Project Aura

by Bob Mayer

  "What do the Droza have to do with the virtual plane?" Dalton asked, disturbed by this talk of creatures from the mountaintops and underground cities. He had traveled all over the world in his military career and seen many strange things, the Psychic Warrior program being foremost among them, but this was stretching the boundaries of reality. He immediately corrected that thought; he had no idea what reality was any more.

  Jackson searched her memory for the words her mother had told her. "The Droza were mostly like us, but different in some key ways. They had a strange power. Vril it was called. The power to see things not visible to the physical eye; to see places a long distance away. To know things that they should not have known. To see the thoughts of others. To see parts of the future. And they taught my people some of this. As much as my people could learn and do.

  "Even with the help of the Droza, though, it was still a very harsh life in the mountains and food was scarce. The men wanted to launch raids to the south, but many feared this would bring enemies into the mountains to hunt us.

  "While all this was happening, the women, who had for centuries stayed at home while the men went off to war, had been focusing their energies inward with the help of the Droza, into their own minds and souls, and they began to develop an ability that we now call being a psychic, working on the vril.

  "The women saw a path out through the mind. Most of the men would have none of it. They were warriors and believed in the physical power of the body, of the sword. Except they swore they would never fight for anyone else ever again, but would make others fight for them.

  "This time the Roma fragmented and the parting was bitter. Most of the men, with some women, left to go to the west and gain power in the real world. Most of the women, with a few men among them, went even further into the Himalayas to dwell there, to perfect the path of the mind.

  "A small segment eschewing either path, scattered, determined never again to place down roots in land, but to preserve their sense of self in the group, not in the country they happened to be living in. This last group, the ones my mother drew her lineage from, are what you call the Gypsies."

  "And the other two groups?" Dalton asked. "What happened to them?"

  "That, Sergeant Major, is a very good question. I think it might be possible that the one group that stayed in the high mountains of the Himalayas might still exist, might still be living in Shambhala, or Shangri-la, and it might be their spirits that we sense on the virtual plane at times. Or-" Jackson paused.

  "Go on," Dalton prompted.

  "Or maybe we are sensing the original Droza. If they ever did exist, then they still might. Maybe they intermingled with the Roma. And the vril they have is the power to be on the virtual plane."

  Dalton checked the faces of the others who had listened to Jackson's story. Barnes was shaking his head, seemingly having none of it. Hammond looked thoughtful, which surprised him.

  "If there are others on the virtual plane," Jackson said, "they seem to mean us no harm."

  "As far as we know," Dalton said. "And let's remember that what we know is far outweighed by what we don't know. Here's the deal. We've been lied to, and we're being used. I tend to look at those things in a negative light. Regardless of what's out there in the virtual plane, we have a real problem here in the real world, right here in Bright Gate. Add in the fact that someone has planted a bug in Sybyl and has been monitoring the computer and I would say we have to be very careful. I think we need to make a plan to cover our butts in case something goes wrong."

  "What kind of plan?" Hammond asked.

  "One of the first things we do in Special Forces when we plan a mission is make up an E & E plan," Dalton said.

  "’E&E'?" Jackson asked.

  "Escape and evasion," Dalton said "There's an official one that we turn in to the commander taking our mission briefing just before we go, but we also make up a team- member-only plan that we have just in case we get abandoned."

  "A little paranoid, don't you think?" Hammond said.

  "I think we need to be getting paranoid," Dalton said. "Don't you? Or are you going to side with Kirtley? Do you trust him? You didn't tell him about Barnes breaking off from the mission or what you learned from checking Sybyl, so I have a feeling you don't feel very comfortable with Kirtley."

  "I don't think Kirtley feels very safe either." Hammond rubbed her face with her hands, as if trying to clear her mind. "He told me he has a contingency to take me out me if he is cut off on the virtual plane. Why would he be worried about me doing that?"

  "I don't think it's you he's worried about," Dalton said.

  Hammond sighed. "I just wanted to make this work. To do what no one had done before. To make it better."

  "You've done that," Dalton said. "But you're not indispensable. Jenkins wasn't, the first team, the first team we know about," he corrected himself, "wasn't, my team wasn't, and we're not."

  "But..." Hammond was shaking her head. "What can we do? Kirtley runs everything now. He's in charge here."

  Dalton had been thinking about that. "Didn't you tell me there was a backup for Sybyl?"

  "The computer here is technically Sybyl IV," Hammond said. "Fourth generation. Sybyl I and II were prototypes. Sybyl III was the first one that worked projecting avatars into the real plane."

  "Where is it now?" Jackson asked.

  "Off-line and in storage. All of the first couple of generations of equipment are here in storage."

  "Show us," Dalton said.

  Hammond led the three of them to a vault door on the side of the control room. "This is the freight elevator that accesses all levels." She entered a code on the keypad. The door slid open, revealing a fifteen-by-fifteen-foot elevator with a twelve-foot ceiling. They followed her on board.

  "The storeroom is on the lowest level, where the generators are." She punched the button and they descended for fifteen seconds, before coming to a halt. The doors opened, revealing a large open space. The hum of generators producing power echoed through the cavern. A half dozen large tanks supplied fuel to the generators.

  Hammond pointed at a large crate. "There's Sybyl III."

  "When is Kirtley's team doing their first orientation mission in the tubes?" Dalton asked Hammond.

  "This evening. Eighteen hundred hours. Why?"

  "We're going to set up an E & E plan and execute the first preparatory phase then." Dalton turned and got back on the elevator. "I have some calls to make."

  *****

  Publicly the Pentagon was said to have five floors, one of them below ground. In reality, there was a sub-basement below that which connected with access tunnels leading in various directions, including one that ran to the Capitol and White House. The entire system was designed for emergency use only and had been sealed since construction, with only one access point from the building above. The entrance was occasionally used by maintenance personnel. The floor plan for the sub-basement was the exact same as that for the basement consisting of five main corridors with rooms branching off on either side The center, which was a large courtyard on the surface, was covered with strengthened concrete twenty feet thick. Two hundred feet below the sub-basement, was the War Room, which was the nerve center of the United States military. One could not access the War Room from the sub-basement, only through a single large elevator on the main level of the Pentagon, thus further isolating the sub-basement.

  Except for a few selected individuals and maintenance personnel, knowledge of and access to the sub-basement was forbidden. Roger Killean was one of the select few and he'd been ordered by Mentor to go to the secret Nexus Pentagon command post to tap into the War Room traffic and begin preparing contingencies for scrapping the shuttle launch with CS-MILSTAR. With the death of Mrs. Callahan and the disappearance of their agent who’d picked her up at Andrews Air Force Base, Killean was the sole surviving member of Nexus in Washington.

  Killean was a high-level member of the State Department, and the Pentagon was not his assigned provinc
e, but with the deaths of Eichen and Callahan there was no choice. He had the proper clearance to get into the Pentagon so that wasn’t a problem. The elevator entrance to the sub-basement was hidden at the rear of a rarely used custodian closet. Killean entered the closet, locking the door behind him. Then he used a remote to slide back a portion of the wall, revealing an elevator that would only respond to three keys, one of which he had. He took the elevator down. The doors slid open and he removed the key and walked out.

  The corridor before him was bare concrete. The sub-basement was unfinished, a relic from the original plans during the hasty construction during World War II. The contract for the Pentagon had been awarded on August 11, 1941, and construction begun a month later. The building was finished in January 1943, a blistering pace for such a large job.

  The sub-basement had never been designed as office space, but as a buffer between the main building and the wasteland, swamps, and dumps that the land had been before construction began. Over forty thousand concrete piles had been driven to support the Pentagon. The ceiling was low, six and a half feet.

  Killean walked down the dimly liy long corridor. There were seventeen and a half miles of corridor in the upper five floors of the Pentagon and he estimated another three miles or so down here. He didn't think anybody knew the entire layout. He'd been down here with Eichen on several occasions, and knew the way to the Nexus Command Post that had been established during the last year of Eisenhower's administration. After several hundred feet he stopped in front of a steel door. Another key fit in the slot and the door slowly swung inward. As he stepped in, he turned to the left for the light switch.

  He felt the slightest of breezes on the back of his neck and reached up with his left hand, saving his life as the garrote came over his head. It caught on his hand, jamming it against his throat, the wire slicing deep into the skin, but preventing his jugular from being severed.

  Killean pivoted, the garrote cut deeper into his left hand, while he slammed with his right elbow into the chest of the man behind him. The pressure on the wire lessened and Killean dropped to a knee, freeing himself while pulling his left hand back and feeling skin peel away with the metal wire. He dove into the corridor, got to his feet and began sprint back the way he had come.

  A bullet creased his cheek, a burning line of pain. He spun about and dashed in the opposite direction, into the labyrinth of the sub-basement. He could feel wetness on his cheek. The pain from his hand was a steady scream. He could hear running footsteps behind him and he picked up the pace.

  He came to an angle turn to the corridor and paused, peeking around to see if anyone was waiting. For a thousand feet the dimly lit corridor was empty. He turned the corner and began running again, his shoes slapping against the unfinished concrete floor and the sound of his heavy breathing loud in his ears.

  The bullet hit his left thigh a split second before he heard the shot. The impact sent him spinning about before he went down.

  He was surprised there was no pain when he looked down and saw the blood pulsing out of the wound. His hand hurt much worse. But from the squirts of blood coming out, he knew the artery had been hit.

  Two men came down the corridor, one with a rifle. Killean pushed with his good leg, crawling away from them, his good hand scrambling in his jacket and pulling out his SATPhone. He flipped it open. Nothing. The signal couldn't get through the thick concrete above. He kept pushing back until a boot came down on his chest, pinning him to the ground.

  Killean had lost a lot of blood. He felt very weary, the pain from his hand more distant now, his wounded leg just a dead weight below his waist. The phone dropped to the floor.

  A man leaned close to him holding something in his hand. In the dim light Killean could make out jewels and diamonds sparkling. An elongated cross.

  The man picked up his SATPhone. "Is there someone left alive to call here in the States?"

  Killean spit at the cross.

  The man laughed. "That's the most effective thing Nexus has ever done against us." He put the cross away and held the SATPhone in front of Killean. "Who is left?"

  Killean heard the voice as if from far away as his head slumped back on the concrete. He knew they'd taken down Eichen. And the agent who made the contact when they killed Callahan. If the Priory was asking, that meant they didn't know about Mentor.

  The man put his foot on the thigh wound and ground the heel, but Killean felt nothing.

  "Who is left?"

  If Nexus was not much of a threat, why was the Priory so concerned about wiping them out? Killean wondered with his fading consciousness. It meant the Priory was afraid. He felt a slap across his face and he blinked.

  "Who is left?"

  It was Killean's turn to smile.

  And that was how he died.

  *****

  Luis Farruco was thirty-two years old and had survived sixteen years as a member of Cesar's cartel. He'd risen in the ranks not because of intelligence but rather through ruthlessness and, more importantly, the fact that he had lived so long in such a dangerous occupation.

  Since Cesar had begun spending more time at Saba, Farruco had taken over more of the operations in Colombia. Right now, he was pacing back and forth in the master bedroom of Cesar's villa, the naked women on the bed of little interest to him.

  The door to the room swung open and two of his men came in, holding a third between them. The man's face was bloodied; his fingers twisted where each had been snapped one by one.

  They threw the man onto the floor. The two women made no attempt to cover themselves; indeed they edged closer to the scene, predatory eyes watching, sensing Farruco's blood lust.

  Farruco squatted in front of the wounded man. "Alonzo, tell me the truth."

  Alonzo lifted his head. "I have!"

  Farruco reached forward and grabbed Alonzo's jaw. "You were the one responsible for guarding the bodies. No one can get in that freezer unless they go down the corridor that was your post. So why are you lying to me? Why did you leave your post? Tell me."

  "I did nothing! I did nothing! I was there. I swear on my mother. I never left."

  "Take him to the balcony," he ordered his guards.

  He followed as they pushed Alonzo up against the steel railing overlooking the extensive front lawn. The two women were right behind Farruco.

  Farruco held a hand out and one of the guards gave him a sawed-off shotgun. He pushed the large barrel under Alonzo's jaw, jerking his head up. The man's eyes bulged and he tried to speak, but the pressure of the steel under his chin only allowed him a garbled plea.

  Farruco pulled the shotgun back slightly. "Tell me."

  Alonzo was sobbing. "I swear! I was there the entire time. No one passed."

  A line furrowed Farruco's brow. He'd seen enough men beg for their lives, and he realized that Alonzo was telling the truth.

  He pulled the trigger. Alonzo's head exploded, spraying blood, brain, and bone out over the lawn. The headless body collapsed. Farruco indicated for the guards to toss it over the railing; he didn't want the carpet in the bedroom to get soiled.

  Even if Alonzo had been telling the truth, for the other men to see him sobbing and begging meant his effectiveness in the organization was over. Farruco handed the gun back to the guard as his cell phone buzzed. The two women were at his side, running their hands up and down his body.

  "Yes?"

  He stiffened as he recognized Cesar's voice, and roughly pushed the women away. He listened and then acknowledged the order he had been given.

  Flipping the phone shut, he shouted orders to his guards. He went to the large gun case on the wall nearest the balcony and opened it. He surveyed the various weapons inside. He could hear shouts from the lawn as his men brought the Americans out and lined them up.

  He chose an American-made M-16, enjoying the not so subtle irony, and walked out to the balcony. Looking down, he could see the prisoners squinting in the bright sunlight, most of them mesmerized by Alonzo's bod
y in front of them, then noticing his presence above.

  "Who is in charge?" Farruco yelled.

  For several seconds nothing, then one of the men stepped forward. "I am."

  "Your name?"

  The man said nothing. Farruco shrugged. "It does not matter. Pick one of your men."

  "For what?"

  "To die."

  The man blinked. "What?"

  "I am going to kill one of you. You have thirty seconds to pick who it is."

  Chapter Thirteen

  Valika watched the few lights on Saba disappear from sight as the plane gained altitude. She was armed with only a laptop computer, a fact that made her quite uncomfortable, especially since she had met the man she was heading toward once before and it had not turned out well. Of course, in that meeting she had been representing herself, not Cesar and the Ring.

  Cesar was confident that his backing would garner her a peaceful reception. Valika wasn't as confident. She gripped the armrest as the plane banked hard, heading for Martinique, a neutral place. The flight would be short, the only good thing about this mission.

  *****

  A thousand miles to the west, Aura II was circling a spot in the ocean two miles off the coast of Grand Cayman, all lights blacked out. An Aura transmitter was bolted to the deck of the ship, cables looping from it to a computer in the ship's bridge. None of the crew were allowed near the computer. It was linked by SATCOM directly back to Saba. Instead of bunks, the main cabin was full of lithium batteries to supply power to Aura.

  At the appointed time, the captain of Aura II turned his bow toward the main harbor of Boddentown. He slid into the small bay and edged as close as possible to the town without running the yacht aground.

  *****