The other man wore an olive drab greatcoat, the three stars on the shoulder boards indicating he was a colonel in the army, the small insignia on his collar the symbol of the once dreaded GRU, the military’s KGB. The two men were meeting in a remote park on the edge of Kiev. The snow had been dusted off the concrete table they were seated at. A black Mercedes, smoke coiling out of the exhaust pipe, was idling on the nearby road, a hundred meters away. The car rode low, due to the armor plating built into it. The windows were tinted, hiding the interior.

Three men, also in long black leather coats with fur-lined collars, waited outside the car, their right hands suspiciously inside the front of their coats. The park had been chosen because it was very broad and open. Anyone approaching could be seen a mile away. It had originally been built for the power elite under Communism, those who summered in the villas along the river nearby. Given the fall of Communism and the bitter winter temperatures on this day, they had the park to themselves. Colonel Seogky didn’t trust the man across from him, but he didn’t really trust anyone anymore, so that mattered little. His focus was on the metal briefcase the man had next to him on the bench.

The other man, Leonid Barsk, followed that gaze and knew the colonel would not be any trouble.

“All is ready? You have the papers?” Seogky rubbed his rough leather gloves together. “Yes. I’ve told you that.”

“The CD-ROM?”

“You did not give me much time,” the colonel said.

“Do you have it?”

“I have it,” Seogky said. “But it will cost you more.”

Barsk tapped a finger against his upper lip, showing off the expensive Italian-made gloves he wore, a further contrast between the wealth of the Russian Mafia and the poverty of the Russian Army.

“We will not have any unforeseen problems, will we?”

“I have done what you wanted me to,” Seogky protested.

“What happens beyond that is not my responsibility.” Barsk waved a finger. “Ah, that is where you are wrong, my colonel.” He ran his hand over the metal case. “When I give you this and you give me what you say you have, you become responsible. Even for those things that happen that you know nothing about.”

Seogky twisted on the cold bench, anxious to be going. His vehicle was parked over two miles away. It would be a miserable walk through the snow and ice. Barsk had told him to park that far away, citing security reasons, but then why was Barsk’s car here? Seogky knew the reality of the situation was that Barsk had made him walk in and would make him walk back out as a sign of power. Seogky’s feeling of cold was replaced with a warm glow of anger in his gut, not so much at Barsk but at the breakdown of the system and the fools who had allowed it to collapse to the point where he was sitting in this park today negotiating with this reptile of a man.

Seogky stood. “I have done what you have asked. If you wish to ask more, it will cost you more.”

Barsk also stood. “No, that is where you are also wrong, Colonel. If I ask, you will do as I say. You are ours now.” He held out the briefcase.

Seogky hesitated, realizing the truth and import of what Barsk had just said, but he also knew that he had crossed too many lines already. He might as well be comfortably situated in his new position. Still he didn’t take the case.

“Why do you want this?” he reached in his coat, pulling out a sheaf of papers wrapped in plastic and bound by a rubber band. With his other hand, he pulled a plastic CD case out and put it next to the papers.

“That is my business,” Barsk said.

“This information is old. Surely— “

“You are thinking too much, Colonel. Just give me the papers and the CD-ROM.”

Seogky hesitated. “Is the money in American dollars?”

“It is, as we agreed.”

Seogky threw the papers and the CD on the tabletop and picked up the briefcase. Barsk stuffed the items into an inside pocket of his coat.

Seogky paused. “You’re not going to check them?”

“Even you wouldn’t be that stupid,” Barsk said. “I assume you want to be able to spend your hard-earned money.” Seogky turned and began walking across the park. He had gone less than ten feet when he felt pain explode in his right side, doubling him over. His first thought was that he’d been shot. His second that the firer had used a silencer, as he had heard no sound of a weapon. His hands were over the spot of the pain and he brought them up before his eyes— no blood. The pain came again and Seogky sank to his knees.

“What is it?” Barsk yelled.

Seogky turned his head. The Mafia man was backing toward the Mercedes. The three guards had submachine guns out, and they were turning to and fro, searching for the attacker. Seogky went bolt upright as pain ripped up his spine, as if a fire were burning inside. His hands extended out in front of him on their own, the fingers rigid in a claw, as if there were someone stronger behind him, moving his body. As they came up toward his face of their own volition, he finally knew what was happening. It had only been a story, whispered about in the dark corners of barracks and officers’ quarters, only after much cheap vodka had been drunk, but he knew now the rumor was true.

His fingers closed on his face, despite his most strenuous efforts to stop them. He could see through them that Barsk had paused before getting in his car and was watching from a hundred meters away. It was the last thing Seogky ever saw as his fingers ripped into his own eyes, gouging the orbs out of the sockets.

Seogky’s scream jolted Barsk. “What is it?” he hissed at his guards.

“I don’t know,” Dmitri, his chief bodyguard, replied, a finger pressed against the plug in his ear, listening to the reports from the outer rim of security they had deployed around the park. “Our perimeter guards report we are secure. No one has passed. And I know no one was here.”

“What the hell is he doing?” Barsk stared at the colonel’s hands as they ripped at his own face. “Come on,” he said, tapping Dmitri on the shoulder. “He has our money.”

The two carefully walked across the snow to the colonel, who was still on his knees, bent at the waist, rocking back and forth and moaning in pain. Barsk paused as he saw the blood-covered hands.

“What is that?” he asked, nudging his hand-tooled boot toward something dark and red in the snow.

Dmitri took a closer look. “His eyes.”

“His eyes?” Barsk scanned the surrounding area. “What is going on?”

Dmitri knelt in the snow and grabbed Colonel Seogky’s shoulders. “What happened?”

Seogky moaned. Dmitri pressed down on the colonel’s shoulder, but that produced no response.

“What happened? Why did you do this to yourself?”

“Chyort,” Seogky whispered.

“What did you say?” Barsk stepped closer, avoiding stepping on the eyeballs out of concern for his boots.

“Chyort,” Seogky repeated, then he screamed, his head snapping back, his bloody sockets pointing skyward. His hands slapped against his ears. “Make it stop!” he shouted, then blood bubbled out over his hands from his ears while a gush of red also came out of his nose. The colonel collapsed forward into the snow, the area around the body slowly turning red.

Dmitri felt the colonel’s neck. “He’s dead.”

“Take the money. Let us go.”

Dmitri looked around suspiciously. “What did he mean, Chyort? What devil is he speaking of?”

“Let’s move,” Barsk snapped. Dmitri scooped up the case, and they were walking quickly toward the Mercedes when Barsk suddenly paused. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Dmitri held the briefcase, his submachine gun slung over his shoulder.

“The voice.” Barsk turned to and fro. “There’s a voice.”

Dmitri gave his boss a worried look. First the colonel tearing his eyes out and dying in front of them, now this. “I hear no voice.”

Barsk held his hand up, silencing his bodyguard, straining to hear. Dmitri grabbed his arm and pointed at the snow to their left. A line was being drawn in it, but there was nothing visible that could be doing it. The drawing turned into Cyrillic letters, rapidly appearing in the fresh white surface. BETRAYAL

“What the hell does that mean?” Barsk asked as the first word was completed.

The invisible marker kept writing.

DMITRI

Barsk turned to his bodyguard. The man’s face had gone white. His mouth flopped open as he searched for words.

“You can’t— “ Dmitri began. He shook his head.

“This is not possible. Words cannot appear in snow.”

“And men don’t rip their own eyeballs out,” Barsk noted. GRU

Barsk reached for his pistol, but Dmitri was faster, dropping the suitcase in the snow and swinging the submachine gun up. The two other guards aimed their weapons at Dmitri.

“Don’t!” Dmitri yelled. “Tell them to back off” he ordered Barsk.

“Wait,” Barsk ordered the guards. He stared at the bodyguard.

“It is true. The words are true.”

“You will find out how true when I take you in,” Dmitri said.

“I’ve listened to— “ He paused as he and Barsk heard the sound of something moving in the snow to the right. They both turned. Footprints, large ones leaving the impression of clawed feet, appeared in the virgin snow. They were moving, circling in. But there was nothing there.

Dmitri fired a quick burst in the direction of the footprints. Now they both could sense more than see something moving, almost faster than their eyeballs could track, a hazy silhouette of something big, over seven feet tall, with two arms and two legs and what appeared to their disbelieving eyes to be wings on the back. It was on Dmitri before he could fire again. One of the arms flashed forward, into Dmitri’s gut.

Barsk could hear the skin rip. Dmitri screamed as his body was lifted into the air. The other arm of the shadow creature whirled down, and the two halves of Dmitri’s body flew in opposite directions. They fell into the snow, twenty feet apart, blood slowly staining the white. Barsk had forgotten how to breathe. He stared up, the vague outline of the creature rippling, but still he could see through to what was behind it. Except for the eyes. Two bright red eyes, seven feet above the ground, glared at him.

Then it was gone, just as quickly. Barsk took a step back. He paused, still holding his breath, but nothing happened. He darted forward and scooped up the case Dmitri had dropped, then ran for the Mercedes, not caring how wet or torn up his boots got. He jumped into the backseat as the guards got into the front, one of them taking the wheel. The car skidded as the driver hit the accelerator too quickly, then the studded tires caught and the car raced for the park’s gate.

Behind, near the two bloody bodies, a whirlwind began to circle faster and faster, the unnatural wind blowing out the writing in the snow and the strange footprints, until all that was left were the two dead men. And then all was still.

“What exactly do you want from my men?” Colonel Metter asked.

“We want your people to continue the Psychic Warrior project,” Raisor replied. “We need trained personnel from Trojan Warrior. People who once they go into the virtual world and then come out are capable of conducting military operations. As you know from your superiors, Colonel Metter, the Pentagon is very interested in this program and desires you give me your complete support.”

“I understand that, but you’ve just informed me that the last person to do this died,” Colonel Metter said.

“That problem has been corrected,” Dr. Hammond interjected.

“It was a freak accident.”

“Doesn’t this RV stuff you’re talking about take a special person and specific training?”

“Yes,” Hammond said. “But as we discussed, the men on this list are ready due to their Trojan Warrior training. Also, we’ve simplified the procedure to a large extent and we have a very sophisticated computer that provides the vast majority of the support needed.”

“You also said at the beginning that there was an urgency to all this,” Metter said. “The Chief of Staff also told me the same thing when he called this morning. Perhaps you could tell us what is causing this urgency to implement Psychic Warrior?” Raisor answered that. “We have a live mission that needs to be conducted in eight days. That is why we need your people right away.”

“What is the live mission?” Metter asked.

“I can’t tell you that,” Raisor said. “Only those actually participating have a need to know.”

“Eight days is not much time,” Metter said. “Can you train men to do this Psychic Warrior stuff in eight days?”

Raisor said, “We’re here because your men have years of training as Special Operations soldiers and they’ve been prepped to do this through their Trojan Warrior training. Dr. Hammond’s people will get them ‘over the fence’ into the virtual world. That is the big breakthrough and the part of the program that came from the medical side. We can tap directly into the brain and give it the extra help it needs to go over.”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Metter said. Raisor pulled a sheet of paper out of his briefcase. He slid it across the table to Colonel Metter.

“That is my authorization to task you to support this mission. I’d love to stay here and answer questions, but time is of the essence. We have to get back, with the team, to our headquarters and begin training.” Raisor looked at his watch. “We have two helicopters due in at the airfield in an hour. We don’t have much time if your team”— he pointed at Captain Anderson— “is going to get their gear together.”

Metter didn’t touch the copy of the orders. “These are my men. My responsibility. I will do as I am ordered, but let me tell you both something.” A muscle in Metter’s jaw quivered. “You screw with my men and I will not simply stand by.”

“That’s very noble, Colonel,” Raisor said, his tone overly polite.

“I assure you, we all want Psychic Warrior to succeed.” For the first time, Dalton picked up a sense of sincerity in the agent’s tone, which he found as disturbing as the previous lack of emotion. Raisor cared about this mission, Dalton realized.

“Can you tell me what the real-world urgency is?” Metter asked.

“I am afraid not.”

Colonel Metter stood. “All right. Captain Anderson, Master Sergeant Trilly, get the men Sergeant Major Dalton selects and all their equipment together and move to the airfield.” Anderson and Trilly saluted and walked out of the conference room to wait for Dalton in his office. Raisor began breaking down his slide projector with Hammond’s help. Dalton walked out of the room with Metter. “Sir, I request permission to participate in this training and the mission to follow.”

Metter paused in the door separating his office from the sergeant major’s. “What about your wife?”

“Sir, it doesn’t look like her situation is going to change any time soon. She’s in the hospital and doesn’t need me at home like she used to, to take care of her,” Dalton said. “I’ve been here two years without going on a deployment, and I appreciate you allowing me that and your concern. But I think it’s time I earned my pay.”

“I don’t know,” Metter said. “I’d hate— “

“Sir,” Dalton cut in, “I would rather be doing something than sitting here with too much time on my hands. Plus, if I don’t go, that knocks them down to only six men. I think they’re going to need every body they can get.” Metter folded his arms. “You know something’s jumping for them to be tasking a team like this.”

Dalton nodded. “I don’t think they planned on bringing us in on Psychic Warrior for a while. Or even at all, given they dropped the ball on it the last couple of years. Something real serious has caused their timetable to get moved up.”

Metter still had his arms folded, his eyes staring hard at the sergeant major. “I want you to come back from this.”

“I plan on it, sir.”

“Do you?” Metter didn’t wait for an answer. “All right. But you might be stepping on Trilly’s toes. That should be his team.”

“Trilly’s weak, sir, and this is a composite team. I think rank will have to prevail. I’ll work it out with Captain Anderson.”

Metter smiled. “Good. I don’t have a warm fuzzy feeling about Raisor or Hammond, and I certainly don’t think either of them are going to be updating me on what’s happening with the team.”

Dalton knew there were many commanders who would just wave good-bye to the team and then drop the whole thing from their plate, focusing on things that were of more immediate concern. Metter nodded. “All right. Go with them. Make sure they don’t get screwed. I’ll check on your wife.”

“Yes, sir.”

“A weapon!” Barsk threw the papers and CD-ROM disk down on the desk. “That is what you wanted. Not this. Seogky double-crossed us! This is nothing but old papers from the archives.”

The person across the desk reached out and picked up the papers and CD-ROM. The hand was old and wrinkled, the skin mottled with liver spots. A lace cuff covered the wrist, part of a rather old-fashioned dress the owner of the hand wore. She was a woman in her mid-seventies, almost the archetype of the stolid woman of the Soviet days, with a blocky body and gray hair pinned in a bun. She did not seem to fit the room she was in, a modern office with teak furniture and walls lined with bookcases. The large, bulletproof window behind her showed a view from the top floor of the tallest office building in Moscow. Steel shutters were adjusted inside the window, deflecting the evening light. There had always been crime in Russia. Under the Communists, the top criminals had been in bed with the government, their actions controlled. A good case might be made that during the rule of Stalin, the worst criminal in the country’s history had been in charge of the government. But with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, it had been the government that had fallen out of the bed, leaving the Mafia holding the reins in a country whose populace was totally unprepared for a free market economy. The unbridled Russian Mafia stepped forward with a vengeance. In the decade following the fall, the Mafia grew to the point where it rivaled the government for control of the country. The woman behind the desk had been at the very forefront of the growth. In fact, she knew that the Mafia was stronger than the government in many ways, especially with regard to the economy. The previous year, the country had imported a total of sixty billion dollars in Western goods; over half of that had been imported illegally by the Mafia. In Moscow, the murder rate was standing at approximately one hundred Mafia-related killings a day. No one was being arrested for these crimes. The old woman knew the numbers. She read the Western papers that wrote stories about her country, because Russian papers were under the control of the Mafia and printed lies. She was one of the seven major chiefs in the Moscow Mafia. She had gotten where she was by being smart and by being farsighted. And that vision told her they were milking the cow to death. Even the Russian people, dulled as they were by centuries of oppression and hardship, could not bear up under the weight of such crime much longer. The last time it had gotten this bad, there had been a revolution in the midst of a world war and three quarters of a century of Communism. But there were other cows to be milked, beyond Russia’s borders, and that was where her sight was aimed.

The woman adjusted her bifocals as she scanned the documents that Barsk had gotten from Colonel Seogky.

“This is exactly what we wanted,” she said.

“But— “ Barsk was surprised. “But that talks of something old, decades old. I don’t— “

“Do you think I would have sent you on a wild-goose chase?” Barsk straightened. “No, Oma.” The word was the Russian familiar for grandmother, and the woman behind the highly polished desk was indeed related in that way to Barsk. But she was called that by all in her inner circle, a sign of respect in the Russian matriarchal society; and in the dark and brutal world of the Russian Mafia, it was a word spoken with deep respect and fear. Oma held the papers up. “Do you think that whatever killed Colonel Seogky would have done so if these were worthless? Or given up Dmitri to you?” Barsk shook his head. “No, Oma.” Oma sighed. “Grandson, I have tried to teach you, but you are thickheaded. You must understand that where there is smoke, there is fire. None of those things would have happened if these papers were not very important. The GRU turned Dmitri and there was a reason for that.”

“You knew about Dmitri?” Barsk asked. Oma looked over the rim of her glasses. “Of course. But he was your responsibility.”

“He could have killed me!” Barsk objected.

“He could have. It was a risk but I felt it was a good learning point for you. One cannot learn from words. Experience is the best teacher. If one does not survive the experience, then that is also best.”

Barsk bowed his head to hide his anger. “Yes, Oma.” She turned to a specific page. “This is what we want. The phased-displacement generator.”

“What is it, Oma?”

“Part of a very powerful weapon in the right hands.”

“Part of?” Dmitri asked.

Oma put the papers down on the desk. “What do you think it was that attacked Seogky and killed Dmitri?”

Barsk swallowed. “I don’t know, Oma.” The old woman smiled, revealing steel-capped teeth, ruining the matronly image.

“You’ve thought about it on the drive back here. Tell me your best guess.”

“A devil— a Chyort as Seogky said— such as my mother used to tell me about,” Barsk said.

“A Chyort?” Oma did not laugh. “Your mother was a good woman but prone to flights of fancy. I kept her well insulated from the real world. However, you are not far off.” She tapped the papers with a finger. “These give information about the location of a piece of a weapon that will give us power beyond anything you can imagine. I want you to prepare a mission to the site listed in these papers and recover the phased-displacement generator.”

Barsk had already been reprimanded once. He knew better than to risk twice, even though he knew the difficulty in executing what she had just ordered. “Yes, Oma.”

“This is very important, Barsk,” Oma said. “I will give you more than enough support to accomplish this.”

“Yes, Oma.”

“I will send Leksi with you. Listen to him.” Barsk’s jaw tightened. Leksi was his grandmother’s chief assassin. A man with no soul. Barsk had seen and dealt much death, but every time he was in Leksi’s presence he felt a chill in his heart. “Yes, Oma.”

She interlaced her fingers on her lap as she sat back in the deeply padded leather chair.

“Barsk, you must understand some things. You thought you were going after information that would lead you to nuclear weapons, did you not?” Barsk hesitated, then nodded.

“Nuclear weapons are another piece of the puzzle we need, but Leksi is in charge of doing that and he is close to achieving it,” Oma said. “I anticipate, if all goes well, having nuclear warheads under my control shortly.” Barsk kept his face expressionless, although his stomach was churning at the implications.

“Yes, Oma.”

“The problem here in Russia has never been getting the nuclear bombs. There are many left over from the Cold War. The problem has been, what is the point in having them if you cannot do anything with them? There have been thousands of nuclear weapons here in Russia. Have the Americans ever been truly afraid of them? During the Cold War, yes, but not recently. Because the biggest bomb in the world here in Russia is not a threat. But the smallest bomb, in the United States, that is a threat, yes?”

“Yes, Oma.”

“That is what you are looking for. A means for us to be able to use the bombs once we have them. Do you understand?”

Barsk shook his head. “No.”

Oma smiled. “Good. You are learning. Just do as I ask.”

“This phased-displacement generator,” Barsk said. “It can fire a nuclear bomb to America?”

Oma shook her head. “Not by itself. But it is a necessary piece.”

“But how?”

“That is beyond you.” She slid the papers and CD across to him.

“Have you wondered how I knew to contact Seogky and how I knew he had access to these highly classified papers?”

Barsk shook his head. “No, Oma.”

“You lie.” The words were said lightly, with an edge of humor. Oma smiled. “You’ve thought about it and you assumed my information came in the usual way. From a spy, from a paid informant.” She leaned forward. “But this information did not come to me in the usual way.”

“How did you find out, Oma?”

“Why, from the Chyort you met in the park, of course.” In all directions, white-coated mountains covered the countryside below the helicopter. Seated in the cargo bay of the Blackhawk, Dalton leaned back and took in the sights, every now and then spotting a ski slope he’d visited over the course of the last few years.

He had not only skied the mountains they were flying over, he had spent many days and nights traversing them. Part of the Trojan Warrior program had consisted of long, overland movements to put some of the theories they had learned to the test. Dalton had participated in the training for two reasons— one was the same reason he was on board this chopper: to make sure the men were taken care of. The other was because the limited information they had received beforehand about the content of the training had interested him.

The six months of intensive work had been interesting and frustrating. Some of what they were taught by the various instructors clearly had a connection to their war-fighting mission. But other subjects, such as the bio-cybernetics, had seemed more radical. That training had concentrated on mental alertness, strength of concentration and focus, and control of the body’s voluntary and involuntary systems, all while getting feedback from various machines they were hooked to. They had learned to do such things as mentally increasing the blood flow to their extremities, which was of some use during winter warfare training, but at the time had not seemed worth the amount of time they had invested. They’d also learned to reduce levels of muscle tension.

One aspect that had seemed very strange at the time was the training spent hooked to a machine that gave them feedback on their alpha brain waves. They’d learned to increase those waves, which the trainers said resulted in decreases in anxiety and apprehension and allowed them to master stressful and life-threatening situations, something Dalton thought he had gone a long way toward achieving in Vietnam.

All the men who had gone through Trojan Warrior— named after the figure on the crest of the 10th Special Forces Group when it was first formed in 1958— had changed, mostly for the better. But then the training had ended, the instructors were gone, and everyone seemed to lose interest in the entire program. Life went back to the normal cycle of training and deployment Special Forces was used to.

Dalton looked around the interior of the Blackhawk, mentally cataloguing the other seven members of the team. It was a thing he found strange about the military, the sort of lottery that resulted in one man’s getting chosen to go on a mission while another didn’t get picked. One man died on the luck of the draw while another lived. It was something he had struggled with over the years, having too much imagination to simply accept as others did that it was just fate. Captain Anderson was, of course, the highest-ranking man and the team leader. But Dalton had worked with Anderson and he knew that the younger man would defer a lot of responsibility and decision making to him due to his experience. It was the traditional Special Forces way of doing business. Master Sergeant Trilly had not questioned Dalton’s position or attempted to take charge of the team during the load-out. Dalton’s major concern was whether the man would pull his own weight, never mind take responsibility. Trilly had been the weakest link during the Trojan Warrior training.

Seated next to Trilly was Sergeant Barnes, the medic. Barnes was a tall, well-built man with dark hair, in his mid-thirties. His slate gray eyes were his most distinguishing feature. Of all those that had gone through the Trojan Warrior training, Barnes had been the one most deeply affected. Staff Sergeant Stith, an engineer/demo man, was a quiet black man who, Dalton knew, had plans to get out and go back to college to get a degree in architecture with his GI Bill money. Sergeant Monroe, a hulking presence in the helicopter, over six and a half feet tall with a completely shaved skull, was known for his imaginative work with weapons.

The last two members were an intelligence sergeant and an executive officer. Sergeant First Class Egan was a quiet man who wore wire-rimmed glasses. Dalton knew Egan’s passion was reading military history, and he felt the man was a strong asset to any team. Warrant Officer Novelli, a large, slow-moving man, was the second-weakest man on the team, in Dalton’s opinion. Dalton felt Novelli had somehow slipped through the cracks over the years. As with Trilly, Dalton simply hoped Novelli would hold his own.

The chopper turned and Dalton looked out. He spotted the distinctive white cross of snow on the Mount of the Holy Cross to the north. From that, he knew they were somewhere in the White River National Forest, south of Vail, north of Aspen, and west of Leadville, in the heart of the Rocky Mountains.

“Check it out.” Barnes nudged him, pointing forward. Straight ahead, a large door, camouflaged to look like part of the mountainside, was sliding up, a level metal grating coming out at the bottom. A dark hole appeared on the side of the mountain.

“Some high-speed stuff, Sergeant Major,” Barnes said.

“Who the hell are these people?” Dalton knew that Anderson and Trilly had not had a chance to fully brief the team, but Special Forces men were used to missions with vague parameters.

The blades flared and the chopper settled onto the metal grating. Dalton grabbed the door handle and slid it to the rear. He felt the chill blast of air as he stepped out.

“Gentlemen, welcome to Bright Gate.” Raisor waved the team off the helicopter. Dr. Hammond was next to him, holding her coat against the chopper blast. It had taken them two hours to reach this location deep in the spine of the Rocky Mountains. The helipad was extended out of the side of a massive, thirteen-thousand-foot peak. The entire platform shuddered, then began retracting into the hangar cut into the side of the mountain, taking the helicopter and its passengers with it. As they cleared the side of the mountain, the door slid down, cutting them off from the outside world.

“This way.” Raisor gestured toward a large door on the side of the hangar furthest into the mountain. He and Hammond led the way, the team following, carrying their gear in large green rucksacks. Raisor paused before the door, a large circular steel structure, over eighteen feet in diameter. It was strangely formed, with rings of concentric strips of black metal spaced evenly out from the center on the polished steel. Dalton noticed that strips of the same black metal were attached to the rock wall that extended left and right the length of the hangar, disappearing into holes drilled into the rock where the hangar ended.

Dalton looked closely. There was something strange about the door, in fact the whole wall the door was set in; a shimmering effect that was barely noticeable.

Raisor punched a code into the panel on the right side. Dalton blinked. The shimmering seemed to have stopped. The door rolled sideways into a recessed port. A corridor lit with dim red lights beckoned. Raisor made a sweeping gesture with his hand and the team trooped through. The door rolled shut behind them and Raisor again punched a code into the inside panel. Dalton swore that the shimmering came back, this time on the inside of the door. And the inside was also covered with the black metal circles, branching off into holes drilled on this side into the rock.

Dalton followed the rest of the team down the corridor. They walked through a door, then down a hallway cut out of the stone. Hammond opened a door and showed them a large room with gray painted walls and several bunk beds.

“I’m sorry the arrangements aren’t the greatest,” Hammond said, sounding not sorry at all as the team members threw their rucks down. “I’d like to get started right away,” she added.

They followed Raisor and the doctor down another corridor deeper into the mountain. The corridor opened into a large chamber. They all stopped, taking in the view. There were two rows of ten of the large cylinders that had been on the slide. Two had people in them, floating in the green liquid, a man and a woman, like full-grown fetuses in suspended animation. Each wore a slick black one-piece suit over their torso.

The team silently walked up and stared at the two bodies.

“Don’t touch the glass,” Hammond warned. “The fluid inside is supercooled and your hand would freeze to the glass.” Dalton looked closely and now he saw a thin haze in the air surrounding the glass as the ambient room temperature met the much lower temperature.

“Supercooled?” Anderson asked.

“It’s necessary to slow the body’s processes down to allow the brain to function at a higher level.”

“How do they breathe?” Master Sergeant Trilly asked.

“Actually, they’re not breathing as you know it,” Hammond said, a statement which caused a ripple of concern among the team.

Hammond pointed. “You see the center tube going into the helmet?” Next she pointed to a bulky machine on the outside. Clear lines coiled around the outside of a pump moving so slowly, the action was almost imperceptible. The liquid in the lines was a dark blue.

“A mouthpiece is attached to that lung machine. It doesn’t send oxygen in the gaseous form as you are used to, but rather a cooled, special liquid-oxygen mixture directly to their lungs. The machine actually does the work for the lungs, because we can’t count on the autonomic nervous system to function properly.”

“They’re breathing that blue stuff?” Trilly asked in astonishment. Hammond nodded. “It’s similar to what some extreme-deep-sea divers use to get the exact right mixture of gases to handle the depth. It’s difficult to take at first, but you get used to it.”

“Breathing a liquid?” Trilly asked.

“You don’t even notice after you go over,” Hammond said.

“Yeah, right,” someone muttered from the back of the team.

“The autonomic nervous system?” Captain Anderson asked.

“All right,” Hammond said. “Listen up. Now is when we move you from what you learned in Trojan Warrior to Psychic Warrior. Where you learn what you need in order to be able to go in there.” She jerked a thumb over her shoulder at the tanks.

“We call these isolation tanks. The embryonic fluid not only cools your body, but suspends you so that you have no sense of physical contact with the outside world, not even gravity.”

Dalton could read the mood of the team. Hammond had not led into this well at all. He stepped up next to her.

“Remember how you all felt in airborne school at Fort Benning,” Dalton said, “the night before your first jump?” Hammond turned in surprise at his interruption.

“I don’t know about you guys, but I was scared,” Dalton continued. “Not so much of jumping, but because I had never done it before. It was a new experience and everyone gets a little nervous before trying something new.” Dalton turned sideways so that he was half facing the team and half facing the tanks. “But as you can see, it works. Just like you knew at Benning that all those people before had jumped and been all right. That doesn’t mean it’s perfectly safe,” Dalton added.

“But the more you learn about it, the safer it will be for you.” Dalton turned back to Hammond. “Sorry, Doctor. Go ahead.”

“Let me explain why these isolation tanks are important,” Hammond said, walking between the team and the tubes. “Your brain works on several levels. What we want to do with the machines is allow you to remove all other inputs and distractions to your brain and allow you to concentrate on the virtual plane.”

“I don’t call breathing a distraction,” Staff Sergeant Stith remarked.

Hammond ignored the comment. “There will be two major aspects to your training here. In the mornings, we will work on adapting you to the equipment. In the afternoons, we will work on adapting you to your own bodies and minds.

“Come with me.” Hammond guided the team out of the main chamber into a classroom. She waited until they had all found seats. There was a large table in the front of the room, crowded with various machines.

She picked up a helmet, the twin of the one on the bodies in the isolation tanks. It was solid black and large, about twice the size of a football helmet on the outside.

“This is the key.” Hammond turned it so that they could see inside. She shone a light into it. There was a thick lining that she ran her finger across. “This is the thermocouple and cryoprobe projection assistance device, or TACPAD for short. This is the breakthrough that has changed everything and makes the Psychic Warrior concept possible.

“We will be fitting each of you shortly for your own TACPAD. What the TACPAD and the isolation tank allow us to do is— “ Hammond paused, looking at the eight men in camouflage fatigues. She sat on the edge of the desk. “All right, let me try to explain this as best I can.

“What we tried to do in Trojan Warrior was focus your brain. To bring out capabilities that each of you has but that have remained dormant. But it goes beyond the training you received there. I know you may not believe it, but trust me when I tell you there is a residual telepathic capability in every person.

“Many, many thousands of years ago the first human beings did not have a verbal language. We were just a step, a slight step, up from being monkeys. But there was a big difference: our brain. It was larger and more complex than that of any other species on the face of the planet. At some point, the human brain made a fantastic leap. We became telepathic.” Dalton raised his eyebrows. “I’ve never heard of this.”

“Most people haven’t,” Hammond said. “But if you went to a university and talked to a physiology professor, he or she would tell you that this was indeed likely but it was still only an unproven theory. But we aren’t in a university here, and I’m telling you the breakthroughs we have made prove to me that this theory is valid.

“This telepathy was not as big of a deal as you might think. It wasn’t like these early people could ‘talk’ to each other with their minds. The reason they couldn’t was they couldn’t talk verbally— they had no language— so the telepathic communication was emotional. If someone saw a large tiger approaching the group, that person could use their mind to warn the others by sending their fear into the others’ minds. There are even some examples of this ‘pack mentality’ in the animal world today.”

“What happened to this ability?” Captain Anderson asked.

“It’s still there in some people but regressed,” Hammond said.

“Once we developed a verbal language, it wasn’t as important. The person who saw the tiger could yell ‘Tiger!’ which was just as quick and more effective in that it specifically identified the threat. Since this was a better mode of communication, evolution took over and the verbal mode of communication became dominant.

“So as humans used the verbal language more and more, the telepathic capability waned and became residual. It’s not entirely gone. All of you have had moments when you sensed things despite the fact that there were no specific normal sensory inputs that gave you that information. A sixth sense.”

Hammond stood up. “Especially you men. Each of you has an even stronger residual mental capability than the norm. Significantly stronger. That’s why you were chosen for Trojan Warrior three years ago.

“First, each of you is left-handed or ambidextrous. The brain consists of two hemispheres.” Hammond pointed at her neck. “At the base of our brain, our nervous system does a switch. So the right side of your brain is responsible for the left side of your body and vice versa. Thus a left-handed person is right hemisphere dominant.

“Both sides of your brain are pretty much the same. That makes for redundancy. There have been clinical examples of people who have suffered tremendous damage to one hemisphere, or had extensive surgery, who were still able to rehabilitate to almost a normal level of functioning.”

Dalton thought about Marie, lying in her hospital bed. Whatever damage the aneurysm had done, perhaps there was hope that she would recover. Hope. Dalton knew what a two-edged sword that was from bitter personal experience. He forced himself to accept reality: Even if by some miracle she did regain consciousness, the ALS would be that much worse, the disease still progressing even as she lay in the coma. And he knew Dr. Kairns had leveled with him— Marie was never going to wake up. Hammond walked to the front of the room and pulled a chart down. It was a top view of a brain. She pointed to the right side. “But there is something very interesting that doctors have always wondered about right here. The speech center on the right side appears to not work. All our speech comes from the left side. But the same parts are present on the right. Why?” She didn’t wait for an answer and tapped the chart. “This is where the residual telepathic ability resides. This is where we focus our efforts to get you into the virtual plane.”

Hammond went back to the desk and picked up the TACPAD. “This machine amplifies the parts of your brain that can allow you to get to and operate on the virtual plane. We’ve used the TACPAD successfully for two years.

“What the TACPAD does in conjunction with the isolation chamber is the following— “ She grabbed a marker and begin writing on the board. 1 — Isolation Chamber

Emphasize parasympathetic

Hammond pointed with the marker. “When the parasympathetic nervous system is operating, your body relaxes. Your pupils constrict, your heart rate slows, your digestive system practically shuts down, your muscles relax. You did some of this consciously in Trojan Warrior, as you remember. The isolation chamber does this by lowering your body temperature to the point where your body is almost totally inactive.”

She pointed at the wall plug. “Your brain operates on such a low voltage that its power is almost negligible. We can’t exactly increase the voltage into your brain, as that would fry the cells, so we focus the power that is already there by reducing the need for it to be expended on unnecessary outputs. As I told you earlier, the isolation tube even does your breathing for you. It will also control your heartbeat.”

“How?” Barnes asked.

“We do direct electrical stimulation to control and maintain your heartbeat and also control the nervous system in the brain.”

Dalton glanced at the other men in the room. No one looked particularly happy. The pen squeaked against the board again.

2 — TACPAD

Cryoprobe

She turned the helmet once more so that they could see the thick lining inside. “The cryoprobe is a device that surgeons have used for a decade or so to target certain areas of the brain. It’s a very fine probe that reduces the temperature in the target area to ninety-three degrees. This causes the neurons there to cease firing, effectively shutting that area down.”

“What parts of the brain do you shut down?” Dalton asked.

“Those connected with the parasympathetic nervous system, since those bodily functions are taken care of by the isolation tank,” Hammond said. “Every milliamp of power we can save is critical.”

“What exactly is the microprobe?” Captain Anderson asked.

“A microscopic wire that is inserted directly into the targeted areas of the brain.” As there was an uneasy rustle in the room, Hammond quickly elaborated.

“The wire is so small that you won’t even feel it go in, and when it’s removed there is no bleeding. Less than.008 millimeters in diameter. The fact that there have been so many breakthroughs in microtechnology in the last several years has been one of the reasons we’ve been able to develop the TACPAD.” She held up the helmet.

“It’s so thin, you can’t even see the probe with the naked eye.”

She wrote again.

3 — TACPAD

Thermocouple

“The thermocouple does the opposite of the cryoprobe. It targets those areas we want to activate and emphasize. It raises the temperature of the designated area, which facilitates its functioning.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?” Barnes asked.

“Wouldn’t that be like someone suffering heat exhaustion, where the body temperature goes too high? I’ve seen guys get their brains fried like that.” Hammond shook her head. “No. It’s very controlled and specific. There is a low-grade electrical current running through the thermocouple that does slightly over half the emphasizing.”

“Hold on,” Dalton interrupted. “You just said that it’s not a good idea to up the voltage or amperage in the brain.”

“In an uncontrolled or nonspecific manner, yes. But here, we’re talking about less power than you would get from a double-A battery. It’s safe, I assure you,” Hammond said. “Doctors have been using this technique in brain research for years.”

“Do you use wires into the brain for that too?” Anderson asked.

“Yes. Again, so fine that you can’t see it or feel it.” She went back to the board.

4 — TACPAD

Cyberlink

“Not only has this technology been used by experimental psychologists, everything I’ve talked about up to now has also been used for the past couple of years in the Bright Gate program by our remote viewers. It is only in the past six months that we have developed the critical piece of technology that takes us one step beyond.

“The last component that makes the Psychic Warrior program possible is the cyberlink.” Hammond paused for a second in thought. “You’ve all seen or used simulators that act like the outside environment, such as pilots practice on?” Everyone nodded.

“In a way, the cyberlink reverses the simulator process.” Hammond reached into the TACPAD and held up a black pad about two feet long by eight inches in width with numerous wires coming out of the back. “We can use our mainframe computer, code-named Sybyl, to help you locate where you are going on the virtual plane and also to orient you. More importantly, the computer gives you form— what we call an avatar— in hyperspace that you can project into real space.”

“Form?” Anderson asked.

“That is the key to being a Psychic Warrior,” Hammond said.

“You have to be able to come out of hyperspace, or virtual reality, and into the real world. By using the precoded avatar formats that our programmers have developed with Sybyl, you will be able to stay oriented while in the virtual world and come out into the real.

“Sybyl is one of the most powerful computers in the world, perhaps the most powerful. She is able to calculate at a rate that was unheard of even six months ago. Because of that, she is capable of the vast number of concurrent calculations needed to give your virtual reality avatar enough substance so that you can project it into the real world. She also projects the power into the virtual plane that you reconfigure into mass when you want your avatar to materialize. The power she sends out is critical— that’s what allows us to make the transition from simply remote viewing into being able to project the avatar form in both the virtual and real planes.” Hammond was now walking back and forth across the front of the classroom, her eyes gleaming.

“But Sybyl does more than that. She is also your communications link back to our operations base here. You can also access the computer’s database for information as needed.” Hammond’s words were tumbling over each other as she raced to get them out. “It’s truly remarkable. You’ve never experienced anything like it. Through the link, you can get whatever knowledge you could ever possibly need. It’s like you are part of the computer.”

“As long as the computer has it in its database,” Dalton cautioned.

“Correct?”

Hammond stared at him. “Sybyl has over— “ She paused.

“Suffice it to say Ican’t think of any information you would need that Sybyl doesn’t have somewhere in its memory and couldn’t access through the Internet.”

Raisor had been standing in the back of the class. “Time, Doctor,” he said. Hammond nodded. “All right. You’ve seen the equipment that you will use in the isolation tank, and I’ve told you how it will help you. The other part of your classes here will consist of some refresher training on mind control techniques.” She pulled down another chart. “These are some of the techniques our experts will be reintroducing you to:”

• Biofeedback
• Attitude
• Visualization
• Relaxation
• Cognitive Task Enhancement
• Conscious Physiological Control Meditative States Death and Dying
• Mission Commitment