Keith Laumer: End as a Hero

I tried not to feel like a shoplifter. After all, it’s not every day a man gets a chance to swap drygoods for dreams.

In the cab, I transferred my belongings to the new suitcase, then told the driver to pull up at an anonymous-looking hotel. A four-star admiral with frayed cuffs helped me inside with my luggage. The hackie headed for the bay to get rid of the box under the impression I was a heavy tipper.

I had a meal in my room, a hot bath, and treated myself to a three hour nap. I woke up feeling as though those student embalmers might graduate after all.

I thumbed through the phone book and dialed a number.

“I want a Cadillac or Lincoln,” I said. “A new one—not the one you rent for funerals—and a driver who won’t mind missing a couple nights’ sleep. And put a bed pillow and a blanket in the car.”

I went down to the coffee room then for a light meal. I had just finished a cigarette when the car arrived—a dark blue heavy-weight with a high polish and a low silhouette.

“We’re going to Denver,” I told the driver. “We’ll make one stop tomorrow—I have a little shopping to do. I figure about twenty hours. Take a break every hundred miles, and hold it under seventy.”

He nodded. I got in the back and sank down in the smell of expensive upholstery.

“I’ll cross town and pick up U.S. 84 at—”

“I leave the details to you,” I said. He pulled out into the traffic and I got the pillow settled under me and closed my eyes. I’d need all the rest I could get on this trip. I’d heard that compared with the Denver Records Center, Fort Knox was a cinch. I’d find out for sure when I got there.

The plan I had in mind wasn’t the best I could have concocted under more leisurely circumstances. But with every cop in the country under orders to shoot me on sight, I had to move fast. My scheme had the virtue of unlikeliness. Once I was safe in the Central Vault—supposed to be the only H-bomb-proof structure ever built—I’d put through a phone call to the outside, telling them to watch a certain spot; say the big desk in the President’s office. Then I’d assemble my matter transmitter and drop some little item right in front of the assembled big shots. They’d have to admit I had something. And this time they’d have to start considering the possibility that I wasn’t working for the enemy.

It had been a smooth trip, and I’d caught up on my sleep. Now it was five a.m. and we were into the foothills, half an hour out of Denver. I ran over my lines, planning the trickiest part of the job ahead—the initial approach. I’d listened to a couple of news broadcasts. The FBI was still promising an arrest within hours. I learned that I was lying up, or maybe dead, in the vicinity of Key West, and that the situation was under control. That was fine with me. Nobody would expect me to pop up in Denver, still operating under my own power—and wearing a new suit at that.

The Records Center was north of the city, dug into mountain-side. I steered my chauffeur around the downtown section, out a street lined with dark hamburger joints and unlit gas stations to where a side road branched off. We pulled up. From here on, things might get dangerous—if I was wrong about how easy it was all going to be. I brushed across the driver’s mind. He set the brake and got out.

“Don’t know how I came to run out of gas, Mr. Brown,” he said apologetically. “We just passed a station but it was closed. I guess I’ll just have to hike back into town. I sure am sorry; I never did that before.”

I told him it was okay, watched as he strode off into the predawn gloom, then got into the front seat and started up. The gate of the Reservation surrounding the Record Center was only a mile away now. I drove slowly, feeling ahead for opposition. There didn’t seem to be any. Things were quiet as a poker player with a pat hand. My timing was good.

I stopped in front of the gate, under a floodlight and the watchful eye of an M.P. with a shiny black tommygun held at the ready. He didn’t seem surprised to see me. I rolled down the window as he came over to the car.

“I have an appointment inside, Corporal,” I said. I touched his mind. “The password is ‘hotpoint.’ ”

He nodded, stepped back, and motioned me in. I hesitated. This was almost too easy. I reached out again…

“ … middle of the night… password… nice car… I wish…”

I pulled through the gate and headed for the big parking lot, picking a spot in front of a ramp that led down to a tall steel door. There was no one in sight. I got out, dragging my suitcase. It was heavier now, with the wire and magnets I’d added. I crossed the drive, went up to the doors. The silence was eerie.

I swept the area, searching for minds, found nothing. The shielding, I decided, blanked out everything.

There was a personnel door set in the big panel, with a massive combination lock. I leaned my head against the door and felt for the mechanism, turning the dial right, left, right…

The lock opened. I stepped inside, alert.

Silence, darkness. I reached out, sensed walls, slabs of steel, concrete, intricate mechanisms, tunnels deep in the ground…

But no personnel. That was surprising—but I wouldn’t waste time questioning my good luck. I followed a corridor, opened another door, massive as a vault, passed more halls, more doors. My footsteps made muffled echoes. I passed a final door and came into the heart of the Records Center.

There were lights in the chamber around the grim, featureless periphery of the Central Vault. I set the valise on the floor, sat on it and lit a cigarette. So far, so good. The Records Center, I saw, had been overrated. Even without my special knowledge, a clever locksmith could have come this far—or almost. But the Big Vault was another matter. The great integrating lock that secured it would yield only to a complex command from the computer set in the wall opposite the vault door. I smoked my cigarette and, with eyes closed, studied the vault.

I finished the cigarette, stepped on it, went to the console, began pressing keys, tapping out the necessary formulations. Half an hour later I finished. I turned and saw the valve cycle open, showing a bright-lit tunnel within.

I dragged my bag inside, threw the lever that closed the entry behind me. A green light went on. I walked along the narrow passage, lined with gray metal shelves stacked with gray steel tape drums, descended steps, came into a larger chamber fitted out with bunks, a tiny galley, toilet facilities, shelves stocked with food. There was a radio, a telephone and a second telephone, bright red. That would be the hot-line to Washington. This was the sanctum sanctorum, where the last survivors could wait out the final holocaust—indefinitely.

I opened the door of a steel cabinet. Radiation suits, tools, instruments. Another held bedding. I found a tape-player, tapes—even a shelf of books. I found a first aid kit and gratefully gave myself a hypo-spray jolt of neurite. My pains receded.

I went on to the next room; there were wash tubs, a garbage disposal unit, a drier. There was everything here I needed to keep me alive and even comfortable until I could convince someone up above that I shouldn’t be shot on sight.

A heavy door barred the way to the room beyond. I turned a wheel, swung the door back, saw more walls lined with filing cabinets, a blank façade of gray steel; and in the center of the room, alone on a squat table—a yellow plastic case that any Sunday Supplement reader would have recognized.

It was the Master Tape, the Utter Top Secret Programming document that would direct the terrestrial defense in case of a Gool invasion.