A man was sitting there in one of the burgundy leather chairs, a cigar stub smoldering in his mouth.
“There were three of them,” he said. “There aren’t anymore.”
Patty stood rigid, sword still held high. The man was wearing a black suit and his nose looked mashed.
“Name’s Sal Belamo,” the man said. “Blaine McCracken sent me.”
“You can put the sword down now,” Sal said.
“I think I’ll just keep it like this for a while.”
“You’ll end up with a pair of sore shoulders, lady.” The ashes from Belamo’s cigar stub fluttered to the hardwood floor. “Say, you wouldn’t happen to have an ashtray anywhere around? Not much holdin’ these damn Parodies together.”
“How do I know you’re not one of them?”
“I told you, lady. They’re gone, finito. I tried not to make a mess. McCracken wouldn’t’ve had to kill the fucks, but that’s why he’s McCracken.”
The sword came down a little. “What’d you say your name was?”
“Sal Belamo.”
“How’d you get in?”
“I’m good with locks.”
“And he sent you? Blaine sent you?”
“Well, not exactly. See, lady, one of your messages reached my desk, and when I couldn’t reach McCracken, I figured I’d better come out here and check up on ya. Been outside since sunset.”
Patty remembered the car parked precariously on the canyon road. At last the sword came down all the way.
“Saw the fucks lurking about just before your lights went bye-bye. Sorry ’bout your upstairs windows. Guess I don’t move as fast as I used to. I was a boxer, you know. Fought Carlos Monzon twice, and he busted my nose both times. Can’t tell shit from lilacs out of the right nostril, and the left’s not much better.”
“You came here just to guard me?”
“Your message sounded like you were pretty spooked.”
“But I was only trying to reach McCracken.”
“Yeah, well, his friends are my friends, and he doesn’t like to see his friends in trouble.”
“Which makes you his friend.”
“You ask me, everything’s relative. You get offed when I coulda done something about it and I got McCrackenballs to answer to.”
“Not a warm prospect.”
“Let me put it this way, lady: Given the choice of facing a pissed-off McCracken or climbing into a meat oven, I’d get the tenderizer ready every time.”
Chapter 11
The Blackhawk helicopter sped McCracken and Wareagle north out of the jungle and Brazil. They crossed the border into Venezuela and landed at a small airfield, where a twin-engine plane was waiting. This brought them to a larger military airport just south of Caracas, where they were locked in a steaming, windowless room for nearly eight hours before being escorted back to the tarmac. Resting there was an unmarked 707, which had obviously been dispatched to pick them up.
“Where we headed, soldier?” Blaine asked a lieutenant who seemed to be in charge.
“I’m not at liberty to say, sir.”
“Classified info, is it?”
The lieutenant shrugged. He had been supervising the eight-man team that had attached themselves to Blaine and Johnny from the time they’d been lifted out of the jungle. On the plane the soldiers kept their guns at the ready. The men were keeping their distance, too, which told Blaine they had been briefed on exactly whom they were dealing with.
He didn’t bother contemplating the details of what had brought the Blackhawks into the jungle. There could have been any number of causes, including the ravaging of the complex and the loss of contact with Ben Norseman’s team.
Blaine asked the lieutenant no further questions, and the flight passed in silence, which gave him the chance to get much-needed rest. When the beginning of the jet’s descent jolted him awake, he could see the Washington skyline ahead in the early morning light. It was Friday, according to Blaine’s watch, 6:30 A.M. It wasn’t much of a surprise that they were going to Washington. Word had obviously reached the capital that McCracken had interfered in the operations of a foreign government. A diplomatic nightmare, reparations certain to be demanded. The Brazilian authorities needed to be somehow appeased.
Through it all, when Blaine and Johnny’s eyes met the message was clear: The Wakinyan had fled the jungle ahead of them. They had somehow survived the fuel air explosive that had torn away a patch of the Amazon Basin. They had stolen Luis’s boat and escaped. Above everything else, whoever was waiting for Blaine in Washington had to be made to understand the ramifications of that. The Omicron Project had to be fully investigated. Somebody’s problem was running free now, and, if what Blaine had seen was any indication at all, the mayhem was just beginning.
The 707 came in for a landing at Dulles Airport and pulled up to the diplomatic terminal situated off by itself to the south of the main complex. Again Blaine and Johnny glanced at each other and nodded.
Blaine looked out his window and saw a black stretch limousine parked just off the tarmac. He could see nothing through its blacked-out windows. The lieutenant came down the aisle and beckoned him to rise.
“Let’s go, Mr. McCracken.”
“I still hold my rank, soldier. It’s captain to you.”
“Yes, sir.”
Blaine realized a congestion of soldiers had taken up positions enclosing Wareagle.
“He goes or neither of us does, soldier.”
“I have my orders, sir.”
“They come from that limo out there?”
“I wouldn’t know, sir.”
“Wanna go out and check?”
“Negative, sir.”
“Look, son. The Indian and I have been nice to you fellas. Didn’t embarrass you all by escaping, and didn’t give you any trouble at all. Now there’s eight of you and two of us, and you got guns, sure. But either you let the Indian walk off with us, or he and I will end up walking out of here together and alone. Capisce, Lieutenant?”
The soldiers stood there like mirror images of each other, thoughts straying to the guns they would still have to raise or draw to make use of. McCracken looked at Wareagle and watched him tighten just a little.
The lieutenant relented with the slightest of smiles, his own way of saving face. “I can take the two of you as far as the limousine, Captain. From there on, you’ll have to deal with whoever’s inside.”
“For sure.”
One of the limo’s rear windows slid down as they approached.
“I should have known better than to expect a private conference,” came a woman’s voice from within.
“Maxie,” said Blaine, “what a pleasant surprise.”
“Save it, Blaine, dear, and just get in here with your Indian friend.” And then, to the soldiers, “They’re in my charge now. You’ve done well to all still be in one piece.”
Virginia Maxwell opened the door herself so Blaine and Johnny could step inside the limo. Maxwell was an elegantly dressed and coifed woman in her mid-forties, her glamour evidently better suited for a different post. Barely six years before she had taken over the directorship of the most secret of the country’s secret organizations. Several years prior to that, when the CIA had come under increasing scrutiny and the methods of the NSA under fire, a gap resulted in what the intelligence community needed to accomplish and what it could effectively get away with. The new organization created to handle the stickiest matters worked between traditional three-letter organizations in order to fill the gap. Hence its name: the Gap.
Virginia Maxwell was only its second director, and she had proved to be an effective one. Her most important contribution had been to pull the Gap even further out of the mainstream, away from jurisdictional squabbles and congressional scrutiny. She held no meetings with presidents or their advisors unless she was the only person in attendance. If the Gap was to deal with what slipped into the crevices, then it had to be treated as a crevice itself.