Ballistic Read online

  “No, no, I was talking about myself,” Jericho says, believing it to be at least partially true.

  “You say Brother David is confused, but you’re wrong. Brother David has seen the light.” Agitated now, backing away from Jericho. “Brother David gives us the Word. Only bad people will get hurt. Brother David said so.” She is near tears. “And you’re a big old liar, and besides that, you smell stinky.”

  Jericho reaches out to take her arm, but she backs away, turns and runs down the embankment and into the dry river bed. She will tell the commandos about him, he knows. Jericho crouches low and, staying in the shadows, heads toward the barracks on the east side of the missile base.

  He weaves through the pine trees, then crawls through the underbrush, listening and watching. He sees commandos working in pairs, fanning out from the river bed over the missile grounds. They could be on routine patrol, but he assumes they are searching for him. Search and destroy.

  Jericho has the ability to stalk game without breaking a twig underfoot or snapping a tree branch. Camping out in the mountains of West Virginia, he has made flour from the bark of a spruce tree and brewed tea from its green needles. He has made arrows from a fire-killed sapling and boiled tamarack pine shoots to eat as vegetables. But those skills will do him little good here. This is survival of a different kind. Here, the enemy is man. Another difference, too. Others depend on him, now. Susan Burns, for one. Maybe the whole damn world. For a man who ran away the first time he was needed, it is a frightening proposition. He will have to go back into the hole, into the man-made hell he hates so much.

  Jericho comes upon the shredded barracks. There is no sign of life. Bodies of airmen lie where they fell. He circles the barracks, then slithers on his stomach to a rear wall. He hoists himself up and tumbles through a blown-out window, landing squarely on the back of a dead airman, through-and-through wounds puncturing his chest. The barracks is a shambles, the aftermath of a massacre. Nine bodies are strewn on and between bunks. All show multiple gunshot wounds. The walls are peppered with bullet holes, and the barracks have been ransacked. Jericho makes his way to the weapons locker. If he can lay his hands on an M-16…

  The locker door has been jimmied.

  Empty.

  Jericho makes his way to the sleeping compartment at the end of the barracks – the security officer’s quarters. The room has been tossed. Jericho picks up the phone. Dead. He opens a desk drawer, roots around inside and finds a cellular phone and a palm-sized Newton Messagepad Wireless Fax. He puts both devices in his pockets.

  Back in the interior of the barracks, he uses his knife to pry open several footlockers, rifling their contents like a burglar. Through the broken windows, he can hear the shouts of the commandos but cannot make out their words. At the locker marked “Sayers,” he pulls out three long bungee cords and stuffs them into a rucksack. He moves to the locker marked “Jericho.” The lock has been broken, and the contents are scattered on the floor, but nothing appears to be missing. What would be? He finds a telescoping fishing rod which has rolled halfway under his bunk and puts it in his rucksack. As he closes the lid on the locker, an old black and white photo slips out and skids across the floor.

  He picks it up and looks into the faces of three smiling men, their faces stained with dirt, helmets on their heads at jaunty angles. Two of the men – his father and brother – are ghosts, and the third man, Jack himself, has often wished he were dead. In the background is a long, dark bar in a dingy saloon. He stares at the photo for a long moment, remembers the salute they always gave each other after work on Fridays. This day, he knows, was special. That morning, the Appalachian Anthracite Company had opened two new shafts. There would be work through the winter and spring. He looks at his father’s wide grin, the eyes red dots from the flash and a little glazed from the beer. He looks at his brother, two years older, Jack had idolized him as a child.

  Mike Jericho never asked for much, never needed much. Married a girl he had dated since seventh grade and only wanted to live in the mountains, raise a lot of kids and a little hell. Jericho looks at his own picture, barely recognizing himself. Not because he was younger then, but that he was so much more innocent. He looks at his own guileless smile, knows he will never recapture that moment. He remembers the words they spoke just before the photo was taken. Always the same, their arms intertwined, their glasses raised.

  “All for one,” Jack Jericho said.

  “And one for all,” his brother replied.

  Then they both looked at their father who unfailingly said, “Until the bitter end, my boys.”

  -38-

  A Man Who Loves the Bomb

  An unmarked van with bulletproof glass, armor-plated doors, and run-flat tires approaches the sentry post at STRATCOM headquarters, Offut Air Force Base, Omaha, Nebraska. A helmeted sentry checks the papers of the driver, makes a quick call on his phone, and waves the van through. Two minutes later, the van speeds past an imposing windowless concrete building and squeals to a stop in front of a titanium blast door cut into a hill. The side door of the van opens, and a motorized ledge lowers Professor Lionel Morton in his wheelchair to the ground.

  Lieutenant Colonel Charlie Griggs leads a procession of four Army Rangers, their pants bloused neatly into their combat boots, and the professor, who aims his wheelchair for the open blast door. As he motors into the bunker, Morton smiles at the STRATCOM insignia cut into the wall: an iron fist gripping three lightning bolts, wrapped by an olive branch.

  He stops the whirring wheelchair for a moment, sighs, and says, “Home sweet home.” Then with his military escort, Professor Morton proceeds into the bunker, and the huge door closes behind him with a pneumatic whoosh and a metallic clang.

  * * *

  A four-door green Chrysler with black wall tires and tinted windows pulls up to a two-story house on a leafy street in Palo Alto, California. Four men in dark suits get out and walk briskly to the front door. Across the street, an elderly man waters his lawn and looks suspiciously at the strangers.

  Once on the porch, one of the men rings the doorbell.

  No answer.

  Another opens the mailbox and pulls out a wad of third-class mail. The first man stops ringing the bell and tapes to the door a document with an impressive blue cover and the signature of a federal judge. The other two men hit the door with sledge hammers, shattering it. Across the street, the fellow with the hose is suddenly watering his own feet.

  “My name is deputy United States Marshal Brian Healey, and I am serving an emergency search warrant on these premises,” the first man shouts as he enters the house. No one answers, and the four men pile inside.

  They will painstakingly go over the entire house, but they start in the cluttered study of the owner: Professor Lionel Morton. They pull down photographs from the walls, looking for compartments hidden underneath. While the others search the desk and file cabinets, deputy Marshal Healey takes inventory. He is about forty with close-cropped gray hair and a gut that is just starting to bulge over the 34-inch waistband he has proudly worn since his sophomore year at San Jose State. Healey studies the photos starting with a grainy black-and-white shot of a mustachioed man in an overcoat and galoshes standing in the snow with a rocket that looks like an oversized Roman candle. Underneath, a caption, “Dr. Robert Goddard, March 16, 1926.”

  Nearby, a framed shot of the “Enola Gay” crew taken on the island of Tinian on August 2, 1945, just days before they took off for their rendezvous with history. Then, a group shot of the Manhattan Project scientists, a photo of a young Lionel Morton standing beneath the rockets of a first generation Thor missile, and finally, a series of mushroom cloud explosions captioned “Bikini Island 1956” and Eniwetok 1952.”

  On a credenza, a scale model of an MX-774 experimental missile sits on a plaque with a brass plate inscribed, “White Sands Proving Grounds, 1948.” Other models, like children’s toys, are lined up alongside: an Atlas Missile with a plaque reading “Cape Canaveral, 1
958,” and a Titan II with the notation, “McConnell Air Force Base, Kansas, 1962.”

  Like a room frozen in time. other black-and-white photos memorialize a slice of history. Healey picks up a signed photo of Defense Secretary Robert McNamara standing next to an Atlas missile. He reads the inscription aloud, “To Lionel. You made it happen. Bob.”

  Healey is mesmerized by the nuclear weapons memorabilia. “What kind of man would create a shrine to nuclear weaponry?” he wonders aloud.

  “A man who loves the bomb,” another marshal replies.

  “Or worships it,” a third marshal says.

  They empty the desk drawers and search the filing cabinets, but do not find what they are looking for. Healey approaches a large globe of the earth, propped on a floor stand. He spins the globe, letting his finger drag across the continents. He finger feels an imperfection in the globe, and he uses his other hand to stop the spinning. He slips his fingers into a groove at the equator and swings the northern hemisphere open like a lid. He pulls out a metal briefcase from inside and opens the latch. Inside is a foam indentation, the perfect size for a computer disk. Only there is no disk. The case is empty.

  * * *

  A courier in civilian clothes dashes across the catwalk in the amphitheater above the STRATCOM War Room. He clatters down the ladder to the main floor and hands a sealed envelope to F.B.I. Agent Hurtgen. General Corrigan, Colonel Farris and their aides turn away from the Big Board and watch as Hurtgen unties the cord and breaks the seal.

  “What are you looking at?” he says, moving back a step.

  “What the hell is that?” Colonel Farris demands, sneaking a peek at the “Top Secret” seal on the envelope.

  “Behavioral Science Unit report. Level Six clearance required. What’s your security rating?”

  “Security rating!” General Corrigan booms. “Do you know where you are? Are you out of your mind, you, you…” The pressure is getting to the general, and all he can say, his voice trailing off, is, “you civilian.”

  Chagrined, Agent Hurtgen opens the envelope and pulls out the King James version of the New Testament.

  “Top secret,” Colonel Farris says, sneering.

  “Might as well be,” Hurtgen says. “It’s not like anybody inside the Beltway’s ever read it.”

  Agent Hurtgen opens the Bible where it has been book-marked and reads aloud from a yellowed passage, “‘The first earth had passed away, and the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, came down from Heaven.’”

  General Corrigan’s look asks for an explanation.

  “Revelations,” Hurtgen says. He unfolds a report on F.B.I. stationery, spends a moment reading it, another moment milking the situation for its drama, then says, “Paraphrasing now. To get a new Jerusalem, a place where all believers live forever, first you gotta blow up the old one.”

  “Says who?” the general demands.

  “Peter.”

  “Peter who?” Colonel Farris asks.

  “The Bible guy,” Hurtgen says, thumbing to another marked page. “Peter, chapter three, verse ten. ‘The Lord will come as a thief in the night, and the heavens will open with a great noise and fervent heat, and the earth shall be burned up.’”

  “The Morning Star,” General Corrigan says, grimly.

  “Jesus Christ,” Colonel Farris mumbles under his breath.

  “Exactly,” Hurtgen says, closing the book.

  The courier whispers something in Hurtgen’s ear and on the Big Board, the map of the world is replaced by a photo showing the aftermath of the New York porn shop bombing. Again, Hurtgen consults his memo and says, “They call themselves the Holy Church of Revelations. They’re led by a fellow who calls himself Brother David, a charismatic fanatic. The Behavioral Science Unit’s working on a psych profile.”

  The Big Board blinks with what looks like a high school yearbook photo of a younger, short-haired David. It blinks again, and a slightly older David is carrying a sign at a protest rally: “Abortion is Murder.”

  “He’s an only child, a loner as a kid,” Hurtgen continues. “Grew up on different military bases, even had an appointment to West Point.”

  That draws a murmur from the brass. The Big Board blinks again. Another protest rally. This time David carries a hand-painted sign: “No More Nukes.”

  “But he got bounced out after his plebe year,” Hurtgen says.

  “It’s no damn wonder, if he was one of those anti-war kooks.”

  “No, he could have weathered that flack,” Hurtgen says. “But his father made some calls that got him tossed.”

  There is a buzzing behind the group as Professor Lionel Morton zips into the semi-circle of officers in his wheelchair.

  “I don’t understand,” General Corrigan says. “You saying his father didn’t try to keep him in the Academy?”

  “Just the opposite,” Hurtgen says. “He called—”

  “The President!” Professor Morton thunders, and heads turn his way. “The Secretary of the Army, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the heads of the C.I.A., the D.I.A., the Secret Service, and Jesus H. Christ himself if I had his 800 number, because David Morton is a goddam lunatic who should have been locked up years ago.”

  BOOK FIVE

  Worst Case Scenario

  -39-

  West Virginny Rules

  Jack Jericho is still searching for weapons in the security officers’ quarters when he hears the noise from outside.

  Voices.

  Too close.

  The barracks door squeaks open and bangs shut. Footsteps make the floorboards sing.

  “How long we supposed to search for this infidel?” one voice says.

  “Until we find him.”

  A laugh. “I’ll bet he’s halfway to Canada by now. For soldiers, they did not put up much of a fight.”

  The voices grow louder. The two commandos are approaching the security officer’s quarters. “Brother David wants to make an example of this one.”

  “What, crucifixion?”

  “He has spoken of it. He told Gabriel to build a cross near the silo cap.”

  There is a pause, as if both men are thinking about it, visualizing the sight.

  “Brother David says he would love to see the general’s face when they bring him a satellite photo with a crucified airman next to a launching missile. Says it should be the new Air Force logo.”

  “Dramatics,” one man says. “Always the dramatics.”

  Jericho slides the window up and crawls out, dropping six feet to the ground. He flexes his knees and lands gently, keeping his balance. Then he scuttles along the building and through some light underbrush to the nearby mess hall. On his stomach, he does the infantryman’s crawl underneath the temporary wooden building – made permanent by budget cuts – which is raised on concrete blocks.

  Once under the building, Jericho lifts a grimy grate from the floor above him. Removing the grate, he hoists himself into the galley, emerging from a dripping grease pit next to an old gas stove.

  If filth were a virtue, Jack Jericho would be a saint. He is covered with grime from the exhaust tube, brambles and leaves from the underbrush, and a thick layer of gunk from the grease pit.

  Trays of bologna sandwiches sit on a counter. A sizzling vat of oil bubbles away in a French fry cooker. Figuring he’s not going to be alone for long, Jericho stuffs several sandwiches into his pockets and begins searching for weapons. The kitchen knives aren’t sharp enough to cut the bologna, and besides, he still has his Jimmy Lile survival knife. He could use matches, however, already thinking about building a homemade bomb out of a milk carton, Joy liquid soap and cigarette lighter fluid. He’s looking through some drawers when he hears the sweet, soft voice of a little girl.

  “There he is, Brother Matthew,” Betsy says.

  Jericho wheels around to see Betsy in the doorway. Next to her, a muscular, bearded man wearing a green military t-shirt and camouflage fatigue pants holds a Remington 870 pistol grip, short-barreled shotgun. The barre
l is pointed squarely at Jericho’s solar plexus. The sight tightens his gut into a knot.

  Betsy is pointing at him. “He said he was my friend, and that Brother David was confused.”

  Matthew pats her on the head. “Thank you, child.”

  She gives Jericho a sweet smile and skips out the door.

  The shotgun still leveled at Jericho, Matthew clicks on a walkie-talkie and says, “We have the infidel.” After a garbled reply, he speaks to Jericho, “I’m supposed to keep you alive, but it doesn’t matter to me one way or the other.”

  Jericho shrugs. For a long time, it wouldn’t have mattered that much to him, either. But now, for a reason he does not completely understand, staying alive – saving Susan and the others – has become paramount. “Do what you have to do. I know I will.”

  Matthew takes a step closer. “What’s that in your pockets?”

  “Supper. I was getting hungry.”

  “Hands behind your head. One move and your guts will be sprayed all over the wall.”

  Jericho does as he’s told. “The death penalty for stealing sandwiches? That’s even worse than what they did to Jean Valjean.”

  “Who is this John, one of your comrades?”

  Jericho allows himself a scornful smile. “You’ve read one book too much and the others too little.”

  “Turn around! Face the wall.” Angry now.

  Again, Jericho does as he’s told,

  “Spread ‘em,” Matthew orders, kicking Jericho’s legs apart. He begins frisking Jericho, opening the snap pockets on his fatigues. He finds a sandwich, pulls it out and tosses it across the room. Another pocket, another sandwich. In a moment, he’ll come across the cellular phone, then the knife, strapped to Jericho’s leg. “What’s this?”