Die Trying

They were fully dressed on their bunks. They got up and yawned. Came down the ladder and found Webster standing there with Johnson and his aide. Garber standing behind them.
    “The telephone line is done,” Webster said.
    “Already?” Brogan said. “I thought it was being done in the morning.”
    “We figured sooner was better than later,” Webster said. He inclined his head toward General Johnson. It was a gesture which said: he’s worried, right?
    “OK,” Milosevic said. “We’ll look after it.”
    “Wake us at eight,” Webster said. “Or earlier if necessary, OK?”
    Brogan nodded and walked north to the command vehicle. Milosevic followed. They paused together for a look at the mountains in the moonlight. As they paused, the fax machine inside the empty command trailer started whirring. It fed its first communication face upward into the message tray. It was ten to five in the morning, Friday the fourth of July.

    BROGAN WOKE GENERAL Johnson an hour and ten minutes later, six o’clock exactly. He knocked loudly on the accommodation trailer door and got no response, so he went in and shook the old guy by the shoulder.
    “Peterson Air Force Base, sir,” Brogan said. “They need to talk to you.”
    Johnson staggered up to the command vehicle in his shirt and pants. Milosevic joined Brogan outside in the predawn glow to give him some privacy. Johnson was back out in five minutes.
    “We need a conference,” he called.
    He ducked back into the trailer. Milosevic walked down and roused the others. They came forward, Webster and the General’s aide yawning and stretching, Garber ramrod-straight. McGrath was dressed and smoking. Maybe hadn’t tried to sleep at all. They filed up the ladder and took their places around the table, bleak red eyes, hair fuzzed on the back from the pillows.
    “Peterson called,” Johnson told them. “They’re sending a helicopter search-and-rescue out, first light, looking for the missile unit.”
    His aide nodded.
    “That would be standard procedure,” he said.
    “Based on an assumption,” Johnson said. “They think the unit has suffered some kind of mechanical and electrical malfunction.”
    “Which is not uncommon,” his aide said. “If their radio fails, their procedure would be to repair it. If a truck also broke down at the same time, their procedure would be to wait as a group for assistance.”
    “Circle the wagons?” McGrath asked.
    The aide nodded again.
    “Exactly so,” he said. “They would pull off the road and wait for a chopper.”
    “So do we tell them?” McGrath asked.
    The aide sat forward.
    “That’s the question,” he said. “Tell them what exactly? We don’t even know for sure that these maniacs have got them at all. It’s still possible it’s just a radio problem and a truck problem together.”
    “Dream on,” Johnson said.
    Webster shrugged. He knew how to deal with such issues.
    “What’s the upside?” he said.
    “There is no upside,” Johnson said. “We tell Peterson the missiles have been captured, the cat’s out of the bag, we lose control of the situation, we’re seen to have disobeyed Washington by making an issue out of it before Monday.”
    “OK, so what’s the downside?” Webster asked.
    “Theoretical,” Johnson said. “We have to assume they’ve been captured, so we also have to assume they’ve been well hidden. In which case the Air Force will never find them. They’ll just fly around for a while and then go home and wait.”
    Webster nodded.
    “OK,” he said. “No upside, no downside, no problem.”
    There was a short silence.
    “So we sit tight,” Johnson said. “We let the chopper fly.”
    McGrath shook his head. Incredulous.
    “Suppose they use them to shoot the chopper down?” he asked.
    The General’s aide smiled an indulgent smile.
    “Can’t be done,” he said. “The IFF wouldn’t allow it.”
    “IFF?” McGrath repeated.
    “Identify Friend or Foe,” the aide said. “It’s an electronic system. The chopper will be beaming a signal. The missile reads it as friendly, refuses to launch.”
    “Guaranteed?” McGrath asked.
    The aide nodded.
    “Foolproof,” he said.
    Garber glowered at him. But he said nothing. Not his field of expertise.
    “OK,” Webster said. “Back to bed. Wake us again at eight, Brogan.”

    ON THE TARMAC at Peterson, a Boeing CH-47D Chinook was warming its engines and sipping the first of its eight hundred and fifty-eight gallons of fuel. A