Project Aura

1

Sergeant Major Jimmy Dalton stood astride the Continental Divide, just south of Rollins Pass, with a wooden box containing his wife’s ashes in his backpack. Far to the east, through the mountains and hills he had just driven up, he could just barely see the high plains of eastern Colorado, a brown and golden flat haze fifty miles away. To the west, more white-capped mountains stretched as far as the eye could reach.

He was a solidly built man, as sturdy as the pines below that took the brunt of the wind coming off the high peaks. His face was weathered and his short, dark hair liberally sprinkled with gray. He wore camouflage fatigues, a Special Forces patch on each shoulder, the left indicating current assignment to a Special Forces Group, the right combat service in the past with the same unit.

He’d left his Jeep just before Needle Tunnel where the dirt road that followed the old railroad bed was blocked by large boulders. From there he had hiked upward. The divide was his favorite place, and the green valley below had been Marie’s favorite. They’d found it shortly after the 10th Special Forces Group-and Dalton with it-was moved from Fort Devens, Massachusetts, to Fort Carson, Colorado, during a round of base closings.

They’d driven up into the mountains on a fall weekend. Dalton had noticed the small sign indicating Rollins Pass on the side of the Peak to Peak Highway and turned onto the dirt road. It was something they often did, taking new roads to see where they might lead.

Marie had fallen in love with the valley, the hills on either side sprinkled with aspens just turning. Dalton had been fascinated with the rail line, which ended at Moffat Tunnel, the highest railroad tunnel in the world. Even more intriguing to him was the old railroad bed that wound its way two thousand feet higher, over the Continental Divide, where the original rail line from Denver to Salt Lake had gone before the Moffat Tunnel was built. Nearby were piles of weathered timber, the remains of a three-mile-long shed that had been built over the rail line over a hundred years ago to protect it from the snow that covered the ground here three quarters of the year.

The wind was out of the west, piercing his Gore-Tex jacket with icy needles of cold. The leathery skin on his face felt the bite of the late fall air, but he had been in such extremes of weather throughout his military career-from the brutal heat of the Lebanese summer to the freezing of a Finnish winter-that he took little notice. He’d driven above the tree line two thousand feet below. The terrain at this altitude was rock strewn with patches of snow even at the height of summer. A few stunted bushes struggled to grow among the stone and snow.

Marie had always laughed at his wonder that at this exact location two drops of rain or two flakes of snow less than a foot apart on either side of the Divide would end up in oceans three thousand miles apart. Her laughter had been one of the many things he had loved about her. The last time they had come here together, as the amyotrophic lateral sclerosis was just beginning its deterioration of her body, they had both known she would never be able to make the climb. They’d simply sat in the Jeep and looked out over the countryside, a thousand feet short of the Divide. It was a bittersweet memory, the beginning of the end.

He grimaced as he took the small backpack off his right shoulder, the pain from the bandaged wound in his left shoulder a sharp reminder of recent events. He set the pack down and unzipped it. The only thing inside was a small teakwood box. Carefully he took the box out. Protecting it from the wind with his body, he carefully opened the lid and removed a faded letter from an insert on the top. The paper was thin and worn, the creases sharp from years of being carried.

Washington , D.C.

July 14, 1861

Dear Sarah,

The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days, perhaps tomorrow, and lest I should not be able to write you again I feel impelled to write a few lines that may fall under your eye when I am no more.

I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in, the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how American civilization now leans upon the triumph of the government and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and suffering of the Revolution.

And I am willing perfectly willing, to lay down all my joys in this life to help maintain this government and to pay that debt.

Sarah, my love for you is deathless. It seems to bind me with mighty cables that nothing but omnipotence can break. And yet my love of country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly with all those chains to the battlefield.

The memory of all the blissful moments I have enjoyed with you come crowding over me. And I feel most deeply grateful to

God, and you, that I’ve enjoyed them for so long. And how hard it is for me to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes and future years when, God willing, we might still have lived and loved together and see our boys grown up to honorable manhood.

If I do not return, my dear Sarah, never forget how much I loved you nor that when my last breath escapes me on the battlefield it will whisper your name. Forgive my many faults and the many pains I have caused you. How thoughtless, how foolish, I have sometimes been. But oh Sarah, if the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they love, I shall always be with you in the brightest day and the darkest night. Always. Always.

And when the soft breeze fans your cheek it shall be my breath. And the cool air at your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by.

Sarah, do not mourn me dead; think I am gone and wait for me. For we shall meet again.

Sullivan Balue

Tears rolled down Dalton ’s face, as they did every time he read the copy of the letter. Even though he knew the words by heart, he read them again, just to see the handwriting, to bring back the memories. Marie had sent him a copy of the letter when he was a prisoner of war in Vietnam. She’d sent it with every letter she wrote, hoping one of them would get through, knowing that it would touch his soul. It was written by a Union officer from Rhode Island to his young wife a week before the Battle of the First Bull Run. He was an officer who was killed in that first major battle of the Civil War.

Marie knew Dalton had always had a fascination with the War Between the States, brother against brother in savage fighting. A war with many causes, some noble, some not so noble, but still in Dalton ’s opinion a good war-as good as any war could be-given the root issue of slavery. A good war-Dalton shook his head. He wished he had served in a good war, but he doubted he had. Even in the Civil War the soldiers had been the ones to pay the price of the folly of those who led them. The vast majority of Southern soldiers were poor farmers who didn’t own slaves; in the Northern army, the rich bought their way out of service, hiring the poor to replace them in the ranks. The cause may have been noble, but the methods weren’t, and it was the foot soldier who paid the price.

Decades earlier, Dalton had been held prisoner of war for five years in the Hanoi Hilton, and Marie had waited for him then, as she had during all the subsequent deployments. He’d fought in El Salvador, Grenada, Lebanon, Somalia, and Iraq. And now, most recently, the strangest battle of all, as a Psychic Warrior assigned to the highly classified Bright Gate project. He had helped destroy a rogue Russian Psychic Warrior who had threatened the world with nuclear destruction. In the end, it had turned out as all previous battles had, with man against man, face to face.

Even this last fight, though, had been bittersweet. He had lost most of the team he had led, and the opponent, a Russian named Feteror, had turned on his own country due to the barbaric treatment he had endured, being enslaved to a computer, his body surgically whittled down to the mind and little more. When Dalton had learned the true nature of Feteror’s condition, he’d had a greater understanding of the Russian’s actions.

There was another aspect to the letter, though, that had been an integral part of their marriage-their inability to have children. They’d been tested many times over the years, and it always came down to the fact that injuries Dalton had received during torture while being held prisoner had removed his ability to father a child. They had discussed adoption, but with all his deployments it had never seemed like quite the right time and the years had gone by. He felt as if he had taken everything from Marie and given her little in return.

Dalton turned his face to the east, toward the valley she had loved, the letter in his hands. “I never thought you would be gone first,” he whispered.

He kicked a rock, sending it tumbling down the scree and boulders to the west. Anger stirred, followed by guilt. And then something else touched his mind, the gentlest of touches, like a single snowflake landing on warm skin and vanishing quickly. It was so brief he wondered if it had been real.

Dalton closed his eyes. The wind gusted. He folded the letter and slipped it in the lid, then picked up the box. The strange feeling came again, stronger, and this time he had no doubt. Thirty-two years of marriage, even with all his deployments, had built a bond between him and his wife that not even death could completely sever. He’d felt this before, when he was being held prisoner in Hanoi. And he had seen her spirit, her essence, when he visited her in the hospital while operating on the virtual plane as a Psychic Warrior. He had let her go then, let her out of her misery.

He could sense her again. She was here.

Sergeant Major Dalton opened his eyes and smiled, guilt and anger forgotten. “Marie, I feel you.”

He opened the lid and the wind took the ashes, blowing them out over the valley. He watched them until there was nothing left to see.

“I’ll always love you.”

Dalton turned to leave, but paused as something else touched his mind. Marie, once more. He was puzzled for a moment, not quite understanding. Then he realized she was warning him. Of treachery and betrayal. He stood still for several minutes, hoping there would be more, but all he felt was the wind. He shivered, then pulled the collar of his jacket up around his neck and headed toward his Jeep.

It was already dark over the East Coast of the United States while the sun set on Jimmy Dalton as he drove down from the mountains. The deep blue of the water off Florida ’s east coast was far removed from the white snow of the Rocky Mountains.

Slicing through that water, the United States Coast Guard cutter Warde kicked up a phosphorescent wake. With a ten-person crew and a length of eighty-two feet, it was one of the Guard’s smallest patrol boats, but more than adequate to handle the tasks that confronted it. The crew was experienced at their job and knew the waters between Florida and the islands off its east coast quite well. There were two main types of incident they dealt with-refugees from Cuba and drug runners from South America and the islands in the Caribbean.

In the small bridge set back from the ship’s main armament-a twenty-five-millimeter cannon-Lieutenant JG Mike Foster stood just behind the helmsman, scanning the surrounding ocean through night vision goggles. The lights on the control panels were dimmed so that they wouldn’t interfere. He turned as a bright green glow almost overloaded the light enhanced in the goggles. His radar operator-Rating Second Class Lisa Caprice-had lifted her head up from the eyepiece.

“Target, bearing two eight zero degrees, range five thousand meters, sir.”

“Size?”

“Looks like a forty footer. No beacon.” She put her head back down and peered into the eyepiece.

Foster shifted the goggles in the direction she had indicated. “Heading?”

“Also along the coast, heading north, sir.”

There was nothing out there that he could see. At five thousand meters he should be able to easily pick up the ship’s lights with the goggles, which amplified ambient light.

“She’s running dark,” Foster informed his bridge crew. “Wake up the off-shift. I want everyone on station.” He ordered the helmsman to make for the other ship.

Foster grabbed the radio handset. “Unidentified vessel, this is the United States Coast Guard cutter Warde. Please stand by and prepare to be boarded. Over.”

He waited but there was no response.

“Range four thousand meters,” Caprice said.

Foster could see the other ship now, a darker object against the black ocean. An expensive pleasure yacht with sleek lines, cutting through the water, all running lights out. He picked up the handset, but as soon as he clicked the Send button, a burst of static came out of the speakers.

“What the hell,” Foster muttered. He switched frequencies, then moved to another radio and picked up the handset for the satellite radio.

“Key West CG station, this is the Warde. Over.”

“Warde, this is Key West. Over.”

“We are in pursuit of an unidentified vessel that refuses to respond to our hails.” He then gave his location and heading, and his headquarters in Key West acknowledged. “We seem to have strong interference on our FM bands,” he added.

He picked up the other handset and tried once more, but the result was the same. He tried to raise his headquarters in Key West again, but the radio couldn’t break through the wall of static that had descended upon them.

“Could they be jamming us?” he asked his electronics specialist.

“I haven’t heard of anyone doing that,” Caprice said. “But you never know what these people will come up with next.”

They had encountered many strange ruses and tricks used by drug runners over the years. One trend had been the increase in both equipment and sophistication. Foster wouldn’t be surprised if the ship in front of them was using some sort of jammer.

Foster could see two of his crew manning the forward twenty-five millimeter. “What they’re going to get next is a boot up their ass.”

He didn’t like the idea of a confrontation. This was their last day on a weeklong patrol. The boat was due for overhaul and the crew would have a well-deserved month off. Caprice was getting married on Saturday and the entire crew would be attending the wedding. All those things combined to give him a bad feeling about the situation, but it was their duty to stop the boat.

“Range three thousand meters.”

Foster reached up and turned on the forward spotlights, fixing the other boat in their harsh glare. There was no one visible on deck. He leaned out the open side window. “Warning shots,” he ordered.

The twenty-five millimeter spit out a burst of rounds, the tracers arcing across the front of the other boat.

Foster exchanged the night vision goggles for a set of powerful binoculars. He trained them on the other boat. He could make out the name stenciled on the bow. “Aura II,” he read aloud.

Caprice had already accessed their onboard computer registry. “It’s not listed, sir.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me,” Foster muttered.

The yacht had not slowed or changed course, despite the warning shots. They were now less than two thousand meters from the other boat and closing. He scanned the boat once more. Something was strange about the silhouette. There was what appeared to be a large SATCOM dish just aft of the bridge, but instead of pointing up to the sky, it was level, pointing right at Foster.

The captain once more keyed his SATCOM handset. “ Key West, this is Warde. Over.”

There was just static, but he transmitted anyway. “Identity of vessel is the Aura II. Not listed in registry. We are-” There was another sharp break in the transmission and Foster almost dropped the handset as a shock went up his arm. “What the hell?”

“Sir-” Caprice was next to him.

“What?”

“Something’s wrong. Don’t you feel it?”

“ ‘Feel it,’” Foster repeated. “What do you mean?”

“There’s something-” Caprice began but then they all felt it.

Just above the slight swell of the blue Caribbean Sea between the Warde and the Aura II, immense power rode on electromagnetic waves at the speed of light. It washed over the Warde, penetrating the hull and every person on board.

Caprice dropped to her knees, hands pressed against her ears, mouth opened in a silent scream. Foster staggered back, feeling a spike of red-hot pain ripping through his brain. Blood seeped out of his ears, nose, and eyes. Within seconds, he collapsed on the steel plating. The body twitched once, again, and then was still.

With a dead crew, the Warde continued straight on course, cutting across the wake of the other ship and disappearing into the darkness.

The Aura II slowed to a halt. Two Zodiacs were lowered over the side, each filled with a load of cocaine. The rubber boats headed directly for shore. As soon as the boats were clear, the yacht’s engines powered up and it cut a wide turn, heading back to the southeast.

There was no where, no when, no form, no substance. Time and space, the two linchpins of human existence in the real world, were a vague memory, like the taste of an exotic food that he could not recall the name of and didn’t know whether he had really tasted or merely dreamed of.

The entity that was the psychic projection of Jonathan Raisor was trying to form something that he might call self. It was one step worse than that feeling of being between sleep and consciousness, when one was somewhat aware of the outer world, but commands from the brain couldn’t make it through the nervous system to move the body, and the mind, the self, was frozen in place unable to influence the real world. Raisor was having a difficult time connecting the scattered images to form a cohesive thought to even begin to send a command. And where would he send it, with his body frozen in its isolation tube back at Bright Gate?

All he knew was gray, stretching in all directions around him. Even his psychic essence was gray-a formless fog of gray inside a limitless cloud of gray. Where did he end and the outside begin? And what was the outside in this virtual plane? And where was the real world-beyond, below, outside, inside of-with respect to the virtual?

The one thing Raisor’s psychic essence clung to, one overriding emotion, was revenge. This had been done to his sister. His body, like hers, now floated inside an isolation tank at Bright Gate. If he still existed, and there were moments when even he doubted it, that meant she still might exist somewhere on the psychic plane.

The way he was, he knew he could not do what he needed. He had to find Bright Gate. That was one firm thought that echoed in his psyche. But to find Bright Gate, he needed Bright Gate’s power and computer to give him form and substance, and for the ability to move along the virtual plane and then reenter the real world.

He went back to the only thing keeping him from dissipating: He had been betrayed, his power and connection to Bright Gate cut off. As his sister had been betrayed. Revenge was the one thing keeping what there was of him intact, an emotion more powerful than the dullness of the psychic plane he floated in. Without it, he felt that he would blow away, like fog in a stiff breeze, until there would be nothing of him left.

Every so often he sensed something in the grayness. Something or perhaps even someone. But always at a distance, as if avoiding his presence. Perhaps the disembodied psyches of others like him, spirits lost without being able to get back to their bodies; maybe even his sister. Or perhaps Psychic Warriors from Bright Gate, going about their business. But somehow he picked up that these distant presences were something entirely different. And that they sensed him and avoided him deliberately. The remote viewers at Bright Gate had reported such presences from the very beginning of the program.

Like a high-power searchlight, a beam pierced the gray. Raisor turned toward it, willing his essence to move, uncertain if it was possible. He wrapped himself around the hate he felt for those who had abandoned him. For those who had betrayed his sister. He was unable to judge the distance, but almost imperceptibly the beam of light drew closer.

Just as quickly, the light was gone and he was in the gray once more. If he had lungs and a mouth, he would have screamed his dismay, but he could only feel the despair. Whatever it was, the beam was the only change he had experienced in however long he had been lost here.

If it had come once, it would come again. Raisor’s entity had nothing other to do than to wait and be ready. He was a man lost at sea waiting for a life preserver that had come tantalizingly close.