William Prochnau - Trinity's Child

“He needs to know this, sir,” she replied, unyielding. “The Bisons have turned. Shortly after Polar Bear One turned, the Soviet squadron approaching them also turned.”

Alice looked at her in disbelief. “You positive?”

“Positive?” The woman shrugged. “Tonight?” She shrugged again. “I’m as sure as I am about Polar Bear One. Same data. Same source.”

Alice scanned the readouts hurriedly. “And the rest of them?” he asked.

“Proceeding, sir. As before.”

Alice stared into the black phone, from which he could hear a persistent babble tugging at him. To the general it seemed an eternity before he spoke into the phone again.

Beneath the Maryland farmlands, the dismayed radio operator ran his fingers through his still-damp hair, massaging the roots thoughtfully. He could hear the hum of the giant turbines, one floor below, methodically cleansing their air. It wasn’t that dirty out there, he thought. Yet. He glanced at the bank of telegraph machines to his left, leafing through the last printouts. Routine stuff until almost an hour after his midnight shift had begun. A string of the usual fifteen-minute communications checks in Greenwich mean time: “NORAD COMM CHECK 0500 CHEYENNE…. NORAD COMM CHECK 0515 CHEYENNE.” The last had come at 0545, followed by a gushing volume of increasing status alerts, urgent alarms, and finally the list of impact areas. Then the machine stopped at 0630 and the paper roll was blank. He glanced at a clock marked Zulu—1204. Four minutes past seven. The sun would be coming up soon. He turned to the tall balding man watching him.

“I just don’t understand it, sir,” the technician said. “Half the time I can hear the Looking Glass talking to the E-4. But I can’t hear the E-4, and neither of them seems to hear us.”

“Keep trying,” the man said halfheartedly. “We don’t have a helluva lot to tell them anyway, do we?”

“Maybe not. But one more EMP whomp and we won’t be talking to anybody.”

“Son,” the man said, “after the next whomp we won’t be talking to each other.”

The technician slumped in his government-issue secretarial chair. “Dammit—pardon me—but wouldn’t they want to know about the signals from Russia?”

“Hmmph,” the older man grunted, unimpressed. “Moscow calling.”

“It’s not Moscow. It’s north of there, in the dingleberries. But they’re directing the messages at the United States.”

“Son,” the man said patronizingly, “you’re listening to some spook from the CIA trying to tell us we left a bridge open over the Volga. We know that.”

The technician returned disconsolately to his radio. His superior, a retired brigadier general now running the Central Atlantic regional civil-defense program, wandered slowly out of the room. As he left, he glanced at a wall map of the Washington metropolitan area with 466 pinpoints for the airraid sirens he had triggered at 1:10 in the morning—after the first missile had landed. Shit-pot full of good they did, he thought, moving on into the empty briefing room. The plans called for the governors and leaders of a half-dozen states to relocate here. Not a one had arrived. Neither had his staff of forty. He was stuck down here with the normal nighttime crew of seven, plus two. The only outsiders who had shown up were two young nurses from the standby list. The way they looked when they showed up—bruised, clothes torn—he figured they had been more worried about being raped than nuked. Not even a doctor had shown up. He felt very left out.

“As I said, sir,” Alice replied, slightly irritably, “there are no geniuses in this one. I don’t know what this means. I can make an optimistic guess.”

“A smoke signal.” The voice was contemptuous.

“You might call it that.”

“Alice,” the successor said slowly, “Harpoon told me all about smoke signals. So fifteen Russian bombers turned around. I read this little war chant as sayin’ we got one deserter and they got fifteen. You read it different?”

Alice took a long deep breath, letting the air out slowly. “Yes, sir, I believe I do.”

“Maybe you want to believe it more than you do believe it.”

“Perhaps, sir.”

“I ain’t into wishful thinkin’.”

“Please, sir. Tum the bombers.” Alice closed his eyes, embarrassed. He thought he sounded more pathetic than convincing, and he didn’t like those near him listening. “See what happens. We have so little time.”

The general waited through abrief pause. Then the successor continued. “Alice, lemme ask you somethin’. You say ears are openin’ up and we’re hearin’ folks and folks’re hearin’ us?”

“Yes, sir. Not very well.”

“Wel-l-l-l, Alice, I truly hope the Premier is eavesdroppin’ right now. ’Cuz he can shove his Bisons right up his rosy-red bee-hind. He started this and he better start duckin’. And you hear this, general. You put another bomber on the henhouse. Damned fast. Got that?”

Alice clamped his eyes tightly closed. He saw the black hole of Omaha, the surf crashing over a reef forever forbidden to him. “I hear you, sir,” he said.

“And if there’s ears out there, Alice, some of ‘em’s ours. So you send out general orders, right now, to shoot down Polar Bear One. No questions. Just shoot. Hear?”

Alice could feel beads of sweat popping on his forehead. He brushed at his face with a sleeve that was already damp. When he spoke, his own voice sounded foreign. “I hear you, sir,” he said again.

“Don’t sound very convinced, general.”

“I don’t believe I am, sir.”

The pause was quite brief. “You tread careful, Alice, or you’ll find yourself in deep shit. Deep shit indeed.”

“Yes, sir.”

“We can send out the orders from here.”

Alice thought only for a split second. “I’d suggest you do that, sir.”

“I hear you right, Alice?”

“Yes, sir.”

There was a moment of silence. Then the phone connection clicked and huzzed out.

“You get the duty, Kazaklis,” Moreau said. Kazakhs looked into her ghostly white face and the wet smudges she had tried to blot away. “Or we’ll be down to two little robots.”

“I know,” the pilot said.

“Send him up there first, will you? He’s really a case.”

“Help him, Moreau,” Kazaklis said in tones more tender than she had ever heard him use.

The pilot then swung slowly out of his seat and started down the aisle. Tyler’s boots rested pigeon-toed a few feet behind the cockpit, his body pointing directly down the middle of the walkway. Only his head was out of line, crazily crooked, where Moreau had moved it from the well which had broken his neck. It rested at the foot of the jump seat on which the red code box sat, and directly behind Halupalai’s seat. Halupalai, however, still stood frozen against the instrument panel, his arms stretched outward almost in a crucifixion stance, little yellow gauge lights glowing around him. Kazaklis moved carefully past Tyler and placed a hand on Halupalai’s elbow.

“Come on, old boy,” Kazaklis said soothingly. “Go up front with Moreau.” The gunner didn’t move. Halupalai’s arm was leaden. Kazaklis tugged at it lightly before noticing the shredded radio wire. He reached up and gently eased Halupalai’s helmet off his head, dropped it into O’Toole’s seat with one hand and softly massaging the tight tendons of his friend’s neck with the other. He leaned forward and placed his mouth near Halupalai’s ear. “Please, ace,” he whispered. “Go up with Moreau for a while. You know how women are. She’s a little twittery. She needs you. Please.”

Halupalai slowly turned his head, fastening big and mournful eyes on Kazaklis. The eyes blinked once, transmitting the briefest subliminal message of the kind that could pass only between friends. It said: Stop the con, Kazaklis. Then the eyes went balefully blank again and the pilot’s heart sank. “Get your ass up front, sergeant,” Kazaklis said with quiet firmness.