and up the staircase that circled toward the second floor. She walked behind him, but Bailey was careful to keep her in his peripheral vision. He’d been a Green Beret long before shedding his uniform, and some things stuck.

  On the second floor he stopped at the third closed door they came to. “This room leads directly into the study. The door is on the left side.”

  The woman winked at him. “Like I told you, I’ve been briefed, lover.”

  “I’ll be outside the whole time.”

  “That’s up to you.”

  “When he’s finished with you, you will leave straightaway.”

  “Just the way I like it,” the woman said, and disappeared into the room adjoining the study.

  Bailey assumed the stance of his silent vigil, regretting he could not move far enough from the study to obliterate the sounds that would soon be emanating from within.

  Inside, General Berlin Hardesty sat eagerly in his leather chair, two yards away from a thirty-five-inch television. He heard the woman in the adjoining room and raised the remote control device that lay upon the chair’s arm. He knew the placement of buttons by heart, and went through the proper sequence without even glancing down. The first button turned the room to black, the second lit it a dull gray from the blank picture on the television. A third sent an unseen VCR whirling and brought the screen to life.

  For all the technical wizardry, the quality of the television picture was notably poor. Grainy and hollow, too much contrast. The picture focused on a young woman lying naked on a bed of crimson sheets masturbating feverishly. The camera drew shakily closer to her, locked on her face.

  The woman was Vietnamese.

  General Berlin Hardesty’s fists clenched briefly, then he groped for the pair of small headphones perched upon the other chair arm and fitted them over his ears. The sounds of her moaning filled his ears. Hardesty smiled in anticipation of what was to come.

  Seconds later a pair of masked figures strode into the shot. Surprise filled the woman’s face. They dragged her from the bed, where the camera followed them to a chair. The men thrust her naked form into the chair and strapped her arms and legs to it. The woman was still struggling. Her protests filled the general’s ears through his headphones. The camera zoomed in on one of the masked figures whipping forth a knife, then panned to the bulging eyes of the woman who suddenly froze. Her screams must have been too much for the microphone because they dissolved into static at their crescendo.

  The general’s thoughts burned with visions of the past, of being tortured by the Vietcong during his six months as a POW. When he had at last escaped and emerged from the jungle, the memories of the pain had proven to be as real as the pain itself. Psychiatrists said he had to put it out of his head, to displace it on to something else. How right they were. The pain of others proved the only way to vanquish his own. And the pain of a Vietnamese—well, that transformed relief into ecstasy.

  On the screen, the masked man sliced off the woman’s right nipple. The sounds of her agony drove Hardesty to moan with pleasure. As if on cue, the door from the room adjoining the study opened, and the nude form of the woman emerged. She glided toward him, her path illuminated by the dull haze of the television. She took her position in front of the general and crouched down. The picture’s dull light splotched over her as she slid her fingers over Hardesty’s crotch and found his zipper. His hands were working through her dark hair now. He could not say whether she was Vietnamese or not. Close enough, though.

  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 numbe
r.

  “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.