The windshield was streaked with mud, the wipers pushing aside as much of it as they could. Dalton had taken the road down from Rollins Pass much too fast, almost skidding off twice. His reckless driving hadn't stopped on the Peak-to-Peak Highway or the other roads on the way to Fort Carson as he outraced his headlights. Instead of getting on I-25, he took the more dangerous roads in the foothills until he arrived at the post.
He was almost disappointed to have made it. There had been times when the grimy windshield, winding mountain road, and excessive speed, combined with tears blinding his eyes, should have sent him flying off into the darkness to crash hundreds of feet below in a mangle of flesh blood, and metal. But each time the Jeep veered toward oblivion, there was a sense of Marie guiding him, causing him to jerk his hand and skid back on the road.
He pulled into the driveway of his quarters and turned off the engine, sitting alone in the dark, listening to the ticking noises of the engine cooling. The small house was dark, not even the light on the porch on. He felt his chest constrict. That had been Marie's ritual every evening. As soon as the sun began to set behind Cheyenne Mountain, she turned on the porch light, then the living room light next to the front window. And when Dalton drove home from work, the glow would be there to welcome him. It had been that way in all the quarters on all the army posts they'd lived at through his career.
There were no more tears to bring forth. His eyes were red and bloodshot. He leaned his head back. The garden. He'd have to spray it to keep the deer from eating Marie's flowers. It had been one of the biggest sources of irritation when they'd moved in years ago. The deer ate everything and it had taken Marie two years to come up with a solution to keep them away: eggs mixed with water, sprayed all over the yard. Another ritual she had performed every evening before they went to bed.
There were no more rituals. The jagged reality of that was settling into Dalton's chest like a cold fist surrounding his heart and squeezing tight.
Headlights coming down the street cut into his despair. His quarters were the last on a cul-de-sac, so someone driving on the street this late was unusual. The car turned in behind his Jeep, silhouetting him.
Dalton always kept his pistol in a clip holster attached to the inner side of the seat when driving. He removed it and slid it into the holster in the small of his back as he got out shielding his eyes against the glare with his left hand.
The headlights went out and he could hear a door opening. He blinked, eyes adjusting. A man in uniform was all he could make out.
"Sergeant Major Dalton?" The voice was deep, one used to command.
"Yes?"
"I've been waiting for you. I was just down the street all evening." The figure came forward, a hand extended in greeting. "General Eichen."
Dalton stiffened and began to salute. "At ease," Eichen said, waving a half-salute in the dark. "We need to talk"
Dalton had never heard of Eichen, but in the moonlight he could just make out the three black stars sewn on the general's fatigue collar. A lieutenant general approaching in the dark; Dalton assumed that this strange visit had something to do with Psychic Warrior and the mission he had accomplished in Russia.
"This way, sir." Dalton led him to the house and opened the door.
"Leave the lights off," Eichen said as Dalton reached for the switch.
Surprised, Dalton did as ordered. Eichen went over to the chair next to the front window and turned it so that it angled between the room and window, then he sat down. Dalton sat on the couch and waited.
"I work for INSCOM," Eichen began.
Dalton knew the acronym. Intelligence Support Command.
"Technically speaking at least," Eichen continued. "In reality I work directly for a special branch of the National Security Council. Which works directly for the President It's a very small group that goes by the code name Nexus."
Dalton was now certain this had to have something to do with the mission into Russia. The government had tried to keep the events under wraps, but all the world knew that a nuclear weapon had detonated in Moscow. However, the existence of Russia Special Department Eight (SD-8)-- their equivalent of Bright Gate-- and of Feteror/Chyort, the Russian avatar, was something the Russian government was keeping highly classified, a decision the present American administration had agreed with wholeheartedly. The nuclear explosion was being blamed on dissident right-wing terrorists, which also allowed the Russian president to crack down on his rivals, another thing which the administration agreed to.
"Did you know that the President was not aware of the existence of Bright Gate and the Psychic Warrior program up until five days ago?" Eichen asked.
Dalton stiffened. "No, sir, I didn't."
"Did you know that the President did not sanction the Psychic Warrior mission to stop the Russian Mafia from trying to steal the nuclear weapons?"
Dalton felt a twinge of pain in his shoulder from the recent wound. "Sir, we were told we had authorization from the National Command Authority to conduct the mission."
Eichen's hand fluttered in the dark. "Don't worry, I'm not accusing you of anything. I'm informing you of the facts. Hell, if the President had known of Psychic Warrior and the pending interception of those nukes by the Russian Mafia, I'm sure he would have authorized the mission. The problem is that someone
did
authorize the mission without his sanction. Someone's been running Bright Gate without his knowledge. The real problem is, Sergeant Major, who the hell is behind Bright Gate?"
Dalton was at a loss. He'd had his orders and he'd done as they indicated. The entire operation at Bright Gate had appeared to be legitimate. The orders and calls his battalion commander had received from the Pentagon sending Dalton and the team to the secret base to train as Psychic Warriors had also seemed quite valid. Before leaving for Russia, he'd been assured they had National Command Authority sanction for the mission.
"Sir, we were training in 10th Group on the precursor to Psychic Warrior, in a program called Trojan Warrior, two years ago. How can something have been hidden that long? Or not come to someone's attention?"
"I'm sure Trojan Warrior was legitimate. And the orders for Bright Gate were legitimate in that they came down the chain of command," Eichen said. "But where those started in the chain of command is another issue. This sort of thing has been going on a lot longer than two years.
"Let me give you what little background we do know. Bright Gate was the brainchild of a scientist named Professor Souris. She worked at a facility called the High-Energy Research and Technology Facility. HERTF is located at Kirtland Air Force Base. That we did know about. It was built to test directed-energy weapons, particle beam technology, and radio and microwave frequency potentials for combat.
"I've been there. The facility is located in a canyon in the Manzano Mountains. The walls were built four feet thick to contain the results of what they are working on. We budgeted eighty million dollars to build the place and quite a bit more to keep it running. And then we staffed it with the brightest minds we could find, Souris among them.
"Apparently, as near as we can piece together now, Souris began doing some speculative work on her own. Trying to cross the boundary from the real into the virtual plane. That she succeeded we now know, given the events of the last couple of weeks and the existence of Bright Gate."
"Then how did Bright Gate get established?" Dalton asked.
In the dim light reflected through the windows, Eichen appeared old and worn. "Let me give you the big-picture background and you'll have to bear with me, Sergeant Major, as some of what I'm going to tell you is going to sound quite fantastic, but I assure you, it’s the truth. I had a hard time accepting it all when I was first approached to be part of Nexus, but as the years have gone by, I've learned more and more and my belief has grown to be absolute.
"Nexus was founded by General Eisenhower when he was President. After a couple of years in office, Eisenhower realized that things were not as they appeared to be, that there were actions going on that he wasn't being briefed on.
“And it appeared that key members of his administration, especially in the military and intelligence agencies, along with leading members of industry, were working with a different agenda. What that agenda was, he had no idea. He tried to make it as public as he could; I'm sure you know about his warning in his farewell speech to the country regarding the military-industrial complex, but it was much darker than that. And he was threatened."
Dalton stirred uncomfortably. "The President threatened?"
"Eisenhower took the threat quite seriously," Eichen said. "Kennedy didn't."
There was a long period of silence as Eichen let the implications of that last sentence sink in. Dalton didn't know what to say or think, so he remained quiet until Eichen continued. "Eisenhower didn't roll over though. He formed a group to watch these people and to figure out what they were up to. The group was called Nexus. He kept it very small and limited to people he absolutely trusted. Over the years, that trust has been handed on to each successive member. It's more than forty years later and we've learned little."
Eichen fell silent and Dalton waited.
"What do we know?" It was as if Eichen were really asking himself that question. "We know that there is some sort of international group that manipulates governments, industry, religion, the media-hell, damn near every aspect of our life. Who they are, we don't know yet, although we do know they have been called the Priory. How many members, what their objectives are, where they're located; those are still all uncertain. They've always used other organizations as fronts for their work.
"Using the work she developed at HERTF and our own government's secret infrastructure, Souris founded Bright Gate with the blessing of the Priory. I'm sure you can imagine how easy it is using compartmentalization and security classifications to keep something secret inside our own government's bureaucracy.
"We think Bright Gate didn't turn out as well as she- or more accurately, the Priory-had hoped. We're not exactly sure what happened, but after a year at Bright Gate, she left and founded another secret base in Alaska called HAARP. I'm going to Alaska shortly to find out what the hell is going on there. You've been ordered to report back to Bright Gate, haven't you?" Eichen asked.
"Yes, sir." Dalton was still trying to assimilate everything he'd just been told.
Eichen reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He handed it across the coffee table to Dalton. "Read it. You can turn on the light."
Dalton switched on the small lamp next to the couch and unfolded the paper. The letterhead at the top read
White House
with the presidential crest below it. The note was handwritten:
TO: Sergeant Major James Dalton
FROM: The President of the United States
You are reassigned effective receipt of this letter to work directly for Lieutenant General Eichen, who works directly
for my office. You are to share information of this reassignment with no one.
Dalton noted the signature and the imprinted seal at the bottom of the page.
"Turn off the light," Eichen ordered. He reached out. "I need that back"
Dalton handed him the note, and in exchange, Eichen gave him what appeared to be a compact cell phone.
"That's a SATPhone with a direct link to me," Eichen explained. "You flip it open and punch in number two and my phone will ring. I always have mine with me and you will always have that with you. I want to know what's going on at Bright Gate."
Dalton took the phone and slid it into a pocket. "Anybody could write that General," he said, indicating the pocket Eichen had the note in.
"True," Eichen acknowledged.
Dalton was tired. He leaned back on the couch. "And, sir, the last orders I followed like that were obviously illegal. What's different now?"
Eichen's teeth shone briefly in the dark as he smiled. "It's good you're starting to get paranoid."
"Sir, I’ve been paranoid my entire career. That's why I'm still around."
"You weren't paranoid enough when you were assigned to Bright Gate," Eichen noted.
"I was paranoid, but I received a legitimate order from my chain of command to report there." Dalton was stung by the implied criticism
"What can I do to prove to you this order is legitimate?" Eichen asked.
"Tell me what's going on, General. I'm tired of people withholding information from me, thinking I'm too stupid to understand. Why was Bright Gate developed? What is the goal of this Priory group you mentioned? What's the goal of Nexus?"
"’What's going on'?" Eichen repeated. He sighed and leaned back in the chair. "That's what we're trying to find out. All I can tell you is that the Priory has been manipulating our government, and others, for a long time. How long, we don't know, but-" Eichen paused, searching for the right words. "Let me put it this way. As near as we can tell, as long as there has been recorded history, the Priory has been in the shadows. We've discovered little snippets of information here and there that indicate that.
"How powerful they are, we don't know, but we do have evidence they are very powerful but also very small. They use others to work for them. Bright Gate and Psychic Warrior are just one area they’ve manipulated. There are many others; how many I'm almost afraid to find out.
"We think SD-8 in Russia was the same thing: a research facility that was founded by the Priory, and that those in Moscow never really had a clear picture of what was going on there either."
Dalton considered that. "If the Priory has such power to start with, why did it need SD-8 and Bright Gate?"
"That's a very good question," Eichen said, "which we don't know the answer to."