Wills walked on, walked on, walked on. He had no destination, no particular route, and no plan. He walked to have something to do. Even though the complex had only eight rooms, not counting storage lockers and the cold room. Even though there were only three short corridors that, when added together, measured no more than a hundred yards. He carried his handheld receiver, which was linked to the communications center, which in turn was linked to the satellite system. It was a waste of time, but he carried it out of habit. Someone might call. You never knew.
At the cold room, he stopped and stared at the heavy iron doors. He imagined what lay behind them, but only for a moment, because that was all he could bear. Seventeen men and women, stacked like cordwood in an eight–by–ten space. Stacked with the perishable food, which had long since perished. He couldn’t bear thinking about what was happening to the bodies, even at the freezing temperatures the cooling system maintained. He hadn’t gone in there since he had added Abramson to the pile, and he was pretty sure he would never go in there again. What was the point?
Still, he stood at the doors and stared at them for a long time, his mind conjuring dark images. In the old days, this wouldn’t have happened; they wouldn’t have all been grouped together where a virus could wipe them out. They would have been assigned to a dozen different command centers. You wouldn’t have found more than two or three staffing any one, each center responsible for only a handful of silos. But near the end, when it became clear to someone in authority that an enemy strike was imminent, they had established this base, believing a central command center necessary. It had become home to dozens of teams moving in and out over a twenty–year period, each waiting for the call. His group of nine had been the last, but the team before his, the one on which Abramson served, had been unable to leave. The National Command Authority had decided to seal them in as a precaution. Rotation of personnel was temporarily suspended.
Just until conditions improved.
When he walked on again, he did so with less purpose, his head lowered. He should do something, but he couldn’t think what. He wanted out of there badly, but he couldn’t manage it by himself. Not unless he found the code he was searching for, the code that would activate the elevators and open the outer doors. That was the way the complex was constructed, a safeguard against infiltration by unauthorized personnel. The military thought of everything. He grinned. Sure, they did. They just overlooked the possibility that those inside might not be able to get out if the code was lost.
Or maybe they hadn’t overlooked it. Maybe they just didn’t care.
As commanding officer, Aronez had carried the code coming in. He was the one who knew it, no one else. After gaining them entrance he had put it away, and everyone had forgotten about it. Except that when he caught the virus, he didn’t think to pass it on. Or maybe he did think and decided against it.
Cold and calculating Aronez–it was possible. He might have. In any case he was dead within twenty–four hours, and the secret of the code’s whereabouts had died with him.
Except that Wills knew that it had to be written down somewhere, a safeguard that Aronez would not have disregarded.
So he searched. Each day, all day. Endlessly.
He wasn’t sure why. Even if he could get out, what would he do? He was miles from anything and had no direct knowledge of where anyone was. His family? His home? His superiors at the National Command Authority? Gone. Oh, there might be someone left somewhere, but it was unlikely to be anyone who could issue orders, who could take his place, who would know what needed doing.
It was unlikely to be anyone who could lift from his shoulders the burden he bore, anyone to whom he could pass the pair of red keys he wore on a chain about his neck.
He reached down to finger their irregular shapes through the fabric of his shirt. His and Abramson’s. Well, not really Abramson’s. Abramson had taken his from Reacher after he died, because someone needed to have it, just in case it was required. When Abramson was gone, Wills had taken that one, too.
Just in case.
Yeah, just in case.
As he fingered the keys, he thought about what was once the unthinkable. Even though he knew he shouldn’t. Even though thinking about it was dark and terrifying.
He thought about the missiles.
He thought about launching them.
He could do so. Had done so, back in the beginning when the general was running the country. The general had the code and had authorized the launches. A handful of surgical strikes against countries and bases that, in turn, were targeting them. Wills had used the key together with another man he couldn’t remember. What was his name—Graham or Graves, a captain maybe? They had turned their keys together to open the switches and activate the triggers. They had waited as the trajectories had been punched in and the release mechanisms activated. Armed and ready, the warheads had been dispatched from miles away in a silence that within their underground command center was deafening.
But that was the end of it. There had been nothing since. The general had never contacted them again.
No one had. The communications board had gone silent and stayed silent. The cameras had shown them snatches of life moving on the surface, much of it strange and frightening, but communications had ceased. They were left to wait, cocooned in a vacuum of fear and doubt, of non–information and empty hope.
But there were dozens of missiles still active and available. Dozens, all armed with nuclear warheads, some here in their mountain silos, some as far away as what remained of the coasts. The navy was gone and the air force with it. No ships sailed and no planes flew–at least not those of a military nature. Everything that was left that was usable was in the silos. But that was enough to take out anything.
Or everything.
He could launch a missile, just to see. He could choose his own target, something that needed taking out, obliterating. He had that power. He had the red keys and the knowledge. The retinal scans had been modified long ago to accept a single key holder using both keys for just this sort of doomsday situation.
All it required was activating a remote device situated at the National Command Authority, and that had been done long ago. The machinery here no longer responded to other command centers, if there were any. It was autonomous and functionally independent. It did what its users told it to do with no need for anything but the knowledge and the keys, and he had both.
But what would he blow up?
And why?
He closed his eyes against the darkness of the suggestion. Sending more nuclear warheads only fed the madness. He would not be a part of it. Even though it was tempting at times and he had the means, he would not.
He was better than that.
He walked back to the command complex’s nerve center and sat in his chair and stared at the monitors and readouts. Even though the people were gone, the machines worked on, powered by the solar collectors that functioned aboveground, doing what they had been created to do. He watched the monitors sweeping the empty vista of the rocks, and the readouts reporting that the weather and climate were unchanged. He fiddled for a time with the communications board, sweeping the signal range for a contact, finding nothing.
He looked at the framed picture of his wife and boys where it sat on the narrow shelf in front of him, always visible from any part of his workstation.
Then suddenly he bent forward, lowered his head, squeezed his eyes tightly shut, clasped his hands in front of him, and began to pray, mouthing the words softly.
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures;
He leadeth me beside the still waters.