That drew the attention of Mentor, as well as Dalton, Jackson, and Barnes. She put the CD into one of the computers in the ops center.

“What about it?” Dalton asked.

“There were ten people on it,” Hammond said, looking at the monitor. “They spent time remote viewing first, then gradually ran tests with their avatars. All this happened close to Bright Gate. Then they conducted a mission. Professor Souris was the one running the operation back at Bright Gate.”

Dalton glanced across at Jackson, then back to Hammond. “What kind of mission?”

“That it doesn’t say. I only have what Sybyl tracked. The team went over to the virtual plane and then made several jumps. And then nothing. Everyone flat-lined.”

“Where did they jump to?” Jackson asked.

“It doesn’t say exactly yet. They were all together. Somewhere…” Hammond scrolled down. “Somewhere in Asia. China maybe. Or India. Wait a second. Okay. I’ve got their planned jump points. The last one they checked in at was Mount Everest. Right on top.”

“ Mount Everest?” Dalton considered that. “And then?”

“Then they made one more jump close by and they all disappeared.”

“What happened to the bodies?” Jackson asked.

“ Souris had them removed from the isolation tubes. As soon as she took them off of Sybyl’s support, they all died. All signs of the team members were removed. She attempted to remove all material from Sybyl about the team. Did a pretty good job of it actually. It’s taken me all this time just to learn this. And then she left the project and they brought Jenkins in, telling him the new team he was given was the first team.”

“So what was that team looking for?” Barnes asked. “Any ideas?”

“ Mount Everest.” Jackson was thoughtful. “That’s where the Droza were.”

“And maybe still are,” Dalton said. He faced Mentor. “Tell them.”

Mentor hesitated.

“We are now Nexus,” Dalton told him.

“ ‘Nexus’?” Jackson repeated.

“If you don’t tell them, I will,” Dalton said. “I’m not lying anymore.”

“You’re under orders,” Mentor said. “You don’t-”

“A piece of paper shown to me in the dark by a man who’s dead now,” Dalton cut him off. “I know for sure I swore an oath to defend this country, and right now I’m seeing a threat and I think my fellow soldiers here need to know what’s going on in order to fight that threat.”

“All right,” Mentor snapped, his first display of emotion since Dalton had met him.

As he briefed Jackson, Barnes, and Hammond on what he had already told Dalton, the sergeant major tried to put the pieces together. When Mentor was done, Jackson was the first to speak.

“It all fits. The Priory and the Mithrans have been fighting for ages, but since each is on a different plane, it hasn’t amounted to much.”

“And now we’ve managed,” Dalton said, “to break the barrier between the virtual and real with our technology. No wonder they’re fighting over HAARP and Bright Gate and Aura.”

Hammond was shaking her head. “My God. Do you realize what you just said? Our technology. It isn’t our technology. It’s technology we’re making for them. For the Priory. They were behind Souris from the very beginning, weren’t they?”

Mentor shrugged. “We don’t know. We were late catching on to the significance of the work she was doing, and Bright Gate and HAARP were already established before she defected.”

“ ‘Defected’?” Dalton snorted. “Don’t you think the Mithrans recruited her? So they could have access to the same technology the Priory was using? The Priory invented Bright Gate and sent that first Psychic Warrior team to try to attack the Mithrans. They must still be located somewhere in the Himalayas. In Shangri-la, or Shambhala, whatever you want to call it,” he added, glancing at Jackson.

“And the Priory lost,” he continued. “The first Psychic Warrior team was wiped out. So the Priory cut its losses and its interest in Bright Gate, realizing Psychic Warriors couldn’t defeat the Mithrans on their own plane, much like we couldn’t stop Chyort on the psychic plane. So they shifted their emphasis to HAARP.”

“But what good is HAARP?” Barnes asked.

Hammond answered. “If HAARP can uplink through MILSTAR and then transmit down worldwide, they can destroy everything-and everyone-on the psychic plane. And, most likely, everyone in the real plane who isn’t shielded.”

Barnes held up his hand, like a schoolchild. “I’ve got a question.”

They all turned to him.

“Who’s our enemy? The Priory? The Mithrans?”

That brought a moment of silence as they all considered the question.

“Maybe that’s the wrong question,” Dalton said. “I think we should consider both groups our enemy simply from the fact they ain’t us and both sides seem to have no problem killing people when it suits their goals. It appears that both Aura and HAARP kill people when activated. If either goes worldwide through MILSTAR, the results will be devastating.

“I think right now we need to figure out who the most immediate threat is and focus on that.”

“Let’s deal with the Ring first,” Jackson said. “They killed those Special Forces men and our people at Bright Gate. We can deal with HAARP and the Priory after that.”

“The shuttle-” Mentor began but stopped.

“What about the shuttle?” Dalton asked.

“The Columbia is launching tonight with the last MIL-STAR satellite on board. Once it deploys, MILSTAR will be operational worldwide.”

“And?” Dalton prompted.

“Eichen had a code built into the last satellite so that it couldn’t be used by HAARP.”

“Then HAARP’s not an immediate problem?” Dalton asked.

“As long as they don’t have the code.”

“And where is it?”

Mentor pointed to the wall. “Next door in Space Command. Secure inside the DefCon Four targeting and launch authorization computer. No one can get into that computer from the outside.”

“Then it’s safe for the time being,” Dalton noted. “Unless there’s someone on the inside of Space Command who has been corrupted by the Priory. I think we need to destroy the code to insure that HAARP is never used.”

“Unless,” Jackson said, “you really believe the Mithrans are our enemy also. In which case destroying the code destroys our best weapon against them. If we fine-tune HAARP, we might be able to target just the virtual plane.”

Barnes sat down, exhausted. “Great. We’re back to square one. We don’t have a clue who we’re really fighting.”

“We know where HAARP is located, right?” Dalton asked.

Mentor nodded. “I have the location.”

“And it’s not going anywhere anytime soon, so I would say it’s not a priority target since they can’t access MILSTAR,” Dalton continued. “But we don’t know where the Ring is or where the Aura generator is located. I’d say Dr. Souris and the Ring are our priority right now. What do you have on the Ring?” he asked Mentor.

“They’re led by a man called Cesar. The other main leaders of the drug cartels are members. Cesar’s been very hard to locate. He hasn’t been seen in public in almost ten years, which led us to speculate he is no longer in Colombia, but has relocated.”

“But one of the other drug cartel leaders might well know where that is, right?” Dalton said.

“Right,” Mentor confirmed.

Dalton looked at Hammond. “How long before you can send us over?”

“Everything’s running,” Hammond said. “As soon as you are ready.”

“All right,” Dalton said. “We’re going to Colombia. It’s time for some payback for the Special Forces team and for the people at Bright Gate.” He turned to Mentor. “What do you have on this Ring organization?”

In reply, Mentor sat down at one of the computers. “We can access the Department of Defense secure Internet via that, tapping through Space Command.” He logged on and quickly searched while the others gathered round.

“Not much,” he finally said. He brought up a picture. “That’s Hector Cesar, but as I said, no one knows where he is.” He accessed another page. “That’s Naldo, one of the inner circle. The DEA does have a location on him.”