Empty!
Matthew spins and faces him.
Jericho dives for cover behind a green, ceiling-high control panel. Matthew follows, shotgun held at gut level. He wheels around a corner, but Jericho is not there. He spins three hundred sixty degrees, looking for his game.
“Come out. Show your cowardly face.”
Suddenly, Jericho dives from the top of the control panel, knocking Matthew over. They tumble to the floor, entangled, and the shotgun skitters away. Matthew shoves Jericho off and gets to his feet. Jericho is on one knee when a thunderous kick to the chest sits him down again. He expects Matthew to come at him, but instead, the commando pulls a 9 mm. pistol from under a bloused pantleg and backs up, putting distance between them. He raises the pistol and says, “I have fifteen bullets, and I will use every one of them. You won’t die until the last one enters your brain.”
Jericho’s hand flashes from behind his neck, and a blade glints in the air. The soft pfffut sounds like a melon being sliced in two. The handle of the Jimmy Lile protrudes from Matthew’s throat. He staggers backward and falls into the control panel, bracing himself with a hand that hits a red switch.
Lights flash and a buzzer sounds.
Matthew bounces off the panel and pulls the knife out of his throat. As he does, the blood erupts, a geyser spraying the ceiling. He crumples to the floor, next to the Sluice Gate wheel. Jericho looks at the wheel and the flashing lights. Why not? He gives the wheel a counter-clockwise turn, and it spins free.
Jericho can hear the movement of machinery, can feel the vibrations beneath his feet. Deep inside the steel and concrete wall of the dam, the huge sluice gates open and water surges from the spillway into the aqueducts.
Jericho checks on Matthew. Dead. He returns to the wheel and spins it wide open. A roar can be heard in the control room, and outside, water cascades from the spillway, overflows the narrow aqueduct and pours toward the missile facility far below.
Jericho picks up his knife, wipes off the blood, and walks to the window overlooking the observation deck. He sees a waterfall tumbling down the mountain.
“Freeze!”
Ignoring the suggestion, Jericho dives to the floor and scrambles under a counter. Across the control room, Captain Clancy stands, legs spread, his M-16 at hip level. “Son-of-a-bitch.” He peppers the wall with gunfire, and motions to three of his men to flare out across the room. “Corporal, cover the exit!”
Corporal? Jericho hears the captain. From beneath a desk, he calls out, “Army? If you’re Army, identify yourselves.”
A rapid burst of gunfire tears up equipment on top of the desk. “How’s that for identification, scuzzbag?”
“Hold you fire!” Jericho yells. “I’m Air Force.”
“Whose?”
The question throws Jericho for a moment. “Ours. The U.S. of A.”
“Are you that dickhead who wouldn’t get off the base?”
Jericho briefly considers whether there might be a second dickhead to whom the question might apply. “That’s me.”
“Hands behind head. Come out slowly.”
Jericho does as he’s told. “Jack Jericho, Airman E-5, United States Air Force, 318th Missile Squadron.”
The captain gives a once over to the commando fatigues. “You’re out of uniform, sergeant.”
“Occupational hazard, sir.”
“Lemme see your tags.”
“Threw ‘em out, didn’t match the apparel.”
Clancy appraises him suspiciously. Just then, a lieutenant dashes in from the observation deck. “Captain, quick! We gotta close the valves or something. The whole damn valley is flooding. We’ll never get down the mountain.”
Clancy surveys the room. The dead commando, the blown out control panels. “What the hell’s going on in here?”
Gesturing toward the wheel, Jericho says, “I opened the sluice gates.”
“Why?” The captain doesn’t wait for an answer. He goes over to the wheel and tries to close it, but it won’t budge. “Shit!”
“It’s open all the way,” Jericho says. “The water pressure’s so great, there’s no way to close it manually.”
“Then how—” Clancy interrupts himself. He’s looking at a gauge labeled, “Emergency Sluice Gate Closure.” The switch dangles uselessly on its wires, the glass facing on the gauge shattered by a shotgun blast. Furious, the captain bangs his fist into the control panel, shaking loose more broken glass. He turns toward the window, watching the water pour down the mountain. Then he raises his M-16 toward Jericho’s chest. “Sergeant, give me one good reason I shouldn’t splatter your guts from here to Hanoi.”
Jericho is trying futilely to think of an answer when Kenosha strides into the control room with the bearing of a great warrior. “Because Jack Jericho is a good man,” he says.
-51-
Hello Darkness
“Flight switch on,” David says.
“Check,” Rachel responds.
“Launcher on.”
“Check.”
“Enable on.”
“Check.”
“Enter Enable Code, now,” David orders.
“Six,” Rachel says.
“I agree,” David responds.
David’s hand is steady as he turns over a red flap on the console and spins a thumbwheel. He stops at the number, “6.”
“B,” Rachel says.
“I agree.” David flips the second flap and spins its thumbwheel, this time stopping on the letter, “B.” He pauses and listens to an old song that swirls around in his consciousness. The song has a special meaning for him, he always believed. “‘Hello darkness, my old friend,’” he sings aloud. “‘I’ve come to talk with you again.’”
Susan Burns watches as David and Rachel work at the console, re-entering the Enable Code. Going through the familiar protocol, David adds an “8” on the third thumbwheel.
“6-B-8-A-3… ” appears on the monitor.
“Seven,” Rachel says.
“I agree,” David responds, thumbing the wheel to number seven, then hitting the Initiate switch. He leans back in his flight chair as three chimes ring a tune of their own.
Pandemonium in the STRATCOM War Room.
“Kickoff now!” General Corrigan orders. “Kickoff now!”
“Go, go, go!” Colonel Farris yells in the phone to Colonel Zwick at Base Camp Alpha.
Officers and aides dash everywhere. Coded telexes are sent and received from the National Command Center in the Pentagon. It is five a.m. in Wyoming, and seven a.m. in Washington, and the President is already awake when the direct line from the Pentagon rings on his bedroom phone. In a moment, he will be on the phone with the president of Israel. The president cannot believe that a nuclear holocaust is about to happen on his watch. He will plead. He will promise aid. He will even cry. But the Israelis vow to set Operation Masada in motion. Once the PK hits apogee, Israeli planes will take off with their nuclear payloads that are being readied even now.
General Corrigan stands motionless, a rock in the midst of the turbulent sea. Colonel Farris stands behind the general, awaiting further orders, trying to appear calm. Watching from his wheelchair, not even attempting to hide his mocking smile, Professor Lionel Morton gestures toward the Big Board. “You must admit, Hugh, that the PK is a thing of beauty.”
“Lionel, if you don’t wipe that smirk off your face, I’ll have you arrested.”
On the Big Board, there is a schematic diagram of the PK missile and the flashing message: “LF 47-Q LAUNCH ENABLED.” The computer’s female mechanical voice intones, “Enable Code confirmed. Secondary Launch Code confirmed. Confidence is high.”