The Day Before Midnight (23 page)

But he also had a moment of real loneliness. Jesus, Megan, what the fuck have you done now? What the fuck have I done?

And then he thought, Where is Puller? Where is Puller?

They reached the lateral tunnel without much trouble, and Rat Team Alpha headed one way, toward the shaft called Alice. That left Team Baker to veer toward Elizabeth.

“We goin’ to
fuck
this Elizabeth,” said Walls. “We goin’ crawl up this white bitch’s pussy, and
fuck
her to death. Give her some lovin’ like she never thought of. Once they go black, they never go back.”

“Shut up,” said Witherspoon, an edge on his voice.

“Man, you talk like you
married
to a white bitch.”

“I am. Shut up.”

“Man, no wonder you so mellow. Man, I was cashing in on white pussy every night, I tell you—”

“Shut up. Nobody talks about my wife like that. She’s a terrific gal who just happens to be white, goddammit.”

Walls snickered, a deep contemptuous sound. So rich. This jive-ass white boy nigger is full of himself, Mr. Delta Mean Motherfucker, see how he do if Charlie’s up ahead. He shit up his pants real good.

He liked the darkness, the cool air of the tomb. The tunnel was narrowing, too, closing down. The initial shaft had been cleanly cut into the mountain, almost like a stairwell, its walls flat and more or less smooth. A little railroad track had run through it where the miners pushed their little trains. It had a comfy feel to it.

But now, after the separation of the teams, the walls were closing in. It was coolish and clammy in there; he could smell the coal dust in the air, and something else, too, a tang or something. Witherspoon’s powerful beam cut like a sword all around, jiggering nervously this way and that, its white circle roaming all over the place like a man’s hands on a woman’s body. Meanwhile, Walls kept his beam straight ahead.

“Man, you must be nervous or something.”

Witherspoon didn’t say a thing. The night vision goggles pressed against his head tightly, pinching it, and it was less than pleasant. And he was a little jumpy, it was true. In Grenada he had been amazed by how un-nervous he was, but it had happened so fast, there wasn’t
time
to be nervous. The stick had landed, they shucked their ‘chutes and were hauling ass up this little ravine toward the airfield HQ, when literally, all hell had broken loose. Some lucky Cubie had been gazing skyward when the black-painted Charlie-130 Herc had flown in for the insertion, and had seen the black-clad commandos floating to earth.

And Jesus, after that,
forget
the mission, the job had just been to stay alive. It was like crawling through the Fourth of July, all the fireworks in the world floating out at you, trying to knock you off.

But this was different. Witherspoon hadn’t thought a lot
about the underground. He was Special Forces, Ranger, and Delta, the best of the best of the best. Courage was his profession. But, uh, like, a
tunnel?
In a
mountain?
He cleared his throat. Soon he’d have to face the horror of dumping the beam and going to infrared. Ceiling getting real low.

“Hey, man?” Walls’s voice, soft now, its mocking edge gone. “Man, you scared? You ain’t said much.”

“I’m okay,” Witherspoon said.

“Man, this ain’t nothing. In the ’Nam, the tunnels so low you got to crawl through them, you know. And man, them people they shit in those tunnels, they got no other place to shit. And over the years, man, the shit mount. Man, finally, you crawling
through
shit. You think this is bad, you try crawling on your belly through shit waiting for some gook girl like that pretty number in the other tunnel waiting to stick a razor blade in your throat.”

But this was plenty bad enough for Witherspoon.

He was really having trouble with his … breathing now. The blackness, the closeness of it, the sense of the tomb. And men had died here, hadn’t they? Fifty years back, in this same hole, over a hundred of them.

“Rat Team Baker, do you copy? Baker, this is Rat Six, you guys copy?” The voice was loud in his ears.

“Roger and copy, Six,” said Witherspoon into his Prick-88’s hands-free mike.

“Jesus, you guys were supposed to log in fifteen minutes ago. What the hell is going on in there?” Something in Rat Six’s white voice really irked Witherspoon.

“No sweat, Six, we’re just bumbling along. Hey, hold your water, okay, Six?”

“Let’s stick to radio SOP, Sergeant. You want to tell us what’s up?”

“Affirmative, Six, we’re through the main shaft and we’ve gotten into the lateral and we’re looking for this Elizabeth. The farther out we get, the lower the ceiling is. This tunnel’s drying up to nothing.”

“How’s your pal?”

“He’s doing fine,” said Witherspoon, sensing his partner next to him.

“Roger that, Baker, you guys stick to the schedule now, okay. You let us know anything turns up.”

“So what’s going on there?”

“National Guard guys got their butts shot off, that’s what. These are mucho tough hombres, these guys, Baker, you watch your ass.”

“Affirmative, Six, and out.”

And then Walls said, “Shit, man, I think that’s it.”

His beam flicked out and nailed a gap in the wall, no bigger than a crawl space, low and ominous in the white shine of the bulb.

It was the tunnel called Elizabeth.

“Oh, baby,” said Walls, “have I got a dick for you.”

“Smoke,” said Poo. “Smoke. It’s burning. It’s a fire.”

They could see the column of smoke rising, drifting, on the wind. Several of the neighbors were out on their snowy lawns, staring.

“Herman, why
is
it burning?”

“It’s an airplane,” Herman said. “An airplane has crashed in the fields and now it is burning. It must be some kind of terrible accident.”

They were in the basement, peering out of the small cellar window. The smoke smeared across the bright blue sky through the lacework of the trees.

“Can we go look at it?”

“No,” said Herman. “I think we’d better stay here. It will be very hot. The firemen will take care of it.”

“Is the man all right?”

“The man?”

“The man that drives the airplane. Is he all right?”

“I’m sure he’s all right. Poo, I’ll tell you, they push a button and the tops fly off and they pop out. Just like toast from a toaster. And they float down to the ground under a big umbrella and they’re all right.”

“Do they get another airplane? If they break their airplane, do they get another airplane?”

“Oh, yes. They get another airplane.”

Just then, the Burkittsville fire engine went crashing by the house, and headed out the road toward the field.

Beth Hummel looked at Herman now. She’d made the connection between the whirling jets and the crashed airplane and her vanished husband and Herman.

“Who are you? What do you want? Why are you here?”

“Please, lady,” he said. “We mean you no harm. Please, okay, you just do what we want, no harm comes
to
nobody, okay? We’re just guests, for a little while longer, okay. Then everybody’s okay, just fine, super good. Okay?”

“Oh, Lord. Why?
Why is this happening?”

“It has to happen,” Herman said. “It has to happen. It’s for everybody’s own good.”

Just then there was a knock at the door. They could hear it from downstairs. It grew louder.

Dick Puller put down the microphone, lit a cigarette. A loud roar rose and beat at them as four medevac choppers rushed overhead to the base of the mountain to pick up the wounded.

“How bad?” asked Skazy.

“He wasn’t making a lot of sense,” said Puller. “I gather it was pretty bad. Of the hundred and forty men in the company, he had confirms on forty fatals sure. Maybe fifty. He said he had a lot of men shot up. The walking wounded got a lot of them off the hill. Not too many guys left untouched. Unit morale shattered. Nonexistent. I told him he had to go back.”

Puller smiled a crooked, sardonic smile.

“And?”

“And he told me to get fucked. His manners aren’t any better than yours, Major.”

“The CO?”

“Didn’t make it back. He was last seen on the M-60, giving covering fire. I don’t even know his name.”

“I think it was Barnard.”

“I think you’re right,” said Puller. He could see the choppers on the ground, far off, their rotors glistening in the bright sunlight, the dust and snow stirring and whirling. Tiny
figures rushed around them. Above them, the mountain rose in a rainbow arc, implacable and immutable. The little red and white aerial seemed to wink at them over the black stain of the tarpaulin. They hadn’t even found out what was under the tarp.

“You’ve got to send Delta in now, Colonel Puller. You can’t let them have time to regroup or those men will have died for nothing.”

“They were never ungrouped, Major Skazy. Don’t you understand that yet? Delta goes when I say and not a second before. I’d advise you to back the fuck off, young Major,” said Puller.

He fixed his eyes on Skazy, who met his gaze fiercely.

“When are we going?” the major said, his face impassive, his eyes unlit.

“After dark. We’ve got to let those rats see if they’ve got a chance at opening a back door. We’ve got to get Thiokol time to get us beyond the door of the elevator shaft. I’ll get you your goddamned chance, Major. You have my word.”

He turned and found a seat on a folding lawn chair some thoughtful trooper had pulled out for him. He checked his watch. There was going to be a long night ahead.

“Colonel Puller! Colonel Puller!”

It was Peter Thiokol, his demeanor adolescent and abandoned in excitement, jumping crazily as he ran toward them.

“Who would that be?” Herman demanded.

“I—I don’t know,” Beth Hummel stammered.

“Is it the airplane driver?” Poo asked.

“Mommy, I bet it’s my teacher,” said Bean. “They want to know why I’m not in school.”

Herman pulled Beth close to him.

“Who?” he demanded.

“Herman, you’re hurting Mommy,” said Poo. “You’ll make her cry. You’ll make Mommy cry. Herman, don’t hurt my mommy.”

Poo began to cry.

“If it’s a neighbor, they’ll know I’m in here,” said Beth.

Herman thought in a frenzy.

“All right,” he said finally, “you go answer. Say nothing. Remember, I’ll be behind the door. I’ll hear it all. Don’t do anything stupid. Please, these other men will be here with the children, don’t do anything stupid, don’t force us to do anything we don’t want to do.”

He released her.

“Don’t do anything stupid. Please.” He pressed the muzzle of the silenced Uzi against her ribs, just once, lightly, so she could feel it.

Beth climbed the steps. She could see the shape in the window of the door and went to it.

“Yes?”

God, it was Kathy Reed, from next door.

“Beth, what is going on, have you heard? Three planes have crashed. Someone says there’s terrible shooting going on at South Mountain and that the state police have closed all the roads. There was an explosion on the road up to the mountain in the morning. They say there are helicopters in the valley and soldiers and—”

“I don’t know. There’s nothing on the news.”

“God, do you suppose they have gas or something up there, and there’s some kind of leak. What kind of telephone station could it be?”

“I—I don’t know,” said Beth. “If there were any danger, I’m sure the government would tell us.”

“I’m so scared, Beth. Bruce is away. Beth, he’s got the car. If there’s an evacuation, will you take us? God, Beth, I’ve got the twins and—”

“Oh, Kathy, don’t worry. I’ll take you if it comes to that. I swear it. You go inside now and relax. If I hear anything, I’ll tell you. I promise.”

“You won’t forget?”

“No, I swear. I swear it.”

“Thank you, Beth. It means so much.”

She went back to her own house. Beth closed the door.

“Mommy, why was Mrs. Reed crying? Was she scared of Herman?”

“No, honey. No, she was just upset. Was that all right?”

“That was fine,” said Herman. “That was okay, lady, you did real good.”

“Who are you?” said Poo. “You’re not from around here at all, are you? You’re from far away.”

“Very far away,” he answered.

“Yes, what is it, Dr. Thiokol?” Dick Puller asked, pulling himself away from Skazy.

“Something’s just occurred to me. I—I should have thought of it earlier.” He was momentarily put off by the sense of distance between the two officers; he had the sudden, awkward sense of being an outsider at some kind of intense family dispute. But he plunged on.

“It may be of some help. You ought to hear this, too, Major Skazy.”

“Go on.”

Peter said, “Well, we think we know who compromised South Mountain. I’ve told the FBI. All right?”

“Yes?”

“Now, we think this person was photographing documents and plans in my own home. I was very sloppy, it was—”

“Just go on,” said Puller.

“Well, this person left my house before the planning was quite complete. Do you understand?”

Neither of them did, apparently. They stared at Peter as if he were stupid. Military men, he told himself, be patient. Explain it slowly. Connect all the dots for them.

“She left
before
the key vault was designed. So whoever planned whatever’s going on up there never knew about the key vault. Until—”

“Until when?”

“She came back two weeks ago. She came back to tell me she’d thought it over and she just wanted to see me—well, I’ll spare you the pitiful details. But she was in the house. I slept with her a last time. The vault had been improved, it was designed, they were implementing it, and they sent me the dope. She could have seen it.”

“Dr. Thiokol, in all due respect, I don’t know what the
hell you’re driving at here,” said Puller, glowering furiously at him, almost rigid with impatience. “We already know there’s been an intelligence leak of—”

Asshole! Peter thought. Stupid asshole!

“If they know about the key vault, they found out very late.
Two weeks ago!
Probably, maybe, possibly too late to figure it into their original operational plans. If that’s the case, they probably didn’t bring a welder along. So they would have had to pick one up
here.
Don’t you see? They would have had to hire one or kidnap one or something like that. Now, if they did that, they wouldn’t try and hold him for two weeks. They’d do it right before they jumped and they’d do it close by. I’m saying, maybe we can trace it.”