“Make sure they have explosives,” Raisor advised her for the third time.

“I’ve already insured we will have adequate means to get inside the complex,” Valika said. “I have a question for you, though.”

“Yes?”

“What if we are confronted with Psychic Warriors? What if not all of them are in Colombia?”

“The most critical time will be when you land,” Raisor said. “You must get inside the complex quickly-it’s the one place where the Psychic Warriors can’t operate, since it’s shielded. It’s the same way Dalton destroyed the Russian facility.”

“ Dalton?”

“One of the army people at Bright Gate,” Raisor said. “He betrayed me also. They all did.”

“You still did not answer me what we should do if we are confronted,” Valika noted.

Raisor smiled and pointed at the two cases that Valika had bought from Kraskov. “I know what you have there.”

“Will they work on Psychic Warriors?”

“I don’t know for certain,” Raisor said, “but I imagine they will have some effect. That’s if you see them first.”

“They can’t stay invisible from you, can they?”

“No.”

“Good. Then you will warn us if you see them on the virtual plane, correct?”

“Correct.”

The rest of the trip was made in silence.

The Lear touched down at a small airfield outside of Granby, in north-central Colorado. It had been chosen because one of her contacts knew that there were four Army National Guard Huey helicopters parked there-exactly what they would need.

The mercenaries she had hired had already taken over the small field, capturing the two full-time employees. As the Lear rolled to a stop, a Ford Explorer came racing out of a hangar and up to the plane. The man who stepped out was short and wiry, wearing khaki with a combat vest strapped on his chest. He carried an MP-5 submachine gun casually in his right hand.

“Good-bye, Mr. Raisor,” Valika said as she crossed the aisle and flipped off the switch for the Aura generator. Raisor’s form popped out of existence. She then unhooked the generator and went to the now open door of the plane. She hopped down the steps and met the man.

“Mr. Gregory,” Valika said, nodding in greeting.

“Ms. Valika. It’s a pleasure to do business once again.” Gregory led her toward the truck. “You do know, of course, that due to the mission to be accomplished, the location here inside my own country, and the amount you are paying, this will be the last time I will be working. My men and I will be retiring to a remote location after this.”

“That would make sense,” Valika agreed.

“I could use some more specifics on what actually we are looking for and what is to be recovered.”

“Get us in first,” Valika said. “Then you’ll be shown what is to be taken.” She paused at the door. “There’s something in the airplane-a computer-that you need to off-load and place inside the helicopter I am to ride in. There are also several cases of high-power lithium batteries. Those are to be placed near the computer.”

She waited while Gregory’s men hauled out the small Aura transmitter and the batteries. Then she got in the truck and they drove to the hangar.

“They’re here,” Jackson ’s voice, modified through Sybyl, sounded inside of Dalton ’s head. Or actually, he realized, his avatar’s head. He still wasn’t comfortable operating on the virtual plane. She relayed what she was seeing, through the computer, to both Barnes and Dalton.

Kirtley’s team appeared, popping into existence, almost simultaneously. Four men on the roof of the main building, one in each cardinal direction. Targets began popping up and the avatars fired, small balls of power exploding the wooden silhouettes.

Dalton moved down the sewer tunnel he was in, forcing himself to not “jump” but move totally in the real plane. He shoved open a manhole cover and fired as he came out, hitting one of the team in the back with a low-power shot. Dr. Hammond froze the avatar.

“You’re dead,” Dalton said as he ducked back down into the tunnel. He raced back toward the building, keeping track of Kirtley’s forces via Jackson. The four men that had appeared on the roof were working their way down through the building, a classic clearing technique. Dalton had expected Kirtley’s men to jump from the roof to the hostage room in one move.

Dalton popped his head up in the hostage room, Barnes’s avatar not even turning. “Hey, Sergeant Major,” Barnes said.

“I’m taking a couple of the hostages,” Dalton said.

Barnes nodded. “They’re too slow.”

Dalton grabbed two of the dummies and ducked back down in the tunnel. He “saw”-via Barnes-the first avatars appear in the basement.

Barnes fired, spinning, hitting the remaining dummies, even as Kirtley’s men shot at him. Barnes hit all of the “hostages” before being shut down by Dr. Hammond. Dalton lost his “eye” in the room.

Dalton made it across the street and up into the next building. Through Jackson he could “see” that Kirtley had called in his other three men from their guard positions. And then all went black.

No form, no input. Nothing. Just self.

Dalton knew immediately that Kirtley had had Hammond shut him down. He felt a moment’s panic, but then used the techniques he had used in the Trojan Warrior program to regain control of his psyche. He was completely isolated on the virtual plane, unable to move, unable to even sense the grayness of the plane itself.

Panic overwhelmed him, his mind screaming without a voice. The memories of the prison cell in Vietnam came rushing back, led by the feeling of helplessness.

“Jimmy.”

He didn’t hear at first, so lost was he in his primal fears.

“Jimmy.”

Like a lifeline in a vast, dark ocean, the voice got through. Dalton seized on it, focusing.

“Jimmy. It’s me” “Marie” “Be careful, Jimmy. There are others here.” “Who?”

He felt power course into him, the black giving way to gray. He was moving, being jumped back to Bright Gate by Sybyl automatically, retracing the route he had taken to Fort Campbell.

And then he was back in the tank, the program bringing him back from the virtual world into his body.

“Marie?” Dalton queried into the gray, but there was no response.

16

The shuttle was mated with the external tanks and boosters, nose pointing toward the roof of the vehicle assembly building. The entire system rested on a crawler transporter forty meters long by thirty wide. Propelled by eight sets of huge tracked propulsion units, the entire thing began moving, starting the trip to the launch pad. At a speed of less than one mile an hour, it would take four hours to reach the launch pad overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

Inside the cargo bay, the SC-MILSTAR satellite was secured.

It wasn’t long into the Cold War before the United States realized that housing its command and control facilities in surface buildings, easily susceptible to attack, was not a good idea. Once the decision was made to build a “hardened” facility, politics and practicality chose Cheyenne Mountain, overlooking Colorado Springs, which already had a large military presence in the form of Fort Carson, the Air Force Academy, and Peterson Air Force Base.

Work was begun on the one-hundred-million-year-old mountain in May 1961. A four-and-a-half-acre grid was hollowed out deep inside the mountain. Then over thirteen hundred metal springs were placed on the floor. Each spring was four feet long and twenty inches in diameter and could withstand a pressure of sixty-five thousand pounds. The theory was that the springs would allow the facility to withstand the shock wave of a thermonuclear blast on the surface of the mountain. On top of the springs, fifteen steel, windowless buildings were built to house NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, a joint U.S.-Canadian facility.