The Omega Command (32 page)

“I’m Sandy Lister,” she said.

“Blaine McCracken,” the man replied. The woman looked familiar to him, but he wasn’t sure from where. He had long before discarded the janitor’s overalls, but the clothes he had worn beneath them still felt greasy and stiff with dried sweat. “You come here often?” he asked the woman.

“Only under escort … and duress.”

“Yup. I know the feeling.”

“Then I guess we have something in common.”

“I’m beginning to think more than we realize. But, how was it put to me? ‘It will all be explained soon.’ ”

“Sounds familiar,” Sandy agreed.

The man moved closer to her. “Does the name Randall Krayman mean anything to you?” he asked suddenly.

Sandy felt her shoulders sag. “What made you—”

“Just testing.” McCracken smiled, and was about to say more when a voice from the doorway caught his and Sandy’s attention.

“The final exam is yet to come, unfortunately,” the voice said.

And into the room stepped Simon Terrell.

Chapter 26

MCCRACKEN COULD TELL
from the woman’s face that she recognized the man who had just entered. The stranger stepped closer and extended his hand.

“The name’s Simon Terrell. I won’t bother introducing myself to Miss Lister, because we’ve met before.”

Blaine took Terrell’s hand. “I got your name. But
who
are you?”

Sandy answered before Terrell had a chance to. “Head of a rebel faction from deep within Krayman Industries, the common denominator in our individual pursuits.”

“Miss Lister is not far off the mark,” Terrell acknowledged. “We couldn’t risk contacting either of you directly.”

“So you waited for me to contact you,” Sandy realized. “In Seminole.”

“I had faith in your initiative, but I had a man prepared to aid you just in case. You bought him a beer at the bar and grill.”

“Then when we met, why didn’t you tell me more? The truth, for instance.”

“Because your subsequent actions would have given me away. I knew then they were watching you. Seeking me out was a logical move on your part, and I had to make sure your moves continued to seem logical.”

“They still tried to kill me.”

“Your interview with Dolorman forced their hand. You had become more than a simple aggravation for them.” Terrell paused. “But there is much more you need to know, both of you. Between the two of you, you have almost all the pieces of the puzzle. Perhaps we can all help each other.” Terrell’s eyes focused on Sandy. “You first, Sandy. Tell us all what you’ve discovered.”

She had to think only briefly. “Basically that about ten years ago Krayman Industries stole an ultra-density microchip apparently to provide them with control over the telecommunications industry and later, somehow, the country. They’ve also got something up in the sky disguised as a satellite that destroyed the space shuttle
Adventurer
ten days ago.”

“This feels like show-and-tell,” Blaine quipped.

“Your turn, Mr. McCracken,” Terrell told him.

“Krayman is financing two armies,” Blaine started. “One is a black radical group poised for a Christmas Eve strike against major urban centers across the country. The other is a mercenary group devoted to wiping out the radicals once they’ve accomplished their task.”

“Which is?”

“Causing disorder, chaos, ‘total paralysis’ as their leader puts it.”

“And could they accomplish all that?”

“By themselves, no. But they could come damn close, kill an awful lot of people and terrify even more.”

“But what would stop them from succeeding at creating this total paralysis?”

“Channels of emergency response would be slower on Christmas Eve, but eventually they’d call up retaliation Sahhan and the PVR couldn’t hope to contend with. The army could mobilize a hundred thousand troops in a matter of hours. It wouldn’t be much of a fight. The country would be aware of what was happening within an hour of its start. People would know the situation was under control. That would cut down the effects of the strike significantly.”

Terrell was nodding now. “And if all the channels of communication suddenly broke down … or were broken down? What then, Mr. McCracken?”

Blaine felt stymied. “It’s … hard to say.”

“But unfortunately not so hard to bring about. Not anymore.” Terrell paused and traded stares with each of them. As if on cue, all three sat down stiffly. “The two of you have just exchanged twin sides of a plot that aims to control America. I worked closely on it for the final two years I spent with Krayman Industries. It wasn’t until four years after leaving that I realized the true scope of what I’d been involved in, so I went to the one man capable of stopping it: Randall Krayman. I made Randy realize that his dream had been perverted. He promised to put a stop to it.”

“So they killed him,” Blaine concluded.

Terrell nodded. “And concocted the entire ruse of his withdrawal from society. He had outlived his usefulness to them anyway, like so many others involved in Omega.”

“Omega?”

“The name of the plot the two of you have uncovered. By five years ago, the time of Krayman’s ‘disappearance,’ the wheels of Omega were already in motion.” Terrell hesitated and looked at Sandy. “You were right about why Krayman stole Hollins’s discovery. He needed control of the ultra-density microchip.”

“But why?” Sandy asked him.

Terrell’s hand stroked his chin. “Have either of you ever heard of a computer virus?”

“Vaguely,” McCracken responded. “Lab personnel can make themselves indispensable by putting bugs only they know about into programs.”

“In a simplistic sense, you’re not far off,” Terrell confirmed. “Let’s say an employee is worried about being fired or laid off. He programs a virus into the computer that will become active only if his password is deleted from the system. Once the computer registers the deletion, the virus begins to infest every major program in the company’s loop, deleting files, scrambling memory, and causing general havoc, possibly even including turning the entire system off.”

“So obviously,” McCracken noted, “this Omega involves Krayman Industries discovering a way of doing the same thing on a wider scale.”

“Much wider, Mr. McCracken,” Terrell added. “The whole country, to be exact.”

“How?” Sandy asked.

“You’ve got to know more about computer viruses in general to understand the answer to that,” Terrell told her. “Basically, a computer virus is not unlike a biological virus. Both invade a host’s body for the purpose of reproducing. Both are incredibly small at the time of initial entry: in the case of a computer virus, two hundred bytes of memory would be sufficient to get the process rolling. And both spread remarkably fast. A computer virus could infest every program in a major system in a matter of weeks by transmitting itself from program to program—from host to host. But the virus would be undetectable during this, its incubation period. Then when certain preprogrammed conditions are met, like the deletion of a password in the case of that disgruntled employee, the virus is released to attack the system with all its power, creating a kind of epidemic. By the time desperate programmers find the virus in their system, it will in effect
be
the system. The attack takes over the machine as easily as a biological virus makes its host sick.”

Terrell leaned forward. “There are two ways to create a computer virus. Either you program it into a chip already in place … or you make it part of that chip even before it’s installed into the computer.”

“Oh, my God,” Sandy moaned, goosebumps prickling her flesh. “The Krayman Chip …”

Terrell’s eyes confirmed she was right. “In Seminole, Sandy, I told you Krayman abandoned the direct-appeal approach for gaining control over the nation in favor of a technological one. The type of computer virus his scientists discovered provided this means. Keep in mind now that the key to any computer virus is a preprogrammed set of conditions stored inside a chip. The computer is waiting for something to happen or not to happen, depending on the individual programmer. Krayman scientists discovered a way to build a shutdown response into a memory chip. A billion microchips all waiting for the same signal which would cause them all to shut down their respective systems—that’s the essence of Omega. The only thing Krayman lacked then was the chip itself and, more, total control over the production market. He needed both if Omega was going to succeed.”

“Spud Hollins,” Sandy muttered.

“Exactly.” Terrell nodded. “There’s a saying in the computer industry that if you can’t come up with your own idea, steal someone else’s. Well, COM-U-TECH not only stole Hollins’s chip, they marketed it at a cost so low that they effectively became the sole supplier of this particular chip.”

“Used exclusively in telecommunications?” Blaine asked.

“And its various offshoots, yes. You’re starting to catch on to the scope of this plot, the utter monstrousness of it. So now we have a billion microchips in place all over the country in everything related to data transmissions, from television, to telephone, to commercial air travel. The chips are in place in all the machines, doing what they’re supposed to do, all the time waiting for the signal to come instructing them to shut down their systems.”

“And I suppose Krayman recruited a hundred thousand computer programmers to push the right button at the right time,” Blaine said incredulously.

“Not quite. It would take only one man with one button.”

“How?”

“Why don’t you tell me?”

It was Sandy who spoke, though. “COM-U-TECH’s satellite that destroyed
Adventurer
. The signal to all those microchips is going to come from space.”

Terrell nodded deliberately. “It takes the satellite approximately sixteen minutes to cover the entire continental United States. During that time it will send a high frequency beam signal the chips are keyed into. When they receive it, all television and radio stations will cease broad-casting. The telephone will become useless and you can forget all about most business dealings, especially in the area of banking. Banks won’t have access to their computer logs, which means customers won’t have access to their money.”

“My God,” muttered Blaine. “The whole country will be—”

“Paralyzed, Mr. McCracken? You were fond of using that word before. You believed that Sahhan couldn’t accomplish the paralysis on his own. Probably not. But along with Omega, paralysis will be the inevitable result.”

“So the power gets knocked out—”

“Not the power,” Terrell corrected him. “Telecommunications and data transmissions in general. And those transmissions, records such as bank accounts, won’t be erased, they’ll just be frozen, rendered inaccessible.”

“Then what?” Blaine asked anxiously.

“Your timing is a bit off. As I understand it, the Omega phase of the operation is not scheduled to go into effect until several hours after Sahhan’s troops begin their simultaneous assault on urban centers at nine P.M. eastern standard time”—Terrell watched the sun rising beyond the windows— “this evening. Christmas Eve. The communications channels will be cut off just as the true panic begins, say, by midnight, after the shooting is well under way and the country has had an opportunity to be informed of it. Even a simple call to a police department or check of the television news will be impossible. The panic will escalate, feed off itself. All systems of control will break down.”

“And then Krayman’s mercenaries ride in like the cavalry to the rescue … unless the army beats them to it, of course. They’re set up for the kind of emergency you’re describing—civil defense in the event of nuclear war and all that. They’ve got backup communication facilities. No way to stop them from talking to one another.”

“Yes, there is,” Terrell said simply. “Communication backup facilities are useless if no one plans to issue any orders over them. Omega goes much deeper than machines. There are men who’ve been involved in it from the start who believe the time has come for a more central and enduring leadership for the country.”

“Peacher,” Blaine muttered. “Christ, it all fits. …”

“The military’s been infested at the highest levels,” Terrell continued, “levels that can effectively shut down the whole apparatus. The same holds true for your own intelligence community. It was Dolorman who isolated you and ordered your elimination. Only a few Krayman people have reached directory positions, but they are high enough to assume control while the chaos is proceeding and the various branches of the government are cut off from one another. Don’t you see? Through it all, Krayman people will be the only ones who will know precisely what’s going on. Everyone else will fall prey to whatever illusion is forced upon them.”

Something clicked in Blaine’s mind. “The mercenaries … The people will think they’re part of the real army, which has been paralyzed.”

Terrell nodded. “Exactly. And the mercenaries won’t just obliterate Sahhan’s troops, they’ll also complete their work by eliminating those who stand in Dolorman’s way, clearing a path for Krayman Industry plants to assume control. They’ll appear to be the good guys, which will make their job all the easier. Assassination, execution—in all the confusion who’s to know or judge? Without the media to turn to, the people will see only what’s directly before them: the army riding in to save the day against a vast insurrection and proclaiming martial law.”

“While the real insurrection is actually taking place,” Blaine concluded. Then he shook his head. “But I still don’t buy the army sitting on the sidelines while all this is going on. Your point about communications breakdown is well taken, but there’s still the chain of command to consider. They’re poised to function in an emergency, and Krayman Industries can’t possibly control all the levels.”

Terrell shrugged. “I’ve thought of that too. Obviously there’s something we’re not aware of. Dolorman’s got another way to neutralize the army for as long as he needs to and we’ve just got to accept that no help will be coming from that quarter.”

“You’re allowed to miss one thing,” Blaine told him. “Dolorman’s plan is brilliant. He hasn’t given you much.”