Psychic Warrior (29 page)

Lieutenant Jackson and Dr. Hammond were alone in the control chamber, other than the bodies in the isolation tubes. Hammond was having Sybyl run through various projections about a possible connection to the lost psyches; if they still existed on the virtual plane. So far they’d come up with nothing. She was also continuing the search for Raisor.

Jackson was monitoring communications between Sybyl and Sergeant Major Dalton while keeping an eye on the small television set to the side of the master control panel. CNN was broadcasting the first reports of the nuclear explosion outside of Moscow. Confusion seemed to be the common denominator in all the reports, with the source of the bomb being the most speculated-upon aspect.

"That's strange," Dr. Hammond suddenly said.

"What is?" Jackson asked.

"I'm picking up something through Sybyl. Something on the virtual-" She paused, staring at her readouts.

A loud screech ripped through the room, echoing off the walls, the sound piling on top of itself. Red warning lights flashed, pulsing, adding to the confusion. Jackson looked up in shock as in the center of the room, above the isolation tanks, a small black sphere appeared, the surface pulsating, glistening, straining to expand.

Hammond's panicked voice punched through the noise.

"The psychic wall has been breached. I'm reverting all power to interior containment."

"Oh my God!" Jackson whispered as she checked the infrared scanner. It showed a nuclear bomb hanging in the center of the room in the virtual plane. She looked up. A square inch of the top tip of the bomb appeared in the real plane. Then another inch.

"Sybyl's holding it, but I don't know how long she can keep it contained." Lieutenant Jackson's voice was on the edge of hysteria, but her training and discipline were holding. Dalton had heard radio calls like this before: from the trapped Delta Force soldiers in Mogadishu; from pilots shot down in the Gulf War calling for rescue as Iraqis closed in; from other patrols ambushed in Afghanistan.

"But Sybyl is holding, right?"

"If she wasn't, we wouldn't be talking. The bomb must be on some sort of timer that is on hold until it clears into real space."

"Can you get out of there?" Dalton asked.

Jackson gave a wild laugh. “To go out we'd have to shut down the psychic wall. If Sybyl turns off the wall, we'd be destroyed instantly. We're caught between two walls. The bomb is inside the outer wall, but Sybyl used the backup containment program to stop it before it came into the real plane inside. The psychic wall and the containment program work off the same system. Turn one off, you turn the other off."

Dalton looked at Major Orrick. "How long?" he mouthed.

Orrick flicked his ten fingers at Dalton. Ten minutes.

"How long can the wall hold?" Dalton asked.

"Dr. Hammond is putting every bit of power she can into the computer. But we have no idea. Every time Sybyl ups the containment, it seems like the other side ups too. Geez, Sergeant Major, the damn nuke is just hanging there above our heads, slowly coming into reality. It's about a fifth in now. It comes all the way in, we're done for. I don't want to put any extra pressure on you or anything, Sergeant Major, but could you hurry the hell up!"

*****

Feteror had put the bomb into Bright Gate without much trouble. The outer virtual wall had been relatively easy to pierce. But that damn computer had reacted with startling speed. The bomb had been caught in a virtual containment field.

He'd left the bomb there, operating off the program from the phased-displacement generator. It was going into the real world, much slower than Feteror would have liked, but it would get there eventually.

*****

“Two minutes out," Colonel Searl announced over the intercom. "Slowing to recon speed."

"Extending surveillance pod," Major Orrick said. He looked up at Dalton. "We have to slow down or else we'd rip the surveillance pod right off. We've slowed to about two thousand miles an hour." He leaned forward and placed his eyes into a set of eyepieces that had cycled up from the console. "We'll get a good shot across the spectrum. Someone's farting down there, we'll pick it up."

Dalton waited. He looked down, noted that his left foot was tapping impatiently against the wall of the recon room and forced it to stop.

"Missile launch." Orrick mentioned it as if he were saying the sun had come up in the morning.

"We're tracking red," Colonel Searl acknowledged.

Orrick hit a button. "Pod in. Clear to boogie." He smiled at Dalton as they were both slammed back in the seat. "We're faster than any missile made."

“Tracking green," Searl announced. "We're all clear. Entering approach to destination airfield." He laughed. "Damn Russkies are gonna be surprised to see this baby land."

Dalton clicked on the SATCOM link "Jackson?"

There was no reply.

"Jackson, I don't want to take anything from what you're doing, but if you can answer me, let me know."

"I can talk," Jackson said.

"How's the wall holding?" Dalton asked.

"It's a losing battle. The bomb is sliding from virtual to real at the rate of three percent per minute. At this rate, it will completely be in the real plane in twenty-two more minutes."

"Sergeant Major." Colonel Mishenka snapped a salute, which Dalton automatically returned.

"Colonel Mishenka."

Mishenka unrolled a blueprint and put it on the hood of the four-by-four he'd driven to the SR-75's taxi point "This is Special Department Number Eight's Far-Field Experimental Unit." His finger touched several points. "Surface-to-air missiles that fire automatically if the airspace is encroached upon."

"We already had one of those fired at us as we came in." Dalton put the imagery the SR-75 had taken next to the blueprint. He checked his watch: twenty minutes.

Mishenka looked over the photos, then back at his blueprint "Automatic guns cover the entire perimeter using heat sensors. Anything registering over a certain size is fired on. I understand many a deer has lost its life there. The perimeter is also mined; the mines are pressure activated. The only map of the minefield is kept in the facility, so we’re going to have to breach it.

"Everything is controlled by the master computer inside S-D eight. And General Rurik, even if we could get through to him, can't turn it off as long as Feteror-Chyort-is out of his cage."

"So we have to get in."

Mishenka pointed across the runway. Two heavy cargo planes waited. They were surrounded by a large number of men in camouflage fatigues preparing weapons and gear. "The Twenty-third Spetsnatz company is ready. We're only a couple of minutes from S-D eight by air." He waved and several officers came over and gathered around the hood. Dalton noted in them the same hard, competent look he had seen in Special Operations soldiers the world over.

"How do we get in?" Dalton asked.

Mishenka frowned. "There is a bigger problem than the automatic defenses."

"What is that?" Every nerve of Dalton's body was screaming for them to load the planes and get going, but he knew a couple of minutes spent planning was more important than rushing in with guns blazing.

“Just before I left Moscow, I was fully briefed on S-D eight's base. Two things struck me—one good, one not so good. The not so good thing is that there is a wall—a psychic wall—completely surrounding the facility. I saw a videotape of a prisoner who was forced to walk into the wall." Mishenka tapped a finger against his skull. "His brain was destroyed."

Dalton nodded. "Bright Gate, where I came from, has a similar wall around it."

"Do you know of a way to get through it?"

"I’ll check with my base once we're airborne. What was the good thing?"

"General Rurik did not trust Feteror. Because of that, the general wears a wristband that monitors his own heartbeat. If his heartbeat ceases for ten seconds, the wristband shuts down the central computer, Zivon, which shuts down Feteror, trapping him inside the cyborg machine that keeps him alive."

"So we get to General Rurik-" Dalton began.

"And stop his heartbeat, we stop Feteror," Mishenka finished.

*****

Lieutenant Jackson remained in the chamber where the bomb hung over the isolation tanks. It had materialized over 40 percent. As she watched, another small piece flickered into reality.

"Dr. Hammond?" Dalton's voice cut through the air.

"Yes?" Hammond answered.

"How do I get through a psychic wall?"

Hammond gave a bitter laugh. "You don't. Not if you want to keep your brain from becoming mush."

"I've got to get through the wall here or we can't stop this thing."

Jackson watched the bomb produce another square, but listened as Hammond thought out loud to Dalton. "The wall is an electromagnetic projection on the psychic plane. Think of it as a field of deadly electricity. You touch it you're zapped."

Jackson could hear the sound of turboprop engines in the background coming from Dalton's end.

"How do I get through it, Doctor?" Dalton's voice was insistent. "Wear rubber-soled shoes? Wrap tinfoil around my head? Think! There's got to be a way."

"There's so much we don't know!" Hammond protested. "We aren't even really sure if our wall works or not!"

"Well, the Russian one does, that's for damn sure," Dalton said.

"Jesus Christ!" Jackson exploded, pushing Hammond aside and typing into the keyboard. The answer was back in a second.

"Sybyl says there aren't any options," Jackson relayed.

"Not good enough," Dalton's voice echoed out of the speaker. "There's got to be a way."

"Here." Hammond regained the keyboard and typed. She stared at the results. "I've had Sybyl run a multitude of possibilities and probabilities. Your best chance of success is that you might be able to short it out for a very brief period of time."

"How do I do that?" Dalton asked.

Hammond closed her eyes and thought for a few seconds. "You would have to put a conductor in the field. It would draw power for an instant before the field snapped back to normal operating parameters. For the short period while the field focused on that conductor, less than a second, you might be able to get through."

"What would be a conductor?"

"There is only one conductor that works for a psychic field," Hammond said. "The human brain."

*****

Oma's cell phone rang for the third time in five minutes. Reluctantly she opened it. "Yes?"

"I said every warhead had to be accounted for," the NATO representative hissed at her.

"Every warhead is accounted for," Oma said. "You know for certain where one is—or was—and I can tell you where the other nineteen are."

"Don't be a fool. Detonating one doesn't count."

"It took out GRU headquarters. You should be grateful."

"Grateful? Grateful? Every country that has nuclear weapons is in DEFCON Four alert status. There's a lot of itchy fingers out there and you've put them over the button."

"Do you want the location of the rest of the warheads or not?" Oma pressed. "The one that just went off proves we have the warheads and we have the means and the will to use them."

"Give me the location."

"If I give it to you, you must promise that you will not pursue me."

The man laughed. "Fine. We won't. But I'm sure your countrymen will be after you until the day you die."

"Perhaps," Oma said. "Here are the coordinates of the remaining weapons and the phased-displacement generator."

*****

"What will happen to the bomb here if Sergeant Major Dalton does succeed?" Jackson asked Hammond.

"I don’t know," Hammond answered.

"Best guess," Jackson pressed.

"It will explode right where it is, some of it into the real plane at approximately the percentage it is in our world when it detonates."

Jackson looked at the half of a bomb that hung in the air. "So we're dead no matter who wins."

There was no reply from Hammond, nor had she expected one.

Jackson nodded to herself. "All right then. There's only one thing to do." She tapped Dr. Hammond on the shoulder. "Get my isolation tank ready. I'm going over."

"What are you going to do?" Hammond asked.

Jackson pointed at the bomb. "The only thing I can do. Defuse that thing."

*****

Colonel Mishenka leaned close to Dalton in order to be able to hear inside the noisy cargo bay of the AN-24 transport. Dalton relayed Hammond's course of action.

"Short-circuit the field with a brain?" Mishenka asked.

Dalton nodded.

Mishenka laughed. "That is great. Simply great. You Americans have such a great sense of humor."

"It's not-" Dalton began, but he paused as Mishenka put a hand on his arm.

"I know it is not a joke, but it is the Russian way to laugh when things are the worst. It is how we have survived much misery. Besides, before we worry about the psychic wall, first we have to get to it. We will deal with the psychic wall if we live long enough to get there."

"What’s your plan?" Dalton shouted. The Spetsnatz men were rigging parachutes on each other as the plane banked.

Mishenka pointed at the map. "We will parachute in the only place we can. Here in this open field. Then work our way up the hill and then in. Not much of a plan, but it is the best I can do with such little notice."

He stood and grabbed a parachute off the web cargo seat and held it out to Dalton. The sergeant major took it and slipped it over his shoulders. There were AK-74 folding-stock automatic weapons racked in the center of the plane, and Mishenka indicated for him to take one, along with ammunition, grenades, a demolitions pack, and other weaponry.

Dalton checked his watch. Sixteen minutes.

Feteror formed himself in the real plane inside the hangar. Leksi and his men waited by the generator with eighteen plastic cases holding nuclear weapons. Vasilev was at the computer console. Barsk was gone.

That last fact registered on Feteror. Why would Oma's grandson have left? He knew the answer as soon as he considered it: She was double-crossing him. He laughed, the sound startling everyone in the hangar. She was double-crossing everyone.

But it didn’t matter. His revenge had begun. He only needed to complete it.

He was adapting, changing. The link back to Zivon was stronger than ever, and the computer was helping deal with this unusual situation with regard to the phased-displacement generator and the bombs. What else could he accomplish? Feteror wondered. Might he be able to actually direct more bombs while one was still out there, not detonated? He saw no reason why not.

"Load the generator," Feteror ordered.

*****

The back ramp of the Antonov AN-24 was down, the wind swirling in the back, adding to the roar of the engines.

"One minute!" Colonel Mishenka yelled to Dalton and the Spetsnatz men lined up behind him. The Colonel knelt down, grabbing the hydraulic arm that lowered the ramp on his side.

Dalton went to the other side and assumed a similar position. He looked forward, blinking in the 130-knot wind that blew in his face.

The peak that held SD8 base was directly ahead. As he watched, there was a flash and a line of smoke streaked up into the sky.

"Missile launch!" one of the crewmen yelled. The man was seated on the center edge of the back ramp, a monkey harness around his body hooked to a floor bolt keeping him attached to the plane. He pointed a flare gun out the back and fired in the direction of the oncoming missile.

He continued firing as quickly as he could reload. It wasn't high-tech, but it worked. At least for the first two missiles launched at the lead plane as the infrared seekers in their nose went after the hot flares.

"Stand by!" Mishenka yelled.

Dalton stood and shuffled closer to the edge of the platform.

"Go!" Mishenka stepped off on his side, Dalton on his.

Dalton tucked into a tight body position as his static line was pulled out. The chute snapped open. Dalton looked up, checking to make sure his canopy had deployed properly, and he saw a SAM-8 explode in the right engine of the second AN-24 cargo plane as the first jumpers exited.

The cargo plane's right wing sheered off and the plane canted over. Dalton watched as desperate parachutists tried scrambling out of the open rear. A couple made it before the plane impacted with the ground, producing a large fireball.

Dalton turned his attention to his own situation, forcing his feet and knees together, bending his knees slightly; just as he'd been taught almost thirty years ago at Fort Benning by screaming Blackhats. He prepared for impact with the ground.

His feet hit; he rolled and came to his feet. The wind was taking his chute upslope, so he cut lose the shoulder quick releases. The chute, minus his weight, took off. Forty meters away a machine gun chattered, stitching holes in the nylon.

There was a terrible scream. Dalton looked up. One of the last men out of his plane had hit the top of the psychic wall. He was still descending, but the man had both hands wrapped around his head. Even at this distance, Dalton could the blood gushing out of the man's ears, nose, and mouth.

The scream ended as the man hit the ground like a sack of potatoes. An automatic machine gun fired twenty rounds into the corpse. The man laid there, his parachute anchored by his body, flapping in the breeze.

Two Spetsnatz commandos slapped down a tripod, slid a tube onto the top, loaded a missile, and fired, all in less than ten seconds. The missile streaked right into the source of the firing that had shot up Dalton's parachute. The small mound hiding the machine gun exploded.

Colonel Mishenka was yelling orders, but the men were well trained and needed little direction. Other Russian soldiers were opening their bundles, pulling equipment out.

Three men ran forward to the minefield warning signs and opened up a large satchel. They pointed a thick plastic tube upslope. There was a flash, then a thick line flew out of the end of the tube, soaring high through the air until it landed, a hundred meters away. One of the men pulled a fuse ignitor on the close end of the line, then all three dove for cover.

The cord of explosive detonated, blowing a five-foot- wide path through the minefield. The three men dashed into the path, made it ten meters, then were cut down by another automatic machine gun.

A rocket destroyed that bunker.

And the bloody process continued as Colonel Mishenka's Spetsnatz worked their way up the hill, closer and closer to the shimmering psychic wall.

Dalton ran forward and threw a grenade at a bunker housing a machine gun that had just killed a soldier. He knelt and checked his watch. Nine minutes.

*****

Zivon alerted Feteror to the attack, even as the computer battled the attackers with the automatic defense system. Leksi's men were loading the third warhead into the generator.

"How soon will you be ready?" Feteror demanded of Vasilev.

The professor looked up at the demon. "You still have the second bomb in stasis in the virtual field. That's affecting the computer. Slowing it down."

Feteror frowned, dark ridges coming together on his demon face. "Can you fire the next one?"

Vasilev didn't look up from his keyboard. "I’m trying to get the program to accept the new mission."

"How long?" Feteror demanded.

Vasilev ignored him. Feteror stepped forward.

The professor looked up. "We can fire the third now."

*****

Jackson felt the liquid pouring into her lungs, but her focus was elsewhere. She had Sybyl access everything in the database on Russian nuclear weapons. She contacted Hammond through the computer.

"Anything from Sergeant Major Dalton?"

"He is on the ground. They are assaulting S-D eight's base, Chyort's home base."

"Any other nuclear explosions?"

"Not yet."

"How long can you keep the bomb from coming through completely?"

"I estimate eight point four minutes."

"Come on, Dr. Hammond!" Jackson yelled. "Get me over there!"

*****

Dalton fired on full automatic, right into the open end of a machine-gun bunker, his bullets smashing into the weapon. He rolled twice to his right, pausing at the edge of the path blasted by the line charge.

He was less than twenty feet from the psychic wall. He could not only see it shimmering, but he could feel something. A thrumming on the edge of his consciousness. A feeling that made him want to turn and get away as fast as possible.

He looked over his shoulder. Over three quarters of the Spetsnatz were dead, but the survivors were still moving forward, wiping out the last of the automatic weapons.

Colonel Mishenka ran forward and threw himself into the dirt next to Dalton. He peered ahead at the wall, then glanced at Dalton.

A Spetsnatz soldier ran past them.

Mishenka yelled for him to stop, but too late as the man hit the psychic wall. His body spasmed, arms flying back. They could hear his spine snapping in a row of sharp cracks.

The man tumbled to the ground, his head canted at an unnatural angle, blood flowing from every orifice.

*****

General Rurik pounded his fist in frustration against the console. "What’s going on?"

"I cannot access the surface," the technician said.

Rurik looked up at the red flashing light. He’d missed the last contact with Moscow because Feteror was still out.

He’d violated procedure for the first time in his career. He had no clue what was going on. But they knew something was happening above them. The dull sound of explosions echoed through the stone walls.

Someone was attacking them. But who?

There was only one answer; it had to be Feteror and help he had recruited. No one else would dare go up against the psychic wall. No one else could be this far into Russia and assaulting this most secret of bases.

"Captain," Rurik said, turning to the chief of security. "Have your men ready to stop an assault."

"But sir-" The man hesitated, then continued. "They cannot get in."

"Oh, they’ll get in. Feteror is helping them! Now move!"

*****

"The generator is in phase," Vasilev announced. "The program is working slowly, but it is working."

"Fire this one," Feteror ordered, "and load the next one."

Leksi stepped forward. "You are doing as Oma ordered now!"

Feteror looked at the huge naval commando. He smiled, revealing his rows of sharp teeth. Without a word he sliced forward with his right claw.

Leksi surprised him with his speed. The commando rolled forward, pulling up his submachine gun as he did.

Feteror jumped through the virtual plane to right behind Leksi, even as the man pulled the trigger. Feteror swung down with both hands. Leksi again surprised him by bringing back the submachine gun and blocking the right claw, but the left ripped into Leksi's side.

Feteror relished the familiar sound of tearing flesh. He lifted Leksi as the commando tried to bend the gun back, to fire at his attacker. Feteror solved that problem by slicing off Leksi's right arm.

He tossed the dying commando against the wall and stood over him. "I will destroy Oma's targets, but I do not need you to tell me to do it."

"The bomb is in phase," Vasilev reported.

Feteror turned to the cowering mercenaries. "Load the next bomb as soon as the generator is clear."

He jumped into the virtual plane and connected with the bomb. He directed it west toward America.

*****

“Time for your plan to get through the wall, if you have one," Dalton said.

Mishenka spit and rubbed a hand covered in blood across his face. "I have one. You need a short?" He tapped the side of his head. "I've got one right here."

Dalton wasn't sure he had heard right.

Mishenka stood and walked toward the shimmer that indicated the boundary of the psychic wall. "I suggest you stay close to me," he called over his shoulder.

"I can't let you do that," Dalton said.

Mishenka was standing right in front of the wall. Dalton came up next to him. He could feel the pain now, the fear, pulsing through his brain.

Mishenka laughed. He ripped open a packet on his combat vest and pulled out a small red pill. He held it up to Dalton. "My anti-radiation pill. Perhaps it works, eh?"

Dalton knew the Russians issued the red pill as a placebo and that anyone with the slightest common sense knew that.

Mishenka tossed it away. "I am a dead man anyway. Let my death be worth something." He looked at Dalton. "Are you ready?"

Dalton met the other man's eyes. "I'm ready."

Mishenka pulled his belt off and handed one end to Dalton. "I go, you follow."

Dalton found he could not speak, so he simply nodded.

"Now!" Mishenka yelled.

He stepped forward into the wall, jerking on the belt. Dalton was pulled through behind him.

The Russian riveted straight up, his mouth open, a cry issuing forth that chilled Dalton's heart.

Dalton hit the wall. He staggered, feeling a spike of pain rip into the base of his skull. His skin crackled, felt as if it were on fire. He kept moving his legs, going forward. He fell onto the ground, the pain receding.

Dalton rolled and looked back. There was a glow around Mishenka's head. The Russian was looking straight at him. The mouth twisted from the open scream into a fleeting semblance of a smile, then a river of blood spilled over the lips and Mishenka fell to the ground dead.

Dalton looked down at his hand. He was still holding the belt. The other end was in the Russian's dead hand. Dalton let go of the belt and stood. He headed toward the base.

*****

Feteror's head snapped to the left He was halfway toward Washington, but something halted him at the jump point.

He opened to the flow of data from Zivon. Someone was through the psychic wall!

Feteror jumped for home, the bomb going with him.