“What is wrong?” the general said.
“My leg, Christ, it’s killing me.”
“Get on with it, goddamn you.”
“My leg’s bleeding again, Jesus, can’t you—”
“Get on with it.”
“Maybe we missed it or some—”
“No!” screamed the general. “No, you did not miss. The center, you went into the center. I saw, I measured myself, I know exactly where the cut should go and how it should proceed. I monitored. You have not failed. Cut, Mr. Hummel, goddamn you, cut, or I’ll have you shot and your children’s bones ground to fertilizer.”
Jack looked at him. Crazy fucker, he now saw, crazy underneath, crazy as a goddamned loon.
The general pulled out a pistol.
“Cut!” he said.
Jack turned, and again thrust the torch into the deep gash in the titanium. The bright flame licked at the far metal, licked and devoured, drop by drop, and the metal fell away.
Then — pinprick, BB, cavity, Cheerio, nailhead — a minuscule black hole began gradually to appear in the metal at the end of the tunnel. He saw it expand as the titanium liquified and fell clear. Jack’s heart thumped and, goddamn him, he couldn’t help the excitement.
“I’m there. I’m there,” he shouted, giddy with joy. The long journey was almost over.
Dick Puller hunched over the microphone, sucking on a Marlboro. He drew the smoke deep into his lungs, held it there, absorbed its heat, and hissed it out in a flare from his nostrils. His face was bleak and set and ash gray. Before him stood the map on the wall, with its brave little pin reading BRAVO, the radio transmitters, ashtrays, cigarette packs. Around him nervous staff guys, Commo clerks, state cops holding cups of coffee, talking quietly, just staring out into space. The air was heavy with tobacco smoke and pointless, dry chatter and despair.
And there was Peter Thiokol, who’d changed totally. He wore commando gear now, black field pants and a black sweater, the black knit watch cap down over his ears so that they were too hot. His glasses looked fogged.
Peter stood with his arms crossed, trying to get his thoughts assembled. Hard, under the circumstances. It was like a waiting room outside the maternity ward in an old Saturday Evening Post cartoon. There was no real sound in the room, no meaningful sound. He could hear the creak of boots as the men swayed their weight from foot to foot, or scuffed their heels against the floor, or exhaled loudly or sighed tragically. Occasionally, the crackle of static leaked from the speaker of the radio.
“What’s taking them so long?” Peter finally asked, but nobody answered.
He spoke again, because no one else seemed to have the will to.
“Colonel, maybe you ought to contact them again.”
Puller just looked up at him, his face gone shockingly aged, broken. He looked as if someone had been hammering on his bead with pipe wrenches and snow shovels. Peter had never seen this Puller, dazed and old, caught in the crunch of the stress, the energy bled out of him.
This is what Skazy saw at Desert One, he thought in horror. An old man without an edge; an old man squashed by the pressure; an old man who’d sent too many boys to die too many times.
“They’re either going to make it or they’re not,” said one of the other officers. “Talking to ’em during maneuver just screws things up. This, uh—”
“Dill,” said Puller.
“Dill, this Dill, he either gets ’em there or he doesn’t. Funny, you train all your life for a spot like this and there’s maybe twenty thousand professional officers who’d give an elbow and a jawbone to be there, and it comes down to a gym teacher.”
After that there wasn’t much to say.
“Delta Six, this is Halfback, do you read?”
“I copy, Halfback,” said Puller.
“Sir, we still holding?”
“That’s affirmative, Halfback.”
“Sir, if it comes to it, we’ll go in. I mean, we’re Rangers. We go in. You just say the word, and well jump off.”
“That’s a negative, Halfback.”
“Delta Six, Sixgun-One.” It was the lead gunship, still holding on the strip. “We’re ready on the assault too. Give the word, and we’ll rock and roll.”
“I said, holding. Holding. Back to radio discipline, all units.”
The crackles sputtered out.
Peter looked at his watch. It was 10:35.
“Sir, if I was you,” someone whispered to him, “I’d turn that watch upside down on your wrist. You get up there, you’d be surprised in the dark, those gooks will zero on the radium in your watchface if it shows.”
Peter looked at him, mumbled an insincere, “Uh, thanks,” and made the adjustment.
“Sir, how long will you hold them?” someone asked Puller.
“Until Bravo checks in,” was all that Puller could say.
“Colonel Puller.”
Skazy stood in the door. He looked like some kind of guardian of hell’s gate, his face blackened like Caliban’s, his eyes leaking white rage, his grim lips pink and hot. He was draped with an immense green rope and wore several ammunition belts around him. He carried two pistols, several M-26 and smoke grenades, an angle-headed flashlight, and a CAR-15.
“Colonel Puller, I’m going to have to ask you to retire, sir. I’m officially taking command.”
Puller stood. He was another large man. Somehow the men between them melted away.
“Back to your station, Major Skazy,” said Puller.
“Colonel Puller, I’m prepared to put you under arrest if you don’t move away from the radio.”
Puller spoke quietly.
“Major Skazy, back to your station.”
Four Delta commandos, heavily armed, slipped by Skazy and slid into the room. Though their weapons weren’t brandished, everyone knew they were cocked and unlocked and at Skazy’s disposal.
“Sir, I request once more that you move away from the radio. It’s time to go.”
Puller reached into his holster, removed his.45, and threw the slide with a harsh clack that echoed in the still, smoky room. The hammer locked back.
“Son,” he said, “if you don’t move out of that doorway and return to your ship, I’ll shoot you in the head. It’s that simple.”
He leveled the pistol at Skazy.
Instantly, four CAR-15s zeroed on him. Craziness flashed through the air.
“We’ll both die, Colonel,” said Skazy.
“Be that as it may,” said Puller, “if you don’t move away from that doorway and return to your post, I’ll shoot you.”
“Colonel,” said Skazy, “I have to ask you one more time to move away from the radio and relinquish command.”
He started to walk into the room—
“Stop it!!” screamed Peter, himself almost out of control as he lurched between them. “Stop it!! This is infantile!”
“Step aside, Thiokol,” said Puller, looking through him.
Skazy had removed an automatic from his belt.
“Thiokol, sit down. This doesn’t concern you.”
“This is insane,” Peter shouted. He was breathing near to hyperventilation, murderous with rage at the folly and so terribly scared he could hardly stand still. His blood surged with adrenaline. “You assholes, you Delta prima donnas and your goddamned games, do your goddamned jobs like everybody else! Don’t hold yourself so goddamned precious!”
There was a click.
Skazy had cocked his Smith & Wesson.
“Peter, sit down,” he said. “Colonel, I have to give you one last chance to step aside or—”