Ballistic Page 19

  A noise overhead interrupts them. The two commandos look up to see

  a Kiowa reconnaissance helicopter dipping low over the base. Two video cameras are attached to the chopper’s skids. “Brother David promised extra rations for the man who shoots it down!” one yells.

  They both whoop and run off through the river bed, firing wildly in the air, fruitlessly chasing the copter as it banks and runs through a series of well-practiced evasive maneuvers.

  Jericho crawls the short distance to the opening, tumbles from the outlet pipe onto the ground, then scuttles across the river bed toward a stand of pine trees. His shoulder is swollen and throbs at the joint. He is grimy and sweaty and nearing exhaustion. He is just yards away from cover when he stops short.

  Must be dreaming.

  Hallucinating.

  First the mine shaft. Then this.

  In front of him, above him actually, as he is on all fours, is a girl of about ten. She wears a yellow sun dress with blue polka dots. Her blonde hair is in pigtails. She waves a small plastic wand over Jericho’s head, leaving a trail of bubbles that float in the soft breeze.

  “Do you love the Lord?” the girl asks.

  “What?”

  “Do you love the Lord and accept the Word?”

  Jericho is speechless.

  “‘Cause if you don’t,” the little girl tells him, dipping the wand into a blue plastic bottle, “you’ll get boils, your teeth will rot, and vultures will eat your liver.”

  “Is that all?”

  “No, then you’ll croak, and the fires of hell will melt your eyeballs.”

  As the bubbles float above him, Jericho turns over and flops onto his back, breathing hard. “Just now,” he says, “that would be an improvement.”

  -36-

  Threatening the General

  The Big Board at STRATCOM shows live video of the 318th Missile Squadron, taken as the Kiowa recon helicopter sweeps over the base. General Corrigan, Colonel Farris, F.B.I. Agent Hurtgen and a circle of military aides watch as the commandos race helter-skelter below the chopper, blasting away with automatic weapons.

  “Small arms fire only,” Colonel Farris sniffs. “No organization, no interlocking fire patterns.”

  “We lost a nuclear missile to the military equivalent of a drive-by shooting,” F.B.I. Agent Hurtgen says.

  “They were good enough to take over the base, weren’t they?” the general asks. No one answers the question, which was addressed mostly to himself anyway. “Their training was fine for what they had to do.”

  “But they planned to launch the missile before we could respond,” Agent Hurtgen says. “Now we can respond, and they likely didn’t train for that.”

  “Right,” the general agrees.

  “But either way, they’d still have to defend themselves,” Colonel Farris says, puzzled. “They’d have to fight their way out whether they launched or not.”

  “Not if they never intended to get out of the hole,” General Corrigan says. The assemblage seems to think it over. Kamikaze warriors of God. Not much difference between them and fundamentalist Shiites in the Middle East, except these guys aren’t fooling around with car bombs or plastiques.

  On the Big Board, a live aerial shot shows a commando standing in the open on the gravel road that runs from the front gate to the security building. The Air Force officers cannot make out Matthew’s face, wouldn’t know him if they could. But there is something about this one. He stands motionless, his feet spread to shoulder width, as he raises a tube to his shoulder.

  “Shit!” Colonel Farris blurts out. “He’s got a Stinger.”

  There is a puff of smoke and an animated blur of yellow. The video from the chopper is up-linked to a satellite, then down-linked to a ground station, where it is fed through underground lines to Offut Air Force Base. Fast motion, such as a race horse or a heat-seeking Stinger missile appears as a streaking blur of color.

  The ground tilts away at a sudden angle as the chopper banks in an evasive maneuver, but a second later, there is an explosion of orange flame and the Big Board goes blank.

  For a long moment, none of the officers says a word. Finally, the general speaks. “We’ll need to assess enemy numbers and weaponry before there’s an assault.” He turns to Colonel Farris. “Has Intelligence analyzed the satellite photos?”

  The colonel nods to an aide who hits a button on his console, and the Big Board flashes with a black-and-white still shot of the missile base shot from a low-orbiting satellite. Enemy commandos have been electronically enhanced and numbered. “Fifty to sixty men above ground. We don’t know what they’ve got in the hole.”

  The Big Board flashes to a second shot, a close-up of the open missile silo. The shiny titanium shroud of the PK missile can be seen, but the rest is in shadows.

  “Any demands yet?” the general asks.

  “Nothing. And no word on the ambassadors.”

  “They could be dead.”

  The colonel shrugs. “Would make our decisions easier, wouldn’t it?”

  General Corrigan gives the colonel a sharp look as a satellite photo of Base Camp Alpha flashes onto the Big Board. “When one of your staff takes early retirement and sells his story to television, you’ll probably be sorry you said that.”

  Colonel Farris flinches. He now regrets loosening his tie, treating the general with excessive familiarity. General Corrigan still has his fresh, crisply laundered look, his silver hair neatly in place. The general wasn’t finished chastising Farris, but an aide interrupts and hands him a red telephone. “It’s Morning Star, sir. He’s asked for you by name.”

  General Corrigan’s glance shoots the aide a question.

  “Voice analysis confirms Morning Star is a white male,” the aide says, “probable age mid-thirties, most likely raised west of the Mississippi.”

  “That narrows it down,” Agent Hurtgen says derisively, as the general takes the phone.

  “General Corrigan here. Who is this?”

  “Hello Hugh,” the voice says. “Congratulations on getting that second star. Lord knows, you deserve it.”

  “Who the hell is this?”

  “I understand Cliff has an appointment to the Academy. You must be so proud. And how is Edna?”

  General Corrigan stands looking into the phone as if trying to divine the identity of the caller. Colonel Farris whispers to an aide. “I’ll bet the bastard even knows about the barmaid in Stuttgart.”

  Finally, the general says, “What is it you want?”

  “Salvation for all eternity.”

  Eternity is not on General Hugh Corrigan’s mind just now. Making it to retirement without presiding over a nuclear holocaust is a higher priority. “What do you want from me?” he asks.

  In the launch control capsule at the 318th Missile Squadron, David sits in the commander’s red-cushioned flight chair, his feet propped up on the console. Speaking into the headset, he says, “A word of caution. Don’t do anything foolish, Hugh. I imagine Delta is on its way from Bragg, and a contingent of SEAL’s from San Diego, maybe the black hat Red Cell team, too. Then There’s the F.B.I. Hostage Response Unit, Army Night Stalkers, Green Berets, the 82nd Airborne, and probably the A.T.F. just for good measure. I’ll bet some bright boy in D.C. wants to send in the flame throwers. I have women and children here, Hugh, just like Waco. You want another Texas barbecue?”

  “Is that what you are?” the general asks, “another David Koresh?”

  “You insult me, Hugh, comparing me to that low-rent charlatan who founded a religion in order to have sex with little girls. A bit tawdry, don’t you think? Do you know his real name was Vernon Howell? Now, doesn’t that have Texas trailer park written all over it?”

  “What’s your real name, Morning Star?”

  “In due time,” David says. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out without any help from me. In the meantime, I’d caution against using the same tactics the F.B.I. used in Waco. This time, you’ll fry a delegation of U.N. a
mbassadors.”

  “How do I know they’re still alive?”

  David’s tone is teasing. “If you like, I’ll send out one’s ear. It’ll still be warm. Let’s see, who should we start with? There’s a rather fussy Englishman who is getting on all our nerves. But in the spirit of the European Community, perhaps the French and German ambassadors should join him. Or, how about the Israeli? How fitting, given our circumstances. He’s already told me that his country’s response to our little plan will be most enlightening.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Oh, I’m sure the President knows and you’ll be told in due time if you’re in that loop, Hugh.”

  “Look, why not just let the ambassadors go and we’ll talk about resolving this?”

  “Actually, I’m reluctant to do that. It could be dangerous. Your boys tend to fire first and ask questions later, don’t they? I always thought the term ‘friendly fire’ was an even juicier oxymoron than ‘military intelligence.’”

  “Look, you…”

  “Morning Star, Hugh. But let’s not kid each other. Sure, you’d like to have the ambassadors safe and sound, but if I offered to return your big, beautiful missile in return for their blood, you’d take the deal in an instant.”

  The general doesn’t respond. For a moment, there’s the fleeting hope that maybe the terrorists are after the ambassadors, but no, they had tried to launch. “Morning Star, I don’t know what you’re getting at. I can’t help you if you don’t tell—”

  “Hugh, you’ve got it all wrong. I’m helping you. I’m giving you advice that will save your career, maybe even get you that third star, make Edna so proud, to say nothing of all the bar girls in western Europe.”

  Behind Corrigan, Colonel Farris winks at an aide.

  “I’m listening,” the general says.

  “Hugh, you have all these killing machines at your disposal, and soon you’ll be under enormous pressure to do something, anything. Am I right?”

  “Go on. What’s your point?”

  David’s tone changes, his voice taking on a steely edge. “My point, old man, is simply this. If a Ranger, Seal or Boy Scout sets foot in this silo, I’ll start sacrificing U.N. ambassadors. Your so-called Allies will be pissed. And then…” He lets his voice go up an octave in a child’s sing-song, “I’ll launch your pretty back birdie.”

  “You’re bluffing,” Corrigan shoots back. “If you had the S.L.C., you’d have launched already.”

  “When you’ve got only one wad to shoot, you don’t want to fire prematurely, do you? Let’s wait for dawn. Don’t you just love the sight of an ICBM lifting off into the rising sun?”

  “You still haven’t convinced me you can do it.”

  “But you’re not sure, and you can’t take the chance. Besides, Hugh, even without the code, you know I could create a hell of a nuke flash right in the hole.”

  “I don’t know that at all. You’d have to arm the warheads. You’d have to detonate. It’s not as simple as you may—”

  “Would I come all this way and not know how to do a little fission-fusion-fission? Oh, can’t you just envision two deuterium atoms colliding and fusing into Helium-3?” Suddenly, David laughs and begins singing, “Oh, the lithium’s connected to the deuterium, and the deuterium’s connected to the tritium, and the tritium’s connected to the plutonium, and the plutonium’s connected to the uranium, and the uranium’s connected to…me!”

  At STRATCOM, there is worried mumbling and the exchange of astonished looks. “That fellow’s toothpick don’t go all the way through the olive,” Colonel Farris says.

  “What a big bang,” David says, “all ten warheads detonating at once in the same location. You’d lose all your ground forces, which serves them right.” He laughs and lets his voice fill with sarcasm. “They’re making so much noise digging in, my men can hardly read their Bibles. And the Sierra Club will be all over your back what with all the dead fish and deer in these bucolic parts.”

  “You’ll be killed, too,” the general says flatly.

  “No, I will live forever, and even my ashes will have a half-life of 700 million years. What a way to achieve immortality, eh Hugh?”

  General Corrigan stares at the Big Board. The map of the world has replaced the satellite shots of the missile base. A dotted line tracks across the continents from Wyoming to Israel. In a corner of the map, the target coordinates appear in a black-lined box: NORTH LATITUDE 32 DEGREES, 28 MINUTES, 15 SECONDS; EAST LONGITUDE 35 DEGREES, 1 MINUTE, 13 SECONDS.

  “Why Jerusalem?” the general asks.

  “Oh, come now, Hugh. Where should we hit? The boring old Kartaly Missile Field, or Khabarovsk, or the Kremlin. That wouldn’t take any imagination, would it? Russia pales in comparison to the ancient walled city, to Assyria and Babylon, to Mesopotamia where the Tigris meets the Euphrates, and our cup runneth over with prophets and infidels alike.”

  At STRATCOM, the officers exchanged puzzled looks. “The fuck is this maniac talking about?” Agent Hurtgen whispers.

  “Do you want to kill millions of innocent people?” the general asks.

  “You’re ignoring the concept of original sin,” David says.

  “You know goddam well what I mean!” The strain is showing on Corrigan’s face and in his voice.

  “I wouldn’t be so self-righteous, if I were you, Hugh. I know how you got your second star. Your 379th Bomb Wing baked a hundred thousand Iraqi boys in their bunkers. Scared kids, conscripts from the countryside. Now you tell me, what is the moral difference between dropping ten thousand bombs from the belly of your B-52’s and launching one missile from its silo? Aren’t the deaths just as real?”

  “We were at war!” Corrigan thunders.

  “Aren’t we always,” David says, not making it a question. “Good-bye, Hugh.”

  “Wait! You still haven’t answered my question. Why Jerusalem?”

  “It’s really quite simple,” David says. “I must destroy Jerusalem in order to save it.”

  -37-

  Until the Bitter End

  Jack Jericho breathes in deeply, inhaling the fragrance of the pines, sensing the moistness of the earth in the shade of the great trees. The little girl in pigtails sits next to him. They are playing tic-tac-toe by drawing in the dirt with sticks.

  It is mid-afternoon. In the silo and the sump below, there is never a sense of time or weather. There is only the blandness of re-circulated air, the synthetic smells of fuels and polymers and metals. Here it is cool as the sun slants through the pine needles to their hiding place beneath the umbrella of trees.

  “What’s your name, honey?” Jericho asks.

  “Elizabeth, but you can call me Betsy.” She reaches down and pets Ike, the ferret, who arches his back, enjoying the attention.

  Within minutes, Jericho learns that Betsy’s mother was a member of the Holy Church of Revelations. She had been a Seventh Day Adventist in San Diego but left the church, telling Betsy its teachings had been watered down. The end is coming, and it will be glorious, her mother repeatedly told her. About a year ago, the woman left her husband, a non-believer, and drove with Betsy from southern California to Wyoming.

  Now, Jericho scratches an “X” in the wrong place, letting Betsy win the game. She laughs, runs her hand over the dirt, erasing the game, then draws the lines for a new round. Ike grows bored and wanders off, sniffing at fallen pine cones. “Mommy is one of Brother David’s favorites, though not as favorite as Rachel. Mommy cooks. Do you like rice?”

  “Not particularly.”

  Betsy wrinkles her nose. “Me neither. We eat a lot of rice. Do you think there’s rice in heaven?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “‘Cause that’s where we’re going, silly.”

  Jericho considers his reply before saying, “Of course you are, but not for a long time.”

  “No, we’re going soon. We’ll be lifted through the clouds and poof, we’re there. I just hope we don’t have to eat rice or bean spro
uts there.”

  “In heaven, there’s pizza and cheeseburgers and cherry Cokes,” Jericho says. “But no rice and no bean sprouts.”

  That makes her smile. “I haven’t had a cheeseburger since we left California.”

  “Does Rachel cook, too?”

  “No, Rachel is David’s Mary Magdalene.”

  “Who tells you that?”

  Betsy uses the twig to scratch at a mosquito bite on her ankle. “Mommy says Rachel was a coke whore.”

  Ike stops his sniffing and looks at Jericho. From his expression, he seems to be listening.

  “She sold her flesh,” Betsy says innocently. “David saved her, just like he saved all of us, but Rachel needed it more. Now, she’s David’s best friend. Mommy says she believes even more than David.”

  “Believes what?”

  “In the Word. The Word will save us.”

  “Betsy, listen to me. It takes more than the Bible to save people. Unless we get some help, a lot of very nice people are going to get hurt. Will you help me?”

  She seems to think about it as the breeze rattles the tree limbs. A soft shower of pine needles floats over them. “But Brother David will protect us. He loves all the people.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t love himself, and that makes him confused.”

  Her forehead is wrinkled in thought, but she remains quiet. Ike slinks back and rubs against Jericho’s boot. Jericho picks up the animal and places him in a pocket on his fatigue pants.

  “Sometimes, something happens to a man,” Jericho says, “something in his past that affects him forever. Makes him somebody he didn’t think he was and doesn’t want to be. Ruins him, really.”

  Betsy’s appraising look is so knowing and mature that Jericho is chilled. “Who are you?” she asks.

  “Your friend. Your secret friend. You shouldn’t tell anyone about me.”

  She stands and brushes dirt from her knees. “I can’t have any secrets from Brother David, and you’re saying bad things about him. Whenever anybody says anything bad about him, we have to tell Brother David right away, even if it’s our friend or our very own mother.”