“Once every two seconds,” Hammond said.

‘Jesus.” Dalton shook his head. Two seconds was forever in combat.

“We’re back to the days of lever action rifles.”

“Is that the best weapon you have for us?” Anderson asked.

“We have some other options in terms of power and rate,” Hammond said defensively.

“What about if we have to take out armor?” Dalton asked.

“Then you materialize inside the tank,” Raisor said, “and you kill the crew.”

“Could I then use the tank?” Dalton asked.

“You can use anything you can retrieve,” Raisor said.

“That’s one of the beauties of this type of operation. You will have the element of surprise and then of shock. You’ll materialize out of nowhere, in a form that can hardly be seen, and what they do see will scare the piss out of them. Your weapons will be something they’ve also never experienced before. You’ll have more than enough advantage.”

“Against a force that’s going to attack a company of infantry?” Dalton asked. “With only seven of us?”

“Eight. And all we have to do is stop them from taking the warheads,” Raisor said. “That means just disrupt the attack.”

“I think you are severely underestimating your advantages,” Dr. Hammond said. “You will be able to move anywhere you want in an instant. And your physical selves will be here, at Bright Gate, safe. That’s a tremendous advantage. You can’t get killed, like a kid playing a video game on ‘God’ mode.”

“What about the avatars?” Dalton asked, not thrilled with comparison to a video game. He’d been hearing about “push-button” warfare for over two decades now and he didn’t buy into it. Sooner or later it always came down to some guy with a gun in his hand standing on a piece of terrain over the body of another guy with a gun.

“What if one of the avatars is shot? How does that affect our physical selves and the form?”

“Your physical self will be fine,” Hammond said. “The virtual form you project will be disrupted. What you are basically doing is transforming energy into matter. If the matter gets disrupted, it will backflow to the energy field. But you’ll be able to

‘dissolve’ your avatar and re-form it again, so in effect, you will be indestructible.”

“So why can’t we just go as those tubes and fire everyone up?” Captain Anderson wanted to know.

“Because it’s difficult to maneuver such a form,” Hammond said.

“We much prefer to give you an avatar that can actually make contact with the ground and any other surface. That can move physically if you need to. To disappear and re-form takes time and practice, neither of which we have much of right now.

“Also, you are used to having two arms and two legs and having your head on top of your shoulders. That might sound funny to you, but we try to approximate the human form as much as possible because it is the way you are used to getting sensory input and also the way you are used to moving. We could give you four arms, but how would you use the extra two? Where in your mind would you direct the commands for those arms to function? Perhaps with a lot of practice you might, but for a long time any additions or differences would only be a distraction. Trust me on this. A human-type form is the best for you to have as your avatar.”

Raisor stood. “The best thing to do is for you to experience it firsthand. Perhaps that will answer many of the questions you might have. Let’s get going. The clock is ticking.”

Feteror remembered the plane ride out of Afghanistan. It was the last memory he had of the time before the long darkness. The last memory of being a man, even a wounded, dying shell of a man. He had learned over the years to be able to put his memories into the mainframe computer he was hooked to. It was the only way he could “experience” a real life— replaying his memories, reliving them inside the computer. They were as

“real” as the women the programmers sent to him for his

“relief”

He often regretted that he didn’t know more about computers, but at the time he had been shipped to Afghanistan, computers had barely appeared in the Russian world, other than those the government used.

The scientists called the master computer at SD8-FFEU Zivon, which was a Russian name that meant alive.

The scientists had great respect for the computer that assisted Feteror in accomplishing his missions, but Feteror knew the computer to be stupid and unimaginative. He supposed that as machines went, it was quite an impressive piece of equipment, but it was poor companionship for all the years he had spent hooked to it.

Of course, Feteror knew, the scientists also had named Zivon thusly because they considered Feteror to be part of the computer. They saw no clear separation between the human brain and remaining body floating in a solution inside the metal cylinder and the circuitry and memory boards that surrounded it. Feteror himself often wondered where the line was as he wandered the electronic corridors of Zivon. The Russians had long worked at direct interfaces between the human mind and the machine mind. Ethical considerations had limited what could be done in the West, even though their machines were so much superior. SD8 had no such considerations to worry about and they had had access to all the other work being done in secret Soviet labs on cyborgs.

Feteror had looked up the word cyborg early in his new life after overhearing the technicians using it. The most interesting thing he had discovered about the definition was the part where it said that the human, once it became a cyborg, was then reliant on the machinery that was part of it for its survival. During one of his maintenance periods, the technicians had turned his video eye— since his virtual demon’s eye could never enter SD8-FFEU— on the metal cylinder that held him and the surrounding machinery. It had been hard for Feteror to accept that what he saw was his

“self.”

He remembered seeing himself in a training film when he had still been fully human and being surprised at what he saw, as many people were, not used to seeing themselves and having developed an unconscious representation in their own mind of what they looked like, sometimes at odds with the reality. Much as people were always surprised to hear their voice on tape, as it sounded different somehow. But seeing the machines that made him up had been far beyond anything any human had ever experienced. Feteror had long ago ceased thinking of himself as he had been in human form, but he had not been willing or able to translate that concept to the machines that surrounded the husk of his body. He preferred instead to view himself as Chyort, the demon avatar he went on missions as. But that didn’t mean he had been able to completely close the door on his past. Feteror was very careful with his memories. They were all he had and he had made sure to encode them and hide them deep inside Zivon. Everyone he had known, and how he had known them, was in there. Everything he had ever done. Everywhere he had ever been. Even when Rurik cut his power down to minimum, Feteror was free to roam those parts of Zivon that were accessible to him, the space he was allowed for his own use.

And those parts of Zivon that the scientists had blocked off from him— Rurik was no fool— Feteror was still trying to get to. Like a prisoner slowly chipping away at a prison wall with a spoon, Feteror had been working on breaking through the circuit walls that surrounded him, trying to get to the outer world of Zivon, which he knew would give him access to the entire world of the Internet and beyond. His goal was simply to be able to shut Zivon down, and in the process kill himself, but he had become aware of the incredible electronic virtual world that had sprung up in the past decade and it had piqued his interest.

Rurik never gave Feteror access to any information other than what was needed to accomplish his missions, but each time he was out on one of those missions, Feteror always made sure to try to gain more data. Several times he had materialized and accessed into computers,

“surfing” the Internet, a phrase he found most amusing, and an experience he had found quite stimulating. He had learned much, more than General Rurik could even begin to suspect. He had learned much about Rurik also, because he believed one of the keys to his plan was to understand his captor completely in order to be able to manipulate him.

In the past year he had even begun to contemplate trying to get to Zivon from the outside, hack his way into his own outer self, but the safeguards put in place seemed overwhelming, as did those on the inside, keeping him from hacking out. Even when he penetrated the GRU system, he had not even been able to get close to SD8, and he had been afraid of tripping alarms. If there was one tenet he had accepted early in his army career, it was that surprise and stealth were the most important tactical considerations when preparing an attack.

So he had accepted that another way had to be found.

But for now he was tired. He had accomplished much in the past few days, and his plan was gathering momentum.

He wandered aimlessly through the electronic archives that held his memory. When he paused to see where he was, he was surprised to discover that he was next to the place where he had encoded memories of his grandfather and his childhood.

He’d never known his father, not really. A vague figure who’d come home every once in a while wearing a smelly greatcoat. A large man who preferred the rough life of the army to the bitter life of the farm. Home on leave for a few days every few years, until finally he stopped coming and Feteror’s mother stopped talking about him coming home.

Feteror saw little of his mother, as she worked in a factory in the city, six days a week for sixteen hours a day, and it was too far to come back to the small farm each night. So he saw her maybe once a week, usually less. It was just he and his grandfather on the farm.

His grandfather— Opa in the Russian familiar— had told him of the Great Patriotic War and how the Germans had come and killed everyone in their village that they had caught, including Feteror’s grandmother and his own mother’s two brothers and three sisters. Only his grandfather, out in the woods hunting for game, and his mother, a young girl then, accompanying him to help carry it back, had survived. They had then joined one of the many guerrilla groups and spent the rest of the war hiding and killing when they could.

Unlike many of the other old men whose stories Feteror had heard, his grandfather had not spoken of the war fondly, or boasted of great feats of arms. He had spoken of the loss, the boredom of waiting, and the terror of the quick clash of combat.

But mostly they had simply worked the farm, raising enough food to eat and make the quotas from the State that grew larger every year. When Feteror had turned sixteen, his grandfather had died and Feteror had seen the writing on the wall. He had known he could never make the increasing quotas, even if his grandfather were still alive to help. Feteror had gone for the only thing he knew, immediately signing up to serve his required time in the military.

He’d found that the disciplined life was for him. In many ways, it was easier than the farm had been, and Feteror gained a better understanding of why his father had been gone so much. Feteror had done well, finally being sent to the elite Airborne. Even there, among the best, he had excelled, and he had been sent, after a few years of service, to officer training. He’d returned to the Airborne and served as an officer, before putting in enough time and gaining enough experience to join the Spetsnatz.

Feteror remembered the last time he had gone to the farm. He accessed that memory and the virtual area around him began to take on a form.

The collective had gobbled the farm up, but the small shady spot next to the stream where he and his grandfather had spent Sunday afternoons was still there, surrounded by acres and acres of open fields. Feteror closed his eyes and lay down in the shady spot, feeling the cool breeze, the itch of the grass underneath, hearing the murmur of the water going by. He had spent many, many hours perfecting this location in the computer’s memory.

Feteror heard footsteps and when he opened his eyes, he was not surprised to see his grandfather standing there, a flask in his hand and a bright smile of crooked teeth amidst the wrinkles in his face. Feteror sat up and greeted Opa and began to talk to him of what he had planned. He knew the old man would understand.

When the mercenaries complained about having to dig, Leksi threw money at them. Literally. He had a briefcase full of American dollars, and he tossed a thick band to each man.

“A bonus for the labor,” he said. But Barsk knew it was not so much the money, but Leksi himself, overseeing the digging, that made the ex-soldiers work like madmen. They wanted to be done with this and away from Leksi as quickly as possible.

There was also the problem that the GRU unit they had wiped out most likely made some sort of regularly scheduled radio contact with its higher headquarters. When they failed to call in, it was inevitable some sort of alarm would be raised. Barsk knew the remoteness of this site would preclude any investigation soon, but eventually someone would check.

The backhoe had worked through the rubble in the entrance to the elevator shaft relatively quickly. The shaft had suffered some damage but was unblocked except for debris at the bottom, which the mercenaries were digging out and placing on a small cage pulled out by the backhoe. An arc welder was cutting through the steel doors, which had been buckled by some sort of explosion. When the welder finally cut through, Barsk could see that the doors were two inches thick. What Barsk really didn’t understand was why this generator was so far underground. With a solid thud, one of the doors fell inward. Leksi was through, followed immediately by Barsk. The welder went to work on the other door while they walked into the blasted shambles of what the papers called the control room.

“What did this?” Barsk whispered. There were skeletons strewn across the floor, the flesh seared from the bones. The blast glass overlooking the experimental pit had been completely blown away. The walls were scorched as if from an intense heat. Barsk ran his hand along the top of what had once been a computer but was now melted metal and plastic. Leksi snapped a finger, and one of his men opened a case and took a reading with the machine inside.

“It is clean,” the man said. “No radiation.” Leksi knelt and picked up a skull, peered at it for a few moments, then tossed it aside.

“High heat,” he said. “A very powerful explosion. Not nuclear though. Most interesting.”

It was a shock for Barsk to see the ex–naval commando almost reflective as they both looked about.

Leksi crooked a long finger from his position near the blast wall. Barsk joined him. On the floor below was the gleaming steel tube of the generator, still standing straight and tall, the silver still shining amidst the black coils that fed power to it. More skeletons littered that floor.

“What are those things?” Barsk asked. There were four coffins next to the tube, a skeleton lying in each open container.

Leksi was turning the pages on the papers. “They’re called sensory deprivation tanks in here.”

“Why did they need those?”

Leksi waved some of his men forward, ignoring the question. “We need to unbolt that tube and then we’re going to have to winch it to the surface. I want you five to work on freeing the tube. You others, prepare a brace on the surface so we can use both the plane and the backhoe to haul that thing out of here.”

Barsk was looking more closely at the coffins. He could see the metal sockets implanted in each skull.

“What were they doing here?” he whispered. Leksi frowned. “I hope we can take off with that weight inside,” he said in a lower voice to Barsk. “Move!” he yelled at the men.

“Move faster!”

Knowing what to expect didn’t make it any easier. In fact, the dread of what was to come always made things worse, in Dalton’s opinion. The hardest part this time was the breathing crossover, but eventually he was past that and Hammond had him linked to Sybyl, who was going to introduce him to the avatar form that Hammond’s team had crash-designed with the help of the computer. Dalton had slept for two hours, if one could call it that. Hammond had given him a shot that had knocked him out for that time period. Dalton didn’t feel rested, but as they used to say in Ranger School so many years ago when he’d gone through that training, he could rest when he was dead. Remembering Ranger School, Dalton’s lips curled in a slight smile inside the TACPAD and around the tube shoved into his mouth as he followed the instructions of Dr. Hammond. It was the same routine he had done the first time: focusing on the white dot, followed by moving along the grid line. What would his grizzled Ranger instructors have thought of this new form of soldiering? Floating in a freezing tank, connected to a computer? They would have liked the freezing-tank part— it seemed like every military school Dalton had gone through had always had immersion into cold water as part of the curriculum.

“ Now we fit you to your basic avatar,” Hammond said, her

“voice” filtered through Sybyl. “ Are youready?”

“ Yes.” Dalton found this talking inside of his own head to Hammond very strange.

The grid lines disappeared. A stick figure replaced them after a brief blackout.

“ This is you.”

“ Lost some weight,” Dalton said. “ This form has nomass at present, although once projected out of the virtual and into the real world, it will havemass out of the energy we will send using Sybyl.”

“ It was a joke,” Dalton said. There was a long pause.

“ We will proceed. Sybyl will run you through a series of maneuvers to familiarizeyou with your avatar.”

Dalton waited patiently. He had no idea how much time had already elapsed. That was something he was going to have to ask Hammond— how could one keep track of time in the virtual world?

“ Move your left arm,” Sybyl commanded. Dalton tried to do as he was told, but he could feel nothing from his left arm.

“ Again.”

They went through this how many times Dalton didn’t know, until suddenly he felt a painful twinge in his arm. “ Hey!” Dalton yelled.

“ You are getting feedback?” Hammond asked. “ I canfeel my arm.”

“ You feel your virtual arm,” Hammond said. “ Now youcan move it. We have to make sure you have feedback before we allow movement. Now we willallow your nervous system to interact more fully with the form.” Dalton focused on moving his arm forward. The stick figure in front of him slowly moved its right arm forward. Dalton felt his arm move at the same time. It was very confusing, since he knew that his arm had not moved in reality.

“ Experiment,” Sybyl told him. “ Practice.”

Dalton did just that for a while before he noticed something. “ What about myhands?”

“ We must start with the basics,” Hammond said. “ Thisform is the barest outline of the avatar you will eventually employ. Tr y the otherarm.”

Soon Dalton could move all of his limbs individually. Sybyl then tested him in much the same manner that she had with the grid lines. A light would flash next to one of the limbs and he had to move in the direction of the light. The computer would also rotate the figure left and right, so that he had to move forward and back.

As the practice went on, Sybyl started flashing lights in combination and at a fast pace. Dalton found himself totally immersed in trying to keep up. It was like when he had first learned martial arts, the practice at making all movements a routine, an instinct.

Hammond’s voice came back. “ The goal is so that you can move the avatar asnaturally as you move your own body. For example, if you were to do a forward roll, you wouldnot be thinking how each of your arms and legs moved. You would do the roll. The avatar needsto be as much a part of you, so that you can move in combination in an unconscious mode. Themajor thing keeping you from that right now is the belief in your mind that you are not really theform you see. You must suspend your disbelief and believe you are looking into a mirror. But focuson what you feel, not what you see.”

Dalton did as she instructed and found that his action became more natural. It felt as if he were floating in the tank at scuba school, weightless and free. He rolled forward.

“ Whoa!” Dalton yelled. The figure in front of him was tumbling and he felt like he was spinning out of control. With great effort he brought himself to a halt. “ How doI know which way is up?” Dalton said. “ I’ve gotno feeling of weight. Even in water, I can tell direction by checking out my air bubbles. Here thereis nothing.”

A red line appeared next to the figure, arrows on it slowly going by pointing up. “ Orienton the arrows,” Hammond suggested.

Dalton did the roll again, but this time he focused on the red arrows. He did two complete revolutions, then halted himself.

“ Very good.”

Dalton felt like he was gasping for breath, but he knew now that it was only a part of the virtual feedback.

“ Now feet and hands,” Sybyl said. Dalton found that more difficult. He had never truly realized how complex the human hand was and how many moving parts it had. The foot was also hard to master.

Soon Sybyl had him mimicking the act of walking, the stick figure moving jerkily along. One thing Dalton found disconcerting was the lack of resistance, particularly to his feet.

“ Right now you might consider what you are doing walking in space, much like anastronaut, “ Hammond said. “ As you may have noted you have noweight. You are acting against no object. You are totally free. It is important to learn this type ofmovement, first because it is the most strange for you and also because it is the way you will feelwhile you travel on the virtual plane.”

“ Can I go somewhere?” Dalton asked. There was a pause. “ I must check with Raisor.”

“ Why?”

There was another pause. “ Because he’s in charge.”

“ Forget it,” Dalton said. “ You have completed thisphase of training,” Hammond said. “ We are pulling youout.”

“The fools will never succeed,” Feteror’s grandfather said as he stood at the edge of their glade, peering in the direction of the open fields. There was the distant heavy coughing sound of the Combine’s tractors working the land. Even in the virtual world, the State intruded, Feteror thought wryly. He knew he could delete the sound, but it was the way he had last been in the glade.

Feteror frowned. He had told his grandfather his entire plan and this was his response?

“Did you hear me, Opa?”

“I heard you. I know little of such matters, so you must do what you deem is best.” His grandfather shook his head, his heavy gray beard slowly swinging back and forth. “They think the group is stronger than the individual, but it is not so. Because the group is only as strong as the weakest individual. A good person can beat any group.”

“Then you believe I will succeed?” Feteror asked.

“Even in the war,” the old man went on as if he had not heard a word.

“The generals used us as if none of us mattered. They threw us against the Germans like so many pieces of garbage to be tossed onto the scrap heap. They’d keep our artillery fire so close that we lost as many of our own as the Germans did to our shells. But what did the generals care about us? We weren’t them. More importantly, from their perspective, they weren’t us. They had a goal and we were the means to achieve that goal.” Feteror stared at the construct of his grandfather. Zivon had developed this persona out of the memories that Feteror had poured into the computer, but in the past year or so, Feteror had slowly become aware that the persona had grown beyond the memories. It used words his grandfather had never known, but underneath, Feteror still felt that the essence of the construct was his grandfather.

“And we did win,” Opa continued. “But what did we win?”

“You defeated the Nazis,” Feteror said.

“Yes, we won that” the old man acknowledged. “But what was the total result? The entirety? We thought we were fighting for good.” His withered hand swept around, taking in what Feteror knew was supposed to be the farm. “We produce less now than we did when we worked the land, our land, with just a sickle and horses to pull the carts. Sometimes you can think you win but actually lose if the price you pay for winning is too high. You can lose your soul.”

“What— “ Feteror began, but the old man cut him off.

“I want to know what happened to you, grandson. Tell me of your last battle.” He waved the hand about. “I do not understand all this. I must know where you have come from.”

That memory was in Zivon also, a recollection that Feteror was loath to go into. Feteror felt a spasm pass through a nonexistent stomach, his mind reacting.

The glade faded and he and Opa were over a village set in the mountains. Feteror knew the when and where: Afghanistan, August 29, 1986. Feteror realized he didn’t have control over this playback, that his grandfather would see the true extent of what had happened:

A dry wind blew down off the mountain peaks that surrounded the valley, kicking up small duststorms. Feteror pulled the cloth tighter over his face and narrowed his eyes as his men drewcloser, stepping onto the dirt road that served as the village’s main thoroughfare.Feteror knew that because of the war, the people of the village had seen much pain and sufferingbut to them that was simply the way life was. The Soviets had invaded Afghanistan seven yearsago and still the war dragged on, but he had learned that it was not of much concern, since if itwas not the Russians, then the people would be fighting another village or some other foreignpower. War was an integral part of life for the mujahideen whocontrolled the countryside, and it mattered little to them who claimed rulership of the country inKabul.

The mujahideen did, however, enjoy the new weapons that the Americans were sending in throughPakistan, especially the Stinger missiles. Just a week ago, a passing band of mujahideen haddowned a Russian helicopter flying by low in the valley. When the villagers had come upon thecrash site, they’d found eight dead Russians. Feteror had a good idea of what hadhappened next from other villages he’d raided. The Afghanis had cut the heads off andbrought them back to the village to be used later when playing the Afghani version of polo, theheads replacing the ball in the Western game. The game, of course, would have to wait until themen of the village returned. Most of the men were gone, either dead or off fighting. Feteror knewthere was little concern in the village about the Russians or their Afghani Army lackeys becausethe village didn’t sit astride any route of communication nor did it have any resource ofgreat value. The war had been going on for long enough now that the Soviets no longer soughtout conflict, but stayed inside their fortified positions, fighting only when forced to. Feteror wascounting on the villagers’ complacent attitude to get his disguised band of men into theirmidst.

Thus, when the small group of eight men was spotted walking up the valley floor toward thevillage in the early morning light by a young boy tending his flock, there was not much concern.The elder, summoned out of his house, could see that the men coming up the valley were dressedin the traditional robes and turban of the mujahideen fighter and that they were moving openly. Asthey approached, he ordered the eleven remaining families to contribute some food so that thefighters might be nourished as they passed through.

It was too late when the elder turned to yell for his youngest son to get his weapon, asFeteror’s men whipped aside their robes. AK-74 assault rifles began firing, killing the fewvillagers who

had weapons. Resistance was destroyed in less than thirty seconds.

The elder had not moved throughout the entire time. Feteror knew he knew that to do so wouldinvite death and his duty was to the village and the people as a whole. Feteror’s menspread out, mopping up.

Feteror walked directly toward the elder, his rifle held loosely in strong hands, while yellingcommands to his men in Russian. With one hand, he ripped off the turban he had been wearing.He pulled a pale blue beret out of his robe and set it on his head. The other men did the same.The elder raised his hands wide apart. Feteror brought the weapon up and fired, the roundripping through the elder’s right leg, knocking him to the ground.

“ Any other men?” Feteror asked in Pashto, the language of the mujahideen, which surprised the elder.

“ No.”

“ Order everyone into the street. You have ten seconds. I will kill anyone who hidesor runs.”

Ignoring his pain, the elder yelled at the top of his lungs, ordering all into the street.There was a burst of automatic fire as the middle son of the elder’s brother ran out, firingan old rifle, and was cut down in a hail of bullets from the Russians, his body tumbling down thestreet like a rag doll. The old man’s black eyes watched this, but he said nothing, nor didhe show any sign of the pain radiating up from his leg.

Slowly the rest of the villagers came out until there were seventeen women, twenty-two children,and four other old men standing under the watchful guns of the invaders.

“ Is that everyone?” Feteror asked.

“ Yes.”

“ The men are all away fighting.” Feteror made it a statement, not aquestion. “You thought yourself safe here, high in the mountains, didn’tyou?”

The elder remained quiet, feeling the deep throb of pain from the wound on his leg.

“ My name is Major Feteror.” He was a slight man, his body lean likea blade under the robes he wore. But it was his face that the elder focused on. There were scarsrunning down the left side, and he had ice-blue eyes under straight blond hair. Those eyes worriedthe elder. Feteror reached up and touched the beret. “We are Spetsnatz. SpecialForces. Your fighters call us the ‘black soldiers.’ You would do well to—

“

Feteror paused as there was a sudden consternation among the Russian soldiers. One of themcame forward carrying a dirty burlap sack. He laid it at the feet of Feteror and opened it. Insidelay the battered heads of the eight Russian soldiers from the helicopter.The elder closed his eyes, waiting for the bullet, but seconds passed and he slowly opened them, tolook into Feteror’s. The major’s face was expressionless, only the glint of the eyesshowing his anger. He reached down and picked up one of the heads. The face was contorted, butit was easy to see that it had been a young man who had not yet reached his twentieth birthday.The elder had heard that the Soviets were sending younger and younger men to fight the war. Hefelt nothing about that. His brother’s middle son had been only eleven. A man was awarrior when he was big enough to pick up a rifle.

“ It will not be that easy, old man.” Feteror barked some commandsin Russian as he placed the head back onto the bag. His men lined the villagers against the mudwall of the elder’s house, then stepped back on the other side of the street. They put theirweapons to their shoulder and aimed, waiting.

The elder was proud that his people stood still, glaring back. There was no crying, no pleading.One woman spit, then the rest did the same, while also putting their children behind them. Thefour old men walked to the very front.

Feteror yelled some more orders. The muzzles of the sevenAK-74s moved back and forth,sighting in on one person, then moving to another. And another. But still no bullets came.

“ Tell me when, old man,” Feteror said.The elder couldn’t keep track of all seven weapons. He looked at his wife, whom he hadbeen married to for thirty-two years. His four grandchildren. His two daughters.

“ Tell me when, old man, or they fire on full automatic. As it is now, they will eachshoot only once at your command.”

The elder ran his tongue along his lips, feeling the dryness. He knew that in the long run it wouldnot matter. “Now.”

Feteror yelled a single word and seven rifles fired in one sharp volley. Seven bodies slammed backunder the impact of the bullets. The elder saw that one of the seven was his wife, and in a way hewas grateful that she would be spared whatever else was to come.

“ You play well,” Feteror noted.The Russian fired as the old man swung the knife he had slid out from under his robe. The roundcaught the elder in his upper right shoulder, knocking him back onto the ground, the knife fallingharmlessly to the dirt.

“ But you don’t fight so well.” Feteror kicked the knife away.

“So we will have to keep playing and not fight.” Feteror leaned andsmiled, revealing even teeth. “You are a disgrace and a coward. “As the elder struggled to rise up, he kicked him down with a heavy boot. “Watchmy men play, old man. It was what you were going to do with them,” he said,pointing toward the heads. “You have your games, we have ours.”While four of the Russians stood guard, the others dragged the women into one of the huts. Theelder listened to the screams and curses of the women for several hours as the soldiers raped andsodomized them. When they were done with a woman, they slit her throat, throwing the body outthe back onto the refuse pile. Halfway through, they simply killed the women, no longer able toforce themselves on them. The old man noted Feteror took no part in that sport. While that wasgoing on, Feteror had each of the children tied with a blue cord cinched tightly around their necksand made to stand in the center of the street under the bright sun, ignoring their cries for water.It was early afternoon by the time all the women were dead. Feteror had the old men executed, abullet to the back of each head, and then only the children were left. The elder had watched thesun slowly climb across the horizon with a growing feeling of contentment.Feteror attached a small green plastic tube to the end of one of the blue cords and walked over tothe elder, who was now weak and dizzy from the loss of blood.

“ I am being merciful, old man,” Feteror said as he handed the greentube to him. The elder slowly followed the cord; it was tied around the neck of his six-year-oldgrandson. He looked to the Russian in confusion.

“ Pull the ring,” Feteror ordered.Still not comprehending the elder did as he was told. The detonating cord ignited instantly, andwith a flash and small pop, the elders grandson’s head lay in the street, the body stillstanding for a few seconds before slowly toppling over.

“ I think sometimes that the heads can see their own bodies if they fall in the rightdirection, “ Feteror commented as he inserted the next length of blue cord into thegreen tube.

“ No!” the elder protested as Feteror held the tube out to him.

“I will not!”

“ Ah, then I will not be so merciful.” Feteror gestured to the guards.While two kept their rifles ready, the others drew knives out of scabbards and approached theclosest child.

“ I will peel them alive if you do not play,” Feteror warned.The elder took the green tube and pulled the ring. A second head lay in the street. The Soviet slidanother end of blue cord in. The elder closed his ears to the cries of the children who were left. Hishands worked automatically, taking the ignitor each time theSoviet gave it to him and quicklypulling the ring. He lost count, but mercifully there were no more lengths of blue cord.The elder turned to the Russian leader. “Kill me.”

“ I would,” Feteror said, “but then who would tell theothers what I have done here?” Feteror grabbed the old man’s chin.

“This was a warning. You take heads, we take heads. I think I have made thatperfectly clear.”

“ Kill me,” the elder insisted.

“ No. I will have my medic bandage you and tie you so that you cannot hurt yourself.When the men come back, you will tell them how you failed the village and what I have done.Then they will kill you. And the war will go on, but there will be that manyless”— Feteror gestured at the heads lying in the street—

“ to grow up and fight us and that many less women to bear more spawn to growup and fight us.”

“ You are the devil!” The elder tried to work up spit in his mouth, butit was dry. He had expected to die now. The thought of facing the men in the midst of this wasunbearable.

Feteror smiled. “The devil-Chyort. I like that.” He suddenlystraightened and looked to the north, toward the mountains. Then he glared down at the elder.

“You kept me here. You knew they were coming. That is why you didn ‘tfight me when I first came.”

The elder smiled as Feteror slammed the stock of his weapon into the old man’s head,knocking him out. Yelling orders, Feteror turned and ran for the southern end of the village, hismen falling in line behind him. The radio man ran next to Feteror, proffering the handset. Fromthe north there came a sound like thunder, hundreds of horses’ hooves striking thehard-packed ground and closing on the village.

Feteror took the handset and began calling for extraction when the earth exploded in front ofhim.

When Feteror regained consciousness, he was greeted by the stare of a line of lifeless eyes. Theheads of all the children he had had killed were arranged around him in a circle. He slowly tookan inventory of his body. He could feel pain in his chest, fromboth the ropes wrapped around itand several broken ribs. He could sense something hard and straight against his back and realizedhe was tied upright to a thick pole. He was naked, the cool night air brushing against his skin.Carefully he tested, but the stake was set deep into the earth and solid. The ropes were thick andwell tied.

It was dark outside the circle of heads, the only light coming from a lantern set on the groundthree feet in front of him. But Feteror could sense the people lurking there, watching, the hatewashing over him in waves. Feteror smiled.

A whip snapped out of the dark, the leather knots on the edge slashing into his skin, peeling backa long slice on his chest.

Feteror’s only response was a sharp intake of breath, the smile still on his face. The whipcame again. And again. The smile disappeared only when he slid into unconsciousness, the skinflayed from waist to neck.

When he came to, it felt as if his upper body were on fire. Just taking a breath caused his woundsto reopen and agony to surge into his brain. He looked about. Night still blanketed the countrysideand the heads were still watching him. He leaned his head back and looked up to the stars. Heremembered seeing those same stars as a child while riding on the open steppes. His grandfathertelling him the stories of the animals the various stars represented. He also remembered seeingthat same sky often while in the field during training. He had traveled by those stars many timeson operations all over the world, but he knew tonight he would be taking his last journey.Movement drew his attention back to earth. A woman came out of the shadows. She was small,wrapped in robes, only her dark eyes showing through a slit in her turban. In her hand she held ashort curved knife, the firelight glinting off the highly polished surface. She was one of the womenwho accompanied the men when they went to war.

Feteror knew what to expect. The woman reached and grabbed him between the legs, pullingnone too gently. The knifeflashed. Surprisingly, Feteror felt little. Despite the pain he was able tothink quite clearly with a part of his mind. He figured that any pain from below his waist wouldhave trouble overriding the tide of agony from his flayed skin. The woman held up his severedpenis in her hand and, with a shrill scream, carried it back into the darkness to throw it to thedogs. Another woman came out with a dirty rag and a piece of rope. She pressed the rag upagainst the new wound, tying it in place with the rope. Feteror knew they weren’tconcerned with infection but they didn’t want him to bleed to death. Not yet.A man appeared, large, as tall as Feteror’s six and a half feet. He carried something longin his hand. Feteror forced himself to focus. It was a sledgehammer. He could even see the Cyrillicwriting on the side as the man came closer. It must have been taken off of a Russian tank that the mujahideen had destroyed. Forged in a factory back in the motherland. Feteror found thatstrangely amusing. That he and this sledgehammer, both forged far to the north and west, wouldend up here at the same place at the same time in this godforsaken land.The man gestured and the same woman who had tied the crude bandage in place came up,carrying another piece of cloth. She folded it over several times, then knelt, pressing it up againstthe front of Feteror’s right knee.

Feteror’s thoughts on fate and his newly developed theory on pain below the waist wereboth gone in an instant as the man swung the sledgehammer into Feteror’s right kneecap,smashing it against the thick stake he was tied to, the sound of the bone underneath the clothbeing crushed as devastating as the pain.

Feteror screamed for the first time.

The sledgehammer went back once more. And again. And again.

Feteror, the essence of him, retreated from the pain, climbing into the recesses of his mind,praying for death or at least unconsciousness, but each time the latter came, the mujahideen wouldbring him alert with pain to a previously undamaged part of hisbody. And they kept death at bayby searing shut any bleeding wound with a hot knife, although the use of the cloth kept thehammer from opening too many wounds. Feteror’s only hope lay in the possibility thatthey would run out of things to do to him or that they would grow bored and kill him.But as dawn touched the eastern sky, neither appeared to be close.

He could now see past the circle of severed heads. He was at the edge of the village. A crowd of mujahideen watched him silently, the hate in their eyes not abated in the least. Feteror was now insome other place, someplace removed even from his own mind, floating above, able to look downon his own body tied to the stake. He wondered if he was dead, but the body— hisbody— still twitched with life.

The old man, the village elder, was tied to a stake on the other side of the circle of heads. Aleather band was stretched around his forehead, forcing him to look directly ahead. His eyelidshad been sliced off. A man stood next to the elder, speaking in a low voice that Feteror could notmake out. The elder was also naked. Several leather bands were wrapped around his body andlimbs.

A woman came up, several similar strips of wet leather in her hand. From above, Feteror dullyfelt her tying bands around his arms and legs, a most strange experience.The man who had been speaking to the elder came over. “The leather shrinks as itdries. It will take a few hours.” He pointed at the elder. “We put thebands on him two hours ago. It is beginning to dry. The sun will quicken this. You think you knowpain now. Watch.”

As the sun came up, the elder began screaming, begging. The leather tightened down on his flesh,compressing all beneath. Something gave way in the old man’s legs and he gave forth anundulating cry that didn’t stop. For fifteen minutes it went on. A young man talked to theman who had spoken to Feteror. Theman reluctantly nodded. The young man went over to theelder and slit his throat, stopping the cry.

“ You will not be so lucky,” the man informed Feteror.Feteror could tell that the straps were tightening. The pain was drawing him back to his body,something he fought with all his will.

Feteror began praying for death, calling on a God he knew only from the stories Opa had toldhim many years ago. He was back in his body as the agony reached levels he had never thoughtpossible.

Through the pain, he heard something. Very distant. His eyes flickered up, his mouth wide open ashe took careful breaths. Yes. He could hear it. He wondered why the mujahideen didn’t. Thesound of helicopter blades cutting through the thin air.

One of the mujahideen was coming close, holding the red-hot knife just pulled out of the fire. Butthis time it was not to close a wound. Feteror pushed his head back against the stake as the manbrought the knifepoint toward his face. Feteror ripped muscles in his neck, trying to avoid theknife. The man called for help in dealing with the Chyort, the devil man.Two others ran up, grabbing his head and holding it still with all their strength as Feteror foughtthem with every once of energy he had left. The night had been too long, the damage too great. Itwas a lost battle.

The knife came forward. Feteror felt it touch his eyeball, and pain, far beyond anything he hadfelt so far, hit his brain like a spear splitting it straight through. He screamed, his battered andsliced body straining against the ropes, which brought even more pain and deepened the primevalessence to the shivering cry he let loose.

But still he could hear the sound of the helicopters so close, and machine-gun fire. And screamscoming from others. And then there was only blessed darkness.

The village was gone. They were back in the glade. Opa was crying, tears flowing down his weathered cheeks.

“Do you see now?” Feteror asked. “Why I must do this thing?”

Opa opened his mouth to say something, when the sky and glade disappeared along with the old man.

“Time to work.” General Rurik’s voice was harsh. There was a bright glaring light in Feteror’s face. He knew that was a construct the programmers used to get his attention, feeding the input directly into his occipital lobe.

“What is it?” Feteror was disconcerted.

“We have lost contact with one of our surveillance units,” Rurik said.

“We want you to see what has happened.”

“Why don’t you send a plane?”

“Because it is very far from the closest plane,” Rurik said.

“And more importantly, the surveillance team was watching where we used to be headquartered.”

Feteror waited.

“We are inputting the coordinates.” Feteror read them as they came in. Information about the history of Department Eight had always been strictly withheld from him by Zivon on General Rurik’s order, under the theory that knowledge was power and the less Feteror knew, the weaker he would be.

Feteror could have gotten this information from Oma, after she had received the papers and CD from Colonel Seogky, but he had not wanted her to know that he wasn’t aware of the information contained in them. It had taken him four years to simply find out that the phased-displacement generator had been built, and that had only been because of a most fortunate meeting. The location of the generator had been something for which he had needed Oma and her organization. He had pointed her to the man in GRU records who would know that information. He could have taken it out of Vasilev, but the added fact that they would need the CD-ROM to program the computers to work the phased-displacement generator— and Vasilev himself the only survivor among those who had invented the machine, to properly operate the computers— had precluded Feteror from pushing the old man too far, too soon. Vasilev would pay, but only after he made penance.

Feteror translated the grid coordinates as they came in. The far north!

“Find out why the surveillance unit has not reported in and come back immediately. You are to observe only.”

“Why is there still a surveillance unit there?” Feteror asked.

“That is not your concern.”

“Why was Department Eight moved from there to here?”

“That is also not your concern. Just do as you are tasked.” The tunnel beckoned and Feteror jumped. He felt the weightless feeling of flying as he roared into the virtual plane, assuming his winged-demon shape. It was what he felt comfortable in. The first time he had been like this was in the village in Afghanistan. Rurik and his minions thought they were so brilliant! The computer link only gave him more power, more information.

The body was basically humanoid, except larger, more powerful, and armed with sharp claws at the end of each hand. The wings were something he had worked out with Zivon. He had not liked the feeling of floating free or moving from place to place without a sense of spatial orientation. The wings gave him that, although it had taken him much time to get used to them. They gave him a solid way to control his orientation, direction, and speed. And they helped scare the piss out of anyone he appeared to on the real plane.

Feteror stretched his wings wider, moving faster, the virtual plane going by in a rush, his mind focused on the location he had been given.

The virtual plane was a strange place. There were times when even Feteror felt concern as he traversed it. It was a gray world, and traversing it was like moving in a vast mist, but references from the real world could be spotted poking through here and there if he made an effort to see. If there were no references, then Feteror would have to stop and come out of the virtual, into the real, and align himself. Sometimes he sensed other shadows, forms, moving in the fog.

Some he recognized— psychics, real ones— plying their trade. Sometimes he knew they were Americans, from their Bright Gate operation. He knew the presence in the rail station had been a Bright Gater. How much the Americans knew he could not tell. He was also unsure exactly what their capabilities were. He knew they could remote view but he had picked up some different disturbances at times that indicated the Americans were doing something more advanced than just RVing. He had tried once to breach their facility in the state they called Colorado, but it was well protected from psychic probing.

He had given General Rurik the information about the Mafia in order to move the timetable of everything up, so that whatever the Americans might plan would occur too late. But now he knew they also knew the timetable was sooner rather than later.

Feteror sensed he was over Siberia. He could feel the vast emptiness of that land reflected around him. He could not explain how he knew where he was, he just knew it. It was one of the strange aspects of the virtual plane. Often the emotion of an area was what passed through to him, not the physical realities. Feteror oriented himself and continued his flight.

He had no idea how quickly he moved. Sometimes he arrived at a place

“instantaneously” in real time, yet it seemed like it took an hour on the virtual plane. Other times, going to the same place, real time had elapsed. There was no way to tell. He had asked the scientists, and their mumbo-jumbo answers had told him they didn’t have a clue why that was. He knew they didn’t even really know why he was able to do what he did. Feeling he was in the right place and sensing death-something he was very familiar with— below, Feteror halted and focused so that he could see the real world. The island appeared below. Feteror could see the Cub transport plane parked on the edge of the runway. He swooped around in a large circle, going lower. He could see the backhoe and lines going from it into a hole in the side of a mountain. Claws on the end of his feet splayed, Feteror landed right next to the hole. He bared his fangs in a grin as a couple of the mercenaries looked around, sensing something, not sure what it was, only that they felt danger in the air around them like a faint scent at the edge of their consciousness. Feteror could clearly sense their fear, like a wild dog near its prey.

Feteror was still in the virtual plane, the demon shape only something he felt, not something that was really there with the soldiers, but he knew the line between the two worlds was not solid and fixed. He folded his wings and walked forward, into the hole. The ropes disappeared into a large elevator shaft. He looked down. There was a glint of light on steel far below. The phased-displacement generator.

“Careful, you pigs!”

Feteror looked at the man who stood on the other side of the shaft opening. Leksi. Feteror had seen the man before. And next to him the boy-man who had taken the papers from Colonel Seogky. Who was so stupid he had not listened when Feteror had whispered in his mind that his bodyguard was a double agent. Feteror remembered the name: Barsk, Oma’s flesh and blood. Feteror blinked as an image of his grandfather passed across his mind.

“Even pressure on both cables!” Leksi was yelling. Feteror threw himself back, spreading his wings wide and hovering. He felt a strong desire to gain solid form, to match his power against Leksi. To rip the man to pieces, to make him bleed and suffer. But there was not enough power coming from Zivon. Only the beckoning signal to return from Rurik. And he needed Leksi for now.

Feteror tightened his wings and dove into the shaft. He landed on top of the generator. Looking beyond, he could see the skeletons and devastation in the control center. He could feel spirits floating about. Feteror stepped back in surprise. He had felt spirits before, but always very distantly, but these came at him. He “saw” nothing, but he knew they were all around him. Four men, long dead, who whispered to him of revenge, of pain and suffering. He felt an immediate affinity for their suffering. He promised them he would avenge their pain.

Feteror pivoted over on one wing and flew out of the cave, up into the virtual sky. Vasilev screamed as he scrambled away from the demon that pursued him. Its red eyes speared him with their malice, and he could hear the creature’s claws against the floor. He scuttled sideways, trying to put as much distance as he could between himself and the monster.

It had halted and Vasilev did too. He breathed deeply, then almost smiled. This was just a bad dream. All he had to do was waken and the nightmare would be over. He would be home in bed, ready to wake up and go to the university for another day of teaching.

He opened his eyes and blinked. It was dark.

Then he saw the eyes and knew the nightmare was real. The demon came forward once more. Vasilev ran away, so hard that when the chain reached its end, the collar around his neck snapped him back so badly, he tore muscles in his neck and he flopped back onto the concrete like a rag doll.

“Please, please,” Vasilev pleaded as the creature leaned over him. He swore he could smell its fetid breath. “Mercy!” Vasilev begged.

“You gave no mercy on October Revolution Island,” the creature hissed. Vasilev’s eyes widened in shock. How did this thing know of that? Those thoughts were brutally interrupted as a claw ripped up his right side, parting flesh with one smooth stroke. The pain was like acid. He screamed once more.

“You will not have death until you atone,” the creature said.

“I am sorry!” Vasilev whimpered.

“Atonement requires action.” The creature drew back leaving Vasilev holding his bleeding side.

“I am sorry,” Vasilev whispered as the demon once more disappeared. Dalton had refused the shot from Dr. Hammond this time. He had always been able to sleep when he needed to. He had slept on many an aircraft, fully rigged with 48 pounds of parachute, 140 pounds of rucksack attached to the rig dangling between his knees on the cargo bay floor, helmet pulled down over his eyes, weapon tied off to his right shoulder, while men threw up around him from the turbulence of a low-level-flight infiltration.

Sleep when you could was a lesson that had been beaten into him from too many missions when he hadn’t been able to. But sleep was coming slowly right now for different reasons. He lay back on the bunk and stared at the concrete ceiling.

Dalton closed his eyes. The image of the concrete ceiling remained. But this one was smooth, not like the other one. The one where Dalton had counted every single mark on it. Memorized them, then begun using his imagination, the only thing he had left, on it. He’d made a world out of that ceiling only four feet above his mat on the floor. He couldn’t stand in the cell, so he’d lie there, legs always bent, and stare at the ceiling.

There were the faintest outlines on the ceiling, brown marks from some time when water had been in the cell, perhaps when the nearby river had flooded, that made up the continents and oceans of Dalton’s imaginary world.

He put countries inside those continents. His favorite land had been Far Country, a land settled by the persecuted of Old Country. Dalton had invented the entire history of those people leaving the homeland, the travel across the huge Middle Ocean, to arrive in Far Country. A land where there was no war. No need for armies, because no one would follow them across the Middle Ocean. It was not a land of plenty, but rather a hard land. Another reason no one would dare the terrible ocean to come there. There was nothing to conquer but empty space. Endless plains, running into the High Mountains. And beyond the High Mountains were even more wonderful and strange lands. But in Dalton’s history the people of Far Country loved their land. And the peace made any hardship brought on by the land or weather more than bearable. Because there was nothing that nature could do that could be worse than what men did to other men.

Dalton could see the High Mountains, particularly Dunnigan’s Peak, the white summit shimmering to the west. He’d climbed the mountain numerous times, using a different approach each time. The view from the top reached back over the Plains to the Middle Ocean, the water—

“Sergeant Major!”

Dalton was alert in an instant, rolling to the side away from the voice, hand reaching behind his back pulling out his nine-millimeter pistol, before his eyes focused on Lieutenant Jackson’s face. The RVer looked exhausted.

Dalton took a deep breath. “What?” Jackson looked to her left and right. “I have to talk to you.”

“Talk,” Dalton said, lowering the hammer on the gun and putting it back in its holster.

“I’m Army,” Jackson said. “Most of these people are CIA or NSA. But there’s a couple of us from the service here. We were part of the original Grill Flame operation.

And we were good, so they kept us when they switched over to Bright Gate.”

“What’s your point, ma’am?”

“You can’t trust Raisor.” Dalton leaned back on his bunk. “You woke me to tell me that?”

“Did he tell you what happened to the first team?”

“The first team?” Dalton swung his feet over to the floor on the same side that Jackson was crouched. “Dr. Hammond said someone died when there was an equipment malfunction. She didn’t say anything about a team.”

“Dr. Hammond doesn’t know diddly,” Jackson said vehemently.

“She’ll lie when Raisor tells her to, but a lot of the time she talks out her ass because she doesn’t understand a lot of what she’s working with. Hell, no one does. At least we admit it. She has to act like she knows more than she does because her ego won’t allow her to admit her ignorance. They’ve sold a whole pile of crap to the Oversight Committee and the Pentagon. You don’t think they’d be bringing you and your men in unless they were desperate, do you?”

“I figured that,” Dalton said.

Jackson nodded. “Raisor put together the first Psychic Warrior team using NSA and CIA operatives. They tried to keep us RVers in the dark, but since we were both using the same facilities here, it was kind of hard to do. Plus we’d run a lot of the early tests for Psychic Warrior, gathering the data Hammond needed to make the next step. But obviously Raisor wanted to keep it in house, so he brought his own people in to make up the first team.” Dalton waited. He knew he’d been lied to; now he was beginning to get an idea of the extent.

“What happened to the first team? Are they dead?”

“We don’t know,” Jackson said. Dalton raised his eyebrows. “What do you mean by that?”

“Their bodies are still in their isolation tanks, in a room off the main experimental chamber. The machines are keeping them in stasis at the reduced-functioning status. So they’re alive, I suppose. As alive as any of us when we go into those damn tanks.”

“What happened to them?”

“No one knows. I don’t know exactly, but I have an idea. I told Hammond but she thinks it’s bull. I believe she thinks that because what I told her scared her.”

“What about Raisor?”

“I think Raisor believes me. He’s weird.”

“What’s your theory?”

“There are bodies in the isolation tanks, but there are no people in there, if you know what I mean. Heck, Sergeant Major, I went looking for them. I went out on the virtual plane to see if I could find them.” She paused, her eyes withdrawing.

“And?” Dalton prompted.

“And I think I found the team. What was left of them. Their psyches. Worn out as if they’d died of starvation. They were all dead there.”

“Wait a second.” Dalton held up his hand. “You’re talking about a thing that’s not real in a place that doesn’t exist.”

“Oh, you know it exists,” Jackson said. “Or you will once Sybyl passes you over. It’s as real as this room.”

“If this avatar is a construct, how can remains of the psyche exist? Wouldn’t it just disappear?”

“I don’t know,” Jackson said. “I’m just telling you what I found. I don’t pretend to understand this stuff like Hammond does.”

“But... how could their avatars have ‘starved,’ as you put it?”

“Loss of power from Sybyl. They got cut off.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. Like I said, whenever Psychic Warrior was operating, we were locked down.”

Dalton considered what she had just told him. What mission had the first team been on? Or had they been lost in training and that explained Raisor’s reaction to what had happened to Stith?

“There’s something else I think you should know,” Jackson said.

“What?”

“There’s something, or someone, else over there,” Jackson said.

“Who?”

“Chyort,” the lieutenant whispered.

“What?”

“The devil. I translated it using Sybyl. Chyort is the Russian word for

‘devil’ The CIA picked up reports about such a thing several times but they dismissed it. I don’t.”

Dalton bit back his reaction. He could tell the lieutenant wasn’t making this up. That she believed what she was saying.

“Not the devil like most people think of him,” Jackson said, then she paused, as if hearing her own words. “Well, maybe I’m wrong there. Maybe it is the devil like most people think of him. But whatever you might think, I’m telling you there is someone else in the virtual world.”

“Any idea who?” Dalton asked.

“Most likely the Russians,” Jackson said. “We know they’ve been working with remote viewing longer than we have. And I heard rumors when I first got to Grill Flame from some of the old hands that the Russians had gone way beyond what we had been doing. That they had taken psychic warfare very seriously a long time ago and have been putting a lot of resources into it.

“Also, we get blocked when we try to see into certain places in Russia. It seems pretty logical to me that if the Russians know enough to block us psychically, then they know enough to RV. You can’t have an antidote without a poison.”

“So this devil is a Russian avatar?”

“I think so. I met him earlier today. When I went on the recon to check out the nuke warheads shipment. He was there. In the same room at the railhead. I couldn’t see him and I don’t think he saw me, but he was there. I felt him. And I know he felt me.”

“Does Raisor know this?”

“I told him. He didn’t seem that interested. The CIA reports are unsubstantiated according to him. And he chooses to disbelieve reports we give him that he doesn’t want to hear.”

“But this means the Russians probably know about the planned attack,” Dalton said.

“There’s a high probability of that,” Jackson said.

“I’ve read numerous unclassified reports of the strong Russian interest in remote viewing and psychic phenomena. In fact— “ She paused, but Dalton indicated for her to continue. “In fact, there’s some evidence that the Russians were trying to tap into psychic weapons a long time ago. In 1958 there was a tremendous explosion of undetermined origins just north of Chelyabinsk in the central Soviet Union that devastated a large amount of countryside. The CIA formally reported it as a nuclear mishap, but there was quite a bit of speculation that it was caused when some sort of psychic weapon misfired.

“There’s a scientist, a Dr. Vasilev, at the Moscow Institute of Physiological Psychology, who has written several papers that, if you read between the lines, indicate strong Russian experimentation in psychic weapons. I think this

Chyort, this devil, may be the latest generation of such a weapon.” The lieutenant shivered and Dalton put an arm on her shoulder. He could feel the shaking, something he had felt before from soldiers who had been pushed too far and couldn’t handle it anymore. Combat stress.

Jackson leaned her head into his arm, her voice no longer that of the woman, but the girl who had been scared. “I don’t know what this thing is. I met the devil today and now he knows me. And he’ll get me next time I go over there.”

“Listen to me,” Dalton said in a low voice. “Listen to me. I know you’re afraid and it’s okay to be afraid. Because you got something to be afraid of and you just had something real bad happen.

“When I was a POW in Vietnam, they brought in a pilot late one afternoon. They carried him down the corridor past my cell, and I could see that he was in bad shape. He still had his flight suit on but it was all torn up and he was bleeding. He must have come down near a village. In a way, he was lucky to be alive, because once the villagers got hold of one of those who brought death out of the sky— as they called pilots— they usually hacked him to pieces before he could even get out of his parachute harness. But the NVA must have gotten to him in time. They liked pilots because they could get some good intelligence off them and they had publicity value.” Dalton heard Jackson sniffle. He kept speaking.

“They put him in the cell next to me. I heard him crying that night. Hell, I remember crying my first night after I came to.”

Jackson looked up at the sergeant major in surprise.

Dalton smiled. “Anyone who wasn’t scared or didn’t feel afraid in such a situation would have to be nuts. I’ve met a few guys who weren’t afraid in combat, who actually enjoyed it— they were sociopaths. And those guys scared the piss out of me.

“Anyway, I reached through the bars and called to him. I got him to put his hand out and I held it. All night long. Because the thing we’re afraid of more than anything else is being alone.”

Jackson pulled back slightly and Dalton took his arm off her shoulders. “This devil doesn’t scare you as much as the thought of facing him alone. But that isn’t going to happen. Next time you meet this Chyort, this devil, you won’t be alone. We’ll be there with you.”

Jackson stood up.

“Okay?” Dalton asked.

Jackson nodded, her eyes red.

“Get some rest,” Dalton said. “I’d take one of Hammond’s shots if I was you.”

Dalton watched her walk away. Jackson reminded him in a way of Marie. He tried to pinpoint what the semblance was, then realized there was nothing in particular except that Jackson had needed him. He sat in the dark of the bunk room, his mind not on the upcoming mission, but on the past. The first time he had been under fire. The day that had torn him away from Marie for five long years.

“ He must keep this bandage on for three days.”Specialist Fourth Class Jimmy Dalton listened as the interpreter relayed his instructions to themother. Dalton spoke Vietnamese, not fluently, but well enough so that he could have given theinformation himself, but he had learned that it went over better coming from the interpreter. Itwas scary enough for these people to come with their medical problems to the large foreignersand allow themselves to be exposed to treatments they could not understand. The concept of oneof the foreigners speaking their language was something that took a while for most to assimilateand accept, and Dalton’s priority was his patient’s health, not immediate culturalacceptance. He knew the latter would require time and patience, and he was going to be here fora year, so he was prepared to take it slow.

Dalton was dressed in plain green jungle fatigues, a Special Forces patch sewn onto the leftshoulder, the gold dagger and three lightning bolts standing out against the teal blue backgroundon the arrowhead-shaped patch. On his head, his green beret felt stiff and new, unlike thebattered and faded ones the other members of the team wore.

Dalton looked up from the young boy as the northeastern sky flickered. Seconds later themanmade thunder that went with the light rolled over the camp. The sound of mortars andartillery pounding Khe Sanh had been a nightly serenade for the past seventeen days. Located lessthan four miles to the southwest of the bombarded Marine Corps base, the Special Forces campat Lang Vei was an inviting target to the NVA forces as the Tet Offensive exploded in earnestthroughout South Vietnam. Every man assigned to Lang Vei knew it, but so far, they had been leftalone other than an occasional mortar attack.

“ You should all leave,” the woman told the interpreter inVietnamese.

Ba To, the interpreter, glanced at Dalton, knowing he had heard. “Why isthat?”

The woman swept her hand at the dark jungle that surrounded the camp. “Many,many soldiers from the north. And their large metal beasts. They will kill all ofyou.”

“ Tell her she’s welcome,” Dalton told Ba To. He rubbed a ragacross his forehead, then proceeded to repack his M-3 medical bag. Metal beasts. They’dcaptured an NVA officer a week ago who’d told intelligence that tanks were being broughtup to the Laotian border, only a kilometer and a half down Route 9, which ran along the southernperimeter of the camp. The report had been greeted with skepticism by the brass and concern bythe rank and file. Dalton’s team sergeant, Mike Terrence, had sent an urgentrequest for LAWs, light antitank weapons, to their B-Team headquarters. They’d receiveda hundred of the plastic tubes just two days ago. The LAWs, in addition to the 106-millimeterrecoilless rifle in the camp’s center weapon pit, was the extent of their antiarmorcapability.

Dalton looked across the berm and the rows of barbed wire at the jungle, less than two hundredmeters away. The N VA using tanks was unheard of. At worst, the intelligence rep had insisted, ifthere were tanks, the N VA would use them for covering fire from the treeline. That made nosense to Dalton, but then again he was only a nineteen-year-old medic, straight out of the SpecialForces Qualification Course at Fort Bragg. He’d been in-country only three weeks and themost dangerous thing he’d done was make the resupply run to Khe Sanh the first week hewas at Lang Vei and hunker down in a Marine bunker while mortar and artillery rounds came in.From the sound of the firefight to the northeast, there was no doubt that the Marines werecatching hell. Since the offensive had begun, the only way in and out of Khe Sanh was by air. Thesame was true of the Special Forces camp. Highway 9 was cut to the east of Lang Vei, essentiallyisolating the A-Camp other than for helicopter resupply for the past two weeks.The mother and son walked off toward the huts holding the Laotian refugees who had floodedinto the camp in the past week, running before the N VA forces who were using their country as afree zone to organize their assault. Dalton wished Ba To a good evening, and they headed inopposite directions to turn in for the night.

Besides the American A-team, Detachment A-101, there was a mobile strike force company of thelocal Civilian Irregular Defense Group, CIDG, inside the walls of the dog-bone-shaped campalong with the battered remains of the Laotian battalion that had briefly fought the N VA beforerunning to Lang Vei. Twelve Americans and three hundred indigenous troops, at theremotest edge of South Vietnam, close to the borders of both Laos to the west and North Vietnamjust to the north.

This was what Dalton had been trained for: to work with the indigenous people of a country toteach them how to take care of and protect themselves. As a medic, Dalton had spent most of thepast several weeks not walking combat patrols, but plying his medical skills among thenever-ending line of patients. He’d already performed more minor surgery than mostinterns back in the United States. There was nowhere else for these people to go for treatment.Dalton walked along the inside of camp, passing the dark forms of soldiers manning their posts.His goal was the command bunker that also held the small dispensary where he and the seniormedical sergeant kept their supplies and bunked down.

Halfway there, right in the center of the camp, Dalton halted. His back felt like there was an armyof small ants climbing up it, and he reached back to brush them off, when he realized that thefeeling was inside his head, not actually on his skin.

The flat thump of a mortar round leaving a tube interrupted this strange feeling. Dalton had beenin-country long enough to know that by the time one heard the sound of the mortar firing fromoutside the camp, the projectile was already over its apogee and on the way down. He ran for thenearest sandbagged position, the 106-millimeter recoilless rifle pit. Dalton jumped over the top ofthe four-foot-high sandbag wall as the first mortar round hit just outside the perimeter.

“ Mind your p’s and q’s and watch where you put your feet,laddie,” a voice with a thick Boston accent greeted Dalton as he sat up, dustingdirt off his shirt.

Staff Sergeant Herman Dunnigan was the team’s junior weapons man, and the 106 washis pride and joy. He’d stolen it from the Marines two months ago, and Captain Farrel,the detachment commander, had already been called on the carpet twice for the return of theweapon. With the reports of N VA armor, the entire team knew that Farrel was is no rush toreturn the rifle to

the Leathernecks, who were much better prepared at their firebase for any sort of armor attack.Dalton slid across the base of the pit until he was next to Dunnigan, who handed him an alreadylit cigarette, pulling its replacement out of his fatigue shirt pocket. Two more rounds went off inrapid succession, somewhere in the south side of the camp. Dalton flinched at each explosion.

“ They got the range, “ Dunnigan commented. “Theymost certainly do, the little bastards. Of course, they’re probably getting adjusted bysomeone in the CIDG, so why the hell shouldn’t they have the range?”It was accepted that the NVA had spies in both the CIDG and in the Laotian battalion. It was abitch having to guard against attack from the outside and betrayal on the inside of the wire, but itwas the nature of the Special Forces’ job. Dalton knew that some of the soldiers he waspatching up could be shooting him in the back that very evening.

Dalton didn’t answer as he took a deep drag on the smoke. His hand was trembling. Hewas scratching his neck before he realized that, again, the itchy feeling was coming from inside.

“ Something’s coming “ Dalton said as he carefully snuffedthe cigarette out and put the remains in his pocket. He swiveled around on his knees and peeredover the barrier toward the jungle.

“ You don’t need to see ‘em,” Dunnigan said.

“We ‘ll be hearing them first.” He gripped Dalton’sshoulder. “Listen.”

Dalton held his breath, just as he’d been taught when getting ready to fire his rifle. Therewas a very low roar, an engine running. Dalton’s first thought was that it was thecamp’s generator, but then he realized it was of a deeper pitch and coming from outsidethe perimeter.

Dunnigan was on the hand-cranked phone, calling the mortar pit. “I needillumination. West side. Over the treeline.”

“ Tanks?” Dalton asked as he hung up the phone.

“ Damn straight, laddie. Didn’t you feel ‘em moving upearlier?”

Dalton looked at the other man. It hadn’t occurred to him to wonder why Dunnigan was inthe pit this late in the evening. “Feel them?”

“ You live long enough, you’ll know.” Dunnigan’shead was cocked listening for the sound of the 4.2-inch mortar on the north side of the camp tofire. “Sometimes I wonder, though, if it isn’t you know, and you’lllive long enough.”

Dalton was still puzzling over that when they heard the heavy thump of the camp’sfour-deuce mortar. Seconds later a flare burst high overhead, illuminating the western side of thecamp.

“ High explosive, load!” Dunnigan was looking down the barrel ofthe 106-millimeter, aiming it.

Dalton grabbed a round out of its cardboard container and slid it in the back of the rifle, shuttingthe trap on it. Only then did he look where the other man was aiming.

Four PT-76 tanks were rumbling out of the treeline and heading straight for the wire. Theyweren’t top-of-the-line battle tanks, but rather armored reconnaissance vehicles built bythe Soviet Union, with a 76-millimeter gun mounted on top in a small turret. Still, coming straightat him, the tanks more than impressed Dalton.

The recoilless rifle spit flame. A burst of fire on the front slope of one of the tanks was followedimmediately by a secondary explosion, popping the turret off.

“ H.E., load!”

Dalton fell into the rhythm, loading as fast as Dunnigan fired. They flamed a second tank as fourmore came out of the trees. By the time Dunnigan had fired for the fifth time, the lead tank was inthe wire, less than fifty feet away. It paused, the 76-millimeter gun in the turret turning in theirdirection.

Dalton felt like time was suspended as he slid a fresh round into the rear of the rifle and locked itdown. Dunnigan had his

eye pressed up against the aiming scope. Both guns fired at the same time.A shock wave hit Dalton in the chest, knocking him back. The sandbags in the front of the pit hadtaken the impact of the N VA round, and all that remained was a large divot in their protectivebarrier. The PT-76 that had fired was in flames.

A hand slapped Dalton on the back, bringing his attention back into the pit.

“ H.E. Load!” Dunnigan was mouthing the words but Daltoncouldn’t hear anything other than a loud ringing in his ears.He slid a round in but everything suddenly went dark other than the burning tanks as the flareexpired. Dalton could see tracer rounds flying by overhead and he knew that one of the tanks wasfiring its coaxial machine gun at them.

Dalton shook his head trying to clear the ringing. Dunnigan was on the phone, screaming formore illumination.

Dalton saw figures running, silhouetted by the last tank they’d hit. He suddenly realizedthey were sappers in the wire. He threw his M-16 to his shoulder and fired, finger pulling back onthe trigger smoothly, aiming quickly, not able to tell if he was hitting anyone, there were so many.His finger pulled and there was no recoil. Dalton’s training took over as he pushed thebutton on the side of the magazine well, letting the empty one fall out. He pulled a fresh one out ofhis pouch and slammed it home.

Another flare burst overhead. Dunnigan had his shoulder into the recoilless rifle. Dalton stoppedfiring long enough to scan the area. There were three tanks bearing down on their pit. He couldsee the blinking flashes on the side of the turrets— their co-ax machine guns. And all threewere pointed straight at him and Dunnigan. In front of them, Dalton saw sandbags being tornapart by the machine-gun bullets.

Dunnigan fired. The shell skidded off the deck of the lead tank. Then there was a bright flash oflight and Dalton felt his breath get sucked out of his lungs as he was lifted into the air and thenslammed into the ground on his back. He struggled for air, his brain momentarily not functioning,and then his lungs worked again.

Dalton opened his eyes and saw a bright shining candle. A flare, high overhead, slowly driftingdown under its parachute. Dalton sat up, surprisingly unhurt, it appeared. He looked about thepit. The recoilless rifle was smashed, the barrel bent. Dunnigan was sitting against the rear of thepit, his chest covered in red from a jet of blood pulsing out of his neck. Dalton scooted over tohim, ripping the bandage out of the case on his web gear.

He pressed down on the severed artery, and the white gauze was immediately soaked throughwith the deep red of blood coming straight from the heart and lungs. “Hang inthere!” Dalton yelled, unable to hear his own voice over the ringing in his ears.

“You ‘re gonna be all right!”Dunnigan’s eyes went wide and Dalton knew there was someone behind him, but he alsoknew that if he stopped the pressure Dunnigan was dead.

Dalton felt the bayonet puncture his lower back, like a sliver of freezing cold entering his body. Hearched forward, reacting even as his mind forced his hands to keep the pressure onDunnigan’s wound. Dalton turned his head to the left, just in time to see the stock of anAK-47 heading straight for his face.

There was a flash of bright light, then there was only darkness.

Dalton looked down. His hands were clenching the edge of the bed, his knuckles white. He forced his fingers to let go. Slowly he let go of the memories of Vietnam. He cleared his mind and passed into an uneasy slumber.

Feteror’s demon avatar slowly materialized as he stalked down the empty corridor. The dull glow of the dim night lighting in the building rippled through his form, the sound of his claws on the tile floor a low clicking noise echoing into silence. He paused at a door. He reached down. It was locked. His form disappeared as he reentered the virtual plane and flowed through the thick steel, coming out the other side and reforming on the real plane. The room was lit with the glow of a dozen screensaver programs. Feteror walked to the center console. He reached out a long claw and carefully tapped on the keyboard, accessing the program he wanted.

It had taken him two months to get the code word he needed to enter the GRU classified database. Two months of hovering unseen on the virtual plane in the background at various GRU sites, waiting for someone to log on in front of him.

The screen cleared and the main menu came up. Feteror’s right arm dematerialized as he reached forward, sliding it through the screen and directly into the computer. He could sense the inner workings and tapped directly into the mainframe. Suddenly his entire form disappeared and he flowed into the computer. He raced through the inner workings, a shadow passing on the border between the real world and virtual until he found what he was looking for. He absorbed the information, imprinting a copy into his own psyche. The data was encrypted, but that wasn’t a problem— he could always get Zivon to help break the code.

There was one more thing. When the maintenance workers had accidentally allowed him access to the security cameras inside SD8-FFEU, Feteror had taken full advantage of the opportunity. He had accessed the small camera inside of General Rurik’s quarters— no one was exempt from security’s eye in the GRU— and scanned it. He had zoomed in on the photo next to the army bed: a woman with two children. The woman whose ring Rurik wore.

Feteror scanned through GRU personnel files until he found the information he needed. Satisfied, Feteror headed back out of the computer and headed for SD8-FFEU.

“Sergeant Major, I can’t do it.” Dalton rubbed his eyes. First Jackson waking him, now this. Sergeant Trilly was standing in front of him, head down. Dalton finished zipping up his black isolation tank suit. He had five minutes before his next session. He could see a couple of the other bunks were now occupied by men who had finished their second training session.

“Can’t do what, Trilly?” Dalton knew the answer, but he was also aware he had to play this out.

“I can’t go in there again,” Trilly said, his voice quavering.

“I can’t breathe that shit they put in your lungs. I can’t get shut off like a light switch and frozen. I just can’t do it.” Dalton looked the sergeant over. He was shivering, a blanket about his shoulders. His hair still wet, his skin covered in goosebumps. He remembered how Trilly had missed most of the Trojan Warrior training after getting his collarbone broken during the aikido training.

“You don’t have any choice,” Dalton said.

“You’re the team sergeant. Your team goes on a mission in thirty-six hours. Can’t is not an option.”

Trilly made a choked sound. “I can’t go in there again, Sergeant Major. I can’t. I know I can’t. You can order me and make me put that stuff on, but I can’t do it.”

Dalton felt the soreness in his throat where the tube had twice gone down. His body was covered with small welts, from what he had no idea. He had just noticed them when getting dressed. Dalton stepped close to the other man and kept his voice very low and level. “Get some sleep, Master Sergeant Trilly. You’ll feel better.” Trilly looked up. Dalton could see the shadows in the others man’s eyes.

“I’m not going to feel better. It’s not going to make any difference.”

“Trilly, you’re Special Forces. We may not like where we get sent or what we get ordered to do, but by God, we go there and we get the job done.”

“Like Stith?”

Dalton resisted the urge to grab Trilly’s shoulders and shake him. “Yes, like Stith. Who the hell do you think all those names on the Special Operations monument outside of SOCOM

headquarters are? Nobodies? They were men just like you and me. They got killed doing the job they volunteered for. That you volunteered for. You want the easy life, you should have stayed in Air Defense. You put that green beret on, you choose a different path from most. Now it’s our turn in the breach.”

“I can’t do it.”

“Don’t say that.” Dalton kept his voice firm. “You think negative, you won’t be able to. You’ve got to think of the team, not yourself. The team needs you.”

“I can’t— “

“Shut up,” Dalton hissed. “Get your head out of your ass, Trilly. Think about somebody else for once. You got the stripes on your collar, you do the job. You flake out on this, we’re another man short, and sometimes one man can make all the difference.”

Dalton could see the clock over Trilly’s shoulder. He had no more time. “Get some sleep.”

Trilly turned without a word and went to his bunk. Dalton watched him, then walked into the corridor and to the experimental center. He noted the doors on the wall that he had not been through. He wondered which one hid the bodies of the first team.

Two of Hammond’s technicians had his TACPAD waiting. They rigged him, the process going somewhat faster now that he was used to it. He still wasn’t thrilled when they shoved the tube down his throat or his head was encased in the TACPAD, but he hardly noticed the micro-probes going in anymore.

“ We’re going to send you over to the virtual plane this time,” Hammond told him through the computer.