Twilight's Last Gleaming, page 13
“I don’t like that talk,” he announced.
“Oh, for chrissakes, shut up,” Schonbacher jeered. He saw the hatred glow in the madman’s bright eyes, and he stepped back nervously.
“Harvey didn’t mean any disrespect, Deacon,” assured Dell, who’d noticed that same surge of internal fury. “It was just a figure of speech, a bad habit. You’ve got to watch that, Harve. That’s an awful way to talk to decent people, you know.”
Falco nodded in admiration.
You really had to hand it to Larry.
Smooth, and very fast.
“I’ll watch it, Larry,” Schonbacher pledged hastily. “I’m sorry I said it. I’m not feeling too well,” he apologized. “Maybe it’s something I ate. My stomach’s a mess. I’m not a well man, you know.”
Fear.
It was crude sour fear, Dell judged—and immediately felt depressed.
“I think Harvey’s got an ulcer,” Powell contributed to ease the tension, “so let’s not be too hard on the poor fellow, Deacon. Forgiveness is one of the great Christian virtues, I seem to recall.”
The rage in Hoxey’s face began to subside.
“As I was saying, we forgot to collect the two firing keys,” Dell continued briskly, “and without those keys we don’t have much muscle at all. We can’t launch the birds without those keys, can we, Sandy?”
Captain Sanford Towne didn’t answer.
The yellow-haired Crew Commander of Missile Combat Crew 889-C was awake and ungagged, and he could have replied. He’d had a few sips of water and his head didn’t hurt quite as much as it had when he’d come to an hour earlier, and there were a lot of things he could have said. Even though the back of his skull still throbbed and the bindings at his wrists and elbows chafed, there were a number of things that Towne could have said. He glared at the enemy from the bunk, remained silent.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” Dell pressed.
No answer.
“Not even ‘My country ’tis of thee’?”
Towne didn’t reply.
Lieutenant Canellis did.
“Traitor,” the younger officer said bitterly. “You’re a goddam traitor, Dell.”
Falco shook his head in exaggerated reproof.
“We just went through that, kid,” he reminded. “That kind of evil talk is out.”
“They’ll hang you, Dell. They’ll hang all you bastards,” Canellis vowed.
The professional assassin sighed. “I just hope he doesn’t say ‘you’ll never get away with this.’ I must have seen that picture a million times on TV—at least a million times.”
“You won’t get away with it! They’ll hang every one of you!”
Falco’s eyes narrowed.
“I thought they’d shoot us,” he confessed. “The Army doesn’t hang people, does it, Willieboy?”
The ex-Marine looked thoughtful.
“As I remember it, firing squads are the bit—although it might be different for treason. That’s if we’re caught and convicted. I think we could beat it on temporary insanity.”
“I come from a broken home myself,” Falco concurred slyly. “Terrible childhood. I’m all mixed up, very nervous.”
“Emotionally insecure?” suggested the black.
“That’s it. I still suck my thumb—when no one’s watching. What about you, Larry?”
“My mommy never loved me. How about you, Willie? I’d say that you were definitely a victim of racial oppression, ruined in the ghetto.”
Was he jesting or sneering?
“Between the ghetto and those bleeding hearts in the poverty program, I’ve developed some terrible antisocial attitudes,” Powell answered. “I have this sick inferiority complex that makes me want to hurt all white people, especially officers.”
“I won’t turn my back on you,” promised Dell.
“I wouldn’t, Major.”
Was Powell playing or threatening?
“Where are the firing keys?” Schonbacher demanded impatiently.
“Ask the lieutenant,” Dell suggested. “He seems to be the talkative one. My friend Sandy’s sulking, I guess.”
Schonbacher walked to the bunk, peered down at Canellis.
“Okay, Lieutenant, where are the keys?” he questioned.
“Screw you.”
It was adolescent, stupid and ridiculous.
That was the thought in Dell’s mind.
Something else was troubling Willieboy Powell.
The former SAC major had spoken of the plan and the capsule many times, but he’d never mentioned the firing keys.
Why?
“Screw you,” Canellis repeated defiantly.
Schonbacher raised his pistol, and before anyone could stop him struck the young officer in the pit of the stomach. Then the rapist lifted the gun again.
“I’ll shoot you, Harvey,” Dell said quickly in loud, angry tones. “Once more and I’ll shoot you.”
Surprised and uncertain, the fat man hesitated.
“We need those keys,” he blustered.
“He can’t deliver them. Put the gun down, you idiot—now.”
“The major isn’t kidding,” Falco judged. “He’s going to gun you, Harve.”
Breathing heavily and sniffling, Schonbacher slowly lowered his weapon and then skipped back two steps. Lieutenant Canellis was gasping and heaving; he might vomit at any second.
“That was a stupid stunt,” Dell said harshly, “and I’m about fed up with your stupidity, Harvey. First you wanted us to kill that guard who stuck his head into the car—when it wasn’t necessary—and then you turned chicken when I told you to move up the tunnel ahead of me—which was necessary. Now the senseless violence on a defenseless man who doesn’t even have the combination.”
“Bad form, Major? Poor sportsmanship?” Powell taunted.
Dell shook his head.
“No, just stupid. Only the Crew Commander knows the combination of the safe in which the keys are kept—that safe.”
He gestured with the machine gun toward a small red box set on brackets that jutted from the wall near the Crew Commander’s chair. The metal rectangle was perhaps seven inches wide, five inches high and ten inches deep. A combination dial was built into the face.
“When the crews change, the Commander of the one going off duty turns over the log book and the combination to that safe to the Commander of the new shift,” Dell explained.
“He’s saying you hit the wrong guy.” Falco chuckled. “I did that once myself in New Orleans. The local boys got real sore about that, wouldn’t pay me until I came back to town a couple of weeks later to hit the right one. They looked a lot alike.”
“You might say dead ringers,” suggested Dell, who knew that “hit” meant “kill” in underworld slang.
“Yeah, you could say that,” the assassin agreed. “Anyway, Harve, you should have belted the other one—the captain. Maybe you can kick the combination out of him.”
“I’ll take care of that,” the former Deputy Intelligence Officer of the 168th interrupted in authoritative tones.
At that moment, Canellis began to throw up in shuddering convulsions.
“Shit,” the underworld executioner grumbled. “It’s going to stink up the whole place.”
“I didn’t—” Schonbacher started to reply.
“You clean it up,” Dell ordered. “You made the mess, so you clean it up. Get paper towels from the toilet I’ll talk keys to Captain Towne.”
The telephone rang, and they all turned to the sound.
“Get the towels, Harvey,” Dell said as he walked to the Crew Commander’s chair.
He sat down, picked up the instrument.
“Yes, General McKenzie?” he said coolly, very coolly.
“This isn’t General McKenzie. This is the President.”
Even though he’d been half expecting this call, he braced under the impact of that familiar voice.
“Yes, Mr. President?” he replied.
“Jeezus,” Falco whispered, “the President?”
The ex-major managed to smile.
“With whom am I speaking?”
“My name is Dell, Lawrence Dell, Mr. President.”
Stevens glanced at the teletyped biography on his desk, continued.
“Major Dell,” he began, deliberately avoiding “Mr.” because there might still be some leverage for the Commander in Chief in reminding this murderer that he’d been an Air Force officer, “I understand from General McKenzie that you’re in command of the men who are currently occupying the SAC base designated Viper Three.”
“That’s correct. We hold the Launch Control Center, and we’ve dismantled the inhibitors that could prevent us from firing the missiles. They’re Minutemen-2, with thermonuclear warheads of approximately one megaton yield.”
The son of a bitch was laying it right on the line, Crane thought as he listened to the exchange over the desk amplifier.
“I’ve been informed of that, Major.”
“These aren’t the latest models, Mr. President. The Minuteman-3 has multiple warheads so each can hit several targets,” Dell explained blandly, “but these ten missiles can only take out ten targets-one each.”
The bastard’s trying to get Dave angry, Bonomi judged.
“I understand.” Stevens replied evenly, “and I understand that you and your companions escaped last night from the Death House at the state penitentiary in Helena.”
“That’s correct. We’re desperate men—capable of anything,” Dell acknowledged in a voice tinged with mockery. “If we weren’t so desperate, we’d never have attempted anything as dangerous as assaulting a SAC base.”
“I think I can understand that, Major. Men facing death will try anything to stay alive. I used to be a fighter pilot in an F-86 outfit during the Korean War, and I can appreciate the survival instinct. I’ve been afraid myself, many times.”
“I’m glad that you understand, Mr. President. It isn’t that we’ve got anything against SAC—or the Government of the United States. We’d have seized any country’s missile base. Yours just happened to be handy.”
“Is that supposed to be a joke, Major?”
Dell sighed.
“I’m afraid so. Not very good, was it? Perhaps I’d better stick to breaking out of escapeproof prisons and seizing impregnable missile bases.”
Stevens paused for a few seconds to organize his presentation.
“Major Dell, this is a much more serious matter—serious for the entire nation, perhaps for the world—than you may realize. Frankly, I don’t understand how a man of your intelligence and education could do something like this. It’s one thing to flee from a state prison but quite another to attack an ICBM base. This isn’t some cheap gangster movie, you know.”
“I know. It’s a big-budget production, Mr. President. It’s going to cost five million dollars to get this show on the road—and I assume you want it on the road as much as we do. You wouldn’t want it to stay at Viper Three for one minute more than necessary, would you?”
It was not going well.
“General McKenzie told me that you’d mentioned some such figure, and he reported that you’d also made some rather melodramatic threats, but—”
“No buts and no threats and no bargaining,” Dell broke in curtly. “Pay our price—the full price—or we launch the missiles.”
“I can’t believe that you’d say that if you knew what the targets of those ICBMs are,” Stevens countered.
“I don’t have to know. You know. You know and you’re scared witless. I know that the targets aren’t Disneyland or the London Zoo. They’re somewhere in Russia or China—maybe both. I don’t care, and my friends don’t either. All we care about is our money and our lives, and our futures in safety outside the United States. We don’t want to live here anymore. It’s too dangerous with all the air pollution and crime in the streets, riots, drug addicts—not to mention police brutality and the shocking decline in sexual morality. If you add the falling quality of television programming, the logic of our decision should be apparent to anyone. Don’t you agree, Mr. President?”
General Crane’s frown reflected his puzzlement.
What the hell did the quality of TV programming have to do with it?
“Major, I don’t see how either wisecracks or polemics can help us reach a mutually satisfactory agreement,” David T. Stevens persisted. “As you yourself said, we all want the same thing—to get you out of Viper Three. If we keep this common objective in mind, we can talk sensibly about possible ways—realistic ways—to accomplish this. There are several routes we can explore. I might speak to the Governor of Montana, for example.”
“About what? We’ve got Viper Three; he doesn’t.”
“Well, Major, I could ask him to consider the possibility of executive clemency on the previous homicide convictions. Since it was your human self-preservation instinct that drove you men to this extreme measure, I might urge Governor Wilcox to commute the death sentences—to reduce them to five or ten years in jail.”
Now that was creative thinking, the Attorney General mused—but too creative unless Dell was stupid. Wilcox belonged to the opposition party, and even if he went along with Stevens’ request he’d leak the whole thing to his friend Caldwell about ninety seconds after the convicts left Viper Three. It might save Viper Three, but it would blow the election.
“No deal,” Dell announced. “We’re not going back inside—not for five minutes let alone five years. That Wilcox is a louse anyway, a louse and a liar. Only an idiot would trust him.”
“I’m asking you to trust the President of the United States.”
Next he’ll whistle a few bars from “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the ex-SAC officer speculated.
“Not a chance. We don’t trust anybody anymore, Mr. President. We don’t trust Santa Claus or the United Nations or even John Wayne. Pay up, or we launch.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Stevens demanded in a voice reflecting his tension. “Who the hell are you to make such threats? You’re not talking to some fat-cat oil millionaire about a ransom for his nine-year-old daughter, you know. You’re playing around with millions of lives, tens of millions of lives. This is no clever armored-car robbery or bank stickup, dammit. This could be World War III, maybe the end of civilization.”
“What civilization?”
“Now you listen to me. You’re playing with something that’s terribly dangerous—nuclear blackmail. That’s what it is, Dell—nuclear blackmail.”
“Exactly—and you ought to know all about it, Mr. President,” the fugitive with the film star’s face replied. “That’s exactly what you and the righteous Russians have been doing to each other and the whole damn world for nearly twenty years. Well, we’re following your example—only we’re putting it on a paying basis. We’re small-businessmen, so we’re only asking for a small profit. Actually we’re selling you this base and its missiles for a fraction of their cost—maybe twenty percent. It’s our going-out-of-business sale, and you’d be a damn fool to miss it because it’s never going to be repeated.”
“Major Dell, as a career Air Force officer and a SAC missile specialist you must have a fairly clear picture of what a nuclear war could do.”
The man in the Viper Three capsule ignored the appeal.
“Thirty-six hours, that’s what you’ve got,” he warned. “You’d be crazy not to buy at this price, and we’re throwing in two slightly used SAC officers as a bonus—free. Buy the base, and get the missile crew without paying a single penny more. Any sensible businessman would jump at such a bargain, and any economy-minded congressman would urge you to consider the great savings to the already burdened taxpayer.”
“Spare me the social satire, Major,” Stevens responded. “I think you do better with the threats—as unrealistic as they are. Even if you consider this situation from a wholly selfish point of view, you must realize that World War III wouldn’t improve your health either. You and your friends could end up just as charred as the women and children.”
“Balls—Mr. President. We’re down in a deep radiation-proof hole, and we can stay for two weeks after the war begins. The fire storms should be over by then and the radiation levels down by more than two thirds, and the devastation and confusion ought to make it a lot easier for five healthy, ruthless and well-armed men to escape. If any women or children or major contributors to your campaign get incinerated, it’s going to be your fault. You can avoid the whole thing for a pittance, less than Americans spend on mouthwashes and deodorants in a day. Don’t be cheap; it ruins your image as a great statesman.”
Stevens glanced across the room to Bonomi, shrugged.
“Major Dell,” he said slowly, “I hope that we can talk this out rationally. One of my associates has suggested that you are, in effect, trying to mug the United States. The Government cannot and will not permit that. If we cannot prevent it by negotiation, we will have to consider using the enormous military strength and resources at our disposal. Despite what Senator Caldwell has been babbling during this campaign, we’re still the greatest power on earth.”
“Now who’s threatening?”
“This is no mere threat, Major. As Commander in Chief, I’ll do what I have to do.”
“Get the money and the plane—that’s what you have to do—and by eight P.M. tomorrow night.”
It wasn’t going anywhere.
David Stevens knew that when a discussion—with the chairman of a State committee, the head of a foreign power or your wife—wasn’t going anywhere it was often wise to recess before things got worse, to stop talking so that both sides could reflect and, hopefully, contemplate compromise.
“I’ll think about what you’ve said,” he announced, “and I’ll get back to you later. I trust that you, as a reasonable man, will give serious consideration to what I’ve said, Major.”
Dell laughed.
“I’m not a reasonable man, Mr. President. I’m a cashiered Air Force officer, a dishonored ex-gentleman, a convicted wife-killer and a hunted fugitive from the Death House. None of the rules—your rules, the old rules—apply to me anymore. I have no further stake in your system, the system that was going to kill me. Do you really think that we speak the same language?”
