Suddenly a look of surprise spread across Alarico’s face and he jerked backwards, as if hit in the chest. Valika started to move forward to take advantage, but she caught the gesture from Cesar out of the corner of her eye, indicating for her to halt and back away.

Alarico saw it also. He turned to Cesar, breathing hard, in more pain than what Valika had inflicted. “What are you doing to me?”

“I told you that you must get past both my women,” Cesar said. “You have not done well against my dear Valika, so I will give you a chance and see how you do against the American.”

Alarico suddenly gasped in agony and his hands clutched at his head. “Where is she?”

Cesar pointed at Alarico. “Right there in front of you. Don’t you see her? She’s in Aura. Using her computer. Her body is below us in the Aura center, but her essence is right here, doing this to you.”

More blood was now coming out of Alarico’s eyes and ears, turning his head into a grotesque mask of red and white. He shrieked, dropping to his knees in agony, rocking back and forth. The other Ring members were watching in shock, which is exactly what Valika knew Cesar had hoped for with this demonstration.

“If you had had more patience,” Cesar continued, “you would have learned more about Aura and its potential as a weapon. But I believe this is a most effective demonstration.”

“Please!” The word was torn from Alarico’s very soul and all present knew it wasn’t asking for release, but for a quick ending. His hands were scrambling at his head as if he could rip out the pain that was resounding inside of it. His fingers came away with clumps of hair, yet still he kept at it, tearing at the skin.

Cesar sat, impassively watching as Alarico collapsed face first onto the tiles, body twitching for several seconds before becoming still.

Cesar stood. “Do I have any more disagreements with my course of action or questions about the effectiveness of Aura?”

Raisor saw the antenna dish on the wall of the atrium pointed at the dead man as the bright ray disappeared. He had homed in on it using a series of jumps in the virtual plane. Willing himself through each leg, drawing closer and closer to the beam.

He felt more substance, or what might be called substance if there was such a thing on the virtual plane. He could also see clearly into the real plane when he wanted.

He had no idea who these people were, but he did know they were working with technology that pierced into the virtual plane. That they were using it as a weapon not only didn’t bother him, it intrigued him. He would need a weapon to make those responsible for his sister’s death and his betrayal pay.

Like an invisible vulture, he hovered over the atrium and listened and watched.

After the fourth buzz, Dalton knew something was wrong. His hand tightened around the SATPhone. After the sixth, there was a clicking noise, then a new buzz, this one somewhat different.

A voice-not Eichen’s-answered. “Yes?”

Dalton considered hanging up immediately. But then he would be completely in the dark. “General Eichen, please.”

“Who is this?”

“Who am I speaking to?” Dalton asked in turn.

“We can play this game forever,” the voice said, “but I have to assume since you have one of these phones and are asking for Eichen that he recruited you. And you have to assume that since your call to him got forwarded to me, I’m legitimate. I know Eichen told you to tell no one other than him anything-even showed you a note from the President, correct?”

Dalton hesitated, then answered. “Yes.”

“Let me guess. You’re Sergeant Major Jimmy Dalton?”

“I don’t think you’re guessing,” Dalton said. “Where’s General Eichen?”

“General Eichen’s dead. So I don’t think you’re going to be able to report to him.”

“How?”

“Helicopter crash in Alaska.”

“Accident?”

“I doubt it.”

Dalton had doubted it too as soon as he’d heard it. “What did he discover about HAARP?”

“You don’t need to know that.”

“And now?”

“Now you report to me. There are only a few of us. Eichen would have disseminated information you sent him to the rest of the group. Now I’ll have to.”

“And what do I call you?” Dalton asked.

“Are you familiar with the Greek classics?”

“Not particularly.”

“Too bad, Sergeant Major. You can call me Mentor.”

“Well, Mentor, do you have anything further for me on who exactly it is I’m supposed to be watching out for?”

“No.”

“So this is a one-way conversation?”

“Yes.”

Dalton was tempted to just hang up, ditch the special phone, and forget about the entire thing. The only problem was that he knew that wouldn’t end it. No, that wasn’t the only problem, he admitted to himself. Like Sullivan Balue, he’d sworn an oath to defend his country from all enemies-foreign and domestic.

“So what next?” Dalton asked.

“Keep an eye on Kirtley. Let me know what he has planned.”

“Is Dr. Hammond one of General Eichen’s contacts?” He knew what Eichen had told him, but it never hurt to ask again.

There was a pause. “Not that I’m aware of. We’ve been moving people, taking action. Sometimes it means placing a person like Hammond in a position that might have been occupied by someone of questionable background. Of course, with every action, there is a reaction.”

“Is Jonathan Raisor one of your people?”

Again the pause, and again the same answer. “Not that I’m aware of. And shouldn’t that be phrased in past tense?”

“I’m not sure about that,” Dalton said.

“Interesting.”

“When you have something to share with me,” Dalton said, “perhaps we can talk again.” He flipped the phone shut.

“They’ll come for us.”

Sergeant Lambier stopped tending Granger’s wound to look up at Captain Scott. “Sir, we’re in Colombia illegally. If they come for us, they’re compounding the problem. As it is, they might have some deniability. Not much but some. We all knew that when we signed on for this.”

Scott was seated with his back against a stone wall. The cell they were locked in was lit by a single naked lightbulb that cast a pallor over the survivors. The captain shook his head and repeated for the twentieth time in the past hour: “They’ll come for us.”

Sergeant Pinello walked across the dirt floor and squatted next to the dazed captain, who had dried blood from Master Sergeant Garrison encrusted on his fatigue shirt. “Sir, no one knows where we are. We have to make a plan to get out of here on our own.”

Scott shook his head. “No. We stay in place. They’ll come for us. We try to break out, they’ll kill us.”

“They’re going to kill us anyway,” Pinello said. He had to fight from grabbing the officer’s shirt and shaking him. “I want to go down fighting when it comes to that.”

The fifth man in the room, Sergeant Buhler, spoke up. “We never should have surrendered. We could have taken a hell of a lot of them with us. Made them pay. It’s what we agreed on.”

“I’m the team leader,” Scott said. “It was my decision. My command. My responsibility.”

“Everybody just calm down,” Sergeant Lambier said as he stood, hands covered in Granger’s blood. “The captain’s right. They’ll try to find us and then they will come for us, if they can. But in the meanwhile, we count on only ourselves. So if anyone has a bright idea how to get out of here, you better start talking.”

“Sergeant-” Scott’s voice cut across the room. “I am the team leader. And I’m ordering you not to do anything. We wait. They’ll come for us.”

“Sir-” Lambier began, but then he paused. “Yes, sir.”