Warren Murphy - The End of the Game

"I am not here because I run off half cocked," Naismith said stiffly. "I have a responsible position and I intend to perform my duties."

"The command is to key-insert," the exec said.

"I see that."

"Well?"

"I'm doing it. So, I'm doing it."

Lieutenant Colonel Naismith took the key from the chain around his neck and inserted it into the slot. He looked at the green screen. The missile bunker felt crowded now, crowded and hot. New York had been destroyed. Boston had gone up. Atlanta was in flames. Bravo Red flashed again on the screen and began blinking.

Then a new message appeared on the screen.

It warned that if Naismith didn't turn his key immediately, the bunker would be declared in violation of orders. And thus the real horror of military service stared Armbrewster Naismith right square in the face: if America should survive a nuclear war, he would face life without a pension.

And possibly worse.

Naismith wanted to run out of the bunker, get into his Mercedes, and drive away, possibly to an airport, perhaps to his winter condo in the Caribbean.

The code-violation warning blinked again on the screen. The executive officer was about to withdraw his key and code back to SAC headquarters that the bunker was inactive because of personnel problems. Suddenly, Naismith inserted his key and turned.

The missile battery was operational. Naismith smiled weakly. His crew looked up at him from their stations. His executive officer stared suspiciously.

"That was an awful long time, sir."

"I didn't want to rush into things."

"Yes sir," said the exec, but he made a note in his log that the colonel should be given another Psych-Seven, the basic week-long psychological test for missile men to weed out anything but the basic vanilla. "Basic vanilla" was the slang phrase given to the correct character profile for an officer in a missile battery. First, he should not be the kind to panic. Second, he should not be the kind to panic. Third, he should not be the kind to panic.

The other seven requirements were identical. The ideal missile officer was the sort of man who at the end of the world would make sure the front door was locked. They had happy marriages, modest bank accounts, neat homes, a two-year-old American car they repaired themselves, 2.10 children, no drinking or eating problems, and most quit smoking when the surgeon general's report came out.

Of Ambrewster Naismith, it had been said he not only would lock the front door at the end of the world, but would file away the key in case the human race ever got started again.

In brief, he was not someone who would delay arming his missiles for firing. He was not someone who would be trembling while he waited for the command to fire.

He saw his men looking at him.

"Well, it was only New York," he said.

"And Boston and Atlanta," his executive officer said.

"Well, if you're going to nitpick--"

Peasants, Naismith thought. He would have been just like them a few months ago, in their cotton or regulation underwear, their regulation shoes, their simple cars, their print-dress wives, and steak-and-corn cookouts. Did any of them appreciate a really significant mousse, a wine with a real nose to it, morning on a Caribbean beach while it was snowing in Dayton, Ohio?

He had once been like them. Your basic vanilla. He had thought he had lived, thought he had lived well and decently, but he had been a fool.

Valerie had taught him that. Valerie with her laughter and champagne and love of life. He knew how to live life now and to seize its precious moments. What were the others? Little breathing machines who would press a button or not press it on command. They were the pilotless drones of the world.

He stared at the screen, ignoring his men. No matter what happened now, he knew he had taken life full and well. He had used that grand accident from Insta-Charge, and no matter what happened now, he was glad of it.

He remembered how his account showed a higher than proper balance. He remembered letting it be, sure that it would be caught. When it wasn't caught the next month, he telephoned the bank to say they had made not only one mistake, but two. They couldn't find the mistake. The money grew. It became a family joke, about how he was going to be a millionaire until some computer chip somewhere got to working correctly.

And then he met Valerie, laughing Valerie, darkhaired Valerie, who loved champagne and afternoons in fine cars and the Caribbean; Valerie, who just happened to have a flat tire and wouldn't accept help from just any airman.

"Look, I don't want to be picked up. I just have a flat tire."

"I'm not the sort who picks up strange women," said Lieutenant Colonel Armbrewster Naismith. "I am willing to help, but I do not pick up strange women."

"You said that so well," she said. She had that mellow California accent as if words just happened to come out along with the sweetness of her voice, taking a ride, so to speak, with the song of her presence.

"I don't like tires," she had said. "I don't like dirty things and I don't like mechanical things."

"Then why are you leaning so close?" he had said. She had worn the sort of perfume you didn't smell but sensed.

"Because I like men who do mechanical things," she said.

Naismith reached for a wrench. He felt something soft. It was too soft for a wrench. It was a thigh. Her name was Valerie and she didn't move her thigh. She didn't move it the first time he asked or the second. He didn't ask a third.

They met in a motel out of the state where his own men wouldn't see him. To keep everything above suspicion, Naismith used some of that computer money as he called it, money that had come into his bank account by a computer accident.

It was going to be a quickie, one passionate affair, remove that overwhelming sudden lust he could not control and then go home to his wife. The only thing quick about it was the time it took.

He started to apologize for being so premature. But Valerie did not mind. Valerie was like that. Beautiful and young, yet understanding in ways the colonel's wife could never comprehend. His wife called his snoring annoying and used earplugs. Valerie called it manly sleep. She was tired of boys and wanted a man. But she didn't like motels. She wanted a romantic weekend in Chicago. She wanted the Pump Room. She wanted the best hotels.

By the end of the month, the colonel had used up almost all the extra money and was thinking of cashing in stocks when his checking account did the miraculous. It came up with enough additional money to cover everything. It was one small step to the pair of matched Mercedeses, the property in the Caribbean, Valerie, and life. Above all, life.

He wanted to resign his Air Force commission but Valerie insisted he keep his job. Coming into the bunker became a torture. Dull men in dull uniforms with dull outlooks. He wanted to fly in the sun and all they wanted was to make sure all systems were functional.

He wanted to smell the grass. Valerie had taught him that. Smelling the grass. The others only used their noses when they smelled wiring burning. They drank beer and ate steak, and corn with butter was a big treat. What did they have to live for? Colonel Naismith asked himself this many times, but most of all, he asked it when the missile battery was alerted and his key was required to activate the system.

And if he didn't need his upcoming pension to add to his funds, he would not have turned it at all.

And then when he did, the screen flashed. It screamed silently:

FINAL. GO. GO. GO. CONFIRM GO. GO. GO.

The war was on.

Naismith had to press in the code to release the button to fire. There were three numbers and he hesitated over the first. The war was on. There was going to be nothing left of large parts of America. Would the battery itself be destroyed? He had sworn an oath. He pressed the first number and then the second and his hand trembled over the third. He felt his stomach jump and his hands were hot. He didn't know fingertips could sweat. He wiped his hands on his trousers.