“I didn’t vote for the damn treaty,” the Congressman says, as if to clear the record.
“Fine, but it’s a done deal, Chris. Question now, what’s the effect on the readiness of the remaining missile crews? That’s why Dr. Burns is with us.”
Secretary Cabot gestures with a fork full of filet mignon in the direction of Dr. Susan Burns, who gives her business smile and nods, then slices her poached salmon. At thirty-four, having earned a Ph.D. in psychology with a thesis on soldiers’ response to stress in warfare and an M.D. in general psychiatry, she will let the two stags bloody each other for a while. She wears her long, dark hair up, and today she omitted the makeup and dressed in the most conservative of her blue suits. Still, she had turned the heads of the brass — their medals clinking, ribbons rustling — when she entered the Joint Chiefs Dining room.
The Congressman gives Dr. Burns a grudging nod and motions toward the uniformed steward for a second Scotch on the rocks. “I just don’t believe in sticking pins and needles in our boys to find out if they’ve ever seen their mommies naked.”
“Boys and girls,” Dr. Burns adds with a pleasant smile. “Women command launch capsules, too.”
“Not if I had anything to say about it,” the Congressman fires back. “No offense, Dr. Burns, but I don’t put much faith in all that Freudian flim-flam.”
Dr. Burns stays quiet, admiring the American eagle on the fine china, arrows in one claw, boughs of peace in the other. No use further antagonizing the man who holds the purse strings on her project to test all soldiers with access to nuclear weapons.
“For the love of mercy, Chris,” the Secretary says, “why are you such a Neanderthal?”
“Once a Marine, always a Marine.”
The Congressman is still a Colonel in the Reserves, but so what? Susan is acquainted with plenty of Marine officers who accept women as equals… or close to it.
“The Corps was fighting the British before the Declaration of Independence was signed,” the Congressman continues. “We’ve made more than three hundred landings on foreign shores.”
Not that the Congressman has landed on any foreign shores himself, Susan Burns knows, unless you counted congressional junkets to Hong Kong, Singapore and Bangkok. Now what’s he saying?
“We didn’t need women then, and we sure as hell don’t need them now, except for political expediency, and you know I don’t play those games.”
No? What about stirring the pork barrel for a California defense contractor that makes guidance systems for missiles that are being mothballed? Susan Burns could tell from the Air Force Secretary’s look that he was probably thinking the same thing.
“Our women pilots have excellent records,” Secretary Cabot says. “So do the women in support units.”
“If you ask me, we’re just appeasing the left-wing, fem-Nazi contingent.”
“Damn it, Chris! You’ve been in office so long, you’re starting to believe your own flack. It’s a new world out there, and we’ve got to make use of all the expertise we’ve got.”
“Including lady shrinks, I suppose?”
“I vouch for Dr. Burns, and that ought to be good enough for you.”
Susan Burns stifles a smile. The old Air Force eagle still has some arrows in his quiver. “Gentlemen,” she says, “this isn’t about me and it isn’t about women. It’s about the readiness of the missile squadrons. The enemies are monotony, boredom, and a sense of futility. Not one missileer in fifty believes he — or she — will ever turn the key. If the President ordered a strike, there’s significant doubt the missileers would fire. They’d get the launch code and think it was a computer malfunction.”
“Even if that’s true,” the Congressman says, “I fail to see how a shrink is going to help.”
“Our preliminary studies show a marked decline in alertness and discipline. We need to construct psychological profiles of the men and women in the launch capsules, compile hard statistical data, then treat the problem.”
The Congressman sips at his Scotch, then to the Secretary and waves his napkin, surrendering. “Okay, Warren. It’s your call, but if 60 Minutes comes calling about this boondoggle, I’ll refer them to you.”
The two men exchange smiles, and Susan Burns finally understands. It had all been a charade. The Congressman never intended to block the project. He merely wanted artillery cover if the news media likened the project to price supports for bull semen or thousand-dollar balpeen hammers. If that happened, Susan Burns could go back to treating bed-wetting teenagers in suburban Virginia. I’ve got a lot to learn about politics, she thinks.
A steward appears and silently slips a silver tray holding a small envelope in front of Secretary Cabot. Opening the envelope, the Secretary examines a note, his brow furrowing. “Isn’t that the damndest?”
“What?” the Congressman asks.
“You remember that break-in at the Denver Armory?”
“Yeah, the Army lost some ordnance.”
“Automatic weapons, ammunition and some obsolete land mines,” the Secretary says, looking around, then lowering his voice. “Plus enough plastiques to make the Beirut bombing look like a fraternity prank.”
“That wasn’t in the reports.”
“No, and neither will this. There was an explosion at a porn shop in New York last night. Traces of Semtex were found in the rubble. Based on the chemical composition, it’s special Army issue.”
“So why rob an armory to blow up a porn shop?” the Congressman asks.
“Excellent question,” Dr. Susan Burns says, patting her lips with a napkin, “and I’ll bet the answer can be found with a little Freudian flim-flam.”
-4-
Hell’s Half Acre
The broad plains north of Rattlesnake Hills are broken by mountains and buttes rising unexpectedly from the flat earth. Wyoming is a land of contrasts. Towering mountains of granite that boiled up from inside the earth over three billion years ago. Flat prairies of wheatgrass and junegrass. Steppes covered with sweetly pungent sagebrush, the scent carried by the strong, continuous winds. On the arid badlands, eroded boulders form exotic sculptures in demonic shapes. Not far to the south, traces of wagon wheels carved into the rocks are still visible on the old Oregon Trail.
Near the south fork of the Powder River, in an area of dry buttes and rocky gullies, is Hell’s Half Acre, a canyon of eroded pink rock, forming pinnacles that could be the frozen flames of Satan himself. Three miles to the west, near a stream, is rolling ranch land. Some is fenced, and cattle graze serenely on the grasslands that are also the home to jackrabbits, cottontails and rattlesnakes. Mule deer and pronghorn antelope feed in the nearby woods.
Over a rise from the grazing cattle, farther from the stream, a man in commando fatigues uses wire cutters to snip through the bottom two strands of a barbed-wire fence. As he spreads the opening with gloved hands, eleven similarly dressed men wriggle through, belly-up, using their rifles to keep the wire from catching on their fatigues. In their wake, clouds of dust rise from the parched earth. In a moment the men are gone, and with the top wires still intact, the fence does not appear to have been breached.
The commandos flatten themselves to the ground and creep ahead through the scrubby brush, holding their M-16A2’s, official U.S. Army issue, in front of them. They move slowly in what marine rifle squads call the “low crawl.” The morning sun is in their faces, which are painted loam and light green to blend in with the surroundings. They wear Kevlar body armor and carry extra magazines of 5.56 mm. ammunition in pouches on their cartridge belts. Their helmets are covered in brown burlap.