“ We ‘re interdicting the choppers!” Jackson informed him. Dalton looked up. He could see the two eagles and Jackson’s falcon head east. Looking down, he saw two of his teammates backing up, firing their energy tubes. Dalton followed their aim and saw what had scared Jackson.

Feteror felt the energy bolts hit him. He wanted to laugh, to shriek his glee. The energy poured into him, strengthening him beyond anything he had ever experienced, beyond anything SD8-FFEU had ever given him.

He dove forward, arms outstretched, into one of the American avatars. The white head was sliced off, the round shape bouncing onto the ground, then slowly shrinking and disappearing as it lost its energy shape.

He struck out at another and it staggered and collapsed to the ground under the blow.

“ Status!” Dalton screamed. “ Hammond, I needstatus!”

“ I’m hurt!” the avatar at Chyort’s feet called out— Barnes; Dalton recognized the yell.

“ Go to the ERP!” Dalton ordered. He shot a fireball at the demon as it bent over Barnes’s form. The ball hit Chyort directly in the back. The surface there briefly glowed, then faded.

Two blazing red eyes turned to look directly at Dalton. Barnes’s form disappeared as he jumped. At that moment Captain Anderson’s avatar came winging down from above and smashed into Chyort’s back. The two forms tumbled together.

Another scream resounded in Dalton’s head. He knew now that each scream meant one of his people was dead.

Or their avatar was. He didn’t and couldn’t take his thoughts further than that right now.

“ We took out the gunships,” Jackson informed him. “ Butboth of my partners got shot up. Williams and Auer are gone!”

“ Get out of here, Jackson. To the ERP!” Dalton ordered.

“ Everyone, to the ERP!”

Dalton turned back toward the smashed cargo car. He could see mercenaries climbing over it, placing charges on the steel doors. Dalton fired, cutting down the demolition men. Another scream. Dalton looked over his shoulder. The Chyort had Captain Anderson’s avatar over his head, ripped it into two pieces at the waist. Chyort threw one piece in each direction, the parts fading as they tumbled to the ground.

The Chyort leapt into the air, spreading its leathery wings, and headed straight for Dalton. Dalton jumped into virtual space. The Chyort was there also, still coming. Dalton jumped fifty meters left. It gained him a half second as Chyort pivoted on its wings.

Dalton jumped to the ERP, hoping he would lose Chyort in the process.

Raisor was completely in the real world, a ghostly white form above the limousine. Another quarter mile and they would be there.

Leksi yelled orders to his surviving and shocked men. The demon flashed out of sight, which made his job a little easier. He directed men to finish placing the charges. Using the radio, he ordered forward the lift helicopters and also learned of the destruction of his gunships.

There was a quick snap of plastique firing. Leksi climbed up on the cargo car. Scattered on the down side of the car lay twenty plastic cases.

“Get them out!”

Dalton knelt next to Barnes. Trilly was standing to the side, nothing apparently wrong with him.

“ I can’t move, Sergeant Major,” Barnes whispered.

“ I jumped here, but I can’t do anything more.”

“ I’ll get you back,” Dalton promised. “ Hammond! Where the hell are you?”

Lieutenant Jackson was circling overhead, keeping an eye out, flashing in and out of reality as she checked both the real and virtual plane.

There was no one else. Five gone. Half the team was wiped out. Dalton thought of Lang Vei, the tanks rolling through the wire, then banished that nightmare from his mind.

“ Jackson,” he said, reaching up with his mind.

“ Yes?”

“ Can I take Barnes back somehow?”

“ I don’t know.”

“ Give me a suggestion,” Dalton said. “ You ‘rethe expert.”

“ Try to meld into his psyche. Attach him to you emotionally. That might allow youto take him into the virtual plane and back.”

Dalton reached down, cradling Barnes’s avatar in his arms. He was concerned to see the form fade from view slightly before coming back.

“ I’m going,” Trilly said.

“ No, you’re not,” Dalton said. “ You ‘re asoldier, and a sergeant. You stay here with us and we all leave together.” Dalton didn’t have time to worry about Trilly, or the energy to stop him from running. A voice echoed inside his head.

“ This is Hammond. I can’t keep Sybyl on track for bothlocations.”

“ Where is Raisor?”

“ I don’t know.”

Dalton thought she was lying, but this wasn’t the time for it. “ Cut his power andconcentrate on my team. Get us out of here. Then you can bring him back on line.”

“ But— “

“ Do it!” Dalton turned his attention to the form in his arms.

“ You’re coming back with me,” Dalton said. “ You’re coming back with me, Barnes. You understand?” Barnes’s avatar weakly nodded.

“ But if I— “ Hammond’s voice wavered.

“ Do it!” Dalton screamed with the power he had. “ We’re dying here. Most of my team is already dead.”

“All right,” Hammond said. “I’m focusing power on your team.”

The Ellipse, the lights of the White House just beyond, appeared to the right. Raisor landed on the roof of the limo with a solid thump that could be heard inside. He knew bodyguards would be reacting, but it was too late. His right arm switched from wing to six-foot-long blade. He poised it above the roof directly above where he knew his target was sitting. He relished the feeling, the anticipation of payback, and then began to thrust the arm down, when his form vanished and he was in darkness. He screamed, his anger and frustration echoing into the virtual plane.

Dalton focused as he had in the hospital room with Marie. A myriad of emotions raced through him like a fast-moving stream of quickly varying temperatures. “ Dalton!” Jackson screamed.

Dalton looked up as Chyort materialized in front of him. Dalton stared into the dark red eyes.

“ Who are you?” Dalton demanded. The demon took a step forward and Dalton felt the earth shake beneath him. He turned, putting himself between the demon and the body in his arms.

Dalton closed his eyes and focused only on Barnes. Dalton felt pain slice into his back. He focused on the isolation tanks in Bright Gate as he took a glance over his shoulder. A form came leaping between him and Chyort. Trilly!

Dalton jumped, Barnes with him.

Feteror hesitated. He looked down at his right hand. The claws had torn into the American’s back, going in over six inches, yet the man had ignored the pain and jumped. The other American who had jumped between them had died with one slice, the head neatly separated. Feteror knew he could follow the Americans into their hole in the Rocky Mountains. He felt he now had the power to break through their psychic fence. Like a wolf among the sheep, he could rip them to shreds.

He turned and looked back toward the east, where the battle had occurred. With regret, Feteror jumped back.

He came into reality on top of the wreckage of the cargo car, scaring the wits out of the men pulling the bombs out.

Leksi yelled, telling the men to keep working, to ignore the demon. Then the naval commando climbed up to face Feteror.

“You were late,” Leksi said. “Who were the others? The ones who fight like you?”

“Americans.” Feteror liked the way his demon voice sounded, like boulders rubbing together, underlaid with the treble of the screams of the damned. “And I was not late. This was your job, not mine.”

“And I will finish it if you would stop frightening my men.” Feteror snapped into the virtual plane.

Barsk kept a safe distance from the men reeling the thick black cables.

“Are you ready yet?” he demanded of the scientist. Vasilev sighed and looked up from the computer terminal he’d been working at for the past hour.

“This program was written for top-of-the-line computers in 1963. Computers have come a long way since then. This was upgraded several years ago but it is still out of date. I am trying to integrate the old software with the new hardware, but it is difficult.”

“I don’t want to hear excuses,” Barsk said.

“I’m not giving you excuses,” Vasilev replied. “I am telling you what is happening.” He ran a trembling hand through his gray hair.

“I can assure you I want this to work more than you do. It will put an end to the nightmare my life has been.”

“Then get it working,” Barsk snapped. “I’m beginning to— “ He halted as he felt a wash of cold through his stomach. He turned.

The Chyort coalesced into being inside the hangar.

“Are you ready yet?” the demon hissed.

“We still have to hook up the power cables,” Barsk said. A long claw pointed toward Vasilev. “Is the program for the phased-displacement generator ready?”

Vasilev shrugged. “I am working on it.” Chyort blinked out of existence and then reappeared, looming over the old man.

“You’re working on it?”

“I am doing my best.” Vasilev took an involuntary step backward, bumping into the computer console. “It has been many years and—

“ He paused as a claw touched his neck, pressing against the pulse that beat on one side.

“There are things worse than death.” Chyort’s words swept over the scientist. “You know that, don’t you?” Vasilev nodded.

“I know you don’t fear death,” Chyort continued.

“But what I will do to you if you fail me will be worse than anything you can imagine. I will— “ The demon paused, the head turned.

Then the creature was gone.

Dalton swam in the pain, his entire body awash in it. He tried to push his mind through the overwhelming tide of agony. He remembered the bayonet; he focused on it, the feeling of ice sliding into his back. Then the butt stroke from the NVA soldier holding the AK-47.

Awakening in the prison. Weak from loss of blood. Reaching, feeling blood still soaking through the dirty rag tied over the wound. Pressing his back against the concrete wall, stopping the bleeding. Holding the position, even when the guards came in and kicked, he pushed against the wall, knowing if he didn’t, he would bleed out.

“ Sergeant Major?”

No, Dalton thought. I’m just a Spec/4. Junior team member.

“ Sergeant Major?”

Dalton tried to open his eyes but there was only darkness. And the pain.

“ Sergeant Major! This is Dr. Hammond.” Hammond? Why was it so dark? Even in the cell there had always been a little light seeping in from the corridor.

A white dot appeared, so tiny and so far away.

“ Focus on the dot.”

Dalton tried to scream, but instead he gagged. Something was in his throat, blocking.

“ We’re bringing you out, but you have to be aware.” The voice was insistent.

Dalton wished the woman would just shut up. He slid down the concrete wall and rolled onto the floor into the fetal position. He was so tired and it hurt so badly.

A new voice ripped into his skull, louder than the other one.

“ Damn it, Sergeant Major! This is Lieutenant Jackson. I’m ordering you toget back here. Don’t you give up!”

Dalton shivered, feeling cold seep into his body, strangely lessening the pain. He saw Marie, the same as when he had first met her, the skin on her face smooth, flawless. She was beckoning to him to go in a different direction. Dalton pushed himself to his hands and knees. He began crawling toward Marie.

“ Come back, Sergeant Major Dalton.” Dalton felt the opposing tugs, Marie and the warmth and comfort of just going to her, and Lieutenant Jackson’s voice grating on his mind, his conscience, his sense of duty. He looked toward Marie and he knew she knew. She smiled sadly and faded from view, mouthing something that he couldn’t make out.

Dalton stared in her direction until there was nothing there. The other voice kept nagging at him. Then he remembered.

The team was gone. Massacred. He couldn’t do it again. He couldn’t fight again. The last time, he had left Marie alone for five years. He couldn’t do that to her again. He let go of his grip, sliding toward where Marie had been.

He saw her once more.

“Why did you summon me?” After the glorious feeling of power during the battle with the Americans, being contained inside Zivon was unbearable to Feteror.

“Because the situation has changed,” General Rurik said.

“Twenty nuclear warheads have been stolen.”

“You have already tasked me to accomplish two missions. Yet you bring me back here to inform me of this?”

“Did you find the phased-displacement generator?” General Rurik demanded.

“No.”

Rurik stepped closer to the speaker. “Did you find my family?”

“I have a lead that I was tracking down when you called me back.”

“Give me the lead,” Rurik ordered.

“I am forwarding the information through Zivon,” Feteror said.

“But it would be best if you allowed me to continue on the mission.”

“I do not trust you,” Rurik said. “You are up to something. You will wait while I verify what you have learned.”

Feteror remained silent, itching to get away. He forwarded information through the electronic channels of Zivon. He watched as General Rurik took it off the computer screen and then grabbed a phone, calling Moscow, shutting down the psychic wall for a moment.

A spear of pain slammed into Dalton’s chest. It felt like his lungs were getting ripped out through his throat.

“Goddamn it, Sergeant Major, you’ve got to hold on.” The words were coming from outside, from a great distance, but the fact that they were external was so novel to Dalton, he marveled at it for a few moments. So much had been inside his head for so long now. Another voice— it was Hammond’s, a part of his mind recognized— spoke:

“He’s in arrest. Stand clear.” Dalton screamed as a jolt of electricity through the microprobe lanced his chest. The pain was bad, but the real hurt was seeing Marie fade again with each pulse of his heart in response to the electric shock.

“No!” Dalton yelled, the word garbled by embryonic fluid sputtering out of his mouth. He rolled to his side vomiting, knocking away Hammond, who was getting ready to shock him again.

“He’s got a pulse,” Hammond announced. Dalton pushed away Jackson’s hand as she tried to hold his head.

“Leave me alone,” he whispered. He turned to his other side, his back to those in the room, and kept his eyes closed. He searched for another glimpse of Marie, but there was nothing.

Leksi swung his arm around his head and pointed up. The pilot responded by increasing throttle and pitch on the blades. Laden with ten of the nuclear bombs, the first Hip rose into the air. Leksi ran to the second and jumped on board. It followed the first.

Leksi flipped open his cellular phone and punched in memory one.

“Sergeant Barnes made it back, thanks to you,” Jackson said. Dalton’s hands were cradled around a steaming mug of coffee. He had ladled in several heaping teaspoons of sugar. He took a sip, relishing the burning feeling on his tongue. He was seated at the table in the small conference room off the experimental chamber. He couldn’t bear being in there, looking at the bodies of the rest of his team floating inside their isolation tanks. Jackson was seated next to him. Hammond was on the other side of the table.

“Where is he?” Dalton asked.

“In the dispensary. He’s sleeping, but the doctor gives him a clean bill of health.”

“One out of nine. And the rest of the team?” Dalton asked. Jackson shook her head, not able to answer him.

“Their bodies are still viable in their isolation tanks,” Dr. Hammond said.

“Like the first team?” Dalton said.

“Yes,” Hammond said.

Dalton rubbed his forehead. “So they’re probably dead, as far as they’re concerned, right?”

“We don’t know that for certain,” Jackson said.

“And Raisor?” Dalton knew he had to ask.

“We don’t know,” Hammond said. “His body is also in stasis. I restored his power, but there’s been no contact. I think we might have lost the connection when I diverted all power to your team.”

“Where did he go?” Dalton demanded.

“We don’t know,” Hammond said, “but we have a larger problem on our hands. I just got a call from Washington. Your mission failed. The nuclear warheads have been stolen. Combining that with the information you brought back about the phased-displacement generator, we have the biggest danger this country has faced since the Cuban Missile Crisis. The National Security Council is very concerned. They are considering their options.”

Dalton looked up at the doctor, recognizing the panic in the clipped sentences. “Very concerned? Is that what you call it? They should be crapping in their pants. Options? What options?

What are they going to do?”

Dalton took a deep drink of coffee, feeling the burning liquid hit his bruised throat. He relished the pain because it sharpened his mind, brought it out of the fog of near death and despair. The issue of Raisor’s disappearance bothered him, but it was a msytery that wasn’t a priority right now.

“For starters, they can now work with the Russians, given that the warheads have been stolen,” Hammond said.

“That’s like reuniting the Three Stooges,” Dalton said.

“The Russians had to have known about— “ He paused, realization hitting him like a punch in the gut.

“What is it?” Lieutenant Jackson asked.

“Something’s not right about all this,” Dalton said.

“What do you mean?” Jackson asked.

“This Russian avatar, Chyort, it’s not right.” Dalton’s mind was racing as he considered all he had experienced. “Chyort attacked us, not the mercenaries taking down the train.”

“Maybe he thought you were the greater threat?” Dr. Hammond suggested.

Dalton shook his head. “No.” He turned to Jackson.

“Chyort was in the railmaster’s shack the same time you were, right?”

Jackson nodded.

“So he knew about the change in the timing of shipment. Yet the Russian guards weren’t ready. They ran right into the ambush. And Chyort attacked us, not the ambushers.

“He’s with them. I don’t know why, and I don’t know how, given that this Chyort is supposed to be part of the GRU, but he is with the Mafia, helping them. And we aren’t going to recover those bombs or stop the phased-displacement generator from being used, until we stop Chyort.”

Dalton turned to Dr. Hammond. “If you had to destroy your own project— stop Psychic Warrior— and you couldn’t defeat it on the psychic plane, how would you do it?”

Hammond spread her hands, taking in the complex. “To make sure I succeeded, I’d take out Bright Gate.”

“Which leaves you with the opposite situation from what we have right now,” Dalton said. “What happens to me if I’m on the virtual plane and my body here is destroyed? Or Sybyl is taken off-line?”

“I don’t know for sure what happens to your psyche if your body is killed, although I assume it would also be killed,” Hammond said. “But if Sybyl is taken off-line, then you will lose all the power and support you get from the computer. Your psyche might still be floating around out there, but it won’t be able to do much.” Dalton nodded. “All right, then. That’s what we’ll do.” Oma put the phone down. They had the bombs. They had the phased-displacement generator. But it had almost been a disaster. She thought about Leksi’s account of the strange beings that had attacked him— Americans, working in the same manner as Chyort. Yes, Chyort had won, but... Oma knew the playing field had changed, she just wasn’t sure yet what the changes meant. She looked at the computer screen on which she had left the information from her Swiss bank account. Four hundred million dollars. With 360 billion pending.

Her gaze shifted to the desktop, on which two things sat: the target list and the card from the NATO

representative.

The phone rang. She grabbed it. “Speak.”

“We have dropped the child off as instructed,” the voice on the other end informed her.

“Very good.” Oma held the receiver in her hand as the other end went dead. Another piece in the puzzle that she didn’t quite understand. She’d assumed that Chyort had had her kidnap General Rurik’s wife and children for revenge. But if so, why had he told her to free one of the children in a place where the GRU would find him quickly?

She pushed down on the receiver button and got a dial tone. She punched in the number off the card. It was answered on the first ring.

“Yes?”

“Do you give this number to everyone or do you know who I am?” Oma asked.

“I know who you are,” the NATO representative replied.

“Are you calling to chat about the weather or do you accept my offer?”

“You know about the warheads?”

“You have many people’s attention now,” the man acknowledged.

“You might not enjoy the heat of the spotlight that is now shining in your direction. In fact, I’m not sure I can keep my offer on the table much longer.”

“I have four hundred million in an account already,” Oma said.

“An advance against four billion. Do you understand my situation?” There was a brief silence before the man spoke again.

“We can match the four hundred now that you have the bombs. But we also want the name of the original bidder and all other information you can give us.”

“I cannot do— “ Oma began.

“I would think that would be in your best interest,” the NATO

representative interrupted. “Even if you give back the advance, they— whoever they are— will not be happy about your reneging on a deal. Give us the name and perhaps we can clip their wings so they don’t come after you.” Oma knew that NATO was willing to pay ransom to get the bombs rather than launch a military mission that could easily be as costly in financial terms and more importantly costly in the arena of NATO blood spilled and public image. It was overall cheaper, more direct, and more in line with the realities of the world to pay. It was the way the real world worked.

“Deposit the money and we can discuss this,” Oma said.

“Right now, this is only talk.”

“You are playing a very dangerous game and the clock is ticking. This deal requires all the bombs to be turned over. Every single one. I will have the money in your account inside of the hour. Then we will talk again. It will be the last time we talk, one way or the other.”

“You should learn to relax. To enjoy life.” Feteror stopped his “pacing” and looked at his grandfather’s image in amazement. They were in the clearing near the stream. Feteror was beginning to worry that something had gone wrong. That Rurik would not let him out again. That Oma had the bombs now and had betrayed him.

“This is not life,” Feteror said. Opa raised his bushy gray eyebrows. “What is it then?”

“This”— Feteror waved his hands around the glade—

“is all an illusion. It isn’t real. We are inside a computer.”

“A computer? What is that?”

“ You aren’t even real.” Feteror had no patience for this. He needed to get out, or all that he had worked for would go to naught. He knew he could not trust Oma to keep her end of the bargain without looking over her shoulder. She needed him to operate the phased-displacement generator, but he knew that she might make a deal that didn’t require the generator now that she had the bombs. Of course, he reassured himself she didn’t have the PAL

codes.

Opa didn’t look angry, merely puzzled. “How can I not be real?” He stretched his arms. “I feel real.” Feteror stopped and walked over to his grandfather, who was seated on the tree stump where he had always sat. Feteror thumped his chest. “I am not real either. None of this is. I am a monster. I’m supposed to be dead. You are dead. And I am going to join you soon— and bring those who did this to me on the journey. They will pay for what they inflicted on me. For betraying a loyal soldier.

“Like you said, Opa, the generals don’t care about the common man. They use us like a sponge until we are soiled and dirty and can work no longer, then they throw us away. They have betrayed the entire country. I gave everything, everything, for Mother Russia, and she kicked me in the face. You gave everything. Millions gave everything. And now criminals and bootlickers run the country. I am going to end that and make them all pay.”

Opa looked at him. “How can you do that if we are not real? Is this a dream? I do not understand.”

Feteror shook his head, knowing there was no way he could explain this to his grandfather.

“Trust me, Opa. I will do all that I say.” Opa frowned. “But why? I fought in the Great Patriotic War. I came home to you and my daughter, your mother. I raised you. I did not seek vengeance. What was done in the war was done for necessity. I still had my life to live.”

“I don’t have mine!” Feteror exploded. Opa waved his hands around the glade. “But you have this!”

“It isn’t real!” Feteror screamed. Opa reached out and touched Feteror’s arm. “There is good in everyone, grandson. You must— “ Opa began, but he was interrupted by the bright flash of General Rurik’s summons.

Despite his anxiety to get going, Feteror paused. He put a hand on his grandfather’s shoulder.

“Opa, I have to go now. We will not meet like this again.” Opa smiled, revealing his yellowed and stained teeth. “I do not understand what this place is or why I am here. I don’t understand why you feel you must do what you feel you must, but you are my grandson, so I will be with you in spirit. Good luck, Arkady. Godspeed.” Feteror nodded, then flashed through the circuits to access his line to General Rurik. As he did so, his grandfather’s last words echoed in his mind. God? There was no God as far as Feteror was concerned. No God would allow what had been done to him to happen.

He spoke into his circuits. “Yes, General?”

“We found my youngest son, exactly where you said he would be.” Feteror waited.

“Find my wife and other son,” Rurik ordered.

“I will.”

The door opened and Feteror was free. As he raced out the window into the virtual plane, he realized that if all went well, this would be the last time.

“We can’t beat Chyort in the virtual plane.” Dalton’s voice was firm.

“That makes Psychic Warrior worthless.” Hammond was shaking her head. “The whole purpose of this program was— “ Dalton slapped his hand in the tabletop. “Look in the chambers. My people and yours are just empty shells, and the essence of those people is dead!” Dalton watched the doctor with no sympathy. Her little world, her pet project, had fallen apart and failed. A black mark on her efficiency report. Dalton was more concerned with the bodies in the tanks and the twenty nuclear weapons heading toward the phased-displacement generator. And Chyort.

“As I said, I’ve already been in contact with the National Security Council,” Hammond said. “They’re using a satellite to search for the phased-displacement generator and to track down the nukes. They are also opening contact with the Russian government to offer support.”

“It won’t be that easy,” Dalton said. “Things are as screwed up on their end as they are on ours. The clock is ticking and by the time the official world reacts, it will be too late.”

“They’ll contact us as soon as they discover anything,” Hammond said.

Dalton stood. “Find where Raisor went. And where he is now.” He walked out without another word. He went to the dispensary and looked in on Barnes. The sergeant was sleeping, his body wrapped in blankets.

Dalton looked down at the younger man. He reached up and unpinned his own sergeant major’s insignia from his collar and put it on the small stand to the left of the bed. Then Dalton pulled his wedding band off his ring finger. He looked at the inscription on the inside for several seconds, then placed it next to the rank.

Dalton left the dispensary and went to the main chamber and up to the closest isolation tank. Captain Anderson’s body floated listlessly inside. The breathing fluid was moving slowly through the clear tubes, and the monitor said that the machine was keeping his heart going. But staring at the body inside the tube, the head covered with the TACPAD, Dalton felt little hope. Even if their psyches were recoverable, he knew that Chyort still waited on the virtual plane, ready to stop him from succeeding in any attempt to recover them.

Dalton stood for a long time, staring and thinking.

“I have a question.” The voice startled Dalton out of his morbid reverie. Lieutenant Jackson had come up behind him unheard and unnoticed. She looked past him at Captain Anderson’s body.

“What’s your question?” Dalton asked.

“The story you told me— about the pilot who was brought in wounded while you were a POW and how you stayed up with him all night?”

“Yes?”

“What happened to him?”

Dalton sighed. “He died within a month. He just gave up.”

“But you didn’t, right?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Don’t give up now, Sergeant Major. We need you.” Feteror popped into the GRU main conference room and maintained a silent presence for ten minutes. More than enough time to know that the Americans were now putting their cards on the table and talking to his government through the GRU, preparing a conventional response to the bombs’ being stolen.

Feteror had not expected such a quick reaction, but he also had not expected the assault at the ambush site by the Bright Gate personnel. He saw the Spetsnatz colonel sitting quietly at the conference table, listening to the various reports coming in.

Feteror came closer to the man. He knew him. Years ago, in Afghanistan. Then it had been Captain Mishenka, a ruthless and efficient leader of an elite hunter killer team. A fool to still be sitting here serving a new government when the old one had betrayed his fight in Afghanistan.

Despite Mishenka’s presence, Feteror’s own government acting alone did not worry him. By the time they discovered where the phased-displacement generator was, it would be too late. And the only way they would find the stolen nuclear weapons was when they exploded at their targets. But the Americans— that was another story. They had capabilities that could pose a threat either acting on their own or helping the GRU. Feteror slid along the virtual plane, out of the room. Inside the conference room, Colonel Mishenka shivered, looking up at the ceiling. He’d felt a cold draft down to the very marrow of his bones for just a second. His eyes narrowed, the deep lines etched at the sides indicating the years he had spent fighting in the brutal elements. The chill was gone. He returned his focus to the briefer at the front of the room. In orbit, 285 statute miles above the surface of the earth, thrusters on W a r fighter 1 fired, maneuvering the 850-pound satellite toward the target grid area. On board, doors slid open, revealing the hyperspectral imaging equipment bay. It was the most advanced spy satellite in the American inventory, launched just the previous year and capable of all-weather, all-condition viewing across a large number of frequency bands at extremely high resolution. Some of its imagers could even

“see” through ceilings into bunkers and hangars by using certain bandlengths.

Just as important as the imaging equipment was the onboard computer that could be programmed to look over wide swaths of terrain for a specific image. The RHC3000, a 32-bit, 2-gigabyte, high-density mass-memory command and data handler, was currently being updated with information sent by the Russians regarding the makeup of the phased-displacement generator and with the exact composition of the twenty missing warheads.

It would be in position in six minutes to begin searching outward from the site of the ambush into central Russia.

Feteror had never gone this high— there had never been a need to and it had never occurred to him to try. As he passed out of the atmosphere, he wondered if he could travel far in space, or if his virtual link to Zivon and SD8-FFEU had a limit.

It was dark here in this netherworld, not the grayish white of the virtual plane closer to the planet. More a dim area, desolate, empty even of the whispering of the souls of those close to the surface. Feteror found it quite soothing.

He reached out through the virtual plane with his senses. He picked up the approach of W a r fighter 1

as it closed on the ambush site. He closed on the satellite. It was a spectacular piece of machinery. He noted the imagers pointing earthward out of the bay, the small maneuvering thrusters firing slight puffs, orienting the vehicle.

Feteror slid his being into the satellite. He became part of it, using its imagers as his own senses. He looked down at the earth, able to see the curving horizon of the planet in all directions. It was so spectacular that he almost forgot his task, but not quite.

He processed a picture through the main camera. Then he accessed the thruster control program.

“Sergeant Major.”

Dalton heard the resignation in Hammond’s voice before he turned and saw the defeat etched across her face.

“Yes?”

Hammond wordlessly held up a glossy piece of paper.

Dalton took it, Lieutenant Jackson looking over his shoulder. The demon’s face was etched against a black background, as horrible as Dalton remembered it.

“Chyort,” Dalton said, handing the imagery back. Jackson was nodding, also recognizing their foe from the ambush.

Hammond spoke in a monotone. “He took out the satellite the NSA was sending over to find the generator and the nukes.”

“ Took out,” Dalton repeated. “How did he do that?”

“They don’t know, but they have no communication with it and the tracking station can’t even pick it up in orbit. It’s gone. The Russians”— Hammond’s voice betrayed her admiration in the face of the disaster—

“they must have done something completely different than us to come up with this thing, this Chyort.”

Dalton considered the photo. “He wanted us to know he did it. There’s no other reason for him to allow his image to be processed.”

“Any more information on who or what Chyort is?” Lieutenant Jackson asked.

“I’m working on getting that information, but my best guess is that he’s the end result of their version of the Psychic Warrior program.” Jackson gave a derisive laugh. “They’ve got something going that we don’t have a clue about. It’s far beyond what we’re doing here.” Dalton shook his head. “We don’t have time for this.” He pointed at the imagery. “Allowing himself to be photographed like that means he’s confident that he can accomplish what he wants to and he’s not worried about us stopping him.” He turned to Hammond, who was still staring at the picture. “I want communication with the National Security Council.”

Hammond nodded. “We have a direct link in the control room.”

“How can we stop them?” Jackson asked while they walked to the control room.

“I’m an old soldier,” Dalton said, “so I say we do it the old-fashioned way. With some new-fashioned help.” Feteror’s roar vibrated the metal in the hangar. “How can you not be ready! You have the program!”

Vasilev watched the demon pace about. “I have done my best. I am trying to update the language of the program to work on these new computers, but I am not a computer expert.”

A claw flashed out, stopping just short of Vasilev’s neck. The old man didn’t even flinch.

“I thought the program had already been updated when it was switched to the CD-ROM.”

“Somewhat, yes,” Vasilev agreed. “But that was three years ago and already computers have advanced beyond that.”

“How long will it take?”

“Anywhere from a couple of hours to a couple of days.”

“We do not have a couple of days.”

“Whether you have the time or not makes no difference in how long updating the programming will take,” Vasilev said. “There is also the additional problem of once the base programming is running, having it synched with a psychic projection. We need a way to target the warhead once it is on the virtual plane.” He spread his hands. “I don’t see that part of the system here.”

“ I’m that part of the system,” Feteror said. “You get it working. I’ll take care of the rest.”

“I will try.”

Feteror shook his wings, sending a breeze through the hangar. “Try is not good enough. The problem is the computer? I will take care of it.” He slid out of the real plane and flowed into the computer Vasilev had been working at. He raced along the electronic pathways. There was much he understood here from his time inside Zivon. He came to the place where Vasilev had been working. To his virtual eyes, there was a logjam of data, the pieces not fitting, turned the wrong way.

He worked like a madman, twisting the data to fit, putting the pieces in place. He cleared up what he could see, then reversed his path out of the computer, re-forming into the real world in front of the old man.

“Get back to work,” Feteror snarled. “It should take you less time now.”

Feteror’s head twisted on his gnarled shoulders as the sound of inbound helicopters made its way through the metal siding of the hangar. Feteror flashed outside and watched as Leksi’s two helicopters landed and the bombs were off-loaded.

All was in place, but they could not act until the advanced computer could process the old program. Feteror would have found it humorous except for the stakes involved.

“Is everyone clear on what they have to do?” Sergeant Major Dalton was dressed in the camouflage fatigues he had worn to Bright Gate. He was striding down the corridor that led to the hangar. Lieutenant Jackson and Dr. Hammond were having to run to keep up with him.

“Clear,” Jackson said.

Hammond reluctantly nodded.

Dalton glanced at Jackson. “You remember what you have to do, right?” She nodded.

“And?” Dalton prompted.

“We don’t do anything until you clear the way,” Jackson said.

“Roger that.” Dalton continued walking. “But the minute I take care of Chyort, you have to move quickly.” He glanced at Hammond.

“Is everything set to get this started?”

“They’re still trying to get through to the Russians.”

“What about my ride?”

“It will meet you at DIA.” Hammond looked troubled.

“This is going to cause a hell of a stink.”

“The stink has already started,” Dalton said. “Let’s hope we can keep it at that level. One of those nukes goes off somewhere and everything you’re worrying about right now will be insignificant. Any idea where Raisor went?”

“I’ve had Sybyl scan but no sign.” A technician came running down the hallway. She held a small metal case in her hand.

“Here’s the SATCOM link you asked for.” Dalton took it. He walked through the door into the hangar. The blades were already turning on the Blackhawk, and the side door was open.

“Good luck!” Jackson said.

“Don’t go over until it’s clear,” Dalton warned her one last time.

“I won’t.”

Dalton climbed on board the chopper. As he slid the door shut, the platform began sliding out of the side of the mountain. The last thing he saw as they lifted off was Lieutenant Jackson watching him fly away. Oma stared at her computer screen. Two deposits of four hundred million were sitting side by side in their separate accounts. Her husband had always told her to have her options open, to never play her hand until the last minute. She leaned back in her chair and looked at the clock. There was still time to play this just right.

Sergeant Major Dalton woke as the Blackhawk settled down onto the grass next to the concrete runway at Denver International Airport. Several phone calls from the National Security Council had shut down one of the runways twenty minutes ago. Police cars, lights flashing, were parked near the end of the runway.

“Your ride is about two minutes out,” the pilot informed Dalton through the headset.

Dalton opened the side door and stepped off the chopper, carrying the com link. He could see the white-capped peaks of the Rocky Mountains to the west. The airport itself was surrounded by miles of open rolling plain. The white peaks of the uniquely designed terminal were about two miles away, but Dalton had no intention of going there.

He scanned the sky and was rewarded when he spotted a small dot rapidly approaching from over the mountains. It closed swiftly, the shape not that of a normal plane, but more a solid V-form without wings. As it got closer and slowed on its approach, Dalton could make out details. It was over 250 feet long and a hundred feet from tip to tip at the widest part. The best Dalton could describe the aircraft was that it was shaped like a stretched-out B-2 bomber.

Nose up, it came down toward the far end of the runway from Dalton. He knew that many in the terminal and waiting planes were getting the first public glimpse of one of the most classified projects in the Black Budget, but apparently the decision makers on the National Security Council felt that was a small price to pay for the mission he had to accomplish. Besides, a toy manufacturer had already designed and was selling a model that looked very similar to what was landing; they even had the name right: the SR-75

Penetrator, developed under the project code name Aurora.

The wheels touched down and the plane decelerated. Dalton could see smoke coming from the tires as they tried to halt the forward momentum. He knew about the plane from classified briefings he had attended while assigned to a top secret antiterrorist task force. At its home base at Groom Lake in Nevada, near Nellis Air Force Base and the infamous Area 51, the plane used a runway— the longest runway in the world— over seven miles long to take off and land. It was straining to stop even on DIA’s longest main runway.

But the pilots accomplished the task, slowing to a roll about five hundred yards from Dalton’s location, then bringing the plane toward him. The skin of the craft was a dull black, the small windows in the front hard to spot. The design lines were smooth and sleek.

The plane halted and a hatch opened in the belly between the two large sets of landing gear. Dalton started forward as a ladder extended down. He grabbed the bottom rung and climbed on board. The man who greeted him was wearing a high-pressure suit, the mask on his helmet swung open.

“I’m Major Or-rick, recon officer. I don’t know who the hell you are, but you sure got some pull to get us out in public like this.” Dalton shook the man’s hand, introducing himself. They were standing in a small space, another ladder leading out of it. Orrick pulled the bottom ladder in and sealed the hatch. He pointed up.

“Follow me.”

Dalton climbed behind him into a room crowded with electrical gear and computer screens. There was barely room for both of them to fit.

“This is my area,” Orrick said. He handed Dalton a pressure suit and helmet. “One size fits all when the size is extra large.” He jerked a thumb toward a four-foot-high opening in the front of the compartment. “Cockpit is that way. Better get that on and get up there. The pilot would really like to know what he’s doing and where we’re going.”

The entire plane was vibrating from the engines. Dalton could feel the small movements indicating it was taxiing. He quickly stepped into the pressure suit and pulled it up. He crouched down and made his way down the tight corridor. There were dim red lamps lighting it and the glow of daylight about twenty-five feet ahead. He poked his head out the corridor.

The pilot and copilot were strapped tightly into their form-fitting crash seats, half reclining back, the seats canted up so they could see out the four small windows. The rest of the front was taken up with instrumentation.

The man in the right seat turned his head slightly, seeing movement out of the corner of his eye.

“You Dalton?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Colonel Searl. World War III starting or something?”

“It could,” Dalton said.

Both men twisted in their seats to get a better look. “What the hell does that mean?” Searl said.

The SR-75 was pointing down the main runway, holding. “Maybe we ought to get airborne, then I’ll fill you in.”

“Where are we going?” Colonel Searl asked.

“That’s something else I’ve got to find out once we get airborne. All I can tell you right now is, we’re heading for someplace in Russia.” He held up the case holding the

SATCOM. “I need to hook into your commo system to find out exactly where we’re going.”

Searl returned his attention to the front. “You better get back there and settled in. We’ll be airborne in less than a minute. We’ll head for the polar route; it’s the quickest way to Russia, but you need to give us a more specific location pretty quick because Russia is a damn big country.”

Dalton returned down the corridor to the recon officer’s space. Orrick had folded down a small seat, and he helped Dalton settle onto it, buckling him into it just as the plane began moving. Colonel Searl rolled up the throttle on the plane’s conventional turbojet engine, and the large plane began accelerating down the runway. It took the plane over two and a half miles, just about to the end of the runway, before the delta wings produced enough lift for the wheels to separate from the ground.

With the turbojet engine at max thrust, the pilot continued to gain altitude and speed. Dalton was slammed back into the seat, the straps holding him cutting into his suit. He could feel the strong vibration of the engines.

“We’re passing through Mach 2 now,” Orrick informed Dalton.

“We’re already over the Colorado-Wyoming border.” It had been less than five minutes since takeoff. Dalton opened up the SATCOM and tossed one end of the cable to Orrick.

“We’re going high,” Orrick continued as he plugged in the cable. He looked down at his console. “We’re passing through fifty thousand feet. When we get close to sixty thousand, the pilots switch over to the PDWE. Pulsed-detonation-wave engine,” he clarified. “It’s pretty simple— we’ve got a bunch of high-strength compression chambers in the back. We pump a special mixture into them, they explode in sequence, forming a high-pressure pulse, and they are guided into a combustion chamber which channels it out the rear.”

Dalton checked the small board on the SATCOM. It was functioning and he had a link back to Bright Gate. “How fast can you go?” he asked. That was something that had been left out of the briefing he had been given on the plane, the aircraft’s top speed simply listed as being something over Mach 5.

“Mach 7,” Orrick said proudly. “Over five thousand miles an hour.”

Dalton hoped that would be fast enough. He put the small headset on. “Dr. Hammond?”

“Here.”

“Do you have the link into the Russian secure military network?”

“Yes. The GRU just authorized it.”

“Lieutenant Jackson there?”

“Right here.”

“You got a cell phone number when we went to Moscow. For a Colonel Mishenka.”

“I have it,” Jackson said.

“Can you punch it up?”

“Wait,” she said.

There was a hiss of static, then Dalton heard a buzz. A voice answered in Russian.

“Do you speak English?” Dalton asked.

“Who is this?”

“Is this Colonel Mishenka?”

“You called me. You know who I am,” Mishenka said. “I want to know who you are. This is a classified Spetsnatz line.”

“My name is Sergeant Major Dalton, U.S. Army Special Forces.” There was just the sound of the static for a few seconds.

“Very interesting,” Mishenka said. “People here are talking to the Americans. Most worried. Quite a bit of excitement. To what do I owe the honor of your call, Sergeant Major?”

“I believe we have a common problem,” Dalton said.

“We do?”

“Twenty nuclear warheads,” Dalton said succinctly. He saw Orrick’s head snap up across the small compartment.

“I’m not— “ Mishenka began, but Dalton cut him off.

“I don’t have time to argue or play games. I am heading toward Russia right now.”

“We do not need your help,” Mishenka said. “The situation is under control.”

“No, it isn’t. I also know about the phased-displacement generator. You don’t have a handle on either the bombs or the generator, do you?” Dalton felt the plane seem to stutter, then he was slammed back in his seat once more.

“P-D-W-E,” Orrick mouthed the letters to Dalton with a thumbs-up. Dalton nodded.

“Sergeant Major, you are speaking about things which— “

“Don’t lie to me or waste my time,” Dalton snapped.

“This is our problem. And it’s worse than you know.”

“The official word here is that we do not need your help,” Colonel Mishenka said. “This is an internal problem that will be dealt with using our own resources.”

“The phased-displacement generator makes it our problem,” Dalton said.

“And if you are counting on SD8’s secret weapon to find the bombs or the generator, you are very badly mistaken.”

The tone of Mishenka’s voice changed. “Why?”

“Because someone in SD8 is helping the Mafia.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Because I was there when the bombs got stolen,” Dalton said.

“My team was wiped out and I barely escaped.”

“How could you have been there? How do you know all this? We are getting very confused reports from those who have gone to the train site.”

“Listen closely,” Dalton said. He quickly told Mishenka about the Bright Gate program, witnessing the briefing inside KGB headquarters, and the battle at the train ambush. He ended with his belief that Chyort was a creation of SD8 and was helping the Mafia.

“Chyort,” Mishenka repeated the name. “I have heard of this creature. I thought it only a rumor, a myth.”

“Chyort is real,” Dalton said. “And you know what it is. I heard General Bolodenka authorize you to be briefed on Department Eight’s current operation. It has to be Chyort. And if it is on the other side, any action you take will be thwarted by it. Chyort just took out our Warfighter I satellite that was trying to track down the generator and the bombs.”

“How could this creature do that?”

“I don’t exactly know, but you should be getting a fax into the GRU war room any second now. It shows Chyort just before he destroyed Warfighter. He wanted us to know it was him.”

“Wait a second.”

Dalton impatiently listened to the hiss.

“Your fax arrived a few seconds ago. What is this thing?” Mishenka asked. “I have never seen anything like it.”

“A monster your people created and now it’s turned against you.”

“What is your plan?” Mishenka asked.

“Do you have communications with SD8?”

“I’m not sure.”

“We have to take out SD8; it is from that base that

Chyort is able to work. We have to destroy its ability to project onto the virtual plane.”

“How do you propose to do that?”

“We must attack it at the source. Do you know where that is?”

“Yes.”

“Send me the coordinates. I’ll head straight there. Then call whoever you have there and get them to stop this thing.”

“I’m having the coordinates of the base sent to you. I will be heading that way myself shortly. I will try to make contact with Department Eight.” The screen flashed with numbers. “Major Orrick!” Dalton called out.

“Yes.”

“Here’s our target area.” Dalton read off the numbers.

“I have partial system running,” Vasilev said.

“What does that mean?” Feteror growled.

“We can try a test run,” Vasilev said. The phased-displacement generator gleamed inside of the hangar, reflecting the glow of the lights set up around it. Leksi had put all the helicopters under cover of the other old hangars. He’d deployed his men in an efficient perimeter, antiair and antitank missiles ringing the airfield. Feteror knew without the help of the Americans, the GRU would never find them in time.

He was also aware, though, that once he started drawing power from the lines, someone at the closest monitoring plant would notice. He was tired of having to worry about all these potential problems. He had spent years considering all the possibilities, and his plan would take care of that problem. For a moment, he considered running the test against SD8. That would bring it to a conclusion. But his anger forestalled that. There were many who must pay first. He had been trained always to stick with the plan, and he would do so here.

“Load the generator,” Feteror ordered.

“We must wait until we hear from Oma,” Barsk protested.

“We must test the generator,” Feteror said. He smiled, noting that Leksi was moving behind the boy, weapon at the ready. As if that could achieve anything.

“I need to call Oma before you do anything,” Barsk said.

“Oma and I are partners.” Feteror resisted the urge to just take the man-child’s head off. He needed these people for a while longer. Instead, he pointed a long claw at the generator. “Do not worry. I plan to run the test in a manner designed to gain us some time. Your Oma would approve.”

“I must call Oma.” Barsk was sounding like an irritating tape, playing over and over.

“Call her then!” Feteror snapped. “In the meanwhile, load the first warhead in the generator. We do not have forever. If I know her well, and I believe I do, your Oma will want to know it works before committing to a course of action.” Leksi looked to Barsk, who reluctantly nodded. Leksi snapped orders and his men uncrated one warhead.

“What do I have to do, old man?” Feteror leaned close to Vasilev.

“The computer will integrate the physical material inside the generator into the virtual plane. Your job will be to target it. The computer will then fire it across the folded space and into the real. The bomb will be on a timer which I will activate prior to its leaving the generator.”

“That will not be a problem,” Feteror said.

“Where will you be sending the warhead?” Barsk asked.

“Do not concern yourself” Feteror said. He noted that Barsk had his cell phone out. Feteror slipped into the virtual plane for a moment and reached out to the phone.

Colonel Mishenka climbed on board the helicopter waiting on the roof of GRU headquarters, his mind racing with what he had just learned. In the distance he could see the few skyscrapers that dotted the Moscow skyline. The fools below him were still scrambling, searching desperately for the bombs and the phased-displacement generator. They couldn’t accept that someone in SD8 was involved. They had tried to call General Rurik, the commander, but the base was shut down to all outside communications and had missed its last contact. That in itself had Mishenka convinced that what the American Green Beret had told him was true— someone in Department Eight had gone over to the other side. And Mishenka had a very a good idea who that person was— he had been truly startled and shocked to learn the identity of the man behind Chyort: Major Arkady Feteror. Mishenka remembered Feteror from Afghanistan. A brilliant and ruthless warrior. A man who took only the hardest missions. But Feteror was supposed to have died. Mishenka remembered hearing that they had found the major’s body in a village, torn to pieces. What had these GRU people done to him?

There wasn’t the slightest doubt in Mishenka’s mind that Feteror was behind all this trouble, the last report on General Rurik’s son being found notwithstanding. Feteror would use a boy like a pawn with not the slightest twinge of conscience. The Feteror that Mishenka remembered would gut a child as easily as another man would give a piece of candy. A most formidable foe. The helicopter shuddered and headed toward the airfield where a jet was waiting. Mishenka hoped only one thing— that this American Special Forces man who was coming was up to facing down Feteror or the psychic cyborg— the term the briefer had used— that Feteror had been made into— and had a plan to stop this madness.

“We’re two hours out from the grid you gave us,” Major Orrick said. He pointed on a chart. “It’s here.” Dalton nodded. He spoke into the boom mike. “Jackson?”

“Yes?”

“Any change?”

“Nothing has occurred.”

“Raisor?”

“Nothing there either.”

“Notify me if anything happens.”

“I will.” There was a pause. “I’m sorry.”

Dalton leaned back in the seat, closing his eyes in weariness. “What for this time?”

“For the men of your team.”

“Let’s just do this right.”

“I’ve been looking over the information Sybyl gathered from the battle. I think we’ve learned some things about this Chyort.” Dalton opened his eyes. “Like what?” Hammond’s voice came over the radio. “The Russian projection— the Chyort avatar— is different from what we are doing here.”

“No shit,” Dalton said. “How?”

“The interface is purer than what Sybyl can accomplish through Psychic Warrior. Our TACPAD is efficient, but ultimately there is a degradation in power and focus. Sybyl doesn’t read that degradation in Chyort. The interface of human and machine seems to be almost perfect.”

“How do you think they are able to do that?”

“I asked Sybyl that,” Hammond said. “The computer thinks they have created a cyborg.”

“Come again?”

“Chyort appears to be the result of a human brain being directly wired into a computer full-time.”

“Can that be done?” Dalton asked.

“We could do it here”— Hammond almost sounded jealous— “except that the process would not be reversible and that would cross an ethical line we aren’t even allowed to contemplate.” It all clicked for Dalton then, what Chyort was doing and why. “They’ve created their own Frankenstein and it’s turned on them.”

“Warhead loaded and armed,” Leksi said.

“Setting?” Feteror asked.

“Two kiloton as directed. Ten-second delay from phase displacement.” Enough to cause absolute devastation in an area about three kilometers wide and collateral damage for five times that distance. More importantly, the EMP— electromagnetic pulse— emitted by the explosion would fry every electric device within fifty kilometers.

Feteror turned, claws grating on the concrete floor. “The program?” Vasilev’s face looked even more haggard in the dim glow of the computer screen.

“In phase. Ready to phase bomb into virtual.”

“Power,” Feteror ordered.

One of Leksi’s men threw a switch. The entire hangar hummed as the power lines going into the phased-displacement generator fed it the energy it needed.

Barsk edged closer to Vasilev. “You are sure this will work?” He had given up trying to dial out to reach Oma. The phone wasn’t working.

“I am sure of nothing except that I will die shortly,” Vasilev said,

“and this will all finally be over.” Feteror was preoccupied. “A speedy and painless death is what you are working for.”

Vasilev shook his head. “No. That is not why I am doing this. I am working for atonement. To pay for what I have done. To pay for trying to play God.” Feteror focused his red eyes on the gleaming metal tube. The warhead rested in the top chamber. There was no vent here. If the warhead failed to project and detonated— well, there would not be much left for the authorities to find.

Feteror lifted a large, scaly arm. He began to slide over the line into the virtual plane. He stretched his self out, toward the generator. He could sense the bomb inside, flickering on the edge of the virtual plane also. He dropped his arm and snapped entirely into the virtual plane at the same moment as Vasilev hit the final control to send the bomb over.

The bomb was there, totally in the virtual plane. He could see the red digital clock counting down on the control face of the timer Leksi’s armament man had attached. Ten seconds. Vasilev knew where he wanted the bomb to go, and he had planned the path many times. There were two jumps. He focused on the bomb and the first jump point. The bomb disappeared. The timer was frozen in the virtual plane and Feteror knew it would only start once he deposited it on target and it passed through to the real.

Feteror raced northwest, following the bomb’s path. He jumped, saw the bomb, projected the second and final jump point, and the bomb was gone.

Feteror jumped again. He was exactly where he wanted to be. The bomb appeared right in front of him in the virtual plane. He reached out and wrapped his claws around it. He moved in three smaller jumps to the exact position, high over a tall roof with the X of a helipad directly below. The target. The bomb slid through the wall between the virtual and real. The timer clicked to nine. Feteror jumped twenty kilometers away to the south. He slid into the real plane, hovering in the air a thousand feet above the ground, and looked back in the direction he had come from. A tremendous flash lit up the early morning sky.

Feteror knew that in that second, GRU headquarters was nothing but a smoking hole in the earth: ground zero.

Colonel Mishenka was only twelve kilometers from the epicenter; the helicopter he was on was in final approach to land at the military airfield. He heard the startled yells of the pilots and caught the flash as it washed over the helicopter.

The fireball and shock wave were next, rolling out from ground zero. The pilots were shouting, stunned by the sudden loss of all electrical equipment on board the aircraft, flying by the seats of their pants, bringing the chopper down as quickly as they dared, seeing the wave of fire that was coming toward them.

Mishenka watched the approaching wave dispassionately through the Plexiglas window on the side of the cargo bay. It would either dissipate or kill them.

The chopper slammed into the edge of the runway, the shocks on the wheels absorbing only part of the impact. Mishenka was thrown against his seatbelt, which he rapidly unbuckled. He threw open the side door and stepped outside, facing directly into the wave.

But he already knew it was losing power. He’d seen films of nuclear blasts before, and this one wasn’t big. Somewhere under five kilotons, his mind calculated. By the time the wave hit him, it was like a strong, warm wind.

Mishenka also knew with that wind was a very unhealthy dosage of strontium 90, cesium 137, iodine 131, and carbon 14, the makeup of a nuclear weapon’s fallout having been drummed into him during the many training sessions he had gone through. He also knew that the pills in his antiradiation kit were placebos, designed to allow the soldier to keep fighting until he became incapacitated. He looked at the runway. A Mig-1.42, the cutting edge of Russian aerospace technology, was waiting as he had ordered. It was shaped like a dart, with two large engines, each below a tall vertical tail. He could see the cockpit was open and the pilot was yelling at a ground crew man. Colonel Mishenka walked across the concrete runway to the plane.

The pilot looked down. “We cannot fly! No circuits. No radio. Nothing.”

“Do the engines work?” Mishenka asked. The pilot stared at him. “Yes, but— “

“If the engines work, you can fly, correct?”

“But I will have no instrumentation, Colonel!”

“Your compass works, correct?”

“My ball compass, yes, but my navigational computer is completely fried.” Mishenka held up his briefcase. “I have a map. We can fly low and navigate by watching the ground beneath us. I also have a shielded satellite phone in here, so we will have communications.”

The pilot shook his head. “Flying low. It will be very dangerous, Colonel. Perhaps we should wait until— “ He stopped as Mishenka laughed. “What is it?”

“Dangerous?” Mishenka spread his arms wide. “Did you see that nuclear explosion?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you understand?” Mishenka didn’t wait for an answer. “We are all dead if we stay here. It will just take a day or two. So I would much rather die flying into a mountain than wasting away.” He pointed at the small packet on the man’s right shoulder. “Have you taken your pill?” The pilot was still struggling to understand the impact of what he had just been told. He could only shake his head.

“Take your pill,” Mishenka said. “You’ll feel better and you’ll be all right as long as we get out of here in time.” The pilot ripped open the packet and pulled out the pill, gulping it down without the benefit of water. He grabbed the inset ladder and flipped it down. “Let’s be on our way.”

Dalton received word of the nuclear explosion outside of Moscow as the SR-75 crossed the north pole. He leaned back, uncomfortable in the hard jump seat, and closed his eyes. Lieutenant Jackson was tapped into the secure intelligence network and the extent of the devastation was still being assessed, but there was no doubt thousands were dead.

‘Jackson?”

“Yes?”

“Where is GRU headquarters in relation to the blast site?”

“Seismic readers have fixed the epicenter,” Jackson said.

“GRU headquarters would roughly be right where they have triangulated the center of the blast.”

“Try to get in contact with Colonel Mishenka.”

“I have been trying to. There is no answer.” Dalton ran a hand across his forehead. “Great.” Oma listened to the sirens racing to the southwest. The mushroom cloud had loomed high in the sky for minutes after the explosion, then slowly dissipated. She had stared out her armored windows at it, before finally picking up the phone. She tried Barsk’s cell phone but she got no reply. She called on the secure fax line, overriding the fax signal when it came on, until someone on the other end picked it up. She told the man to get her grandson.

“Barsk!” she yelled when he finally answered.

“Yes, Oma? I have been trying to get a hold of you, but my phone has not been working. I think— “

Oma cut him off. “What the hell have you done?”

“What are you talking about?”

“A nuclear weapon just exploded outside Moscow!” There was no immediate answer.

“Did you use the generator? Did you fire a nuclear weapon?”

“It was Chyort, Oma. He said he had to take care of something. Test the weapon.”

“You let him activate the generator?”

“Let him! How would I stop him?” Oma realized the futility of the conversation. “Put Leksi on.” There was a short pause, then a gruff “Yes?”

“Do you have control of the situation?”

“No. Barsk is letting this monster run crazy.” Oma rubbed her forehead. “All right. Listen to me. I am sending you a target list by the secure fax. I want you to make sure Vasilev targets all the sites listed in order. Is that clear?”

“Clear.”

“Put Barsk back on.”

“Yes?” Her grandson’s voice was petulant. Oma was tempted to simply hang up, but she knew she could not do that.

“Barsk, listen very carefully. I am sending a target list to Leksi. He will insure that it is carried out. I want you to leave there. Get as far away as possible as quickly as you can and meet me at my lake house.”

“But, Oma!” Barsk protested. “This is my responsibility here. I am in charge. If you do not trust me to accomplish this, then what— “

“Shut up!” Oma yelled into the phone, silencing her grandson.

“Do what I say or I wipe my hands of you.”

“Yes, Oma.”

She turned the phone off. Then she went to her desk and picked up the list Abd al-Bari had sent her. She went back to the fax and punched in the number for the fax in the hangar. When the tone screeched, she fed the target list in.

She watched as it disappeared into the machine, then reappeared in the feed tray. She took it back to her desk and sat down. She fed the list into the shredder.

Then she picked up the phone and punched in the number for the NATO representative. Colonel Mishenka finally got the satellite radio working ten minutes after they were airborne. It took him another five minutes to punch through the jumbled calls of the Russian military reacting in shock to the nuclear detonation. The fact that since the breakup of the Soviet Union and the attempted coup against the President, the GRU had increased its stranglehold on the control of intelligence and the communications capability of the entire military, meant that destruction of GRU headquarters virtually decapitated the Russian military’s ability to act.

Listening to the confused chatter, Mishenka was aware that there were many officers who were convinced the nuclear attack had been a surgical strike by the Americans— a prelude to an all-out attack. Missile forces were going on alert and the strategic bomber forces were opening their hangars and unlocking the vaults on nuclear weapons that had been mothballed years ago. The old ways died hard, and the only ones— other than the President’s office— who had known about SD8, Chyort, and the American cooperation in tracking down the twenty nuclear weapons, were all glowing ash in the Moscow countryside.

Mishenka punched in the number he had been given by the American. It was answered immediately.

“Dalton here.”

“This is Colonel Mishenka.”

“I was afraid you’d been caught in the explosion,” Dalton said.

“The stakes have been raised,” Mishenka said. “Not only has GRU headquarters been taken out, but SD8 is totally isolated now.”

“Our enemy is very smart,” Dalton said.

“I know who it is— or who it was— and he is indeed very smart. And ruthless.”

“Taking out a couple of square miles of Moscow goes beyond ruthless.”

“Let us hope that is the limit this goes to.”

“What do you mean?” Dalton asked. Mishenka quickly filled him in on the reaction of the Russian military.

“Goddamn,” was Dalton’s summation.

“We have to secure the nuclear weapons and this phased-displacement generator,” Mishenka said. “Who knows where the next target will be.”

“As I told you,” Dalton said, “we have to destroy Chyort in order to be able to find and then get to the generator and bombs.”

“What is your plan?”

“Are your men moving?”

“I have a company of Spetsnatz at the closest airfield to SD8. My time to that location is twenty-five minutes.”

“I’m forty-five minutes out,” Dalton said.

“I’ll alert them that you’re coming,” Mishenka said.

“And once we are there?”

“We go in and take the station out.”

“Hell of a plan,” Mishenka said. “I have the defense setup for the station and it will not be that easy.”

“I didn’t say it was going to be easy,” Dalton said.

“I said we were going to do it.” Mishenka smiled inside his oxygen mask. “Very good. I will see you shortly.”

“As you now know, what I told you was true,” Oma said.

“I grant that you have proved you have the nuclear warheads,” Abd al-Bari said matter-of-factly, “but you have not proved your capability to put them anywhere. You could have driven that one in a truck to Moscow.”

“I just want to insure that you will pay the balance,” Oma said.

“I am putting everything on the line.”

“You do what we agreed, the balance will be there,” Abd al-Bari said.

“Good.” Oma put the phone down. She stood and looked about her office. She knew it was the last time she would be here. There was nothing in it she wanted. She had prepared long for this moment. She went to the door and walked out without a backward glance.

“Where is Barsk?” Feteror hissed at Leksi. The navy commando shrugged. He could care less where the boy was.

“Let me see that,” Feteror demanded. Leksi stared at the demon for a few seconds before holding the fax out.

Feteror leaned over, blood-red eyes close to the writing. He laughed as he saw the targets, the sound causing those in the hangar to wince. “Beautiful! The beginning of the end for everyone.”

He pointed a claw at the generator. “Load another warhead. We have some other business to take care of before we proceed with your master’s list.” Lieutenant Jackson and Dr. Hammond were alone in the control chamber— other than the bodies in the isolation tubes. Hammond was having Sybyl run through various projections about a possible connection to the lost psyches— if they still existed on the virtual plane. So far they had come up with nothing. She was also continuing the search for Raisor.

Jackson was monitoring communications between Sybyl and Sergeant Major Dalton while keeping an eye on the small television set to the side of the master control panel. CNN was broadcasting the first reports of the nuclear explosion outside of Moscow. Confusion seemed to be the common denominator in all the reports, with the source of the bomb being the most speculated-upon aspect.

“That’s strange,” Dr. Hammond suddenly said.

“What is?” Jackson asked.

“I’m picking up something through Sybyl. Something on the virtual—

“ She paused, staring at her readouts.

A loud screech ripped through the room, echoing off the walls, the sound piling on top of itself. Red warning lights flashed, pulsing, adding to the confusion. Jackson looked up in shock as in the center of the room, above the isolation tanks, a small black sphere appeared, the surface pulsating, glistening, straining to expand.

Hammond’s panicked voice punched through the noise.

“The psychic wall has been breached. I’m reverting all power to interior containment.”

“Oh my God!” Jackson whispered as she checked the infrared scanner. It showed a nuclear bomb hanging in the center of the room in the virtual plane. She looked up. A square inch of the top tip of the bomb appeared in the real plane. Then another inch.

“Sybyl’s holding it, but I don’t know how long she can keep it contained.” Lieutenant Jackson’s voice was on the edge of hysteria, but her training and discipline were holding. Dalton had heard radio calls like this before— from an A-Camp being overrun in Vietnam; from the trapped Delta Force soldiers in Mogadishu; from pilots shot down in the Gulf War calling for rescue as Iraqis closed in.

“But Sybyl is holding, right?”

“If she wasn’t, we wouldn’t be talking. The bomb must be on some sort of timer that is on hold until it clears into real space.”

“Can you clear out of there?” Dalton asked. Jackson gave a wild laugh. “To go out we’d have to shut down the psychic wall. If Sybyl turns off the wall, we’d be destroyed instantly. We’re caught between two walls. The bomb is inside the outer wall, but Sybyl used the backup containment program to stop it before it came into the real plane inside. The psychic wall and the containment program work off the same system. Turn one off you turn the other off.”

Dalton looked at Major Orrick “ How long?” he mouthed. Orrick flicked his ten fingers at Dalton. Ten minutes.

“How long can the wall hold?” Dalton asked.

“Dr. Hammond is putting every bit of power she can into the computer. But we have no idea. Every time Sybyl ups the containment, it seems like the other side ups too. Jesus, Sergeant Major, the damn nuke is just hanging there above our heads, slowly coming into reality. It’s about a fifth in now. It comes all the way in, we’re done for. I don’t want to put any extra pressure on you or anything, Sergeant Major, but could you hurry the hell up! “ Feteror had put the bomb into Bright Gate without much trouble. The outer virtual wall had been relatively easy to pierce. But that damn computer had reacted with startling speed. The bomb had been caught in a virtual containment field.

He’d left the bomb there, operating off the program from the phased-displacement generator. It was going into the real world, much slower than Feteror would have liked, but it would get there eventually.

“Two minutes out,” Colonel Searl announced over the intercom.

“Slowing to recon speed.”

“Extending surveillance pod,” Major Orrick said. He looked up at Dalton.

“We have to slow down or else we’d rip the surveillance pod right off. We’re down to about two thousand miles an hour right now.” He leaned forward and placed his eyes into a set of eyepieces that had cycled up from the console.

“We’ll get a good shot across the spectrum. Someone’s farting down there, we’ll pick it up.”

Dalton waited. He looked down, noted that his left foot was tapping impatiently against the wall of the recon room and forced it to stop.

“Missile launch.” Orrick mentioned it as if he were saying the sun had come up in the morning.

“We’re tracking red,” Colonel Searl acknowledged. Orrick hit a button. “Pod in. Clear to boogie.” He smiled at Dalton as they were both slammed back in the seat. “We’re faster than any missile made.”

“Tracking green,” Searl announced. “We’re all clear. Entering approach to destination airfield.” He laughed. “Damn Russkies are gonna be surprised to see this baby land.” Dalton clicked on the SATCOM link. “Jackson?” There was no reply.

‘Jackson, I don’t want to take anything from what you’re doing, but if you can answer me, let me know.”

“I can talk,” Jackson said.

“How’s the wall holding?” Dalton asked.

“It’s a losing battle. The bomb is sliding from virtual to real at the rate of three percent per minute. At this rate, it will completely be in the real plane in twenty-two more minutes.”

“Sergeant Major.” Colonel Mishenka snapped a salute, which Dalton automatically returned.

“Colonel Mishenka.”

Mishenka unrolled a blueprint and put it on the hood of the four-by-four he’d driven out to the SR-75’s taxi point. “This is Special Department Number Eight’s Far-Field Experimental Unit.” His finger touched several points. “Surface-to-air missiles that fire automatically if the airspace is encroached upon.”

“We already had one of those fired at us as we came in.” Dalton put the imagery the SR-75 had taken next to the blueprint. He checked his watch: twenty minutes. Mishenka looked over the photos, then back at his blueprint. “Automatic guns cover the entire perimeter using heat sensors. Anything registering over a certain size is fired on. I understand many a deer has lost its life there. The perimeter is also mined; the mines are pressure activated. The only map of the minefield is kept in the facility, so we are going to have to breach it.

“Everything is controlled by the master computer inside SD8. And General Rurik even if we could get through to him, can’t turn it off as long as Feteror— Chyort— is out of his cage.”

“So we have to get in.”

Mishenka pointed across the runway. Two heavy cargo planes waited. They were surrounded by a large number of men in camouflage fatigues preparing weapons and gear. “The Twenty-third Spetsnatz company is ready. We’re only a couple of minutes from SD8 by air.” He waved and several officers came over and gathered around the hood. Dalton noted in them the same hard, competent look he had seen in Special Operations soldiers the world over.

“How do we get in?” Dalton asked. Mishenka frowned. “There is a bigger problem than the automatic defenses.”

“What is that?” Every nerve of Dalton’s body was screaming for them to load the planes and get going, but he knew a couple of minutes spent planning was more important than rushing in with guns blazing.

‘Just before I left Moscow, I was fully briefed on SD8’s base. Two things struck me— one good, one not so good. The not so good thing is that there is a wall— a psychic wall— completely surrounding the facility. I saw a videotape of a prisoner who was forced to walk into the wall.” Mishenka tapped a finger against his skull. “His brain was destroyed.”

Dalton nodded. “Bright Gate, where I came from, has a similar wall around it.”

“Do you know of a way to get through it?”

“I will check with my base once we’re airborne. What was the good thing?”

“General Rurik did not trust Feteror. Because of that, the general wears a wristband that monitors his own heartbeat. If his heartbeat ceases for ten seconds, the wristband shuts down the central computer, Zivon, which shuts down Feteror, trapping him inside the cyborg machine that keeps him alive.”

“So we get to General Rurik— “ Dalton began.

“And stop his heartbeat— which means kill him— we stop Feteror,” Mishenka finished.

Lieutenant Jackson remained in the chamber where the bomb hung over the isolation tanks. It had materialized over 40 percent. As she watched, another small piece flickered into reality.

“Dr. Hammond?” Dalton’s voice cut through the air.

“Yes?” Hammond answered.

“How do I get through a psychic wall?” Hammond gave a bitter laugh. “You don’t. Not if you want to keep your brain from becoming mush.”

“I’ve got to get through the wall here or we can’t stop this thing.”

Jackson watched the bomb produce another square, but listened as Hammond thought out loud to Dalton. “The wall is an electromagnetic projection on the psychic plane. Think of it as a field of deadly electricity. You touch it, you’re zapped.” Jackson could hear the sound of turboprop engines in the background coming from Dalton’s end.

“How do I get through it, Doctor?” Dalton’s voice was insistent.

“Wear rubber-soled shoes? Wrap tinfoil around my head? Think! There’s got to be a way.”

“There’s so much we don’t know!” Hammond protested.

“We aren’t even really sure if our wall works or not!”

“Well, the Russian one does, that’s for damn sure,” Dalton said.

‘Jesus Christ!” Jackson exploded, pushing Hammond aside and typing into the keyboard. The answer was back in a second.

“Sybyl says there aren’t any options,” Jackson relayed.

“Not good enough,” Dalton’s voice echoed out of the speaker.

“There’s got to be a way.”

“Here.” Hammond regained the keyboard and typed. She stared at the results. “I’ve had Sybyl run a multitude of possibilities and probabilities. Your best chance of success is that you might be able to short it out for a very brief period of time.”

“How do I do that?” Dalton asked. Hammond closed her eyes and thought for a few seconds. “You would have to put a conductor in the field. It would draw power for an instant before the field snapped back to normal operating parameters. For the short period while the field focused on that conductor, most likely less than a second, you might be able to get through close by.”

“What would be a conductor?”

“There is only one conductor that works for a psychic field,” Hammond said. “The human brain.”

Oma’s cell phone rang for the third time in five minutes. Reluctantly she opened it.

“Yes?”

“I said every warhead had to be accounted for,” the NATO

representative hissed at her.

“Every warhead is accounted for,” Oma said. “You know for certain where one is— or was— and I can tell you where the other nineteen are.”

“Don’t be a fool. Detonating one doesn’t count.”

“It took out GRU headquarters, you should be grateful.”

“Grateful? Grateful? Every country that has nuclear weapons is in DEFCON Four alert status. There’s a lot of itchy fingers out there and you’ve put them over the button.”

“Do you want the location of the rest of the warheads or not?” Oma pressed. “The one that just went off proves we have the warheads and we have the means and the will to use them.”

“Give me the location.”

“If I give it to you, you must promise that you will not pursue me.” The man laughed. “Fine. We won’t. But I’m sure your countrymen will be after you until the day you die.”

“Perhaps,” Oma said. “Here are the coordinates of the remaining weapons and the phased-displacement generator.”

“What will happen to the bomb here if Sergeant Major Dalton does succeed?” Jackson asked Hammond.

“I do not know,” Hammond answered.

“Best guess,” Jackson pressed.

“It will explode right where it is, some of it into the real plane at approximately the percentage it is in your world when it detonates.”

Jackson looked at the half of a bomb that hung in the air. “So we’re dead no matter who wins.”

There was no reply from Hammond, nor had she expected one.

Jackson nodded to herself. “All right then. There’s only one thing to do.” She tapped Dr. Hammond on the shoulder. “Get my isolation tank ready. I’m going over.”

“What are you going to do?” Hammond asked. Jackson pointed at the bomb. “The only thing I can do. Defuse that thing.”

Colonel Mishenka leaned close to Dalton in order to be able to hear inside the noisy cargo bay of the AN-24 transport. Dalton relayed Hammond’s course of action.

“Short-circuit the field with a brain?” Mishenka asked. Dalton nodded.

Mishenka laughed. “That is great. Simply great. You Americans have such a great sense of humor.”

“It’s not— “ Dalton began, but he paused as Mishenka put a hand on his arm.

“I know it is not a joke, but it is the Russian way to laugh when things are the worst. It is how we have survived much misery. Besides, before we worry about the psychic wall, first we have to get to it. We will deal with the psychic wall if we live long enough to get there.”

“What is your plan?” Dalton shouted. The Spetsnatz men were rigging parachutes on each other as the plane banked.

Mishenka pointed at the map. “We will parachute in the only place we can— here in this open field. Then work our way up the hill and then in. Not much of a plan, but it is the best I can do with such little notice.”

He stood and grabbed a parachute off the web cargo seat and held it out to Dalton. The sergeant major took it and slipped it over his shoulders. There were AK-74 folding-stock automatic weapons, and Mishenka indicated for him to take one, along with ammunition, grenades, a demolitions pack, and other weaponry.

Dalton checked his watch. Sixteen minutes.

Feteror formed himself in the real plane inside the hangar. He looked about. Leksi and his men waited by the generator with eighteen plastic cases holding nuclear weapons lined up. Vasilev was at the computer console. Barsk was gone.

That last fact started to truly register on Feteror. Why would Oma’s grandson have left? He knew the answer as soon as he considered it: She was double-crossing him. He laughed, the sound startling everyone in the hangar. She was double-crossing everyone.

But it did not matter. His revenge had begun. He only needed to complete it. He was adapting, changing. The link back to Zivon was as strong as ever, and the computer was helping deal with this unusual situation with regard to the phased-displacement generator and the bombs. What else could he accomplish? Feteror wondered. Might he be able to actually direct more bombs while the one still was out there, not detonated? He saw no reason why not.

“Load the generator,” Feteror ordered. The back ramp of the Antonov AN-24 was down, the wind swirling in the back, adding to the roar of the engines.

“One minute!” Colonel Mishenka yelled to Dalton and the Spetsnatz men lined up behind him. The Colonel knelt down, grabbing the hydraulic arm that lowered the ramp on his side.

Dalton went to the other side and assumed a similar position. He looked forward, blinking in the 130-knot wind that blew in his face.

The peak that held SD8 base was directly ahead. As he watched, there was a flash and a line of smoke streaked up into the sky.

“Missile launch!” one of the crewmen yelled. The man was seated on the center edge of the back ramp, a monkey harness around his body hooked to a floor bolt keeping him attached to the plane. He pointed a flare gun out the back and fired in the direction of the oncoming missile.

He continued firing as quickly as he could reload. It wasn’t high-tech, but it worked. At least for the first two missiles launched at the lead plane as the infrared seekers in their nose went after the hot flares.

“Stand by!” Mishenka yelled.

Dalton stood and shuffled closer to the edge of the platform.

“Go!” Mishenka stepped off on his side, Dalton on his. Dalton tucked into a tight body position as his static line was pulled out. The chute snapped open. Dalton looked up, checking to make sure his canopy had deployed properly, and he saw a SAM-8 explode in the right engine of the second AN-24 cargo plane as the first jumpers exited. The cargo plane’s right wing sheered off and the plane canted over. Dalton watched as desperate parachutists tried scrambling out of the open rear. A couple made it before the plane impacted with the ground, producing a large fireball.

Dalton turned his attention to his situation, forcing his feet and knees together, bending his knees slightly— as he’d been taught almost thirty years ago at Fort Benning by screaming Blackhats— and he prepared for his own impact with the ground.

His feet hit; he rolled and came to his feet. The wind was taking his chute upslope, so he cut lose the shoulder connects. The chute, minus his weight, took off. Forty meters away a machine gun chattered, stitching holes in the nylon.

There was a terrible scream. Dalton looked up. One of the last men out of his plane had hit the top of the psychic wall. He was still descending, but the man had both hands wrapped around his head. Even at this distance, Dalton could the blood gushing out of the man’s ears, nose, and mouth. The scream ended just as the man hit the ground like a sack of potatoes. An automatic machine gun fired twenty rounds into the corpse. The man lay there, his parachute anchored by his body and flapping in the breeze.

Dalton watched as two Spetsnatz commandos slapped down a tripod, slid a tube onto the top, loaded a missile, and fired, all in less than ten seconds. The missile streaked right into the source of the firing that had shot up Dalton’s parachute. The small mound hiding the machine gun exploded. Colonel Mishenka was yelling orders, but the men were well trained and needed little direction. Other Russian soldiers were opening their bundles, pulling equipment out.

Three men ran forward to the minefield warning signs and opened up a large satchel. They pointed a thick plastic tube upslope. There was a flash, then a thick line flew out of the end of the tube, soaring high through the air until it landed, a hundred meters away. One of the men pulled a fuse ignitor on the close end of the line, then all three dove for cover.

The cord of explosive detonated, blowing a five-foot-wide path through the minefield. The three men dashed into the path, made it ten meters, then were cut down by another automatic machine gun. A rocket destroyed that bunker.

And the bloody process continued as Colonel Mishenka’s Spetsnatz worked their way up the hill, closer and closer to the shimmering psychic wall.

Dalton ran forward and threw a grenade at a bunker housing a machine gun that had just killed a soldier. He knelt and checked his watch. Nine minutes.

Zivon alerted Feteror to the attack, even as the computer battled the attackers with the automatic defense system. Leksi’s men were loading the third warhead into the generator.

“How soon will you be ready?” Feteror demanded of Vasilev. The professor looked up at the demon. “You still have the second bomb in stasis in the virtual field. That’s affecting the computer. Slowing it down.” Feteror frowned, dark ridges coming together on his demon face. “Can you fire the next one?”

Vasilev didn’t look up from his keyboard. “I am trying to get the program to accept the new mission.”

“How long?” Feteror demanded.

Vasilev ignored him. Feteror stepped forward.

The professor looked up. “We can fire the third now.” Jackson felt the liquid pouring into her lungs, but her focus was elsewhere. She had Sybyl access everything in the database on Russian nuclear weapons. She contacted Hammond through the computer.

“ Anything from Sergeant Major Dalton?”

“ He is on the ground. They are assaulting SD8’s base, Chyort’shome.”

“ Any other nuclear explosions?”

“ Not yet.”

“ How long can you keep the bomb from coming throughcompletely?”

“ I estimate 8.4 minutes.”

“ Come on, Dr. Hammond!” Jackson yelled. “ Get meover there!”

Dalton fired on full automatic, right into the open end of a machine-gun bunker, his bullets smashing into the weapon. He rolled twice to his right, pausing at the edge of the path blasted by the line charge. He was less than twenty feet from the psychic wall. He could not only see it shimmering now, but he could feel something. A thrumming on the edge of his consciousness. A feeling that made him want to turn and get away as fast as possible.

He looked over his shoulder. Over three quarters of the Spetsnatz were dead, but the survivors were still moving forward, wiping out the last of the automatic weapons.

Colonel Mishenka ran forward and threw himself into the dirt next to Dalton. He peered ahead at the wall, then glanced at Dalton.

A Spetsnatz soldier ran past them.

Mishenka yelled for him to stop, but too late as the man hit the psychic wall. His body spasmed, arms flying back. They could hear his spine snapping in a row of sharp cracks.

The man tumbled to the ground, his head canted at an unnatural angle, blood flowing from every visible orifice.

General Rurik pounded his fist in frustration against the console. “What is going on?”

“I cannot access the surface,” the technician said. Rurik looked up at the red flashing light. He had missed the last contact with Moscow because Feteror was still out.

He had violated procedure for the first time in his career. He had no clue what was going on. But they knew something was happening above them. The dull sound of explosions echoed through the stone walls.

Someone was attacking them. But who?

There was only one answer— it had to be Feteror and help he had recruited. No one else would dare go up against the psychic wall. No one else could be this far into Russia and assaulting this most secret of bases.

“Captain,” Rurik said, turning to the chief of security.

“Have your men ready to stop an assault.”

“But, sir— “ The man hesitated, then continued.

“They cannot get in.”

“Oh, they will get in. Feteror is helping them! Now move!”

“The generator is in phase,” Vasilev announced. “The program is working slowly, but it is working.”

“Fire this one,” Feteror ordered, “and load the next one.”

Leksi stepped forward. “You are doing as Oma ordered now!” Feteror looked at the huge naval commando. He smiled, revealing his rows of sharp teeth. Without a word he sliced forward with his right claw.

Leksi surprised him with his speed. The commando rolled forward, pulling up his submachine gun as he did.

Feteror jumped through the virtual plane to right behind Leksi, even as the man pulled the trigger. Feteror swung down with both hands. Leksi again surprised him by bringing back the submachine gun and blocking the right claw, but the left ripped into Leksi’s back.

Feteror relished the familiar sound of tearing flesh. He lifted Leksi as the commando tried to bend the gun back, to fire at his attacker. Feteror solved that problem by slicing off Leksi’s right arm. He tossed the dying commando against the wall and stood over him. “I will destroy Oma’s targets but I do not need you to tell me to do it.”

“The bomb is in phase,” Vasilev reported. Feteror turned to the cowering mercenaries. “Load the next bomb as soon as the generator is clear.”

He jumped into the virtual plane and connected with the bomb. He directed it west toward America.

“Time for your plan to get through the wall, if you have one,” Dalton said. Mishenka spit and rubbed a hand covered in blood across his face. “I have one. You need a short?” He tapped the side of his head. “I’ve got one right here.”

Dalton wasn’t sure he had heard right.

Mishenka stood and walked toward the shimmer that indicated the boundary of the psychic wall.

“I suggest you stay close to me,” he called over his shoulder.

“I can’t let you do that,” Dalton said. Mishenka was standing right in front of the wall. Dalton came up next to him. He could feel the pain now, the fear, pulsing through his brain.

Mishenka laughed. He ripped open a packet on his combat vest and pulled out a small red pill. He held it up to Dalton. “My antiradiation pill. Perhaps it works, eh?” Dalton knew the Russians issued the red pill as a placebo and that anyone with the slightest common sense knew that.

Mishenka tossed it away. “I am a dead man anyway. Let my death be worth something.” He looked at Dalton. “Are you ready?” Dalton met the other man’s eyes. “I’m ready.” Mishenka pulled his belt off and handed one end to Dalton. “I go, you follow.”

Dalton found he could not speak, so he simply nodded.

“Now!” Mishenka yelled.

He stepped forward into the wall, pulling on the belt. Dalton was pulled through behind him. The Russian jerked straight up, his mouth open, a cry issuing forth that chilled Dalton’s heart. Dalton hit the wall. He staggered, feeling a spike of pain rip into the base of his skull. His skin crackled, felt as if it were on fire. He kept moving his legs, going forward. He fell onto the ground, the pain receding.

Dalton rolled and looked back. There was a glow around Mishenka’s head. The Russian was looking straight at him. The mouth twisted from the open scream into a fleeting semblance of a smile, then a river of blood spilled over the lips and Mishenka fell to the ground dead. Dalton looked down at his hand. He was still holding the belt. The other end was in the Russian’s dead hand. Dalton let go of the belt and stood. He headed toward the base. Feteror’s head snapped to the left. He was halfway toward Washington, but something halted him at the jump point.

He opened to the flow of data from Zivon. Someone was through the psychic wall!

Feteror jumped for home, the bomb going with him.

Lieutenant Jackson floated next to the bomb. It was the inverse of what she had witnessed from the floor of the experimental chamber. Here, on the virtual plane, a small square disappeared every few seconds. There was less than a third of the bomb remaining in the virtual plane.

“ Dr. Hammond?”

“ Yes?”

“ I need the specifications for this type of nuclear weapon.”

“ I have specs for our version of it.”

“ Stay with me.”

“ I will.”

Jackson let go of her avatar and became pure psyche. She flowed into the bomb. Dalton threw the backpack Mishenka had given him to the ground in front of the large steel door that blocked his way into the underground complex. He pulled out the long black tube. He worked fast, his watch telling him that less than four minutes were left.

He peeled the tape off the end of the tube and pressed it against the center of the left steel door. He swung down the two thin metal legs to the ground, centering the tube horizontally against the door. He pulled the firing tab, ran twenty feet away, and dove for cover behind a berm. The tube fired, the shaped charge producing intense heat that burned a three-foot-diameter hole through the door in an instant.

Dalton ran forward. He slammed against the door, next to the hole, the edges still simmering. He pulled a flash-bang grenade off his vest and threw it in. Counted to three. The grenade went off. Dalton dove through the hole, rolling forward onto the concrete floor inside, coming up to his knees with his AK-74 at the ready.

He fired at the two stunned guards, knocking them backwards. Then he was on his feet, running along the corridor that sloped downward.

Feteror came into being above SD8-FFEU. He could see the bodies littering the ground below. He recognized the uniforms of the dead. Spetsnatz. It had come full circle.

He clearly saw the psychic wall. There was only one way he could get in, through the window allowed him. And once he was inside he would be trapped inside Zivon.

He roared, a demonic dragon circling on leathery wings, his lair below being invaded. Impotent to stop— Feteror paused. He had the bomb. It had to end now.

Mishenka had told Dalton that the guard force inside SD8’s base was minimal— they counted on the automatic defenses and the psychic wall.

So far Dalton had encountered six guards. He edged between two large stacks of supplies. The door from the supply room to the brain center lay ahead. He paused and looked at his watch. Less than two minutes.

Throwing caution to the wind, Dalton sprinted forward and was slammed back as a bullet ripped through his left shoulder.

Jackson was in the center of a jumble of wires in the core of the bomb. She had gone into machinery and computers before, but only for data, for information. Never to do anything real to the machine. She didn’t even know if she could do anything.

“ How much time?” she asked Hammond.

“ A minute and twenty seconds.”

“ What do I do?”

There was a short pause. “ According to Sybyl, you must stop the detonator. Theconventional explosion that initiates the nuclear reaction.”

“ Where is it?”

Hammond had Sybyl project the vision to Jackson.

Feteror took the bomb with him through the window into the underground complex. Inside the hangar, the next bomb was loaded inside the generator.

Vasilev looked around. Some of the men were tending to Leksi, leaning the dying man against the wall. Chyort was nowhere to be seen, nor did Vasilev sense his presence.

“Fire the next target!” Leksi spit the words out along with a dribble of blood down his chin. “Damn you, do as you’re told.” Vasilev smiled. He knew without Feteror, the bomb would not go anywhere. “Yes, sir.”

He hit a button on the console. “Atonement,” he whispered. The hangar disappeared in an instant, destroying the immediate area and the approaching Russian forces that had been alerted by NATO intelligence using the information Oma had called in for her four hundred million.

Dalton looked at his watch. Under a minute. He could hear the man who had shot him moving on the other side of the pallet.

Dalton stood, blood streaming from his shoulder. He yelled in Vietnamese at the top of his lungs and came around the pallet firing. The man was still turning toward him when Dalton’s first bullets hit, splattering him against the wall.

The bolt slammed home. Dalton tossed the gun aside and ran into the corridor, pulling a pistol out of its holster. He kicked open the door at the end and staggered into the brain center. A Russian general holding a pistol in his hand stood in front of Dalton, soldiers flanking him, their weapons also at the ready.

Feteror looked down from his virtual perch. He saw the American Green Beret and General Rurik pointing their guns at each other. He knew the bomb he had would explode in ten seconds after he released it into the real world. There was nothing they could do to stop it.

“Why?”

Feteror spun about, startled. Opa was shaking his head. “Why must you destroy?” Opa said. The old man’s right arm stretched out toward Feteror, who jumped back, startled. But the arm went right past him, into the virtual window. Feteror turned to follow it. The arm kept growing until it reached the half-materialized bomb. It flowed into the bomb. The red digital readout blacked out.

“What have you done!” Feteror screamed.

“Do not move!” General Rurik ordered Dalton. The two guards flanked the general, their weapons pointed at Dalton.

The sergeant major could feel the flow of blood down his side from his wound. His head pounded from the aftereffects of the psychic wall. He could see that the barrel of the pistol he was holding was shaking. He knew there was no way he could get all three before they gunned him down.

“ Jimmy,” a woman’s voice whispered in his ear. “ You know what you have to do.”

Dalton let go of the gun.

Feteror saw the American drop the gun.

“What have you done?” he demanded of Opa. “They have won!”

“No,” Opa said. “I do not think so.”

“Who are you?” General Rurik demanded. Dalton focused on the Russian general, pushing away all distractions. He used the power of over fifteen hundred days and nights of captivity, the skills he had learned during six months of Trojan Warrior and the past two days at Bright Gate, what Sybyl had shown him of the virtual world and the line between it and the real. He put the white dot right between the Russian’s eyes and then he probed with his mind.

Rurik grabbed his temples, a surprised look on his face. He staggered, tried to say something, then went down to his knees. He wavered there for a couple of seconds, still trying to mouth words that wouldn’t come through the pain in his head. Then he keeled over and smashed into the hard floor, face first.

Feteror saw General Rurik hit the floor, the body slack. He’d seen the psychic force go from the head of the American into the general’s— a golden burst of light on the virtual plane. The light on the general’s wristband changed to red. “We’ll be trapped in here forever!” Feteror grabbed Opa by the shoulders and shook him. Opa shook his head, the gray beard wagging back and forth. “It is best.” Feteror screamed into nothingness as his power drained from him, leaving him floating in inky darkness. The nuclear warhead hanging over the center of Bright Gate snapped completely into reality.

“Oh God!” Hammond yelled as it dropped to the floor of the control room with a thud. It lay there.

“ Bring me back,” Lieutenant Jackson’s voice echoed out of the speakers.

“Are they alive?” Barnes asked.

“Their bodies are,” Jackson answered. “Their psyches— their selves...” Her voice trailed off Sergeant Barnes was in a wheelchair next to her, looking at the tubes holding the rest of the second Psychic Warrior team. “You don’t think we’re going to find them, do you?”

Jackson shrugged. “I don’t know. We’re getting different readings off of Raisor. Sybyl doesn’t know what to make of it. We think he’s definitely out there somewhere, but we haven’t been able to make contact.” Barnes had a gold ring that he was rubbing between two fingers. “What do you—

“ He paused as the door to the outside corridor swung open. Sergeant Major Dalton slowly walked in, his arm in a sling, his face drawn and tight from exhaustion. He’d returned to Denver via Aurora as soon as the surviving Spetsnatz had secured the SD8

base. Then he’d been flown to Bright Gate by a Blackhawk

“Sergeant Major!” Barnes and Jackson said it at the same time.

“You have something of mine.” He held out a hand. Barnes passed him the wedding band and the sergeant major’s insignia. Dalton sat down in a chair with a wince. “The Russians are shutting down SD8,” he informed the others. He felt the metal ring in his palm, fingers of the other hand running over the worn metal.

“Chyort?” Jackson said the word in a low voice. Dalton shook his head. “His physical remains— the brain— is isolated. The Russians are saying they’ll make sure he never gets out.” Dalton held up the ring and looked at the inscription on the inside. Love Always, Marie.

“I have to go to Fort Carson for a funeral.” Dalton slowly stood. He headed for the door, then paused and turned. “Are you going to be all right?”

Jackson forced a smile. “I’m fine.” Dalton nodded. “Hold the fort. I’ll be back as soon as I can. We’re not done here yet.”

Robert Doherty is a pen name for a best-selling writer of suspense novels. He is the author of The Rock;Area 51; Area 51: The Reply; Area 51: The Mission; and Area 51: The Sphinx. Doherty is a West Point graduate, a former Infantry officer and a Special Forces A-Team commander. He currently lives in Boulder, Colorado.

For more information you can visit his Web site at www.nettrends.com/mayer

[http://www.nettrends.com/mayer].

Published by

Dell Publishing

a division of

Random House, Inc.

1540 Broadway

New York, New York 10036

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright ©2000 by Robert Mayer

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. Dell® is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

eISBN: 978-0-307-48987-6

v3.0