Project Aura Page 2

  “There are whispered rumors that you seek my people,” Hieronnymous said. “Why is that?”

  “My grandfather ordered me to find you. He said your people had great wealth and power.”

  Hieronnymous nodded. “That is true.”

  “Your people sent the army I just defeated against me, didn’t they?”

  Hieronnymous smiled. “You could not expect us to surrender easily, could you, Great Bhatu Khan?”

  “Then I have dealt with your power,” Bhatu said.

  Hieronnymous’s fingers curled over the top of the staff, the knuckles white. “Perhaps you could be persuaded in a more civil manner to not cross the river?”

  “ ‘Persuaded’?” Bhatu leaned forward, his elbow covering the airhole.

  “As you’ve noted, the Priory has great wealth. We would be willing to share it with you.”

  “Why don’t I just take it now that your army has been destroyed?”

  “Our wealth is well hidden. You might find some after much time and trouble, but not as much as we are willing to share freely. And, as you’ve also noted, we have influence with all the kingdoms on the other side of the river. You destroyed a great army, but there are other armies. There is much land and many more kingdoms to the west of here. We could have the pope in Rome raise a crusade against your forces. He is already considering it, as he shakes in fear inside the Vatican.”

  Khan’s spies had already warned him of that. They had given him detailed reports of the crusades the Christians had sent against the Islamic empires in the Middle East year after year. It was not the sort of war he wished to get involved in, especially as he was very far from home. His goal was not to conquer land but to gain riches. He had no plans to hold the lands he had ridden through.

  “What do you offer me?”

  Hieronnymous pulled a piece of rolled parchment from inside his cloak and slid it onto the top of the crate. The faint pounding of the suffocating princes could be heard, but both men ignored it.

  Bhatu unrolled the parchment and read. The amount of gold and silver listed astounded even him, who ruled from the Pacific and across Asia. “You can bring me this?”

  “Yes. In one week’s time, all that can be yours. But only if you agree not to cross the river. I have been told a Khan’s word is his bond.”

  Bhatu leaned back in his splendid chair, letting air into the box once more. He ran a finger along the edge of a gold-encrusted dagger as he considered the offer. He was far from home and his men had been fighting all their lives. It was what they lived for, but even a Mongol needed rest. And he had received reports of rebellions in China and- His eyes narrowed.

  “Your people are stirring up revolt in my kingdom, aren’t they?”

  Hieronnymous spread his hands in a sign of innocence. “Lord, we-”

  Bhatu slammed the point of the dagger into the top of the box. “My word is my bond. But I must have the truth from you in turn or I cannot trust you. Those I do not trust die before me.”

  “We have a long reach, great Bhatu Khan, but I did not think it would be respectful to inform you of that.”

  “A long enough reach to stir up revolt in my kingdom?”

  “Yes, lord.” Hieronnymous took a step closer. “Your grandfather, the Great Genghis Khan, was lied to. We are not your enemy. We only caused trouble in your kingdom after you began your march in this direction. Before that, there was no influence from us. We have no desire to fight you.”

  Bhatu’s generals had already begun talking in council about turning back. Great victories had been won, but they were realists. Much of winning battles was skill, which the Horde had in abundance, but there was also an element of luck, and there was fear theirs might be running out.

  “One week,” Khan said. “If this is not delivered”-he tapped the parchment-“I will lead my men across the river.”

  “Agreed.”

  “And you will stop supporting the rebels in China.”

  “Agreed.”

  “You will give me the names and locations of all the rebels you have supported and those in my kingdom you have suborned.”

  Hieronnymous nodded. “As long as you give your word not to march on us again.”

  Bhatu had never really understood his grandfather’s obsession with uncovering and destroying this Priory. He had agreed to do it as a respectful grandchild would, but that was years ago and thousands of miles to the east. What this man offered would allow him to run his kingdom for the rest of his days.

  Bhatu Khan pressed his palm over the hole, the sounds from inside the box growing fainter. He looked at the man on the other side. “If you give me more wealth, I will destroy the strange ones in the high mountains that my grandfather told me about.”

  “We heard that they sent your grandfather after us. We knew that he or his descendants would eventually come this way. They are our old enemies. If you could destroy them, we would indeed bestow great riches upon you. But, unfortunately, you cannot fight them. You, like us, are of the earth. They are not. You might consider them people of the sky. To fight them would be like trying to kill a cloud.” “These strange ones in the high mountains-who are they?”

  Hieronnymous leaned on the gold cross, appearing weary for the first time. “You would not understand if I tried to explain what they are. We were once one people, many, many years ago. But we have been apart so long…” Hieronnymous fell silent for a moment before continuing. “They cannot fight us with swords and we cannot fight them in the way they are. So they use others with swords against us. One day, though, we will have the means, through others as they do, to fight them. And when that day comes, we will destroy them.”

  Khan smiled. “Or perhaps they will destroy you first.”

  “Perhaps,” Hieronnymous acknowledged, “but it will be a wonderful battle that will cover the entire world.”

  The Present

  1

  Sergeant Major Jimmy Dalton stood astride the Continental Divide, just south of Rollins Pass, with a wooden box containing his wife’s ashes in his backpack. Far to the east, through the mountains and hills he had just driven up, he could just barely see the high plains of eastern Colorado, a brown and golden flat haze fifty miles away. To the west, more white-capped mountains stretched as far as the eye could reach.

  He was a solidly built man, as sturdy as the pines below that took the brunt of the wind coming off the high peaks. His face was weathered and his short, dark hair liberally sprinkled with gray. He wore camouflage fatigues, a Special Forces patch on each shoulder, the left indicating current assignment to a Special Forces Group, the right combat service in the past with the same unit.

  He’d left his Jeep just before Needle Tunnel where the dirt road that followed the old railroad bed was blocked by large boulders. From there he had hiked upward. The divide was his favorite place, and the green valley below had been Marie’s favorite. They’d found it shortly after the 10th Special Forces Group-and Dalton with it-was moved from Fort Devens, Massachusetts, to Fort Carson, Colorado, during a round of base closings.

  They’d driven up into the mountains on a fall weekend. Dalton had noticed the small sign indicating Rollins Pass on the side of the Peak to Peak Highway and turned onto the dirt road. It was something they often did, taking new roads to see where they might lead.

  Marie had fallen in love with the valley, the hills on either side sprinkled with aspens just turning. Dalton had been fascinated with the rail line, which ended at Moffat Tunnel, the highest railroad tunnel in the world. Even more intriguing to him was the old railroad bed that wound its way two thousand feet higher, over the Continental Divide, where the original rail line from Denver to Salt Lake had gone before the Moffat Tunnel was built. Nearby were piles of weathered timber, the remains of a three-mile-long shed that had been built over the rail line over a hundred years ago to protect it from the snow that covered the ground here three quarters of the year.

  The wind was out of the west, piercing his Gore-Tex
jacket with icy needles of cold. The leathery skin on his face felt the bite of the late fall air, but he had been in such extremes of weather throughout his military career-from the brutal heat of the Lebanese summer to the freezing of a Finnish winter-that he took little notice. He’d driven above the tree line two thousand feet below. The terrain at this altitude was rock strewn with patches of snow even at the height of summer. A few stunted bushes struggled to grow among the stone and snow.

  Marie had always laughed at his wonder that at this exact location two drops of rain or two flakes of snow less than a foot apart on either side of the Divide would end up in oceans three thousand miles apart. Her laughter had been one of the many things he had loved about her. The last time they had come here together, as the amyotrophic lateral sclerosis was just beginning its deterioration of her body, they had both known she would never be able to make the climb. They’d simply sat in the Jeep and looked out over the countryside, a thousand feet short of the Divide. It was a bittersweet memory, the beginning of the end.

  He grimaced as he took the small backpack off his right shoulder, the pain from the bandaged wound in his left shoulder a sharp reminder of recent events. He set the pack down and unzipped it. The only thing inside was a small teakwood box. Carefully he took the box out. Protecting it from the wind with his body, he carefully opened the lid and removed a faded letter from an insert on the top. The paper was thin and worn, the creases sharp from years of being carried.

  Washington , D.C.

  July 14, 1861

  Dear Sarah,

  The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days, perhaps tomorrow, and lest I should not be able to write you again I feel impelled to write a few lines that may fall under your eye when I am no more.

  I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in, the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how American civilization now leans upon the triumph of the government and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and suffering of the Revolution.

  And I am willing perfectly willing, to lay down all my joys in this life to help maintain this government and to pay that debt.

  Sarah, my love for you is deathless. It seems to bind me with mighty cables that nothing but omnipotence can break. And yet my love of country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly with all those chains to the battlefield.

  The memory of all the blissful moments I have enjoyed with you come crowding over me. And I feel most deeply grateful to

  God, and you, that I’ve enjoyed them for so long. And how hard it is for me to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes and future years when, God willing, we might still have lived and loved together and see our boys grown up to honorable manhood.

  If I do not return, my dear Sarah, never forget how much I loved you nor that when my last breath escapes me on the battlefield it will whisper your name. Forgive my many faults and the many pains I have caused you. How thoughtless, how foolish, I have sometimes been. But oh Sarah, if the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they love, I shall always be with you in the brightest day and the darkest night. Always. Always.

  And when the soft breeze fans your cheek it shall be my breath. And the cool air at your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by.

  Sarah, do not mourn me dead; think I am gone and wait for me. For we shall meet again.

  Sullivan Balue

  Tears rolled down Dalton ’s face, as they did every time he read the copy of the letter. Even though he knew the words by heart, he read them again, just to see the handwriting, to bring back the memories. Marie had sent him a copy of the letter when he was a prisoner of war in Vietnam. She’d sent it with every letter she wrote, hoping one of them would get through, knowing that it would touch his soul. It was written by a Union officer from Rhode Island to his young wife a week before the Battle of the First Bull Run. He was an officer who was killed in that first major battle of the Civil War.

  Marie knew Dalton had always had a fascination with the War Between the States, brother against brother in savage fighting. A war with many causes, some noble, some not so noble, but still in Dalton ’s opinion a good war-as good as any war could be-given the root issue of slavery. A good war-Dalton shook his head. He wished he had served in a good war, but he doubted he had. Even in the Civil War the soldiers had been the ones to pay the price of the folly of those who led them. The vast majority of Southern soldiers were poor farmers who didn’t own slaves; in the Northern army, the rich bought their way out of service, hiring the poor to replace them in the ranks. The cause may have been noble, but the methods weren’t, and it was the foot soldier who paid the price.

  Decades earlier, Dalton had been held prisoner of war for five years in the Hanoi Hilton, and Marie had waited for him then, as she had during all the subsequent deployments. He’d fought in El Salvador, Grenada, Lebanon, Somalia, and Iraq. And now, most recently, the strangest battle of all, as a Psychic Warrior assigned to the highly classified Bright Gate project. He had helped destroy a rogue Russian Psychic Warrior who had threatened the world with nuclear destruction. In the end, it had turned out as all previous battles had, with man against man, face to face.

  Even this last fight, though, had been bittersweet. He had lost most of the team he had led, and the opponent, a Russian named Feteror, had turned on his own country due to the barbaric treatment he had endured, being enslaved to a computer, his body surgically whittled down to the mind and little more. When Dalton had learned the true nature of Feteror’s condition, he’d had a greater understanding of the Russian’s actions.

  There was another aspect to the letter, though, that had been an integral part of their marriage-their inability to have children. They’d been tested many times over the years, and it always came down to the fact that injuries Dalton had received during torture while being held prisoner had removed his ability to father a child. They had discussed adoption, but with all his deployments it had never seemed like quite the right time and the years had gone by. He felt as if he had taken everything from Marie and given her little in return.

  Dalton turned his face to the east, toward the valley she had loved, the letter in his hands. “I never thought you would be gone first,” he whispered.

  He kicked a rock, sending it tumbling down the scree and boulders to the west. Anger stirred, followed by guilt. And then something else touched his mind, the gentlest of touches, like a single snowflake landing on warm skin and vanishing quickly. It was so brief he wondered if it had been real.

  Dalton closed his eyes. The wind gusted. He folded the letter and slipped it in the lid, then picked up the box. The strange feeling came again, stronger, and this time he had no doubt. Thirty-two years of marriage, even with all his deployments, had built a bond between him and his wife that not even death could completely sever. He’d felt this before, when he was being held prisoner in Hanoi. And he had seen her spirit, her essence, when he visited her in the hospital while operating on the virtual plane as a Psychic Warrior. He had let her go then, let her out of her misery.

  He could sense her again. She was here.

  Sergeant Major Dalton opened his eyes and smiled, guilt and anger forgotten. “Marie, I feel you.”

  He opened the lid and the wind took the ashes, blowing them out over the valley. He watched them until there was nothing left to see.

  “I’ll always love you.”

  Dalton turned to leave, but paused as something else touched his mind. Marie, once more. He was puzzled for a moment, not quite understanding. Then he realized she was warning him. Of treachery and betrayal. He stood still for several minutes, hoping there would be more, but all he felt was the wind. He shivered, then pulled the collar of his jacket up around his neck and headed toward his Jeep.

  It was already dark over the East Coast of the United States while the sun set on Jimmy Dalton as he drove down from the mountains. The deep
blue of the water off Florida ’s east coast was far removed from the white snow of the Rocky Mountains.

  Slicing through that water, the United States Coast Guard cutter Warde kicked up a phosphorescent wake. With a ten-person crew and a length of eighty-two feet, it was one of the Guard’s smallest patrol boats, but more than adequate to handle the tasks that confronted it. The crew was experienced at their job and knew the waters between Florida and the islands off its east coast quite well. There were two main types of incident they dealt with-refugees from Cuba and drug runners from South America and the islands in the Caribbean.

  In the small bridge set back from the ship’s main armament-a twenty-five-millimeter cannon-Lieutenant JG Mike Foster stood just behind the helmsman, scanning the surrounding ocean through night vision goggles. The lights on the control panels were dimmed so that they wouldn’t interfere. He turned as a bright green glow almost overloaded the light enhanced in the goggles. His radar operator-Rating Second Class Lisa Caprice-had lifted her head up from the eyepiece.

  “Target, bearing two eight zero degrees, range five thousand meters, sir.”

  “Size?”

  “Looks like a forty footer. No beacon.” She put her head back down and peered into the eyepiece.

  Foster shifted the goggles in the direction she had indicated. “Heading?”

  “Also along the coast, heading north, sir.”

  There was nothing out there that he could see. At five thousand meters he should be able to easily pick up the ship’s lights with the goggles, which amplified ambient light.

  “She’s running dark,” Foster informed his bridge crew. “Wake up the off-shift. I want everyone on station.” He ordered the helmsman to make for the other ship.

  Foster grabbed the radio handset. “Unidentified vessel, this is the United States Coast Guard cutter Warde. Please stand by and prepare to be boarded. Over.”

  He waited but there was no response.