Project Aura

3

The windshield was streaked with mud, the wipers pushing aside as much of it as they could. Dalton had taken the road down from Rollins Pass much too fast, almost skidding off twice. His reckless driving hadn’t stopped on the Peak to Peak Highway or the other roads on the way to Fort Carson as he outraced his headlights. Instead of getting on I-25, he took the more dangerous roads in the foothills until he arrived at the post.

He was almost disappointed to have made it. There had been times when the grimy windshield, winding mountain road, and excessive speed, combined with tears blinding his eyes, should have sent him flying off into the darkness to crash hundreds of feet below in a mangle of flesh, blood, and metal. But each time the Jeep veered toward oblivion, there was a sense of Marie guiding him, causing him to jerk his hand and skid back on the road.

He pulled into the driveway of his quarters and turned off the engine, sitting alone in the dark, listening to the ticking noises of the engine cooling. The small house was dark, not even the light on the porch on. He felt his chest constrict. That had been Marie’s ritual every evening. As soon as the sun began to set behind Cheyenne Mountain, she turned on the porch light, then the living room light next to the front window. And when Dalton drove home from work, the glow would be there to welcome him. It had been that way in all the quarters on all the army posts they’d lived on through his career.

There were no more tears to bring forth. His eyes were red and bloodshot. He leaned his head back. The garden. He’d have to spray it to keep the deer from eating Marie’s flowers. It had been one of the biggest sources of irritation when they’d moved in seven years ago. The deer ate everything and it had taken Marie two years to come up with a solution to keep them away-eggs mixed with water, sprayed all over the yard. Another ritual she had performed every evening before they went to bed.

There were no more rituals. The jagged reality of that was finally settling into Dalton ’s chest like a cold fist surrounding his heart and squeezing tight.

Headlights coming down the street cut into his despair. His quarters were the last on a cul-de-sac, so someone driving on the street this late was unusual. The car turned in behind his Jeep, silhouetting him in his seat.

Dalton always kept his pistol in a clip holster attached to the inner side of the seat when driving. He removed it and slid it into the holster in the small of his back as he got out, shielding his eyes against the glare with his left hand.

The headlights went out and he could hear a door opening. He blinked, eyes adjusting. A man in uniform was all he could make out at first.

“Sergeant Major Dalton?” The voice was deep, one used to command.

“Yes?”

“I’ve been waiting for you. I was just down the street all evening.” The figure came forward, a hand extended in greeting. “General Eichen.”

Dalton stiffened and began to salute.

“At ease,” Eichen said, waving a half-salute in the dark. “We need to talk.”

Dalton had never heard of Eichen but in the moonlight he could just make out the three black stars sewn on the general’s fatigue collar. A lieutenant general approaching in the dark-all Dalton could assume was that this strange visit had something to do with Psychic Warrior and the mission he had accomplished in Russia.

“This way, sir.” Dalton led him to the house and opened the door.

“Leave the lights off,” Eichen said as Dalton reached for the switch.

Surprised, Dalton did as Eichen asked. Eichen went over to the chair next to the front window and turned it so that it angled between the room and window, then he sat down. Dalton sat on the couch and waited.

“I work for INSCOM,” Eichen began.

Dalton knew the acronym. Intelligence Support Command.

“Technically speaking at least,” Eichen continued. “In reality I work directly for a special branch of the National Security Council. Which works directly for the President. It’s a very small group that goes by the code name Nexus.”

Dalton was now certain this had to have something to do with the mission into Russia. The government had tried to keep the events under wraps, but all the world knew that a nuclear weapon had detonated in Moscow. However, the existence of Russia Special Department Eight (SD-8)-their equivalent of Bright Gate-and of Feteror/Chyort, the Russian avatar, was something the Russian government was keeping highly classified, a decision the present American administration had agreed with wholeheartedly. The nuclear explosion was being blamed on dissident right-wing terrorists, which also allowed the Russian president to crack down on his rivals, another thing which the administration agreed with.

“Did you know that the President was not aware of the existence of Bright Gate and the Psychic Warrior program up until five days ago?” Eichen asked.

Dalton stiffened. “No, sir, I didn’t.”

“Did you know that the President did not sanction the Psychic Warrior mission to stop the Russian Mafia from trying to steal the nuclear weapons?”

Dalton felt a twinge of pain in his back from an old wound. “Sir, we were told we had authorization from the National Command Authority to conduct the mission.”

Eichen’s hand fluttered in the dark. “Don’t worry, I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m informing you of the facts. Hell, if the President had known of Psychic Warrior and the pending interception of those nukes by the Russian Mafia, I’m sure he would have authorized the mission. The problem is that someone did authorize the mission without his sanction. Someone’s been running Bright Gate without his knowledge. The real problem is, Sergeant Major, who the hell is behind Bright Gate?”

Dalton was at a loss. He’d had his orders and he’d done as they indicated. The entire operation at Bright Gate had appeared to be legitimate. The orders and calls his battalion commander had received from the Pentagon sending Dalton and the team to the secret base to train as Psychic Warriors had also seemed quite valid. Before leaving for Russia, he’d been assured he had National Command Authority sanction for the mission.

“Sir, we were training in 10th Group on the precursor to Psychic Warrior, in a program called Trojan Warrior, two years ago. How can something have been hidden that long? Or not come to someone’s attention?”

“I’m sure the orders were legitimate in that they came down the chain of command,” Eichen said. “But where they started in the chain of command is another issue. This has been going on a lot longer than two years.

“Let me give you what little background we do know.

Bright Gate was the brainchild of a scientist named Professor Souris. She worked at a facility called the High-Energy Research and Technology Facility-HERTF is what those who work there call it-located on Kirtland Air Force Base. That we did know about. It was built to test directed-energy weapons, particle beam technology, and radio and microwave frequency potentials for combat.

“I’ve been there. The facility is located in a canyon in the Manzano Mountains. The walls were built four feet thick to contain some of the results of what they are working on. We budgeted twenty million dollars to build the place and quite a bit to keep it running. And then we staffed it with the brightest minds we could find, Souris among them.

“Apparently, as near as we can piece together now, Souris began doing some speculative work on her own. Work trying to cross the boundary from the real into the virtual plane. That she succeeded we now know, given the events of the last couple of weeks and the existence of Bright Gate.”

“How did Bright Gate get established then?” Dalton asked.

In the dim light reflected through the windows, Eichen appeared old and worn. “Let me give you the bigpicture background and you’ll have to bear with me, Sergeant Major, as some of what I’m going to tell you is going to sound quite fantastic, but I assure you, it is the truth. I had a hard time accepting it all when I was first approached to be part of Nexus, but as the years have gone by, I’ve learned more and more and my belief has grown to be absolute.

“Nexus was founded by General Eisenhower when he was President. After a couple of years in office, Eisenhower realized that things were not as they appeared to be, that there were actions going on that he wasn’t being briefed on.

And it appeared that key members of his administration, especially in the military and intelligence agencies, along with leading members of industry, were working with a different agenda. What that agenda was, he had no idea. He tried to make it as public as he could; I’m sure you know about his warning in a speech to the country regarding the military-industrial complex, but it was much darker than that. And he was threatened.”

Dalton stirred uncomfortably. “The President threatened?”

“Eisenhower took the threat quite seriously,” Eichen said. “Kennedy didn’t.”

There was a long period of silence as Eichen let the implications of that last sentence sink in. Dalton didn’t know what to say or think, so he remained quiet until Eichen continued. “Eisenhower didn’t roll over though. He formed a group to watch these people and to figure out what they were up to. The group was called Nexus. He kept it very small and limited to people he absolutely trusted. Over the years, that trust has been handed on to each successive member. It’s more than forty years later and we’ve learned little.”

Eichen fell silent and Dalton waited.

“What do we know?” It was as if Eichen were really asking himself that question. “We know that there is some sort of international group that manipulates governments, industry, religion, the media-hell, damn near every aspect of our life. Who they are, we don’t know yet, although we do know they have been called the Priory. How many members, what their objectives are, where they’re located-those are still all uncertain. They’ve always used other organizations as fronts for their work.

“Using the work she developed at HE RTF and our own government’s secret infrastructure, Souris founded Bright Gate with the blessing of the Priory. I’m sure you can imagine how easy it is using compartmentalization and security classifications to keep something secret inside our own government’s bureaucracy.

“We think Bright Gate didn’t turn out as well as she-or more accurately, the Priory-had hoped. We’re not exactly sure what happened, but after a year at Bright Gate, she left and founded another secret base in Alaska called HAARP. I’m going to Alaska shortly to find out what the hell is going on there. You’ve been ordered to report back to Bright Gate, haven’t you?” Eichen asked.

“Yes, sir.” Dalton was still trying to assimilate everything he’d just been told.

Eichen reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He handed it across the coffee table to Dalton. “Read it. You can turn on the light.”

Dalton switched on the small lamp next to the couch and unfolded the paper. The letterhead at the top read WHITE HOUSE with the presidential crest below it. The note was handwritten:

TO: Sergeant Major James Dalton

FROM: The President of the United States

You are reassigned effective receipt of this letter to work directly for Lieutenant General Eichen, who works directly for my office. You are to share information of this reassignment with no one.

Dalton noted the signature and the imprinted seal at the bottom of the page.

“Turn off the light,” Eichen ordered. He reached out. “I need that back.”

Dalton handed him the note, and in exchange, Eichen gave him what appeared to be a compact cell phone.

“That’s a SATPhone with a direct link to me,” Eichen explained. “You flip it open and punch in number one and my phone will ring. I always have mine with me and you will always have that with you. I want to know what’s going on at Bright Gate.”

Dalton took the phone and slid it into a pocket. “Anybody could write that, General,” he said, indicating the pocket Eichen had slid the note into.

“True,” Eichen acknowledged.

Dalton was tired. He leaned back on the couch. “And, sir, the last orders I followed like that were obviously illegal. What’s different now?”

“You can call the President on the phone I just gave you.”

“And have someone imitate his voice.”

Eichen’s teeth shone briefly in the dark as he smiled. “It’s good you’re starting to get paranoid.”

“Sir, I’ve been paranoid my entire career. That’s why I’m still around.”

“You weren’t paranoid enough when you were assigned to Bright Gate,” Eichen noted.

“I was paranoid, but I received a legitimate order from my chain of command to report there,” Dalton said. He was stung by the implied criticism.

“What can I do to prove to you this order is legitimate?” Eichen asked.

“Tell me what’s going on, General. I’m tired of people withholding information from me, thinking I’m too stupid to understand. Why was Bright Gate developed? What is the goal of this Priory group you mentioned? What’s the goal of Nexus, who you work for?”

“ ‘What’s going on’?” Eichen repeated. He sighed and leaned back in the chair. “That’s what we’re trying to find out. All I can tell you is that the Priory has been manipulating our government-and others-for a long time. How long, we don’t know, but-” Eichen paused, searching for the right words. “Let me put it this way. As near as we can tell, as long as there has been recorded history, the Priory has been in the shadows. We’ve discovered little snippets of information here and there that indicate that.

“How powerful they are, we don’t know, but we do have evidence they are very powerful indeed but also very small. They use others to work for them. Bright Gate and Psychic Warrior are just one area they have manipulated. There are many others; how many I’m almost afraid to find out.

“We think SD- 8 in Russia was the same thing-a research facility that was founded by the Priory-and that those in Moscow never really had a clear picture of what was going on there.”

Dalton considered that. “If the Priory has such power to start with, why did it need SD-8 and Bright Gate?”

“That’s a very good question,” Eichen said, “which we don’t know the answer to.”

“Is Dr. Hammond working for the Priory?”

“Not that we know.”

Something clicked then for Dalton, an unresolved issue he had puzzled over ever since finding out about it. “The first Psychic Warrior team that was lost. Raisor’s sister was your agent, wasn’t she?”

Eichen nodded. “We got her in there after Souris left and the Priory’s attention had shifted to HAARP. We wanted her to use Bright Gate to check out HAARP. Apparently someone else didn’t want her to. Hammond ’s predecessor, Dr. Jenkins, pulled the plug on her team. Jonathan Raisor pulled the plug, so to speak, on Jenkins.”

“Did Raisor know his sister was your agent?”

“No.”

“But Jenkins worked for the Priory?”

“He was Souris ’s replacement. The one who took her theoretical work and made it practical in the form of Psychic Warriors. When he was killed, we managed to get Hammond into the slot there before the Priory could send someone they had corrupted. It’s like playing a chess game in the dark, each side trying to take control of a square before the other can.”

“And sometimes pawns have to be sacrificed, right?”

“You’re a soldier. You know how it is.”

Dalton had no doubt about his status as a piece on the board. “So the Priory doesn’t have control of Bright Gate right now?”

“There isn’t much left there,” Eichen noted. “But I have no doubt that a new Psychic Warrior team will be reconstituted. And it’s very likely someone on that team will be working for the Priory.”

“Jesus,” Dalton muttered. “What a mess. We’re fighting ourselves.”

“Not just us,” Eichen said. “This is worldwide. We have members in Nexus from other countries. It turns out Eisenhower wasn’t the only world leader threatened by the Priory. Most go along, but some, men and women in positions of power who see the threat from the shadows, are putting everything they have on the line.”

“But you don’t even know exactly what the threat is or what the Priory’s goal is,” Dalton noted. “For all you know, the Priory might have a good reason for doing what it does.”

“I doubt that,” Eichen said.

“Why, sir?”

“Why hide if their motives are good?” Eichen asked in turn. “Trust me on this. The Priory is our enemy. I’ve looked at your service record, Jimmy,” Eichen said. “You appear to be a good soldier. You’ve served your country a long time, and now we’re asking you to serve once again.”

Dalton didn’t take the bait. “You know more than you just told me.”

“Not much more. And you’re going to be out there, exposed. What I have told you won’t compromise much of our organization. The Priory knows Nexus exists, as we know it exists. I’m your cutout.”

Dalton knew what the general was saying: If he was compromised, he could only give up the little he knew, which was basically his cutout, or intermediary-the general who was his only link to Nexus. The rest of the organization would be safe.

“What is Nexus’s agenda?”

“We fight the Priory, try to stop it from taking actions that harm our country.”

Dalton thought that overly defensive and reactive, but kept that opinion to himself. “What do you want me to do?”

Eichen stood. “Go back to Bright Gate. I want you to see if you can find out what Eileen Raisor discovered before she was cut off.”

“How will I do that?”

“Use the master computer there-Sybyl. There should be some sort of record of Ms. Raisor’s mission. There might be nothing. I don’t know. But I’d like to know as much as possible before I go to Alaska. Then try to find out who was running things there-who was behind Jenkins and Souris before him. Find their cutout if you can. Maybe we can work our way up their organization. Anything you find out, you report back to me.”

“What happened to Souris?” Dalton asked. “Is she still at HAARP?”

“That’s another strange thing,” Eichen said. “She disappeared two years ago. We haven’t been able to find her since.”

“Killed?”

“Perhaps. Or maybe she’s working on something else for the Priory now. We don’t know.”

Dalton had worked in the gray world of covert operations for most of his career, but this was the most bizarre thing he had ever heard.

“Are you with us, Sergeant Major?”

Dalton didn’t ask the question that popped into his mind-what would Nexus do to him if he said no? “Yes, sir.”

Eichen turned for the door, but paused, hand on the knob. “I am sorry about your wife. I know this is a difficult time to ask this of you.”

The door swung shut behind the general. Dalton saw the headlights go on and the car drove away, leaving Dalton once more alone in the dark in the house filled with memories.

Henry Kissinger had once stated that power was an aphrodisiac, but Linda McFairn thought that too narrow and foolish a definition. She cared little about bedding younger, good-looking men, unlike the majority of her male colleagues high in the echelons of government, who spent much of their free time pursuing young, nubile women. To McFairn, power was a lever that could be used to produce desired results. Sex, unless it served a specific purpose, was a waste of energy and, in a town where slander was thrown about with ease, a potentially damaging act, more so for a woman than a man, naturally.

She’d learned that over thirty-eight years ago when she started as a Russian linguist at the National Security Agency. She spent twenty years working her way around various slots in the Operations Directorate, then got her big break as Executive Assistant to the Deputy Director. It took another eighteen years of various assignments for her to make it from the outer office to the inner office.

As Deputy Director she was second only to the Director, a three-star Air Force general. In reality, her decades in the Agency, as opposed to his recent assignment, made her more experienced by far in the power workings of Washington and inside the Agency. The Director was always a military man, as the NSA fell under the jurisdiction of the Department of Defense, which meant she had gone as high as she could possibly go in the Agency. The fact that she had never married had produced more than a few subtle and not so subtle charges that she was a lesbian, something she found typical of male thinking. She’d discovered there were two basic reactions by most men to women in power-if they could screw her, they’d tolerate her but not respect her; if they couldn’t bed her, then she was a lesbian and they still wouldn’t give her respect. She had learned that while they might not respect her as a person, they would respect the power she wielded.

The NSA was in charge of all electronic intelligence activities for the United States, which meant its domain was information. And information, used properly, was power.

Her office was on the top floor of the “Puzzle Palace” at Fort Meade, a large glass building that dominated the landscape. It was directly at one end of the main corridor, the Director’s at the other end. She made the trip to his office once a day to sit in on the daily intelligence briefing, if both he and she were in town. He was currently overseas, leaving her in charge.

Her desk was teak and quite large, over eight feet wide by four across. A twenty-inch flat-screen monitor was perched to her left, the keyboard and mouse on a move-able shelf just under the desktop. The in-box was to the far right, the out-box to the far left. Her policy was never to leave anything in the in-box when she locked up to go home, which had caused her to spend many a late night in the office, once in a while causing her to catch a nap on a plain leather couch on the far side of the room and not go home. The fact that she was here at two in the morning was not an unusual occurrence.

On the wall next to the door, directly across from her desk, a quote in large letters was framed: ALL WARFARE IS BASED ON DECEPTION. It was from the The Art of War by Sun Tzu, a book that McFairn kept in the top drawer of her desk and read from every day.

Double doors led to the main corridor. Behind her, thick bulletproof glass windows overlooked acres of parking lots surrounding the building and the main post of Fort Meade. Two pieces of paper rested on the desk in front of her. One was a transcript of a SATCOM transmission that the NSA had intercepted-it intercepted and attempted to decode all satellite transmissions worldwide. The other was an internal classified Defense Intelligence Agency memo, hot off the wires.

She turned slightly as one of a row of phones inlaid to her right buzzed. She knew from the distinctive sound that it was her personal secure line. Only a handful of people had that number, but she knew even before she answered who would be on the other end.

She hit the intercom. “Yes?”

“This is Boreas. HAARP picked up an anomaly on the virtual plane. It lasted about fifteen minutes and then it disappeared.”

She glanced down at the two documents and leaned forward slightly. “Bright Gate?”

“No. Bright Gate wasn’t active.”

“The Russians?”

“Since SD-8 was shut down, things have been quiet on that front.”

“Then who?”

“I believe it was the same source as last time. Our friends from south of the border. The Ring, using Aura.”

McFairn knew about the Ring: a group of drug lords from Colombia who had banded together to form a coalition. “Were you able to pinpoint the source?”

“Pinpoint? No. You know we don’t have that capability without a second receiver.”

“I think I know the location where the transmission was received, but not the source,” McFairn said. This time it was Boreas who waited on her. “Off the southeast coast of Florida. We intercepted a satellite transmission from a Coast Guard cutter-the Warde. It was chasing a vessel when its transmission was abruptly terminated and the ship couldn’t be raised again. Just thirty minutes ago, the same cutter was discovered run aground on the coast of Florida, on Key Largo. The crew was dead. Cause of death currently unknown but the initial report indicates bleeding from the nose, eyes, ears, and mouth. The scene has been sealed.”

“That means Aura works,” Boreas said.

“We knew it would work,” McFairn snapped. “Yours works, why wouldn’t theirs? They got it from your group in the first place. From Professor Souris.”

“But if your information is correct, that means Aura is directional. And we don’t know how far the transmission was sent if we can’t lock down the source.”

“It’s got to be line of sight,” McFairn said.

“HAARP is line of sight,” Boreas corrected. “What if Aura isn’t? What if Souris has improved it? She’s had the time and the support to do a lot of work. It might even be mobile, which means she’s cut down the transmitter antenna size and the transmitter itself. She was working on all of that before she left.”

McFairn leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes as she thought. “What do you want me to do?”

“You have to target and terminate the Aura transmitter field, wherever it is. And eliminate Souris.”

“We already agreed on that course of action. The problem is, how do we find it and her? I’ve had my people searching but no luck so far.”

“Psychic Warriors out of Bright Gate ought to be able to help us pinpoint Aura if it activates again.”

“You tried that once. You screwed it up and I had to clean up the mess.”

“I didn’t screw up,” Boreas argued. “That was Ms. Raisor. From your end.”

“Ms. Raisor wasn’t one of my people. She was from Nexus.”

“Nexus-” McFairn could hear the disgust in Boreas’s voice. “Children running in the dark, looking under rocks for the truth. There’s an old saying: Look under enough rocks and you’ll eventually find a snake. They’ve looked under too many rocks and now it is time for them to get bit.”

McFairn remembered the thump on the top of her limousine the previous week; the marks left behind by an avatar. She knew whose avatar that was now-Jonathan Raisor-the brother of the woman who had made the initial discovery of the existence of Boreas and HAARP. Boreas had had Dr. Jenkins at Bright Gate terminate that team, abandoning them on the psychic plane. And then Raisor had terminated Jenkins. She wondered if Jonathan Raisor had worked for Nexus like his sister.

Knowing Boreas was waiting for an answer, McFairn made her decision, not that she felt she had much latitude. “All right. We’ll try to track down Aura and terminate Souris.”

“Bright Gate is not currently at an operational level,” Boreas noted. “The recent events in Russia took their toll.”

“They still have some people left who can go over.” She glanced at the other piece of paper on her desk. “We have to be careful. Someone is already starting to ask questions.”

“Who?”

“Someone inside the Department of Defense. They’re sending a representative on a fact-finding trip to your location. A General Eichen from the oversight committee on intelligence.”

“I can’t allow that. We’re too close to the final resolution.”

McFairn was tempted to ask what exactly that resolution was. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence. Could Eichen be working for your enemy?”

“It’s possible. Or he could be working for Nexus.”

The fact that Boreas didn’t consider Nexus his primary enemy was something McFairn found interesting. “What are you going to do about him then?”

“I think this is a good opportunity to test HAARP.”

“Killing Eichen will draw attention.”

“Eventually,” Boreas said. “At first it will look like an accident, which will gain us the time we need. And if he is from Nexus, it will send the proper message to them.”

“I don’t think I can allow-” McFairn began, but she was cut off.

“You have no choice in the matter.”

“Perhaps if you told me why you are doing all this,” McFairn said, “we could work together better.”

“You’ve gotten what you wanted from us,” Boreas said. “Now we’re asking for repayment. I assure you that HAARP poses no danger to your interests or your country’s security. In fact, it will add a very powerful weapon to your country’s arsenal.”

“You just said you were going to use it against Eichen,” McFairn noted.

“To protect it for a little while longer.”

“How about telling me who your real enemy is if you find Nexus only a nuisance?”

“For now, all you need to know is that the Ring is the face of my enemy but not the controlling entity.” Boreas changed the subject. “We need to regain control of Psychic Warrior. I want a team. Destroying Aura might not be the best solution if Souris has made improvements over what I have here at HAARP. I want to at least get an idea what she’s done, and Psychic Warrior would be the most efficient way to do that. Could you get your friends south of the Potomac to reconstitute another Psychic Warrior team?”

“Do you mean the Pentagon or the CIA?” McFairn didn’t wait for an answer. “I think both are a bit leery of Bright Gate, given each one’s respective team was decimated.” She leaned forward, palms flat on the desktop. “I was prepared for this possibility. I have a better option closer to home, constituting a team from within the ranks of my own Agency. But it will take time to train another Psychic Warrior team,” she noted.

“Pick someone opportunistic to lead the team,” Boreas said. “Someone like you, who understands the nuances of loyalty when weighed with self-advancement.”

McFairn didn’t respond to the barb.

“What forces does the Department of Defense have in Colombia?” Boreas asked.

“Task Force Six,” McFairn said. “The covert counter-drug teams.”

“All right. Use them to draw out Aura. The more we make the Ring use it, the closer we can get to the transmitter and Souris.”

McFairn pressed her hands against her temples, trying to keep the pain she felt from building further. “I’ll contact the Pentagon and get things moving. I’ll let you know the schedule.”

She hit the Off button. She called the Pentagon and passed on the speculation about the attack on the Coast Guard cutter originating from the Ring.

Then she checked her Fort Meade directory and found the name she was looking for. She made that call, getting the personnel she wanted moving. After hanging up the phone, she went to the wall to the right of her desk. Pressing the proper code in a keypad caused a panel to slide up, revealing a steel door and a retina scan. She leaned forward, placing her right eye against rubber.

The safe door opened with a click. McFairn removed a thick three-ring binder with TOP SECRET stamped on the cover and carried it back to her desk. Taking a pad of paper, she wrote down a summary of the conversation she had just had with Boreas. She three-hole-punched it and placed it in the rear of the binder, the most recent addition.

She paused before taking the binder back to the safe. She flipped through the hundreds of pages until she was back at the cover page. Two words stood out against the white paper:

THE PRIORY

She turned that page and looked at the first entry, which she had made over twenty-five years ago when she had first been contacted by someone representing that group. Despite the thickness of the book and the years between, she knew little more about the shadowy organization than she had in the beginning.

What she did know could be summed up succinctly: It was powerful. It was international. It had existed for a very, very long time. And now for some strange reason, it wanted HAARP operational worldwide.

She’d made a deal with the devil and now it was collecting.

There was a second binder in the safe. It was much thinner than the first one. It too had a cover page:

THE PRIORY S ENEMY

Opening that binder, the most recent entry was labeled The Ring. She knew something about the consortium of drug cartels that had been formed in Bogotá over twenty years ago. It had been the focus of much attention from the various American intelligence agencies over the years, although little had been discovered about it.

The problem was, she knew that the Ring was just a front for the Priory’s enemy, just as she-and her agency-were working for the Priory. The fact that the Priory’s enemy used drug dealers made her feel somewhat better about her alliance with the Priory. The enemy of her ally was indeed her enemy.

That the Ring was developing a weapon along the lines of HAARP was very disturbing, but they’d known that would be a problem when Dr. Souris disappeared from the program two years ago and was rumored to be working for the Ring. McFairn didn’t think it was a coincidence. She had a feeling whoever was pulling the strings behind the Ring had suborned Souris just as she herself had been suborned by Boreas and the Priory.

She controlled the most powerful intelligence-gathering organization on the face of the planet, and in the past three decades she had not been able to even come up with a name for this group that opposed the Priory or even the identity of a single agent of it. That made her very nervous indeed.