High Impact

chapter\ 1\ The caravan kicked up a cloud of dust as it crawled up the mountain under the hot afternoon sun. The dirt road carved out of the hillside was barely ten feet wide and cut a clean line through foliage so thick the earth at its base never saw the light. Banyan trees, wild ferns, and birds of paradise rose into the blue sky undisturbed. Except for the hum of a passing vehicle, the only sounds echoing through the high Andes were the calls and screeches of wild birds and monkeys that made the Callejas Mountain Range their home.\ Six open-top-Jeeps made up the convoy today. Each vehicle carried four soldiers dressed in camouflage with full combat gear, their M16 assault rifles held erect at their side.\ The outline of a village came steadily into view, but the convoy didn't slow down. It moved through, splashing the puddles of muddy water left from the daily rains and forcing a flock of chickens to flee in an explosion of feathers and squawking. Children kicking a soccer ball on a muddy field stopped to watch the vehicles, as did the women balancing pails on their heads.\ Hovering high above them all in an old gray Huey, Alec Hawkins took off his reflective sunglasses, exposing his near-black eyes and thick eyebrows that almost formed a straight line. He lifted a pair of binoculars and looked through the lens. With the narrow dirt road winding out of the village in his sight, he carefully combed the area.\ "I've got nothing here," he yelled into his headset, his eyes fixed on the second Huey hovering nearby.\ "Same here" came the cracked response over his headset speakers. "We passed the bridge about two miles ago, but the equipment didn't pick up anything. The map doesn't show any other bridges within fifty miles, and this little village is the only sign of civilization for a hundred miles around. Are you sure we're in the right area?"\ Hawkins shook his head in frustration. "Keep looking."\ He reached into his side pocket and pulled out a sheaf of folded papers. Holding them tight so they didn't blow away, he surveyed each one. The sketches were crude, almost as if they had been done by children, but there were similarities between them: hills, huts, a cross, and a road.\ This was the right place; he was sure of it. Besides, the data had been physically verified by an advance team of scouts not eight hours earlier--standard operating procedure. Where the hell was the target?\ Hawkins lifted the receiver from a small black box beside him, the word SATCOM printed across the side. He punched in a series of numbers and waited.\ "How can it not be there?" Douglas Bradley yelled as he hurriedly pulled his jacket on.\ Marching down the corridor on the eighteenth floor of a glass tower in Bethesda, Maryland, Jim Udell, trying to keep stride, replied, "I don't know. But a new session has been called. They're already in."\ Bradley checked his watch: 11:48 a.m. "They can't pull a session this quick. How about the cooldown period; how about protocol? This is a High Impact target. They have to take every precaution."\ "Mission Commander is aware of this. I've made sure."\ "I don't see how the hell we're gonna do this," Bradley said, stopping at the elevator. "I just don't."\ He pressed the Down button, and the door opened instantly. Inside, Bradley pulled out a key and inserted it in a slot on the panel to the left of the door. Turning the key clockwise, he pressed a button on the lower side. The doors began to close, and he immediately felt overwhelmed with anxiety. The thought of what he was about to do shot waves of panic through him. He needed air--he felt like he was suffocating.\ The elevator passed the ground floor but continued to go down three more floors. When the doors finally opened, the men were greeted by two armed security guards who sat erect behind a console. Even though the CEO's face was instantly recognizable, one of the men leaned over and closely examined the badge pinned to Bradley's lapel as the other did the same to Udell. Satisfied, they allowed them through.\ The men marched down the long hallway to a door at the end, where another guard sat behind a panel of monitors. He nodded at the CEO, who walked to a single vault door, removed his badge, and inserted it into a slot in the wall. It took a brief moment for the machine to compare retinal patterns from his eye to a chip embedded in his security badge. The door clicked open.\ The room was the size of a basketball court, well lit and active, particularly the area around the five jet-black titanium enclosures that were spaced evenly throughout. The enclosures, each the size of a small room, were raised two feet above the floor by hydraulic lifts, and beside each, three technicians wearing white lab coats stood at a control panel.\ Four generations of Bradleys, eight years of planning, and six months of preparation, and it had all come down to the five people in these five chambers.\ Bradley recalled the first time Hawkins had shown him the website--psiquest.net. He had seen all the proof he wanted, including Ted Koppel's Nightline on ABC News. He even remembered the date: November 28, 1995. As he reclined in the thick leather chair of his office with the shades drawn, Douglas Bradley, a complete skeptic, had watched Robert Gates, director of the CIA, admit to Ted Koppel and the world the Agency's decades-long research in Remote Viewing and its use of anomalous cognition.\ He had laughed about it, but Hawkins had been insistent, showing Bradley reports from the Washington Post, the Associated Press, and the New York Times; television programs like Good Morning, America, CBS Evening News, and CNN's Larry King Live; even studies from Princeton and Duke, along with dozens of other credible publications, all supporting the facts.\ Call it sixth sense, Hawkins has said. Call it intuition or a hunch--call it whatever you want, but Remote Viewing wasn't magic, he had explained. It was a bridge between the conscious and subconscious mind; an advanced communication skill between a human being and his environment. It was a delicate balance of methodology and protocol, which, with the right tools and training, was more than effective, and, best of all, to Bradley's skeptical way of thinking, scientifically proven.\ The program was being declassified because it was being discontinued. With the Soviet Union no longer a threat and the Cold War over, the cost was difficult to justify--at least that was what the Agency had publicly stated. What they hadn't said was that the program was continuing, albeit on a smaller scale. Still, that left many of the experts--people with knowledge and skill and years of experience--looking for a home in the private sector. Homes they found in companies with a need for information and, more importantly, discretion. After all, if their work was good enough for the CIA, Hawkins had explained, why wouldn't it be good enough for Continental Petroleum?\ Douglas wasn't convinced, but Hawkins's experience with Remote Viewing had been a personal one during his years of military service in South and Central America, working in Special Operations Detachment. So Bradley went along. It was the best decision he had made during his four years at the helm.\ He walked over to the center of the room, where Mick Casey, the Watch Commander, sat behind a console.\ Looking toward the chambers, Bradley asked, "How far along are they?"\ "They're on target," Casey said, then pointed to five sets of needles vibrating across graph paper, drawing a line behind them. "Daniel and Anna are in a low Alpha, high Theta level on their EEG's. Susan and Chris aren't far behind. Normally I don't like to do things this fast, but I think we're going to have a good session."\ "How the hell could the target have moved?" Bradley blurted. "Its location was physically verified less than eight hours ago."\ Casey looked up, confused. "I'm not sure, Mr. Bradley. The target is classified as High Impact. That's why we stop the process before the viewers engage in deep target contact. No one here's privy to any information about the target, so I really can't tell you--"\ Bradley dismissed him, unnerved that he had vented his frustration, saying more than he should. "I'm sorry. Go ahead with your work."\ In front of Casey, five monitors displayed dark, indistinct images of the interior of the chambers, but the outline of a recumbent person in each chamber was discernible.\ Casey leaned into the microphone on his desk. "Mission manager for Unit Four. Anna's Beta levels are dropping. Repeat the target."\ A moment later, a synthesized voice over the speaker said, "Target code 342C-218P. Tell us what you see."\ All this technology, all this effort. Can they do it now? Bradley wondered. Will it work?\ He remembered the first time Casey had explained it to him almost four years before. "The voices are synthesized, so they hold no emotion that can disrupt or distract the viewer. The chambers are kept almost fully dark to limit the amount of sensory noise that the viewer has to contend with. They are raised above the ground, because the chambers themselves are freestanding faraday cages. No electromagnetic signals can penetrate the hull and interfere with the viewer or the special equipment. The chambers are cooled to sixty-eight degrees to induce relaxation so the viewers will remain at their maximum capability."\ He had understood some of it, ignored the rest, and eventually signed on the dotted line.\ "Unit Five has a Theta condition that could go dominant." Casey sounded alarmed. "Pull him back out to Alpha. Send eighteen volts to his GSR. Pull him out of there before he has full target acquisition."\ "Evan, what is six times fourteen? What year were you born? The target does not require extended contact. Break off, now," replied the synthesized voice.\ "No response; I say again, no response," Casey said.\ "Stop buzzer on Unit Five," another voice said. "Send in twenty-five volts to the GSR. Stat!"\ Casey's eyes were glued to the Spectrum Analyzer. A moment later, the Theta condition began to diminish. "Okay," he said, relieved. "The Theta levels are going back to normal. I think we're--"\ "What the hell was that?" Bradley interrupted.\ "Evan was getting too close. We had to shut him out."\ "Did he--?"\ "I don't know," Casey said scanning the graph. "I don't think he got far enough, but I'm not sure."\ "How can we be sure?"\ "Units One and Three are target complete" came the voice on the overhead speaker, interrupting them.\ "Bring them out and have them and their mission managers report for the hot wax. This is urgent," demanded Casey.\ "I asked how can we be sure?" Bradley repeated, this time meaning to be heard.\ Casey took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I . . . I don't know. I guess we can start with the debrief."\ Bradley nodded. "The communications room. Now!"\ Twenty-five hundred miles to the south, one of the men in the back of the Huey held up the SATCOM headset. "They've got it!" he shouted over the sound of the rotor blades.\ Alec Hawkins picked up the receiver. "Go." He listened for a moment, then said "Roger."\ He handed the headset back to the man and turned to another member of his crew. "Jason, look for a road or a stream. It should cross that road." He pointed. "Perpendicularly."\ He picked up the binoculars. Looking ahead, he couldn't see anything.\ "Come on. Come on. Where are you?" he yelled.\ "There!" One of his men signaled.\ Barely visible through the foliage was a second dirt road, much narrower than the first. He tapped the pilot on his shoulder and pointed.\ Within minutes the men had located what they were looking for and dropped low. Almost immediately the FLIR display came alive with the heat signatures of humans and equipment on the ground. The FLIR operator touched each of the heat signatures with his stylus, and the on-board computer adjusted the four minigun pods outside the Huey. The rapid fire from the high-caliber weapons was followed an instant later by the engagements of the twenty-millimeter rockets propelling forward.\ There was a plume of smoke and the sound of explosions loud enough to be clearly heard over the noise of the rotors. People began to pour out from behind the trees, their weapons aimed at the Hueys.\ "Take it up! Take it out of their range," Hawkins yelled to the pilot just as he heard the dull thump-thump-thump of automatic weapons punching holes in the side of the helicopter.\ The choppers gained altitude over the rugged terrain. Two thousand feet below, the Jeep convoy had pulled to the roadside and soldiers were piling out, disappearing beneath the canopy of trees.\ "Bring it around again," Hawkins demanded. "See if we can get a better view." Then he lifted up the receiver to a second phone and punched a button. "Rainfall to Banshee. Rainfall to Banshee. What's going on down there?"\ No response. "Rainfall to Banshee," he repeated. "Can you hear me?"\ There was another minute of silence before the radio burst into a chatter of explosions, rapid gunfire, and a man's cracked yells barely audible through it. "Banshee to Rainfall. Banshee to Rainfall. There's too many of them. They're well armed, and they're gain-ing on us. I've got three men down; two others are wounded. We need immediate assistance."\ Hawkins looked at a white dot on a small screen to his left. "I'm reading your location off the beacon. Where's the target from your position?"\ "Heading two-four-zero. Hundred yards, maybe ninety. Hurry!" the man pleaded.\ Hawkins tapped the pilot on his shoulder, and the man acknowledged the instructions with a nod. Almost simultaneously the Hueys eased down, turned, and shot into position.\ "Time to go see God," Hawkins whispered, just before the rockets erupted from their pods and trailed their wispy fine plumes all the way down into the trees. There was a huge explosion followed by another, before the radio came back to life. "They're retreating. They're retreating into the village."\ "Stop them," Hawkins shouted. "If they take cover, we won't be able to get to them.\ "I can't cut them off. We're too far back."\ Hawkins tapped the pilot on the shoulder, then drew a circle with his finger. The pilot nodded.\ The Hueys circled and Hawkins looked out. He didn't see anything--not until the men crossed the open dirt road and began to run into the small village. He counted five, ten, fifteen of them. By the time he finished, they numbered twenty-two, some wounded, others carrying weapons. They crawled into small huts, several taking refuge in the church. With weapons raised, they aimed at the Huey and at the surrounding foliage and began firing.