His words were cut off as McKenzie's gun spouted flame. A red dot appeared in the center of Lewis's forehead. The captain's body slumped down in its seat.
Kilten was surprisingly calm. "You're crazy."
"I imagine they're saying the same thing about you right now at the Pentagon. In fact, I think you're crazier than I am," McKenzie added. "You don't really care about the money or if you get away. In fact, you want to get caught. You think the president is going to sit and calmly listen as you explain all the flaws in the nuclear launch system? That they're going to publish your report and all that classified material in the New York Times? After all you've done?"
"They published the UNAbomber," Kilten said.
"And look where he ended up," McKenzie said. He jabbed a finger in his own chest. "I'm nuts, but at least I know I'm nuts. I accept it. I just want to be a rich nut. And make some of the people who screwed me over feel what it's like to hurt a little."
"Hell," McKenzie continued, "those two targets getting hit will make the whole world sit up and take notice. You'll get the results you want then. Real results. Not a bunch of people spouting bullshit and at the end we still have the status quo. You wanted real change, I'm giving it to you. All right." He pointed the pistol at Kilten. "Time to finish this."
"They're going to give you your money," Kilten said.
"True, and thanks to me you got the president's notice. So we both succeeded."
Kilten had a strange smile on his face. "Very true."
"Any last words?" McKenzie asked.
Kilten folded his hands on his lap. "You know, of course, that I can't let you explode those nuclear weapons."
McKenzie shrugged. "I don't see that you have much choice in the matter anymore. We have the computer and we have control. You and your dead friend got us in and Drake can take it from here."
"Do you know what a gambit is?" Kilten asked.
McKenzie frowned. "What?"
"At the direction of the Joint Chiefs I first designed Omega Missile five years ago. I initially called the system Final Gambit. More appropriate given its function and mission, but the Joint Chiefs didn't buy off on that. Too fatalistic they said."
McKenzie's gun hand was steady as he listened.
"A gambit is an opening move in chess where a pawn is sacrificed for strategic gain," Kilten said. "Putting the word final before gambit is an oxymoron, but no one noticed that. Do you play chess?"
"You done?" McKenzie asked impatiently.
"You should play chess," Kilten said. "The most intellectual game man has invented because of the requirement to plan and project both your own moves and the opponent's. That's how I got involved in strategic planning in the first place. The same rational requirements satisfy both endeavors." Kilten shook his head. "I don't think you're going to succeed. The odds are against you."
"I've already succeeded," McKenzie said.
"No, you haven't. Your gun doesn't bother me since I'm dying anyway. This was the most likely outcome for me personally so I accepted it when I committed to doing this. Your gun only shortens things by a week or so. And they would have been very painful days anyway."
Kilten's voice firmed up. "Go ahead and shoot. I'm ready. Of course my plan doesn't die with me. Any good chess master can play long after he's gone if he's prepared. There are only so many moves you can make and so many permutations of those moves that—"
McKenzie fired and the round hit Kilten in the heart. He slumped over, held in place by the shoulder straps in the control seat. There was a sad smile on his face.
Drake finally had the panel off. "What the hell was he talking about?"
"Get going," McKenzie growled as he unbuckled the body from the seat. "We don't have much time."
Hill turned to Lugar, who had just arrived in the War Room, a stack of file folders under his arm. He placed them on the desk at which Hill was seated. In the muted roar of the War Room they could speak in a low tone and not be heard by others.
"Tell me about Kilten," Hill ordered him.
Lugar pulled a file from the pile. "Kilten's classified file. His psych profiles."
"Tell me about the man. Is there anything we can use to negotiate with him?" Hill asked. "Or for damage control after this goes public?"
"Kilten's a genius. His IQ is in the top one percent of the top one percent. His first government job was—"
Hill held up a hand. "Give me something personal. Is he married?"
"No. No relationships." Lugar grimaced. "He's one of those guys who gets as excited over his job as most guys do over a beautiful woman."
"And he has nothing to lose thanks to you," Hill said. "Give me something we can use to discredit him. Any hobbies?"
Lugar flipped through the file. "He plays chess. This says he's a world-ranked amateur. He worked on something called Deep Blue." Lugar turned a page. "That's a computer program designed to play chess."
"If he's so focused on his job, why'd he take the time to do that?" Hill asked.
"I don't know," Lugar said.
Hill was about to say something more when a communications officer interrupted him.
"Sir, it's the president on your secure line."
Hill picked up the phone and listened for a few moments. He put his hand over the receiver and spoke louder to Lowcraft. "The president wants your professional opinion as to the possibility of success of the security force from Barksdale getting into the Launch Control Center and stopping this."
Lowcraft sighed. "Kilten and his people seem well-organized. They took out the aircraft, you can be sure they'll have something prepared for people coming on the ground. There are a lot of variables in an operation like—"
"A percentage rating of success," Hill demanded. "Now!"
"Less than twenty-five percent," Lowcraft said.
Hill relayed that, then listened. The only words he said were, "Yes, sir," Then he hung up.
He turned to Lowcraft. "The president has authorized getting the money in the air. As for the rest of it, well, he's not ready to negotiate. He wants other options beyond the security force."
Lowcraft gave a little laugh of disgust. "One thing's for sure, we can't nuke it. All control has been shifted over to Omega Missile. That's the way the system works."
Colonel Hurst had been listening in and cleared his throat. When Lowcraft looked at him, he spoke. "Sir, actually, I do believe we could hit the Omega Missile LCC with a tactical nuclear strike."
"How?" Lowcraft snapped. "Omega Missile has control of all our nuclear weapons. We're locked out."
"Well, sir, since we've got people manually disabling warheads, we could also manually arm a nuclear warhead that's in a stockpile at one of our bases waiting to be dismantled. Since it was already taken off-line it wouldn't be under REACT control."
"Omega Missile not only controls the nukes, it also controls their delivery platforms," Lowcraft said. "How do you propose delivering a nuclear warhead to the LCC?"
"B-2 bomber, sir," Hurst said succinctly. "It can come in fast and won't get picked up on radar."
"They'd have to manually drop the thing," an air force officer said. "That would be hard."
"Can it be done?" Hill demanded, stepping in.
"Yes, sir," the air force officer said, "but that facility is over a hundred feet underground with forty feet of reinforced concrete on top. The entire capsule is suspended on springs to sustain shock. It was designed to withstand an almost direct hit by a nuclear blast."
Hurst put his hands on the railing. "The key word, sir, is 'almost'. What if we hit right on top of the LCC with a conventional bunker-buster dropped by an F-l 17 Stealth fighter? That should dig down about twenty feet, then follow it right away with a twenty-megaton bomb from a B-2 right into that hole?"