Psychic Warrior

Chapter Fifteen

Deputy Commander Oskar Bredond slapped the young Chechen with the steel wire butt of his AK-74, ripping four teeth out of the young man’s mouth in the process. The Chechen spit blood at the officer, his arms bound by two sets of handcuffs, ratcheted down so tight on his wrists that his hands were turning blue.

“Fuck you, pig.”

Bredond smiled. “No, I think it is you who will get fucked. A nice young piece of meat like you will be received quite nicely in our prison.”

Bredond wore mottled camouflage fatigues with a thick bulletproof vest buckled over his chest. His men wore the same, along with black Kevlar helmets. They were the elite strike force arm of the Moscow police, known as the Omon, more heavily armed than their western SWAT counterparts and with broader powers of arrest.

There was another way that the Omon differed greatly from police in the West, and that was that they focused only on certain criminals while ignoring others. Moscow, if one took out Mafia-related crime, was one of the safest cities in the world. But whenever the Mafia was involved, the Omon and the rest of the Moscow police turned a blind eye.

Bredond, despite being a deputy commander, took home the equivalent of $250 a month. They all supplemented their income with second jobs. Bredond, seeing the writing on the wall, had chosen the most lucrative and easiest way to supplement his income.

He kicked the Chechen once more. The man was a freelancer. He had come to Moscow from his home state, stolen a vehicle, and driven it home, where he had sold it. Unfortunately for him, the Moscow Mafia was growing weary of freelancers working on their turf. Bredond had been tipped off about this man and his stolen vehicle an hour ago. Bredond, not a stupid man, wondered if the Chechen had been set up.

The cellular phone in Bredond’s pocket buzzed, halting him in the middle of another kick. He walked away, pulling the phone out.

“Bredond.”

“We have a job for you.” The voice on the other end was filled with static. Bredond knew that was because it was sent through several relays and scrambled. Not that the person calling him was concerned about the police, but rather the other Mafia clans listening in.

“Yes?” Bredond waited.

“We want you to pick someone up.”

When Bredond heard the name and address, he gritted his teeth. He knew what that address meant.

“That will be difficult,” he said. There was no answer. He licked his lips and continued. “There will be strong repercussions if we take action in that neighborhood.”

“I didn’t ask you to do this,” the voice said. The phone went dead.

Bredond cursed. He yelled for his men to gear up. They left the Chechen lying in a pool of his own blood, still whispering curses at the Omon as they drove off

At the abandoned airbase, Barsk watched as Leksi’s mercenaries pulled four Hind-D helicopters out of hangars, along with two MI-8 Hips. He was surprised at the number of aircraft, wondering how much his grandmother had paid to obtain them. Even with the glut of military material on the black market, these would still cost quite a few dollars.

The Hinds were combination attack/transport helicopters. They could carry eight combat-equipped troops in the back, while the pods on either side carried numerous rockets, and a 12.7-millimeter machine gun was mounted in the nose. The Hip helicopters could carry twenty-eight men each, and it looked like Leksi had enough men to fill all six helicopters, judging by the number of black-clad men in the hangar. The pilots began walking around, doing their pre-flight checks, as the men loaded magazines with bullets and sharpened their knives.

Leksi interrupted Barsk’s musings on the cost of this operation by slapping a map down in front of him. “You will take the cargo plane, the generator, and the old man, and transport all to here.”

Barsk looked at the map. The location was two hundred miles away from where they were. An airfield next to a large dam.

“What is this?” Barsk demanded.

“It is where Oma said for you to take the weapon. We will meet you there.”

Barsk stabbed a finger down at the map. “But there is a town nearby. The authorities will be notified.”

Leksi shrugged. “It is what Oma has ordered.”

Dalton looked over the other six Special Forces men. They were all wearing the black one-piece suit that fit them like a second skin. Trilly looked like a dog that had been kicked once too often, but Dalton didn’t have time to soothe the sergeant’s feelings. He’d told him to suit and brooked no resistance.

A door on the side of the room opened and three more people walked in, two men and Lieutenant Jackson, the fillers promised by Raisor. The CIA man followed them, also in the black suit.

Eleven altogether. Captain Anderson had ceded command of the team to him without outright saying so. Not out of lack of leadership, but more out of recognition of Dalton’s combat experience and natural authority. It was the strongest and smartest leadership decision the captain could make under these circumstances.

“All right,” Dalton said, now that his entire team was gathered together. “We need to accomplish two things and we don’t have much time to do it. We need to work on developing our avatars and projecting them into the real world, using their weapons. And we need to work on our teamwork.”

He looked at Lieutenant Jackson and the other two RVers. “You have experience in the former and we have the experience in the latter. So let’s all contribute and work together. We only have one shot at getting our act together before we go for real, so let’s not waste any time.” He turned to Raisor. “Where do you want to be?”

“I’ll be overseeing the operation; don’t concern yourself with me.”

“Let’s load,” Dr. Hammond called out from her console.

The Psychic Warriors headed for their isolation tanks.

Feteror watched the Omon smash the front door in. The house was well built, but the Omon used a shotgun to blast out the locks, then two men swung a small battering ram, splintering the wood. Feteror was in the virtual plane, hovering overhead.

The team, led by Deputy Commander Bredond, sprinted through the doorway. Feteror swooped down, passing through the roof flitting from room to room, watching as the Omon did his dirty work.

There were three people in the house— a woman and two children. The Omon had them gagged, hooded, and cuffed, ignoring the woman’s screams about who her husband was and how important he was.

The Omon hustled the three out of the house and into one of their cars. Feteror followed overhead as they drove through the streets of Moscow until they arrived at an old warehouse near the railyard.

Bredond exited the car, dragging the woman with her as two of his men brought the kids. Two armored BMWs waited in the shadows. Four men emerged from the lead one and took custody of the woman and two children. They pulled the hood off the woman and checked her photograph against one they had with them. Satisfied, they threw the woman into the trunk of the car, then crammed the two children in on top of her and closed the trunk, ignoring the muted cries and jerkings of the bound bodies.

As the men started to get back in the still-open doors, Bredond stepped forward. All four men paused, hands hovering near the front of their long black leather coats.

“This is going too far!” Bredond yelled toward the rear BMW.

Overhead, Feteror began forming in the real plane, his clawed hands hooked onto one of the large support beams holding the roof up, his wings folded in tight, unseen and unnoticed by those below.

There was no reply, either from the guards or whoever was seated behind the tinted glass in the second BMW.

Bredond shifted uncomfortably, his three men holding their AK-74s uncertainly.

“Her husband is a GRU general. We were seen picking her and the children up. There will be inquiries. I will have to answer for this.”

One of the bodyguards from the lead BMW put a finger to his ear. Feteror could see the thin wire, indicating he had a small receiver there. The man snapped a command and all four slipped inside the car.

Bredond raised his hand. His men pointed their weapons at the two BMWs, blocking the exit.

Feteror spread his wings and leaped. He swooped down, both arms out to his side, and went right between two of the Omon, claws ripping throats open in a gush of blood.

Feteror landed as Bredond and the last surviving Omon policeman spun about, searching for the cause of the other half of their party’s death.

Feteror stepped forward and swung low. The last Omon man caught a glimpse of Feteror’s form even as the claws punched through skin, into warm viscera. Feteror felt the man’s spine and he gripped it, practically ripping the man in two in the process. He lifted the man up, then threw him onto the car the Omon had driven.

Bredond stepped back, weapon raised. He could see the intermittent form of some large creature, the two glowing red eyes unmistakable, the red blood dripping off an almost invisible clawed hand very clear.

Feteror drew in more power and he slowly materialized, adding color to his form. His scaled skin was black, his wings streaked with red, his demon features hard and angular.

Bredond’s eyes opened wide, the weapon falling from his fingers as he dropped to his knees, hands raised in supplication. “Chyort! Please! Spare me!”

Feteror spun so quickly that those watching from the other cars only saw a blur. He lashed a backhand strike with his right wing, the six-inch claw on his middle finger extended. It sliced through Bredond’s neck like a paring knife through bread. Bredond’s head tilted back, held in place only by the spinal cord. The body flopped back, blood still pumping from the heart.

Feteror turned to the second BMW. A window slid down and the cracked face of Oma peered out.

“He was useful,” she said.

“His usefulness was over.” Feteror liked the sound of the avatar voice he had worked hard on. It was deeper than a human voice, with a rough edge. A true demon’s voice. “The Omon’s being involved will cause confusion. Their bodies found dead will make even more confusion. It will take the GRU a while to sort through. By then it will be too late.”

“Why do we need them?” Oma asked, indicating the trunk.

Feteror extended the same claw that had almost decapitated Bredond toward the first BMW. “They are important to our plan.”

“How?” Oma asked. “I did as you asked but I don’t see how a GRU general’s wife and children help us.”

Feteror glared at the old woman. He could see the fear in her guards’ eyes, the four men having jumped out of the front BMW, weapons at the ready at his appearance. He could not tell her why, because doing so would expose a weakness.

“Do as you are told, old woman.”

“You need me,” Oma hissed.

Feteror extended his wings, putting the car in the dark shadow they created. “Oh, yes, old woman, I need you.”

Feteror leapt up, translating from the real to the virtual plane in an instant and, in doing so, disappearing before the eyes of those watching, leaving behind the bodies he had torn apart as the only evidence that what they had seen had been real.