“Is that what you are?” the general asks, “another David Koresh?”
“You insult me, Hugh, comparing me to that low-rent charlatan who founded a religion in order to have sex with little girls. A bit tawdry, don’t you think? Do you know his real name was Vernon Howell? Now, doesn’t that have Texas trailer park written all over it?”
“What’s your real name, Morning Star?”
“In due time,” David says. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out without any help from me. In the meantime, I’d caution against using the same tactics the F.B.I. used in Waco. This time, you’ll fry a delegation of U.N. ambassadors.”
“How do I know they’re still alive?”
David’s tone is teasing. “If you like, I’ll send out one’s ear. It’ll still be warm. Let’s see, who should we start with? There’s a rather fussy Englishman who is getting on all our nerves. But in the spirit of the European Community, perhaps the French and German ambassadors should join him. Or, how about the Israeli? How fitting, given our circumstances. He’s already told me that his country’s response to our little plan will be most enlightening.”
“What does that mean?”
“Oh, I’m sure the President knows and you’ll be told in due time if you’re in that loop, Hugh.”
“Look, why not just let the ambassadors go and we’ll talk about resolving this?”
“Actually, I’m reluctant to do that. It could be dangerous. Your boys tend to fire first and ask questions later, don’t they? I always thought the term ‘friendly fire’ was an even juicier oxymoron than ‘military intelligence.’”
“Look, you… ”
“Morning Star, Hugh. But let’s not kid each other. Sure, you’d like to have the ambassadors safe and sound, but if I offered to return your big, beautiful missile in return for their blood, you’d take the deal in an instant.”
The general doesn’t respond. For a moment, there’s the fleeting hope that maybe the terrorists are after the ambassadors, but no, they had tried to launch. “Morning Star, I don’t know what you’re getting at. I can’t help you if you don’t tell—”
“Hugh, you’ve got it all wrong. I’m helping you. I’m giving you advice that will save your career, maybe even get you that third star, make Edna so proud, to say nothing of all the bar girls in western Europe.”
Behind Corrigan, Colonel Farris winks at an aide.
“I’m listening,” the general says.
“Hugh, you have all these killing machines at your disposal, and soon you’ll be under enormous pressure to do something, anything. Am I right?”
“Go on. What’s your point?”
David’s tone changes, his voice taking on a steely edge. “My point, old man, is simply this. If a Ranger, Seal or Boy Scout sets foot in this silo, I’ll start sacrificing U.N. ambassadors. Your so-called Allies will be pissed. And then… ” He lets his voice go up an octave in a child’s sing-song, “I’ll launch your pretty back birdie.”
“You’re bluffing,” Corrigan shoots back. “If you had the S.L.C., you’d have launched already.”
“When you’ve got only one wad to shoot, you don’t want to fire prematurely, do you? Let’s wait for dawn. Don’t you just love the sight of an ICBM lifting off into the rising sun?”
“You still haven’t convinced me you can do it.”
“But you’re not sure, and you can’t take the chance. Besides, Hugh, even without the code, you know I could create a hell of a nuke flash right in the hole.”
“I don’t know that at all. You’d have to arm the warheads. You’d have to detonate. It’s not as simple as you may—”
“Would I come all this way and not know how to do a little fission-fusion-fission? Oh, can’t you just envision two deuterium atoms colliding and fusing into Helium-3?” Suddenly, David laughs and begins singing, “Oh, the lithium’s connected to the deuterium, and the deuterium’s connected to the tritium, and the tritium’s connected to the plutonium, and the plutonium’s connected to the uranium, and the uranium’s connected to… me!”
At STRATCOM, there is worried mumbling and the exchange of astonished looks. “That fellow’s toothpick don’t go all the way through the olive,” Colonel Farris says.
“What a big bang,” David says, “all ten warheads detonating at once in the same location. You’d lose all your ground forces, which serves them right.” He laughs and lets his voice fill with sarcasm. “They’re making so much noise digging in, my men can hardly read their Bibles. And the Sierra Club will be all over your back what with all the dead fish and deer in these bucolic parts.”
“You’ll be killed, too,” the general says flatly.
“No, I will live forever, and even my ashes will have a half-life of 700 million years. What a way to achieve immortality, eh Hugh?”
General Corrigan stares at the Big Board. The map of the world has replaced the satellite shots of the missile base. A dotted line tracks across the continents from Wyoming to Israel. In a corner of the map, the target coordinates appear in a black-lined box: NORTH LATITUDE 32 DEGREES, 28 MINUTES, 15 SECONDS; EAST LONGITUDE 35 DEGREES, 1 MINUTE, 13 SECONDS.
“Why Jerusalem?” the general asks.
“Oh, come now, Hugh. Where should we hit? The boring old Kartaly Missile Field, or Khabarovsk, or the Kremlin. That wouldn’t take any imagination, would it? Russia pales in comparison to the ancient walled city, to Assyria and Babylon, to Mesopotamia where the Tigris meets the Euphrates, and our cup runneth over with prophets and infidels alike.”
At STRATCOM, the officers exchanged puzzled looks. “The fuck is this maniac talking about?” Agent Hurtgen whispers.
“Do you want to kill millions of innocent people?” the general asks.
“You’re ignoring the concept of original sin,” David says.
“You know goddam well what I mean!” The strain is showing on Corrigan’s face and in his voice.
“I wouldn’t be so self-righteous, if I were you, Hugh. I know how you got your second star. Your 379th Bomb Wing baked a hundred thousand Iraqi boys in their bunkers. Scared kids, conscripts from the countryside. Now you tell me, what is the moral difference between dropping ten thousand bombs from the belly of your B-52’s and launching one missile from its silo? Aren’t the deaths just as real?”
“We were at war!” Corrigan thunders.
“Aren’t we always,” David says, not making it a question. “Good-bye, Hugh.”
“Wait! You still haven’t answered my question. Why Jerusalem?”
“It’s really quite simple,” David says. “I must destroy Jerusalem in order to save it.”
-37-
Until the Bitter End
Jack Jericho breathes in deeply, inhaling the fragrance of the pines, sensing the moistness of the earth in the shade of the great trees. The little girl in pigtails sits next to him. They are playing tic-tac-toe by drawing in the dirt with sticks.
It is mid-afternoon. In the silo and the sump below, there is never a sense of time or weather. There is only the blandness of re-circulated air, the synthetic smells of fuels and polymers and metals. Here it is cool as the sun slants through the pine needles to their hiding place beneath the umbrella of trees.
“What’s your name, honey?” Jericho asks.
“Elizabeth, but you can call me Betsy.” She reaches down and pets Ike, the ferret, who arches his back, enjoying the attention.