Project Aura

9

Dalton slapped Sergeant Barnes on the back as he entered the bunkroom. “Welcome back.”

Barnes had just pulled on the black one-piece suit that they wore when they went into the isolation tanks. “Sergeant Major, how they hanging?”

“Low, real low,” Dalton replied as he opened his locker and pulled out his suit. “Ready to go back in?”

“What’s the mission? I just got told by one of those agency dinks to get my stuff on and be ready to go.”

Dalton quickly briefed him on the current situation. Barnes’s next question was a bit unexpected.

“That Feteror dude is really gone, right? We aren’t going to run into him on the virtual plane, are we?”

“The Russians shut down SD- 8,” Dalton assured him.

“And Feteror?”

“The Russians say they turned off the life support to his brain. So Feteror’s dead.”

“What about Chyort? His avatar?”

“If Feteror’s brain is dead, we have to assume his avatar is gone also.”

“That means we’re the only ones out there, right?”

“Are you worried?”

“Hell, yes,” Barnes said. “We got our butts kicked last time. And the other guys-our teammates…” His voice trailed off.

Dalton paused in his dressing. “We’re not giving up on them.” He looked toward the door, then leaned toward Barnes. “When we go over, I want you to search for the team. Go back to the site of the battle in Russia. Jackson and I will take care of the recon.”

“Won’t Hammond know through Sybyl that we’re separated?” Barnes asked.

“What are they going to do?” Dalton asked. “Kick us out of here? Besides, Hammond ’s not as sure of herself as she used to be.”

Professor Souris had the complete attention of the surviving members of the Ring. Alarico’s body had been removed, and after a short break, Souris had returned to finish her briefing.

“Right now with our current configuration we can generate an Aura field about a mile in distance from the computer/transmitter. We have three working computers. One is fitted on board Señor Cesar’s yacht. One is located here in our operations center. And one, the latest generation and the smallest, is transportable.

“Along with making the transmitter smaller, we are working on increasing the distance transmitted and the size of the field. We have also been doing simulations considering the possibility of generating a virtual field by retransmitting from orbital satellites. This was something my comrades at HAARP were working on when I left. I have continued that work here.”

“Satellites?” Naldo said. “And how would we launch a satellite?”

“We already have launched one,” Cesar said. “From Kouro, in French Guinea. It’s the launch site for the European Space Authority and they were willing to launch because we were willing to pay. We’ve put up a small prototype with an Aura retransmitter and power booster on board.”

“We’ve launched a satellite?” Naldo was shaking his head.

“Last week,” Souris confirmed. “We have contact with it, but we haven’t attempted to retransmit yet. We’re saving that test until other elements are in place.”

“So we will be able to use this weapon from space?” Naldo asked.

“Our prototype is rather basic,” Souris said. “We can use it once, maybe twice before depleting the onboard power supply.”

“I don’t understand,” Naldo said. “What good is it then?”

“Our satellite is simply there for us to test whether our uplink can generate a tight enough, and powerful enough, beam,” Souris said. “Once we have confirmed that, we have a plan for the next stage. The Americans have already done us the courtesy of launching a worldwide network of satellites called MIL STAR that they have been upgrading with appropriate virtual retransmit technology that we can appropriate for our own use if our test works and we can develop a sufficiently powerful transmitter field.”

“What are the Americans planning to do with their satellites?” one of the other Ring members asked.

“They are trying to develop a weapon system similar to Aura called HAARP,” Cesar said. “This is another reason why we must be successful. If the Americans are successful with their HAARP before we are with Aura, I have no doubt that they will use this weapon against us. They will be able to attack us from space with complete immunity.”

“Aura is a better version of what I was working on for the Americans,” Souris said. “HAARP is based in Alaska, at a fixed site. They’ve been experimenting for several years now with it, but they haven’t been able to get their transmitter as compact as Aura, and since it’s line of sight it’s pretty useless unless they can uplink to their MIL STAR satellites, which they haven’t attempted yet. However, once the HAARP-MILSTAR system is operational, they can cover the world with their weapon.”

“How close are they to achieving that?” Naldo asked.

“We think they are very close to their first test of the system,” Souris said.

“We plan to beat them to it,” Cesar said. “Once the test using our satellite is successful, we’ll know we can transmit Aura on their MILSTAR. The Americans are launching the last piece of their MILSTAR network in two days, which means the satellite system will be in place for us to use and we’ll be ahead of them, already having tested our transmitter. Then we have them in a difficult position. If they shut down the satellites, they lose their worldwide secure military net and billions of dollars of equipment becomes useless. If they don’t shut them down, anything we do will be tracked back to the Americans and not us.”

“You plan on blackmailing the American government?” Naldo asked.

“Yes,” Cesar said. “What we have to do next is acquire a more powerful transmitter to make the uplink, and we will be ready.”

“And I assume you have a plan for that?” Naldo asked.

“We are in negotiations for a solution to that problem,” Cesar said. He opened a file folder and pulled out a photo, which he passed to Naldo. It showed a large ship, the most striking feature of which were the four massive dishes on the deck.

“The Yuri Gagarin,” Cesar said. “A Russian research vessel. In fact the largest research vessel ever built. Forty-five thousand tons displacement. Seven hundred and seventy-three feet long. Two large dishes amidships and two smaller ones forward. Souris assures me we can readily convert them to transmit Aura. The ship is available for purchase, as the Russians need hard currency more than they need research. The ship’s primary purpose had been to maintain contact with their space station, Mir, but since that was shut down, they have little use for it. The cost, however, is not insignificant.”

Naldo passed the picture on to the next man. “How much?”

“Eight hundred million in U.S. dollars.”

There was an exchange of glances around the table.

“We are rich,” Naldo began, “but-”

Cesar interrupted him. “Do not concern yourselves about the cost. We have another way to get the money, which we will discuss later. Aura has many uses.”

“You just said the Americans are working on HAARP,” Naldo said. “What about the Russians?”

Valika knew the answer to that. “The GRU and the KGB both have experimented extensively with psychic weapons and reconnaissance. I don’t know what the KGB has done, but the GRU developed a generator similar to Aura which they used against the American embassy in Moscow for many years.”

“The GRU’s generator is very inferior to Aura,” Souris said. “It is more a directional microwave antenna, and its effects are mainly headaches and nausea among those it is targeted against.”

Valika spoke up. “Recently the Russians used a different type of psychic weapon but were defeated by the Americans. The details of what happened have been kept very secret, but all the world knows about the nuclear detonation in Moscow that destroyed GRU headquarters.”

“That involved this type of weapon?” Naldo asked.

“In some manner,” Valika answered. “I have tried to gain more information but have discovered little. The Americans and Russians are keeping whatever happened very secret.”

Naldo raised a finger, pointing toward Souris.

“Yes?”

“How did you kill Alarico?”

“I directed an Aura field at him and then changed the frequency slightly so that it was disruptive to his normal brain patterns,” Souris said. “His brain stopped functioning-both the autonomic and parasympathetic nervous systems. So he actually could have died of several things at once. It would be difficult to tell which was fatal first. His heart stopped beating, he also stopped breathing, he lost all motor control; he probably also suffered several aneurysms in the brain.”

“It is what we did to the crew of the Coast Guard cutter trying to intercept our shipment,” Cesar said. “Think of the power we will have if we have such a weapon orbiting overhead. It is what the Americans are trying to do.”

“Aura is more than a weapon,” Souris said, her eyes burning in her gaunt face. “It is another world completely. A better world. There are things out there beyond what you can conceive.”

Hovering in the virtual plane, Raisor couldn’t agree more with the professor. His existence was beyond what this Ring was playing with, he could see that, but they were headed in the right direction. And with some help, they could perhaps rival what had been accomplished at Bright Gate. And if they could do that, then the real world could be his once more and he could wreak his vengeance.

He found the information on HAARP interesting. That there was another program besides Bright Gate working with the virtual world meant he had been kept in the dark by his own agency. And the fact that Souris had yet to say anything about Bright Gate meant either she didn’t know about it, which he doubted, or she had a reason for keeping it from the Ring.

The meeting broke up, the leaders following Professor Souris to view the underground lab where the work on the Aura computers and generators was being conducted.

Naldo hung behind to have a private word with Cesar, Valika hovering in the background.

“Very impressive, my old friend,” Naldo said.

Cesar had been in business-and in bloody competition until the forming of the Ring-with Naldo for four decades. He knew the old man had something on his mind.

“There are some things that concern me,” Naldo continued as they slowly walked across the tile floor.

“And they are?”

“What about the Americans? Will they not attack us first?”

“They already have for years,” Cesar said. “With Aura we finally have a weapon that they will fear. The key is that we must get operational before they are.”

“There’s something else.”

Cesar paused and waited.

“The American woman-why did she come to work for you? She does not seem interested in money. I am always suspicious of a turncoat.”

It was a question that Cesar had also pondered at length three years ago when he was first contacted by Souris, and he could only relay what he had learned from her. “I give her more freedom to do what she wants here. When she worked for the Americans, she had to do what they told her to. Her research was very restricted. Here, she can do as she wants.”

Naldo nodded, but Cesar could tell his old friend was not satisfied.

The President’s National Security Adviser was known to both friends and foes alike behind her back as the Pit Bull. To her face she was called Mrs. Callahan. She’d known the President since college, where they had been classmates. She’d served with him since he was a junior senator after her own career in the Marines, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel and commanding a battalion before answering his call for assistance in the political field and leaving the service that she loved. She’d found Washington to be a much more dangerous place than even the Middle East during the Gulf War.

Her Marine bearing came through in her posture and her gruff manner of dealing with those around her. She was the point person for the President in all national security matters, and in a tradition that had started in the mid-sixties, she had been the first one in his administration to be briefed on Nexus. She in turn had briefed him after he was in office. He had then appointed her to take care of all matters dealing with the group, which in effect made her the head of it, among her many other duties.

Frankly, the President had not been convinced that Nexus’s fears were grounded in reality, and Callahan had agreed with him. The Nexus representative had not produced any evidence of his fantastic claims about the organization he called the Priory. Only the fact that the manpower and budget allocated to Nexus were so small-and that Eisenhower’s Presidential Directive establishing it was real-had kept him from gutting the group.

Right now Nexus was the furthest thing from Callahan’s mind. She had just returned from a trip with the President to the Middle East, and dealing with the egos that had been crammed into one room had left her exhausted. Her limousine was taking her directly from Andrews Air Force Base to her home.

She was leaning back in the deep leather, leisurely skimming through various reports her aides had handed her when she got off Air Force One. She knew she should have gone directly to the office, but today was her twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. She’d missed far too many in the past, and the President had been insistent that she go straight home, with no detours.

She was surprised when the smoked glass dividing her from the driver slid down with a whir.

“Mrs. Callahan.”

All she could see of the driver were his eyes, dark black, in the rearview mirror. His hair was white, his frame slight.

“Yes?” she replied, her irritation at the interruption clear in her tone.

“General Eichen is dead.”

She sat up straighter. “Eichen?” She searched her mind and then remembered. The military officer who had accompanied the head of Nexus to the initial briefing. “What happened?”

“We believe he was killed by the Priory.”

“Who are you?” she demanded.

“I was sent to warn you that the Priory is moving.”

“Who are you?” she repeated. The limousine had stopped at a light. The driver turned and she could see his face. He had to be in his sixties, judging from all the lines in the leathery skin. But his eyes appeared sharp as they regarded her.

“Is it more important who I am or what I am?” he asked. “I’m from Nexus.” The light changed and he turned his attention to driving. “Do you still want to go to your house?”

“What does the Priory have planned?” she asked.

“We don’t know exactly. They’ve been using the Black Budget to develop a system in Alaska called HAARP. A very potent weapon with strategic possibilities. We’ve managed to deny them access to a critical component of the system by locking it down with an NCA code.”

“So the situation is under control?”

“I doubt it.”

“Why did they kill Eichen?”

“He went to HAARP. To see what they were doing.”

“That wasn’t very bright.”

“In retrospect, it wasn’t. But we weren’t sure what they have planned and we still aren’t. That was Eichen’s job.”

“Whose is it now?”

“We need your help in that regard. I can take you to your office.”

“Take me home,” she barked.

How had they replaced the driver? she wondered. And there was nothing in the material she had been given about Eichen’s death. A three-star general getting killed would have surely made her briefing book from the NSA.

“Mrs. Callahan, I think-” the driver began, but she cut him off.

“I want to go home and say hello to my husband and wish him happy anniversary at the very least. Then we can go to the office and find out what the hell is going on.” They were only a mile away from her house anyway, and she saw no reason not to finish the trip.

“Yes, ma’am.”

She’d met her husband early in her Marine career. He was a lieutenant in a line unit while she was the quartermaster officer assigned to the same headquarters. This was in the early days when women in the Marines were few and far between. She wanted to laugh every time she saw some woman in the papers claiming she’d been sexually harassed by some colleague making a comment. The harassment she had faced had been far beyond the scope of comments.

That was until she met Bill one night in the officer’s club. When another officer had committed “rodeo” on her-leaning over, biting her in the ass, and hanging on. She had grabbed a chair and smashed it over the man’s head. He’d come up swinging and Bill had stepped between and taken him out with one punch. After that there was no more rodeo in the O’Club-at least not when she and Bill were there.

He’d given up his career for hers, following her from assignment to assignment, and then here to Washington, where he saw her less than before. She felt she owed him at least a brief appearance before dealing with this strange man.

The limousine pulled into the long drive that led to her house. White fences bordered the drive on either side, and she felt a moment of contentment and not for the last time considered that maybe it was time to retire. The driver stopped in front of the double main door.

“Wait for me,” Callahan ordered as he opened the door for her.

“Yes, ma’am.”

She smiled as she saw the balloons tied to the lights on either side of the door. “Happy Anniversary” on the left and “I Love You” on the right. She felt a stab of guilt for not bringing a gift. There’d been no time on the trip. While others in her position would send aides to do a job like that, she felt it was wrong for two reasons: one professional, the other personal. Professionally, she felt it was abusing an aide to give them such a task. Personally, she doubted if anyone could pick out something that Bill would believe came from her. But as she turned the knob on the front door, she wondered whether perhaps she needed to relax her rules just the slightest bit.

She stepped in and was greeted with the sight of Bill hanging from the chandelier that dominated the large foyer just before the wide staircase. She didn’t even have a moment for the sight to impact her senses when a hand snaked over her mouth and a cloth was jammed in, choking off her cry of dismay.

Powerful arms pinned hers behind her back. She reacted instinctively, stomping down with her right heel where the attacker’s shin should be. She heard a grunt of pain but the arms didn’t lessen their grip. Instead they picked her up and carried her to a large armchair. Padded cuffs were snapped over her wrists, locking her in place.

In that moment when the hands released her and she realized she couldn’t get out of the chair, the reality of what she had seen when she stepped in the house hit her, a jagged razor of pain cutting through her stomach up into her heart. Tears poured and her head dropped onto her chest.

But not for long. A hand from behind gripped her chin between its powerful fingers and forced her head up. A man stood in front of her. He was well dressed in an expensive suit. His face was smooth and unblemished, with clear blue eyes under thick, wavy blond hair. His age was hard for her to determine; anywhere from thirty to fifty was her best guess.

“Mrs. Callahan.” The man went over to the window and with a finger making a small opening peeked through the blinds toward the drive. Through her grief she noted he was wearing thin leather gloves. “Nexus. Led us right to you. We knew they had a point of contact in the administration; they always do. We just didn’t know who.” He let the blind fall back in place. “And frankly, we really didn’t care who. But-” He shrugged. “Things change.”

She turned and looked toward the foyer. She could just see Bill’s feet, dangling four feet above the marble floor. It was real. For a moment she thought she’d been having a nightmare. Now she knew she was living one.

“We had to race to beat you home,” the man said. “We didn’t know who he would be picking up at Andrews.”

She shifted her gaze back to him.

“Ah, yes. I know the questions you have. Who am I? Why am I doing this? Why did I do that-” He inclined his head toward the foyer. He left the room and came back with a dining room chair and set it five feet in front of her. He sat down and turned the lapel of his coat. A pin sparkled. Diamonds and other precious stones on a silver background in the form of an elongated cross.

“You didn’t think we were real, did you?” he asked as he once more hid the pin. “Strange how that is. After all, you know for certain that Nexus is real. Hell, they must have come to your office and briefed you. Do you think Eisenhower had nothing better to do when he signed that executive order? Do you think there can be resistance without a force to resist against? Not that Nexus has been much resistance. But we can’t take any chances.”

He glanced at his watch. “Any time now.”

The driver checked his watch and looked at the front door once more. He was startled when someone rapped on the glass next to his head. He turned in surprise and saw a child, about twelve, on a bike. He powered down the window. “Yes?”

The child smiled. Then began to ride away.

The driver frowned and the bullet from the silenced sniper rifle hit right in the center of that frown, taking the back half of his head off. Gore splattered the glass divider and front seat. The child had already turned the corner and was gone. A car pulled up behind the limousine and a man got out. He reached in the open window and opened the door. He shoved the body aside, started the engine, and drove off.

The man checked his watch once more. “Well, that’s done.” He stood, the chair in his hands. “You came home and found that your husband killed himself.” He looked down at the chair. “This belongs there.”

He carried it to the foyer and lay it on its back below Bill’s feet. Then he returned. “The love of your life is dead. There’s only one thing for you to do. The question is-how would someone like you kill yourself? I spent the time waiting for you considering that. And the answer was in your closet.”

He reached behind him and pulled out a nickel-plated Beretta automatic pistol. The one her battalion had given her at the conclusion of her command. He pulled the slide back, chambering a round. Then he flipped off the safety.

He flipped it expertly in his hand, now holding it by the barrel. The man behind her reached out and took the gun. She began struggling as he unhooked her hands, then recuffed the left one to the chair. The man’s left arm went around her throat, applying pressure. She began to feel faint when the cold grip of the gun was placed in her right hand, the man’s hand over hers. She had no power to resist as the gun was swung up, the muzzle against her right temple. The man slid her finger through the trigger guard, his on top. Her eyes darted to the side, to see Bill’s feet and the chair, and she felt the pain once more.

She was content when the man exerted pressure on her finger.