Ballistic

-20- Kill Them All

An old VW van shifts gears and heads slowly up the road of crushed rock, winding around the mountain. Inside, Rachel drives and Brother David sits next to her, holding a Bible. He is in his country preacher’s garb, black suit, white shirt, and thin, dark tie. A blonde ten-year-old girl with pigtails sits on his lap.

The van passes the sign, “Rattlesnake Hills Sewage Plant — No Trespassing” and approaches the sentry post of the 318th Missile Squadron. David picks up a microphone. “We shall throw Satan into the abyss and seal it for a thousand years,” he proclaims, his voice tinny and shrill though the speaker on the van’s roof.

Inside the Quonset hut, Air Security Policeman Carson has just discarded a useless nine of clubs and picked up a king of hearts. Three kings. “Damn. Never fails. I’m one card away from gin, and look who shows up.”

“Your whole life is one card away from gin,” Air Policeman Dempsey says, taking a short pull on a silver flask of bourbon. “Keep playing. If we ignore them, maybe they’ll go away.”

The amplified voice of Brother David grows louder, “Judgment day is at hand!”

“Damn right it is,” Carson says, tossing down a stray queen of clubs. “I knock with seven. Whadaya got?”

“Shit. I can’t count that high.”

“Loser plays cop,” Carson says, laughing.

Dempsey puts on his beret, just a bit crooked, hitches up his pants, and heads outside.

Deep underground in the launch control capsule, 1st Lieutenant Owens skims his seven-month old copy of Playboy. He looks up at a security monitor and sees Air Policeman Dempsey approach the van in front of the sentry post. Brother David gets out, carrying his Bible. The little girl in pigtails gets out, too, carrying a bouquet of long-stemmed Indian paintbrush flowers. “Hey Billy, look. The God Squad is back.”

But Billy is huddled over the answer sheet of his personality test, using a Number 2 pencil to shade in the blanks. Dr. Susan Burns watches him, occasionally making notes on her pad, trying to classify the young 2nd lieutenant. Schizophrenic is a word that comes to her mind. She makes a note to expedite the results on the urine drug screen.

Nothing in Riordan’s file reveals any prior incidents of mental instability. Born in Cleveland, an only child of average intelligence, he was one of those kids who went through high school without gaining fame or infamy. No extracurricular activities, no detentions or arrests. His parents were divorced when he was six. His father, a career Army non-com, was transferred to South Korea when Billy was twelve, and then to a number of other posts during his teenage years. Though he always paid his child support, Sgt. Wendell Riordan hadn’t seen his son since moving away. Billy enrolled at Ohio State, sleepwalked through Air Force ROTC and liberal arts, and after graduation, was commissioned as a second louie. He did his missile training at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California where he adequately performed the routine, repetitive tasks assigned to him. His personality tests placed him in the vast, gray dull mass of men who lead lives of neither fame nor infamy.

“Captain’s gonna throw a hissy fit,” Owens says, looking at the monitor. He shoots a look at Billy, who is chewing his pencil as he studies the questions on the printed form. “Hey, doc,” Owens says, “can a multiple choice test show multiple personalities, ‘cause if it does, Billy boy’s gonna be off the Richter.”

Susan Burns ignores him, and Owens goes back to his magazine.

Air Policeman Dempsey has his thumbs hooked in his belt. “Like I told you before, Reverend, this ain’t Yellowstone. It’s off limits to—”

“No place on earth is off limits to those seeking the Word,” David says. He nods to the little girl, who wears a yellow sun dress with blue polka dots. She giggles and hands Dempsey the bouquet of blood-red flowers. “These are for you, mister,” she says, “a present from heaven.”

Dempsey takes the flowers, feeling a little foolish. “Thank you. Security Command could use a little decorating.”

“And perhaps I can leave something for your brothers-in-arms to remember me by,” David says. He hands his Bible to Dempsey, who now has a bouquet of flowers in one hand and the good Book in the other. Something in the movement of David’s hand catches Dempsey’s eye.

The glint of the sun off shiny metal.

A blade.

If Dempsey had the reflexes of a great athlete, or if he had been primed for trouble, or if he had not consumed half a flask of bourbon before lunch, or if his hands hadn’t been full, perhaps he could have leapt back, unsnapped his holster, and pulled his Colt Government Model .45. But all he does is stand there, dumbly disbelieving, as the blade of a stiletto sweeps a graceful arc toward his neck.

The blade catches Dempsey’s carotid artery and severs it cleanly. As blood spurts into the air, he clutches his throat and staggers, falling into David’s arms.

“Help!” David yells. “Your friend fainted. Help us here!”

Air Policeman Carson stumbles out of the Quonset hut to see David propping up Dempsey. Carson rushes in that direction, then stops. A fountain of blood shoots from Dempsey’s neck and cascades over a bouquet of flowers scattered on the ground. Even with his training, there is a moment of utter paralysis, a frozen second of hesitation.

In the launch control capsule, Owens looks at the monitor, where David seems to be helping Dempsey stand up. “Get a load of this,” Owens says. “Dempsey’s drunk again.”

On the screen, David waltzes Dempsey three paces to the left and out of camera range.

“Dempsey’s lucky the captain’s still in the silo,” Owens says, looking around, but neither the psychiatrist nor Billy pay any attention to him. He turns his attention back to a Playboy pictorial on women fire fighters, wondering if they hold the hoses so lovingly when they’re really on duty.

The rear door of the van bursts open, and the broad-shouldered Gabriel leaps out, followed by six men in commando garb — camouflage uniforms, combat boots, helmets, cheeks smeared with eye-black, assault rifles at port arms. Gabriel raises his rifle, a ribbed-silenced MP-5.

Airman Carson backs up toward the Quonset hut. “Oh, shit! Oh, holy shit!” He turns and scrambles through the open door of the security post, his knees rubbery. He’s reaching for the phone when five slugs thump through the metal skin of the Quonset hut and cut him down.

The next sixty seconds proceed with deadly synchronization.

One of Gabriel’s men uses wire cutters to snip the lines on the security cameras.

A five-ton truck with a snowplow pulls out from behind the bend on the gravel road and plows through the security gate.

Commandos pour out of the truck and spread into an infantry attack formation. Leapfrogging each other along the access road, ducking behind trees and bushes, they work their way toward the security building. Except for the crunch of boots on gravel, and the distant song of an Audubon warbler, no sounds disturb the tranquil setting.

At the head of the formation, Matthew leads two commandos to the outer steel door of the security building. At the same time, James, a slight bespectacled commando with pale, wispy hair and acne scars, pries open an electrical box adjacent to the building. He pulls out a handful of wires and begins cutting.

At that moment, an airman in shorts and running shoes jogs around the corner of the building from the direction of the barracks. He’s wearing earphones, listening to music. He sees the commandos and stops short.

A burst of automatic weapons fire drops him. He tries to stand, holding his abdomen where his intestines protrude from a gaping wound. A second burst punctures his throat, and he falls to the ground, drowning in his own blood. The earphones have come off, and for a moment, there is the faint, ironic voice of Jimmy Buffet, praising the wonders of cheeseburgers in paradise.

In the launch control capsule, the monitors go blank, the sweeping beams on the radar screen fade to black, and the teletype stops clacking.

Owens bangs on the console. “Not again. Billy, you want to crank up the generator?”

Billy is still huddled over his multiple choice test, Susan Burns watching him.

“Never mind,” Owens says, “I’ll do it myself.” He hits a switch, and a whirring noise emanates from the sump.

Gabriel leads a second group of commandos through the stand of Ponderosa pine trees beyond the security building. There, in the shadow of the aqueduct that runs down the mountain from Chugwater Dam, two wooden buildings — the barracks and mess hall — sit peacefully next to a baseball diamond cut into the weedy soil.

The soldiers of the Apocalypse take up positions behind trees, peering toward the buildings through scoped —16’s. In front of the mess hall, close to the baseball field, two soldiers play catch, their voices carrying toward the woods. Gabriel hears them debating the relative merits of the New York Mets and the Atlanta Braves. Even from this distance, he can detect the southern accent of the Braves’ fan. Gabriel gives a silent signal by pointing to the commando nearest him. You take the one the left. On three.

Gabriel sights the ballplayer, who faces him. Aims at the center of his chest. Two to the chest, one to the head. Makes the perp good and dead. Gabriel’s father was a cop in Houston, and that’s what he always said. But a quick burst here, three 5.56 millimeter slugs, all aimed at the chest would likely blow out Atlanta’s sternum, lung, and maybe his heart.

Pop, pop, pop. The riflemen fire simultaneously, and the ballplayers crumple to the ground. At the sound of the gunshots, a barechested airman, his face covered with shaving cream, emerges from the barracks. He sees the fallen airmen, whirls around, looking into the woods, but does not see the attackers. A gunshot from the trees creases his temple, and his shaving cream beard turns red. A second later, a fusillade peppers his body, and he falls. The commandos emerge from the trees and fire on full automatic, shredding the wooden walls on the barracks.

Attached to the rear of the barracks is a small concrete block building, the latrine and showers. Standing under a roaring shower head, lathered with soap, oblivious to the danger, Airman Reynolds sings “Do It To Me” in a voice never mistaken for Lionel Ritchie.

Inside Security Command, five airmen play poker at a desk littered with donuts, Styrofoam coffee cups and poker chips. From outside, the muffled crackle of small arms fire. Lieutenant Cooper spills his coffee. “What the fuck was that?”

“Probably one of the Air Police taking target practice,” an airman says.

“Bet we get venison for dinner,” says a third.

Suddenly, the room goes dark, and the humming equipment goes silent.

“Generator!” Cooper yells.

Someone hits a switch and the lights come up to half power.

The door to the barracks is in splinters. The remaining airmen, wounded and bleeding, are in hand-to-hand combat with the commandos. Pistol fire echoes through the close quarters. Gabriel uses a knife to eviscerate a young airman and leads his men through the barracks. “Kill them all!” he orders.

Using his bunk for cover, Airman Sayers empties his sidearm into the advancing commandos, then ducks for cover behind a footlocker. A noise from behind, and Sayers whirls around. A commando bursts through the back door and surprises him, the M-16A2 just inches from his face. Instinctively, Sayers reaches for the barrel and they wrestle for the gun. Sayers get leverage and dumps the commando to the floor as gunshots shatter the window above his head. The commando is on his knees when Sayers gets him in a headlock and twists, breaking the man’s neck.

Sayers gets to his feet and sees another commando with an Uzi turning toward him. Just as a volley of slugs rips into the wall, Sayers dives out the open window.

“Where the hell’s the captain?” someone shouts in the semi-darkness of Security Command.

“In the silo playing tour guide,” someone else answers.

Lieutenant Cooper tries to take control. “All right, everybody pipe down. We probably just blew a fuse. Anybody reach Dempsey at the sentry post?”

“He doesn’t answer.”

“Shit! What the hell’s going on?”

Before anyone can answer, the dull thud of an explosion flattens the outer door of the security building and rattles the wall of the command center.

“Jumping Jesus!” Cooper is on his feet. “Get on the horn to STRATCOM! Raise Space Command! Now!”

The Radio Operator grabs a headset and punches buttons on his transmitter.

“Satellite hookup, now!” Cooper shouts. “Weapons, now!”

Another airman fumbles with a set of keys. A second explosion, this one on the security bridge. The pass-through window is shattered. Dust sifts down from the ceiling. The airman finds the right key and opens the weapons locker. Three other airman jostle each other, tugging at rifles that are bound together by nylon straps. Boxes of bullets and loaded magazines fall from the locker and clatter to the floor. A few shells roll crazily across the tile.

Cooper stands at the communications desk, screaming into a microphone. “Come in, STRATCOM! Answer, goddamit!”

Another blast, and the reinforced door implodes. Four commandos burst in with military precision, two to a side, one high, one low. A pink laser dot finds Cooper’s forehead in the dim light. With a soft whap, he takes a shot between the eyes and topples over backward. An Airman raises a rifle, but a staccato beat from a commando’s Uzi tattoos his chest with three slugs. Another airman draws a bead with a handgun, but Matthew splatters him with a blast from a twelve-gauge pistol-grip shotgun.

It is over in seconds.

The airmen are all dead. Security Command is in the hands of the Holy Church of Revelations.

-21- Figs Shaken from a Dying Tree

In the launch control capsule, Owens angrily bangs switches on the console. He picks up a phone and listens to a dead line. Slams down the phone. A look of frustration. “Where the hell is everybody?”

“Probably just a short in the number two generator,” Billy Riordan says. “Let’s not start World War III.”

“Oh, look who’s got an opinion,” Owens says, frazzled. “Thank you very much, Billy boy. Thank you very goddamn much.”

“Is there a problem?” Dr. Susan Burns asks.

Owens doesn’t know what to say. It’s never happened before. Buried underground and out of communication. A woodchuck could have eaten through their electrical lines or a missile fired by some crazy Russians could have nuked them. Suddenly, the phone rings, and Owens jumps. “Whoa! There they are.” His body relaxes just a bit. “No problem, ma’am. Now, let’s see who’s home.” He picks up the phone and barks, “Capsule Command, Lieutenant Owens. Please identify.”

“Security Alpha,” the voice says. “Everything all right down there?”

Firmly now, “Day code, Security Alpha.”

“Day code, Sky King. Now what’s going on in the hole?”

“Jesus, what’s going on up there?” Owens asks. “Where the hell you been?”

“Sorry ‘bout that, Capsule Command. Electrical crew fouled up, must have sliced some wires.”

“Yeah, what about the backup?”

While Owens waits for an answer, at the other end of the line, Brother David looks around the Security Command Center, which is a shambles. Dead airmen are sprawled over desks and chairs, the walls have been shot up, the window to the security bridge shattered. “Backup shorted out,” David says. “We’ll report it.”

Behind him, Matthew surveys the damage. Rachel, carrying an Uzi, is at his side. A commotion, and David turns. Airman Reynolds bursts into the room, soaking wet, a towel around his waist. “Quick, call STRATCOM! Call NORAD! Call the President! We’ve been… ”

He sees the massacre, stops short, knows in that instant he’s a dead man.

The thwomp from Matthew’s silenced MP-5 drops Reynolds who was going to say, “overrun” but simply says “fucked” as his dying word.

David grimaces and hangs up the phone. “Let’s move!” he commands Gabriel.

A sudden look of worry crosses Matthew’s face. “The PAL code for the elevator!”

Rachel hands David a brown envelope with a tie seal. “Billy has done his job so very well.”

In the launch control capsule, Owens yells into the dead line. “Security Alpha, do you read me? Come in, Security Alpha!”

At the far end of the console, Susan studies Billy, who is oddly serene. “What’s happening, Lieutenant Riordan?”

Owens wheels around. “Why ask him? Billy’s been out to lunch for the last six months.”

“Riordan!” Susan implores him.

Billy recites the answer as if memorized from his catechism. “Stars in the sky will fall to earth like figs shaken from a dying tree.”

“What does that mean?” she demands.

“Just what it says. The Bible is not allegory. It is the Word. Are you ready for the Apocalypse?”

-22- Name that Neurosis

Captain Pete Pukowlski leads the U.N. delegation down a ladder into the generator room beneath the missile silo. The thumpa-thumpa of the launch generator is as soothing to the captain as a mother’s heartbeat to an infant. “You’ve seen the brains and the balls of the missile,” he says. “These are its legs.”

Pukowlski steps over a taut hose that runs from the generator to the canister sheathing the missile. He waits a moment, surveying his domain, as the ambassadors gather around him. “The missile’s shot out of the tube by a blast of heated gases that are pressurized to three hundred twenty pounds a square inch. Whoosh!” The captain makes a plunging motion with his arm. “It’s pretty much like the Polaris on the subs, or one of those toy rockets where the kids pump it up with air pressure.”

“A toy?” the Israeli ambassador asks. “That is a rather casual reference to a weapon of mass destruction.”

Jackie Mason! The name comes to Pukowlski. The ambassador reminds him of Jackie Mason.

“Well, of course, this baby’s not a toy,” Pukowlski says, retreating. “Not with ten MIRV’s on the top. And of course, the rocket’s not the weapon at all, just the delivery system, but my point is, the initial propulsion is the same as… ”

Oh the hell with it, the captain thinks, just letting it go. Why try to justify anything to these bozos? He catches sight of Sergeant Jericho mopping the floor of the generator room, a furry brown animal crawling around his neck. A couple of the ambassadors have noticed the goof-off, too, and Pukowlski clears his throat to get their attention, then plows ahead. “Anyway, gentlemen, when the missile is clear of the silo, the computer in the fourth stage sends a message to fire up the rocket engines. And, my friends, when those burners ignite, it’s Mardi Gras, the Fourth of July, and Christmas… ” He shoots a look at the Israeli, trying to recall the name of that Jew Christmas before giving it up. “All rolled into one.”

But the ambassadors do not seem to be in the holiday spirit. At the moment, they are watching Jack Jericho go about the mundane task of swabbing the floor while a rodent perches on his shoulder. Pukowlski shoots Jericho a murderous look which goes unacknowledged. As usual, Jericho’s mind is elsewhere. “Sergeant!” Pukowlski shouts. “Get rid of that rat.”

Startled, Jericho snaps to attention, or the best he can while holding a mop. “Sir!”

“Did you hear me, Jericho?”

“Yes, sir. But it’s a ferret. It kills rats.”

“And I kill sergeants. Do you follow me, Jericho?”

“Like a duck behind its mother… sir.”

Jericho stuffs the ferret in the large front pocket of his fatigues, grabs his mop, and heads down the ladder into the drainage sump.

David and Rachel lead a contingent of commandos across the security bridge. In his dark suit and tie and carrying a leather briefcase, David looks like a lawyer rushing to court, albeit a lawyer splattered with the blood of a deceased Air Security Policeman. The barracks having been secured, Gabriel joins the procession, while Matthew remains with his men in Security Command. At the elevator housing, David types out an alpha-numeric code on a PAL keypad. The computer screen flashes, “Access Granted,” and the massive steel doom rumbles open.

Suddenly, from behind them, “Halt!”

Carrying an M-16A2 service rifle, Sayers runs toward them across the security bridge. A commando drops to his knees and swings up his assault rifle, but Sayers dives to the floor of the bridge, shoulder rolls, then flattens himself into the prone firing position. Sayers has never before fired a gun in anger, unless you count a perfunctory shot with a .38 at a black BMW filled with drug dealers that was cruising his Brooklyn neighborhood. Now, in the fraction of a second that will spell his life or death, his training comes back to him, just as they said it would:

“Describe the M-16A2, airman.”

“A lightweight, magazine-fed, gas-operated, air-cooled, and shoulder-fired weapon, sir.”

“State the maximum range and maximum effective range.”

“Maximum range, three thousand five hundred thirty four meters, sir. Maximum effective range five hundred fifty meters, sir.”

Sayers is only twenty-five meters away when he lets the first burst go, and two commandos fall. “Take him!” David shouts. “Blast him to hell.”

Another commando fires wildly, spraying the security bridge with his Uzi but missing Sayers, who squeezes off another burst and takes out the shooter. Then he swings his rifle toward the long-haired man in the blood-spattered suit, the one shouting orders to the others. Odd, Sayers thinks, how he stands there squarely in the middle of the elevator housing, giving me a full target, unafraid. I’ll cut him in two. Sayers has him in the front sight, aiming for the middle of his chest, is ready to add polka dots to his tie. Squeezing the trigger now, and…

Nothing.

Jammed.

Damned.

And the rest of it comes back, too.

Swab out the bore and chamber with a patch moistened with CLP.

Clean upper receiver of powder fouling, corrosion, dirt, and rust.

Clean bolt carrier group.

Who the hell ever thought we’d really need these things? Which is Sayers’ last thought as he futilely tries to clear his weapon and Gabriel puts one bullet through his left eye with an MP-5.

“Providence truly smiles on us today,” David says, leading his faithful into the elevator.

“What’s the T.O. say when security doesn’t answer?” Owens asks, banging down the phone in the launch control capsule.

“But security answered,” Billy Riordan says.

“Yeah, then hung up.”

“The power probably went down again.”

Their flight chairs are centered on the command console. Dr. Susan Burns sits behind them, watching and listening.

“Something’s screwy,” Owens says. He hits a switch on the console and a tape rewinds. He hits the “play” button and his own voice comes from a speaker mounted on the wall.

“Yeah, what about the backup?”

A pause, then, “Backup shorted out. We’ll report it.”

The sound of chairs scraping the floor, then a muffled voice. Owens stops the tape, hand cranks the reel backward, then hits a button that enhances background sound and suppresses sound closest to the mike. The voice is still muffled, and because of the slow play time, the tone is a deep bass, but the words are audible. “Qu-ick. ca-ll STRAT-COM. Ca-ll NO-RAD. Ca-al the Pres-I-dent. We’ve be-en… ”

Another pause and then a rich plumping sound, a hammer smacking a ripe melon. And then slowly, a deep baritone, “fu-cked.”

“Without having been kissed,” Owens says. “Jesus H. Christ, what’s going on up there!” He quickly slides down the console toward the communications racks. Ordinarily, the deputy is in charge of communications, but Owens wouldn’t trust Billy Riordan to call for home delivery pizza. Owens has his choice of an array of communications gear, but he chooses the most reliable, the old black rotary telephone. He dials the number for the duty officer at STRATCOM and gets a busy signal. Damn! He flicks on the AF-SAT up-link transmitter to bring in a satellite. When he’s made the connection, Owens struggles to keep the fear out of his voice, “STRATCOM-1, this is Launch Facility 47-Q. Do you read me?”

The headquarters of U.S. Strategic Command, called STRATCOM, is buried deep in a blast-proof bunker at Offut Air Force Base outside Omaha, Nebraska. The cavernous War Room is lined with computer consoles and high-tech communications gear. On the front wall, the Command Center Processing and Display system, commonly called the “Big Board,” shows North America, Europe and Asia overlaid with colorful tracking symbols representing movement of aircraft and naval fleets.

Colonel Frank Farris leans over a communications technician and speaks into a microphone. He has finished his fourth cup of coffee and third donut in the last hour and is pleased to have something to do besides the crossword puzzle. “We read you, 47-Q. We’ve lost the link with your security officer.”

“No kidding,” Owens says. “That’s why I’m on the horn. If this is a drill, no one told us about it. What the heck’s—”

“Stay cool, 47-Q. We have no record of a security drill, and no other capsules report any irregularities, but go to Condition Yellow. Secure the capsule, terminate elevator access, scramble communications.”

“Affirmative, STRATCOM.”

Owens clicks off the phone and takes a look at the open blast door. “Hey Billy, you heard the man. Now, how the hell do we scramble communications?” He opens the T.O. and leafs through the pages.

“I’ll shut down the elevator,” Billy says.

Dr. Susan Burns watches as he punches several buttons on the console. Leaning close to him, she says, “Billy, I know you’ve been under great stress, and I want to help, but you’ve got to tell me—”

“There’s nothing you can do. Nothing.” He fiddles with a switch, then turns to Owens. “It won’t lock down.”

“What!”

A buzzer sounds, and a woman’s soothing mechanical voice comes over the speaker above their heads, “Elevator access granted. Elevator in motion.”

Owens stares are a digital display showing the elevator’s steady descent into the hole. “Now, who—”

“Probably Security coming down to find out why the lines are dead,” Billy says. “Hope they’re not as spooked as you are.”

“Yeah, well they’re not trapped like sardines in a… ” Owens notices the blast door is still open. “Billy, are you fucking deaf? Close the door! Do I have to come down there and do everything myself?”

“The door is open for saints and sinners alike.”

Owens’ eyes go wide. “What the fuck are you—”

“We welcome the righteous and the wicked. Salvation is open to all.”

“Are you out of your cotton-picking mind?” Owens swivels toward the blast door. From outside comes the clacking of boots on the catwalk connecting the launch control capsule to the elevator. Owens kicks his flight chair down the railing toward Billy, then reaches out to punch the red button that will close the blast door. Billy grabs Owens’ arm with both hands and yanks him away.

Owens is heavier and stronger, and he shakes Billy off and reaches out again. This time, Billy pulls a snub-nosed .38 from a zippered pocket in his flightsuit. “Freeze!”

Owens stops short. His hand is a six inches — a million miles — from the button. “You are fucking crazy!” He grabs the gun, twisting it away while he pounds at Billy’s face with his free hand. They struggle awkwardly, still seated in their flight chairs.

Susan Burns leaps from her chair and dives for the console, hitting the red button. With a soft hydraulic whoosh, the pressure begins building to close the eight-ton door. The door is reinforced with steel pins and coated with space-age polymers. Closed and locked, it secures the capsule against a nuclear blast above. Now, it begins its painfully slow closing.

A jumble of sounds, Owens and Billy grappling with each other, their breaths coming in short, harsh exhalations. The door is halfway closed. The pounding of the boots growing louder. A shout from outside, “Go for it!”

A commando dives for the entrance and lands across the doorway. As the door closes, cracking his ribs, three other commandos use the man’s back as a springboard to vault inside. Owens, one hand around Billy’s neck, tries to wrestle away his gun. Gabriel swings his rifle butt and smashes Owens across the forehead. Billy holds his throat and coughs. Terrified, Susan watches helplessly as a woman in an ankle-length dress and a man in a blood-spattered dark suit enter the capsule. The scene is so beyond belief as to be utterly surreal.

Brother David surveys the console, a look of self-satisfaction on his face. Then he heads straight for the blast door control panel and hits a green button. He does this, Susan notes, as naturally as a driver flicking on the wipers. Knew what he was looking for, a cocky smirk on his face. A chill runs through Susan with the realization that this man, whoever he is, knows what he is doing. And that look in his eyes. So strange. A burning intensity but at the same time, an icy remoteness.

The blast door slowly opens wide enough for two commandos to drag their injured cohort inside. David hits a red button and waits as the door slowly closes with a liquid pflump of its seals. He pulls out a walkie-talkie. “Matthew, the angel has landed. Maintain the perimeter.”

He turns to the others, seeming to take inventory. He spreads his arms over the glowing lights and sweeping radar beams of the console. “Ah, the splendors that I behold. Home, sweet home. Wouldn’t Daddy be proud?”

-23- The Unstable Boy

Jack Jericho listens to the rhythm of water dripping from the drain into the sump. He is hunched over the Launch Eject Gas Generator, up to his knees in grimy water, tending to a pump beneath the floor of the tunnel that connects the missile silo to the launch control capsule. Twisting a monkey wrench against a stubborn valve, his hand slips and the wrench clangs off the tubing and slams into his knee.

“Dammit and little chickens!” He rubs the knee and hops on one foot, splashing through the sump. When the pain eases, he returns to the valve, tightens the wrench, and uses two hands to lever it open. In a moment, the pump is primed, and water begins flushing down the pipes and out of the sump. Bent at the waist in the low channel, Jericho heads toward the silo. “Now, Susan,” he says to himself, “I mean, Dr. Burns. Don’t judge a book by its cover.” He stops, takes the measure of his own words. “No. Stupid and defensive. A total cliché.”

He resumes walking, splashing through the draining water. “I’ve got potential, Susan. Yessir, I was named ‘best fly fisherman’ in the Sinkhole Senior class. He keeps moving but shakes his head. “No. Sounds like I’m bragging.”

Unseen by Jack Jericho, three of Brother David’s commandos head through the tunnel connecting the launch control capsule to the silo. They are unaware that beneath the steel flooring under their feet, the sergeant walks through the drainage sump. Instead of proceeding down the tunnel to the silo, the commandos turn right and enter the cramped Sleeping Quarters/Galley. In the event of nuclear attack, the underground facility can house a dozen men as long as they don’t all need to sleep at the same time. Six bunks are crammed into the small space along with a small galley and canned provisions.

The commandos enter with rifles ready. They scan the room, find it empty, then head back into the tunnel.

In the drainage sump, Jack Jericho turns left and heads toward a ladder just beneath the Launch Equipment Room. “So doc,” he says to himself, “maybe we could grab a buffalo burger at the Old Wrangler Tavern sometime. When? Oh, anytime you want. As Thoreau wrote, ‘time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.’” Again he shakes his head, “No. Don’t put on airs. Besides, she’s probably a vegetarian.”

The commandos cross the tunnel and enter the Launch Equipment Room. Guns at the ready, one man to a row, they search between the floor-to-ceiling shelves stacked with electrical equipment, tubing, and spare parts. The youngest commando, Daniel, a round-faced nineteen-year-old towhead, walks down a row of shelves filled with radio gear, passing over a grate in the floor. Beneath him in the drainage sump, Jack Jericho does not notice the shadow pass over his head. Jericho squeezes between two floor-mounted pumps as he climbs onto an orange steel ladder set into the wall. As he climbs onto the first rung, his tool belt swings loose, and a stud driver clinks against a pipe.

Above him, Daniel hears the noise and whirls around. Nothing.

Daniel turns back and slowly in front of him, a steel grate is lifting from the floor. Keeping quiet now, nervously moistening his lips, letting the man get out of the grate, his back turned.

Jack Jericho hoists himself from the opening, turns and stares into the barrel of an assault rifle. “What the hell!”

Daniel pulls the trigger, but the gun doesn’t fire. He fumbles with the safety, which had been left engaged.

Jericho leaps down through the open grate, bangs into the ladder and plunges roughly into the black water of the sump. He gets to his feet and scrambles crab-like down the sump as a burst of automatic weapons fire comes through the open grate and ricochets behind him.

In the Equipment Room, the other two commandos race into the row where Daniel stands, firing into the darkness below. “Down there!” he yells. “I think I winged him.”

The older commandos look at him skeptically, then climb down the ladder into the sump.

Jack Jericho stomps wildly through the knee-deep water as if he were pulverizing grapes. Arms flailing, heart pumping, adrenaline in overdrive. That dreaded feeling, running away. The only difference is that here, there is no one to save but himself. He ducks under low-hanging pipes, wades out of the drainage area, then stops to listen. Splashes and shouts behind him.

Jericho moves again, scuttling along in the channel. He stops and crawls into a nest of tubing. He waits a moment, listens to a scratching sound, looks up and sees a brown rat scurrying across some PVC piping. He reaches into his pocket, pulls out the ferret, and points toward the rat. “Go fetch, Ike.” The ferret scampers up the pipe and disappears.

Jericho goes deeper into the recess of the channel behind the tubing. He comes to a bank of electrical boxes, opens one and tears out a handful of wires. The yellow bulbs of the channel go dark.

In the overwhelming blackness, the sound of the pumps seems louder. He hears something, cocks his head to listen like a deer in the woods, but the commandos behind him have stopped, at least for the moment. Again, the sound, what is it? A wail, and then a scream. He is back in the mine, the men calling to him, their hands groping for him, bloody with desperation to drag him down. He shakes off the vision as well as the urge to simply curl up in the web of piping and hide.

He starts up again. His eyes do not become adjusted to the darkness because it is total blackness, just as it was in the mine. Still, he knows the way, knows when to duck under low-hanging pipes, knows where the channel forks into two paths. He keeps moving, trying not to splash.

Behind him, flashlights click on, shooting beams down the narrow channel. Damn. Jericho takes the right-hand fork and disappears into the shroud of darkness.

In the launch control capsule, Brother David settles his gaze on Susan. “Who, pray tell, are you?”

“Susan Burns. Dr. Burns. I’m a psychiatrist.”

David’s eyes light up. “Oh, how fitting. Perhaps later we can play some games.”

Rachel turns to him. “David, there is no time for self indulgence.”

He ignores her and says to Susan Burns, “I’m particularly fond of ‘Name that Neurosis.’”

“Neurosis? Just a preliminary diagnosis, but if I had to guess, I’d say we’re into major psychosis here.”

David tosses back his head and laughs. “That’s good. Humor is so unexpected coming from a shrink.”

“David!” Rachel insists.

“Fine.” He turns to Billy Riordan and simply says, “The key.”

Wordlessly, Billy gets up, walks to the red metallic box set into the wall, and enters the combination on the padlock. Back in his flight chair, a woozy Owens stirs. “Billy, don’t do it!”

But Billy is on a mission. He opens the box, takes the launch key and then hands it to David. “For the eternal glory of God,” Billy says.

David turns to Owens. “I believe it takes two to tango.”

“No fucking way,” Owens says. “Look, the keys won’t do you any good. We can’t decipher the Enable Code without an EAM. We can’t enter the PLC, either. Even if you had them, it takes a matching command from another capsule. You can’t do anything without… ”

David silences him with a poisonous look. “Now, I could open that tin box with a rusty screwdriver, but destroying government property is a felony, and we wouldn’t want to violate any laws, would we?”

Owens doesn’t budge, but Billy goes to the second box and enters the combination, then hands David the second key. “I watched Owens and memorized the combination,” Billy says proudly.

David cups his hands around Billy’s head, drawing him close, then kissing him squarely on the mouth.

“What’s with you guys?” Owens says, his voice rising. “Don’t you understand? You can’t fire the missile anyway.”

“Simpleton!” David shouts at him. “Would I have come this far without having the ability to defeat your pathetic security?”

“Without the code, the keys won’t do you any good.”

David nods at Gabriel, who raises his gun.

“Only the President… ” Owens continues, but he shuts up as he watches the gun barrel point at his head.”

Gabriel shifts his aim slightly, and shoots Billy in the chest.

Billy’s face is a mixture of disbelief and bewilderment as he slumps to the floor.

“Oh, shit!” Owens says, slouching back into his chair. “Oh, shit, piss, damn.”

Startled, Susan puts a hand to her mouth. “Why? Why would you… ”

“His work was done,” David says evenly. Then, with an ironic snigger, “Besides, the boy was quite unstable.”

-24- Show Me a Hero

Deep in the sump, the three commandos follow the right-hand turn of the channel. The commando on point takes a step and snaps a piece of twine. A dead rat, its tail tied to an overhead pipe, swings down and smacks him in the face. He screams and squeezes off a wild burst of gunfire.

Farther down the channel, Jericho hears the shots behind him and picks up the pace. He comes to drainage pool where water pours into the sump from an overhead pipe and in the darkness, he slips and falls in the deeper water. Cold and grimy, the water pours down his back. The drainage pipe roars like a waterfall in his ears, and the channel becomes a flooded mine shaft. He squeezes his eyes shut, opens them again, and finds himself thinking of Susan Burns. “Do you think you’re the only one who has suffered a loss?”

He blinks the water out of his eyes, forces himself back to reality, and reaches out for a handhold. He ends up grabbing an old string mop propped in the crotch of some piping. Carrying the mop like a rifle, he keeps moving.

The three commandos splash through the channel, pointing flashlights and rifles into the darkness. One raises his hand, and the other two stop. They listen to the sound of the launch generator and the pouring of water from the drainage pipe. Another few steps, and there he is!

A figure in the dark in a military t-shirt.

The commandos open fire, tearing the man apart, sending him tumbling into the water, his guts oozing out.

But it isn’t a man.

It’s a mop with a string head and a t-shirt stuffed with pink fiberglass insulation.

“He has more faces than the devil himself,” the lead commando says, kicking at the fallen mop.

A grate opens in the floor of the missile silo, and Jericho, bare-chested and sopping wet, crawls out of the sump. He looks up. The suspended missile hangs just above his head.

Moments later, the three commandos come up through the grate into the missile silo. One heads to the gantry and rides it up the length of the missile. The second heads into the tunnel toward the launch control capsule. The youngest commando, Daniel, stands under the rocket burners. He examines the wet footprints that seem to circle beneath the missile but don’t lead away from it. He stares up into the darkness of the rocket burners themselves.

Then he looks down as a drop of water plops onto the polished steel floor. Then another. He lifts his rifle, when…

Jack Jericho dives from inside the cross-tubing of the rocket burners and crashes on top of Daniel, who drops his rifle. Jericho topples off him, landing hard. Daniel dives for the rifle, but Jericho kicks it away. The commando spins a roundhouse kick into Jericho’s chest, knocking him down, then lifts a booted foot and drives it toward Jericho’s head. Jericho grabs him by the ankle, flips him over, then scrambles to his feet and bounds for the rifle.

The commando leaps onto Jericho, who reaches back and slugs him with an elbow, knocking him off. Jericho dives for the rifle, but comes up short. Daniel tackles him, and they sprawl onto the concrete, rolling over each other. The commando is heavier, but Jericho is quicker and stronger. Like the high school wrestler he once was, Jericho slips behind the man, uses leverage to flip him over and ends up pinning him down by sitting on his chest. Jericho pulls his knife from its sheath and holds it to the commando’s jugular.

In the launch control capsule, David sits at the console, watching a monitor that shows an overhead shot of the missile in the silo. He hits a button, and the monitor switches to a shot of the silo floor where Jack Jericho draws a knife at Daniel’s neck.

“Looks like we missed one of the soldiers,” he says calmly

Owens, his hands cuffed behind him, shouts, “All right!” Then he looks closer at the monitor, and his shoulders slump. “Oh shit, that’s not a soldier. Not even an airman. That’s Jericho, the janitor.”

Turning to Gabriel, David says, “Would you please dispose of this fellow, whoever he might be?”

Gabriel nods and heads out the blast door at double time with three commandos.

David shoots a look at the monitor and then at Dr. Burns. He grabs a stack of personnel files piled up in front of her. Opening the first one, he says, “Oh, how I do love a bureaucracy.” He thumbs through the folders, opening each one to look at the passport-sized photos of the airmen. “Ah, here’s our janitor. Sergeant Jack Jericho, E-5, Sinkhole, West Virginia. My oh my, I do believe we’ve met before.”

He turns to Dr. Burns. “Tell me about this Sergeant Jericho, doctor.”

“My conversations with the airmen are privileged.”

Which sets David to laughing. “I love the medical bureaucracy almost as much as the military bureaucracy.” He drills her with a threatening glare and grabs her jaw, his thumb and index finger digging into her cheek, forcing her to open her mouth. “Now, doctor, tell me. Is Sergeant Jack Jericho, this Eagle Scout from the Appalachians, the kind of man to act heroically on behalf of duty and country?”

David lets go, revealing red splotches on her cheeks where his fingers dug in. “No,” she says, her eyes moist. “Not based on past experiences.”

“Good,” David says. “Very good. Wasn’t it Fitzgerald who wrote, ‘show me a hero, and I’ll show you a tragedy.’”

Breathing hard, Jericho presses the knife into the young commando’s neck until a pinprick of blood appears. “Who the hell are you guys?”

“I am called Daniel. We are Warriors of God,” he says tentatively, his eyes darting around the missile silo, looking for his buddies.

“You don’t sound too convinced.”

“Brother David is the Lamb of Christ,” the commando says, as if he memorized the words for such an occasion. “He will usher in the Apocalypse.”

From the tunnel comes the sound of combat boots on concrete as Gabriel’s commandos enter the silo.

“We follow the Word of God,” the young commando says.

“You forget about, ‘Thou shalt not kill?’”

Jericho heads toward the open grate as the footsteps pound closer. He climbs into the sump, realizing as he does that he’s panicked. He could have grabbed the commando’s rifle. Hearing voices above, it’s too late to go back.

Gabriel and his commandos troop into the silo to find the young commando standing in a daze under the missile. “Where is the heathen?” Gabriel demands.

Daniel’s eyes flick to the grate over the sump. Gabriel glares at him suspiciously and motions his men toward the opening.

-25- Rocky Mountain RAD

In the launch control capsule, Brother James sits in the deputy’s flight chair, David in the commander’s. Two armed commandos stand watch over Owens, who is hunched on the floor, his hands cuffed behind him. Dr. Susan Burns sits nearby, Rachel watching her.

James breathes on the lenses of his rimless glasses, then wipes them on his shirt. He flicks on the console-mounted teletype, brushes a lock of pale hair from his eyes and rubs the back of his fist against his acne-scarred face.

David clasps his shoulder. “Make some beautiful music, maestro.”

James pounds out a message on the teletype keyboard: “Behold, I bring you the Morning Star.” He hits a code and transmits the message, then turns to David and says, “Confusion to the enemy.”

“And glory to God,” David adds.

“Whatever you say, Davy.”

David shoots him an exasperated look, and James laughs. Susan watches the two men interact, noting that James does give David the reverence that the other commandos do.

James slides his flight chair down the rail away from the teletype and toward the computer keyboard. “Okay, Brother David,” he says, hitting the words with just a hint of sarcasm, “let’s work on the codes.” With that, his fingers dance across the keyboard, and six-digit alpha-numeric combinations begin scrolling down the monitor. David watches him work, his eyes never straying from the monitor.

The two men have known each other since elementary school and later, both were both expelled from a prep school outside Colorado Springs. At the time, David’s father was a consultant to the North American Aerospace Defense Command, commonly called NORAD, headquartered deep inside Cheyenne Mountain.

The mountain is a hundred million years old, but for the last thirty-five years, has housed a city, a complex of fifteen steel buildings constructed on steel springs to negate the earthquake effect of a nuclear blast. As a child, David accompanied his father to the nerve center of NORAD, the huge room known as the Air Defense Operations Center. David was thrilled to enter the long tunnel under the rock and wait for the huge steel blast doors — encased in concrete collars — to swing open. His father told him how Blast Door One is set flush with the tunnel’s rock and designed to blow inward from a direct nuclear hit, guiding the fireball through the tunnel and out the south side of the mountain. A second blast door just fifty feet away is intended to withstand the blast and protect the 4.5 acre grid of buildings and personnel inside the rock.

In theory. In the event of near misses.

But if a massive Russian SS-18 penetrator/warhead package hit the mountain directly above the Op Center, it would be a different story. The hardened penetrator would hit the earth at seventeen thousand miles an hour, melting the granite and digging dig a shaft three hundred feet deep. The warhead would follow, setting off the largest manmade explosion in history. Other penetrators and warheads would follow, and if a cavity were opened inside the blast doors, the intruding warhead would shoot a flame of gases reaching ten thousand degrees down the tunnel and through the Op Center, incinerating everything and everyone inside. The expanding gases, moving in excess of three thousand miles and hour, would create a pressure wave that would blow off the blast doors, from the inside out, and the mountain would spew flames like an ancient volcano.

David was nine years old when his father told him these things, and for weeks, the boy awoke each night with dreams of nuclear explosions and firestorms sweeping through the mountain and the nearby town. They weren’t nightmares, for David was not frightened by the visions of mushroom clouds and vaporized human beings. Instead, the visions fascinated him just as a bottle filled with fireflies might enchant other youngsters.

By the time he was eleven, no other child in the world knew as much about the strategic uses of nuclear fission. “The core is surrounded by U-235 and then a layer of U-238,” David told his tow-headed friend James when they worked on a fifth grade science fair project.

“What if you can’t get any U-235?” James asked.

“Plutonium will do,” David says, confidently, as if he were substituting margarine for butter. “When the deuterium and tritium undergo fusion, high-energy neutrons cause the U-238 to undergo fusion.”

Mrs. Scoggins, their teacher, had assumed the project would focus on the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Mrs. Scoggins had assumed wrong.

David and James constructed a scale model illustrating the effects of a Russian missile’s ten megaton air burst over downtown Denver. On the poster board, they headlined the project in red letters, “Rocky Mountain RAD.” Mrs. Scoggins looked at the display, patted her grey bun of hair and wrinkled her forehead.

“Roentgen Absorbed Dose,” David explained, happily, pointing to a chart on the poster board. “About 450,000 RAD within a mile of ground zero. A measly thousand will kill you, ‘course you’d already be vaporized by the heat, so what’s the big deal?”

“The big deal,” she repeated, staring at the display, “is that I don’t understand whatever possessed you to do this, this… ” She couldn’t finish because she was staring at the rest of the display. Besides statistical data showing atmospheric pressure and whole body doses of gamma rays, there were Ken and Barbie dolls with charred skin and melted eyeglasses, both courtesy of a backyard hibachi, plus some broken false teeth and a shattered pocket watch, its hands crumpled at 8:34.

“We figured an air burst in morning rush hour for maximum kill ratio,” James explained.

Mrs. Scoggins blanched, looking at the boys as if they had just strangled her pet cat, but she gave them both A’s, then sent them to the school psychologist for counseling.

While their classmates played ball or fished, these two sat in David’s bedroom and talked for hours about optimum detonation altitudes, initial radiation yields, and the triggering devices for fission-fusion-fission bombs. James had an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, and David had most of the answers.

“The blast,” James would ask, “do you see it or hear it first?”

“See it. A bluish-white flash, some ultraviolet, too.”

“Cool.”

“The temperature at ground zero is eighteen million degrees.”

“Fahrenheit or centigrade?” James wanted to know.

“Fahrenheit. It creates a fireball that generates radiant heat traveling at the speed of light.”

“A hundred eighty-six thousand miles a second,” James added, knowingly.

“Then comes the blast. It’s really a pressure wave moving at about eleven hundred feet a second. It hits the ground and bounces up, doubling the pressure into a mach wave. Then you get your negative pressure, and that’s really neat, because it causes a firestorm, flaming winds at six hundred miles an hour.”

James whistled. “Wow. Small craft should stay in port.”

“Yeah. The fireball sucks debris into the air and all that vaporized crud forms the mushroom cloud.”

“Way cool,” James says, working on the idea of it. “You think you could score some U-235 so we could build one.”

“Sure,” David boasted.

He was right, though he never figured it would take this long.

-26- STRATCOM

In the War Room at STRATCOM, technicians work at the unhurried pace of men and women used to the routine. In subdued light, a dozen hypnotic beams endlessly circle their radar screens while teletypes clack noisily. On the front wall, the huge screens occasionally flick with the movement of submarines or a satellite photo of a military installation in the Middle East. American and Canadian Air Force personnel roam among the computer consoles, as do some visiting NATO officers. Technicians sit at desks watching computer monitors that are recessed into desks, not visible only to foreign visitors.

Technical Sergeant Bill Ryder, U.S.A.F. E-6, a skinny thirty-year-old, tears a scroll of paper from a teletype and carries it to Colonel Frank Farris, who sips coffee while he watches the wall screens with little interest. “This just came in from 47-Q, sir.”

“Good. They finally responding?”

“Not exactly, sir.”

The colonel frowns and studies the teletype through his wire-rimmed bifocals. He is fifty-one, has a receding hairline and a soft belly. “What the hell is this ‘Morning Star’ gibberish?”

“Don’t know, sir. It’s not part of the code.”

“You raise the base?”

“Tried, sir. No answer from Security Command, nothing from the capsule, except for the teletype. We thought their power was down until we got the message.”

“Shit. Have Cryptography take a look at it. When will we have the satellite photos?”

“Any minute, sir.”

Just then, the center wall screen on the Big Board blinks, and the map of North America is replaced by a photograph of Chugwater Mountain taken from Eyesat II. The dam and reservoir are visible, then farther down, the slope of the mountain, the dry river bed and a forest of pine and fir trees. A second photo replaces it, a shot of 318th Missile Squadron at the base of the mountain. The screen blinks, the photo is enhanced, and Colonel Farris stares at an overhead view of the blown front gate and the crumpled bodies of airmen outside the barracks and mess hall.

“Oh shit!” The colonel turns to the sergeant. “Is 47-Q still hot?”

“Yes, sir. Dismantling scheduled for next week.”

“Oh, holy shitcakes!” Colonel Farris hurries to a computer console where a civilian technician sits, wearing a headset. “What’s the target data for 47-Q?”

“Right now, just some icebergs in the Arctic Ocean,” the technician replies. “Once the PLC is entered, of course, it’ll revert to wherever they were targeted before the thaw with the Russians.”

“Which is where? the colonel says, impatiently.

The technician punches some keys, and the wall screens blink again, this time with a map of the world as seen from above the arctic circle. Every few seconds, a dotted line tracks slowly from Wyoming over the North Pole to Moscow where it hits a cross-hatched bullseye. BLINK, the screen switches to a street grid of Moscow and its surroundings with pulsating crosses at the ten target sites for the multiple warheads. A sound comes from deep inside Colonel Farris, the moan of a sick cow. He hurries back to his desk and picks up a red phone. “General Corrigan,” the colonel says, when the phone is answered. “We’ve got a problem here.”

In the launch control capsule, James merrily punches keys on the console’s computer. “I’ll bet we’ve got their attention.”

David nods. “Do you have the target coordinates?”

“Right down to the last minute and second.”

David is quiet a moment.

“What are you thinking?” James asks.

“My father. I want him to know.”

James laughs. “Oh, he’ll know. It’ll be in all the papers.”

“He has to know it was me.”

James isn’t looking at him. He is typing a series of six-digit codes very carefully, watching his fingers hit the keys. “Who the hell else could it be?” he asks his lifelong friend.

In the STRATCOM War Room, the pace quickens. Technicians and crisis teams scurry around the cavernous facility, scrambling up and down metal ladders to a surrounding catwalk. The room is a three-story amphitheater with the computers and tracking stations on the first floor, offices and conferences rooms above. Dominating the room is the twenty-five foot high Big Board.

Air Force officers huddle around General Hugh Corrigan, his chest bedecked with medals, his silver hair cropped close. Colonel Farris stands off to one side as Clay Hurtgen, an FBI agent in a grey suit, briefs the general.

“For now, we’re calling them, ‘Morning Star,’” the FBI agent says.

“Who the hell are they?” the general demands.

“No one knows. The name doesn’t cross reference with anything in our computers. CIA’s come up blank. We’re working on it.”

Which does not seem to satisfy the general. “What do they want?”

“Nothing yet,” Agent Hurtgen replies. “No demands, no threats. Just the one-sentence teletype message.”

“‘Behold, I bring you the Morning Star,’” the general says, as if repeating the phrase aloud will decipher it.

Colonel Farris clears his throat. “Maybe it has something to do with television, sir.”

An army of heads swivel his way, tennis gallery style.

“I mean, like a morning television star, or something.”

“Did the Pentagon notify the White House?” the general asks.

“Yes, sir. The President’s Chief of Staff wants updates every fifteen minutes.”

General Corrigan glances at his watch and starts to walk away from the circle of men. “Tell him at 14:30 hours, Rocky Mountain Time, the general took a piss.”

“Yes, sir,” the aide says. “He wanted you to know that they’re notifying the Russians. I assured him that, other than political embarrassment, there’s no chance of… ”

A klaxon horn blares.

Lights flash.

The general stops short. His bladder can wait.

Heads turn toward the wall screens where a series of alpha-numeric combinations flash by followed by computer directories and hundreds of pages of files, each page flicking into view for a fraction of a second. The general reads the directory titles aloud, “Silo blueprints, electrical grids, command data buffers, target coordinates, enable codes, prepatory launch commands, abort codes, warhead configurations. Who the hell’s inputting that?”

Technical Sergeant Ryder, sitting at a computer console, watches his monitor, then answers. “Capsule 47-Q, sir. It’s coming from Morning Star.”

“Jesus H. Christ,” the general says.

In the launch control capsule, James works at the computer keyboard. On his monitor, the same data flashes by as in the STRATCOM War Room. He hits a key, and the words, “Target Coordinates,” freeze on the monitor screen. He carefully punches in six sets of two-digit combinations.

In the STRATCOM War Room, the screen comes to life with two sets of numbers: 32-28-15 and 35-01-13. Then, flickering below the numbers, the words, “Command Data Buffer Activated.”

“I can’t believe it,” Colonel Farris cries out.

“Now what?” General Corrigan fumes.

“Morning Star’s changed the target coordinates,” the colonel replies.

“That’s no surprise, Frank. If they know what they’re doing, they’re not going to try and launch into the ocean. They’ve got the PLC in the red box, so we expected them to enter it.”

“But that would be Moscow,” the colonel says. “This isn’t Moscow. It’s… ”

The screen goes blank. Then, slowly, the words scroll down. “MK WARHEAD, MIRV 1: NORTH LATITUDE 32 DEGREES, 28 MINUTES, 15 SECONDS; EAST LONGITUDE 35 DEGREES, 1 MINUTE, 13 SECONDS.”

“How’s your geography?” the general asks Col. Farris.

“Somewhere north of the equator, east of… ” He studies the numbers a moment, and just as a map of Africa comes on the screen, he says, “The Middle East.”

The map is replaced by a smaller area, the eastern Mediterranean from Libya on the west to Iran on the East. The screen blinks, and now the map zooms in: Egypt, Israel and Saudi Arabia. Another blink, a closer look, and it’s Israel alone. Finally, a flash, and a city street grid appears on the screen.

“Jerusalem,” Col. Farris says, in disbelief.

-27- Peace is Our Profession

In the launch control capsule, David watches James work at the computer. On the monitor, the number “6” appears, pulsing once a second.

“Ah, here she comes,” David says. “A six.” He turns to Susan Burns, who stares at the monitor in horror. “Six is the point. Who wants to lay their money on the pass line?”

Susan doesn’t say a word.

“No crap shooters here, James my man. Roll ‘em.”

The number “8” flickers to life on the monitor, joining the “6.”

David smiles at the sight of the two numbers. “Keep on rolling, James.”

Next, the letter “B.”

“There goes our craps game,” David says. “Maybe we can play scrabble.”

“Numbers or letters, it’s all the same to me,” James says. An “A” joins the alpha-numeric combination on the screen.

“It was Daddy’s idea to complicate the code. Six spaces to be filled by one of nine numbers or twenty-six letters. What’s the possible number of combinations?”

“About 1.8 billion,” James says.

A “3” joins the pulsing numbers on the monitor

“Won’t be long now.”

“How?” Susan Burns asks, shaking her head. “How did you get the enable code?”

David gives her a small smile. “Between Billy’s inside information, James’ computer genius, and my familiarity with every missile from the Atlas to the Peacekeeper, how could we not?”

“Among,” James says.

“What?”

“You gave three indicia. The word is ‘among,’ not ‘between.’”

An “A” pops up on the screen.

“Among other things,” David says, “we’re just a lot smarter than the folks in Omaha, Cheyenne Mountain, and Washington.”

As David gloats, James unfolds a laptop computer and inserts a cable coming out of its port into a plug on the deputy’s console. James turns on the computer and begins entering a series of letters and numbers. “Time to fool the missile,” he says.

General Hugh Corrigan sits at a desk wondering why he turned down a chance to be commandant at the Air Force Academy. A graduate of the Academy, fighter pilot in Vietnam and later commander of the 21st Tactical Fighter Training Squadron, he was assigned to Air Force Space Command as a colonel when it was created in 1982. In typical military fashion, he paid his dues with a variety of other assignments, including a stint at the Pentagon, another at NORAD, and finally commanding the 379th Bomb Wing during the Persian Gulf War. From a Saudi Arabian airfield dubbed “Club Jed” by the Americans, Corrigan directed massive strikes by B-52 Stratofortresses against Iraq’s Republican Guard in northwestern Kuwait. There were 523,000 American military personnel in the Persian Gulf, but none were more important than Corrigan’s B-52 crews.

After the war, Corrigan had his choice, commandant of the Academy or commander of STRATCOM. Either way, he’d be flying a desk, so he chose the job that put him in charge of all ICBM operations. At this precise moment, he knows, there is an ICBM missile operation that is operating quite nicely, thank you, without any input from him whatsoever.

A flashing red light casts an eerie glow over the STRATCOM War Room. At a heartbeat pace, the light illuminates a sign on the back wall, “Peace is our Profession.” The old slogan of the Strategic Air Command. There is no more SAC. With reorganization came U.S. Strategic Command and Air Force Space Command. Still, General Corrigan considers himself a SAC warrior.

“The intrusion is a nuisance,” Colonel Farris says, “but that’s all. It takes a second capsule to confirm the launch command, and without—”

“General, sir!” It’s Technical Sergeant Ryder, angrily banging keys on his computer. “They’re looping the enable code through a second computer and sending dual messages to the missile. The MGCS thinks the enable code’s being confirmed by another capsule.”

On the front screen, the code “6-8-B-A-3” pulses. The number “7” is added, and the code stops pulsing.

Beneath the six digits, a message flashes, “Enable Code Entered.”

A buzzer sounds.

A second message, “Enable Code Confirmed.”

Pandemonium.

The technicians bang away at their keyboards.

Air Force officers babble away on satellite hookups to Washington.

Digital launch information flashes by on the screen, the numbers streaking too fast to comprehend. From somewhere in the equipment comes the soothing female voice of the computer: “Launch order confirmed. Confidence is high.”

General Corrigan doesn’t flinch. He figured it was coming. Turning to Sergeant Ryder, he says, “Activate command launch inhibitor.”

“Yes, sir.”

The sergeant frantically pounds his keyboard, grimaces when nothing happens, then tries it again. The wall screen flashes the message: “Launch inhibitor access denied.”

“I can’t get in,” the sergeant says, his voice breaking. “The bastard’s just stolen our missile.”

General Corrigan is ashen, but his voice is steady. Turning to Colonel Farris, he says, “Get me the President.”

-28- Double Fail-Safe

Jack Jericho slogs through the shallow water of the sump, pauses and listens. No sounds other than the thumpa-thumpa of the pumps. He had taken a fork in the channel and lost them. Now confused and afraid, he thinks about these warriors of God. At first, he tells himself, it could just be a protest against nuclear weapons. Take a missile hostage, get some TV coverage, call it a day. Like the environmental groups that chain themselves to trees to stop the loggers. But these guys tried to kill him, and that’s a step or two beyond paying your dues to Greenpeace.

He thinks about Jim Jones and David Koresh and that loon in Switzerland, what was his name? The guy with the Order of the Solar Temple, which sounded like a “Star Trek” episode. He knows that if armed men are in the silo, Security Command has been overrun, and he wonders if all the bases of the 318th are under attack. Wonders, too, if the invaders have laid siege to the launch control capsule.

He starts moving again, stopping only when he gets to a red box labeled, “Emergency Phone.” He opens the box and grabs the phone. It rings immediately, an open line to the launch control capsule.

David and James sit in the flight chairs at the console. Rachel leans over David, a hand on each shoulder.

“Time to sound the trumpets,” David says.

“For His glory,” Rachel says.

“Show time, baby!” James cries out.

A red telephone on the console rings.

“That’s an internal line, isn’t it?” David asks, turning toward Owens, who sits, handcuffed by the rear wall.

The phone rings again.

“Isn’t it!” he demands.

“Yeah.”

David gestures toward Gabriel who lifts Owens to his feet and drags him to the console. “Find out who he is and where he is,” David says. “Be a good soldier, and you’ll get an airmanship medal.”

David hits a button, putting the phone on a speaker, and Owens answers. “Launch control, Lieutenant Owens.”

“Lieutenant, thank God it’s you.”

“Identify yourself.”

“It’s Jericho. We’re under attack! Get Air Cav in here, get Special Forces!”

Owens shoots a look toward Gabriel who pokes the barrel of his rifle at him.

“Five by five, Jericho. State your location.”

“Lieutenant, are you listening? We’re under attack. Keep the blast door sealed. Call in the fucking cavalry!”

“Affirmative. State your location, Sir.”

In the sump, Jericho pulls the phone away from his ear, stares at it, then slams it down.

In the capsule, David furiously back-hands Owens across the face. “Sir! Sir?” He hits him again, and blood seeps from Owens’ lip. “When did the Sergeant get a promotion?”

If ignorance is bliss, Captain Pete Pukowlski is the happiest man in the United States Air Force. Seated in the galley, just off the tunnel from the launch control capsule to the silo, he is drinking a beer and entertaining the U.N. Nuclear Non-Proliferation Commission. “I would have brought in some wine for you fellows if I thought of it,” he says, nodding toward the French ambassador. “Not that I care for it myself. That red stuff gives me a headache and makes my piss smell like crankcase oil.”

The French ambassador winces and sips at his beer. Pukowlski has set out a plate of pretzels and some onion dip in a metal container he picked up at a gas station/convenience store outside of town. None of the ambassadors seems anxious to try the dip, though the Englishman picks up the container to read the ingredients, most of which sound like experiments in a high-school chemistry class.

“Precisely when will this facility be closed?” the French ambassador asks.

“A week from today. Ain’t that something? My bird’s an endangered species. Soon, they’ll be planting daisies right over our heads.”

“And the warheads?” the Israeli ambassador asks.

“Dismantled, then shipped to a plant near Amarillo where they’ll dilute the uranium and plutonium. All the technology and energy consumed to enrich the stuff in the first place, and then they just turn around and reverse it. Kinda seems like a waste, don’t it?”

“And after it’s diluted?” the Englishman asks, letting the question hang there.

“They ship it to nuclear power plants. In a few months, what had been the heart of the warhead will be powering some electric dildo.”

The ambassadors snicker. “I believe those are battery operated,” the Englishman says.

“You oughta know,” Pukowlski says, draining his beer.

Billy and James hold the two launch keys. The console is alive with flashing lights and digital displays. The computerized female voice is as calm as ever. “Launch mode yellow. Confidence is high.”

“Let’s take it from the top,” David says. “Read’em out.”

“Six, Eight, Beta, Alpha, Three, Seven,” James says, nearly singing.

“I agree. Those are good values,” David says, and James turns thumbwheels on his console, entering each number and letter.

“Down and lock,” James says, hitting the switch labeled “initiate.” Immediately, the computer begins printing out a continuous roll of paper covered with numerical codes.

“Plick switch,” David says, referring to the Preparatory Launch Command.

“Foxtrot, Nine, Papa, Four,” James calls back.

“Numbers good,” David says, and James enters “F-9-P-4” on another set of thumbwheels.

“Flight switch on, launcher on, enable on,” David says, checking his board, as new lights flash on. Time and target complete. Insert keys.”

Simultaneously, David and James tear off plastic flaps covering key holes on the console. Behind them, Rachel stands, her dark eyes shining with excitement. Susan Burns and Owens sit, back to back, their hands cuffed together, their faces reflecting their fear.

“Key inserted,” James says.

“Lock your board.”

They both hit switches.

James nods, and says, “Board locked.”

“Check your lights.”

James scans the console. “Lights check.”

“Launch mode green,” the computerized voice says. “Strategic alert confirmed. All systems check and re-check. Launch is a go. Confidence is high.”

In the STRATCOM War Room, General Corrigan and his staff watch the Big Board where the latest message reads, “MIRV locked on primary targets.”

“Launch is a go,” the computerized voice says, but all the officers in the room know that.

The screen blinks with target information. A map of Jerusalem appears, with pulsating crosses on ten targets.

An aide approaches General Corrigan. “General, the President wants to know if we should advise the Israelis to evacuate Jerusalem.”

“Not unless they can do it in thirty minutes. All we’ll succeed in doing is having more people caught outdoors.”

The aide disappears up a set of stairs, and the general studies the map with a rueful smile. “What do the Wailing Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and the Mosque of Omar have in common?”

Colonel Farris shrugs. “They’re all religious sites.”

“One for each of the three great religions,” FBI Agent Hurtgen adds.

“Right,” General Corrigan says. “What we’ve got here is a non-discriminatory terrorist. He seems to loathe everybody.” The general

reads off the names of the other sites that are targets of the multiple warheads. “The Dome of the Rock, the Church of the Assumption, the First Station of the Cross, the Great Synagogue, the Chapel of Ascension, the Tomb of the Kings, and the Temple Mount. All of that and a million people. They’ll be gone in the blink of an eye.”

David and James each have a hand on the inserted keys. Behind them, Susan’s eyes desperately dart around the capsule, looking for help, an idea, anything. Owens mumbles a prayer, his lips cracked with dried blood.

“Clockwise on my count,” David says.

“If you truly were a man of God,” Susan blurts out, “you couldn’t destroy the holiest city in the world. You couldn’t kill all those innocent people.”

“As it is written in Corinthians, ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’”

“This isn’t about Resurrection.”

David swivels in his chair and glowers at her. “Physician, heal thyself!”

He turns back to the console and nods to James. “Key turn on my mark.” He closes his eyes and counts it down, “Three, two, one. Mark… ”

David and James simultaneously turn their keys. “And hold,” David commands.”

A buzzer emits an insistent beep.

David silently counts to five. “And release.”

Eyes closed, smiling mystically, David releases the key, and so does James.

“One last look,” Captain Pukowlski says, leading the ambassadors into the silo from the tunnel. “Kinda like a country-western song, I just wanna see my love one last time before she leaves me.”

The group stands just a few feet from the missile, which hangs in its cables over their heads. “And what a shame, ‘cause this baby’s the most modern, most accurate missile in the most secure facility on the face of the—”

Ka-boom! The SQUIB explosives blow the concrete cap off the silo. The cap, made of solid concrete six feet thick, weighs more than two hundred thousand pounds, and is hurled off the top of the silo like a Brobdingnagian frisbee. It takes out a cyclone fence surrounding the silo and crumbles of its own weight when it hits the ground.Pukowlski looks up at the blue Wyoming sky. The ambassadors are terrified, turning to the captain for an explanation. Speechless, the captain stands beneath the missile, frozen in place.

Suddenly, Whoosh! The Launch Eject Gas Generator steams to life, pumping a mixture of water and pressurized gases through pulsating tubes into the missile canister. Hoses hiss menacingly and stiffen like angry snakes. The missile sways in its cables.

Though he is startled, at his core, Pukowlski is a trained officer who believes in duty, honor, and country. He lives by the book and would be willing to die by the book, and the only answer to what is going on must be found in the book.

“Gentlemen,” Pukowlski says, not even trying to suppress a grin, “stiffen your spines and grab your cocks. We’re at war!”

General Corrigan presides over a War Room of apoplectic officers. The blinking red lights illuminate his face, which is locked into a grimace.

The computerized voice drowns out the buzz of the officers and technicians, “Countdown sequence initiated. LEGG activated. Confidence is high.”

All eyes are on the Big Board where a dotted line tracks slowly from Wyoming across the arctic circle, across Greenland and the North Atlantic, across Europe southward toward Africa, finally touching down in Israel. The dotted line disappears, then re-tracks again and again.

In the generator room beneath the silo, a horn sounds and thick hoses throb with heated propulsion gases. Shirtless and soaking wet, Jack Jericho hovers over the keyboard of the generator control panel, unsure what to do.

“Whoever’s got his finger on the button ain’t one of us,” he says to himself.

The computerized voice from the speaker startles him. “All systems operational. Ninety seconds to propulsion launch. Confidence is high.”

Jericho frantically scans the generator control panel. He tears a plastic shield off the keyboard and flicks the “on” switch. The monitor flashes to life with the message: “Launch Sequence in Progress. Generator Access Prohibited.”

“Shit!” Then he remembers Dr. Burns’ question as to whether he is a leader or follower. Neither one, he knows. And he isn’t even sure what he’s doing now, but he knows he must do something. Jericho hits the “stop” key, and an electrical shock jolts him. The monitor flashes: “Caution. Unauthorized Access Prohibited.”

More gingerly this time, Jericho touches the same key. With a ka-pow, the shock knocks him down, blue smoke wafting above the control panel. Dazed, Jericho gets to his knees and looks up at the monitor, which mocks him. “Caution. Each shock increases in severity.” Then, in smaller print, “OSHA WARNING: Repeated exposure to electrical shocks causes brain damage in rats.”

Jericho gets to his feet, his hands dangling over the keyboard. As he tries again, he says, “I ain’t a rat.”

In the launch control capsule, all the lights on the console are green except for one, which flashes amber. Brother David stares at it a moment, his brow furrowing. “What in the name of… ”

“What is it?” James asks.

“Get over here.”

James kicks his chair down the rail and studies the computer monitor in front of David where the message appears, “Input S.L.C. Now.”

“What?” David stares blankly at the screen.

“Never heard of it,” James says, shaking his head.

David wheels around in his flight chair, glaring at Owens, who sits uncomfortably on the floor. “Enlighten us!” David orders.

Owens hesitates, and Gabriel wags the barrel of a rifle in his face.

“The slick,” Owens says. “Secondary Launch Code. The launch will abort unless it’s entered. It’s a double fail-safe mechanism entered after the Enable Code and the plick, the PLC, are activated.”

“Since when!” David demands, growing furious. Why?”

“I don’t know,” Owens says, nervously. “Six, seven months ago.”

“It was my recommendation,” Susan Burns says. She is turned away from David, sitting back-to-back with Owens, their hands cuffed together.

“What!” David thunders.

She turns her neck uncomfortably to face him. “Preliminary tests showed that fifteen per cent of the missileers believed that any order to launch would be a mistake, a computer glitch. Of that number thirty per cent would refuse to turn the key. I recommended another level of security be added so that missile crews would have confidence that if the S.L.C. came down separately from the National Command Authority, we must surely be at war.”

“Idiotic!” David thunders. “It complicates and delays the launch. That could be fatal if you’re counter-attacking.”

“But it thwarts terrorists,” Susan says. “I was afraid you had it. You seemed to have everything else. But then, I guess you’re not perfect.”

“Input Secondary Launch Code,” the computer orders in the same detached voice.

David screams at Owens, “The code, damn you!”

Owens is too terrified to answer.

“He doesn’t have it,” Susan Burns says, calmly. “It comes from the President after the Enable Code has been entered. That’s what makes it double fail-safe.”

David slams his fist into the console. “Damnation!” Turning to James, his voice breaks, “Do something! You’re the cyberpunk genius. Do something, goddamit!”

“David,” Rachel says from the back of the capsule. “Taking the Father’s name in vain will not—”

“Shut up! Shut the fuck up!” He turns back to James, who already is hunched over the keyboard, banging away like Van Cliburn playing Tchaikovsky.

The voice of the computer is as calm as a warm breeze on a summer day. “Enter S.L.C.” Launch will abort in thirty seconds.”

Footsteps echo in the tunnel leading from the missile silo. Captain Pete Pukowlski leads the U.N. delegation at double time toward the launch control capsule.

“We go to DEFCON ONE, and nobody notifies me!” he fumes. “We’re in launch mode, and I’m jerking off some diplomatic goof-balls. Somebody’s ass is grass, and I’m the lawn mower.”

They pass the door to the Launch Equipment Room, which swings open. Gabriel and three other commandos come out and face the delegation.

“Who? What? Who the hell are you?” Pukowlski stammers, though it must be sinking in, because as the words come out, he is reaching for the .45 in a side holster. But Gabriel raises a pistol grip shotgun toward Pukowlski’s bulging belly, which seems to flatten just a bit.

“We’re the messengers of God,” Gabriel says.

“I don’t think so,” Pukowlski says, raising his hands over his head. “God’s on our side.”

The officers watch the dotted line’s trajectory on the Big Board as it soars from Wyoming toward Israel… then fades away. The computerized voice solemnly declares, “Launch Aborted. Launch Aborted.”

Sighs of relief, backslapping, a couple of wolf whistles, and more than one, boy-was-that-close.

Colonel Frank Farris loosens his tie and turns to General Corrigan, who is not sharing in the celebration. “They didn’t have the slick,” the colonel says. “Jeez, we dodged a bullet, a big one.”

“But they still have the base and the capsule, don’t they?” the general asks. He knows it is not over yet.

On the board, the dotted line on the screen tracks from Wyoming across the arctic circle, stops, then disappears. “Yes, sir. They have the capsule,” Colonel Farris says. “But there’s no way they could get the S.L.C., is there? I mean, if they don’t have it now, how could they get it before we roust them?”

General Corrigan gives the colonel a look an animal trainer might show to a slow chimpanzee. “They knew how to capture our missile base, how to re-target the missile and how to enter the plick and Enable Codes, didn’t they?”

Colonel Farris nods.

“They hot wired our computer to simulate a message from another launch capsule in order to get dual confirmation, didn’t they?”

Another nod.

“Then why in hell wouldn’t they know how to get the Secondary Launch Code?”

“I have no idea, sir,” the colonel says, straightening up. “I have no idea how they could take over a terrorist-proof nuclear facility.”

“Neither do I,” General Corrigan says. “But I’m going to find out. Get me the son-of-a-bitch who built the damn thing.”