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.”