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  As they trained, intel for the op flooded in. The investigation of the Merrick Building fire actually turned up more information than was expected, though none of it got to the mainstream media. It seemed that Merrick had set the blaze himself, a “burning of the bridges” as it were. His research had kept him planted in Iraq for quite some time, but eventually his rambling spirit got the better of him. A somewhat scattered paper trail placed Merrick and his team in southeast Asia, and within days, the CIA found a fairly solid connection to a terrorist cell in Laos.

  Some four and a half miles below us right now, Sal thought to himself. He checked his parachute straps and oxygen mask for the hundredth time as the transport plane neared the drop zone. Looking around the red-lit cargo bay, he saw the other four checking and rechecking their own gear. He didn’t know if it made him feel better or worse to know that they were as nervous as he was.

  The mission plan itself was simple. The team was to fly into Laos, perform a high altitude drop into the compound where Merrick was suspected of being, and land atop a squat, wide barracks. They would enter the building through a roof hatch, and proceed along the main hallway to a hidden laboratory on the north end of the building. Then they’d enter the lab, obtain an external harddrive that was supposed to contain the bulk of Merrick’s encrypted research notes, and then either capture Merrick alive or reduce him to so much hamburger meat. Simple.

  The problem was going to be the lab. Or more specifically, the experiments being conducted therein.

  According to Naval Intelligence, Merrick’s research was entering a very volatile stage, which the Navy determined would best be conducted under the most controlled circumstances. The project currently “employed” scientists from nearly every field of research. Quantum Physics, Astrophysics, Cellular Biology—even Parapsychology had a role in this one. And as always, Dr Merrick represented Geophysics.

  Shortly following the CIA’s discovery, US Spynet satellites picked up radioactive blooms in Northern Laos consistent with Dr Merrick’s description of subatomic restructuring. Intel pinpointed Merrick’s base of operations in an hour, and had a man on the inside within twenty four. He confirmed that Merrick had torched the Bagdad facility himself, sort of finalizing his divorce from any semblance of legitimacy. He celebrated his newfound freedom by plunging headlong into his work. The first radiation related death was documented a few days later. Apparently, Merrick was using Laotian Army recruits as human lab rats. Intel had it that the Laotians were growing arms and legs in all kinds of unnecessary areas. Worse, not all the human testing had been intentional. In the interest of world health, the chain-of-command decided it was time to take action.

  But as far as Sal was concerned, he wasn’t too keen on the idea of having seven fingers himself.

  “Sixty seconds to drop,” came a voice over the loudspeakers.

  “Betcha dollars ta doughnuts dey ain’t left da light on for us,” Hood muttered, his ultra-Bronx accent firmly in place.

  As the digital readout on the wall ticked off the seconds from sixty, the rear door of the transport slid open, revealing twenty five thousand feet of pitch black. “Yep, I told ya,” Hood shouted before his voice was drowned out. A blast of subtropical wind, relatively warm even at this altitude, filled the cargo bay, stinging Sal’s eyes and momentarily stealing his breath. Any wisecracks Hood might have had left were silenced as the calm certainty of their training asserted itself over them.

  That calm echoed in Tillman’s voice as the team commander and veteran shouted, “Lock and load.” Weapons sang out in unison as their actions were cycled, the sound punctuated by a chorus of fire selectors coming off Safe. Sal donned, fit, and cleared his oxygen mask, then slid his night-vision goggles over his eyes. The darkness around him sprouted white and green blooms.

  A count of ten by the pilot and they were out, free falling into the Asian night. Sal twisted his body, flinging his arms out as windbreaks, and steered clear of his comrades. The wind tore at his jumpgear, threatening to rip it from his body as he fell. What wind did make it past his jumpgear stung his exposed skin like millions of microscopic needles. His stomach churned at the feeling of weightlessness. It was all so exhilarating, yet he pushed his excitement to the side almost effortlessly. Even as he watched the lighter green of the ground rush up to meet him, he felt nothing but calm. He was a bird of prey, and the sky was his dominion.

  Training was still in full control as the target building came into view. Sal made a few last second adjustments, then pulled the ripcord. The black silk chute billowed out behind him, caught the air, and snapped him back like a dog reaching the end of his leash.

  Sal grasped the stirrups and gained control of his descent. Angling almost parallel to the roof, he slowed enough that he barely had to run out his speed as he touched down. He unbuckled his chute and raised his MP5, scanning the rooftop for any unexpected visitors. Besides himself and the four greenish-white blobs of his SEAL team, they were alone. He silently berated the base commander for the lack of security. The man obviously wasn’t fit to wear the uniform, Laotian or otherwise. Sure, it made Sal’s job that much easier, but it was with professional pride that Sal sniffed his disdain anyway. He lowered his weapon and trotted over to join the others. Everett had already popped the lock on the roof hatch, and was stowing his gadget bag of micro explosives and booby traps when Sal arrived.

  They dropped one by one into the hallway below, each man doing a quick scan for guards. Still no sign of life. Was the team really that good? Nah, Sal thought. The floor’s probably restricted to scientists only. He began to feel uneasy anyway.

  The team started to make their way to the north along the corridor. Tillman barked orders as loud as his hand signals would shout them. Gunter took point, followed by Sal, Everett, and Tillman. Hood brought up the rear.

  The team crept silently down the hall past room after empty room. At every intersection, Sal and Gunter staked out their spots on either side of the hallway. Back to the wall, they cautiously swept their gazes, and weapons, down the opposing corridors. But the corridors, like the rooms, were completely devoid of life.

  Three intersections and five minutes later, they stood outside the laboratory door. Light bled out from under the door and into the corridor. Tillman ordered goggles off, and gave Gunter a nod, motioning the rest of the team back against the walls of the hallway. Gunter took a deep breath, and kicked in the lab door. Machine gun fire from within summarily cut him in half.

  Before Gunter—either piece of him—had even hit the ground, gunfire rang out from behind the team. Chunks of plaster sprayed the four remaining SEALS as they ducked into the lab and dove for the nearest cover.

  “It’s a set-up!” Tillman hollered, firing his weapon blindly into the lab from behind a computer bank. Nothin’ gets by you, does it? Sal thought sardonically.

  The team was spread out thinly along the main research floor of the lab. Tillman’s computer bank was to the north of the doorway, and under heavy fire. Andrews was with him, covering the door as best he could. Sal was behind a thick wooden desk some five paces southeast of the doorway. Everett had been clipped coming through the door, and had fallen down some steps to the recessed experimentation floor, where he’d received a generous peppering of bullets.

  It appeared that he was right on time for his funeral, after all.

  From behind his desk, Sal started lining up targets. One by one, guards began to fall. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a mirror image of his strategy being played out on the opposite side of the room. Either Tillman or Hood had taken the initiative, and the enemy began to register some decent casualties. Things were starting to look up.

  From somewhere across the room, Sal heard a gurgling scream. Tillman. So much for being the veteran of the mission. Swallowing hard, Sal lined up another shot and fired. He would mourn for Tillman later, if he himself survived.

  Amidst the spray of bullets, Sal spied a flutter of white cloth as someone ducked into a side
office about halfway down the near wall. There was only one thing it could be.

  A scientist, one of the garrison’s prized possessions. Possibly even Merrick himself, though Sal thought it was unlikely.

  Sal did some quick calculations. One SEAL—two, if Hood was still up. Three fresh mags, plus his sidearm and another forty five rounds. At least fifty Laotian regulars in the garrison, if the mission intel was accurate. He didn’t have to be a... well, scientist… to figure this one out. There was no way that he and Andrews were getting out of this alive, not without backup or a miracle.

  Or a hostage.

  He didn’t like the ethics of what he was proposing, but he liked dying even less. In a communist state where life was cheap, a country filled to the gills with terrorists, he didn’t stand much of a chance even with a high level hostage, but a slim chance was better than none at all.

  Taking a deep breath, he clenched his teeth, and leapt from the meager shelter his desk provided. Puffs of plaster dust bloomed where bullets planted themselves into the wall, following him as he bolted for the office door. One round struck a monitor in front of him, spraying his face with sparks and shrapnel. Hot, brilliant pain erupted in his skull as his left eye exploded. A cluster of bullets bit into his left hip deep enough to strike bone. Something pounded his body armor from behind, trying desperately to reach flesh. But Sal ran on through the storm of gunfire. That’s not to say the pain went unnoticed. Far from it. The pain and the fear—and forward momentum—kept him moving as best he could, his one-eyed vision tunneling until he could only see the doorway to the side office.

  Sal threw himself through the opening, barely keeping his feet. The office was small enough that he didn’t have to get his bearings. It was about twenty feet by thirty, scattered with those metal desks that militaries the world over were so fond of. Seeing the object of his pursuit, he resisted the urge to duck for cover behind one of the metal hulks. The scientist stood against brick outer wall of the barracks, oddly calm for a cornered man. Without breaking stride or even slowing, Sal dove at the scientist, bringing his weapon to bear. He didn’t need the scientist healthy... just breathing.

  All at once, time seemed to slow to a crawl. Sal watched with agonizing clarity as the man in the white lab coat raised his hand toward Sal. The man’s face twisted with such hatred that Sal might have pulled up short if he could have. The man’s eyes flashed briefly... then changed. Whatever they had been before, now they were orbs of polished rock, brownish grey with black flecks throughout.

  Sal felt his feet leave the floor as his dive continued.

  There, in that split-second of frozen time, the man’s arm was fully extended toward Sal, fingers upward, as if commanding him to stop. As he watched, a ball of rock materialized out of thin air before the man’s hand, then launched itself at him. It seemed the only thing in the world moving the right speed, a blur of brown that plowed into Sal’s right shoulder. He felt the joint give way as his shoulder dislocated. But his momentum carried him forward, and he started to spin away from the impact.

  After an eternity, he struck the man full in the chest, left shoulder first. Instinctively, Sal grabbed at the nearest convenient appendage and held on tight as they tumbled toward the brick wall.

  But instead of stopping, the two men continued to fall, the wall not hindering them in the slightest.

  Chapter 2

  Pain. Just… pain.

  Waves of agony washed over Sal as he shifted position, his limbs slowly returning to life and adding their voices to the cacophony of misery. His entire body was wracked with suffering of every type—the sharp, stabbing pain in his head, the low, throbbing pains in his side and back, the dull ache of his arms and legs. His entire body, from toenails to crew cut, screamed with it, filling the void of semi-consciousness with a single truth—he wasn’t dead yet. At that moment, the prospect was no great comfort.

  He almost drifted away again until he noticed something else. The smell. It was a musky, putrid smell, like some hellish combination of body odor, rotting corpses, human waste, and hot metal. True enough, the gunplay could account for all these smells—Lord knew that little workout had scared the crap out of him—but he made the terrible mistake of actually noticing all this. Now he was curious. More’s the pity. As his mind awoke to the “hows” and “whys” of his situation, the sweet darkness of oblivion fled him, leaving him to the hell of the waking world.

  More sensations came to him as he roused. The sound of suffering, and of comforting. The feel of the gritty ground below him, and the reeking stickiness of his clothes. He tried to open his eyes, but only his right one obeyed. Images swam in his vision, but nothing distinct. They were blurs, almost shadows of afterimages. He tried to force his remaining eye into service, but the effort only added to his headache, with his left eye pounding out a sharp counterpoint. He finally just gave up, offering silent thanks to the throbbing for slacking off.

  Wherever he was, it was dark and chilly. Paralyzed as his eyelids were, they still shut out most of the ambient light. That and the acoustics of the room reminded him of a cave of sorts, or maybe a large cellar?

  Even thinking too hard seemed to draw a complaint from his left eye. He raised a sluggish hand to his face, his joints screaming in protest. His fingers probed the area gingerly, seeking to gauge the damage to his ruined face, but instead of tattered meat and skin he found cloth—none too clean, by the feel, but cloth just the same. Someone had bandaged him up.

  “Leave it be,” a voice said. “I’ve sped up the healing process a bit, as much as I dare, but you should still keep it covered for at least another forty eight hours.”

  Sal groggily turned toward the voice. His remaining eye wavered in and out of focus, until finally locking in onto his companion. He was a young man, perhaps in his middle to late twenties, dressed in rags that hung loosely over his lean build. His hair was a chestnut brown sprinkled with premature grey. And his eyes were a glittering emerald green. His eyes... green from corner to corner! Sal started, fighting against weak muscles and dizziness to draw away.

  “Peace, my friend, relax,” the green-eyed man said, concern etched across his face. “You’re safe now—well, relatively speaking. No one’s going to harm you for the moment.”

  “Y-y-your eyes,” Sal panted, flopping lightheaded to the ground. “They’re green... I mean, really green!”

  This obviously confused the young man, but he could be no more confused than Sal himself. He’s got frikkin jewels in his head, for pete’s sake! Sal thought. And yet, they couldn’t be jewels—not real ones, anyway. Although the smooth green orbs looked for all the world like gemstones, Sal could feel their scrutiny as if they were natural. Inexplicably, he was sure they saw him.

  “Ahhh,” the man said as understanding dawned on him. Smiling, he closed his eyes. Sal saw a flash of light escape from between the lids. When the man opened his eyes again, they looked normal... or more normal, rather.

  “Better?” he asked. Sal nodded dumbly. He could still see hints of the gemstone hardness in the man’s irises, but it was good enough for now.

  “Guess I’ve still got the touch,” the stranger remarked, almost to himself. “Masking one’s eyes is a practice so outdated that few still know how. There are no Lynchers these days, of course, so most mages never bother to learn the technique. Anyway, I didn’t mean to startle you. I was just watching you for signs of infection, or any other health issue that might present a problem. The guards don’t take kindly to prisoners using their diverse talents, but a mage can get away with a few things, so long as he’s careful.”

  “Mage?” Sal tried to place the word, not completely alien to him.

  “Yes, mage,” his companion said with a smile, pleased to see his patient responding, perhaps. “Magic users. You know, like myself. No? Surely you’re not banged up that badly. Even the mundane of the Outer Reaches…” He let his voice trail off as he noticed that he was losing his audience. Sal could almost see the terms a
nd phrases whizzing over his head.

  “Right, then. One thing at a time,” the self-proclaimed mage said. He offered Sal his hand. “Jaren Fiol, mage of the Emerald Order, formerly of Darsen’s Way, now fellow inmate. At your service, sir.”

  “Lieutenant James Salvatori, United States Navy,” Sal grunted, dubiously taking Jaren’s hand in his unsteady grip. It wasn’t until he had his hand back that he realized that he’d used his right hand. “How...?”

  “The shoulder?” Jaren asked. “Emeralds employed by the jail, most likely. I got a look at you when they first brought you in. You were pretty banged up, if you don’t mind me saying, and the staffers were none too thorough with their patch job on you. Barely healed you enough to keep the blood inside, the barmy hacks. They left almost a double handful of those metal pellets in your body! It took me near an hour to seal all the holes, what with the meager dribble of mana that the guards allow us to wield in here…”

  The bullets! Sal thought back to the raid. He must have taken a dozen rounds or more. Those alone would take weeks to mend properly, but for the life of him, he couldn’t feel a single one. Gingerly, he ran a hand along his left side, searching for the bullet holes that peppered him, but all he found were a few small, puckered scars. What in blue blazes—?

  “I wish I could do something about your eye,” Jaren continued. “Even if they gave you proper access to a healer this very moment, I doubt they could repair it properly. Even I couldn’t do it, and I must say my command of the emerald soulgem is quite extensive. Your injury’s practically set now. You’d have to gouge it back out and start all over at the nerve to—”

  Sal’s mind reeled from the buzz of impossibilities. “What in the...? Are you saying that you could rebuild my eye?”

  “Of course,” Jaren shrugged, nonchalant. “I am an emerald, after all.”