“What happened to them?”
“We were betrayed,” Raisor said. “I’ve seen your classified file, Dalton. You fought in Vietnam, were captured and held prisoner. You know about being betrayed, don’t you? About being given a mission and then having the plug pulled? Well, that’s what happened here, literally. They were on a mission and my superior had Sybyl shut down while they were still out. I was in DC, playing politics with the Select Committee on Intelligence, trying to keep our funding flowing. And I came back to this.”
“Why?”
“That’s a complicated story which you don’t have the clearance for,” Raisor said.
Dalton had seen it before— personnel abandoned because some bureaucrat or politician thousands of miles away and safe behind their desk made a decision. In Vietnam they’d sent teams of indigenous infiltrators into the north, and when Nixon had halted the bombing campaign, all air traffic over the north was grounded, including the resupply and exfiltration flight for those men. They all died. And life in Washington went on. The Marines in Beirut who’d been placed in an untenable position with unclear guidance. And thus they died. Delta Force in Mogadishu. The SEALs in Panama.
Dalton stopped in front of one of the tubes. A dark-haired woman floated inside, fluid slowly flowing through the tubes. The name on the placard was Kathryn Raisor. Dalton turned toward the CIA man. “Is this your wife?”
“My sister.” Raisor held up his left hand. “This is her ring from the Air Force Academy. She went from the Air Force to the NSA. We were both pegged for this program because we maxed out the psych tests when they were screening for personnel for this program. We were good psychic ability candidates. It must be genetic, don’t you think? Hammond and the other brains think so.” Raisor was standing next to his sister’s tube, looking up at her, his voice low, as if he were in a trance. “Oh yes, that’s what they think.”
“Hammond did this?” Dalton demanded.
Raisor shook his head. “Her predecessor.” The cold smile crept around his lips. “He is no longer with us.”
“Who ordered it?”
“That’s my concern,” Raisor said.
“It’s mine too,” Dalton said. “It will be my team in the tubes next. I want to know if the son of a bitch who did this to your team can do this to mine.”
“The source of that decision is not wired into the chain of command for this mission,” Raisor said.
“So this is why we were brought in?”
“Replaceable parts in the big machine,” Raisor said. He looked at his watch. “I suggest you get some rest. We go over very shortly.”
As Dalton walked out of the room, the last thing he saw was Raisor silhouetted against the glow from his sister’s tube.
“Who is that?” Opa asked.
The sound of General Rurik’s summons echoed across the glade, into the woods and the fields beyond.
Feteror was seated with his back to one of the trees. He reluctantly stood. “I have to go on a mission,” he said.
Opa reached out a wrinkled hand and placed it on Feteror’s shoulder. “I enjoyed talking with you.”
Feteror nodded, not sure what to say.
“Will you be back?”
Feteror paused. “I do not know.” He looked at the glade and the area surrounding them. He could hear birds chirping in the trees, the sound of the water rushing by. He could even smell the odor of manure coming from the nearby fields. It felt more real than anything he’d experienced in almost a decade and a half but he knew it wasn’t.
“I have to go.”
“Arkady— ” Opa paused.
“Yes?”
“There are good things in the world.” Opa spread his hands, taking in the glade. “This is a good place.”
“This is not real,” Feteror said. He paused, almost adding that the old man he was talking to was not real either.
“Are you here?” Opa asked.
“What do you mean?”
“If you are here, then this is real,” Opa said. “You don’t believe me. You don’t believe that I am here, either, do you?”
Feteror felt the tug of the plan he had worked so hard to put into effect pulling at him.
“Hatred is not the way,” Opa said. “I fought for years and I know that.”
“Do you know what they did to me?” Feteror didn’t wait for an answer. “They cut away my body and kept me in darkness. They took away everything!”
Opa shook his head sadly, his thick gray beard brushing against his aged chest. “They took much, but not everything, Arkady. Some things you’ve given away and you can get them back.” He reached up with his hand and placed it on Feteror’s chest. “You ’re missing something there. You can get it back.”
Feteror shrugged the hand off. “I will make them pay.”
Feteror dissolved from Opa’s view.
The old man stood alone in the glade. He looked up into the blue sky, a tear slowly making its way down his leathery cheek.
sFeteror accessed his outside links, forcing himself to block out the image of his grandfather, and focusing on what was to come.
“Yes?” He could see General Rurik standing at the master console. He was pleased the see the wild look in the other man’s eyes. He had hoped the pig cared for his family.
“I have a mission of the highest priority for you,” Rurik said.
Feteror waited.
“There are two tasks.” Rurik paused, collecting himself, then continued. “The steel cylinder you saw being taken from October Revolution Island— you must find it.” He paused, not speaking.
“And the second task?” Feteror pressed.
Rurik’s hands came down on the edge of the table in front of him, the whites of the knuckles clear to Feteror’s cameras. “My wife and children have been abducted. I want you to find them.”
“Which of the two tasks has the higher priority?” Feteror asked.
The look in the general’s eyes told Feteror the answer to that, even as the old man lied. “I want you to accomplish both.”
“You must give me the power and time to accomplish both, then,” Feteror said.
His electronic eyes could see the anger on Rurik’s face. “You will have all the power we can send you.”
“I will do as you order.”
“Do not cross me,” General Rurik said. “I will reward you if you get my family back.”
What could you possibly offer me? Feteror choked the words back. He focused on the pain he could see on the general’s face, relishing the sight.
“I’m loading all the data we have on both the phased-displacement generator and my family’s abduction,” Rurik said.
“Let me get started.”
The window to the outside world cycled open. Feteror felt a wave of power, more than he’d ever experienced before, shoot through him. He leapt for the window and was out.
Barsk looked out the window as the cargo plane banked. The ground below was snow-covered in places and looked rather bleak. He could see the large dam and the hydroelectric plant behind it in the gorge where a plume of water cascaded down from the overflow spillway.
To the east, high above the power plant, a landing strip had been laid down years ago, but it looked desolate and empty, with a group of hangars lining the runway. Three sets of power line towers ran by the edge of the airfield after climbing out of the gorge.
Vasilev had spent the entire flight rocking back and forth in his seat, his eyes unfocused. Barsk had serious doubts about whether the man was going to be of any use once they landed.