by Paul Levine
“The safety was on,” Daniel says. Towheaded, a peach-fuzzy round face, he cannot be more than twenty.
“Then you were poking around in the silo. You figured I was hanging on the struts in the rocket burners, and you were right, so I jumped you.”
“You could have killed me,” Daniel says, “but you did not.”
A jungle animal roars inside Jericho’s skull. “I made a mistake. It won’t happen again.”
“Why didn’t you kill me?”
Jericho thinks about it, at least he tries to think above the metallic clanging in his brain. In the silo, he could have killed this man but did not. Until that moment in his life, he had never intentionally hurt anyone. But in the day and endless night that followed, the world had changed. “I didn’t know what you maniacs were up to, and you looked so young that…” He just leaves it hanging there.
“No, that is not it. God’s psalms sang in your heart, filling you with compassion and mercy. God protected you and then me. He sent us a message. ‘The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.’”
“I haven’t heard too much about compassion and mercy from your pals, Daniel.”
“I am sorry about that. I thought David had seen the light. But—” A splashing sound down the channel interrupts them. “You have very little time.”
“Time for what? To welcome the Apocalypse?”
“No. To get the hell out of here.” Daniel swings the rifle away and uses his free hand to help Jericho to his feet. The splashes are drawing closer, and a flashlight beam dances down the channel in the distance.
Jericho takes a few wobbly steps down the sump the other way, then looks back over his shoulder. “Why are you doing this? Aren’t you a believer?”
“Oh, I believe, all right. I believe in a forgiving God. I believe in love and goodwill toward our brothers and sisters. I just don’t believe in Brother David.”
* * *
Moments later, Jericho stops at the intersection of two channels in the sump. He hears the splashing and occasional clanging behind him as the commando team hunts him down.
He can outrun them.
He can hide from them.
But it won’t do any good. It won’t stop David and his band of crazies.
He tears a strip of cloth from his fatigues and wedges it into a piece of piping directly over the channel. Then he goes down the intersecting channel. Bolted into the wall is an orange steel ladder leading into a vertical metal chute. A sign bolted to the chute reads, “Personnel Evacuation Shaft.”
It will take him all the way to the river bed above the missile silo. He will have to find another way back in, but he’s already thinking about it, and it may just work.
He remembers something Kenosha told him, something about the missile raping the earth. Sooner or later, Kenosha said, the earth would reclaim the land. He pictures Kenosha, hears his words. “In the end, my friend, the earth will prevail.”
“That’s right, you smart old coot,” Jericho says to himself. “But maybe I can give Mother Earth a helping hand.”
* * *
Colonel Henry Zwick and Kenosha stand over a table, intently studying reconnaissance photos of the missile facility. “What we’re trying to do,” the colonel says, “is achieve simultaneous entry into as many access corridors as possible with maximum firepower. Our problem is that the only sure way to get down there is the elevator shaft, and it’s—”
“Sir!” Captain Kyle Clancy, his face coated with camouflage grease, interrupts. “With all due respect, sir, strategy and tactics should not be discussed with…”
For a moment, the colonel thinks Clancy is going to say, “Indians.” For the same moment, the colonel is ready to throttle the younger man. But finally, Clancy says, “civilians.”
“If you don’t shut up, captain,” the colonel fires back, “that’s what you’re going to be. Now, you can listen if you want, but the man I want to hear from is Kenosha. He knows the territory, Kyle, and he’s too modest to tell you, but he earned a Silver Star when you were still in knickers.”
Clancy shoots a look at Kenosha, but doesn’t get a rise out of him.
“Eleventh Armored Cavalry in ‘Nam,” the colonel says.
“The Blackhorse,” Clancy says, beginning to connect the dots. “That was your regiment, wasn’t it, colonel?”
“Damn straight!”
Then simultaneously, Zwick and Kenosha loudly declare, “If you ain’t Cav, you ain’t!”
To Clancy, the cavalry trooper’s slogan sounds strange coming from the pony-tailed man in buckskins, but what the hell. “Okay, I’m outnumbered by the guys who believe in firepower and armor.”
“Mobile firepower,” Kenosha corrects him.
Pointing to a satellite photo on the table, Zwick says, “We need a second access corridor. We have to divide the enemy’s fire and have a second route to the capsule.”
“The open silo,” Kenosha says.
“Right. But it’s farther up the mountain, and the terrain’s too rugged for APC’s. Choppers are too loud for a surprise attack, and infantry will be exposed crossing the river bed.”
Kenosha points to a map showing the mountain and the valley to the north. “There is a natural drainage ditch on the back side of the mountain. It is steep and rocky, but you could climb it without being discovered, then approach the silo from the rear, coming down from the dam.”
The colonel looks from the maps to the photos, then back again. Finally, Clancy says, “How the hell would we get up there without being seen or heard?”
“The old fashioned way,” Kenosha says. Both officers look at him, waiting. “Horses.”
Zwick and Clancy exchange surprised glances. Then Zwick breaks into a grin. “Sure, why not? We are the cavalry.”
“Horses,” Clancy ponders. He pictures himself atop a galloping steed, blasting away with pistols in each hand. “My men can shoot from damn near any position. Standing, prone, kneeling supported, kneeling unsupported, forward slope, bunker windows, sitting on the can taking a dump, if we have to. No damn reason in hell we can’t shoot from horseback.”
* * *
The ladder ends at metal shelf just below ground level. A sign on the shelf reads, “Emergency Egress Only.” Jericho reaches over his head and pulls a metal chain, and the shelf folds in two, dumping three feet of sand onto his head. Blast insulation. In the event of a strike by enemy warheads, the sand would be fused into glass and the missile crew – if they survived the hit – would have to chip through it to get out of the hole and discover what was left of their world. Jericho shakes the crud out of his hair and reaches up to open the hatch.
The cool night air hits his face, and he sucks in a long breath. It is nearly three a.m. It’s only been hours, but it seems like days since the nightmare began. He climbs into the dry river bed and looks around. Searchlights sweep across the missile base. He turns away from the silo and heads toward a rocky trail that leads up the mountain.
In launch control capsule, a bell rings, and a message flashes across a monitor: “Security Breach.” David hits a button, and a three-dimensional grid of the missile facility appears on the screen. A blinking red arrow appears over the words, “Personnel Evacuation Shaft.”
David picks up a walkie-talkie and clicks it on. “My brother, he is in the river bed. Bring me his head!”
-48-
Sibling Rivalry
At just after 3 a.m., David turns to Susan Burns and says, “I was hoping to convert you.”
“How? With your so-called psychic powers? Do you expect me to swoon because you see my aura?”
“You have been wounded. My flock is made up of the lame.”
“Lame brains,” she says. “Look, nothing is going to bring me to you. Not force. Not the Stockholm Syndrome. I don’t identify with you. I pity you.”
David is silent a moment, and then he says flatly, “I should kill you now and get it over with.”
Susan Burns shrugs. “Would
that make you happy?”
“Deliriously.”
“Then do it. I prefer my patients to enjoy life.”
“Or should I tie you to the blast door, spreadeagled and naked, a sacrificial offering for the Special Ops boys? They won’t know whether to shoot you or fuck you.”
“But you can’t do either one, can you?”
“You mock me!” he thunders. “You, the symbol of a profession of frauds and quacks! You, who follows a false science instead of the Word.”
“Show me the light. Shoot me. Kill me now.”
David grabs Rachel’s rifle and swings the barrel toward Susan’s head. Then, just as suddenly, he lets the rifle fall to the floor. He laughs, throws his head back and cackles until tears flow. “You are so clever, Dr. Susan Burns. You think that if I kill you, I’ll be so revolted, so changed in some fundamental way by the utter cruelty of the act that I’ll stop. I’ll surrender, repent, and give them back their missile. Isn’t that it?”
She stays quiet and he goes on, “You’re willing to sacrifice yourself for all mankind. A gesture brimming with Freudian noblesse oblige.”
Still, Susan is silent.
The phone buzzes. “What does old Hugh want now?” David says. Enjoying himself again, occupying center stage. He hits a speaker button and puts a tune to his voice. “Be all that you can be, in the Ar-my.”
“Mr. Morton, we’d like to engage you in a discussion.” General Corrigan’s voice is calm, polite.
“Or a distraction. You’re looking for a few good men, eh Hugh?”
“We know you’re searching for the password. We don’t think you’ll get it, and we prefer to end this without bloodshed. We’re prepared to discuss amnesty.”
“Off we go into the wild blue yon-der,” David sings out, “high-er still, into the sun.” He laughs, then says, “You’re lying Hugh. Besides, only the Lord can offer forgiveness. Your amnesty is a purely secular concept of no interest to me.”
“What is it you want, Mr. Morton? Death and devastation?”
“The few, the proud, the Marines!” David calls out.
“We’re not going to make progress this way.”
“Progress, Hugh? Like the progress my dear Daddy made for you. Semper Fi.”
“Mr. Morton, I know you’re a very intelligent young man, but I’m not sure you comprehend just what those ten nuclear warheads can do.”
“Au contraire. Do you know what the first injury will be to a person standing at ground zero?”
“Injury?” General Corrigan lets out a humorless laugh. “Injury hardly begins to describe—”
“A broken ankle, perhaps a broken leg, and certainly burst eardrums.”
“Are you out of your mind? A person at ground zero will be vaporized.”
“Not at first, not until after thirty seconds or so of quite unimaginable horror. At the moment of the air burst, there is a flash that will blind anyone whose eyes are open. The shock wave from the ionized atoms then causes a pressure wave that will buckle the ground with such force that it will break the bones of anyone standing there, hence our broken ankles. Then an atmospheric blast wave will surge out horizontally and flatten every manmade structure at ground zero, be it the Wailing Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, or the Mosque of Omar. The dynamic pressure of the blast will set loose winds of six hundred miles an hour. Anyone unfortunate enough to be in the vicinity will be picked up and swirled about in the firestorm. The radiant heat of the fireball will turn glass, metal and wood into ash, and a person’s internal organs will simply burst into flame. You use the word, ‘vaporized.’ I prefer to think that a person is ultimately reduced to one’s essential elements.”
“What does that mean?”
“It really isn’t ‘ashes to ashes, dust to dust,’ Hugh. More like ashes to nitrogen and hydrogen.”
In the STRATCOM War Room, General Hugh Corrigan stares into space. “If you’re attempting to be utterly repulsive, Mr. Morton, you’re succeeding. If you want to shock us with your inhumanity, fine, we’re shocked.”
“Why, Hugh? It’s your weapon. I’m just using it before you have the chance.”
“It’s not intended to be used,” Corrigan says, angrily. “It’s intended to deter war.”
“How quaint a concept. But if you ask me, it’s use it or lose it. And guess what, Hugh? You lose it, and I use it.”
General Corrigan’s shoulders slump. He is willing to try just about anything, so he signals Dr. Rosen to come to the phone. The balding psychiatrist looks like he slept in his sport coat, and in fact, he’s been cat-napping most of the long night. Behind Dr. Rosen, three nervous middle-aged men in suits – one polyester, two brown plaid – look on.
“Mr. Morton, there’s someone I’d like you to hear from,” the general says.
“Pray tell, who could it be? Not Daddy, again. Hopefully, you’ve locked him up. He’s quite insane, you know. What now, an expert hostage negotiator dyspeptic shrink?”
“David, this is Dr. Stuart Rosen,” the FBI psychiatrist says in an unctuous tone. “Think of me as a master of ceremonies.”
“Or masturbator,” David adds, helpfully.
“David, we have three theological experts here representing a wide spectrum of views on the Book of Revelations.”
In the launch control capsule, David listens listlessly while scanning the security monitors. On the screens, Army searchlights sweep the darkened perimeter of the missile base. Next to him, James still works at the computer, trying out a variety of seven-letter words in the blinking cursors. “Missile” doesn’t work. Neither do “Goddard,” “Nuclear,” “Liberty,” “Kennedy” or a hundred more improbable ones including “Sputnik” and “Hussein.” James tries to imagine the technicians who programmed this sucker. It’s a No Lone Zone with the codes, too. One technician could have the Enable Code, but another would possess the S.L.C. James conjures up a nerdy guy working for defense contractor, a guy who goes to the grocery store himself because he doesn’t have a girlfriend or a wife. “Grocery” doesn’t work. Neither does “forlorn.”
The shrink goes on for a while about what he calls the “panorama” of interpretations of the Book of Revelations. “Our experts believe your view of the prophesied Apocalypse is, shall we say, premature.”
“No doubt, like your ejaculations,” David says.
“David, we need to discuss your current plans,” Dr. Rosen says, ignoring the remark. “Let’s put them in perspective with your overall goals, how you see yourself in the universe, your relation to people around you, what we might call your personal context, your—”
“Hugh!” David interrupts. “Why do you insult me with this thumb-sucking bed-wetter?”
General Hugh Corrigan grimaces and doesn’t respond. Next to him, Colonel Farris whispers, “First thing the fucker’s said all night that makes any sense.”
“Goodbye, doctor,” David says. “Goodbye, Hugh.”
The phone clicks off. Dr. Rosen wrinkles his forehead. “I’m not sure I liked the sound of those ‘goodbye.’ They had an air of finality about them.”
General Corrigan would like to lend an air of finality to the F.B.I. psychiatrist, but an aide signals that he’s wanted on another line. “If it’s the President again, tell him to go to sleep. We’ll wake him if—”
“It’s the Pope,” the aide says.
“What does he want?” Stunned.
“He wants to know if he can help.”
“Sure. Ask if he can rappel two hundred feet down an elevator shaft with automatic weapons pointed up his skirts?”
Taking the telephone, the aide’s tone is formal and respectful. “Your Holiness, the General asks for your prayers.”
* * *
Jack Jericho is on all fours, scrambling up the steep trail toward Chugwater Dam. Below him, the lights from the open silo cut into the night sky like signals to heaven. From this height he can see the war machinery in place on the perimeter of Base Camp Alpha. Searchlights from the camp sw
eep the mountainside, intermittently passing over him.
He thinks of Susan Burns and how he left her and what will happen to her if there is an all-out assault on the capsule. He quickens his pace, hoisting himself on reedy branches that grow out of the parched soil.
* * *
The back side of the mountain is lit only by the half moon. Riding easily on a golden palomino, Kenosha leads a company of Night Stalkers up a boulder-strewn drainage ditch. Some of the soldiers appear unsteady on their horses, awkwardly clutching their saddle horns, cursing as their asses bounce in the saddle. A corporal’s horse veers out of the ditch and into the trees. He kicks it in the ribs but doesn’t pull hard enough on the reins, and the horse carries him straight into a tangle of low branches which knock him to the ground.
Kenosha looks at the soldiers and wonders if mules might have been a better idea. For a moment he ponders how his ancestors ever lost their land to the white man. Numbers, he knows. Too many men, too much firepower.
Adrenalized by the impending action, Captain Kyle Clancy slaps his horse’s rump with a cowboy hat and catches up with Kenosha at the point. Clancy has ridden before and he is comfortable in the saddle, holding the reins loosely in one hand, letting the other hand dangle at his side. “Whoopee! On a night like this, there’s only one thing better than a good fuck, and that’s a good fight.”
“What is a good fight, captain?”
“One you win, of course. Cutting off the other guy’s nuts before he cuts off yours.” Captain Clancy notes the pistol in Kenosha’s holster. “Lord, what’s that? The barrel must be a foot long.”
“Exactly. The Colt .45 Peacemaker.”
“Peacemaker,” the captain muses. “Just like the Peacekeeper missile.”
“Only this one was made in 1873, the single action army model. It’s signed and numbered, the third one ever made.”