The Omega Sanction by Andrew Scorah (the best ebook reader for android .txt) 📕

The plane’s cargo of hard currency was intended for use in the latest stage of Greece’s financial bailout.

The wreckage of the plane was found the following morning. One crew member was missing. The other three had all been shot in the head at close range. The money was gone.

CONCLUSIONS

The incidents outlined above describe in somewhat grim detail the rise of a new non-state entity calling itself the Geheime Staat

Where it is based and who comprises it is not known.

What is known is this: it is a force of militarily-trained individuals that over the last seven months has obtained for itself a considerable supply of weapons, finance and manpower.

It does not, as yet, show any religious or cultural motivations for its aggressive acts. We do not yet know what is driving this rogue ‘Army’.

Nevertheless, it wants us to notice it.

It has carried out one operation a month, every month, for the last seven months, in accordance with a pattern where the number of the day and the month are the same. Clearly, it wants us to see this pattern, and we should be aware of it, because tomorrow is April 4...

A WAREHOUSE ON THE BANKS OF THE THAMES, LONDON, PRESENT DAY

The roller shutter doors to the warehouse ascended to allow admittance to the dark coloured Ford Transit van. Once it had vanished into the murky depths of the building, a man cradling an AK-47 stepped out and lit up a cigarette.

"I have eyes on one x-ray," Adam Bane said into his throat microphone. "He is armed, and standing by the main entrance to the warehouse."

"Have that." Came back the reply from the SAS Op room.

Bane scanned his binoculars to the left, a red Mercedes was driving into the warehouse compound.

"Target is now on the plot," he relayed.

“Have that, all teams go amber.”

The smoker quickly put out his cigarette, and signalled to someone out of sight. Two stocky shaven headed men emerged from the warehouse, one held a pistol, the other was unarmed. He relayed the information.

The driver of the Merc climbed out, and opened the rear nearside passenger door. Henry Mueller, the primary target exited the vehicle.

Mueller was a fixer, a shadowy figure who served as a go between for various terrorist organisations. He had appeared on MI5's radar about two years ago when he negotiated the purchase of Sarin for Al Queda. They had managed to intercept the shipment, but Mueller had eluded them.

The shipment he was involved with now was Eastern Bloc uranium. Though associated with the chaos of the immediate years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, reports of nuclear smuggling in the former Eastern bloc continue to this day, and Bane knew they were non less ominous for the number of false alarms that were raised from time to time.

There was no information on who he was working for, but the purchase was being made from a Moldovan criminal gang, although no one had any information on why the deal was happening on sovereign soil.

The Moldovan authorities had passed on the information to Interpol who in turn passed it to MI5. The suspects, who included four Moldovans, one Russian and one resident of the Russian-backed separatist region of Transnistria in eastern Moldova had been in contact with Mueller.

Bane watched the driver remove a metallic suitcase from the boot, while the unarmed man patted Mueller down. He took the case, and all three went into the warehouse. Cigarette man followed behind, closing the doors after him.

"All x-rays inside target building, go, go, go!"

Several things happened all at once. An armoured Range Rover crashed through the compound fence. Four black clad trooper’s abseiled down from the roof of the warehouse where they had earlier secreted themselves. They crashed through the windows. Percussive whumps of flash bangs inside the building followed this.

Eight troopers exited the vehicle and headed for the doors, which had begun to open. Cigarette man appeared, and was cut down in a hail of bullets as he raised his weapon.

Bane threw down his binoculars, drew his Glock, and headed out of the flat, which was overlooking the compound on the banks of the Thames River.

He had volunteered to be on over-watch of the compound because Mueller had become a cause celebre for Bane, he had been involved in the original operation with the Sarin, and had taken it personal that the man had escaped capture. This time around, he wanted to be in on the kill so to speak.

Bane reached the compound as the final gunshot echoed out of the warehouse.

He holstered his weapon as he walked around the Range Rover. An SAS trooper was walking out of the interior. He removed his gas mask as he approached Bane.

"All targets are down," he shook his head, "Not by our hand either."

"What do you mean?"

"They all shot themselves."

"Mueller?

"Yup, him too, all before the guys hit the deck, one made for the van, he was the only one we took out inside the warehouse."

Bane was having trouble processing this information, these men were as tough as they come, ex Spetznaz or FSB to a man, yet they chose suicide over capture.

"Have your men secure the perimeter."

The man nodded, and called the others out.

Bane walked into the warehouse. The stench of death filled the air, he learned long ago death smelled of copper and cordite, in his line of work, this scene was no different. He moved carefully to avoid the rapidly spreading lakes of red. The van was parked in the centre of the darkened warehouse; the only light was the bars streaming through the smashed or murky windows.

He looked down at Mueller, half his face had been blown off, this made no sense at all, and in all his experience, he had known nothing like it. Bane made his way over to the van, and tried the handle on the rear doors. They opened easily. Inside he saw a medium sized wooden crate. Stencilled on the side facing him was the eagle and swastika symbol of the Nazi's. Bane frowned, the box was too small to contain the amount of uranium they had been told about, and he certainly would not expect to see a Nazi symbol on it.

After handing over to the on scene science officer, Bane returned to Thames House on the north bank of the river. He had a lot to consider regarding the ending of the mission, which had left many unanswered questions. He would have to have answers for his boss as well. Sir Alec Walton, a former Colonel in Chief of the Special Air Service, and as hard nosed an operator as Bane had ever known. Not a man to suffer fools gladly or missions gone sour.

Taking a deep breath, he knocked on Sir Alec's oak panelled office door.

"Come in," came the scratchy voiced reply.

Bane pushed the door open and entered the richly carpeted office. Sir Alec sat behind his desk, which was an exact copy of the Resolute desk which sometimes sat in the Oval office at the Whitehouse, a gift from Queen Victoria to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880 and was built from the timbers of the British Arctic Exploration ship Resolute, hence the name.

On the wall behind Sir Alec, hung pictures of the Queen, and the present prime minister, David Llewellyn. Bane noticed his boss was not alone; a whipcord lean man in his late fifties sat in one of the two chairs in front of the desk.

"Have a seat Adam."

Bane sat down in the other chair.

"So, the job did not go plan," Sir Alec leaned his elbows on the desk and steepled his fingers.

"No, not exactly, we did retrieve the shipment though."

"A very unusual situation all round, I've just been informed the shipment was not uranium either, it was something called Xerum 525, otherwise known as red mercury."

"Red mercury, isn’t that just an urban legend?"

"I'm not a physicist, so I could not say, but this gentleman may be able to shed some light on the matter. Adam Bane meet Colonel Brice Montague, C in C of Omega."

The man leaned over and shook Bane's hand.

"Good to meet you, Adam," he had a southern American drawl to his accent.

"Omega, I've never heard of it."

"Good, then we are doing our job correctly, we are a deeper than deep black ops outfit, we manage, er...Unusual situations, a small but very elite group of operators drawn from the ranks of the US and world military and now recently given special autonomy to defend the entire world—from threats that were beyond the comprehension of traditional military forces.We are not under the flag of any one nation, a multi national group, we go anywhere we are needed."

"How does this concern me, and this Xerum 525," Bane had a feeling he was not going to like the answer.

Sir Alec answered for the colonel, "They've just lost their British security asset, so I am putting you on secondment to Omega, Colonel Montague viewed a few personnel files, and picked you, your involvement with the red mercury shipment was an added bonus."

"But what about all my other jobs? I still have several on-going."

"Chris Deakin can take them over; you'll need to brief him before you leave of course."

Bane did not like this one bit, but he knew he had no choice, what Sir Alec said was then written in stone, still he loved a challenge, and he had a feeling this was going to turn out to be the biggest challenge of his life.

Montague handed Bane a file, which he had drawn from the briefcase by the side of his chair.

"We have two missing scientists to locate. Their field of expertise is anti-gravity and boosted fission weapons. The feeling is that somebody somewhere is building a mother of all bombs, that's why the need for the red mercury, I'm told it's a super-conductive material used for producing high-precision conventional and nuclear bomb explosives. There is a ticket in the file which will get you to Las Vegas' McCarran International Airport, you'll be taken to our head quarters from there, you’ll report to Commander Morgan, the file contains all the Intel you need on our current mission, and your expected role within. Anything else, Morgan will fill you in."

Montague stood up.

"I'll bid you good day gentlemen, and I will see you in a week Adam."

With that, he left the office.

APRIL 4th BACK GATE SECURITY SHACK, AREA 51

Beyond the Jumbled Hills, in the wide Emigrant Valley of southern Nevada, bracketed by the Timpahute and Pahranagat ranges, lies Groom Lake. One of many dry lakes that dot the desert reaches of Nevada and California. An expanse of white, hard alkaline soil—caliche soil. Rocky Mountain sheep and wild burros often wander onto its surface. Relentless winds lift small pebbles and drive them across the surface. Once or twice a year, a couple of inches of rain leave a thin liquid layer, a mock lake, shimmering and wavy, whose evaporation rapidly smooths it to a high polish. The land sat like this for centuries before the asphalt and metal buildings, the wooden barracks and hangars, arrived, turning it into Shangri-la, the Forbidden Temple of black, or secret, technologies.

Groom Lake is set inside 4,742 square miles of restricted airspace, and nearly four million acres of bomb range—a space as big as a Benelux nation. It would come to be called by many names: Groom Lake, Watertown, Paradise Ranch, Home Base, Area 51. But the name for the airspace above the lake and the secret test facility and base that would grow there was, irresistibly, “Dreamland.” It was this airspace that made it special, the airspace where strange craft appeared and disappeared like whims and suspicions, where speculations like airships glowed and hovered, then zipped off into the distance.

High above the road leading to this forbidden place of legends an eagle cut a circle into the bruised and troubled sky, high above Tikaboo Valley, a hunter, seeking