“That involved this type of weapon?” Naldo asked.

“In some manner,” Valika answered. “I have tried to gain more information but have discovered little. The Americans and Russians are keeping whatever happened very secret.”

Naldo raised a finger, pointing toward Souris.

“Yes?”

“How did you kill Alarico?”

“I directed an Aura field at him and then changed the frequency slightly so that it was disruptive to his normal brain patterns,” Souris said. “His brain stopped functioning-both the autonomic and parasympathetic nervous systems. So he actually could have died of several things at once. It would be difficult to tell which was fatal first. His heart stopped beating, he also stopped breathing, he lost all motor control; he probably also suffered several aneurysms in the brain.”

“It is what we did to the crew of the Coast Guard cutter trying to intercept our shipment,” Cesar said. “Think of the power we will have if we have such a weapon orbiting overhead. It is what the Americans are trying to do.”

“Aura is more than a weapon,” Souris said, her eyes burning in her gaunt face. “It is another world completely. A better world. There are things out there beyond what you can conceive.”

Hovering in the virtual plane, Raisor couldn’t agree more with the professor. His existence was beyond what this Ring was playing with, he could see that, but they were headed in the right direction. And with some help, they could perhaps rival what had been accomplished at Bright Gate. And if they could do that, then the real world could be his once more and he could wreak his vengeance.

He found the information on HAARP interesting. That there was another program besides Bright Gate working with the virtual world meant he had been kept in the dark by his own agency. And the fact that Souris had yet to say anything about Bright Gate meant either she didn’t know about it, which he doubted, or she had a reason for keeping it from the Ring.

The meeting broke up, the leaders following Professor Souris to view the underground lab where the work on the Aura computers and generators was being conducted.

Naldo hung behind to have a private word with Cesar, Valika hovering in the background.

“Very impressive, my old friend,” Naldo said.

Cesar had been in business-and in bloody competition until the forming of the Ring-with Naldo for four decades. He knew the old man had something on his mind.

“There are some things that concern me,” Naldo continued as they slowly walked across the tile floor.

“And they are?”

“What about the Americans? Will they not attack us first?”

“They already have for years,” Cesar said. “With Aura we finally have a weapon that they will fear. The key is that we must get operational before they are.”

“There’s something else.”

Cesar paused and waited.

“The American woman-why did she come to work for you? She does not seem interested in money. I am always suspicious of a turncoat.”

It was a question that Cesar had also pondered at length three years ago when he was first contacted by Souris, and he could only relay what he had learned from her. “I give her more freedom to do what she wants here. When she worked for the Americans, she had to do what they told her to. Her research was very restricted. Here, she can do as she wants.”

Naldo nodded, but Cesar could tell his old friend was not satisfied.

The President’s National Security Adviser was known to both friends and foes alike behind her back as the Pit Bull. To her face she was called Mrs. Callahan. She’d known the President since college, where they had been classmates. She’d served with him since he was a junior senator after her own career in the Marines, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel and commanding a battalion before answering his call for assistance in the political field and leaving the service that she loved. She’d found Washington to be a much more dangerous place than even the Middle East during the Gulf War.

Her Marine bearing came through in her posture and her gruff manner of dealing with those around her. She was the point person for the President in all national security matters, and in a tradition that had started in the mid-sixties, she had been the first one in his administration to be briefed on Nexus. She in turn had briefed him after he was in office. He had then appointed her to take care of all matters dealing with the group, which in effect made her the head of it, among her many other duties.

Frankly, the President had not been convinced that Nexus’s fears were grounded in reality, and Callahan had agreed with him. The Nexus representative had not produced any evidence of his fantastic claims about the organization he called the Priory. Only the fact that the manpower and budget allocated to Nexus were so small-and that Eisenhower’s Presidential Directive establishing it was real-had kept him from gutting the group.

Right now Nexus was the furthest thing from Callahan’s mind. She had just returned from a trip with the President to the Middle East, and dealing with the egos that had been crammed into one room had left her exhausted. Her limousine was taking her directly from Andrews Air Force Base to her home.

She was leaning back in the deep leather, leisurely skimming through various reports her aides had handed her when she got off Air Force One. She knew she should have gone directly to the office, but today was her twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. She’d missed far too many in the past, and the President had been insistent that she go straight home, with no detours.

She was surprised when the smoked glass dividing her from the driver slid down with a whir.

“Mrs. Callahan.”

All she could see of the driver were his eyes, dark black, in the rearview mirror. His hair was white, his frame slight.

“Yes?” she replied, her irritation at the interruption clear in her tone.

“General Eichen is dead.”

She sat up straighter. “Eichen?” She searched her mind and then remembered. The military officer who had accompanied the head of Nexus to the initial briefing. “What happened?”

“We believe he was killed by the Priory.”

“Who are you?” she demanded.

“I was sent to warn you that the Priory is moving.”

“Who are you?” she repeated. The limousine had stopped at a light. The driver turned and she could see his face. He had to be in his sixties, judging from all the lines in the leathery skin. But his eyes appeared sharp as they regarded her.

“Is it more important who I am or what I am?” he asked. “I’m from Nexus.” The light changed and he turned his attention to driving. “Do you still want to go to your house?”

“What does the Priory have planned?” she asked.

“We don’t know exactly. They’ve been using the Black Budget to develop a system in Alaska called HAARP. A very potent weapon with strategic possibilities. We’ve managed to deny them access to a critical component of the system by locking it down with an NCA code.”

“So the situation is under control?”

“I doubt it.”

“Why did they kill Eichen?”

“He went to HAARP. To see what they were doing.”

“That wasn’t very bright.”

“In retrospect, it wasn’t. But we weren’t sure what they have planned and we still aren’t. That was Eichen’s job.”

“Whose is it now?”

“We need your help in that regard. I can take you to your office.”

“Take me home,” she barked.

How had they replaced the driver? she wondered. And there was nothing in the material she had been given about Eichen’s death. A three-star general getting killed would have surely made her briefing book from the NSA.

“Mrs. Callahan, I think-” the driver began, but she cut him off.

“I want to go home and say hello to my husband and wish him happy anniversary at the very least. Then we can go to the office and find out what the hell is going on.” They were only a mile away from her house anyway, and she saw no reason not to finish the trip.