The missile spins lazily in the water. As it completes a revolution, David becomes visible, still lashed to the nose cone. Blood flows from his mouth and ears. His arms are spread wide, his feet are together — a watery crucifixion. He appears dead, but slowly his eyes open and his lips move. The missile bounces off a shallow rock, then lodges between two boulders.
He sees the vision again, the flow of grayish white. Sees it more clearly than before. It is not a banner blowing in the wind, as he had thought. It is a great river, moving slowly at first, still and shallow, then surging forward, faster and rougher, until it plunges over a great waterfall.
“The bomb leadeth me beside the still waters,” he recites. “It restoreth my soul.”
General Corrigan stands behind the technician at the console. Professor Morton motors over and wedges the wheelchair between two officers at the general’s side. The female mechanical voice intones, “Air burst programmed at five thousand feet. Detonation in seven minutes.”
“What the hell’s going on!” the general demands.
The technician bangs his keyboard in frustration. “The computer thinks the missile’s in flight, and it’s armed the warheads.”
“That’s impossible!” Professor Morton yells. “I designed the accelerometers myself. They’re interfaced with the Environmental Sensing Devices. Unless they detect that the missile has left the earth’s atmosphere, then re-entered, there can be no detonation. I designed it to prevent us from blowing up Denver or Salt Lake City.”
“You might have designed it that way, professor,” the technician says, “but there must have been a defect. The missile thinks it’s on ballistic descent to the target. The fusing system already sent a test signal to the firing system, which relayed the signal to the firing circuits. The MIRV’s are armed. When they think they’re at five thousand feet, they’re going to detonate, all ten of them.”
Professor Morton looks at the general, seeking support. “Hugh, I’m telling you, it’s not possible.”
“Air burst in six minutes,” the computer’s voice says, blandly.
General Corrigan clasps the professor by the shoulder. It is a gesture both of long friendship and sadness. “You always said that the machines worked, Lionel. Only the men were defective. Have you forgotten who made the machines?”
Jack Jericho is nearly swept off the ladder by the waterfall that gushes over him. Climbing the last few rungs through the downpour, he does not see the man standing on the lip of the silo, bracing himself on a stanchion.
Jericho pulls himself over the last rung and finds himself staring straight into the savage face of Gabriel. The commando, who should have died a dozen deaths, is badly injured. Blood oozes from several wounds. Two bandoliers of shells criss-cross his chest. Under a torn shirt, a dented forty millimeter grenadier vest is visible. It took the brunt of the kill shots to the sternum and over the heart. Gabriel aims a bulky M-60 machine gun at Jericho’s midsection. “Prepare to meet your Maker, son of Satan.”
Jericho is oddly calm, though he knows the massive gun will cut him in two. “My father’s name was William, and he was the best man I ever knew.”
“Then join him in hell!”
Blam! Shot between the eyes, Gabriel topples sideways into the silo, disappearing in the foam and mist of the waterfall.
Standing eighty yards away on the river bank, Captain Kyle Clancy lowers his scoped M-16.
“Stay there!” he yells at Jericho. “We’ll come get you.”
“No time!” Jericho yells back. “Gotta go!”
Go where, Clancy wonders. The sergeant looks like one of those victims of a Midwestern flood, stranded in the middle of a river that shouldn’t be there at all. Now what the hell is he up to?
Jericho dives into the swift-flowing current. The captain stares incredulously. “Oh, shit!” The current takes Jericho closer to the shore, and Clancy tosses a rope to him. It falls short, but it wouldn’t matter anyway because Jericho makes no attempt to grab it. Clancy watches Jericho body surf down the rapids, slamming into rocks, bouncing off fallen trees. Clancy winces with each jolt.
Jericho can see the missile lodged between two boulders. In the distance, he hears the roar of tumbling water. He kicks and paddles, doing the West Virginia version of the Australian crawl, something learned long ago in water-filled limestone quarries. Just as he grabs the trailing umbilical cord, the missile works itself free of the boulders and continues down river. As the missile picks up speed, Jericho crawls up the cord, hand-over-hand.
Once aboard, he works his way up toward the nose cone where David lies sprawled on his back, entangled in the ropes. His face is a deathly gray, his eyes closed. Blood is caked in his ears, his nose, and in the corners of his eyes. His face a battered mess. Suddenly, in a rasping voice that reminds Jericho of a rattlesnake, David says, “Sergeant Jericho, my favorite janitor.”
Scrambling on all fours up the rubberized fuselage, Jericho approaches him.
“I knew you would come, sergeant. I saw it. But why did you come?”
“To make sure you were dead. To kill you, if you weren’t.”
David’s hacking gurgle of a laugh brings a pink bubble of blood to his lips. “Can you hear the heart of the beast, Jericho?”
The missile rotates slowly in the water, and Jericho has to grab the ropes to hang on. The roar of rushing water grows louder. “What are you talking about?”
“The bomb lives!” David proclaims. “Hear its Word.”
Stunned, Jericho slides over to the computer box and puts an ear to the cold metal. He hears the unmistakable clickety-click of the computer.
“As the sound picks up tempo, we approach detonation, Jericho. Surely you know that. I would say we have less than three minutes. But have no fear. You can live forever at the foot of my throne.”
“Your throne will be a pyre in hell,” Jericho says, taking the knife from the sheath on his leg. He begins working on the one remaining bolt in the computer box but can’t get enough purchase and the knife slips off.
David, eyes closed, begins chanting. “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. Who is and who was. And I bring you the Morning Star.”
-58-
Friendly Fire
A blizzard of information flashes across the Big Board: air speed, altitude, fusing and firing system checks, and detonation time. It is the same readout the Board would show if the MIRV’s were on ballistic descent to their targets. The computer’s voice calmly recites, “Initial air burst in two minutes.”
General Corrigan and Colonel Farris watch the display in silence until the colonel speaks, “The good news, sir, is that if we were going to have a nuclear incident anywhere in this country, Wyoming’s about the best place.”
“What?”
“I’ve been on the horn to the Pentagon,” the colonel says, “and it’s generally agreed we can handle this. National Guard and Red Cross are being alerted, of course, but official policy will be to downplay the nuclear incident.”
“Downplay ten nuclear explosions, each one seventeen times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb?”
“Well, you gotta look at the bright side.” The colonel stops and lets out a little laugh. “No pun intended. There aren’t half a million people in the whole state. The official spin is to regard the incident as an unfortunate military accident, sort of like friendly fire.”