Psychic Warrior

Chapter Eighteen

A dreary rain was falling, turning the ground around the railhead into mud. Colonel Verochka, head of nuclear security for the GRU, watched from the interior of the BMD armored vehicle through a bullet-proof portal on the side. Led by two T-72 tanks, four BMDs rolled through the mud, their treads giving firm traction. The armored personnel carriers were followed by two more T-72s. Overhead, above the sound of the rain falling on the metal and the roars of the armored vehicles, Verochka could hear the sound of helicopter blades. She knew that four MI-28 Havoc gunships, the most advanced helicopter in the Russian inventory, were flying cover.

The four BMDs slid next to a heavily armored railcar hooked to two oil-burning engines. As dozens of infantrymen, weapons at the ready, spread out around the train, the back doors on the lead BMD swung open. Two men carried a plastic container out, up a concrete ramp and in through the heavy metal doors on the side of the car. Four more bombs were off-loaded, then the next BMD moved up and the process was repeated.

Colonel Verochka waited until all twenty warheads were loaded and the train was secured. Then she ordered the driver of the BMD to head to the nearby airfield. She sat down in one of the web chairs along the inner wall of the APC. Between her knees a metal briefcase was secured.

A steel chain ran from the case to a titanium cuff around her left wrist.

Overhead, two of the Havocs flew cover as they approached the airfield.

“Goddamn those Russian sons of bitches!” Raisor exclaimed. “We thought they might have had something to do with the Thresher going down!”

“We?” Dalton was bone-tired, and there was less than four hours before they had to go. But Raisor had demanded a complete report on what they had discovered on their reconnaissance mission. “You weren’t even born when the Thresher sunk.”

“The CIA suspected Soviet involvement in the sinking at the time,” Raisor said.

“That really doesn’t matter right now,” Dalton said. “The important thing is we now know there’s more to this theft of nuclear weapons than it appeared. If these Mafia people have the phased-displacement generator, and they have Vasilev, and the programming code, and they can get the bombs, we’ve got a big problem on our hands.”

“They still need remote viewers to aim the weapon,” Jackson noted.

“If they’re gathering all the other pieces,” Dalton said, “I’m sure they have a handle on that too.”

Raisor checked the digital clock overhanging the room. “We don’t have much time.”

“If you can get an idea where Vasilev is or what happened to this generator,” Dalton said to Raisor, “it would help.”

‘Just concern yourself with your mission,” Raisor said.

“I’m trying to do that,” Dalton said, “but nobody seems to have a clue what is really happening.”

“We know the warheads are going to get stolen in four hours,” Raisor said. “That’s all we need to know.”

“Dr. Hammond,” Dalton said, giving up on the CIA man.

Hammond had a cup of coffee in her hand. “Yes?”

Dalton noted that the hand holding the cup was shaking very slightly. “What if you wanted to destroy an avatar? How would you do it?”

“On the virtual plane or in the real?” Hammond asked.

“Either one.”

Hammond took a deep drink from her mug, then put it down. “I’ve thought about it and I’ve had Sybyl put some time into it. But I really can’t tell you. The key thing to remember is that the avatar is a projection. Even when it coalesces into the real world and transfers power into matter, it is still a projection. So what you want to know is sort of like asking how one would destroy an image on screen in a movie.”

“Where am I then, when I’m on the other side?” Dalton asked.

Hammond looked at him quizzically for a few seconds, then realized what he meant. “We have to assume that despite traveling on the virtual plane, the essence of who you are remains with the body.”

“I don’t buy that,” Dalton said. “When I’ve been out there, I’ve been out there.”

“You’re asking where the mind exists,” Hammond said, “and that’s something that’s more philosophical than— ”

Dalton cut her off. “I’m asking where the soul exists,” he said, slamming his fist into his own chest. Then he pointed at his head. “This only takes you so far, then something else takes over. I want to know if we’re putting that something else out there.”

“I don’t know,” Hammond said. “I don’t think so, but…”

“What do we do if we come up against an enemy avatar during our mission.”

“What enemy avatar?” Raisor asked. He gave a hard look to Jackson. “Has she been filling your head about her devil?”

“It’s a possibility,” Dalton said. “General Bolodenka said that SD8, which deals with the same thing you at Bright Gate deal with, has come up with a new-generation weapon, something beyond the phased-displacement generator. I think they may have developed a similar ability to Psychic Warrior, and I think we need to be as prepared as we can be for the possibility we might run into something.”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Hammond said. “We really have no experience in this area.”

A thought occurred to Dalton. “What if something happens to Sybyl while we’re out in the virtual plane?”

“We have a backup computer that we can put on-line,” Hammond said.

“And while you’re waiting to go on-line, what happens to us?” Dalton demanded.

“The switchover is automatic.”

“But if there is a time gap?”

Hammond put her hands in the air, more from frustration than anything else. “I don’t know.”

“Why are you so worried?” Raisor asked.

“Because we think this Russian avatar, Chyort, knows about the nuke takedown. And we might trip over each other trying to stop it.”

“If your goals are the same, then there shouldn’t be a problem,” Raisor said.

“But if they aren’t?” Dalton didn’t wait for an answer. “Remember, this Chyort probably works for the agency that killed every man on board the Thresher. Even if our goals are the same, we’re still on opposite sides, as you pointed out to me when you justified not giving the Russians your intelligence about the takedown.”

“Why not focus on your mission, Sergeant Major?” Raisor suggested.

“What about the first Psychic Warrior team?” Dalton asked. “Are they dead?”

Silence filled the room. Finally Raisor stood up. “Come with me, Sergeant Major. I want to show you something.”

“Agent Raisor— ” Hammond began, but the look he gave her froze the next words in her mouth.

Dalton followed as Raisor headed to the side of the control room, to a door that Dalton had never seen opened yet. Raisor punched in a code on the small pad next to it and the metal slid to the side.

“Come on,” Raisor said, waving Dalton in.

The door slid shut behind them. The room was almost a duplicate of the control room, full of ten tubes. And inside nine of them were bodies, floating in the green fluid. Six men, three women.

“That’s the first Psychic Warrior team,” Raisor said. “My team.”

“Are they alive?” Dalton could see small placards on the front of each tube listing the name of the occupant.

“The bodies are,” Raisor said. “The minds, or soul, or whatever you want to call the essence of a person, that we don’t know about. Hammond thinks they’re dead. The government thinks they’re dead. We were supposed to pull the plug on the bodies a week and a half ago.”

“What happened to them?”

“We were betrayed,” Raisor said. “I’ve seen your classified file, Dalton. You fought in Vietnam, were captured and held prisoner. You know about being betrayed, don’t you? About being given a mission and then having the plug pulled? Well, that’s what happened here, literally. They were on a mission and my superior had Sybyl shut down while they were still out. I was in DC, playing politics with the Select Committee on Intelligence, trying to keep our funding flowing. And I came back to this.”

“Why?”

“That’s a complicated story which you don’t have the clearance for,” Raisor said.

Dalton had seen it before— personnel abandoned because some bureaucrat or politician thousands of miles away and safe behind their desk made a decision. In Vietnam they’d sent teams of indigenous infiltrators into the north, and when Nixon had halted the bombing campaign, all air traffic over the north was grounded, including the resupply and exfiltration flight for those men. They all died. And life in Washington went on. The Marines in Beirut who’d been placed in an untenable position with unclear guidance. And thus they died. Delta Force in Mogadishu. The SEALs in Panama.

Dalton stopped in front of one of the tubes. A dark-haired woman floated inside, fluid slowly flowing through the tubes. The name on the placard was Kathryn Raisor. Dalton turned toward the CIA man. “Is this your wife?”

“My sister.” Raisor held up his left hand. “This is her ring from the Air Force Academy. She went from the Air Force to the NSA. We were both pegged for this program because we maxed out the psych tests when they were screening for personnel for this program. We were good psychic ability candidates. It must be genetic, don’t you think? Hammond and the other brains think so.” Raisor was standing next to his sister’s tube, looking up at her, his voice low, as if he were in a trance. “Oh yes, that’s what they think.”

“Hammond did this?” Dalton demanded.

Raisor shook his head. “Her predecessor.” The cold smile crept around his lips. “He is no longer with us.”

“Who ordered it?”

“That’s my concern,” Raisor said.

“It’s mine too,” Dalton said. “It will be my team in the tubes next. I want to know if the son of a bitch who did this to your team can do this to mine.”

“The source of that decision is not wired into the chain of command for this mission,” Raisor said.

“So this is why we were brought in?”

“Replaceable parts in the big machine,” Raisor said. He looked at his watch. “I suggest you get some rest. We go over very shortly.”

As Dalton walked out of the room, the last thing he saw was Raisor silhouetted against the glow from his sister’s tube.

“Who is that?” Opa asked.

The sound of General Rurik’s summons echoed across the glade, into the woods and the fields beyond.

Feteror was seated with his back to one of the trees. He reluctantly stood. “I have to go on a mission,” he said.

Opa reached out a wrinkled hand and placed it on Feteror’s shoulder. “I enjoyed talking with you.”

Feteror nodded, not sure what to say.

“Will you be back?”

Feteror paused. “I do not know.” He looked at the glade and the area surrounding them. He could hear birds chirping in the trees, the sound of the water rushing by. He could even smell the odor of manure coming from the nearby fields. It felt more real than anything he’d experienced in almost a decade and a half but he knew it wasn’t.

“I have to go.”

“Arkady— ” Opa paused.

“Yes?”

“There are good things in the world.” Opa spread his hands, taking in the glade. “This is a good place.”

“This is not real,” Feteror said. He paused, almost adding that the old man he was talking to was not real either.

“Are you here?” Opa asked.

“What do you mean?”

“If you are here, then this is real,” Opa said. “You don’t believe me. You don’t believe that I am here, either, do you?”

Feteror felt the tug of the plan he had worked so hard to put into effect pulling at him.

“Hatred is not the way,” Opa said. “I fought for years and I know that.”

“Do you know what they did to me?” Feteror didn’t wait for an answer. “They cut away my body and kept me in darkness. They took away everything!”

Opa shook his head sadly, his thick gray beard brushing against his aged chest. “They took much, but not everything, Arkady. Some things you’ve given away and you can get them back.” He reached up with his hand and placed it on Feteror’s chest. “You ’re missing something there. You can get it back.”

Feteror shrugged the hand off. “I will make them pay.”

Feteror dissolved from Opa’s view.

The old man stood alone in the glade. He looked up into the blue sky, a tear slowly making its way down his leathery cheek.

sFeteror accessed his outside links, forcing himself to block out the image of his grandfather, and focusing on what was to come.

“Yes?” He could see General Rurik standing at the master console. He was pleased the see the wild look in the other man’s eyes. He had hoped the pig cared for his family.

“I have a mission of the highest priority for you,” Rurik said.

Feteror waited.

“There are two tasks.” Rurik paused, collecting himself, then continued. “The steel cylinder you saw being taken from October Revolution Island— you must find it.” He paused, not speaking.

“And the second task?” Feteror pressed.

Rurik’s hands came down on the edge of the table in front of him, the whites of the knuckles clear to Feteror’s cameras. “My wife and children have been abducted. I want you to find them.”

“Which of the two tasks has the higher priority?” Feteror asked.

The look in the general’s eyes told Feteror the answer to that, even as the old man lied. “I want you to accomplish both.”

“You must give me the power and time to accomplish both, then,” Feteror said.

His electronic eyes could see the anger on Rurik’s face. “You will have all the power we can send you.”

“I will do as you order.”

“Do not cross me,” General Rurik said. “I will reward you if you get my family back.”

What could you possibly offer me? Feteror choked the words back. He focused on the pain he could see on the general’s face, relishing the sight.

“I’m loading all the data we have on both the phased-displacement generator and my family’s abduction,” Rurik said.

“Let me get started.”

The window to the outside world cycled open. Feteror felt a wave of power, more than he’d ever experienced before, shoot through him. He leapt for the window and was out.

Barsk looked out the window as the cargo plane banked. The ground below was snow-covered in places and looked rather bleak. He could see the large dam and the hydroelectric plant behind it in the gorge where a plume of water cascaded down from the overflow spillway.

To the east, high above the power plant, a landing strip had been laid down years ago, but it looked desolate and empty, with a group of hangars lining the runway. Three sets of power line towers ran by the edge of the airfield after climbing out of the gorge.

Vasilev had spent the entire flight rocking back and forth in his seat, his eyes unfocused. Barsk had serious doubts about whether the man was going to be of any use once they landed.

Barsk turned his attention back into the plane as they descended. “There’s one thing I don’t understand.”

Vasilev, despite being dressed now in a one-piece black jumpsuit borrowed from the mercenaries and despite having been given a good meal on the flight, still looked rough. Barsk slapped him on the shoulder. “Hey!”

Vasilev slowly rubbed a hand along the gray stubble of his beard. “What?”

“This Chyort— the demon that is helping my grandmother. Why is he doing it?”

Vasilev gave a laugh that bothered Barsk. “He is trying to get back at those that use him.”

“To what end?”

Vasilev stared down the length of the plane along the gleaming steel tube that filled it. “So we will all go to hell.”

“One hundred million dollars.”

Oma steepled her fingers and peered over the top of her reading glasses at the young man sitting across from her who had just spoken. He wore a tailored three-piece suit and his Russian was flawless, without an accent. He was of the new breed of international broker, representing the interests of the United Nations, using economic leverage and payoffs instead of force.

The young man smiled, revealing very white and straight teeth. “Half now, half upon delivery of the warheads.”

“I do not have any warheads,” Oma said.

“Not yet. But I believe you plan to come into ownership of some shortly. I thought coming here before you finalized some other deal to, shall we say, dispose of them, would be best for all involved in case you are successful in your endeavors.”

“Your NATO already has thousands of nuclear weapons among the various members,” Oma noted.

“And we prefer not to have to use them,” the young man said. He leaned forward, his false friendliness gone. “Listen. I know who you are. I know what you do. I know you’ve been putting feelers out for buyers of nuclear weapons. That tells me you either have them or are planning to get them shortly. I’ve also heard that you are promising delivery of those weapons anywhere in the world along with detonation. You must be a fool to think you can get away with that. We have dealt with people like you before. We will never let you get a warhead out of the borders of Russia. And we will squash you like an irritating bug.”

“Then why are you offering me money instead of squashing me?” Oma asked.

“We are trying to be civilized.”

“If you are so smart and informed,” Oma continued, “you would know that one hundred million dollars is one tenth of the price I am asking.”

“You have to be alive to be able to enjoy your money. I’m offering you life and one hundred million. That’s better than lining your coffin with a billion dollars.”

“I could have you killed for five dollars on the streets,” Oma said. “That would leave me with a considerable profit margin.”

“I am only a representative,” he answered. “Killing me will not make your problem go away.”

“Actually,” Oma said, “I believe you are the one with the problem. You came to me.”

The man said nothing, simply staring across the desk at her.

Oma waved her hand, signaling the meeting was over. “I will consider your offer.”

The young man stood. “Do more than consider.” He flicked a card onto the desk. It was blank except for a cell phone number.

Leksi was standing behind the two pilot seats in the MI-8 Hip, watching through the windshield as two of the Hind gunships swept over the field a half a kilometer ahead of them.

When both gunships turned and commenced to circle, Leksi ordered the pilot of the helicopter to land there. They swept in to a landing in the tall weeds. Leksi could see two fuel trucks in the treeline, exactly as Oma had told him there would be. The FARP, forward arming and refueling point, had cost them over five hundred thousand American dollars to have ready, but it was worth it. All the choppers would be topped off and fully armed, prepared for the upcoming action.

As the blades of the MI-8 began slowing, Leksi exited the chopper and walked to the side of the clearing. The other MI-8 came in for a landing, followed by the Hind gunships. As the sound of the rotors and engines began winding down, Leksi stretched his back.

He looked to the west where a range of high hills loomed. On the other side of those hills was a river. And along the thin level space between water and mountains ran a rail line.

Leksi shivered, not from the damp chill in the air, but from excitement, almost a sexual feeling. His right hand slid down to the butt of the nine-millimeter pistol strapped to his thigh and the fingers flexed around it, feeling the cold plastic and metal. He looked at the watch strapped to his left wrist.

Two hours.