Assault on Alpha Base

Chapter 7

McGriffin wound his way past the flight line. His blue ‘vette was fourteen years old, but it handled like new. It was his cadet car — bought during his Firstie, or senior year, at the Academy. Since only first classmen were allowed cars when he was a cadet, the corvette remained special.

He turned off the air conditioner and rolled down his window, allowing the dry desert heat to roll in. The air contained a potpourri of JP-4 and engine exhaust. The smell took getting used to, but McGriffin was addicted to it. Like a hearty stout, the fragrance of flying was acquired.

An ancient HH-53 roared overhead, its blades chopping at the air as it turned for the desert. A few miles to the north a flight of helicopters circled lazily, momentarily touching down in the desert on a pickup exercise. Across the runway a deserted hangar reflected the sun back into his eyes.

Once past the flight line, the road dog-eared to the north, then back west, as it headed out to Alpha Base. At the end of the runway a camouflaged C-17B sat on the concrete apron. Red engine protectors sealed the engine inlets from the dust and wind. A series of lights surrounded the apron, glowing dimly in the bright sunlight.

The road to Alpha Base was an anomaly. McGriffin thought that after building the world’s most advanced nuclear storage area, they would have spent a small percentage of the total funds on a decent road. Instead, the two-lane road wound around the desert as if designed by a drunk.

The mammoth crater opened up before him. Five miles across and half a mile deep, the crater had a dirt floor with bunkers spread randomly throughout the area.

He tried to count the bunkers, but quickly lost interest as more and more of the concrete shelters came into view. Four fences curled around the circumference, clearly demarcating the nuclear storage facility from the rest of the base.

It seemed barren, almost as if he were alone out there; but after last night’s display of readiness, McGriffin shuddered to think what would happen if anyone would be crazy enough to infiltrate the fences.

As he turned into the Alpha Base parking lot, he glanced at his watch: 1500. If the tour took any longer than an hour, it was AAFES burgers for dinner again.

He positioned his cap before climbing from the car. A huge sign directed him toward a building marked in-processing. Set partially inside the fenced area, it appeared to be the only entrance to Alpha Base besides the main gate.

A young officer stood when McGriffin entered the building. Decked out in smartly pressed battle fatigues, subdued insignia, and bloused boots, the man extended a mammoth ebony hand.

“Good afternoon, sir. I’m Lieutenant Curtis Fellows, shift commander.” Fellows wore an infectious grin. Towering over McGriffin, he seemed the type to ride herd on a few hundred enlisted men.

“Glad to meet you, Lieutenant. Thanks for arranging the tour on such short notice.”

“No problem, sir. Chief Zolley sent your clearance over. As soon as we’ve run you through the wringer, we’ll get you down in the Pit.”

“The wringer?”

“Part of our security measures.” Fellows swung the door open. A small, featureless room lay inside. “When you’re in the room, just do what you’re told, sir. I’ll meet you on the other side.”

McGriffin straightened his shoulders and walked into the chamber. As the door clicked shut behind him, McGriffin noticed a mirror on one of the walls. A panel slid open directly under the mirror. One-way mirror, McGriffin thought. Nothing too unusual yet.

A disembodied voice came from the panel. “Step up to the panel and look into the mirror.” McGriffin stared, as directed. A moment passed, then the voice announced, “Please step to your left.

A door slid open, opposite from the direction he’d entered. Stepping out into a vacant hallway, McGriffin waited for Fellows.

A moment passed before the lieutenant strode into the hall. “Ready, sir?”

McGriffin frowned. “That’s it?”

“Here.” Fellows led him into a small vestibule set off to the side. A security policeman nodded as they entered. Looking around, McGriffin spotted the one-way mirror and stared into the tiny room he had been locked in.

Fellows pointed to several digital readouts. “When you entered the room, your weight was recorded from scales set into the floor.” He patted a telescopic object jutting close to the mirror. “This is an optical sensor that recorded your retina pattern and compared it to the digitized pattern that Chief Zolley sent over with your clearance. In addition, an ultrasound was made to see what you carried on your person. If we suspect that you aren’t who you’re supposed to be, the room seals off” and we send in an armed team to drag you out and really question you.”

McGriffin whistled. “I’ll say. No wonder you call this the wringer.”

“We normally serve seven-day shifts at Alpha Base, so we have to go through the wringer only once a week. And except for a team that patrols outside Alpha Base, no one enters or leaves during the week. Actually, it’s a lot faster than having guards strip-search us, like TSA would do at any airport.”

Leaving the vestibule, they reached an outside door. Sunshine flooded through the window, heating the floor where the light fell.

McGriffin hesitated before going outside.

“Go ahead, Major. Once you passed through the wringer, you were officially inside Alpha Base.” He opened the door for McGriffin. As they stepped outside, Fellows pointed out a heavily guarded gate. Barbed and razor wire covered the entrance. A tunnel of empty space two hundred feet deep, fifty feet high, and one hundred feet across was carved into the wire.

“That’s the only other way to get in or out of Alpha Base. We only use it when we’re moving nuclear weapons. When it’s open, Alpha Base is put on alert.”

McGriffin squinted at the gate to where the four fences came together. At the intersection, razor wire rose in an intricate three-dimensional mesh. The tunnel was large enough to accommodate the flatbeds carrying nuclear weapons. The gates on either side of the tunnel were never open simultaneously.

McGriffin picked out a few of the other landmarks. A low building marked alpha base command post/red room stood next to two other buildings: enlisted barracks and officers’ quarters. The enlisted barracks were ten times bigger than the officers’ quarters. That made sense — there should be at least a ten-to-one ratio of enlisted to officer here.

Fellows tugged on McGriffin’s elbow. “I’ll take you on a quick tour of the area before we go to the command post.”

They climbed into a jeep marked command section. As McGriffin buckled in, Fellows reached down and flipped a switch. “IFF — Identification Friend or Foe,” he explained. “We track every object within a radius of five miles of Alpha Base on radar unless they have one of these IFF devices. That’s classified confidential, by the way, Major. If we didn’t have the IFF’s, we’d be going crazy tracking all of the security vehicles.”

“So you were able to track my car?”

“That’s one advantage to working out here. We can’t be caught in a surprise inspection. We always have plenty of warning for anything that comes our way. A computer automatically masks out any blips from an IFF source, effectively making the image invisible to radar.”

As they started off, McGriffin shook his head. “It’s nice that you have IFF’s that work. They’re different from the ones I’ve used when flying; I wouldn’t use one of our IFF’s in this place if you paid me.”

“How’s that?” yelled Fellows.

McGriffin leaned toward Fellows so the lieutenant could hear him over the engine. “I have an Army buddy who works in a Hawk unit — you know, the ones that provide anti-air support for the ground troops? They’re supposed to use the IFFs to tell the good guys from the bad guys in a war. Well, this guy says they’re so unreliable, they’re going to go ahead and shoot at anything that flies over their Hawk sites.”

“So what do you pilots think about that?”

“That’s why I’m a trash hauler and not a fighter pilot — I don’t worry about it.”

Fellows patted the IFF. “Well, these are state-of-the-art, and we haven’t had any problems with them. Not yet, anyway.”

He slowed the jeep as they drove up to a bunker. The bunker was unguarded, but it looked formidable. They climbed out and walked toward the bulwark. A concrete driveway led up to the bunker. A searchlight, shielded with a grid of steel, sat on top of the concrete wall. The bunker’s face jutted out from a mound of dirt. Fellows placed a hand on the steel door as McGriffin poked around the exterior.

“The door’s made of four-inch-thick steel, originally manufactured as siding for battleships. The concrete walls are eight feet thick, reinforced with rebar, and built to survive a direct hit by a twenty-thousand-pound bomb.”

“How do you open it?” McGriffin pounded on the steel. It didn’t vibrate or budge to his blow.

Fellows motioned him over to a small steel box embedded in the bunker’s side. He leaned against the box. “We’ve gone to a holographic keying system. It’s impossible to break into.”

McGriffin lifted his brows. “Impossible?”

“There’s over a billion trillion possible combinations available from the interference patterns in the holograph.”

McGriffin whistled. Fellows swept his arm across the view of the crater. “We have the capability of storing most of the nation’s stockpile of nuclear weapons here. And that’s what the Department of Defense is heading toward. I guess they want to save money by consolidating the storage sites; that, and keeping the Russkies happy.”

McGriffin leaned against the steel door and gazed across the expanse of Alpha Base. It seemed so calm. The sand was quiet, undisturbed by even the presence of insects. A slight chopping from unseen helicopters was barely audible. If not for the presence of the bunkers and ubiquitous four fences, the scene would have been straight out of a John Wayne western.

McGriffin put a hand in his pocket. “Do you think it’s a good idea to have the entire national stockpile under one roof?”

Lieutenant Fellows looked startled. “Huh? I don’t know. I mean, I’m just a lieutenant, not a general. I’ve never thought about that.”

“Well, what do you think?” pressed McGriffin.

“You saw the guards. Even the air space around Alpha Base is restricted. We’ve got RAIDS — that’s a Radar Airborne Intrusion Detection System— coupled with anti-aircraft missiles using Passive Optical Sensing Technology. The POST Stingers have orders to shoot down anything that flies overhead.”

“Isn’t that a little radical?”

Fellows looked grim. “It’s kind of like protecting the White House. We’re at the top of all Notes to Airmen. We have a five-mile buffer zone with searchlights, radio warnings, and flares to wave off planes if they get close. If they keep heading for us …” He shrugged.

A warm gust of wind whipped around the two, kicking up sand. McGriffin glanced at his watch. “Sounds like you play hardball, Lieutenant.”

“We’re dead serious, sir.”

“I guess that answers my question about a single repository.” They turned and headed back down into the crater to the jeep. “I was just a little concerned last night when that rabbit made it through two of your fences.”

“On the contrary, sir, if a rabbit can’t get through our defenses, then nothing can.”

McGriffin glanced at his watch again. “I appreciate the time you’ve spent, but my shift at the base command post begins in a little over an hour and a half. Do you mind if I get back to you on that tour of your command post?”

“I think the Red Room would be more interesting — it’s where we keep our nuke mock-ups, kind of a show-and-tell. Do you have your CNWDI clearance yet?”

McGriffin frowned, then remembered that CNWDI stood for Critical Nuclear Weapons Design Information. “Yeah. I was briefed into it yesterday.” McGriffin climbed into the jeep. “Sounds interesting. Maybe you guys can throw some excitement back into my life.”

Fellows started the engine. He popped the vehicle into gear and they lurched off. “If you’re into rabbits, then you’ve already experienced all the excitement you’ll see.”

As they drove back in silence, McGriffin hoped that Fellows was right.

The sheet fell away from her breast as she rolled over to her side. She placed a hand on his chest and smiled at him.

Britnell started giggling, then laughed as she rolled on top of him. He pulled her down and they kissed.

Minutes later, she propped her head up on an elbow. “We’ll have to do this again sometime.”

Britnell stretched. “Anything you want, babe. I’ll give you the world if you want.”

Vikki murmured, “Anything?”

“Yeah. Anything.”

She hesitated, then drew a finger across his chest. She really wanted to pull him in, string him along longer … so if she asked for something innocuous, she could build up to the important things. “You know, it might help if I could get a hold of a Wendover phone book. It’s really a hassle to call base information all time. It would really come in handy when we make appointments with your contracting division.”

“No problem.” He closed his eyes.

Vikki reached over and flicked off the light. She rolled to her side and snuggled up against him, smiling.