Now, though, seven-thirty was fast approaching. In little more than half an hour the computer would exclude the possibility of aborting the mission and Omega would be inevitable. Wells relaxed a bit at that reassuring thought, but only when the moment had come to pass would he be totally at ease. He left the communications room and headed up to the fourth floor command center, where two armed guards stood poised before the door. Wells inserted his ID card into a slot, which caused the door to swing open.
“Ah, Wells,” greeted Verasco from behind a computer console. “I was just running some final checks. Our satellite is operating without a single malfunction.”
The command center had six computer terminals on one side and on the opposite side a large aerial map of the world that constantly displayed the location of the Krayman satellite. At present the white blip representing it was flashing over central Europe. Two men stood before the map, jotting notes onto their clipboards. The terminal operators behind them were responsible for monitoring all vital readouts from the satellite. The room’s single set of double windows looked out toward the mountain. Snow and ice had caked up on them, giving the command center the feel of a tomb.
“Where’s Mr. Dolorman?” Wells asked.
Verasco’s round head tilted toward a heavy door across from the map display. “Making the final preparations.”
As if on cue, the heavy door opened and Dolorman walked gingerly out. “Anything to report, Wells?”
“All stations report no intruders.”
“You still sound worried.”
“Just concerned.”
“About McCracken?”
“McCracken’s dead. There may be others.”
Dolorman smiled up at him. “Save your nerves the bother. Thirty-six minutes from now, nothing anyone can do will be able to change what will commence at nine o’clock.” Then, to Verasco, “Are our communications people prepared to receive reports from the spotters?”
Verasco nodded. “They’re in place now.”
“Then nothing can stop us.”
A phone buzzed on Verasco’s desk. He lifted it to his ear and listened briefly, then turned quickly toward Dolorman.
“He wants you back inside.”
Dolorman moved to the heavy door again, gazing up at the wall clock before he entered. “Thirty-five minutes, gentlemen.”
The boatman’s craft rode the waves sluggishly from the extra weight. The currents battered her sides and spilled cold seawater onto the deck. Blaine and Johnny Wareagle remained on deck, while Sandy and the other Indians huddled in the small cabin. They were two-thirds across the inlet to Horse Neck now, and they could see the island gaining substance up ahead. It looked ominous.
“How long before the men on shore spot us?” Blaine asked the boatman, who stood rigidly behind the wheel, eyebrows and beard stubble speckled with ice crystals.
“Soon as we cross the rocks, I’d figure. Ayuh, that’s when the storm’ll stop covering us.”
“Any ideas?” Blaine asked Wareagle.
“If they see us, they’ll blow us out of the water … unless they see no reason to.”
“What do you mean?”
“No one shoots down a horse without a rider. That must be the way we make it seem with our boat. If the spirits are with us, it might work.”
“And if they aren’t?”
“Then we would have been dead already — a long time ago, Blainey, in the hellfire.”
McCracken turned to the boatman. “After we cross the rocks, would it be possible to drift toward the island’s dock?”
“With the currents, you mean, friend? Hard to figure them on a night like this. Storm winds blow the waters all different ways. But with a little luck, ayuh, I think I could manage it.”
“We’ve got my friend’s spirits with us,” Blaine said with an eye on Wareagle. “That should take care of the luck department.”
A minute later, with the island’s erratic shape now clearly in view, they reached the rocks. The boatman’s eyes were locked forward, though they were virtually useless to him when it came to seeing the deadly obstacles reaching up to tear the bottom from his boat. Instead, he focused on the island’s shoreline. He could then chart the murderous rock formations from memory and steer the boat accordingly. Although he had eased the throttle down almost entirely, the craft was still at the mercy of the lashing waves and was shoved from side to side against the boatman’s concerted efforts to hold the wheel steady.
In the cabin below, Sandy could feel rocks scraping at the hull. She could hear the horrible scraping rasp on the wooden bottom and wondered how long it would be until saltwater began to leak in.
Above, the boatman continued to throw all his energies into avoiding the most dangerous formations and risking abuse from the smaller ones. Occasionally the craft would slow with a grinding snarl to the point where it seemed they were scraping bottom and could go no farther. But always the boatman would twist the wheel just enough for the currents to free the craft so it might continue on its deliberate passage. Blaine felt his heart pounding and knew even Wareagle was fighting to retain his calm. The snow was vicious so close to the island, and they could look into it only for brief periods before the stinging on their faces became too much and they had to turn away.
Suddenly the boat’s progress was arrested, as if a giant hand had clamped onto its hull from beneath the water. The boatman advanced the engine patiently and eased the wheel to the right. The sound below was ear-wrenching, fingernails on a chalkboard, but the craft shifted free of the rock formation into the surging black sea. They had escaped the rocks.
In the cabin below, Sandy felt the cold soak of seawater through her gloves. It wasn’t coming from a central leak, but from many smaller ones. Soon she felt it rushing around her legs. A tremor of fear shook her as the engines switched off and the horrible anticipation of drowning made her breath come fast. Then the cabin door eased quietly open and Wareagle lowered himself in, followed by McCracken. While the giant Indian explained the next phase of the plan to his men, Blaine took Sandy aside and went over her role. She accepted it willingly, glad to have something to take her mind from the panic.
Blaine led her onto the deck, where they covered themselves with a single tarpaulin. She could not find the boatman and realized he, too, had covered himself up somewhere, leaving the craft to the whims of the water. Blaine had positioned them so he could follow their progress through a crack in the tarp, and Sandy was able to steal a few glances herself. They were heading erratically for a white dock that jutted out into the black water. At first it seemed certain they would overshoot it, but the boatman had calculated the currents well and from twenty yards away their route was straight on.
Blaine noticed the single man on the dock, glad he was alone but unhappy that he held his rifle poised. The man’s job was to watch for approaching craft but this one, obviously deserted, must have been stripped away from its mooring and been propelled here by the wind. Miraculously it had escaped the fury of the jagged rocks. There was nothing to report to headquarters until he had inspected the craft more closely. He expected to find nothing but held his gun steady just in case.
Ten yards later the cabin door opened just a crack, enough for Windsplitter, Wareagle’s knife-wielding man, to make a passage for one of his blades. Blaine stilled his breathing and pulled the tarp farther over him and Sandy. He was totally vulnerable from this position, but there was no alternative. If the dock guard noticed anything that made him shoot or contact his base, their mission was forfeit.