“What about Raisor?” Barnes asked. “And the other team?”
Dalton shook his head. “We’ll be lucky to get all these in the sling loads. Hammond says they’ll last like this on generator power for about two hours, then we’ve got to hook everything back up.”
“Where are we taking them?” Barnes asked.
“We’ll see it when we get there,” Dalton said.
“Enough yacking,” Jackson said. She had her padded shoulder against the first tube in line. “Let’s get these to the landing pad.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Dalton snapped a half salute and joined her.
Valika had secured the Barrett to the floor of the helicopter. She doubted whether she would need the long gun, but she had always thought it best to be prepared. She checked the function of the MP-5 submachine gun Gregory had brought for her.
She leaned close to Gregory, who was seated next to her. “How long?”
“Thirty minutes.”
She looked at the Aura generator, debating whether to turn it on yet. She decided to wait until they were just about to land. She opened one of the metal cases. A dozen canisters were secured in the foam padding. She pulled one out and handed it to Gregory.
“What’s this?” he yelled.
“A special type of grenade. Russian. We called it a beer can. When it detonates, it sends out an intense electromagnetic pulse. It is designed to be used inside headquarters and communications centers to destroy electronic equipment while not injuring personnel.”
Gregory frowned. “Why do we need it?”
Now that they were in the air, Valika was pretty certain that Gregory and his men would follow through on the mission. It was time to tell him the nature of the objective and how she envisioned the grenade being used against Psychic Warriors if they appeared.
Two avatars materialized on the roof of Cesar’s villa, the lead element of Kirtley’s team. Kirtley himself was two miles away with the rest of the team, still on the virtual plane at the objective rally point.
“No guards that we can see,” one of the men reported. “The roof is clear.”
“Jump,” Kirtley ordered the rest of his team. He, however, remained where he was. “Hook me into the command net of the Special Ops team,” he directed Hammond through Sybyl.
The Special Operations task force from the Roosevelt was less than ten minutes out from the villa, flying low-level just above the treetops. The soldiers on board the Blackhawks prepared their weapons, putting rounds in the chamber. Forty men, the elite of the American military, they were as prepared as they could be.
The team leader listened as a radio call came in from the satellite receiver. “Hammer Six, this is Eyes Six. Over.”
The team leader keyed his radio. “This is Hammer Six. Go ahead. Over.”
Kirtley’s voice came back. “Hold at final line for my command. Over.”
“Roger.”
“Also, be prepared to go to the location I give you. Over.”
The team leader frowned. “We have the location of the villa. Over.”
“The villa is not your priority objective. The priority objective will be where I tell you to go. Out.”
The team leader turned to his executive officer, eyebrows raised in question. The XO could only shrug his ignorance of this change.
Sergeant Lambier started as two forms materialized in front of him. “What the hell?”
“We’re friendly,” one of the forms spoke, the voice echoing. As Lambier watched, the smooth white surface of the forms transformed into clothes, skin, hair. A man in a black jumpsuit with no identifying badges or insignia.
“Who are you?” Lambier demanded.
“NSA,” the first form answered. “Helicopters are less than ten minutes from here. Where are the guards?”
Lambier shook his head as the other members of his team gathered round. “I don’t know. We haven’t heard anything in a while.” He reached out to touch the form. “Unbelievable. What are you?”
On a hillside a half mile away, Farruco could see the strange forms appear on the roof of the building. Just as Cesar had told him would happen. He flipped open his SATPhone. “They’re here.”
Cesar put his hand on Souris ’s shoulder. “Now!”
She pressed the Enter key.
From the antenna on top of Saba ’s volcano, a tight-wave beam darted up into the sky toward Aura IV. It hit the retransmit panels, triggering a surge of power from the main battery, and was redirected down to Earth.
Kirtley’s avatar staggered, the screams of his team members’ dying psyches hitting him like a wave of pain.
The last thing Sergeant Lambier saw was the two forms getting wiped away, like pencil images under a powerful and extremely fast eraser. Then his brain exploded in agony, blood poured from his eyes, mouth, ears, and nose, and he collapsed to the floor dead.
“They just disappeared,” Farruco reported.
Cesar slapped Souris on the back. “It worked!” “Of course it worked,” Souris said.
“Go in and see what happened to the prisoners,” Cesar ordered Farruco.
“Did you track it?” Kirtley demanded. “Did you track the transmitter? Is it close by?”
Boreas was staring at the data HAARP had picked up. It made no sense.
“Where is it?” Kirtley’s voice had risen to a panicked pitch. “They wiped out my team, goddamn it! I’ve got the choppers on hold at the final line. Give me a location.”
“You knew that was going to happen,” Boreas said calmly, still trying to figure out what the information he was looking at meant, as it wasn’t like the previous Aura transmissions they’d intercepted. “Stand by.”
In the air next to Mount of the Holy Cross, Roby was watching his radar screens, and he didn’t like what they were telling him. Four helicopters were coming in from the north. He tried contacting them on the guard frequency, but there was no reply. “This ain’t good,” he muttered.
“I’ve lost them!” Hammond said as she came running into the loading bay.
“What?” Dalton spun around, his attention diverted from the sky outside. He could hear the inbound Blackhawks but he hadn’t seen them yet.
“The team. They’re gone. Except for Kirtley. The rest of them flat-lined. All at once. No mental activity at all.”
“Damn it,” Dalton muttered.
With a blast of cold air, the first Blackhawk came to a hover, the side door opening. The crew chief shoved out the cargo netting and Jackson and Barnes began spreading it out on the grate.
He ran over to Jackson, grabbing her shoulder to get her attention. “Get this first load out, then get on board the second chopper.”
“Where are you going?”
“ Hammond ’s lost the team. Something happened to them.”
“There’s nothing you can do,” Jackson said.
“Kirtley isn’t gone-he must be in a different place. I’m going to have Hammond extract him and find out what the hell is going on. The pilots know where to take you if it comes to that.”
He could see that Jackson was going to protest further, but they were both interrupted by the crew chief throwing an expended aluminum flare tube at them. It clattered on the grate and Dalton picked it up. He pulled the top off and took out the note crammed inside.
Four helicopters inbound. Not responding to hails. You have six minutes.
He shoved the note into Jackson ’s hand. “Get them loaded and get out of here.”
“What about you?”
“We’ll get out,” Dalton said. He reached over and pulled the emergency radio off her flight vest. “Come back for us.” Then he turned and ran to Hammond, leading her back into the complex.
“It came from a satellite,” McFairn’s voice echoed out of the speaker.
Boreas slapped his palm on the desktop. That fit the data but was unexpected.