Sigma One

by Hutchison, William

  Apparently they were safe for the time being.

  But Debbie knew that their safety would be short-lived.

  It only took eight minutes to get to Morrow Bay Harbor from the campus, but during that time Burt, huddled in the back of the van had been fighting a losing battle. He no longer had the strength or determination to maintain his equilibrium and as Debbie slowed the van to a stop in front of the wooden docks where only weeks before she and Burt had come on the day they first made love, Burt felt the last remnants of civilization oozing from his being--slipping like oiled smoke out of his pours and he was powerless to stop the change which was occurring within him.

  Debbie, unaware of the metamorphosis taking place jumped out and began to run toward the end of the dock.

  "You two stay here out of sight!" she turned and said, "I'll get Mac Tavish. He was a good friend of my father's and he'll let us use his boat. I'll be right back!" With that, she turned and disappeared down the wooden gangplank.

  Neither Burt nor Andre answered. Each instead remained in the back, each beginning to feel crazed and agitated as a result of the final awful changes which were going on inside them.

  Burt looked up at Andre--the dark circles under his eyes were getting deeper by the minute and gave his face and eerie emaciated, scared look-like the babies in the posters soliciting money for hunger projects or like the jagged features of some aids victims in their last days. Burt couldn't stand the sight of his friend knowing full well he must look similar. He closed his eyes, too weary to fight, too weary to rare.

  South of Morrow Bay, over the rolling coastal hills, and out on the peninsula owned by the United States government, home of the Western Missile Test Range, Lt. Banachek and the crew of the three fifty first missile test wing were readying the two minutemen for the launch which would take place in less than ten minutes.

  Colonel Banes, Banachek's supervisor, stood over his shoulder and by the look on his face which Banachek could see reflected in his radar screen, he could tell the colonel was pissed. As a result, Banachek didn't look up and continued to watch as the raster scan swept before him. He then switched his attention to the missile control panel monitor which would record the missiles' flight profiles for him to see if the trajectories they were following were normal or not. If not, he, and he alone would send the destruct command to avoid any potential danger to the neighboring civilian population should the weapons take an errant path. He then began to pretend he was busy validating the numbers which scrolled on the screen before him, ignoring Banes who had now moved even closer to study his actions.

  He didn't want to look up. He knew he was late. But damn it all, he was there wasn't he!

  Back in their van, Burt broke into a sweat and his heart began to race again. The metamorphosis almost complete, he turned to Andre to speak. His voice no longer sounded like the civilized utterings of a college student. It was low and guttural and sounded more like the gravely growls of a caged animal than anything else. His face was contorted as he gave into the schizophrenia which was overtaking him with each breath.

  "We'll be on the boat in a minute, Andre," he growled. "Then we'll show those bastards. We'll show 'em!" he said curling his upper lip and intentionally bearing his teeth.

  In the back of his mind, Elton John's prophetic words began to work

  their way into his conscious thoughts "get back Honky cat get back.

  O00000h, the change is gonna do you good!"

  Kamarov nodded his head in agreement, and like two wolves in their den, both men twitched in anticipation as drool formed in the corners of their mouths and dripped slowly down their chins.

  Five minutes had passed when Debbie finally returned; ample time for their transformation to be completed.

  It was quiet when she opened the van door. Too quiet. She expected Burt to greet her or at least ask if she had been successful in getting Mac Tavish's boat, and when he didn't, she knew something was wrong. Her gut knotted like spring steel causing the bile in her stomach to defy gravity and burn the back of her throat.

  As she entered she saw both men crouched, backs toward her in the dark corners of the van.

  To break the silence, she addressed them. "It's the twenty foot Boston Wailer tied at the end of the pier. Mac Tavish wasn't in, but his daughter, Erin, said he wouldn't mind if we borrowed his boat. That's okay, isn't it. A twenty foot--r, I mean?"

  Both men sat still, their knees pulled up under them. Neither responded.

  "Burt?" Debbie spoke hesitantly.

  "Andre?" She tried again.

  "I've got the boat keys," she said, her voice timorous.

  Neither man spoke, but at the sound of her voice, they pulled their knees up tighter to their chests and hunched their shoulders. They both looked like animals that had been beaten one too many times by their masters and cringed, but didn't answer.

  An icy river of fear began to flow in her veins and she began to shake uncontrollably.

  Debbie's first impression that something was wrong with the two of them instantly changed to terror.

  "Burt—Andre--You don't have to do this." She feared they were as afraid as she that what they were about to do was crazy. Maybe they had changed their minds. "That's it. They've decided not to try to launch the missiles," she told herself.

  "You don't have to do this," she began again, pleadingly. "Let's just leave." Her voice was cracking, her words rapidly running into one another as she tried to convince herself she could make them change their minds.

  "Burt,we can run away. The three of us. If we leave now we can go up North. Cross into Canada and leave all this behind us. I've got friends in Vancouver, and I don't think they'll ever be able to find us there."

  "Burt----Burt." She started to sob as she waited for him to turn around, hoping against hope that he'd listen to reason--hoping that this madness would end. Her sobs ratcheted out and she became unable to speak as she stared into the dark recesses of the van and waited.

  Suddenly Burt twitched slightly and she tried to calm herself thinking this movement a sign of compliance--of a change of heart on his part. In her mind's eye she could see him slowly turn around and come to her so she could hold him. She wanted so desperately to hold him.

  She reached out her hand and gently placed it on his shoulder to prod him, but the instant she touched him, he flinched again, this time more violently than before as if she had struck him with a rod instead of lightly touching him on the shoulder.

  Immediately, he released his knees and spun around. Debbie saw that his eyes were wide open when he faced her, giving them a Mansonesque quality as if all humanity had been leached out of them leaving only black islands of despair surrounded by a sea of white and red. Snot ran out of both his nostrils and his lower lip quivered.

  Burt grabbed her hand and flung it aside causing it to slap hard against the cold metal paneling, sending a flash of pain up her arm.

  "Give me the keys, bitch!" he growled.

  Debbie was too stunned to move. After having her hand flung against the inside of the van she had immediately brought it back to her chest whereupon she grabbed it with her free hand to make it stop stinging. In so doing, she had dropped the keys into the back with Burt and Andre.

  "Give me the keys, now," Burt growled again.

  "I don't have them. Burt, what's happened to you?" she cried out, wanting, no needing, an explanation for his behavior--still holding on to the hope this was all a bad dream and that it would soon end.

  Burt didn't answer, but instead, reached forward and grabbed her by the back of the neck. "The keys! Where are the keys?"

  He wrenched her head forward as he spoke until she was halfway in the back of the van with him straddling the seat and leaning face down at the floor mat where she had earlier dropped them.

  She pulled back in terror. But he had followed her eyes downward to the keys, and when he grabbed them from the floor, he released his hold on her and pushed her forward into the front seat away fro
m him. As he did this, he reached over with his free hand and rapped Kamarov on the back.

  "We go! Now!" he snapped at his friend and then scrambled over the console and got out of the van.

  Kamarov followed him and both men began to run down the creosote soaked timber of the docks toward Mac Tavish's boat neither turning around to give Debbie a second look. Had they done this, they might have seen Walker and his squad of agents who were just thirty feet away from the van and approaching it cautiously from behind.

  Walker saw them and immediately fell to one knee to steady his pistol which he brought up and trained on Andre's back.

  "Freeze! Kamarov! Grayson! It's all over!" he ordered.

  And for a split second, both men did just that...they froze...but not because of Walker or the threat of being shot. They each had other things on their minds.

  Burt raised his arm slowly and pointed South toward Vandenberg.

  "There, Andre. Look there. Vandenberg is just over those hills. While we sat in the van, I was able to determine by linking with their computers that a test is about to occur!"

  Burt then lowered his hand as Walker strode forward behind them.

  At Vandenberg, Colonel Banes signaled to the launch control officer, who like Banachek, was watching a series of TV monitors from his position at the control panel. "We have a go ahead from range safety," Banes said putting down the phone.

  As he did this, the launch control officer acknowledged his signal and spoke into his microphone. "Begin countdown again at twenty seconds," he ordered to the crew of young Air Force officers.

  Banachek was still hunched over his own screens and watched as the

  series of green numbers indicating missile subsystem status scrolled in

  front of him.

  The loudspeaker overhead crackled.

  "Twenty!"

  "Nineteen!"

  "Eighteen!"

  "Seventeen!"

  "Sixteen!"

  "Fifteen!"

  "Fourteen!"

  "Thirteen!"

  Banachek looked up at the TV monitors which focused on the two Minutemen missiles and noted their sleek, dark, silent sides. Unlike the former liquid-fueled work horses of the Department of Defense, the Atlas and Titan class missiles, which by this time in the countdown would be steaming from the condensation from the liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen which filled their fuel tanks giving them a malevolent fearful look, their two solid rocket fueled minutemen cousins instead sat there motionless giving no indication they were soon to leap into the sky to catapult their mock reentry vehicles nearly half a globe away downrange.

  "Twelve!"

  "Eleven!"

  "Ten!" "Nine!" "Eight!" "Seven!" "Six!" "Five!" "Four!" "Three!"

  "Ignition!"

  "Two----"

  "One!"

  "Liftoff!" The loudspeaker sounded, and the TV monitor instantly showed clouds of smoke and fire belching from the twin black obelisks as they jumped from their concrete cocoons into the afternoon coastal haze.

  As the missiles leapt into the air, Banachek turned his attention away from the TV monitor and began to assess the guidance control computer outputs and the radar screen to track their course.

  "All systems green, Colonel Banes," he announced, his hand on the destruct button ready at an instant's notice to push it should the screens he watched give any indication of a malfunction which might send the missiles on an intercept path with the mainland.

  Back in Morrow Bay, Walker was approaching Andre and Burt from behind. His three cohorts followed like baby ducks following their parent. Each man had his gun trained on Andre, ready to fire if he should turn and attempt to do what he had done to Wycoat. All marched in lock step.

  "Ok, Kamarov and Grayson! Both of you stop and raise your hands, but don't turn around!" Walker ordered.

  Andre and Burt stopped moving forward, but continued to talk. The wildness inside each was growing as Burt relayed the fact that the missiles had lifted off. Each felt stronger than they had ever felt before, momentarily losing themselves in the power surge which accompanied their mental metamorphosis.

  Kamarov knew he could now turn and with little more than the blink of an eye destroy those who stood behind him, but he also knew that such an act would weaken him for what he was about to do when the twin missiles finally came into view. So he fought the urge to attack and instead, continued to stare out to the South beyond the boats in the harbor, beyond the high knoll on which the nesting ground of the Blue heron stood, out toward the coastal mountains above which he knew he would soon see the missiles.

  The high overcast that had covered the California coast since morning had thinned somewhat, but a silvery thin layer of horsetail cirrus remained, and it looked as if someone had spread a gossamer silken scarf over the cap of the sky. As Burt and Andre continued to stare upward, the twin missile contrails appeared and like spiders crawling up a web, they began to quickly arch into the veil; their white ribbons of exhaust stretching taut as they ascended toward the heavens.

  Burt raised his hand and pointed.

  "See them! There!" he said to Andre, already closing his eyes and focusing his thought energy toward them.

  "Do it now! Now! I'll take the one on the left! You, the right!"

  Andre followed Burt's lead and closed his eyes tightly and began to concentrate to redirect his missile's flight profile toward Washington while Burt did the same for his to send it to Moscow!

  Walker saw the missiles too, and fearing the worst, raised his gun and fired twice.

  Simultaneously, at Vandenberg Launch control, Banachek, detected an ever-so-slight trajectory aberration and punched the button he held in his hand.

  As the bullets entered the backs of their heads, Andre and Burt opened their eyes. The last thing they saw was that they had succeeded as the missies began to arch north and east instead of south toward Kwajalein.

  When they both fell to the ground mortally wounded, both missiles finally exploded, but not before it had been determined that the trajectories they were taking would send them to the two most powerful nation's capitols.

  Thirty minutes after the successful destruct command, Colonel Banesand Lt. Banachek were on a conference call to the Chief of Staff of the Air Force to explain the gravity of the situation. Thirty six hours later, trajectory reconstruction confirmed what Banachek had said his computer had told him and a report was delivered to the President.

  Postlogue

  Sarah Huxley reached aver the silver railing of the hospital bed for Pat's bandaged hand and squeezed it tightly.

  Feebly, he responded and tried to grip her back. As he did, Sarah, forced a smile and a tear trickled down her cheek as she stared at her injured husband's broken body. She was so glad he was alive, but she had to turn her head away so he couldn't see her cry. She had shed enough tears for a lifetime the past two weeks ever since she received Amanda Yates call at her mother's house telling her Pat had been in a car wreck. Had it not been for Walker's urgent call back to the NSF and the subsequent trip Amanda made to find Pat and tell him the news of Kamarov's and Grayson's demise, Pat might have died.

  As she sat there staring at him, the television set which hung on the wall opposite his bed droned in the background and Peter Jennings’s voice was barely audible.

  Jennings sat at his news desk in front of a picture of the White House where only hours before, the Soviet and American Presidents had signed their historic, unprecedented and unannounced arms agreement which in five years’ time would put the threat of a nuclear war completely out of the realm of possibility and end, at least momentarily, mankind's most horrific age. The newscasters had been playing the story for hours and would probably continue to do so for weeks on end covering every aspect of such a momentous event. The public, however, would only be given half the story, but that didn't matter, not to Pat anyway. He, after all, had finally achieved his goal. In five years all U.S. and Soviet missiles would be destroyed as a result of the trea
ty.

  Pat opened his swollen blackened eyes and focused on the TV set and although it hurt, he forced a smile and spoke."I'm so sorry Sarah, but I didn't know what else to do. I felt so alone like such a failure. He then smiled again, coughed, and grimaced in pain as his broken ribs moved.

  Sarah put her hand on his forehead and stroked it lovingly.

  "It's all right, Pat. Don’t try to speak. Just know that I love you and everything will be fine after you're better." She then added as she leaned over the bed to give him a kiss. "I'm so proud of you!"

  Pat turned his head toward her, momentarily ignoring Jennings’s announcement of the resignation of Radcliff, and smiled at Sarah as a video tape of the senator and Cherisa Hunt locked in a steamy embrace, but appropriately edited for television, flashed on the screen.