Deep in the Montana missile silo, it didn’t matter whether it was night or day. Only the clock told Melissa Lange and her co-team member, Shirley Cochrane, that it was 1730 hours. Having received the command, Melissa sat in the high-backed, red upholstered chair, slid it forward on its glide rails and buckled up, waiting for Shirley. When Melissa heard the click, she began the litany. “Hands on keys. Key them on my mark. Three — two — one — mark.” Both watched the clock, its long, white second hand having passed zero and now sweeping to ten seconds before 1731.
“Light on,” confirmed Shirley. “Light off.” The second ten seconds passed, both women tense. “Hands on keys,” instructed Melissa.
“Hands on keys,” came Shirley’s confirmation.
“Initiate on my mark. Five, four, three, two, one. Now, I’ll watch the clock.”
“I’ve got the light,” said Shirley. “Light on. Light off.”
“Release key,” ordered Melissa.
“Key released.”
They waited for the launch code to come in, their one-crew key-turn having initiated only one “vote” in the launch process. The ringing, indicating “launch message coming through,” sounded like an old telex chattering inside a metal box. They were now on “standby,” requiring another vote from another LCC — launch control center — in order to go to “strategic alert,” the yellow lights changing to white as they moved from the “key release” waiting mode to “launch-fire-release” mode, after which the five nuclear warheads would be sent streaking toward their targets, their “infinity” delay shifting to a ten-second delay from target, each of the two women praying for the ILC — inhibit launch command’—to be activated instead of the “valid” word/numeral message for Armageddon.
They began to relax, waiting for the instructor to call it off and tell them it was a drill. Suddenly there was a high-pitched electronic tone and a man’s even, modulated voice above a sizzle of static. “Charlie… Tango… Papa… Sierra… Oscar. Stand by. Message follows.” Then came the repeat, “Message follows.”
Both women, heads bent, pencils poised, waited, then they began to copy. “Victor… November… Uniform… Oscar… Charlie… Tango… Hotel… X-ray… Sierra… Papa… Papa… Lima… Two… Seven… November. Foxtrot… Echo… One… Lima. Acknowledge.”
“Copied,” said Shirley, her voice without a quaver. “I see a valid message.”
“I agree,” confirmed Melissa. “Go to step one checklist. Launch keys inserted.” Both women unbuckled, went to the midpoint “red” box. As Melissa and Shirley each took out her respective round, red-tagged brass key, their eyes did not meet. Both returned to their consoles, flipped aside the plastic safety cover, inserted the keys, and then buckled up once more in their seats. “Ready,” said Melissa.
“Ready.”
“Okay, hold it!” said the instructor. “It’s a drill.” Melissa felt her whole body sag, then she sat up briskly again so as not to show it.
“Shirley,” said the instructor. “What’s the matter with your chair? You wasted three seconds back there.”
“Don’t know sir. Strap won’t reach…”
“Give it play. Let the strap run back and pull it right out again. Just like you do in your automobile.”
Shirley gave the strap more play. This time the buckle clicked in.
“Damn belt,” Shirley complained to Melissa as the door of the silo elevator shut silently and they began to rise. “Happens to me all the time.”
“I’ve had the same problem. Something wrong with that seat,” said Melissa. “The guide rails. Don’t worry, they’ll fix it. Wasn’t your fault. You were cool as a cucumber down there.”
“Oh yeah?” said Shirley, slipping into her cheeky Harlem accent. “Were you?”
Melissa thought for a second, wondering if the elevator was bugged. Would they do that? She looked across at Shirley and shook her head.
Shirley burst out laughing. “I wet my pants, honey.”
They rode the rest of the way in silence, relieved the drill was over but still too tense to come down from the adrenaline high.
As the air force van slowed to drop them off at their shared bungalow, Shirley’s boyfriend, a junior lieutenant from the silo complex HQ, was waiting in his car, its exhaust blowing clouds of steam high into the frozen air, and Melissa could feel the steady thump, thump, thump of the stereo as she got out of the base van, the frigid blast of air hitting her like a sheet of ice.
“Hi,” she heard Shirley call out to the boyfriend. “Come on inside!”
He shook his head, sliding the window down a fraction. “Kiloton’s in there. Doing some repair work. Didn’t think I should go in. Anybody knows you gave me a key—”
“Well,” said Shirley, walking over to his car, “you can come in now, can’t you?”
He looked anxiously at his watch. “We’re gonna miss that movie.”
“Okay,” Shirley called out, “give me a couple of minutes.”
Already inside, Melissa saw the jack-of-all-trades repairman known on the base as “Killerton.” He turned around, his bodybuilder’s torso threatening to burst the coveralls, a clump of chest hair so prominent, it made her look away.
“Didn’t think anyone’d be home,” said Killerton, grinning, his smile immediately suggestive, a shock of black hair as dark as that on his chest, Melissa noticed. Melissa shook the snow off her boots, still shivering and not knowing quite what to say to the repairman, not that there was anything unusual about him being there. Base personnel often requested repairs, and the workmen were issued a key. Happened all the time. She didn’t have to say anything to him. Just fix the damn ceiling tile and roof.
“Requisition,” said Killerton, holding up the pink slip from his toolbox for Melissa to see.
Shirley came in, snowflakes racing after her. “Hi, Killer. Didn’t see your truck.”
“Round the back.”
“You fix that sucker?”
“Workin’ on it. You got a leak, all right, coming right through the flashing.” He indicated the spot with a full-sized hammer that looked like a toy in his hands.
“Uh-huh,” commented Shirley, uninterested, taking off her parka.
“Can’t see it from there,” he said, looking over at them.
“Well, I tell ya, Killer,” said Shirley, “I’m not into roofs, man.” She disappeared into the bathroom. “Show Melissa.”
“Don’t bother,” Melissa said quickly. “I’m not into roofs either.” Shirley was calling out from the bathroom, “ Lissa— you and Stacy coming to the movie?”
“Rick’s probably still on his solo.”
“So? Give him a call. If you two are still talking, that is.”
Melissa didn’t answer, and out of the corner of her eye she could see Killerton with a grouting gun, testing the nozzle against his hand, wiping the putty off on his coveralls as Melissa dialed Stacy’s bungalow. Outside, the wind was picking up, throwing peppercorn-sized snow hard against the panes. No answer from Stacy’s bungalow.
“He’s not there,” Melissa told Shirley.
“Come with us, then.”
“No, thanks. Three’s a crowd. I don’t think your beau would appreciate—”
“Beau! Honey, he’ll do what he’s told or else.”
“No, thanks. I feel zapped anyway. I’ll wander down to the PX later on. See you there.”
Shirley was out of the bathroom, walking back to the door and pulling on her anorak. “Well, rug up, honey. Freeze your butt off out there.”
“I will.”
“ ‘Bye.”
The moment the door slammed shut, Melissa wished she’d gone with her.
“I won’t be long,” said Killerton.
“Fine.”
Melissa sat down and switched on the TV, but the repairman’s presence made her feel uncomfortable. Although he seemed to be patching the leak, smoothing it off, Melissa felt he was watching her. She was starting to get annoyed, but it was really her own guilt for having requested base repairs in the fight with Stacy. She should have left it for Rick to do instead of being petty about it.
“Worse then I thought,” said Killerton. “Wood’s rotten in here. Wormed right through.”
“Oh?” said Melissa, uninterested, but adding politely, “Thought it’d be too cold for them.”
“Sure, now it is, but summertime it’s hotter’n a pistol out here. No, this is old damage. I’m gonna have to fill in more holes than I thought.”
Melissa said nothing and changed channels. A commercial for “Rocky Mountain Bottled Water” blurted out, with a jingle she despised.
“The war’s the best thing that ever happened to ‘em,” said Killerton.
Melissa looked over at him. He was reloading the caulking gun with a new tube, but did it with such dexterity and long experience, he didn’t even glance at it, looking at Melissa, explaining, “War’s kicked the ass out of all the Europeans. Destroyed fuckin’ Perrier, and now with most of our water poisoned — hell, Rocky Mountain can jerk us off any way they like.” He was still smiling and she was flustered. The bad language was nothing she hadn’t heard before, but he seemed to be throwing it down like a gauntlet — to see how she’d react.
“Feeling pretty thirsty myself,” he said.
“Would you like a Coke?” she asked, for want of anything better to say.
“Beer if you’ve got it.”
She went over to the kitchenette, took a Coors from the fridge, and passed it to him. Still looking at her, he tore the tab off with his teeth.
Revolting, she thought — a big, hairy adolescent right out of Animal House. It was the kind of comment David might have made. And Rick. It was about the only thing Rick and David had in common — a disdain for the gross macho bit. Yet, try as she might, she couldn’t deny in her a sense of danger, of excitement, around Killerton. With a man like this, she knew you could let yourself go completely. Mind you, it could never be a permanent thing.
She heard the click of the toolbox.