The Omega Command (35 page)

“This mission is the ultimate test.”

“
Life
is the ultimate test. ’Nam, Laos, Cambodia—just minor progressions along the way.”

“And now Maine, Indian.”

Chapter 28

“WHO IS THE WOMAN
, Blainey?” Wareagle asked as they started toward Sandy, who stood restlessly beneath a tree that partially shielded her from the snow.

“Someone who’s been involved in this for as long as I have.”

Wareagle nodded understandingly. “Her spirit is disjointed, split apart by fear. She treads in new waters and does not fully control her strokes in even the calmest currents. Be patient with her.”

McCracken started a shrug which gave way to a smile. “I gotta tell ya, Indian, once in a while you really scare me. These words the spirits whisper to you are pretty close to the truth. Someday I’d like to learn how to hear those words. I’d be better at it than I was at thumping. Promise.”

Wareagle stared somberly at McCracken and stopped suddenly. “To hear, Blainey, first you have to listen. And then your manitou must act as a sponge and absorb all the meaning of the words. But your manitou is unyielding. It permits no challenge to the narrow scope it accepts.” The Indian looked far into the distance, beyond the white-frosted branches that crisscrossed the air. “That is how you have been able to stay out there for so long. I envy you for it in a way, for it allows you to endure life without questions. You accept, Blainey, and that is a greater gift than you can possibly know.”

They started walking again.

“Wells,” Wareagle said, as if the name tasted like dirt on his tongue. “His manitou was black and soiled. He had lost that which provides balance.”

“Well, since then he’s lost half his face too. He’ll be in charge of the enemy forces and, balanced or not, he’s a hell of a soldier. That doesn’t help our odds.”

“Odds mean nothing to the spirits, Blainey.”

When they reached Sandy, rapid greetings were exchanged. The giant Indian obviously made her even more uneasy, and Wareagle had been out of civilization too long to feel comfortable around strangers. They walked north about two hundred yards and Sandy caught the smell of a campfire. The Indian led the way into a clearing lined with seven small cabins.

In the center of the clearing another Indian stood tending a fire, spreading the kindling with a stick as he prepared to stack on larger pieces. Something seemed wrong about him, and as they drew closer to the small canopy under which he was sheltered, Sandy saw what it was.

The Indian was missing a hand.

He looked up, noticed Wareagle and the approaching strangers, and stiffened. Johnny moved on ahead and spoke briefly. The smaller Indian nodded and sped off.

“Running Deer will fetch the others,” Wareagle told McCracken. “They are spread through the woods. It will take time.”

Blaine frowned. “If they’re all missing pieces of themselves, Johnny, you might as well tell him not to bother.”

“We are all missing pieces of ourselves,” Wareagle said calmly. “Inside or out. Losses cripple us only if we let them. In the case of Running Deer, his remaining hand is quite good at throwing tomahawks. The spirits have compensated him well.”

“They’ll have to do more for us in the weapons department if we’re going to succeed,” Blaine said.

“Here, as in olden times, Blainey, each man is a master with his chosen tool of death. The ancient weapons are just as effective as the modern ones we left behind us in the hellfire.”

“We’re going up against an army, Indian.”

“Then stealth and silent kills are needed more. Besides,” Wareagle added with a faint smile, “not all of the modem weapons were abandoned.”

He led Blaine into one of the cabins, Sandy following to get out of the cold as much as for curiosity. Once inside, Wareagle slid an army foot locker from beneath a single cot and threw it open. McCracken’s eyes gleamed at the contents.

“Not bad, Johnny,” he said, gazing down on a pair of M-16s, one equipped with a grenade launcher attached to its underside. There were several sidearms as well, along with plenty of ammunition and some thermolite explosive charges; demolitions had been one of Wareagle’s specialties in ’Nam. “Think you still remember how to use all this stuff?”

“Knowledge is like the sun, Blainey: it sets only to rise once more. While the guns might help us, though, I must warn you that most of my men will want nothing to do with them. The spirits have been stricter with them than they have with me.”

“We can’t let them go into this empty-handed, Indian.”

“We won’t. Each embodies the spirit of his weapon. Their prowess will surprise you.”

“Just so long as it keeps us alive. …”

“You must share the details with me now, Blainey.”

McCracken pulled Terrell’s map from his pocket and spread it out on the Indian’s bed. “This is Horse Neck Island in Muscongus Bay. The island’s our target, and we’ve got to reach it no later than seven-thirty tonight.”

Wareagle glanced out the window and inspected the little remaining light. “Just two and a half hours away. A difficult task even if the spirits are with us.”

“You know the area in question?”

Wareagle nodded. “The shorelines of all the islands in these parts are treacherous. But before we can reach that obstacle, there remains a difficult drive ahead of us and an impossible journey across the waters.”

“Impossible?”

“The storm will have forced all worthy boatmen off the docks; their crafts will be worthless to us.”

“Not if we can steal one.”

“Only a seaman familiar with those waters would stand a chance of eluding the rocks in such weather. A boat by itself is useless.”

“Your spirits taking Christmas Eve off, Indian?”

“They advise, Blainey. They do not work miracles.”

“Then let me tell you something. It might take a miracle for us to pull this off. And there’s plenty more at stake than just our lives; it’s the whole goddamn country we fought for in that godforsaken pit and the enemy on Horse Neck Island is worse than any we faced over there.”

Wareagle was nodding, expressionless as always. The snow on his hair had melted to shiny wetness.

“We will get to the docks, Blainey,” he said, “and the spirits will find us a way across the water. They would not have guided you here to me if that wasn’t their plan.”

“So all we need now is one of our own.”

Wareagle began pointing to spots on Terrell’s scale drawing where guards were sure to be posted.

“The problem, Blainey, is that we must approach in a boat. Even the spirits will not be able to hide that from the island lookouts.”

A howling wind whipped through the trees. Blaine’s eyes strayed out the window. “But the blizzard will.”

“Only from a distance. Once we cross the rocks and approach this single dock here, the flakes will no longer shield us.”

“Then we’ll have to think of something.”

A knock came on Wareagle’s cabin door. The big Indian opened it to find Running Deer standing outside, slightly out of breath. Quiet words were exchanged. Wareagle turned to Blaine and then briefly to Sandy.

“My men are waiting for us outside. I think you should meet them.”

There were six of them including Running Deer. They stood in a single row, the light of the fire dancing off their faces.

“They know what’s happening, don’t they?” Blaine asked Wareagle in a whisper as they approached the men.

Johnny nodded. “The spirits have much to say in these parts, Blainey, for all who listen.”

Sandy stopped halfway between the men and Wareagle’s cabin. Something about the group chilled her. Their faces were fearfully stark and barren, eyes darker than the night and shining like a cat’s. Their potential for violence was held in those eyes, a violence they had come here to escape but that once again had sought them out. Only one of them besides Running Deer was physically handicapped. Instead of a hand he was missing a leg and wore a wooden replacement.

“We’re moving out,” was all Wareagle told them. “Ten minutes. Prepare your weapons.”

The six Indians moved away quickly but not in a rush. The one with the wooden leg hobbled to keep up.

“I think we can leave Tiny Tim behind,” Blaine suggested.

“Nightbird was a sharpshooter in the hellfire, Blainey. He will be of great help to us.”

“There’s only two rifles, Indian, one for you and one for me.”

They were walking back toward his cabin. Wareagle shook his head. “For you and Nightbird, Blainey. The bow is much more to my liking these days.”

When they were inside again, Blaine finally looked at Sandy.

“You’ll stay here.”

“Not on your life!” she replied sharply. “I don’t even know where the hell I am. If you guys don’t make it back, I’ll be stuck here for the winter.”

“Then we’ll drop you off along the way.”

Sandy glared at him with both shock and anger. “Maybe you’ve forgotten that they tried to kill me too. You really think I’d be any safer making my way through Maine alone than I would going to the island with you? Let’s face it, if you screw up, I’m as good as dead anyway.”

McCracken looked at Wareagle, who nodded. “Can you fire a gun?” Blaine asked Sandy.

“I can learn.”

McCracken gave her a .45, which she stuck uncomfortably in her belt and also made her responsible for toting two green canvas knapsacks full of extra ammo. The big Indian carried the most potent explosives. Blaine slung the M-16 with the grenade launcher over his shoulder and issued the standard version to the sharpshooter Nightbird. Running Deer boasted an assortment of handmade tomahawks suspended from his belt. Of the other men, one carried a crossbow, another an assortment of throwing knives; a third preferred a long ball and chain, while the fourth opted for a bow and arrow just as Wareagle had.

Ten minutes after the men had separated, two four-wheel-drive, enclosed jeeps pulled up to a halt. The snow was thick on them everywhere but their front windshields and rear windows. The wipers did their best to keep up with the snow still pouring down.

“The spirits cosign the financing for these babies, Johnny?” Blaine asked.

As always, Wareagle ignored his attempt at humor. “Withdrawal from society does not mean an abandonment of reality, Blainey. Emergencies come up. Supplies are needed. Besides, it was not machines that were responsible for the struggles within our souls.”

Sandy and Blaine rode in one jeep with Wareagle and a driver, while the other five Indians crowded into the second. They headed down a snow-covered road that seemed to have been cleared by nothing more elaborate than machetes. Collapsing branches scraped at them as they passed; with the snow intensifying, the visibility was reduced to near zero. Standing still in the woods, they had not realized how savage the storm had become. Johnny guessed ten inches had fallen already with another one likely before they reached the dock on Horse Neck Island.

It was an agonizing ten minutes before they turned east onto Route 17. The driving, even for the four-wheel-drive jeeps, was treacherous. Occasionally a drift appeared nearly as high as the jeeps themselves, and only the nimble reflexes of the drivers saved the vehicles from becoming hopelessly stuck.

They saw not a single other car or snow plow on the road, and the closer they drew to what should have been civilization, the worse the road became. The jeeps’ lights were useless. Sandy had no idea how their driver could possibly anticipate the corners and obstacles, but somehow he did. The journey was maddening, and she could not stop her heart from lunging toward her mouth around each blind curve. The snow lashed against the windshield, sometimes coating it with a thick blanket which temporarily stopped the wipers. They struggled hard, managing to win, but each instance seemed to take more out of them as the snow grew still thicker.

“
I’m dreaming of a white Christmas
,” Blaine sang in his best Bing Crosby impersonation when they had turned onto Route 1. “
Just like the ones I used to know
. …”

Sandy wanted to tell him to shut up, then smiled in spite of herself and noticed that even Wareagle had cracked a slight grin. Of all McCracken’s features, it was his sense of humor that confused her the most. It seemed so out of place in the world of violence and death he had been immersed in for so long. Then something occurred to her: perhaps that was how he had survived and kept his sanity at the same time. She recalled the horror she had experienced in Houston of having to become a killer to avoid being killed. It still lingered, and she knew it would haunt her sleep for as long as she lived. Blaine McCracken had lived with such experiences for most of his life. He was cynical and sarcastic, and maybe that kept him going. His sense of humor, she supposed, was a kind of weapon to be used like any other.

Route 1 was no better than 17. Plows had obviously been over the road once earlier in the storm and had produced a thin coat of ice beneath the snow piling up again. The jeeps lunged drunkenly down the road, brakes now as useless as lights. If there were road signs, the snow had long since obscured them. The Indian driver had studied the map to Muscongus Bay and Horse Neck Island only once that Sandy could remember. He took his eyes off the snow-blown road only to check the rearview mirror to make sure the second jeep was still in his tracks.

The jeep slowed finally and Sandy thought she saw water to their right, distinguishable by its dark surface. They had turned off Route 1 some minutes before and seemed to be passing through a small village. Her eyes found few lights and these were dim, behind drawn blinds, as though the village’s residents were hiding from the raging storm outside.

The jeep continued through the town, and Sandy could hear the sounds of waves thrusting violently on a nearby shore. Another few hundred yards later Wareagle signaled the jeep’s driver to stop.

“It’s almost seven o’clock,” McCracken announced. “There’s not much time left.”

“The spirits guiding us do not go by minutes, Blainey. Their view is eternal. The time they provide us with will be enough.”

Blaine just shrugged and climbed out, bearing his personal arsenal. Sandy followed and stood to his rear as War-eagle and the other Indians approached. In the distance across the bay she could make out the dark shape of Horse Neck Island. It lay like a great serpent writhing on the water—an illusion provided by the blowing snow.