Chapter Five
“What exactly do you want from my men?” Colonel Metter asked.
“We want your people to continue the Psychic Warrior project,” Raisor replied. “We need trained personnel from Trojan Warrior. People who once they go into the virtual world and then come out are capable of conducting military operations. As you know from your superiors, Colonel Metter, the Pentagon is very interested in this program and desires you give me your complete support.”
“I understand that, but you’ve just informed me that the last person to do this died,” Colonel Metter said.
“That problem has been corrected,” Dr. Hammond interjected. “It was a freak accident.”
“Doesn’t this RV stuff you’re talking about take a special person and specific training?”
“Yes,” Hammond said. “But as we discussed, the men on this list are ready due to their Trojan Warrior training. Also, we’ve simplified the procedure to a large extent and we have a very sophisticated computer that provides the vast majority of the support needed.”
“You also said at the beginning that there was an urgency to all this,” Metter said. “The Chief of Staff also told me the same thing when he called this morning. Perhaps you could tell us what is causing this urgency to implement Psychic Warrior?”
Raisor answered that. “We have a live mission that needs to be conducted in eight days. That is why we need your people right away.”
“What is the live mission?” Metter asked.
“I can’t tell you that,” Raisor said. “Only those actually participating have a need to know.”
“Eight days is not much time,” Metter said. “Can you train men to do this Psychic Warrior stuff in eight days?”
Raisor said, “We’re here because your men have years of training as Special Operations soldiers and they’ve been prepped to do this through their Trojan Warrior training. Dr. Hammond’s people will get them ‘over the fence’ into the virtual world. That is the big breakthrough and the part of the program that came from the medical side. We can tap directly into the brain and give it the extra help it needs to go over.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Metter said.
Raisor pulled a sheet of paper out of his briefcase. He slid it across the table to Colonel Metter. “That is my authorization to task you to support this mission. I’d love to stay here and answer questions, but time is of the essence. We have to get back, with the team, to our headquarters and begin training.” Raisor looked at his watch. “We have two helicopters due in at the airfield in an hour. We don’t have much time if your team”— he pointed at Captain Anderson— “is going to get their gear together.”
Metter didn’t touch the copy of the orders. “These are my men. My responsibility. I will do as I am ordered, but let me tell you both something.” A muscle in Metter’s jaw quivered. “You screw with my men and I will not simply stand by.”
“That’s very noble, Colonel,” Raisor said, his tone overly polite. “I assure you, we all want Psychic Warrior to succeed.”
For the first time, Dalton picked up a sense of sincerity in the agent’s tone, which he found as disturbing as the previous lack of emotion. Raisor cared about this mission, Dalton realized.
“Can you tell me what the real-world urgency is?” Metter asked.
“I am afraid not.”
Colonel Metter stood. “All right. Captain Anderson, Master Sergeant Trilly, get the men Sergeant Major Dalton selects and all their equipment together and move to the airfield.”
Anderson and Trilly saluted and walked out of the conference room to wait for Dalton in his office. Raisor began breaking down his slide projector with Hammond’s help.
Dalton walked out of the room with Metter. “Sir, I request permission to participate in this training and the mission to follow.”
Metter paused in the door separating his office from the sergeant major’s. “What about your wife?”
“Sir, it doesn’t look like her situation is going to change any time soon. She’s in the hospital and doesn’t need me at home like she used to, to take care of her,” Dalton said. “I’ve been here two years without going on a deployment, and I appreciate you allowing me that and your concern. But I think it’s time I earned my pay.”
“I don’t know,” Metter said. “I’d hate— ”
“Sir,” Dalton cut in, “I would rather be doing something than sitting here with too much time on my hands. Plus, if I don’t go, that knocks them down to only six men. I think they’re going to need every body they can get.”
Metter folded his arms. “You know something’s jumping for them to be tasking a team like this.”
Dalton nodded. “I don’t think they planned on bringing us in on Psychic Warrior for a while. Or even at all, given they dropped the ball on it the last couple of years. Something real serious has caused their timetable to get moved up.”
Metter still had his arms folded, his eyes staring hard at the sergeant major. “I want you to come back from this.”
“I plan on it, sir.”
“Do you?” Metter didn’t wait for an answer. “All right. But you might be stepping on Trilly’s toes. That should be his team.”
“Trilly’s weak, sir, and this is a composite team. I think rank will have to prevail. I’ll work it out with Captain Anderson.”
Metter smiled. “Good. I don’t have a warm fuzzy feeling about Raisor or Hammond, and I certainly don’t think either of them are going to be updating me on what’s happening with the team.”
Dalton knew there were many commanders who would just wave good-bye to the team and then drop the whole thing from their plate, focusing on things that were of more immediate concern.
Metter nodded. “All right. Go with them. Make sure they don’t get screwed. I’ll check on your wife.”
“Yes, sir.”
“A weapon!” Barsk threw the papers and CD-ROM disk down on the desk. “That is what you wanted. Not this. Seogky double-crossed us! This is nothing but old papers from the archives.”
The person across the desk reached out and picked up the papers and CD-ROM. The hand was old and wrinkled, the skin mottled with liver spots. A lace cuff covered the wrist, part of a rather old-fashioned dress the owner of the hand wore. She was a woman in her mid-seventies, almost the archetype of the stolid woman of the Soviet days, with a blocky body and gray hair pinned in a bun. She did not seem to fit the room she was in, a modern office with teak furniture and walls lined with bookcases. The large, bulletproof window behind her showed a view from the top floor of the tallest office building in Moscow. Steel shutters were adjusted inside the window, deflecting the evening light.
There had always been crime in Russia. Under the Communists, the top criminals had been in bed with the government, their actions controlled. A good case might be made that during the rule of Stalin, the worst criminal in the country’s history had been in charge of the government. But with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, it had been the government that had fallen out of the bed, leaving the Mafia holding the reins in a country whose populace was totally unprepared for a free market economy. The unbridled Russian Mafia stepped forward with a vengeance.
In the decade following the fall, the Mafia grew to the point where it rivaled the government for control of the country. The woman behind the desk had been at the very forefront of the growth. In fact, she knew that the Mafia was stronger than the government in many ways, especially with regard to the economy. The previous year, the country had imported a total of sixty billion dollars in Western goods; over half of that had been imported illegally by the Mafia. In Moscow, the murder rate was standing at approximately one hundred Mafia-related killings a day. No one was being arrested for these crimes.