The Omega Command (16 page)

“Why are you willing to go on camera about all this after so many years? You’ve got everything any man could ever want, and by your own admission Randall Krayman did you a favor. Yet you’re willing to go public again, risk recrimination, follow-up interviews, even lawsuits. Why, Spud?”

Hollins smiled, but Sandy could tell the gesture was turned inward. “ ’Cause what Krayman’s done ain’t right and I got me a feeling he ain’t finished yet.”

Mohammed Sahhan’s lecture was scheduled for two o’clock in the afternoon in the Lisner Auditorium on the George Washington campus. McCracken had been on the advance security team for countless heads of state over the years and the precautions taken by Sahhan rivaled most. The only feature his thirty or so bodyguards lacked was the tiny earphones that characterized the Secret Service.

Blaine was able to snare a seat in the VIP section with the help of Stimson’s pass. He had a clear view of the podium, and if he had come here to assassinate the radical, he couldn’t have hoped for a better angle.

He had spent the better part of the morning going over the vast files Stimson had provided on Sahhan. The PVR leader was taking fanaticism and making it almost respectable. He was seen pictured with diplomats, congressmen, foreign leaders, important businessmen. One press clipping reported in depth the story of a predominantly black work crew walking off the job in an Alabama factory. Things got violent in a hurry. Sahhan made peace and kept it long enough for him to work out a new contract with the company which was substantially better than anything the striking workers had reason to hope for. In another instance, when a major urban electric company up north shut off power to poor families in the ghetto who couldn’t pay their bills, Sahhan not only paid the bills for them, he did it by personally delivering an individual check directly to each affected family.

Sporadic clapping began in the front rows as the leader of the People’s Voice of Revolution strode out onto the stage without benefit of introduction. The applause picked up as soon as the remainder of the audience saw him. Sahhan smiled and raised his hand to the crowd as he approached the podium. The spotlights’ glare bounced off his dark sunglasses.

Blaine was not at all impressed with his physical appearance, utterly unlike the prepossessing stature of a Malcolm X or Louis Farrakhan. Sahhan was small and thin. His hair was worn in a tight Afro over skin of a dark copper shade. He wore a medium gray, finely tailored and obviously expensive suit. His hands had barely grasped the microphone and torn it from its stand, when his thick voice filled the auditorium.

“Brothers,” he began, and paused immediately. “That’s right, I address you all as brothers. I wear these glasses so I won’t be able to tell the exact color of your skin and expression on your faces. I assume because you’ve come here today that there is something in your hearts that cries out for justice. Brothers and sisters, I hear those cries and have heard those cries. I’ve traveled this country and seen the pain and the hardship of so many blacks and whites too. I’ve shed tears, but the tears wash away. I’ve changed from a man of prayer to a man of action. I’m a general, brothers and sisters, and I come here today hoping you will find it in your souls to join my army.”

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!
”