“Not so well-planned that they had the slick.”
The jet begins its descent though a thin layer of clouds over Offutt Air Force Base just outside Omaha. Professor Morton turns to face the lieutenant colonel. “But they seemed to have everything else, didn’t they? What makes you think they can’t get the secondary code?”
“Well, how will they get it? The President’s not going to give it to them. You don’t mean to say they have access to it down in the hole.”
Professor Morton closes his eyes and listens to the sound of the landing gear lower into place. “I mean we’re going to find out just how clever they are.”
“Damn.” Griggs uses the knuckle of an index finger to scratch at his mustache. “Then we’d getter get ready to shoot down the missile.”
“With what?” The professor seems oddly pleased by the suggestion even as he rejects it. “Tomahawks, Cruise, Sparrows? Lousy range, and none of them can do more than Mach 4. That bird flies at Mach 20, more than fifteen thousand miles an hour at burnout when it goes ballistic.”
“We don’t wait ‘til it hits apogee, professor. We surround the silo with batteries of Patriots, kill the bird on liftoff.”
“You think my missile is some rustbucket Scud from Baghdad?” He lets out a little laugh. The weapon’s superiority is a source of pride and amusement. He lets his voice slip into its lecture mode. “The Air Force is just dandy at launching missiles, not at shooting them down. On liftoff you’d have no time to acquire the target. You’d either fire too soon or too late, or at the right time at the wrong angle. You might as well try shooting a lightning bolt with a pistol.”
This quiets Griggs, and as the Lear’s wheels touch down with a screech of rubber on pavement, he clicks open his seatbelt, as if that will hurry them on the way to STRATCOM. He stands before the small jet comes to a stop on the tarmac where a helicopter is waiting. Two Airborne Rangers help the professor off the plane and into a waiting military van. There is no time to lose.
Susan hangs painfully from the overhead pipe, her breasts exposed. Brother David stands in front of her, his head cocked as if listening to a distant voice. His eyes are unfocused.
“Father and I always competed for mother’s attention,” he says softly.
A tear tracks slowly down Susan’s cheek.
“Quite a wit, my father. Nicknamed me Oedipus.” He waits for a response, doesn’t get one, and continues. “Just for the record, doctor, I didn’t really have an affair with my mother, then kill my father. But not for lack of trying.”
David rests his head between Susan’s breasts, and her shoulders tremble. “Did you know I had an appointment to West Point? Daddy arranged it. He was chummy with the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and just about everyone at the Pentagon whose name started with ‘General.’ Loved the military, though he never served, of course. What hopes he had for me.”
“Do you feel you failed him?” Susan asks, the numbness paralyzing her.
David nuzzles her breasts with his chin. “I’m sure he would think so. But he could hardly be the one to cast stones.” He takes a nipple in his mouth, and sucks at it.
“What does that mean?” Susan asks, squeezing her eyes shut.
David releases her nipple and seems to appraise it. “I came home after plebe year at the Point and found my mother with three broken ribs.” David reaches behind her and unzips her skirt and pulls it down over her hips. “And a black eye she pathetically tried to cover with makeup.”
David drops to the floor on his knees, lifts up her feet, one at a time, gathers up the skirt and tosses it aside. Still on his knees, he presses his cheek into her abdomen and continues to talk. “He’d beaten her before, of course. For as long as I can remember. Accused her of adultery, of burning the lamb chops, of spending too much money. Such an angry man. And she always made excuses for him. As if it were her fault. But it wasn’t.”
David’s arms are wrapped around her, squeezing her buttocks. “I always thought I should have done something when I was younger. I could have stopped him, but I didn’t.”
“But this time you did,” she says.
“I found my father’s gun. Bang! Bang! Then I found religion.”
Susan begins to sob. David stands and studies her.
“Your nipples are erect, Dr. Burns. But alas, I am not.”
He turns and walks from the room, leaving her suspended from the pipe, half naked and in tears. Without looking back, he says, “Pray tell, what would Freud say?”
-32-
Coward!
Jack Jericho splashes through the drainage sump, stopping to look up through the grates above his head. He knows he is directly under the tunnel leading from the launch control capsule to the silo, knows too that no one should be in the tunnel, but is not surprised to see the outline of two men through the shadowy grate.
“Are you ready, Ezekiel?” a voice asks.
“Always, Brother David. But will you open the seven seals?”
“In due time.”
“The men believe in you, Brother David.”
“Let them believe in the Word. It will lead them.”
Weirdos of God, Jericho thinks. He moves directly under the grate, kicking a spray of water against some tubing. The conversation above him stops, and he freezes, a ray of light from the tunnel filtering through the grate and across his face. He imagines the two men peering down through the grate, spotting him. Brother David and Ezekiel. Even as he wonders what they look like, his heart pounds in his chest, so loud it seems, they must hear it, too. His imagination conjures up the sound of a rifle bolt clicking into place, the sight of a muzzle poking through an opening of the grate, even the sound of the gunshot that will end his life. But then, the conversation starts again.
“If you will forgive my sinful pride, Brother David, it would be a great honor to perform any tasks that would further the cause of righteousness.”
“There is one thing,” the other voice says. “I am teaching a lesson to a heathen. Give her another few minutes. Then take these keys, and… ”
Using their voices as cover, Jericho carefully moves through the water down the tunnel, turning under what he knows is the galley-sleeping quarters. He looks up through the grate. Darkness. He takes a deep breath. He has two choices. He can stay in the sump, dashing around corners like a rat in a maze, or he can work his way up to the silo and the launch control capsule. He doesn’t know what he’ll do when he gets there, but he knows he’s not doing anyone any good where he is.
Jericho removes the saw-toothed survival knife from a leg sheath and pries open the grate above his head. Then he pulls himself into the room, pauses a moment to let his eyes get accustomed to the dim light. He hears the unmistakable sound of strained breathing, senses the mixture of pain and fear, and as he turns and sees her in the yellowy light, his first thought is of a an animal caught in a trap.
Susan Burns sees the figure pulling itself out of the grate. The man turns toward her, an apparition appearing through a blazing fire of pain. Her body stiffens. She begins to cry out, but Jericho covers her mouth with his hand.
“It’s me, doctor, Sergeant Jericho,” he whispers in her ear.
It takes a moment, but she recognizes him and calms. He releases his grip then lifts her at the waist to relieve the pressure on her arms.
“Thank God,” she says, her head falling onto his shoulder. Please get me out of here. He was going to… ”
Jericho reaches up toward the overhead pipe, finds the handcuffs and curses. He was hoping she was bound with rope. The saw-toothed knife is in his hand. Wrapped cylindrical handle, a removable cap for storing matches, compass and fishing line. It can saw down trees, clean a fish, or gut a man. But it cannot open handcuffs.