The Omega Command (13 page)

“Doesn’t sound very nonviolent to me,” Blaine noted. “The connection’s there, Andy. The PVR got what they needed from Sebastian and then paid a visit to Madame Rosa’s at the right time to ice Easton because he was on to their true nature. Everything fits. All we need now is for that microfiche to confirm it.”

Stimson sighed. “For the time being, the confirmation will have to come from somewhere else. We’ve pulled everything we can off the fiche, and besides lots of blank spaces, this is what we’ve got.” Stimson groped in his jacket pocket and came out with a piece of paper. “See what you make of it.”

He handed it over to Blaine, who inspected it eagerly:

CHRISTMAS EVE DINNER FOR 15,000

Listed below that heading was a dozen or so foods-tomatoes, turkeys, bread loaves—all with numbers preceding them.

“It looks like a shopping list,” McCracken offered. “Maybe Sahhan’s planning a big bash on Christmas Eve.”

Stimson was not amused. “Our top cryptographers are running it through the computers over and over again. We figure it’s got to be a number/letter sequence combination, but we may have lost too much of the fiche to find the proper keys. There’s a message in here somewhere, but we don’t know how to put it together.”

“Easton use anything like it before?”

“Not that we’ve been able to find.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have killed that Santa Claus,” McCracken muttered. “After all, he’s the expert on Christmas Eve. Maybe the PVR’s got a plot afoot to murder elves or kidnap Rudolph.”

“If they do, only one man can tell us why,” said Stimson.

“Mohammed Sahhan,” said Blaine, while outside on the street below, a PA mounted atop an ancient Chevy repeated its taped message over and over: “
Get your shopping done! Only seven days left until Christmas!
”

Chapter 10

“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN
, in preparation for our landing in Billings, the captain has turned on the no-smoking sign. …

For Sandy Lister, following the trail of the elusive Randall Krayman began late Friday morning with a journey to Billings, Montana, to interview Alex “Spud” Hollins. Hollins had lived on top of the business world for a brief period after his company developed a new ultra-density microchip that effectively antiquated all similar products of the competition. The chip made life far easier in electronic switching stations used in telecommunications. Sandy did not pretend to understand the specifics of what she was dealing with here. What interested her more was the fact that it was Hollins’s company that Krayman had first bankrupted and then bought out when the invention of the famed Krayman Chip by COM-U-TECH rendered the Hollins version obsolete. Hollins hadn’t gone down without a fight, though. His battles with Randall Krayman made front-page news in
The Wall Street Journal
for weeks on end, battles he was destined to lose since the Krayman Chip would be manufactured at a cost one-third that of his own.

Still, there was no reason to shed tears over the fate of Spud Hollins. Already a rich man, Krayman’s buy-out of his company had made him a multimillionaire and allowed him to pursue his true dream of raising horses on a vast Montana ranch. He had achieved that dream now, and it surprised Sandy somewhat that after so many years out of the public eye he would consent to an interview on a subject as touchy as Randall Krayman. Perhaps, she thought, it was because Krayman could do no more to hurt him than he had already. Perhaps, too, Hollins was motivated by a desire for revenge, in which case Sandy would have to sift through his words carefully.

She hoped that Hollins might be able to shed light on Krayman Industries as well as on Krayman the man. She came to Billings more excited about a story than she had been in years. The incidents in New York had her wondering what really went on within the Krayman Tower. Surely she should have gone to Shay with the new developments, but she had stubbornly resisted because he would have taken the story away from her. Randall Krayman was hers, which meant Krayman Industries was too. She had never tired of personality journalism, but here was a story that called upon her mind as well as her smile. The change was refreshing, the challenge welcome. She felt like she was reliving the early years of her career, when she had to scratch and claw for every interview. The rewards had been fewer but the satisfaction greater.

Sandy descended the jet’s steps into the frigid air of Billings, and her flesh seemed to freeze on contact. She had forgotten to put on gloves, and her fingers were already numb when she raised them to shield her face. She had known eastern winters for all thirty-three of her years, but nothing she had ever felt prepared her for such sub-zero cold. She stuffed her hands into her overcoat pockets and tucked her carry-on bag under one arm. Besides that there was only one other suitcase she had to retrieve inside the terminal.

At the baggage claim area several passengers asked her for autographs but most kept to themselves. Finally seeing her suitcase rolling toward her on the conveyor belt gave her an excuse to beg off. She was reaching for it as it passed, when a large hand cut in front of hers and grasped the handle.

“I’ll take that for ya, Miss Lister,” a voice drawled.

“Excuse me?”

“Mr. Hollins sent me out here to fetch ya, ma’am. Didn’t mean to startle ya none.”

“You didn’t. It’s just that I wasn’t expecting anyone to pick me up.”

The man, who was big and broad, in his fifties, with a wind-carved face, yanked off his cowboy hat. “Yeah, well, a storm blew in last night and dumped more ’an a foot on the roads. Plows don’t always make it up to our spread and Mr. Hollins didn’t want you drivin’ some rented Ford into a gully.” He smoothed his hair, replaced his cowboy hat, and led her toward the airport lobby, suitcase in hand. “Mr. Hollins also told me to issue ya an invitation to stay over at the ranch if you’d like.”

“I have a reservation at the—”

“Nothin’ beats good ol’ Hollins hospitality, ma’am.” They were almost to the exit doors. “Come on, ma’am, got your limo parked right this way. Name’s Buck, by the by.”

The “limo” as it turned out was a four-wheel drive Chevy Blazer with the license plate SPUD 6. Buck had left the engine running to make sure the inside remained warm for her, a gesture which was not lost on a city girl who knew anyone doing the same at Kennedy or LaGuardia would end up one car poorer for the effort.

Buck hoisted her suitcase through the open tailgate as Sandy settled herself on the front seat. It was quite a climb from ground level, and one of her high heels almost didn’t make it. Obviously she was not dressed appropriately for Billings weather. A gush of frigid air smacked her as Buck slammed the tailgate closed. A few seconds later he pulled himself up behind the wheel.

“Where’s all the cameras, ma’am?”

“What? Oh, you mean for when we film the interview. I’ll come back with those after we put the story together, after it’s approved. First I’ve got to learn what Mr. Hollins has to say.”

“Sorta like an audition, right?”

“Not far from it, I suppose.”

“Kinda gives ya a jump on the guy you’re puttin’ the story together on, don’t it?”

Buck pulled the Blazer out into the road that circled the airport. Sandy could see the snow piled high along the sides, pushed there by powerful plows.

“That’s the nature of the business, Buck,” Sandy said.

“Yeah, well, I been hear’n ’bout news media types slantin’ stories and rearrangin’ them to say what they want ’em to say. Can’t say I take a fancy to that.”

“Neither do I.”

“See, the way it is, ma’am, there’s lots of us work for Mr. Hollins hate to see him hurt. Know what I mean?”

“I think I do.”

They drove north on I-87, heading toward the outskirts of Roundup and Spud Hollins’s ranch. Buck’s frankness had Sandy wondering what kind of man it took to inspire such loyalty. She looked forward to meeting him all the more.

“That there’s the Musselshell River, ma’am,” Buck announced, thrusting a finger across her toward the right. “That’s where we get the water from for our ranch. Damn thing’s frozen solid by this time of year. Been a bad winter so far and winter ain’t even shot its biggest load yet. Could be the worst since sixty-two, when …”

Buck droned on for five more minutes until they came to the entrance of the Hollins ranch, a simple gate with one word burned in wood over it:

SPUD’S

“Here we are, ma’am,” Buck said, spinning the wheel. “Five thousand acres of the prettiest land you ever did see.”

Buck followed the winding road for what might have been a mile over snow that seemed more packed down than plowed. It didn’t seem to faze him. And he was right about the land; it was postcard perfect, especially with the snow-covered mountains standing watch over it all beneath the crystal blue sky.

Finally the Blazer reached the semi-circular driveway that fronted the two-story mansion built of dark-stained natural wood, its roof covered with a coat of snow. Buck hurried around the Blazer to help Sandy down and then set about collecting her tote bag and suitcase. The heavy double doors at the front of the house opened as she approached them, and a striking middle-aged man stood smiling before her with his hand outstretched.

“Spud Hollins, Miss Lister. Pleasure to meet ya.”

Sandy said that the pleasure was all hers and she meant it. Her research put Hollins’s age at fifty-nine, but he looked a good dozen years younger. His straight, silvery hair, showing no sign of thinning, hung over his ears and forehead. He wore faded jeans, a denim shirt open at the collar to reveal a bandanna, and scuffed cowboy boots. His flesh was wizened and creased, coppery from the mountain air and the winter sun. Hollins’s deep eyes, the same color as the Montana sky, watched Buck tote her bags inside.

“She accepted your invitation, Spud,” he said.

“Ain’t that nice,” said Hollins, and Sandy smiled tightly, not recalling that she had actually accepted at all.

Hollins closed the double doors. “Wanna talk first or get freshened up?”

“Talk,” Sandy said eagerly. “I’ve been traveling too long for freshening up to do any good.”

“A pretty lady like you don’t have much call for that anyway, I reckon. Let’s go in the den. Coffee?”

“Please.”

“Buck,” Spud said, “have the kitchen mix us up a couple cups.”

Then the two of them moved down a short hallway into a large room with a fire crackling in a central hearth.

“Wow,” was all Sandy could say.

“Yup, it’s my favorite room too.”

“It’s beautiful,” she added lamely, enchanted by the natural wooden decor and the view provided by the large expanse of glass on one wall.

Hollins’s gaze grew distant. “Sometimes, well, I just sit here and wonder what took me so long to get out of the real world and into this one. I guess it was just stuck in me like a drug. I wanted to get out, but I didn’t have the guts to do it. Guess I owe Randy Krayman a debt more than anythin’.”

Sandy’s eyes danced at that. Interviews came much easier when the subject broached the issue at hand first. Sandy now determined she would not use tape and take no notes while they spoke, intent on doing nothing that might disrupt the natural flow of Spud Hollins’s thoughts. She found herself captivated, enthralled by this man. He was like one of those politicians you can’t take your eyes off when they come into town. Perhaps he had missed his true calling. No, more likely Spud Hollins was just a man who could stand tall because he had escaped the constant pressures that weigh on so many in the business world. He looked like a character out of a Ralph Lauren aftershave commercial. In fact, he looked like a crusty, country version of Ralph himself.

“Let’s sit on the couch, Miss Lister,” he offered, and as they did, Sandy noted a mantel lined with pictures of his various children and grandchildren. His wife, she knew, had died some years before, when the Krayman battle was reaching its head.

“I think maybe I’m doing a story on the wrong man, Mr. Hollins.”

Hollins laughed. “Call me Spud. I left all that kind of stuff behind me ’long with my seat on the stock exchange. Your ass, if you’ll excuse my word choice, takes on a funny shape when you sit in business too long. Nope, Krayman’s a much better choice for a story than me. He probably ain’t got much of an ass left by now.”

A maid entered and put two steaming cups of coffee along with generous helpings of cream and sugar on the table in front of the couch.

“Not many people are willing to talk about him on the record, Spud,” she said, adding two spoonfuls of sugar and a dash of cream.

“Can’t say I blame them, Sandy. People are scared of old Randy Krayman because he’s been known to chew a few up over the years.”

“Like you?”

Hollins smiled but didn’t laugh. “Well, most of the chewin’ in my case was done by me. Krayman added a couple bites here and there.”

Sandy sipped her coffee. It burned her tongue but tasted wonderful.

“Bites is an interesting choice of words, Spud, considering it was over the computer kind that the two of you went to war.”

“Business ain’t war, Sandy. In war you take prisoners. In business you take shit. I got out ’cause I didn’t have the stomach for the shit anymore.”

“And you sold out to Krayman.”

“If I had kept fighting him, I would have been selling out period. Like I said before, old Randy did me a favor. Made me a damn good offer. Had good reason to also.” Hollins crossed his legs and reached for his coffee. “How much do you know about what went on between us back then?”

Sandy wished she had her notes to consult. “Most of it concerned an ultra-density memory chip. Your company got one into production first, then COM-U-TECH developed a better one and undercut the price by two thirds.”

“Yup.” Hollins nodded. “They did at that. You know what this ultra-density microchip did, Sandy?”

“Not specifically.”

“Way it was, see, all computer chips used to be placed side by side. The ultra-density chip could be stacked one on top of the other so you’d end up with a job done in a fraction of time since the information had lots less space to travel. The discovery revolutionized lots of industries, mostly oriented ’round communications. What with cable startin’ to boom and the explosion of live satellite feeds, there was need for new micro-switching equipment capable of doing things quicker and cheaper than ever. Radio was the same way, telephone, too, maybe most of all. Way I hear it, the chip revolutionized the whole airline industry as well. Whole damn telecommunications industry had to rethink and retool almost from scratch.”