by Paul Levine
They pull up behind the control building and Clancy speak into his radio. “Jackal reporting. Objective one achieved, sir. Delta team…” He winks at Kenosha, “plus one tough Indian, ready for kickoff.”
Colonel Zwick says something, but Clancy can’t hear it over a discordant crash, the sound of glass breaking.
“Now what the hell was that?” Clancy says.
* * *
It is 4:35 a.m. when Jericho steps through the broken window into the control room. He navigates in the dark through a maze of overhead piping, meters, valves and gauges, listening to the steady hum of machinery. A window on the far side of the room looks out over the dam itself. Sodium-vapor lights illuminate the water far below, an artificial lake created by closing off Chugwater River and diverting it to a trickle that runs down the front of the mountain through the aqueduct.
Jericho finds a switch and flicks on a set of overhead lights. He wanders around, examining the massive control panels, not knowing exactly what he’s looking for, and not knowing if his plan will work. He’s good with machinery, but the names on the panels speak a foreign language: Riprap Sensors; Filtration Governor; Spillway Intake. Then, Sluice Gate.
Which had to be the one. A chrome wheel four feet in diameter is attached to the Sluice Gate panel. Jericho tries to turn it counter-clockwise, opening the gate, but it doesn’t budge. He tries to turn it clockwise. Still, nothing. He braces both feet against a floor panel and gives it everything he’s got, but nothing moves except a disk in his lumbar spine that threatens to explode.
Okay, the wheel is locked.
Which makes sense.
You don’t want some boozed-up technician stumbling into the controls and opening the flood gates.
He looks at the panel and finds rows of numbered green and red lights and switches. Somewhere, there’s a release for the Sluice Gate valve. How much harm can he do, he wonders, by hitting a few switches. Probably less than he’s going to by finding the right switch. Just as he’s about to find out, he there comes a sharp and angry voice: “Infidel!”
Jericho whirls around. He barely notices the shotgun pointed at his chest. Instead he is drawn to the face of the ugliest man he has ever seen. The man’s skin is a mass of raw, festering blisters. Blood mixes with pus on open sores. “Do you know who I am?” The voice slurs from a mouth hidden under swollen, purple lips.
“Your voice is familiar, and you sort of look like Elvis if they just dug him up.”
Ker-click. The man pumps the shotgun. Jericho’s Uzi is slung across a shoulder. It might as well be at Fort Bragg.
“They call me Matthew.”
“Oh,” Jericho says, remembering their encounter in the kitchen. “You’re the guy who can’t stay away from the french fries.”
Matthew’s lips twist like fat worms into a grotesque smile. “I want to see your pain when I shoot you. I want you to die slowly.”
“You don’t have to shoot,” Jericho says, not giving in to the fear. “Just looking at your face ought to do it.”
“I’ll cut your legs off at the knees!” Matthew drops the barrel low, aiming for Jericho’s lower legs.
Jericho leaps up, grabs an overhead pipe and swings his legs as high as he can. The blast caroms off the floor beneath him, and he can feel ricocheting pellets stinging his rump. Matthew pumps again, and Jericho dives from the pipe, shoulder rolls under a counter and out the other side. A second blast shatters a row of gauges and monitors.
Jericho scurries on all fours along the floor. Ka-boom. A third shot pelts him with shards of shattered glass from the light fixtures. Once behind a table, Jericho comes up and fires a short burst from the Uzi, inflicting serious wounds on a bank of computer consoles but nothing else. Though he can’t see Matthew, he hears the shotgun pump, and the next blast blows up an electrical panel, which sizzles with orange sparks. Jericho fires a burst at the opposite wall, then scrambles around the eight-foot high control panel, peers out, and spots Matthew turned the other way. Jericho pulls the trigger, and click.
Empty!
Matthew spins and faces him.
Jericho dives for cover behind a green, ceiling-high control panel. Matthew follows, shotgun held at gut level. He wheels around a corner, but Jericho is not there. He spins three hundred sixty degrees, looking for his game.
“Come out. Show your cowardly face.”
Suddenly, Jericho dives from the top of the control panel, knocking Matthew over. They tumble to the floor, entangled, and the shotgun skitters away. Matthew shoves Jericho off and gets to his feet. Jericho is on one knee when a thunderous kick to the chest sits him down again. He expects Matthew to come at him, but instead, the commando pulls a 9 mm. pistol from under a bloused pantleg and backs up, putting distance between them. He raises the pistol and says, “I have fifteen bullets, and I will use every one of them. You won’t die until the last one enters your brain.”
Jericho’s hand flashes from behind his neck, and a blade glints in the air. The soft pfffut sounds like a melon being sliced in two. The handle of the Jimmy Lile protrudes from Matthew’s throat. He staggers backward and falls into the control panel, bracing himself with a hand that hits a red switch.
Lights flash and a buzzer sounds.
Matthew bounces off the panel and pulls the knife out of his throat. As he does, the blood erupts, a geyser spraying the ceiling. He crumples to the floor, next to the Sluice Gate wheel. Jericho looks at the wheel and the flashing lights. Why not? He gives the wheel a counter-clockwise turn, and it spins free.
Jericho can hear the movement of machinery, can feel the vibrations beneath his feet. Deep inside the steel and concrete wall of the dam, the huge sluice gates open and water surges from the spillway into the aqueducts.
Jericho checks on Matthew. Dead. He returns to the wheel and spins it wide open. A roar can be heard in the control room, and outside, water cascades from the spillway, overflows the narrow aqueduct and pours toward the missile facility far below.
Jericho picks up his knife, wipes off the blood, and walks to the window overlooking the observation deck. He sees a waterfall tumbling down the mountain.
“Freeze!”
Ignoring the suggestion, Jericho dives to the floor and scrambles under a counter. Across the control room, Captain Clancy stands, legs spread, his M-16 at hip level. “Son-of-a-bitch.” He peppers the wall with gunfire, and motions to three of his men to flare out across the room. “Corporal, cover the exit!”
Corporal? Jericho hears the captain. From beneath a desk, he calls out, “Army? If you’re Army, identify yourselves.”
A rapid burst of gunfire tears up equipment on top of the desk. “How’s that for identification, scuzzbag?”
“Hold you fire!” Jericho yells. “I’m Air Force.”
“Whose?”
The question throws Jericho for a moment. “Ours. The U.S. of A.”
“Are you that dickhead who wouldn’t get off the base?”
Jericho briefly considers whether there might be a second dickhead to whom the question might apply. “That’s me.”
“Hands behind head. Come out slowly.”
Jericho does as he’s told. “Jack Jericho, Airman E-5, United States Air Force, 318th Missile Squadron.”
The captain gives a once over to the commando fatigues. “You’re out of uniform, sergeant.”
“Occupational hazard, sir.”
“Lemme see your tags.”
“Threw ‘em out, didn’t match the apparel.”
Clancy appraises him suspiciously. Just then, a lieutenant dashes in from the observation deck. “Captain, quick! We gotta close the valves or something. The whole damn valley is flooding. We’ll never get down the mountain.”
Clancy surveys the room. The dead commando, the blown out control panels. “What the hell’s going on in here?”
Gesturing toward the wheel, Jericho says, “I opened the sluice gates.”
“Why?” The captain doesn’t wait for an answer. He goes over
to the wheel and tries to close it, but it won’t budge. “Shit!”
“It’s open all the way,” Jericho says. “The water pressure’s so great, there’s no way to close it manually.”
“Then how—” Clancy interrupts himself. He’s looking at a gauge labeled, “Emergency Sluice Gate Closure.” The switch dangles uselessly on its wires, the glass facing on the gauge shattered by a shotgun blast. Furious, the captain bangs his fist into the control panel, shaking loose more broken glass. He turns toward the window, watching the water pour down the mountain. Then he raises his M-16 toward Jericho’s chest. “Sergeant, give me one good reason I shouldn’t splatter your guts from here to Hanoi.”
Jericho is trying futilely to think of an answer when Kenosha strides into the control room with the bearing of a great warrior. “Because Jack Jericho is a good man,” he says.
-51-
Hello Darkness
“Flight switch on,” David says.
“Check,” Rachel responds.
“Launcher on.”
“Check.”
“Enable on.”
“Check.”
“Enter Enable Code, now,” David orders.
“Six,” Rachel says.
“I agree,” David responds.
David’s hand is steady as he turns over a red flap on the console and spins a thumbwheel. He stops at the number, “6.”
“B,” Rachel says.
“I agree.” David flips the second flap and spins its thumbwheel, this time stopping on the letter, “B.” He pauses and listens to an old song that swirls around in his consciousness. The song has a special meaning for him, he always believed. “‘Hello darkness, my old friend,’” he sings aloud. “‘I’ve come to talk with you again.’”
Susan Burns watches as David and Rachel work at the console, re-entering the Enable Code. Going through the familiar protocol, David adds an “8” on the third thumbwheel.
“6-B-8-A-3…” appears on the monitor.
“Seven,” Rachel says.
“I agree,” David responds, thumbing the wheel to number seven, then hitting the Initiate switch. He leans back in his flight chair as three chimes ring a tune of their own.
* * *
Pandemonium in the STRATCOM War Room.
“Kickoff now!” General Corrigan orders. “Kickoff now!”
“Go, go, go!” Colonel Farris yells in the phone to Colonel Zwick at Base Camp Alpha.
Officers and aides dash everywhere. Coded telexes are sent and received from the National Command Center in the Pentagon. It is five a.m. in Wyoming, and seven a.m. in Washington, and the President is already awake when the direct line from the Pentagon rings on his bedroom phone. In a moment, he will be on the phone with the president of Israel. The president cannot believe that a nuclear holocaust is about to happen on his watch. He will plead. He will promise aid. He will even cry. But the Israelis vow to set Operation Masada in motion. Once the PK hits apogee, Israeli planes will take off with their nuclear payloads that are being readied even now.
General Corrigan stands motionless, a rock in the midst of the turbulent sea. Colonel Farris stands behind the general, awaiting further orders, trying to appear calm. Watching from his wheelchair, not even attempting to hide his mocking smile, Professor Lionel Morton gestures toward the Big Board. “You must admit, Hugh, that the PK is a thing of beauty.”
“Lionel, if you don’t wipe that smirk off your face, I’ll have you arrested.”
On the Big Board, there is a schematic diagram of the PK missile and the flashing message: “LF 47-Q LAUNCH ENABLED.” The computer’s female mechanical voice intones, “Enable Code confirmed. Secondary Launch Code confirmed. Confidence is high.”
“I want continuous progress reports on the assault,” the general tells Colonel Farris. He has approved Colonel Zwick’s the two-pronged attack plan: the direct assault to get Special Forces to the elevator shaft and the surprise descent down the mountain to give the Night Stalkers the chance to rappel down the silo walls.
The colonel has the phone to his ear. Putting a hand over the mouthpiece, he says, “Something strange, general. You better take a look.”
A technician punches a button, and the Big Board is filled with an aerial video shot from a helicopter. A spotlight illuminates a raging torrent of water surging down the mountain.
General Corrigan says, “What the hell is that?”
“We thought the bastards had blown the dam, but it seems one of our men opened the sluice gates,” Colonel Farris says.
“One of our men!”
“Well, not exactly, sir. That Air Force E-5, the maintenance man. He’s stranded Delta on top the mountain, and the water’s headed toward the silo.”
The general grinds his teeth. In his younger days, as a fighter pilot, he wore a plastic mouthpiece at night sleep to keep from crushing his molars into dust while he slept. “What the hell was he thinking?”
“Thinking? He’s just a sergeant.”
Professor Morton sits nearby in his wheelchair, listening. He coughs out a laugh and says, “Your erstwhile sergeant thought he could stop my missile with a squirt gun.”
* * *
The men and machines of Base Camp Alpha are massed on the perimeter. Wooden ammunition crates have been cracked open and emptied. For the tenth time, men check their weapons, clicking magazines into place again and again. Faces and hands are covered with camouflage grease. Engines rev on the great pieces of mobile armor, fouling the early morning air with diesel fumes.
Standing in the command tent, Colonel Zwick yells into his radio transmitter to Captain Clancy, still stranded atop the mountain. “Jackal, I’m sorry, but you’re on your own. We gotta kickoff without you.”
The battle begins with two gunshots.
Two expert Army marksmen – snipers by any other name – each with a night-scoped spotter and M24 rifle are ensconced in a camouflaged bunker dug into a raised bluff. They are two hundred meters in front of the base camp perimeter, nine hundred meters from the missile base sentry post.
Well within range.
In Desert Storm, each had confirmed kills at the magical thousand yard distance. Superbly conditioned in both body and mind, they can kill without their pulse rates topping fifty-five. Keeping it under the speed limit, they call it. Now, at a signal, they fire simultaneously. It takes nearly three seconds for the cra-ack of the rifles to reach the sentry post. By which point, both commando sentries are dead.
A moment later, four Abrams main battle tanks lurch down the gentle slope from base camp, cross a open field, then the access road, and finally tear through the perimeter fence of the missile base. Bradley Fighting Vehicles are close behind, fanning out toward the security building and the barracks. A mounted machine gun rakes the buildings, and commandos return the fire from dug-in positions.
Soldiers swarm through the woods, tearing apart commandos on the way to the elevator housing. The soldiers are well trained and well equipped. Some carry the new lightweight machine guns called SAWs. Others fire grenades from M-203 launchers attached below the barrels of their M-16 battle rifles. Some of the Special Forces platoons – Green Berets and Rangers – also carry Beretta 9 mm. pistols and combat knives. Their ammunition is virtually limitless. Reinforcements are ready if needed. It is not a question of whether the Army will take back the base, but how long it will take and how many – hostages, soldiers, enemy – will die.
The commandos are outnumbered and outgunned, but they gamely fight back, welcoming their own Armageddon. They are not stupid men. There was always an awareness that it would be easier to attack the sleepy missile base than to defend it. They are prepared to die, and that always makes for good fighting men. But still, they are not prepared for the ferocity of the onslaught. How could they be? Their training – mock battles, target practice and obstacle courses – was a fantasy camp for would-be soldiers. The men facing them now are hardened Special Op soldiers plus the armored cavalry, gritty professionals whose j
ob is simply to make other men die.
It is one thing to lie comfortably in the prone shooting position on a range, adjusting the battlesight aperture on the M-16A2, rotating the windage knob just a tad, taking your time, exhaling, then zeroing in on a stationery target. One that doesn’t shoot back. It is quite another thing to have a horde of trained killers swarming at you from three directions, wanting nothing so much as to kill you and all your friends.
During the day and night of occupation of the missile base, the commandos have buried several dozen US MI 14 anti-personnel mines in the woods. They were stolen from the Denver Armory, surplus munitions dating from the 1950’s. Half don’t explode at all. The others explode harmlessly as the tanks crunch over them. Randomly placed “dragon’s teeth,” concrete blocks intended to break the tank’s tracks, slow the huge death machines, but do not stop them. Once past the obstacles, the tanks open up with their 120 mm. main guns, blasting holes in the fortifications constructed by the commandos. With each shell, dirt and debris splatters the men behind the barricades. As Special Op troops advance on foot, Bradley Fighting Vehicles spray the commando position with machine gun fire and occasional bursts from their Bushmaster 25 mm. cannons.
Still, the commandos fight like men possessed. Which, of course, they are. Possessed by the passion of their leader, possessed by a wishful belief in the Apocalypse, possessed by the desire to be more than the faceless nobodies they always have been.
And it all comes true. Just as Brother David said it would. They stand their ground, battle valiantly. They recklessly toss grenades in close quarters, for if you plan to die anyway, it is best to take the enemy with you. Some are decent shots, at least at close range, and they take down the occasional soldier.
And when the end is near, when they are outnumbered and nearly overrun, some charge forward with bayonets mounted, like ancient Biblical warriors. They die glorious deaths. The Hereafter, they know with all their hearts, will be nothing short of eternal bliss.