“It’s going to take several minutes for his body to warm up enough to bring him back in completely,” Hammond said. They both turned as a thunderous explosion echoed down the entrance tunnel into the control room. Alarms began stridently ringing. Dalton pulled his pistol out of its holster and chambered a round.

Souris hit the Enter key and the signal left the antenna.

The heat seeker on the nose of the ALMV had picked up the energy in the Aura IV satellite. It closed at over five thousand miles an hour.

The uplink hit the satellite and the battery surged, adding power to the downlink just as the ALMV slammed into the satellite. The kinetic energy of mass times the extreme velocity resulted in complete disintegration of the satellite.

Space Command recorded the hit.

“You’ve got to go back for Dalton,” Barnes insisted.

Roby was concentrating on flying. “Hauling a sling load reduces options greatly. We’d be sitting ducks. Even a pig Huey could fly circles around me right now. I can only outrun them going straight.”

“We’ve got to get the isolation tubes hooked back up,” Jackson said. “The sergeant major told me to do this.”

“Hell, you’re the officer,” Barnes said.

Jackson looked at Barnes. “You Green Berets are always the one saying the most experienced person should be in charge.”

“Where are we going?” Barnes changed the subject.

“ Cheyenne Mountain,” Roby said. He could see the first helicopter ahead of them, the red cargo netting holding the iso-tubes and other equipment hanging below. It was hard to believe there were living people inside of the dark tubes.

“Space Command?” Jackson was surprised Dalton would have picked that as the place to bring the iso-tubes.

“Not Space Command,” Roby answered. “The west side of the mountain. We’ll drop the load and go back for the sergeant major.”

“Who the hell were those people?” Barnes wanted to know, but no one could answer that.

Jackson wanted to know what was on the west side of Cheyenne Mountain, but she figured she would see soon enough for herself.

Dalton checked the security monitor. A half dozen men dressed in black were slipping through the hole ripped in the vault door. He had no clue who they were, but their method of entry left no doubt that they would not be friendly when they reached the control center.

“How long before you can pull Kirtley?”

“Three minutes.”

“Set the controls to refreeze. We have to leave him,” Dalton said. “We don’t have three minutes.”

“We can’t-”

“Do it,” Dalton cut Hammond off. “It’s his only chance.”

Hammond quickly entered the commands, having Sybyl reverse the process.

“Where are your technicians?” Dalton asked.

“In their billets along the main corridor. I always clear the control room once people go over. Standard procedure, since I can run everything through Sybyl.”

“How many?”

“Eight people.”

Dalton saw it was too late for Hammond ’s support team. The main corridor was already half overrun. As he watched on the monitor, one of Hammond ’s white-coated techs stepped out of a door to be instantly cut down with a burst of automatic weapon fire.

Dalton turned to Hammond. “There has to be a main air shaft for this place. Something that comes out on the mountain other than the main entrance.”

“I don’t know,” Hammond said.

Dalton knew they didn’t have time to stand around and think. One of the tenets he’d learned early in his military career was that action, even the wrong one, was better than standing around in the kill zone, which is what he figured the control room was going to become in about a minute.

“Come on.” He ran toward the service elevator. Hammond pulled a CD-ROM disk out of the mainframe before following.

The door slowly slid open when he hit the button.

“Sergeant Major and Dr. Hammond.”

Dalton spun about in surprise at the familiar voice. Raisor’s image was floating in the air behind them. Dalton didn’t hesitate, pressing the Down button. The doors slid shut.

Raisor appeared inside. “Can’t get rid of me that easily. You both should know that.” He considered Hammond. “You cut me off.”

“I ordered her to,” Dalton cut in. “You disregarded the mission.” He was watching the numbers click as the elevator descended.

“No, I was doing my mission. You have no idea what’s going on here, do you?”

“I don’t think you do either,” Dalton answered. The elevator came to a halt. The doors opened. The cavern that had housed Sybyl III was in front of them. The generators still hummed, providing power to Sybyl IV. “You know who betrayed your sister, don’t you?”

“McFairn,” Raisor said.

Dalton laughed at the image floating in front of him, while his eyes darted about, searching. “Who’s McFairn?”

“Deputy Director of the NSA.”

The generators were diesel. There had to be an air duct bringing in fresh air for them and removing the exhaust. “McFairn is just a puppet. Your sister discovered something about HAARP. About the Priory. That’s your real enemy. And my enemy too. Do you trust these people you are with? Do you know who they are? Who they work for?” Dalton asked as he walked toward the generators, Hammond close by his side.

“I don’t have to trust them. They’re giving me back my body. I know for sure I don’t trust you,” he added.

“Fine. I recommend you go back then and make sure everything’s all right, because I left charges on all the tubes.” He checked his watch. “Set to go off in two minutes. That will guarantee you never get back to your body, because it will be in a thousand pieces.”

Raisor’s image disappeared.

“Come on,” Dalton was ripping off a panel on a large tube that ran behind the rows of generators, connected to each by several rubber hoses. He was greeted with the stench of diesel exhaust. The tube was three feet in diameter. A tight fit.

“Cut off the generators,” he told Hammond.

She threw the master switch and a sudden silence filled the cavern. Then there was a hum as the rows of backup batteries kicked in power. Dalton stuck his head in. Utter darkness. “Let’s go.”

Raisor appeared in the room holding his sister’s team and his own tube. Valika and her mercenaries were searching the operations center. He heard another burst of automatic weapons firing as he searched for the charges. Nothing.

The Russian poked her head through the door and saw him. “What do we need to take with us?”

Dalton had lied about the charges, he knew that now. Raisor would have laughed if he were capable of it. He had what he had come for. He pointed. “My sister’s tube. And mine. And the master computer. I’ll show you. And there are two people trying to escape in the generator room. You might want to go down there and stop them.”

Valika ran toward the freight elevator, calling for several of the mercenaries to come with her. She ordered others to work with Raisor, who was now behind the command console.

“The power’s been cut off,” Raisor said. “We’re running on backup batteries. You need to restart the generators.”

Valika acknowledged that as the elevator doors shut.

She rode down to the lowest level. As soon as the door began opening, she jumped through, weapon at the ready. “Search,” she ordered as she slowly made her way to the generators, weapon sweeping back and forth. She saw that the master switch was off. She flipped it back up and the room filled with the roar of the diesel engines.

“Here!” one of the merks yelled from behind the generators.

Valika ran around to where he was pointing. She coughed at the foul fumes that were pouring out of the removed panel. She knew exactly where the two Raisor had mentioned had gone. “Put the panel back on.”

Dalton heard the sound of the generators starting. “Go!” he shoved Hammond not too gently on her derriere. He had no idea how far it was to the outlet. They were scrambling as quickly as they could, but it was difficult in the narrow tube.