The Day Before Midnight (52 page)

He alighted on the top of the blown-out elevator car, amid the swirls of its cable. The smell of the explosion, so recent, still hung heavy in the air. He found himself in a crowd in a small space, as other Delta people were busy shedding themselves of coils and snaplinks and D-rings and dropping through the rupture in the roof to get to the fighting. Peter did likewise, though with less agility. Even as he struggled, trying to remember what the boy up top had said, still other Delta raiders landed at the end of their long ropes, unlimbered themselves in the confusion, and dashed off. But it was taking so long!

Finally, he was free, and climbed gingerly down through the hole to discover poor Skazy on his back, staring up in a puddle of blood through lightless eyes at nothing and forever. Peter gagged, first at the sight of Skazy’s hideous face and evacuated skull, and then from the smell, now that blood and bowels had been added to the stench of powder. He turned, found more bodies, stepped over them, and hurried out of the car and down the corridor.

It was his installation all right, now, however, tarnished horribly by the battle and made strange, stranger than he could imagine. The water was an inch deep, and moisture filled the air like a mist. The sprinklers had obviously popped. Bodies lay in the water, dark with their own vital fluids where they seemed to rock back and forth, like floating Marines in the Tarawa surf. He saw some horrible things, but
didn’t concentrate on them. Sirens were going, and half the lights were off. Sparks leaked out of wiring ruptures into the water. And he heard the voice, the sweet voice of the angel of megadeath.

“… Launch is imminent. We have an authenticated launch command and launch is imminent. We have an …”

It was Betty, the prerecorded voice of the computer. He thought she sounded a little like Megan.

He tuned out the bad news and sloshed ahead through the mist to the firing, coming at last to a jog in the corridor and peeping around it to discover the epicenter of the battle. The Delta people were still a good fifty meters from the Soviet strongpoint, which was a jerrybuilt assemblage of sandbags, furniture from above, crates, whatever. It mounted at least a dozen guns, all of them firing. The air was busy with lead and noise. Where bullets struck, dust leapt off the wet wall. Meanwhile the Delta people, their guns flicking the red rays of the laser-sighting devices, plugged away, but they had stalled. They were down to the last few yards, but they had stalled. To run into the guns was to die, that was all. Peter could see that they needed explosives or something larger than what they had. It was all fucked up, a mess. It had no order at all, it was just gangs of men shooting each other up in a very small space.

Jesus, he thought, ducking back, feeling for the first time the quiver of real fear. His bowels loosened. He now saw it. They weren’t going to make it.

“You the doc?” a crouching, blackened figure with a CAR-15 and a hands-free mike asked, another Delta Caliban.

“Yes,” he said to the man, evidently the head commando. “Listen, you’ve got to get into that room down there. That’s it. That’s the launch control center.”

“Yeah, sure. After you. Is there a back way into it?”

“No. Just straight ahead. Look, you’ve got to get into it. There’s no other way and there’s not much time.”

“Sorry, but I’ve got to wait until I get some more firepower.”

“They’re all fouled up getting down the shaft,” Peter said. “There isn’t time. Do you hear that, do you know what that voice means?”

“Yeah, I hear it. No, I don’t know what it means.”

“It’s the computer. She’s going to launch the bird in about four minutes.”

The officer looked at him peculiarly.

“You see, we found out in our tests that while all hundred percent of the men in the silos would insert their launch keys, only about sixty percent would actually turn them. So we fail-safed
it
If they stick both keys in, it initiates a timing device; three minutes later an automatic launch sequence begins. They don’t have to turn the key, they just have to stick it in, and the terminal countdown begins. Now, if it’s a mistake or some terrible fuck-up, there is a way to stand down the launch sequence from the command center. But they can get it only over the radio, it involves a secret meaning for several of the switches pressed in a certain sequence. Only SAC HQ has the sequence. And me. Look, if you get me into that thing, I can stop the bird.”

“Man, I can’t get into the fucking place, you dig? It’s rock and roll out there.”

“You’re going to let a handful of Soviet soldiers stop you? Just rush the place. Please, Jesus, please.”

“Yeah, rush the place, great. Man, I can’t get good suppressive fire on the motherfucks. They’ve got anybody who comes at them zeroed dead. I don’t have enough firepower. Hey, we’ll die to get it done, but there’s no point in just dying to die, man.”

“We can’t be this close and fail.”

“Doc, I’m sorry. I can’t do the impossible. That’s all there is to it.”

“Call Puller.”

“Puller’s not down here. I am. If I wait a few minutes, then maybe I get enough firepower up and move a team down to get some C-4 into them and push off. But my guys are getting torn up. These Russian kids are very tough guys.”

“Please!”
Peter shouted, surprised at the violence in his voice. “Goddamn, don’t you see, if you don’t get into that room in the next three minutes or so, all these men have died for absolutely nothing. They’re suckers, jerks, fools. Please, Jesus, if not for me or your kids, for those dead guys who—”

“I can’t!”
the officer screamed back, just as loud. “It’s not a question of wanting. I just can’t get you in there. No one can, goddamn you.”

Peter thought he might weep. The sense of helpless rage filled him. So this was it, then. Another two or so minutes, and Pashin had won. Pashin was smarter. Though Peter wondered why he didn’t just
turn
the keys now and get it over with, if he had ’em both in. And he had to have them both, or he couldn’t have initiated the robot launch sequence.

Then he realized: Pashin must be dead.

“Look,” he said suddenly. “Our guys are in there. They have to be. Some Delta guys are in there, goddammit. We wouldn’t be where we are if this Russian had gotten the keys out and put them in the slot, because he’d have turned them. But somebody stopped him, and that’s why we’re here, don’t you see? Somebody blew his ass away at the last moment, but the keys were already in. We’ve got guys
in
there, goddammit.”

The officer looked at him.

“We have an authenticated launch command,” said Betty on the loudspeaker. “We are commencing terminal countdown phase. Launch is three minutes and counting.”

“So call him,” said the officer.

“Huh?”

“Call
him. On the phone. Look, in the wall there. Isn’t that a phone?”

Peter looked. The simplicity of it was stupendous. Yes! Call him!

He picked the phone up and dialed L-5454.

Walls stared at the board, bright with lights. The room seemed full of white ghosts. The motherfuckers were dead and they were going to kill the world anyway. White people! Assholes.

He gripped his shotgun, threw the slide, felt a shell click into the chamber. He’d blow a hole in the controls, that’d stop it! But he didn’t know where to shoot.

He stood staring at the board furiously, hating himself for being so stupid. The room made him feel like nothing. He didn’t know what to do.

“Terminal countdown is commencing,” the white lady was saying on the radio or whatever.

Damn the bitch!

Suddenly, there was a shrill beeping.

Made his ass jump!

“Terminal countdown is commencing,” the white bitch said again.

He picked up the phone.

“Yes,” said Peter, shrieking almost with the excitement. “Yes, Jesus, who is this?”

“Walls,” the voice said.

Some Delta people had gathered around Peter. He cupped the receiver.

“He’s in there!” he shrieked. “God, a guy is
in
there. Walls. Anybody know a Walls?”

“There’s no Walls in Delta,” said the officer.

“Son, listen,” said Peter on the phone, “are you Delta?”

There was no answer. Oh, Christ, had he—

“Uh—I come through the tunnel, man. You know, from underground.”

“Jesus,” Peter said, “he’s one of the rats. He got in from underneath. Listen, son, what’s the situation there?”

“Man, I think this rocket fixing to go off. Lights blinkin’, shit like that. Man, I blow the controls away with—”

“No, God, no!” shrieked Peter. “Don’t shoot anything. Throw the gun away.”

“Yo, okay.”

Peter heard the crash as the gun was tossed.

“Is the door locked?”

“Yes, suh. Them guys, whoever the fuck, don’t want them gettin’ in—”

“Listen, Walls. Listen to me carefully now, please, son. You can stop it.”

Peter’s heart was pounding. He was gripping the phone so hard he thought he’d choke it. “Yes, listen. You’ve got five labeled keys to hit in the proper sequence. All you have to do is listen, and read the labels, it’s very simple, very easy. All set. Are you all set?”

There was a long silence, heavy and still.

Peter could hear the firing. He could hear the tick of seconds, too, running off, on the way to forever.

“Son?” he asked again, and thought he heard a sob or something.

“Son? Are you there? Are you there?”

Finally the voice came.

“Then we fucked,” it said. “‘Cause I can’t read.”

She shot Arbatov twice. The first bullet hit him over the heart, blowing through the subcutaneous tissue, the muscle, ripping up a lung and nicking his shoulder blade before exiting with a terrible vengeance through the back. The second hit farther down, between two ribs, and plunged through the organs of his belly, terrible, terrible damage. Then he was on her, crushed her to the ground, and spitting blood, began to punch her in the face and head. Somehow he got the gun out of her hand, got it into his fist, and beat her savagely with it. When her eyes went blank he stopped beating her, and rolled off against the wall. He wasn’t sure if she was dead and he didn’t care. It wasn’t important. He was surprised how much blood was in him. It poured out. Shock, numbing and narcotic, rippled through him. He had an image in his head of golden wheat weaving in the sun and had a terrible impulse to lay his head down and rest for a time. But instead, the numbness in the stomach wound began to wear off and the pain was extraordinary. He couldn’t make much sense out of what was happening.

Bomb, something about a bomb. An atom bomb, that was. Slightly moot now, however, since he seemed to be dying.

He forced his head to turn, and yes, from the lurid play of light on the ceiling he could see that the numbers of the timing device were rushing onward toward 0000. Gregor thought he should get over there. Thus he ordered his reluctant body to topple forward. Like a tree it went. It hit the floor with a thud, and his ears rang, though there wasn’t much pain. He began—somehow—to crawl through his own blood toward the thing, having no idea what he’d do if he actually got there.

Damn you, Pashin, you took from me the one woman I loved. And also my life. Goddamn you, Pashin.

Hate was helpful because hate was energy. He began to crawl, but the damned thing was still far off.

Words. Goddamn motherfuckin’ white-boy words.

Their shapes were like snakes or bugs, maybe. They swirled and coiled and twisted about him. Everywhere he looked he could see words on little black plastic plates that stared at him. They were meaningless. They had no mercy, they never had, the motherfuckers.

“Walls? Walls, are you there?” the voice came over the phone. It was twisted with urgency. It connected with so much. All the times white people had looked at him, their features quizzically perturbed. Son, can’t you read? Son, the world is a threatening place to a young man who cannot read. Boy, you’d better learn your ABC’s, or you’ll stay black and dumb and be one of the little streetcorner fucks forever and ever.

“Son?”

“Yes, suh,” Walls said, hot and bent with shame and furious hatred—some for himself, and some for this Mister White Man with his concerned voice, and some for whoever had put him in this white man’s room with the seconds running out and some bad motherfuckin’ shit about to go down.

“Uh, son, tell me,” the voice asked, trying to stay calm, odd currents firing through it. Walls had heard this voice a million times. It was a white guy who’d just realized he was dealing with Mr. Dumbjiveassniggerboy, but also knew if he pissed Mr. D. off, Mr. D. he take top of the motherfucker’s head off, and so going real poh-lite, you know, like real sloooow, so as not to rile him.

“Uh, son, do you know the letters? Do you know your alphabet? Not words, now, but do you recognize the letters?”

Walls burned with shame. He shut his eyes. He could feel the tears running down his face, hot and bright. He squished the phone so hard he thought it’d snap in two, or maybe melt.

“Terminal countdown has commenced,” said the white bitch, snooty and far off and so much better than him. He wanted to kill the white bitch.

“Yes, suh,” he said. “I know my letters pretty good.” He was speaking slow, like a goddamn houseboy.

“Ah, good, great, God, terrific,” came the voice. “Now, if we work together and trust each other and don’t panic, well be okay, we’ll have plenty of time, we can do it by the letters. Okay, son. We can get it done, there’s still time, okay?”

Walls could feel the panic flashing quick and bright under the man’s voice as it fought through his Adam’s apple and throat full of gunk.

“Yes, suh,” he said, yassing the man to death, giving him what he wanted to get him smiling, like he was five again, just yassing and yassing him to death, all smiles and charm and secret shame. “We do it real slow, don’t panic, we be okay, fine, yes, suh.”

“Okay,” said the voice, “now, if you’re at the phone, you’re sitting in the chair, right?”

“Yes, suh,” said Walls, sliding obediently in the chair.

“Now, start at the phone jack, where the cord fits into the wall. Look at it, okay?”