The Day Before Midnight

thousand pounds p.s.i. It’ll stop everything except one of the old super H-bombs. And it’s surrounded by ten million square feet of rock.”

“So a man couldn’t get in from below? Or get close enough to plant a small-yield nuclear device. I mean, theoretically?”

“In twelve hours?”

“Yes.”

“Well, if he could get up there, I suppose … this is highly abstract, but theoretically, I guess he could get in through the exhaust vanes, tubes that will blow out if the bird fires. That would get him into the silo, and if he had a device or the knowhow, he could disable the bird that way. Theoretically, at any rate.”

“Now, Mr. Brady. These tunnels that may be in this mountain. What sort of shape would they be in?”

“Worse damn shape than you could imagine, Mr. Puller,” said the old man, pausing to hawk up a wad of phlegm. “Some of ’em may go nowhere. Some places they may narrow down so small a man couldn’t get his fist through ‘em. And black, Mr. Puller. So black you can’t imagine. You have to be underground for dark like that.”

“Could men operate down there?”

“Wooooo, Mr. Puller. You wouldn’t want to. It’d have to be a certain kind of man. Down there in the dark, you’re always scared. If the ceiling goes, there’s no help for you. You can’t see, you can hardly move. You’ve always got shit in your pants, Mr. Puller. A tunnel sits on top of your head something mighty heavy.”

Puller sat back. Outside he had one hundred twenty of the most highly trained military specialists in the world. Yet somehow he knew Delta Force wasn’t the answer. This called for someone who probably didn’t exist; a man who could slither up a hole in a mountain in the fetid shroud of perpetual night, a mile and a half with his fears bouncing around inside his head like a brass cannonball, and come out at the end sane and …

“I suppose I could get some volunteers from Delta. Mr. Brady, any coal miners around, men who’ve been underground?”

“Not in these parts, Mr. Puller. Not anymore. Not since the cave-in.”

“Hmmm,” Dick Puller said again. Peter watched him. Puller seemed to implode on himself as he thought, his face gray, his eyes locked on nothing. It was old Mr. Brady who spoke.

“Now, my grandson, Tim. Tim, he could get you in there.”

Dick looked at him.

“Tim wasn’t much good at nothing, but he was your natural-born tunnel man. Wasn’t no hole ever made he was afraid of. His daddy, my son Ralph, was a miner and Tim grew up near holes. When Ralph died in a fire in ’fifty-nine, Tim came to me. I was a state mine inspector up in West Virginia by that time, and Tim went into a lot of holes with me. Tim was a tunnel man.”

“Where is Tim?” Puller asked, almost fearing the answer.

“Well, you folks had yourself a war few years back. Old Tim, he was asked to go fight it, and fight it he did. Won some medals. Crawled in some holes and did some killing. Tim was what you call your tunnel rat. He was with 25th Infantry, place called Cu Chi. Those little yellow people built some tunnels, too, and Tim and his pals went down into ’em day after day, month after month. Not many of those men left alive. Tim didn’t make it back, Mr. Puller. Not outside of a body bag, that is.”

Puller looked at Peter Thiokol. He smiled.

“Tunnel rats,” he said, turning the phrase over in his mind, absorbed. “Tunnel rats.”

The major was deliriously happy. He was an excellent soldier and he loved battle. He loved to think about it, to dream about it, to plan for it, and to fight it. Now he scurried over the hill checking on his men with the boundless energy of a fourteen-year-old boy.

“Any movements?”

“No, sir. It’s quiet.”

“You know, it might be Marine Recon or Special Forces. Camouflage experts. You wouldn’t see them until it was too late.”

“No, sir. There’s nothing out there yet. Only state policemen, more to keep civilians out than to attack us.”

His soldiers were young but well trained and especially eager. The very best. No amateurs here. Men who wanted to be here, who believed. They were wonderful boys, in their dappled uniforms under the snow smocks, their equipment hard and clean, their faces clean-shaven, their eyes keen. They’d gotten the big tent up in two hours and were now digging under it furiously. The tent itself was not an impressive structure, but it had been constructed for a specific purpose and for that purpose it was perfect. The tent rose on poles no more than five feet off the ground and the various sheets of canvas that had been crudely lashed together to form it came, in the end, to about 2,000 square feet. It was meant for only one thing: privacy. Underneath, the major’s men labored mightily to create their little surprise for anyone coming up to them. They’d learned about it firsthand, and they were eager to apply it to other new learners.

Meanwhile, at the outer perimeter of the position, breastworks had been constructed around the heavy machine-gun positions and a single firing trench had been dug. The trucks had brought the ammunition, nearly a million rounds. Hold off an army.

He dashed from position to position, checking lanes of fire and, more important, resolve.

“How do we feel? Do we feel strong and brave?”

“Yessir. Strong and brave and well-prepared.”

“It’s going well, then. It is going as we planned it. It’s all on schedule. It’s working. We can all be proud. We’ve worked so hard, and it’s all paying off.”

He had designed well. Only napalm could get them out, and the Army couldn’t use napalm because napalm would melt the big computer. No, they’d have to come up and do it with lead. Close-in, hand-to-hand. A real battle.

At one point, at the crest of the mountain, one of the lookouts told him about the helicopters.

“About twelve of them, sir. To the east. They fell in and landed.”

The major looked through his binoculars. He could see quite a little force gathering its strength a mile away, down in the snowy meadow by some jerry-built buildings. The twelve choppers sat in formation; there was some kind of communications trailer, and even as he watched, a convoy of trucks pulled in. Men hustled and bustled. Someone had erected a big tent with a huge red cross on its sloping roof. More and more cars pulled up, and occasionally a helicopter would land or depart.

“They’re getting ready, no doubt about it. An air assault. Of course. That’s how I’d do it, at any rate.”

“When, sir?”

“Actually, I’m impressed. Whoever is running their show knows what he is doing. The general and I assumed their first attack would come in the first three hours, and that it would be badly coordinated and ill planned. A lot of smoke and fire, a lot of casualties, no concrete results. But whoever’s down there is waiting. He wants his assault to count. Helicopters—”

“Airplanes high above, sir. We catch the glint in the sun occasionally.”

“Yes, an electronic eavesdropper. Be careful what you say, boys. They’re listening. And they’re taking pictures. Of our beautiful big tent.”

His men laughed.

For the major the pleasure was intense. He had hunted guerrillas for years: dreadful scrapes, ranging across the countryside. Occasionally, the enemy would catch a trooper and leave a trail of his guts for miles until you finally came across the gristle and bone that was left of him. It was so hard to close with the bastards: they melted away into an alien landscape. You could torture their women and remove their children, but they were always there, just out of reach.

But not now. Now we’re on the mountain, and they’ve got to come up to us. He had a real battle to fight: a hill to hold for a period of time, a real mission.

“Look for planes first,” he told them. “We know they have A-10s in the region, in Baltimore. They’ll come low over the mountains. They’ll soften us up with those. Then the choppers. You’ll see the choppers swarm up. The A- 10s will hold us down while the choppers ferry men in close. The men will rappel down to the road, because the choppers won’t land. It should be Delta Force, very good men, the best. They’ll be very aggressive. But they’ll be stupid, you’ll see.” He smiled. “It’ll be a great fight, I promise you that. Oh, it’ll be a great fight, boys. One they’ll