Agent Omega: You Only Live Forever Read online

  About AGENT OMEGA

  The weapon is a ghost of history. Hidden in the shadows of war, spoken of only in the highest levels of military intelligence and the farthest fringe-elements of conspiracy theorists.

  The most that anyone knows is that the weapon is, and always has been, devastating to the opposition. And they know that it is a man.

  From the trenches of World War I when he is discovered by General Blackjack Pershing, to hidden Nazi superweapon factories overseen by Aleister Crowley, he has left his mark throughout the world. Throughout time.

  This much is certain.

  Whenever tyranny and unjust force have been exerted against the innocent, he has come to destroy the oppressor.

  He is their end.

  He is Omega.

  Agent OMEGA

  You Only Live Forever

  Historical espionage adventure by Bernard Schaffer

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1: Pulled From the Wreckage

  Chapter 2: Subject 129

  Chapter 3: What is the OSS?

  Chapter 4: Wondrous Weapons of the Third Reich

  Chapter 5: Reasonable Suspicion

  Chapter 6: Operation FuhrerDie!

  Chapter 7: Memories of Myself

  Chapter 8: The Crown's Secret Operatives

  Chapter 9: You Only Live Forever

  The Omega Timeline

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Chapter 1: Pulled from the Wreckage

  He remembered the first time he opened his eyes, buried deep beneath the rubble. He remembered the smoke and the muted shouting of hundreds of people trying to be heard over enormous machines. The dust choked him as he raised his head and tried to call out for help. No one could hear him. He was trapped under a concrete staircase and could not move. He was suffocating and going to die.

  "I've got one over here," someone shouted.

  The engine of a large machine rumbling past him suddenly cut off and the driver said, "What?"

  "I said I've got one over here! The dog's going crazy."

  "A body?"

  "I don't know, let me ask him. Hey, the dog didn't say, you idiot, now get over here and help me shovel."

  He felt the piles of rubble above him moving, shaking him violently as streams of sunlight began filtering through the wreckage, stinging his eyes. "Help," he croaked weakly.

  He could hear the dog then, barking intensely, its paws scratching the shattered concrete at one of the holes. He could see the dog's nose poking through one of the holes, sniffing everywhere. "Hello?" the man called out. "Anybody down there?"

  "Yes…" he choked.

  The dog lifted its head and barked rapidly.

  "Come on, dig, dig! Tank never did this before. There's somebody down there, I know it."

  "Mikey, relax. There's nothing but bodies in here. Don't get your hopes up."

  "Shut up and dig. Hey, if you can hear me down there, we're coming. We're coming!"

  He raised his hands and tried to push, just to give himself enough strength to lift one of the pieces of lumber crushing his chest so he could take a breath. It was impossible. He inhaled as much of the yellow dust and insulation fibers as he could and cried out, "Help me!" as loud as he could manage.

  "Holy crap, Mikey," one of the men above him said. "There's somebody down there! I just heard him."

  "I told you! Get the excavator! We got one! We got a live one! I need all available units at the A/B corner of the North Tower, we got one!"

  He felt the dog's cold nose on his extended hand first, licking his fingers, then his wrist, barking for the others to hurry. Soon, a dozen men were yanking and pulling on him, trying to get him free and then all of them carefully lowering him onto a stretcher. All he saw were men in uniforms. NYPD officers, FDNY firefighters and ambulance crews, all of them hugging each other and weeping openly. "What's your name, pal?" someone finally asked.

  He opened his mouth to answer and said, "I…I don't know."

  They searched him for his wallet but found nothing. "Don't worry about it. We'll figure it out. Just close your eyes and rest. We've got you now."

  Many were lost that day. All of the men surrounding him had individually witnessed horrors beyond all imagining and the misery of it all was etched on their faces as thick as the layers of soot and filth clogging their noses and dripping into their eyes. But they'd found one. And it was him. It was a debt he couldn't forget.

  In fact, it was the only thing he couldn't forget.

  In the hospital, they asked him his name, where he lived, whom they could call, where he worked in the World Trade Center and he told them all the same thing. "I don't remember."

  The police came and interviewed him, going through long lists of people reported missing, trying to see if any of the names meant anything to him. They didn't.

  Word eventually got out about him. The newspapers reported an unknown adult white male with black hair and blue eyes, who appeared to be anywhere from his late-twenties to mid-thirties. He was well-built and handsome, despite several wicked scars, one which ran down the side of his left cheek. They reported he'd been found in the wreckage of the North Tower and was suffering amnesia, likely from the horror of the attacks, and soon families from all throughout the Tri-State area began flocking to his hospital room, hoping he was someone else. They all left disappointed.

  One night, a police officer knocked on his door and said, "How you feeling kid?"

  "I'm good," he said, sitting up in his bed. The reality was, he felt fine. All of the doctors were mystified that his tests were coming back negative of all the infections and congestive difficulties not only the other survivors, but the people working at the site, were suffering. He smiled and said, "I know you. You were the one with the dog. The other cops called you Mikey."

  "That's right," the officer said. He extended his hand and said, "Michael John Patrick Mallory, pleased to officially meet you." They shook hands and Mallory said, "I'm surprised you remember that."

  "My mind is completely blank of everything that happened before you found me, so I guess it has plenty of room," he said, tapping the side of his head.

  Mallory leaned against the side of the bed and let out a long, slow breath. "I got a few things in my head I'd like to forget right now, I'll tell you."

  "I'm sure. Listen, I didn't get a chance to thank you. You saved my life."

  "It was my pleasure. We needed a win that day. That win was you, so don't waste it."

  "I won't. I promise." He looked at the officer and said, "Can I ask you something? Something personal?"

  "Sure, kid. What is it?"

  "Can you tell me what these look like?" The young man unbuttoned his hospital shirt and held it open.

  Mallory leaned forward and squinted at the small circular scars dotting the patient's chest, small, gnarled buttons of flesh where no hair grew. "Honestly?"

  "Yes. Please."

  "They look like bad chicken pox scars. Or maybe places where moles were removed?"

  "They do?" the patient said, peering down at them. "God, at first all I could think was that they looked like bullet holes. I was trying to figure out what the hell I'd been involved in that would have gotten me shot up."

  Mallory laughed, "Every one of those scars is over some sort of major organ or artery. You'd be dead as a doornail if they were bullets, kid. A dozen times over. Plus, they're so old you'd have had to be a child soldier in Africa or something to get them."

  He ran his finger over the scars and laid back, feeling a strange sense of relief. It was a hell of a thing to not even know the markings on one's body, how they got there or what you did to earn them. It was a roadmap
to a lifetime he did not remember.

  "Must have been one hell of a case of the chicken pox," Mallory said.

  "Yes. It must have been."

  On the day he was released from the hospital, a reporter asked him, "What are you going to do now? You might have been anything to an insurance broker to a corporate executive to a janitor before. What calls to you?

  He thought about the men who'd dragged him out of the rubble and said, "A lot of good people were lost that day trying to save others. I can't replace any of them, but I'd like to take up what they stood for. There's a police test next month. I'll be there."

  The test was easier than he anticipated, and as he filled out his answers to a variety of scenario questions and investigative procedure, he found himself wondering who he had been in the lifetime that existed before the Twin Towers were struck. It was the background questionnaire that posed the greatest hurdle. References, work experience, criminal history, all of it was a complete blank. He couldn't even properly answer what country he was a citizen of. When he saw the question, he immediately wrote "United States," looked at it for a moment, crossed it out, and wrote "British." He stared at that for a long time, then crossed it out and wrote, "Definitely, United States."

  The hospital, newspapers, and investigating agencies had all been referring to him as "John Doe" but as he went to fill out his name, it angered him to not have his own identity. He'd be a laughing stock for the rest of his career if he went by John Doe, the butt of too many jokes. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, determined to write the first name that came to mind.

  Sean Price.

  He wrote it quickly, unsure how or why it had come into his thoughts, but did not fight it. He wondered if it was the name of an actor he'd seen on television during the long nights in his hospital room, or someone he'd read about in the newspaper. The name didn't feel like a memory. At least, it didn't feel like his memory.

  He finished the test and signed his new name at the bottom, then took a deep breath and handed it in to the monitors at the front of the room. "We'll be in touch," they said.

  He scored in the top five percent of the people taking the test and the recruiters promptly rejected him, stating he could not provide enough background information to be properly vetted for employment with the NYPD. Luckily, the mayor's office stepped in and decided the publicity of his joining the department was worth cutting through some of the regular red tape, particularly at a time when the city needed a good morale boost.

  Pictures of him in his Class-A uniform and white gloves at the police academy graduation ran in all the newspapers and several monthly magazines, showing glossy full-page photos of him raising his right hand and swearing the oath to Protect and Serve.

  The bosses at the department tried to put the newly-minted Officer Price into a nice, cushy public-relations spot. They wanted him on billboards to boost recruiting. They wanted him to star in their commercials and be the face of a resilient force ready to face the challenges of the new millennium.

  Price said no. No special favors or considerations. He wanted to earn whatever he got and be treated the same as everyone else.

  They sent him to Brooklyn.

  Thirteen years later, the events of those early days seemed like the distant past. On occasion, the phone would ring and it would be some reporter wanting to do a "Whatever Happened to John Doe" article, but he always declined. By then, Detective Second-Grade Sean Price was a hardened veteran who avoided the press like cigarette smoke. Those bloodthirsty bastards were little better than the scum he locked up in the Robbery Squad.

  His desk was a massive stack of case folders and wanted fliers that he could barely see over. When the secretary called out, "Price, you got a visitor," he ducked his head down and tried to hide. "He's right back there, behind that wall of files," the secretary said.

  Price sighed and sat back in his chair, looking up at the well-dressed, older man as he approached and said, "Hello, Sean."

  "It's Detective. How can I help you?" Price said briskly.

  The man smiled benignly at the reproach and said, "My name is Walter Beckett, and I would like your assistance locating a missing person."

  "Missing Persons is one floor up. This is Robbery."

  "I'm aware of that," Beckett said. "This is a special case, and one I think you might be particularly interested in. In fact, you might be the only person on earth who can help me."

  "Why?" Price said.

  "It involves a man who has no memory of his former life and the steps he took to reclaim it. It's a rather incredible story, really."

  Price inspected the man. Mid-sixties, white hair cut short like a drill instructor, clean-shaven. He had a slight mid-western accent and gentlemanly way about him that was either a put-on or Price was just not used to dealing with people who didn't live in the Five Boroughs. Either way, Beckett was asking him for help and Price had a hard time saying no to that. "I'll listen to the details and tell you if I can help you or not. More than likely, I'm going to send you to Missing Persons in the end."

  "I understand," Beckett said. "You are most kind."

  "Not really," Price said. "In fact, just this morning an old lady was telling me what a piece of crap I am and how I'm going to hell now because I arrested her. In this job, kindness does not pay. Anyway, pull up a chair." He cleared away a space on his desk to lay down a blank yellow tablet, then clicked his pen and said, "I'm all ears."

  "My story begins in Nineteen Eighteen at the Battle of St. Quentin Canal," Beckett said solemnly.

  "No, it doesn't," Price said, unclicking his pen and aiming his finger at the door. "Get out. I don't have time for kooks today."

  Beckett was nonplussed, "I am not a kook, sir, and to fully explain things to you I must start at the beginning."

  "The beginning being World War I?"

  "Well, not the beginning, exactly. Just the earliest I have been able to trace events to. It probably goes back much, much further."

  Price shook his head as he picked up his pen again and said, "Okay, Mister Beckett. Tell me a story."

  "Indeed I shall, Sean. Indeed I shall."

  Chapter 2: Subject 129

  Technical Sergeant James Scott planted his foot on top of a German soldier's helmet to launch himself up the muddy wall of the trench. The kraut had taken six M-1 rounds to the stomach before he went down. Scott heard the bones in the man's neck snap as he stepped and figured he was doing the bastard a favor.

  Somebody in the line shouted, "Go, go, go! We've taken their front line!"

  Mortar blasts blew clumps of dirt into his face as he scrambled up, trying to get out of the line of fire when a German bullet zipped through his left shoulder. The pain was searing, like someone pressed a hot wire to his flesh, and sent him down into the dirt, squirming like a worm. He struggled to get up and keep fighting, peering through hopelessly thick artillery smoke to get his bearings and see how far he was from the next trench.

  I'll find it if I just keep moving, he thought. He lowered his head to run and a bullet popped him in the brim of his helmet, sending chunks of hot metal into his face. A dozen German rifles cracked, pelting him in the stomach and chest with rounds. He felt each one burning holes through this flesh. Felt the thick wads of metal bouncing around his insides, severing his internal organs and rupturing arteries. Scott gurgled and dropped to the ground, rolling down the slippery incline until he toppled into the next trench.

  Waves of Allied soldiers poured over the ledge on top of him, crushing him with their boots as they ran blindly into certain death. James Scott died under their boots, choking on his own blood, surrounded by never-ending carnage.

  He was twenty-three years old.

  That evening, medical corps evacuated the dead from the trenches, placing dozens of bullet-ridden corpses in covered Army transports and driving them to a secure staging area in Bellicourt. Scott's body was laid with the others on a tarp inside a massive tent, forming lines of blood-stained corpses. Fe
male nurses walked up and down the rows, checking the names on the dog tags and calling them out to a major who was following behind, jotting them down. He made notes beside each name, jotting down their rank, battalion, and cause of death.

  His charts would be sent to a clerk in Washington DC, who would check the orders that listed which medals were to be sent to the fallen soldier's family on behalf of their sacrifice in America's Great War.

  The major wrote down the name Technical Sergeant James Scott and made a quick series of notations, then called out, "Next." He started to walk when something stopped him cold.

  The dead man was sitting up.

  James Scott was dead. There were multiple fatal bullet wounds in his body that had bled out hours ago, but it didn't matter as he ran screaming through the facility, smashing trays of medical supplies out of his way and tossing guards out of his way like they were children.

  Soldiers twice his size dove on top of him and Scott shook them off like George Gipp, breaking through their lines as easily as the Notre Dame halfback scoring a touchdown. Scott took a running leap at the same military transport that had carted his dead body back to the base and wrapped his arms around the bumper, screaming incomprehensibly. The guards tried prying him off with their hands, and when that didn't work, they stomped him with their boots and beat him over the head with their clubs.

  Soldiers came pouring into the tent from all around the base, thinking they were under attack. They piled on top of the Scott until the man vanished under a swarm of uniforms and spit-polished boots. Scott roared in outrage and pressed himself up from the ground, lifting twenty men with him. He grabbed the nearest guard and hurled him across the facility, sending him headfirst into a support beam.

  A doctor raced through the throng, screaming, "Hold him still!" The syringe in his hand was filled with morphine. It dribbled down his fingers as he fought his way through the crowd, trying to get close enough to the dead soldier to make an injection. Finally, he caught Scott by his uniform shirt collar and slammed the needle down into the man's neck, slamming the stopper down as hard as he could. It was enough morphine to kill a bull elephant, and Scott clutched his neck and ripped the needle out, slashing wildly with the steel tip.