The dominating feature of the control room was a wide console at the front of the room, divided in half by a bulletproof glass wall that went from floor to ceiling and extended back eight feet. A chair was on either side of the glass, the duty stations for the crew. The glass prevented one crewman from access to both key controls and also from holding a gun on the other crew member to get him to turn the key.
In front of the console, various screens showed scenes from the surface directly above and the silos the center controlled. Many of the screens had the brightly colored display that indicated thermal imagery. The LCC crews, along with the rest of the military, had been on the highest alert during the recent world war, and the status had only been downgraded one level since the apparent end of hostilities.
A lieutenant stood up and saluted Bartlett. “FOM-LCC is yours. Nothing of note in the duty log. Status green. Still at stage three alert. Targeting matrices are still hot.” He reached inside his flight suit and removed a set of two keys, one red, one blue, on a steel chain from around his neck and handed it to Bartlett. His partner did the same with Thayer.
Bartlett looked over at the large red digital clock overlooking both consoles. “You stand relieved as of zero-six-zero-four.”
He looked over at the consoles as he passed over the pickup truck’s key. “How’s the computer acting?”
On top of the main computer console there was a sign spelling out the acronym:
FINAL OPTION COMMAND MATRIX TARGETING AND EXECUTION
The relieved officer pocketed the truck key, anxious to be gone. “Fine. No glitches. Have a good shift.”
He and the other officer walked to the elevator and got on board. The doors shut and they were gone. Bartlett and Thayer took the seats at their respective terminals, separated by the glass wall. Bartlett watched the video screens, seeing the two crewmen get off the elevator in the upper facility. One screen showed the pure video feed, the other the thermal. On the thermal screen the two men were glowing red figures against a blue background. When they got in the truck the thermal sight picked up a perfect outline of their sitting forms. Then the engine started, showing up as a bright red glow in the front of the truck.
“Surface door secure,” Thayer reported. “Hatch secure.”
On the screen, the pickup truck pulled away. The gate in the fence closed behind it automatically. “Fence secure,” Thayer said. “LCC secure.”
“Turn the sensors, missiles, and automatic guns on,” Bartlett ordered.
Thayer threw a switch activating the machine guns and surface-to-air missiles on the roof of the LCC building. The former were slaved into motion sensors and would fire at anything moving inside the perimeter. The latter were directed by the site radar and could be launched by the crew against any air infiltration.
There was a moment of quiet and, in the background, the two men could hear the rhythmic thump of the powerful pumps that drained the water that flowed from the high water table in this part of Louisiana into the space outside of the LCC. They were only thirty miles from the coastal swamp that extended for sixty miles before hitting the Gulf of Mexico. Not the smartest place to build underground control centers and silos, but pork-barrel politics had determined the location, not military practicalities. It was theorized that if the pumps ever broke down or lost power, the LCC would be submerged within four hours. However, there were backups to the pumps and two powerful generators standing by in case power was lost.
Bartlett pulled out a binder. “Let’s run through our checklist and make sure we’re running smoothly.” He flipped open to the first page. “Cable link to National Command Authority?”
Thayer looked at his console. “Cable link check.” “Satellite dish link to MILSTAR?”
“Satellite dish check.”
An alarm chimed, and Bartlett paused.
Thayer looked at the radar feed. “Incoming craft. Range five miles, altitude six thousand feet. Closing fast. It’s big.”
“Damn,” Bartlett muttered as he picked up the microphone for the FM radio. “Unidentified aircraft, you are entering restricted airspace. Veer off on a heading of one-six-zero degrees immediately.”
There was no reply.
“Still coming,” Thayer reported.
Bartlett flipped a switch, arming the Stinger missiles deployed on the roof of the LCC. “Unidentified aircraft, you will be shot down if you do not immediately veer off.”
“I’ve got a visual,” Thayer said.
Bartlett looked at the video display. A lean black form was approaching, definitely not of human origin. “What the hell is that?”
Bartlett hit the button and two Stingers launched. He watched the two missiles roar toward the Talon and hit with no effect.
Bartlett picked up the red phone that linked them with headquarters at Barksdale. He paused as he heard the distinctive sound of a gun’s hammer being pulled back. He turned to look right down the barrel of Thayer’s 9mm Beretta. The other crew member had left his station and come around the wall.
“What the hell—” Bartlett didn’t finish the sentence as Thayer pulled the trigger.
The round hit Bartlett in the forehead, plowing through and exploding out the back, taking with it blood, brain, and bone, producing a gory splatter on the bulletproof glass.
Thayer glanced at the video display. The Talon had landed inside the fence. A door slid open and a gangway extended to the ground. Several heavily armed men wearing an assortment of camouflage uniforms and carrying a spectrum of weapons sprinted off, taking up defensive positions. Then a tall, pale-skinned man walked off and headed into the LCC. Thayer put the gun down on his console and typed an override command into the computer. The steel doors in the surface entrance slowly opened.
Thayer heard the elevator rumble. He turned and faced to the rear as the doors slid open. Aspasia’s Shadow walked in. No greetings were exchanged. Thayer was responding as the guardian computer underneath Mount Sinai had programmed him to upon receipt of the proper code word — which had arrived via e-mail less than three hours earlier.
Aspasia’s Shadow went to the other console and reached inside Bartlett’s jumpsuit, retrieving a red key on a metal chain and placing it around his own neck. Then he pulled Bartlett’s body out of the seat, sending it tumbling to the floor. He sat down, ignoring the blood and brain matter staining the back of the chair.
“Are you ready?” Aspasia’s Shadow asked. He grabbed a three-ring binder that had a red cover and Top Secret stamped in large letters. He had learned of the Final Option Missile from one of his Guides secreted high inside the United States intelligence community. He had targeted several of the crew members for imprinting and succeeded with three, one of them Thayer, ensuring a good chance that he would always have a Guide on duty in this LCC. It had been a backup plan, one of many that
Aspasia’s Shadow had put in place around the world, but this was perhaps the most powerful and most desperate.
Thayer looked over his panel. “Final Option Missile silo on-line. Missile systems show green.” “Open silo,” Aspasia’s Shadow ordered.
“Opening silo.”
Four hundred meters from the surface entrance to the Final Option Missile LCC was another fenced compound. Inside the razor wire topping the fence, two massive concrete doors slowly rose until they reached the vertical position. Inside a specially modified LGM-118A Peacekeeper ICBM missile rested, gas venting.
“I’ve got green on Final Option Missile silo doors,” Thayer announced, verifying what one of the video screens showed. He had trained so often to do this that he was acting almost instinctively. The only difference from his training routine was that he was acting under the motivation of the imprinting, not an order from the National Command Authority.