The Omicron Legion by Jon Land Page A

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