On a balcony two meters above the portal floor Dario Watt stood with his four lieutenants and the two portal operators he had heavily bribed for the operation. According to Watt’s plan, the lifetimes of the bribed ones were now less than a day. There would be no witnesses to show ministry involvement in an operation to be seen as instigated by an unfriendly government and carried out by Kroic and his mercenary soldiers.
Three of Watt’s co-conspirators looked frightened to death, but Elias Trent seemed calm, even stoic, now that the hour had come. Perhaps Watt had underestimated the metal in the man. He had given all of them communicators, but only for listening. The power to command was his alone.
“One minute to initiation,” Watt said softly. A portal operator nodded, one hand reaching towards the console.
“We’re ready,” said the gravelly voice of Ustiss Kroic.
Watt looked, but didn’t find him in the crowd below. Dressed like the others, Kroic had the only detonation transmitter on his person, could set the timing in an instant, but only one time. This he would do when the American portal bay had been penetrated, and only then would he withdraw his forces.
The portal strobed red, and was blue again. Contact had been made, could not be interrupted at the receiving end. They were now committed.
“Go,” said Watt.
The lifters and their operators went in first, then the three devices and a platoon of support troops, Kroic himself somewhere among them. At the rear of the assembly, twenty soldiers activated cloaking and disappeared from view, their exit only shown by transient ripples in the portal’s surface. Communication was instantaneous. In high order n-space, the speed of light was astronomically high, and there were no time delays.
“Receiving fire! Cloaked defenders!” shouted Kroic.
“Press on, Commander,” said Watt encouragingly.
There was a delay of a minute. Watt glanced at his colleagues. All four looked stricken.
“Heavy fire! A marine unit is here! One device is in place. I’m setting the timer for ten minutes. Pulling out in five. Acknowledge!”
“Acknowledge,” said Watt, and looked at his watch.
One minute went by, then two, three, four and five.
Watt reached out to the console, and slapped his hand hard on it, palm down.
The portal operator jumped back in horror.
The portal rippled, went to red, then blue again, and was gone.
There was a horrible silence. Watt’s colleagues, the portal techs, nobody dared to speak.
Watt smiled. “Now we wait—around five minutes. And then we check to see if the American’s portal address is still operable.” He turned and saw his colleagues, including Trent, edging away as if they were ready to run. “Only then do we leave, gentlemen. Stay where you are,” he growled.
The men stopped moving, and stared at him.
They waited a full seven minutes, and then Watt turned to the frightened young tech standing next to him. “Reactivate the portal.”
The tech took a step forward, was not yet in reach of the console when the portal opened up with a flash of red and blue.
A lifter came out of the portal, bearing a single crate.
At first sight of the crate, Watt glanced back at his colleagues in shock and surprise.
His colleagues were not there.
He looked back; saw two men pushing the lifter.
Heat seared Watt’s forehead when he recognized one of them.
CHAPTER THIRTY
THROUGH THE PORTAL
Eric hit the floor in a crouch. Gone was the scientist, analyst, the gentle soul saddened by a lost love. All of it was swallowed up by something dark and purposeful and deadly within him. His heart was hammering hard and the fire of adrenalin burned in every vein in his body. He pushed himself back against a wall to survey the action, looking for a focus, and at first he wasn’t seen.
The men who came out of the portal with crates that had set off the alarms had been caught in a terrible crossfire by Alan’s hidden marines and also invisible sources all around the room. Most of them had gone down, some on one knee, firing wildly. Men pushing powered lifters had been shielded from the initial fire, but were now dropping one by one. Lifters roamed randomly around the bay without guidance, though one had been steered to a wall to Eric’s right and parked there deliberately.
All firing was wild, and target identification treacherous. The invaders were dressed like marines, but the material of their uniforms seemed lighter or more highly reflective, even in the dim light, and they wore darkened faceplates. Eric focused on the faceplates, went to a kneeling position and squeezed off two rounds with his M-16. Two men dropped where they stood, face plates shattered. Another man closer to him turned and charged, firing a burst from his stubby, black weapon. Eric calmly fired twice as bullets smashed into concrete and metal above his head. The man pitched forward and slid on the floor, coming to rest a yard from Eric’s position. His faceplate was ripped away and with it something white and shredded to pieces by sharp polymer. His cheek was against the floor, eyes yellow and open, staring accusingly at his killer. The face was brown, with scales like a large fish, and the open mouth showed a row of fierce-looking needle teeth.
What the hell?, thought Eric, but at that instant a horrible wave of fire came from the portal, and nobody was there to be seen. Bullets splattered all around him and he saw marines go down. Flashes of fire were coming from the area just in front of the portal, flashes out of clear air. There was a roar of fire from the marines to his right. Eric flipped the lever on his M-16 to auto and emptied a magazine, swinging the barrel back and forth to cover the space in front of the portal.
Bullets seemed to explode in midair, and men shimmered into view, staggering, and falling to the floor. Flashes of fire continued to spew forth from the air around them. Illusion or technology, but there were invading soldiers there, invisible to the naked eye, and it seemed that Alan’s marines were seeing them while Eric could only shoot at fire flashes. Eric emptied another magazine before more men appeared out of nowhere to fall dead on the floor. The fire flashes stopped near the portal, but there were several shots from Alan’s marines before an order was screamed and there were other sounds in the bay.
People were yelling and milling around. Several men had attacked three of the crates with pry bars and were vigorously dismantling them. Alan Nutt was screaming at the top of his voice, “Find the timer! Check all the bodies! Move!”
Eric stepped up to a marine who was rolling a corpse over with his foot. “What are we looking for?”
The marine showed him the palm of his hand. “About this size. Should have big numbers—like a clock.”
Wood splintered under the prying of crowbars. Men were racing from body to body.
Suddenly the portal flashed brightly, went to red, and was gone.
“What happened?” shouted Alan, and he looked up at the control booth. The men there just shook their heads.
“I want that timer!” screamed Alan.
Two of the three crates of interest fell apart simultaneously, revealing a metallic cylinder hanging from a frame in each. “Four minutes!” yelled someone. “Four here!” yelled another. Two men were now hunched over each cylinder, working furiously.
Eric was going through the pockets of a dead man when the third crate fell apart, but the sound that startled him was a shout from a marine only steps away who got up from a dead invader and held something up in his hand. “Got it!” he yelled. “Two minutes-ten!”
Alan grabbed the thing away from him, saw Eric and glared angrily at him. “Two minutes, people, that’s what you have!”