“Yes,” Dalton said. “We act as if this is the real thing. Dr. Hammond?”
“Yes?”
“Show us the computer mock-up of what’s been set up for us at Fort Hood.”
A line of old railcars appeared, towed into place on a dusty, scrub-covered range. Several armored vehicles, relics towed off other ranges, were lined around it. Scores of silhouettes, some red, some blue, were spaced all around. The terrain around was the hill country of mid-Texas that Dalton remembered from a tour of duty at Fort Hood.
“The blue are friendly. The red are the enemy,” Hammond said.
“All right. Here’s what we’re going to do.” Dalton led his men through his plan for the assault on the attackers.
Feteror was out of time. The link back to SD8-FFEU was weakening, General Rurik’s way of drawing him back. The longest Rurik had ever allowed him to be out on a mission had been six hours in real time. It was another way the general tried to keep a leash on his demon and one that had worked very effectively over the years.
Feteror headed back to SD8-FFEU, sliding down the tunnel, feeling the virtual window shut behind him. He settled in and immediately accessed his inner eyes and ears, somewhat surprised to find them on. There was no sign of General Rurik in the center, which didn’t surprise Feteror. He assumed Rurik had had him called back as soon as he got called about his wife and children, and that the general was still trying to find out what had happened.
Feteror paused as he moved through his electronic home. Something was wrong. Like a tracker noting a blade of grass disturbed here, a broken stick there, Feteror did a detailed search of his domain.
His scream of anger echoed along the wires of Zivon as he found that the intruder had tried to get into his memory files.
“Tell me about the phased-displacement generator,” Barsk ordered.
The old man was blinking, not used to the light even though the interior of the hangar was dim. Barsk looked past the man toward the runway, where the blades on all six helicopters were turning. The first one, with Leksi on board, lifted and headed south. The others followed.
The old man gulped down the water one of Barsk’s bodyguards handed him, finishing the canteen in one long swallow. Barsk waited.
The old man put the empty canteen down and squinted in Barsk’s direction. Getting out of the hole seemed to have bolstered the man’s confidence somewhat. Or, Barsk thought, he had simply given up. He had seen both reactions over the years among those who knew the end was near.
“Who are you?”
“I ask the questions, old man,” Barsk reminded him. “What is this phased-displacement generator? How does it work?”
Vasilev worked his tongue around his mouth, feeling how swollen it was. “It is a weapon.”
“What kind of weapon?”
“It can take a physical object and move it into the virtual plane and then bring it out of the virtual plane.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Vasilev, despite his condition, drew himself up. “I would have to teach you four years of graduate physics for you to grasp the basics, and then I would have to be honest and tell you I do not know exactly how it works.”
“How do you know it works at all, then?”
“We tested it a long time ago.”
“At October Revolution Island?”
Vasilev nodded, his eyes distant.
Barsk remembered the bodies in the cavern. “What happened?”
“We succeeded and we failed,” Vasilev said.
“I don’t have time for word games,” Barsk warned.
“We sank an American submarine in the Atlantic Ocean with a nuclear warhead.”
Barsk looked at his bodyguards and signaled for them to back up, out of earshot. “If this generator is so effective, why was it abandoned?”
“Because— ” Vasilev paused, then continued, “Because, as I said, we also failed. Part of the system, shall we say, malfunctioned, and all those involved were killed.”
“The bodies in the coffins. They were mutilated. Were they the cause of the malfunction?”
Vasilev raised an eyebrow. “Yes.”
Barsk sat back, considering the old man. “Can you make it work now?”
“Not without— ” He paused. A sense of dread overcame him. Had they done it again?
“Without what?”
“The remote viewers to fix the target.”
Barsk assumed Oma had thought of that. “If you have that part, can you do it?”
“With the proper computers, enough power, the generator, the proper program, I suppose— ”
“You had better do better than suppose,” Barsk warned.
“You are working with the demon?” Vasilev asked.
Barsk leaned forward. “What do you know of this demon?”
“He visited me there.” Vasilev pointed at the pit.
“Who exactly is the demon?”
“It is more a question of what is this demon,” Vasilev said. “I suspect he is a creature that exists on the psychic plane.”
“Explain as much as you know to me,” Barsk ordered.
Vasilev gave a weak laugh. “That won’t take long.”
“Go!” Dalton ordered.
The three RVers unfurled their wings and took off. Dalton watched them until they suddenly disappeared from view.
“Hammond?” Dalton checked.
“Here.”
“You can have Sybyl relay information from Lieutenant Jackson and the others?”
“Yes.”
Dalton shook his head. This was all happening too fast. He had little idea what their capabilities and limitations were. But he knew that Raisor and Hammond had little idea also. He had to consider so many factors that he knew he was missing some important aspects. He also knew from his combat experience that it was the details that were overlooked that got people killed. And whatever could screw up was going to. Murphy’s law had been a maxim of military operations since the first man had clubbed a guy over the head in the next cave.
Dalton broke his seven-man team into two three-man fireteams. He put Captain Anderson in charge of one. Each fireteam had one fast firer, one “shotgunner,” and one heavy firer.
The plan was as simple as Dalton could make it. He had to guess what the Mafia’s plan would be, but he figured they had to have military men working for them and thus he felt reasonably sure about what would happen. The Mafia force would set up what was called an ORP, objective rally point, near the attack site, but out of direct line of sight. They would launch their attack from there. Dalton’s plan was to use Captain Anderson’s fireteam to attack the ORP while his team assaulted the attacking force. That would force the Mafia to fight on three fronts: the Russian troops guarding the train in front of them, Anderson’s team from behind, and Dalton’s team right among them.
“We’re closing on Fort Hood. ” Jackson’s voice was inside his head, as loud and clear as Hammond’s, startling him out of his military speculating.
Entering the real plane, ” Jackson said.
Dalton waited.
“Okay, we’re here.” There was a difference to Jackson’s voice. As if she were in a large, empty space, her voice echoing strangely. “It’s like the mock-up but there’s also some more armor in the ORP area. About fifty ‘men’ in the ORP. Another force of about a hundred stretched out between the ORP and the train. Hold on, I’ll show it to you.”
Dalton blinked as an image flickered across his vision, momentarily blocking out the featureless area of virtual space around him. He focused and he could see the range target area as Jackson saw it, circling overhead.