Project Aura

17

The Aura IV satellite had been launched from Kouro the previous week using a French-designed Ariana 4 rocket. The basic design of the satellite was the same that the HAARP team was using to renovate the MIL STAR satellites. The retransmit plans were part of the wealth of information Souris had taken with her when she defected.

To implement the plan and build the satellite, Cesar had been able to hire Russian scientists. Getting the European Space Agency to launch it had simply required putting the appropriate amount of money in the specified bank account. With the establishment of Kouro as an international launch center, space was truly becoming open to all, as long as they had enough money.

Given that there were over eight thousand objects in space, one more small satellite had excited little interest among the world’s intelligence agencies. ESA had announced the launch as a communications satellite for a private company. It was now in a geosynchronous orbit, centered over the Caribbean Sea, halfway between Saba and Colombia.

Once the satellite was released from the rocket, it had unfolded and spread the retransmit antennas, forty feet wide on either side, mirror images of the towers at HAARP. The bulk of the rest of the satellite was a very powerful battery, capable of adding strength to the signal when it came. The uplink was a specially designed antenna on top of the volcano on Saba. Souris had estimated they would get only one burst out of the battery, maybe two. But all they needed was one to confirm they could do what they needed.

Farruco had to climb over one of the women to get to his cell phone, which was on the nightstand. He ignored her yelp of pain as his knee pressed into her stomach.

“Yes?”

“The Americans are coming,” Cesar informed him.

Farruco jumped out of the bed, one hand on the phone, the other reaching for his pants. “I will-”

“Shut up and listen,” Cesar cut him off. “I want you to do exactly as I say.”

“Careful,” Jackson warned Dalton as he and Barnes finished unhooking the dolly under the last tube in line. They wore heavy work gloves, as the eight-foot-high tubes were still supercooled. Cables looped all around, providing power from portable generators and life support for the bodies inside the tubes. The job had been made considerably easier given that the iso-tubes were designed to be moved if needed.

Dalton wiped the sweat off his forehead and surveyed what they had accomplished so far: All ten cylinders that held his team were free and ready to move; ancillary equipment had also been loaded on the movable platforms.

“What about Raisor?” Barnes asked. “And the other team?”

Dalton shook his head. “We’ll be lucky to get all these in the sling loads. Hammond says they’ll last like this on generator power for about two hours, then we’ve got to hook everything back up.”

“Where are we taking them?” Barnes asked.

“We’ll see it when we get there,” Dalton said.

“Enough yacking,” Jackson said. She had her padded shoulder against the first tube in line. “Let’s get these to the landing pad.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Dalton snapped a half salute and joined her.

Valika had secured the Barrett to the floor of the helicopter. She doubted whether she would need the long gun, but she had always thought it best to be prepared. She checked the function of the MP-5 submachine gun Gregory had brought for her.

She leaned close to Gregory, who was seated next to her. “How long?”

“Thirty minutes.”

She looked at the Aura generator, debating whether to turn it on yet. She decided to wait until they were just about to land. She opened one of the metal cases. A dozen canisters were secured in the foam padding. She pulled one out and handed it to Gregory.

“What’s this?” he yelled.

“A special type of grenade. Russian. We called it a beer can. When it detonates, it sends out an intense electromagnetic pulse. It is designed to be used inside headquarters and communications centers to destroy electronic equipment while not injuring personnel.”

Gregory frowned. “Why do we need it?”

Now that they were in the air, Valika was pretty certain that Gregory and his men would follow through on the mission. It was time to tell him the nature of the objective and how she envisioned the grenade being used against Psychic Warriors if they appeared.

Two avatars materialized on the roof of Cesar’s villa, the lead element of Kirtley’s team. Kirtley himself was two miles away with the rest of the team, still on the virtual plane at the objective rally point.

“No guards that we can see,” one of the men reported. “The roof is clear.”

“Jump,” Kirtley ordered the rest of his team. He, however, remained where he was. “Hook me into the command net of the Special Ops team,” he directed Hammond through Sybyl.

The Special Operations task force from the Roosevelt was less than ten minutes out from the villa, flying low-level just above the treetops. The soldiers on board the Blackhawks prepared their weapons, putting rounds in the chamber. Forty men, the elite of the American military, they were as prepared as they could be.

The team leader listened as a radio call came in from the satellite receiver. “Hammer Six, this is Eyes Six. Over.”

The team leader keyed his radio. “This is Hammer Six. Go ahead. Over.”

Kirtley’s voice came back. “Hold at final line for my command. Over.”

“Roger.”

“Also, be prepared to go to the location I give you. Over.”

The team leader frowned. “We have the location of the villa. Over.”

“The villa is not your priority objective. The priority objective will be where I tell you to go. Out.”

The team leader turned to his executive officer, eyebrows raised in question. The XO could only shrug his ignorance of this change.

Sergeant Lambier started as two forms materialized in front of him. “What the hell?”

“We’re friendly,” one of the forms spoke, the voice echoing. As Lambier watched, the smooth white surface of the forms transformed into clothes, skin, hair. A man in a black jumpsuit with no identifying badges or insignia.

“Who are you?” Lambier demanded.

“NSA,” the first form answered. “Helicopters are less than ten minutes from here. Where are the guards?”

Lambier shook his head as the other members of his team gathered round. “I don’t know. We haven’t heard anything in a while.” He reached out to touch the form. “Unbelievable. What are you?”

On a hillside a half mile away, Farruco could see the strange forms appear on the roof of the building. Just as Cesar had told him would happen. He flipped open his SATPhone. “They’re here.”

Cesar put his hand on Souris ’s shoulder. “Now!”

She pressed the Enter key.

From the antenna on top of Saba ’s volcano, a tight-wave beam darted up into the sky toward Aura IV. It hit the retransmit panels, triggering a surge of power from the main battery, and was redirected down to Earth.

Kirtley’s avatar staggered, the screams of his team members’ dying psyches hitting him like a wave of pain.

The last thing Sergeant Lambier saw was the two forms getting wiped away, like pencil images under a powerful and extremely fast eraser. Then his brain exploded in agony, blood poured from his eyes, mouth, ears, and nose, and he collapsed to the floor dead.

“They just disappeared,” Farruco reported.

Cesar slapped Souris on the back. “It worked!” “Of course it worked,” Souris said.

“Go in and see what happened to the prisoners,” Cesar ordered Farruco.

“Did you track it?” Kirtley demanded. “Did you track the transmitter? Is it close by?”

Boreas was staring at the data HAARP had picked up. It made no sense.

“Where is it?” Kirtley’s voice had risen to a panicked pitch. “They wiped out my team, goddamn it! I’ve got the choppers on hold at the final line. Give me a location.”

“You knew that was going to happen,” Boreas said calmly, still trying to figure out what the information he was looking at meant, as it wasn’t like the previous Aura transmissions they’d intercepted. “Stand by.”

In the air next to Mount of the Holy Cross, Roby was watching his radar screens, and he didn’t like what they were telling him. Four helicopters were coming in from the north. He tried contacting them on the guard frequency, but there was no reply. “This ain’t good,” he muttered.

“I’ve lost them!” Hammond said as she came running into the loading bay.

“What?” Dalton spun around, his attention diverted from the sky outside. He could hear the inbound Blackhawks but he hadn’t seen them yet.

“The team. They’re gone. Except for Kirtley. The rest of them flat-lined. All at once. No mental activity at all.”

“Damn it,” Dalton muttered.

With a blast of cold air, the first Blackhawk came to a hover, the side door opening. The crew chief shoved out the cargo netting and Jackson and Barnes began spreading it out on the grate.

He ran over to Jackson, grabbing her shoulder to get her attention. “Get this first load out, then get on board the second chopper.”

“Where are you going?”

“ Hammond ’s lost the team. Something happened to them.”

“There’s nothing you can do,” Jackson said.

“Kirtley isn’t gone-he must be in a different place. I’m going to have Hammond extract him and find out what the hell is going on. The pilots know where to take you if it comes to that.”

He could see that Jackson was going to protest further, but they were both interrupted by the crew chief throwing an expended aluminum flare tube at them. It clattered on the grate and Dalton picked it up. He pulled the top off and took out the note crammed inside.

Four helicopters inbound. Not responding to hails. You have six minutes.

He shoved the note into Jackson ’s hand. “Get them loaded and get out of here.”

“What about you?”

“We’ll get out,” Dalton said. He reached over and pulled the emergency radio off her flight vest. “Come back for us.” Then he turned and ran to Hammond, leading her back into the complex.

“It came from a satellite,” McFairn’s voice echoed out of the speaker.

Boreas slapped his palm on the desktop. That fit the data but was unexpected.

“My people tracked the downlink,” McFairn continued, “but we didn’t catch the uplink.”

“Do you have a lock on the satellite?” Boreas asked.

“Space command is tracking it. I’ve got an F-15 out of Eglin Air Force Base scrambling. It’s armed with ALMV.”

“A what?”

“ALMV stands for air-launched miniature vehicle. It’s an ASAT-antisatellite-missile.”

“We need the uplink,” Boreas said.

“First things first,” McFairn said. “We take out the satellite before someone else gets killed.”

Boreas leaned back in his seat. Souris was one step ahead of them again. What the hell were she and the Ring doing? He spoke into his headset, directly to Kirtley. “Order the helicopters in.”

“Where’s the transmitter?” Kirtley demanded.

“In space. Order the helicopters in and clean up the mess at the villa.”

Farruco kicked one of the American bodies with the tip of his boot. The amount of blood surprised him. How had Cesar done this? And who were the strange beings who had just appeared on the roof, then disappeared?

He cocked his head at the sound of helicopters approaching. Barking orders, he ran upstairs. Reaching the main level, he flipped open the cell phone as the first American helicopter came racing in over the treetops.

“Can you do another burst?” Cesar asked Souris.

“I’m checking on the status of the satellite’s power right now,” she replied. Reading the screen, she nodded. “I think we can get one more.”

“Stand by,” Cesar told her. He spoke into the phone, ordering Farruco to pull his men back.

Afterburners kicked in as the F-15 roared into the sky, nose pointed almost vertical. Slung beneath the left wing was a long rocket. The F-15 passed through the sound barrier less than two minutes after wheels-up and continued to accelerate.

“Pull Kirtley back using Sybyl,” Dalton ordered Hammond.

“What about the rest of the team?”

“You’ve got no contact with them?”

“No.”

“Then there’s nothing you can do. Leave them alone. I want to know what’s going on. These inbound choppers are probably Kirtley’s people.”

The first load of commandos off-loaded on the roof, blowing holes in the ceiling, working their way down.

Farruco and his men were beating a hasty retreat across the back lawn, firing as they went. An Apache gun-ship raced by, thirty-millimeter cannon spitting bullets, killing half of Farruco’s gunslingers before they reached the relative safety of the jungle.

Two more lifts of commandos off-loaded on the roof. Thirty men were in or on the villa.

From his vantage point, Kirtley could see the action, but he made no move. The plan had been for him to redirect the commandos to capture the Aura transmitter, which Boreas had expected to be located nearby. Given that it was in space, he was at a loss what to do.

He started in surprise as he sensed a shift in his link to Sybyl. Against his will, he was being drawn back. The villa disappeared and he was in total blackness.

The first Blackhawk carefully gained altitude, lifting the cargo net full of isolation tubes off the grate. Jackson and Barnes had managed to put six in that net. The second bird dropped its net and they quickly spread it out. The unknown helicopters were three minutes out.

Valika turned on the Aura generator. Despite her warning, the men inside the helicopter bay were startled when Raisor’s image appeared, floating half in and half out of the left side door, just in front of Valika.

“We’re three minutes out,” Valika informed him.

“I know.”

The F-15 was shuddering as it passed through fifty thousand feet altitude. The pilot was linked to Space Command in Colorado Springs, which had a lock on the target satellite and was relaying the data to his targeting computer. In turn, the computer was automatically downloading updates to the ALMV every second.

The second sling load was attached to the bottom of the Blackhawk, then Roby carefully maneuvered the chopper away from the platform and down, until his cargo door was level with the metal grate. The crew chief waved for Jackson and Barnes to get on board.

“What about the sergeant major?” Roby asked as soon as Jackson put on a headset.

“He said to come back for him after we deliver this load,” Jackson said.

Roby shook his head, but he added power, moving up and away from the mountainside. He cursed as something flashed by, coming around the side of the mountain, narrowly missing. Another helicopter. The equally surprised crew of that chopper swerved away, then continued down the platform, disgorging a swarm of armed men.

“What the hell?” Roby muttered, but he didn’t have time to contemplate the scene below any longer as a second Huey came around the mountain and someone leaned out the side and fired an MP-5 on full automatic at his Blackhawk.

Roby banked hard, trying to keep from losing the slingload, and headed to the south. One of the Hueys tried to follow but it was no match for the speed of the more modern Blackhawk, even one carrying a sling load.

After five minutes of chase, the Huey gave up and turned back.

“Are you clear yet?” Cesar demanded of Farruco over the SATPhone.

“Yes. We’re in the jungle.”

Cesar turned to Souris. “Do it.”

The F-15 peaked out at seventy thousand feet, the air no longer thick enough to keep the engine firing. Just before stalling, the pilot hit the release for the ALMV. The eight-foot-long rocket separated; the first stage ignited and it roared toward the darkness of space as the F-15 rolled over and headed back toward Earth, the pilot nursing his engine to keep it from flaming out.

“It’s going to take several minutes for his body to warm up enough to bring him back in completely,” Hammond said. They both turned as a thunderous explosion echoed down the entrance tunnel into the control room. Alarms began stridently ringing. Dalton pulled his pistol out of its holster and chambered a round.

Souris hit the Enter key and the signal left the antenna.

The heat seeker on the nose of the ALMV had picked up the energy in the Aura IV satellite. It closed at over five thousand miles an hour.

The uplink hit the satellite and the battery surged, adding power to the downlink just as the ALMV slammed into the satellite. The kinetic energy of mass times the extreme velocity resulted in complete disintegration of the satellite.

Space Command recorded the hit.

“You’ve got to go back for Dalton,” Barnes insisted.

Roby was concentrating on flying. “Hauling a sling load reduces options greatly. We’d be sitting ducks. Even a pig Huey could fly circles around me right now. I can only outrun them going straight.”

“We’ve got to get the isolation tubes hooked back up,” Jackson said. “The sergeant major told me to do this.”

“Hell, you’re the officer,” Barnes said.

Jackson looked at Barnes. “You Green Berets are always the one saying the most experienced person should be in charge.”

“Where are we going?” Barnes changed the subject.

“ Cheyenne Mountain,” Roby said. He could see the first helicopter ahead of them, the red cargo netting holding the iso-tubes and other equipment hanging below. It was hard to believe there were living people inside of the dark tubes.

“Space Command?” Jackson was surprised Dalton would have picked that as the place to bring the iso-tubes.

“Not Space Command,” Roby answered. “The west side of the mountain. We’ll drop the load and go back for the sergeant major.”

“Who the hell were those people?” Barnes wanted to know, but no one could answer that.

Jackson wanted to know what was on the west side of Cheyenne Mountain, but she figured she would see soon enough for herself.

Dalton checked the security monitor. A half dozen men dressed in black were slipping through the hole ripped in the vault door. He had no clue who they were, but their method of entry left no doubt that they would not be friendly when they reached the control center.

“How long before you can pull Kirtley?”

“Three minutes.”

“Set the controls to refreeze. We have to leave him,” Dalton said. “We don’t have three minutes.”

“We can’t-”

“Do it,” Dalton cut Hammond off. “It’s his only chance.”

Hammond quickly entered the commands, having Sybyl reverse the process.

“Where are your technicians?” Dalton asked.

“In their billets along the main corridor. I always clear the control room once people go over. Standard procedure, since I can run everything through Sybyl.”

“How many?”

“Eight people.”

Dalton saw it was too late for Hammond ’s support team. The main corridor was already half overrun. As he watched on the monitor, one of Hammond ’s white-coated techs stepped out of a door to be instantly cut down with a burst of automatic weapon fire.

Dalton turned to Hammond. “There has to be a main air shaft for this place. Something that comes out on the mountain other than the main entrance.”

“I don’t know,” Hammond said.

Dalton knew they didn’t have time to stand around and think. One of the tenets he’d learned early in his military career was that action, even the wrong one, was better than standing around in the kill zone, which is what he figured the control room was going to become in about a minute.

“Come on.” He ran toward the service elevator. Hammond pulled a CD-ROM disk out of the mainframe before following.

The door slowly slid open when he hit the button.

“Sergeant Major and Dr. Hammond.”

Dalton spun about in surprise at the familiar voice. Raisor’s image was floating in the air behind them. Dalton didn’t hesitate, pressing the Down button. The doors slid shut.

Raisor appeared inside. “Can’t get rid of me that easily. You both should know that.” He considered Hammond. “You cut me off.”

“I ordered her to,” Dalton cut in. “You disregarded the mission.” He was watching the numbers click as the elevator descended.

“No, I was doing my mission. You have no idea what’s going on here, do you?”

“I don’t think you do either,” Dalton answered. The elevator came to a halt. The doors opened. The cavern that had housed Sybyl III was in front of them. The generators still hummed, providing power to Sybyl IV. “You know who betrayed your sister, don’t you?”

“McFairn,” Raisor said.

Dalton laughed at the image floating in front of him, while his eyes darted about, searching. “Who’s McFairn?”

“Deputy Director of the NSA.”

The generators were diesel. There had to be an air duct bringing in fresh air for them and removing the exhaust. “McFairn is just a puppet. Your sister discovered something about HAARP. About the Priory. That’s your real enemy. And my enemy too. Do you trust these people you are with? Do you know who they are? Who they work for?” Dalton asked as he walked toward the generators, Hammond close by his side.

“I don’t have to trust them. They’re giving me back my body. I know for sure I don’t trust you,” he added.

“Fine. I recommend you go back then and make sure everything’s all right, because I left charges on all the tubes.” He checked his watch. “Set to go off in two minutes. That will guarantee you never get back to your body, because it will be in a thousand pieces.”

Raisor’s image disappeared.

“Come on,” Dalton was ripping off a panel on a large tube that ran behind the rows of generators, connected to each by several rubber hoses. He was greeted with the stench of diesel exhaust. The tube was three feet in diameter. A tight fit.

“Cut off the generators,” he told Hammond.

She threw the master switch and a sudden silence filled the cavern. Then there was a hum as the rows of backup batteries kicked in power. Dalton stuck his head in. Utter darkness. “Let’s go.”

Raisor appeared in the room holding his sister’s team and his own tube. Valika and her mercenaries were searching the operations center. He heard another burst of automatic weapons firing as he searched for the charges. Nothing.

The Russian poked her head through the door and saw him. “What do we need to take with us?”

Dalton had lied about the charges, he knew that now. Raisor would have laughed if he were capable of it. He had what he had come for. He pointed. “My sister’s tube. And mine. And the master computer. I’ll show you. And there are two people trying to escape in the generator room. You might want to go down there and stop them.”

Valika ran toward the freight elevator, calling for several of the mercenaries to come with her. She ordered others to work with Raisor, who was now behind the command console.

“The power’s been cut off,” Raisor said. “We’re running on backup batteries. You need to restart the generators.”

Valika acknowledged that as the elevator doors shut.

She rode down to the lowest level. As soon as the door began opening, she jumped through, weapon at the ready. “Search,” she ordered as she slowly made her way to the generators, weapon sweeping back and forth. She saw that the master switch was off. She flipped it back up and the room filled with the roar of the diesel engines.

“Here!” one of the merks yelled from behind the generators.

Valika ran around to where he was pointing. She coughed at the foul fumes that were pouring out of the removed panel. She knew exactly where the two Raisor had mentioned had gone. “Put the panel back on.”

Dalton heard the sound of the generators starting. “Go!” he shoved Hammond not too gently on her derriere. He had no idea how far it was to the outlet. They were scrambling as quickly as they could, but it was difficult in the narrow tube.

He bumped into Hammond ’s rear as she suddenly halted.

“What’s wrong?”

“Do you hear it?”

“Hear what?”

“There’s something just ahead of us. Something running.”

Dalton tried to hear over the roar of the generators reverberating up the tube. He caught the first whiff of exhaust fumes. She was right. A rhythmic sound ahead.

“A fan,” Hammond said. “There’s got to be a fan pulling the exhaust out. Jesus, I could have run right into it.”

“We can’t stay here.”

“I don’t know where the fan is,” Hammond said. “I can’t see a damn thing.”

“We need to go forward.” Dalton squeezed up against Hammond, trying to get by. Their bodies pressed tight together and he inched past her. Once past, he began moving. “Come on.” He focused all his senses forward, keying on the sound of the fan, hearing it get closer, feeling the air moving on his cheeks getting stronger. As was the smell of the diesel exhaust.

Soon he knew they were close to the fan. The sound of it turning was louder than the generators, filling the tube. He could feel the backwash from it. A dozen feet away. Maybe more. He edged forward.

Stop.

For a second Dalton thought it was Hammond who had spoken.

Now.

He knew that voice better than any other, but it was inside his head. Marie. Dalton stopped.

A drop.

He reached forward with his hand. The floor of the tube abruptly ended less than a foot in front of him. Feeling about, Dalton realized the tube made a ninety-degree turn down. If he had continued, he’d have fallen in, to meet the fan, which he could now hear clearly just below.

Dalton pulled his pistol out and pointed it downward, hoping he was aiming for the center. He fired, shifting aim slightly each time he pulled the trigger. He heard several of the rounds hit metal. The seventh one did the trick, hitting the motor in the center of the fan. It stuttered to a halt.

Dalton could hear Hammond coughing. He felt lightheaded and very calm. He knew both were a bad sign. The lack of anxiety meant his mind was starting to shut down from the exhaust poisoning.

Reholstering his pistol, Dalton edged his feet over and lowered himself until he came in contact with one of the blades of the fan. He tested his weight-it held. Of course, he had no idea how the drop was below the fan.

Slide.

“Come on,” Dalton called to Hammond. He reached up. “Give me your hand.”

He searched in the darkness and then finally felt her flesh. He gripped it and pulled her toward him, despite her screech of protest. He held her weight in his arms. “We have to slide between the blades.”

“ ‘Slide’?” Hammond coughed. “Are you crazy? It’s a straight drop, God knows how far.”

“We’ll be safe. I know.”

There was no answer. Dalton shook Hammond and she stirred, muttering something. He lowered her between the blades and let go. Then he followed.

He dropped straight for about ten feet, then hit the side of the tube. As he slid he realized it was curving back to the horizontal. He put his arms and legs out, trying to slow down, afraid of slamming into Hammond whenever the tube reached the end.

Despite his efforts, he hit her hard, slamming her up against a grate. He felt fresh, cold air on his face.

Raisor had wanted to go back to his body before they left Bright Gate, but Valika denied him that option. She had seen the two Blackhawks leaving as they arrived and was sure some sort of alert had already been broadcast and reinforcements were most likely on their way. She had her mercenaries racing about, unhooking Sybyl and moving the two designated isolation tubes to the landing grate.

“What about the others?” she asked Raisor, indicating the tubes containing the rest of the other three teams.

“According to the computer, the only one who is still technically alive is him.” Raisor pointed at Kirtley’s tube.

“Do we need him?” Valika asked.

“No. And he’ll be lost as soon as you finish unhooking the computer.”

She tucked the stock of the MP- 5 in her shoulder and aimed at the tube. She fired a sustained burst, shattering the tube and freeing the freezing liquid. An alarm went off and a yellow warning light began flashing. One of the ancillary computer monitors flickered and came on. A man’s face appeared.

“Dr. Hammond.” Kirtley’s voice came out of the computer’s speakers, his face appearing on the screen.

Raisor and Valika went to the screen.

“If you are seeing this,” the man on the screen continued, “something has gone wrong and I am dead. I warned you not to do anything. You should have taken me more seriously.”

Valika looked from the screen to the body half-hanging out of the tube she had just shot. “It’s him,” she said, pointing. She had a very bad feeling about this, which was immediately confirmed as the man on the screen continued talking.

“If this program is activated, it means that life signs from my isolation tube have flat-lined-that you’ve killed me. So in keeping with my warning, I will now kill you and everyone else in the facility.” The face on the screen smiled and his right hand appeared, holding a watch. “Sixty seconds. How does it feel to know you only have a minute of life left?”

Valika didn’t wait to see any more. “Bomb! Evacuate!” she screamed at the mercenaries as she raced toward the exit. They dropped what they were doing and followed her.

Raisor didn’t run. The tube containing his body was on a cart near the door to the corridor abandoned. Along with the Aura generator that was giving him what little power he had. He looked at the screen.

“Fifty seconds,” Kirtley said. “I have to assume, though, that is more time than you gave me when you did whatever it is you did to me.”

Raisor reached out and flowed into the computer. Perhaps whatever Kirtley had planned was being run by the computer and he could stop it. He raced along electronic pathways, searching.

“Forty seconds. I was recruited by the Priory. Do you know that?” Kirtley’s voice echoed in the now empty control room, but inside the computer Raisor could still hear the words. He found the location of the recording, then followed the thread of data to a link with Sybyl’s monitoring program. Wrong way, Raisor realized with alarm-this was the direction the alert had come to start the destruct program. He reversed direction.

“Thirty seconds.”

On the grate, Valika jumped on board the Huey, grabbing a headset. “Lift,” she ordered the pilot. “Now!” she added with emphasis.

The helicopter shuddered as the pilot increased power. The blades began turning faster, but they were still on the grate. Valika knew it took time to gain enough blade speed to take off. She smacked the firewall in frustration at the blades turning overhead, willing them to go faster.

Raisor was back through the computer that Kirtley had used to display his message, passing along a data line to the computer that ran Bright Gate’s environmental system.

“Twenty seconds.”

Then Raisor “saw” it. Plastic explosive wired to each of the tanks holding the fuel for the generators. The detonator switch on each wasn’t electric-which he could have manipulated-but rather an acid drip over which he had no control.

“Ten seconds.”

The Huey’s skids lifted.

“Get us away from here as quickly as possible,” Valika told the pilot.

He responded by nosing over and dropping altitude along the slope of the mountain to gain speed. Valika turned and looked back, waiting.

The acid ate through, activating the detonators.

Raisor’s essence was right next to the first of the fuel tanks. He would have laughed if he had had a mouth to issue the sound.

All four tanks exploded, ripping through the levels of Bright Gate.

Dalton staggered.

“What the hell was that?” Hammond cried out as she fell to her knees.

The entire mountain trembled. Dalton could see the night sky on the other side of the grate. His fingers scrambled around, trying to find a latch. He could hear something coming from behind them, like a freight train out of control.

He gave up looking for a latch and threw his shoulder into it, feeling the pain of his recent wound reopening. The grate didn’t give. He yelled and threw himself against it once more, holding nothing back, feeling the shock of hitting the metal through every cell of his being, but it gave way and he tumbled out, half expecting to go sliding down the mountain out of control, but instead landing on a ledge. He scrambled to his feet. The sound was getting closer. He grabbed Hammond, pulled her to his chest, then pressed against the side of the mountain, to the right of the opening.

A tongue of flame exploded out of the opening and into the night sky.