“You stopped us, you pathetic excuse for a soldier, you worthless piece of whale shit.”
“I need a gun.”
“What!”
“Or just some clips for the Uzi.”
“Are you out of the mind? You’re under arrest! You’ll be court-martialed.”
With the rope coiled around his shoulder, Jericho crawls over the deck railing onto the jagged rocks. A few feet away, a vicious torrent of water surges down the mountainside.
Clancy yells over the noise of the rushing water. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I’ve got an appointment with my psychiatrist.”
“The hell you do!” Clancy menacingly gestures with his M-16. You think you can surf the mountain? If you didn’t drown, you’d find a way to fuck up the rest of the operation. You’re staying put, sergeant.”
Jericho takes a first step on the rocks, then drops to all fours. He reaches out toward a fallen tree trunk as thick as a man’s waist. “Can’t do that, sir.”
“What!”
“I promised.”
“Yeah, well here’s another promise. You take one more step, I’ll shoot you. I’ll blow your kneecaps off.”
“That’s pretty much what he said,” Jericho says.
“Who?”
“His name was Matthew. Everybody wants to kill me. You, him, Brother David, and all of you seem to prefer the most painful method possible. I guess I bring out the worst in people.”
Clancy is livid. He wants to shoot somebody, and if it can’t be the terrorists, it might as well be Jack Jericho, who deserves it just as much. Maybe he is a terrorist. Maybe he’s one of the crazies, and this was just a cover. The Indian could have been wrong about his old fishing buddy. Clancy clicks off the safety on the rifle. “I’m ordering you to stand down, sergeant. Disregard the order at your own peril.”
Jericho has his hands on the tree trunk and is tying the rope around a gnarled branch. “I’ve followed orders before, captain. I’ve done the right thing, and the safe thing, and it didn’t work out. I’m through following orders. I’m doing what I think is right. You do what you have to do.” Jericho leans down over the tree trunk and ties an end of the rope around his waist.
“Halt!” The rifle is at Clancy’s shoulder, and he squeezes his left eye shut. “Last warning. Halt!”
Clancy knows his men are watching him. He’s never backed down from anyone. He also has never shot an American before, not even a worthless airman.
Jericho shoves the heavy trunk toward the rushing water. It catches on a rock.
Clancy has a clear shot at the back of Jericho’s skull. He drops the rifle lower until he can put a bullet through the meaty part of Jericho’s hamstrings. Cripple but not kill.
Jericho braces his legs and pushes against the trunk, clearing the rock.
Clancy tightens his finger on the trigger. Then eases off.
The tree trunk slips over the side of the rocks, and Jericho with it. In a second, they are swallowed by the raging torrent.
Clancy lets the rifle fall to his side. “Go get ‘em, Noah,” he says with resignation.
David and Rachel sit in the flight chairs. James stands behind them, excitedly pacing. Susan, her hands cuffed behind her, nervously watches from her position on the floor.
“Time and target complete,” David says.
“I have good lights,” Rachel responds.
The console printer unleashes a blizzard of paper as the launch commands are confirmed and recorded on printouts.
“Lock your board,” David says.
Rachel hits a switch. “Board locked.”
David pushes down the Enable switch. “Insert your key,” he orders.
Simultaneously, David and Rachel slide their keys into the slots twelve feet apart on the console.
“Key inserted,” Rachel says.
David scans a security monitor showing his men falling back toward the elevator shaft as the Army troops advance. Calmly, he says, “Key turn clockwise… on my mark.”
From behind them, James watches the console as if hypnotized. He does not see Susan roll to her feet, drop into a crouch, then bring her arms underneath her, stepping through her clasped hands. She is still handcuffed, but now, her arms are in front of her chest.
David counts slowly, “Three two, one… ”
Suddenly, Susan dives forward, loops her cuffed hands around Rachel’s neck. Rachel’s right hand reflexively releases the key and claws at Susan’s arms. Susan roughly pulls Rachel sideways out of her chair.
“Rotate and hold,” David says, as if nothing has happened. “James, take over the deputy’s chair and be kind enough to rotate and hold.”
James reaches for the key, but Susan kicks him in the groin, doubling him over. Rachel is on the floor, holding her neck, gasping. The key remains in the slot, unturned.
“Susan, please turn the key,” David says. “And hold on my count.” His voice is confident, the voice of a man whose orders are obeyed without question.
She stops, thunderstruck at his words. “What!”
“End your pain. End your anger. It can all be over. Let us welcome the Apocalypse together.”
James gets to one knee and is ready to tackle Susan. “No!” David commands. “She is one of us. Only now does she realize it. My will has triumphed over her secular pseudo science.”
Susan looks deeply into David’s penetrating stare. She reaches for the key, her hand resting on it without moving. Their eyes are locked on each other for a long moment.
“Rotate key on my command,” he says softly.
She breaks his hypnotic gaze. “Like hell!” She yanks the key from the slot and dashes toward the open blast door. David scowls and hits a red button. The door begins to slowly close. Susan sees it, thinks she can make it.
Rachel gets to her feet, grabs for Susan but misses her. James comes from behind and dives at Susan, taking her down at the ankles, a desperate cornerback tripping up the receiver who has broken free. As she falls, Susan whips her cuffed hands forward. The key sails out the narrowing opening of the door and skitters across the concrete floor of the tunnel, sliding … sliding… sliding until it comes to rest at the edge of a metal grate where it balances for a precious second, then plops into the black water of the sump.
David glares at James. “Get it! Now!”
Her face flushed, Rachel stomps toward David. “And you thought she was under your spell,” she says, bitterly. “Vanity of vanities. Even with you, David, all is vanity.”
-53-
Fire in the Hole
The Army troops work their way across the grounds. In minutes, they have taken the security building. No commandos surrender; no one survives.
The troops head across the bridge toward the elevator housing where the himself Ezekiel and four of his comrades have retreated. One-by-one, the commandos fall under the ferocious attack. Propping up a bulky M-60 machine gun, Ezekiel stands with his back to the elevator housing door, spraying lethal 7.62 mm. shells across the bridge. He cuts down half-a-dozen soldiers and pins down the rest.
Driven by the fierce current, a tree trunk rushes down the flooded river bed toward the open missile silo, bouncing over rapids and banging into boulders. The trunk spins in the water, collides with more flotsam, then turns over, exposing a man’s hand.
Then an arm.
Then a head.
Jack Jericho appears lifeless as the heavy tree trunk continues to twirl, helpless against the forces of nature unleashed. Finally, it comes to rest against a wedge of concrete, a six-feet thick chunk of the silo cap which was blown off during the first countdown. Jericho stirs from semi-consciousness, opens his eyes, coughs and sputters, then returns a few jiggers of muddy water to the river. He unties the rope that binds him to the trunk, coils it over a shoulder, climbs over the concrete slab, and splashes into the water. Still wearing the tool belt, he paddles along. Battered and bruised from the ride down the mountain, he half swims, half body surfs in the current. In a few moments, he is at the edge of the open silo. A lip five feet high has kept the first surge of water out, but now, the swelling river laps over the top and pours down the walls.