Psychic Warrior (19 page)

"Where would you like to go?" Hammond asked. "I must keep you within a certain area in the virtual world until you are more proficient. Consider the borders of the state of Colorado as your current limits. Where would you like to go in Colorado?"

Dalton knew the answer to that, but he didn't bother to tell Hammond as he moved into the virtual plane.

"What is this place?" Barsk asked as the wheels of the plane touched the runway. They had flown for several hours after getting the generator on board. The plane had taken the weight, but the pilots had been forced to use every foot of runway to get them into the air.

"An old airbase," Leksi said.

"I can see that." Barsk was tired and his fear of the large man had diminished in proportion to his weariness. He could clearly see that the buildings and hangars had long been out of use. The plane was slowing.

"This is one of the bases where the planes the Americans sent over during the Great Patriotic War were flown to," Leksi said. He pointed out the small window. "In that building the American insignia on the plane was painted over and the Soviet star was painted on. A crew of our people then manned the plane and flew it to the front."

"And why are we here?" Barsk asked as the plane came to a halt, then slowly turned and began taxiing toward a hangar, with an open door.

"This is where I was told to take the generator for the first stop," Leksi said.

Barsk could see there were several helicopters inside the hangar next to the one they were headed for. Men dressed in black fatigues stood in the shadows, weapons slung over their shoulders, watching.

"Who are they?"

"The men and equipment we’ll need for the next phase." Leksi stood as the back ramp began coming down. "But don’t concern yourself. You go elsewhere from here. I'll take care of the next phase without your help. There's something you need to see."

Barsk followed as Leksi disembarked, walked out of the hangar, and headed for another that stood some distance from the other buildings. Its large door was opened by two men dressed in black fatigues. Leksi led the way to a trap door in the floor. He threw it open, pointing his flashlight into the hole.

Barsk peered down. A naked old man chained to a metal post was lying on the floor. The old man stirred, holding a hand up to protect his eyes from the light.

"Who is that?" Barsk asked.

"Professor Vasilev," Leksi said. He threw the door shut "You’re to take him with you to the next site. He’ll be responsible for setting up the phased-displacement generator."

*****

"What is the cylinder?" Feteror asked. He had finished his report, telling the general that a group of mercenaries had killed the GRU surveillance team and loaded a strange steel cylinder and other equipment onto a plane and flown off to the south.

"That is not your concern," Rurik said. "You don’t know who these people were?"

"Ex-military," Feteror said. "They wore unmarked uniforms and acted like soldiers. They didn't exactly line up and tell me their names."

“Your report is insufficient" Rurik snapped.

"It’s insufficient because you didn't give me enough power to cross over and find things out. I could have ripped open a throat or two and gotten someone to talk. I could have stopped them if you'd given me the power, and we wouldn't be having this conversation. It’s insufficient because you pulled me back too soon. Before I could see where the plane went."

"Do not lecture me!" General Rurik screamed. Everyone stopped working and stared at their commanding officer. Rurik lowered his voice. "You do what I tell you to."

"Then you should be satisfied with my report." Inside his steel housing, Feteror felt better than he had in years. All was progressing quite well. Tapping his data banks, he brought up a picture and could see the general's pretty young wife. And the young children. Two boys. Perfect.

"Get back in your pit!" Rurik slammed his fist down on the power level.

Feteror's electric eyes and ears shut off.

*****

Dalton sideslipped and began falling, tumbling out of control.

"Relax," Hammond said. "Spread your wings."

Dalton arched his back and spread his arms-wings wide. They caught and the descent slowed. "Am I outside?"

"You’ll have to look to see."

"How do I do that?"

"This is where you must look into the real world from the virtual, “Hammond said.

"How do I do that?" Dalton asked once more, slowly circling where he was, in the middle of the same fog he'd been in since entering the virtual world.

"Concentrate. It’s just like focusing on the white dot."

"Great." Dalton did as Hammond said. Gradually the fog began clearing. He saw white peaks, mountains.

"When you do this, your psyche is on the line between the virtual and the real world," Hammond said. "But your avatar is still in the virtual. If you know where you are and you know where you are going, you can fold the virtual world and jump there."

"I don't understand," Dalton said. He was beginning to see the peaks more clearly.

"You know where you are, and you know where you want to be. Traveling in the virtual world is different than the real. Sometimes you can cover great distances in an instant."

"Sometimes?" Dalton asked. He saw the white cross of the Mount of the Holy Cross.

“We're not exactly sure how it works," Hammond admitted.

"Great."

Dalton turned his face to the east. He pictured where he wanted to be and dove in that direction. There was a bright flash of light and then he was over the Plains to the east of the Rockies. Banking, he could see Pikes Peak to the west, Cheyenne Mountain to the left.

Dalton headed down toward a large building. “What about walls?"

"From what RVers have reported, it will be disconcerting but you can pass right through walls on the virtual plane."

Despite that assurance, Dalton flinched as the outside wall of the building rushed up. There was a moment of blackness, a feeling of hitting something not quite solid, passing through, and then he was inside. He hit the floor of a hallway and was halfway into it before he stopped and drew himself up.

He floated down until he found the right room. He slid in, then paused. There was someone else inside. Dr. Kairns was standing there, staring at Marie. She straightened for a second, as if sensing his presence. Then Kairns reached down and gently moved a stray lock of gray hair off Marie's face, then walked out of the room. She hesitated at the door, glancing back into the room, then left.

Dalton looked down at Marie. What he saw wasn't the person in the bed, but the young woman he’d met thirty-four years ago. The woman that had been waiting for him after all the years of separation. Who had withstood his long absences and always been there when he came back. And now he was gone when she needed him the most. He couldn't hide from his responsibility any longer.

Dalton looked at his wife and concentrated. Then he really did see her, standing over the body in the bed. As she had been, her long blond hair flowing over her shoulders, her face smooth and unwrinkled, her green eyes bright and happy. She was as Dalton had always seen her in his cell, in his memory.

"Treasure?" Dalton projected the word toward the vision.

She turned. "Jimmy?” A broad smile lit up her face. "Oh, Jimmy, it's been so long this time."

"I know."

Marie frowned. "But I'm the one who's been away, haven't I?"

Dalton nodded. He was afraid to get closer to her, afraid her form, which he could see through, would break apart and float away like a mist before a strong wind.

Before his eyes the young woman aged, lines that Dalton knew his army career had contributed to greatly began to materialize, flowing across her, giving her an imprint of the years she had lived, producing in Dalton a deep sense of sadness.

Marie smiled again, this time with sadness resonating through. "I'm hurt too bad to come back, Jimmy."

Dalton nodded once more, not trusting his mental voice.

"Is it all right if I go? It feels so much better like this, being free, rather than trapped like I've been."

She had always been there for him, but she had always done what she wanted also. The question was the courtesy the two had always given each other over the years.

"I think it's fine if you go, Treasure."

"You look like an angel," Marie said. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Dalton said. He reached his hand up. The image of Marie did the same. The two hands flowed into each other. Dalton felt an electric shock run up his arm-wing.

"You've always been my Treasure," Dalton said.

"I know," Marie said, "and you’ve been mine."

Feteror dumped the data he'd stolen out of the GRU mainframe into one of his memory cells inside Zivon. He found it ironic that the code for the encrypted information he had was also most likely inside of Zivon, but inaccessible to him, even though the scientists considered him part of the computer. He activated a decoding program and the mechanical part of Zivon went to work on the data while Feteror waited.

It didn't take long.

Feteror was impressed. The GRU was taking no chances with the arming codes for the nuclear weapons. They were shipping them via military helicopter direct from Kazakhstan to Moscow. There would be a four-fighter escort. Feteror noted the time of departure and the proposed flight route. And the name of the officer who would have the codes: Colonel Verochka.

Now he only had one problem: being on the outside during the flight, but the other data he had stolen would help with that.

A bright light flashed. Feteror would have smiled if he could. Rurik wanted him.

Feteror accessed his outside links.

"Yes?"

Rurik wasted no time. "We need you to find something."

"What?"

"I'm having the data loaded."

Feteror was not surprised to note the physical description for the phased-displacement generator entered into his data banks.

"What is this thing?" he asked.

"A weapon."

"What kind of weapon?"

"That is not your concern," Rurik snapped. "Just find it. As you reported, it was stolen from the site you just checked. So find the men you saw there and you will find the weapon."

"That will be very difficult," Feteror lied. "Practically impossible."

"Do it!" General Rurik yelled.

"I will try, but I will need more energy."

“You’ll get your energy.

The tunnel opened and he was gone.

*****

In the chamber the red light began flashing. General Rurik stared at it for a few moments, then turned to his senior technician.

"What was Feteror doing before I summoned him?"

The technician typed into his keyboard. "He was working within the hardware, running a program."

"What kind of program?"

The technician didn't answer right away, checking the machine. "A decryption program."

Rurik leaned forward. "What is he trying to decrypt?"

The expert shook his head. "We don't know. It's inside his memory database section."

"Can we access his memory section?"

The technician shook his head. "He has cyber-locked and encrypted all that data."

"We can't access our own damn computer?"

The technician backtracked. "We can access it, but I don't think we can get the data stored there out in legible form. Also, the way I’m reading what Feteror has done, it would cause some permanent damage to Zivon for us to do that."

The technician saw the look on the general's face and hurriedly continued, "For security reasons, Feteror only has access to certain parts of Zivon. We have, in effect, put a wall up to keep him from having free access. But you must remember, General, that when you build a wall, it blocks traffic both ways. That wall also keeps us from freely going into his part of Zivon."

Rurik looked at the steel cylinder. "He's up to something," he whispered.

"Excuse me, sir?"

Rurik spoke in a louder voice. "I want you to find out what Feteror has stored. In a way that can't be detected and will cause no damage to Zivon. I want to know what is happening on Feteror's side of the wall."

The technician opened his mouth to say something, but his teeth snapped shut as he saw the expression on his superior's face. He nodded and turned to his computer console.

*****

"You're down to six," Raisor said accusingly.

Dalton wiped the embryonic fluid off his face and threw the towel to the floor. A chill spasm through his body and he shivered uncontrollably for a few seconds. He felt an empty space in his chest, a sick feeling.

"Six what?" His mind was elsewhere, Raisor's words registering distantly on his conscious mind.

"Six men," Raisor said. "One of your so-called ‘special men’ has flaked out on us."

"You talked to Trilly?" Dalton asked dully. He could still see Marie fading away, her spirit disappearing, growing ever fainter until there was nothing there. He'd stayed in the room as the medical alarms had gone off and Dr. Kairns had rushed in. He was grateful the doctor had obeyed his written wishes that Marie not be resuscitated. He’d finally left when Kairns had tenderly pulled the sheet over Marie's body.

"He came to me," Raisor replied. "Said he had talked to you and told you he wasn't going in the tank again."

"That's not his decision," Dalton said.

"If he's not willing, there's not-"

"It's also not your place to talk to my men," Dalton said, cutting the CIA man off.

Raisor shook his head. "I'm in charge here, Sergeant Major, not you. You may be in command of your men, but I'm in charge of you. So in effect, I'm in charge of your men too."

Dalton jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the isolation tank he had just come out of "Fine. Then you go in there and lead the team."

"I just might do that," Raisor said.

Dalton realized Raisor might indeed take over. "Let me lead my team," Dalton said.

"You go over one more time for practice," Raisor said, "then it's for real."

"Fine," Dalton said. He didn't particularly care one way or the other at the moment.

"Can you do it with six?" Raisor asked.

"I didn't think we could do it with eight," Dalton said. "But we'll have seven. Orders are not optional. Trilly's going with us."

"I'll supplement your team with some of the RVers," Raisor said.

"I thought the reason we're here is because they couldn't do the mission," Dalton said.

"They can't. By themselves. But three of them are military and have had basic military training. I'm sure with your leadership, they'll be of help." Raisor's cold smile matched his tone. "And they have experience in the virtual plane."

"They're more likely to get in the way," Dalton said.

"You can't have it both ways," Raisor said. "Do you want the help or not?"

"We'll take them."

"Be ready to go in two hours," Raisor said. "We've set up the practice range as you requested."

"Fine." Dalton was tired. He wanted the blessed relief of sleep.

He turned to Dr. Hammond, who was at her master control station. She looked exhausted, her face drawn, dark rings under her eyes. She'd been on duty practically nonstop since the team had arrived.

"I'd like for all of us to go over at the same time in the next practice," Dalton told her.

Hammond nodded. "I'm bringing the rest back. We'll shut down for a couple of hours, then send you all over together with your advanced avatars to practice your weaponry skills and your team coordination."

"Fine," Dalton said. Despite his exhaustion, he went to the communications room. He dialed on the secure line.

"Colonel Metter."

"Sir, it's Dalton."

There was a short pause. "Jimmy, I've got some bad news. I was trying to get through to you but-"

"Sir, I know about Marie."

There was an even longer pause before Metter spoke again. "But it just happened thirty minutes ago. How-"

"Sir, how is not important. I need you to take care of the arrangements. I had everything ready, you just need to check on it all."

"I can get you back from there," Metter said.

"No, sir, I don't think you can," Dalton said. "And I can't come back anyway. I'm needed here. Marie understood." Dalton leaned against the wall. "I have to go, sir."

“Jimmy, I'm sorry about Marie."

"Thank you, sir."

“Take care of the team, Jimmy."

"I will, sir."