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.