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The launch officer groaned in his seat. “General Marshall?”

“It’s OK, son,” Marshall said. “We’ll get you some help. Don’t worry.”

The launch officer relaxed in his chair, blood draining out of him. Marshall knew he had only a minute if that with the kid.

“OK,” Marshall said. “We’ve got ten Minutemen III missiles. Each can be sent to any one of four preset targets. Now where are these warheads targeted?”

“Don’t know,” said the launch officer. “Didn’t want to know. Didn’t want to dream about the impact area.”

Marshall was disappointed. “I understand, son,” he said and then popped the kid in the head with his M9 pistol. The launch officer went limp.

Marshall told the rest, “He was useless anyway. How long will it take you to retarget, Major Tom?”

Banks looked at her console. “Thirty-six minutes using the Command Data Buffer system.”

“You have ten,” Marshall told her. “Harney and Wilson, you’ll need to strip some equipment here. I saw an Explorer parked outside. See if old grandpa has the keys in his pockets.”

As they left, Marshall hovered impatiently as Banks calculated the retargeting information.

“You’re taking too long, Major Tom.”

“More than two hundred attack options have been programmed into this computer, sir,” she replied. “We just need to dial up the right war scenario. Those missiles that are supposed to go, go. Those that aren’t, don’t.”

“You don’t get it. I want them all going.”

“Oh, the than won’t even take a minute then — if you can live with collateral strikes.”

“The Chinese can’t, but I can, Major.”

Marshall pushed the launch officer he had killed off his seat and strapped himself in. Banks did likewise in the other chair and then made the final adjustments.

“Missiles are retargeted,” she announced.

Marshall gave the order, “Insert launch keys.”

Banks inserted her launch key into her console at the same time he did.

“On my mark,” he told her. “Three…two…one…turn.”

They turned their keys simultaneously.

The shaking began, and Marshall tightened his belt with satisfaction. Missiles on screen filled the silo cameras with their exhaust flames.

Finally, thing were going according to plan.

52

1625 Hours
Bedford Country Club

Jennifer had decided she had had enough of herself crying over her mother and the end of the world. If this was the end of all things, she didn’t want to go out like a scared rat in a crap shack. She would face the future full-on, it was a mushroom cloud.

She rose to her feet with the old beach blanket around her shoulders for warmth. The floorboards creaked as she walked to the front door. She paused at the door and took a deep breath. She wrapped herself tighter in the blanket with one hand and flung open the door with the other and shrieked.

Standing inches from her face was one of the Green Berets, so close they shared each other’s frosty breath. There was alcohol on his. She then saw the open bottle in his hand.

“We knew you were here and were just waiting for you to come out,” he told her, pushing her back inside and slamming the door shut. “But now that your mom is dead, I thought you could use some comfort.” His lips twisted into an ironic smile. “You see, I’m from the government and I’m here to help you.”

Jennifer was terrified. “Where’s the other guy?”

“Ran home to mommy and the kids, seeing as this is the end.” There was a wild look in his eyes. He believed it, and this terrified Jennifer even more. “It’s a terrible thing when discipline in the ranks break down in a crisis. But I’m getting one last hurrah before we pop.”

She took a swing at his face but he caught her hand and twisted it back until she cried out in pain. Then he pulled her head back by her hair and started dragging her kicking and screaming across the floor.

“Stop it!” she screamed. “You’re hurting me! Stop!”

He turned her over and thrust the neck of the bottle into her mouth painfully so that she choked as the fiery liquid poured down her throat. He laughed again, his eyes on fire as she struggled to breathe, feeling like she was drowning.

53

1625 Hours
Ethel’s Truck Stop

Sachs stared at the ten missiles as they arched into the twilight. Disbelief dissolved into despair as she recognized the world as she knew was ending. A black hole seemed to open up under her feet and suck the soul out of her, leaving her void of hopes of a tomorrow.

“God, no,” she breathed.

Koz, standing next to her, sounded flat and distant. “Minutemen out of the Nekoma missile field. It was supposed to be inactive.”

Sachs simply could not believe what she was seeing. “They’re going to China, aren’t they?”

“Can’t tell you until they explode,” Koz said, looking grief-stricken. “But at fifteen thousand miles per hour, they can reach their targets in less than 30 minutes.”

She said, “We have to destroy them.”

The look on Koz’s face didn’t inspire hope. “Only way to abort is from the launch control center. We could try our sea-based AEGIS ABM systems with the Seventh Fleet, but they can’t take out all 10 Minutemen. Our best bet would have been the Tier 1 Defender complex in Alaska.”

Sachs grew icy calm. “What about this abandoned Safeguard complex nearby that you talked about? What did that use to be for?”

“It was the original Defender system,” Koz said. “Safeguard was designed to deMinutemen silos around here from a Soviet or Chinese counterforce attack during the 1960s.”

“By ‘counterforce’ you mean nukes like the ones the Chinese are about to launch in answer to the Minutemen that Marshall just fired?”

“That’s right,” Koz said. “The Safeguard missiles would hit the incoming Soviet or Chinese nukes, giving us the all clear to launch a second wave of missiles.”

“Punishing them even harder.”

“A nice option for us to have now, huh?” Koz said. “But it was operational for only about four months before they shut it down. Been abandoned for decades.”

Sachs said, “You mean like those Minuteman silos we just saw shoot off?”

Koz stared at her like she was either crazy or brilliant or crazy brilliant. “You think he rebuilt the Defender system on top of Safeguard?”

Sachs nodded. “Marshall isn’t a lunatic. He wouldn’t let those missiles off unless he had some degree of confidence he could shoot down those DF-5s the Chinese launch back at us.”

Koz’s face fell. “It’s at least 40 minutes to Nekoma. We’ll never make it in time on these roads.”

“Stop telling me what we can’t do!” Sachs lost it there, punching him squarely in the chest with her fist. “You dumb bastards!” she screamed, pummeling him again and again. “You’ve got to blow up the world with your pissing contests.”

Koz took the blows stoically, waiting for her to stop.

Sachs calmed down, the missile roar faded, and there was only a ghostly cold wind until she heard the unmistakable snap of gum and turned to see Ethel standing behind them.

Ethel said, “I know how you can get there in 20 minutes.”

Sachs stared at her, daring her. “Tell me.”

“Same way me and Rusty got here to the diner.”

54