“To prevent World War III.”
“But the threat’s over,” the earring guy jumps in. “I mean, the Russians are broly.”
Professor Morton wheels the chair around to face the student, who likely will never make Dean’s List, much less become another Oppenheimer. “Ah, the benefits of higher education. That broly bunch of guys at Glavkosmos sold rocket engines to India, missiles to China, submarines to Iran, and unless we stop them, ammonium perchlorate to Libya.”
“Ammon… ” the guy stumbles.
“Rocket fuel! And another thing, uranium fuel rods are disappearing from Russian nuclear plants like trinkets shoplifted from Woolworth’s. China is supplying reactors to every rogue country in the world. Even Algeria has a hot cell to make plutonium. The North Koreans have made enough nuclear material at Yongbyon to build five bombs and have a missile, the Rodong-1, that can hit Japan. The Ukraine has 1800 warheads. Leonid Kravchuk may be okay, but what about its next leader? So, in short, ladies and gentlemen, the world is a far more dangerous place today than it was—”
A rumble interrupts him.
The lecture hall windows vibrate in their frames.
The walls shake.
Several students dive to the floor. “Earthquake!” one shouts.
“The big one!” another screams.
On the stage, Professor Morton calmly looks out the windows toward the quadrangle. He has heard the sound before, loves the growling roar, the sheer power of the engines.
A moment later, an Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter touches down in the grassy quadrangle. Four Airborne Rangers in battle dress jump from the helicopter. It is an impressive sight, even to the jaded Stanford students, who pause on their way between classes, to watch the rugged men whose faces are smeared with camouflage grease and who carry assault rifles at port arms.
Lieutenant Colonel Charlie Griggs, lean and graying, a triangular patch signifying Delta Force on his shoulder, follows the Rangers out of the chopper and leads them at double time toward the lecture hall. They burst through the door and pour into the hall, tromping down the steps to the stage.
Professor Morton hits a button, and his wheelchair spins ninety degrees to face the lieutenant colonel, a man in his late forties with a squinting eyes and thin, humorless lips. “Let’s go, professor. It’s happening.”
Professor Morton doesn’t even try to suppress a smile. He knows, of course. It’s not End Game. No exchange of ICBM’s across the polar ice cap. It would have been over in minutes, and there would have been no time to summon the man who built the systems, the genius who designed everything from the shape of the launch control capsule to the computer programs with the multiple codes. Designed them to be fail-safe. The system had checks, cross-checks and double cross-checks. It was flawless. But human beings were far from perfect, and this was a paradox that intrigued the professor. While humans passed on the same weaknesses from the days of the Garden of Eden, technology exploded exponentially and approached perfection.
That thought always made him smile. Exploded. For as a physicist, he loved the Big Bang of the creator, which he always imagined with a small “c,” and he loved the little, big bangs he could create.
But human error was always the risk.
Incompetence or mendacity. Or both.
Whatever the crisis, he knew, that somewhere a nuclear weapon had been triggered, and he would walk — or more precisely, roll — right into the middle of it. Create the monster, slay the monster.
Professor Morton turns the wheelchair and faces the students. “Class dismissed. Next week, a quiz on deuterium fusion.” He pauses and lets his eyes twinkle. “If there is a next week.”
-30-
The Hot Breath of Lucifer
Jack Jericho slogs through the sump, stops, looks warily behind. Nothing but the throb of machinery. He is under the tunnel now, headed toward the Launch Equipment Room.
These fruitcakes have the launch control capsule, he now figures. Nobody ever calls him “sir,” not even the ticket taker at the Laramie Cineplex. And certainly not Lieutenant Owens. Jericho is a non-com, and Owens knows it. He was sending a message, and Jericho hoped it hadn’t gotten the missileer killed.
Okay, so the terrorists took over the capsule. Which means they’ve breached the perimeter and captured Security Command. And God knows what else.
But the bird didn’t fly. Jericho didn’t stop it, he knows. Hell, he nearly been turned into a fried mountaineer, working on the keyboard.
He had a weapon now. And they were on his territory. No, check that. Outdoors, in the woods, along the banks of a stream, that would be his territory. Here, in the tunnel that resembled a mine shaft, even though he knew every twist and turn, it was not his territory. It was his purgatory.
In the launch control capsule, Rachel watches over Susan and Owens while James works feverishly at the computer keyboard, his lank, pale hair drooping into his eyes. Brother David leans over his shoulder watching, growing angrier with every “Access Denied” message on the monitor.
“You’re supposed to be the expert,” David says, brusquely.
“Hey, it wasn’t my job to get the codes, Brother Davy.”
David kicks the railing that runs along the console. A petulant child. “Your blatant incompetence forestalls my destiny!”
James stops what he is doing and turns toward David, whose face is flushed. “You wanna cut the Messiah crap? This ain’t like breaking into a switching station at Pacific Bell to make some long distance calls. It ain’t changing grades at M.I.T.”
“Who do you think you’re talking to?” David demands.
“Back off, Davy. I know you. Hell, I’m the only one who knows you.”
David angrily turns away from the console and faces Susan, who is staring at him. “What is it? Do you have something to say, Ms. Shrink? Do you have something to add to this fiasco?”
“I could help you.”
“Really? Do you know how to acquire the Secondary Launch Code?”
“No, but with the proper therapy, we could exorcize your demons without a nuclear holocaust.”
He glares at her. “You know nothing of my demons. You know nothing of me.”
“But if I did, I could help you.”
David considers telling her the story just to see her reaction. “I shot my father, doctor? What do you make of that?”
What an oedipal delight, a smorgasbord of delicacies for a psychiatrist. How they loved him at the hospital when he wasn’t tormenting them. He spent eighteen months there, and it wasn’t bad, not when you live inside your head. He used his free time — of which there was plenty — to read and to change and then to change again.
He had always been aware of his powers. He saw colors emanating from other persons and came to know that these were called auras. While still a child, he invented a parlor game he called, “I see.” Wearing a black cape and a makeshift turban from a bathroom towel, he would squeeze his eyes shut, work up visions, and reveal all manner of data, some mundane and some astounding. He could conjure up the names of long-deceased relatives and he could tell a stranger whether his ailment was an ulcer or a boil. He didn’t know how he saw these things; sometimes the visions came, sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes he was right, sometimes wrong.
Family and friends often asked for predictions, but those were more difficult. David worked hard at making his prophesies come true, but nothing seemed to work, until he discovered a simple solution. Only predict those things over which you have control. If he told a neighborhood pal that his cat would soon die, and a few days later, the cat was found strangled, then David was a prophet, albeit a self-fulfilling one.