Cesar reached into a drawer of the desk and pulled out a cigar. He cut the tip off and lit it as he considered what he had just been told. Valika came back and simply nodded once.
“What do you want out of this?” Cesar finally asked.
“I want my body back,” Raisor said. “They cut me off, separating my connection with Bright Gate.”
“Who is ‘they’?” Cesar asked.
“My government.”
“Why did they do that?” Cesar asked.
“I was betrayed.”
“Why?” Cesar pressed.
“I wanted to have revenge on the person who betrayed my sister.”
Cesar could understand family loyalty coming before all else. “Why was your sister betrayed?”
“She was investigating HAARP. Someone didn’t want her to do that.”
“What are your capabilities right now?”
“I can travel anywhere in the world on the virtual plane.”
“You don’t need Aura to support you?”
“No. I only need Aura’s power to appear like this-to come into the real plane as an image. And if I was to accomplish something other than watch, I would need its power.”
Cesar pointed the tip of the cigar at his scientist. “ Souris says that with Aura’s power she could enter a computer system. See it from the inside. Can you do that?”
Raisor nodded. “Yes.”
“Could you manipulate the computer, change the programs, the data?”
“With Bright Gate I could. I imagine I could with Aura’s power.”
“Good.” Cesar stood. “Then I have a job for you. To test your loyalty. Then I will help you in turn.”
Dalton wiped embryonic fluid off his face and tossed the towel into a basket. Jackson and Barnes were doing the same, both of them shivering, the aftereffect of the isolation tube freezing still clinging to their bones.
“Report.” Kirtley was standing in front of the control console, arms folded on his chest.
“We found seven of the men still alive,” Dalton said. “At the villa. In the basement.”
“I want you to come up with a floor plan diagram,” Kirtley said. “And a complete report for forwarding.”
“Forwarding to who?” Dalton demanded.
“Task Force Six is going to help us mount a rescue mission.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Dalton said.
“It doesn’t matter what you think,” Kirtley said. “Just do it.”
“There’s something going on,” Dalton said. “We sensed a presence at the villa. On the virtual plane.”
“What kind of presence?”
“I don’t know,” Dalton said.
“The Russian SD-8 program is shut down,” Kirtley said.
“It wasn’t like Chyort,” Dalton said. “Something, or someone, different.”
“Write up your report.” Kirtley turned and walked away.
Dr. Hammond was behind the console. As soon as Kirtley was gone, she came around and stepped in front of Barnes. “What are you doing?”
“What?”
“Where did you go? I tracked you splitting off from the others.”
Dalton stepped between them. “Does Kirtley know?”
She shook her head. “No. What are you up to?”
“We’re looking for our teammates,” Dalton said.
Hammond ’s eyes shifted to the door where Kirtley had gone and then back. “And did you find anything?”
They all turned to Barnes. “No-” He paused. “But just before I jumped to come back, I also picked up a virtual presence, something-I don’t know what it was. Something happened-” He shook his head, confused.
“There’s more going on than we’re being told,” Dalton said.
“Or than anybody knows,” Jackson added.
“Kirtley asked me what happened to my predecessor,” Hammond said. “Why would he do that? Dr. Jenkins died in an accident.”
“No, he didn’t.” Dalton had everyone’s attention. “Raisor told me he killed Jenkins because he cut off the power to Raisor’s sister’s team. Do you know why Jenkins did that?” he asked Hammond.
“I never met the man. When I got here to replace him, I was told the cutoff occurred because there was a programming glitch in Sybyl that had been corrected. That it was just a tragic mistake.”
“I doubt that.” Dalton pulled on his fatigue shirt over the black suit. “I don’t like this. I don’t like it at all.”
“There’s something else-” Hammond began.
“What?” Dalton demanded.
“I think there was another Psychic Warrior team. One before the CIA team with Raisor’s sister.”
That announcement was greeted with a long silence.
“Why do you think that?” Dalton finally asked.
“I’m finding information in Sybyl’s data files that doesn’t fit the other two teams. Someone obviously tried to clear all records before a certain date, but some of those records are tied to programs that couldn’t be deleted without crashing the entire system.”
Dalton asked the question that was uppermost in his mind. “What happened to this team?”
“I haven’t been able to find that out.”
“Your predecessor, Dr. Jenkins, never mentioned a first team?” Dalton asked.
“That’s another thing,” Hammond said. “I don’t think Dr. Jenkins was the original scientist in charge of Bright Gate. I’m finding information from someone before him-this Professor Souris that you asked me about,” she said to Dalton.
Dalton turned to Jackson. “You mentioned something while we were out there. The Dropa or something like that?”
“The Droza,” Jackson corrected. “It’s a story my mother told me.”
“And?” Dalton prompted.
“I don’t want you laughing at me if I tell it.”
“There hasn’t been much to laugh at since we’ve been here,” Dalton noted.
“I’ve been thinking about it a long time,” Jackson said. “Ever since I was assigned to Grill Flame years ago.” She looked at Dalton and Barnes. “Even when I was just remote viewing, I could occasionally sense other presences on the virtual plane. I know now one of those was Chyort, but there were others. Ones I couldn’t identify. Then when I came here and was part of Psychic Warrior, I could still sense those presences but I could never see them. Like they were hiding from me.”
“Or they were in a place on the virtual plane that you couldn’t see,” Hammond said. “We don’t know exactly the dimensions or physics of the virtual world.”
Dalton couldn’t help but wish that Hammond had been more forthright about what she didn’t know when he had first arrived at Bright Gate with his team. Things might have turned out differently and some people might still be alive. He pulled a chair out and slid it over to Jackson. She sat down as Barnes and Dalton grabbed other seats and gathered round her. Hammond remained at her place behind the console. Kirtley and his team were in the prep room, running final checks on their fittings.
“There’s a legend among my people, among the Roma, the Gypsies, as they’re more commonly called,” she said. She briefly told Barnes and Hammond the same thing she had told Dalton, about her background and her mother, before continuing her story.
“I tried to get as far as possible from the Roma, but I think I went in a circle.” She waved her hand about the room. “My mother would have loved this-Psychic Warriors, remote viewing. Even Chyort. She would have found him fascinating. The devil that she insisted existed.” Jackson ’s eyes darkened as her mind went inward, into her memories. “She wasn’t so big on talking about heaven or angels, though-just the dark, scary stuff.”
Barnes opened his mouth as if to say something, but the confused look crossed his face once more and he snapped his mouth shut.
Jackson continued. “She told me many stories when I was a child. They were the tales her mother had told her when she was a child. And her mother’s mother on down the line through the ages. The Roma are not fond of writing things down. Everything passes by word of mouth. It is an integral part of our culture and one we do not share with the gadje.