The Day Before Midnight

just can’t get you in there. No one can, goddamn you.”

Peter thought he might weep. The sense of helpless rage filled him. So this was it, then. Another two or so minutes, and Pashin had won. Pashin was smarter. Though Peter wondered why he didn’t just turn the keys now and get it over with, if he had ’em both in. And he had to have them both, or he couldn’t have initiated the robot launch sequence.

Then he realized: Pashin must be dead.

“Look,” he said suddenly. “Our guys are in there. They have to be. Some Delta guys are in there, goddammit. We wouldn’t be where we are if this Russian had gotten the keys out and put them in the slot, because he’d have turned them. But somebody stopped him, and that’s why we’re here, don’t you see? Somebody blew his ass away at the last moment, but the keys were already in. We’ve got guys in there, goddammit.”

The officer looked at him.

“We have an authenticated launch command,” said Betty on the loudspeaker. “We are commencing terminal countdown phase. Launch is three minutes and counting.”

“So call him,” said the officer.

“Huh?”

“Call him. On the phone. Look, in the wall there. Isn’t that a phone?”

Peter looked. The simplicity of it was stupendous. Yes! Call him!

He picked the phone up and dialed L-5454.

Walls stared at the board, bright with lights. The room seemed full of white ghosts. The motherfuckers were dead and they were going to kill the world anyway. White people! Assholes.

He gripped his shotgun, threw the slide, felt a shell click into the chamber. He’d blow a hole in the controls, that’d stop it! But he didn’t know where to shoot.

He stood staring at the board furiously, hating himself for being so stupid. The room made him feel like nothing. He didn’t know what to do.

“Terminal countdown is commencing,” the white lady was saying on the radio or whatever.

Damn the bitch!

Suddenly, there was a shrill beeping.

Made his ass jump!

“Terminal countdown is commencing,” the white bitch said again.

He picked up the phone.

“Yes,” said Peter, shrieking almost with the excitement. “Yes, Jesus, who is this?”

“Walls,” the voice said.

Some Delta people had gathered around Peter. He cupped the receiver.

“He’s in there!” he shrieked. “God, a guy is in there. Walls. Anybody know a Walls?”

“There’s no Walls in Delta,” said the officer.

“Son, listen,” said Peter on the phone, “are you Delta?”

There was no answer. Oh, Christ, had he—

“Uh — I come through the tunnel, man. You know, from underground.”

“Jesus,” Peter said, “he’s one of the rats. He got in from underneath. Listen, son, what’s the situation there?”

“Man, I think this rocket fixing to go off. Lights blinkin’, shit like that. Man, I blow the controls away with —”

“No, God, no!” shrieked Peter. “Don’t shoot anything. Throw the gun away.”

“Yo, okay.”

Peter heard the crash as the gun was tossed.

“Is the door locked?”

“Yes, suh. Them guys, whoever the fuck, don’t want them gettin’ in—”

“Listen, Walls. Listen to me carefully now, please, son. You can stop it.”

Peter’s heart was pounding. He was gripping the phone so hard he thought he’d choke it. “Yes, listen. You’ve got five labeled keys to hit in the proper sequence. All you have to do is listen, and read the labels, it’s very simple, very easy. All set. Are you all set?”

There was a long silence, heavy and still.

Peter could hear the firing. He could hear the tick of seconds, too, running off, on the way to forever.

“Son?” he asked again, and thought he heard a sob or something.

“Son? Are you there? Are you there?”

Finally the voice came.

“Then we fucked,” it said. “‘Cause I can’t read.”

She shot Arbatov twice. The first bullet hit him over the heart, blowing through the subcutaneous tissue, the muscle, ripping up a lung and nicking his shoulder blade before exiting with a terrible vengeance through the back. The second hit farther down, between two ribs, and plunged through the organs of his belly, terrible, terrible damage. Then he was on her, crushed her to the ground, and spitting blood, began to punch her in the face and head. Somehow he got the gun out of her hand, got it into his fist, and beat her savagely with it. When her eyes went blank he stopped beating her, and rolled off against the wall. He wasn’t sure if she was dead and he didn’t care. It wasn’t important. He was surprised how much blood was in him. It poured out. Shock, numbing and narcotic, rippled through him. He had an image in his head of golden wheat weaving in the sun and had a terrible impulse to lay his head down and rest for a time. But instead, the numbness in the stomach wound began to wear off and the pain was extraordinary. He couldn’t make much sense out of what was happening.

Bomb, something about a bomb. An atom bomb, that was. Slightly moot now, however, since he seemed to be dying.

He forced his head to turn, and yes, from the lurid play of light on the ceiling he could see that the numbers of the timing device were rushing onward toward 0000. Gregor thought he should get over there. Thus he ordered his reluctant body to topple forward. Like a tree it went. It hit the floor with a thud, and his ears rang, though there wasn’t much pain. He began — somehow — to crawl through his own blood toward the thing, having no idea what he’d do if he actually got there.

Damn you, Pashin, you took from me the one woman I loved. And also my life. Goddamn you, Pashin.

Hate was helpful because hate was energy. He began to crawl, but the damned thing was still far off.

Words. Goddamn motherfuckin’ white-boy words.

Their shapes were like snakes or bugs, maybe. They swirled and coiled and twisted about him. Everywhere he looked he could see words on little black plastic plates that stared at him. They were meaningless. They had no mercy, they never had, the motherfuckers.

“Walls? Walls, are you there?” the voice came over the phone. It was twisted with urgency. It connected with so much. All the times white people had looked at him, their features quizzically perturbed. Son, can’t you read? Son, the world is a threatening place to a young man who cannot read. Boy, you’d better learn your ABC’s, or you’ll stay black and dumb and be one of the little streetcorner fucks forever and ever.

“Son?”

“Yes, suh,” Walls said, hot and bent with shame and furious hatred — some for himself, and some for this Mister White Man with his concerned voice, and some for whoever had put him in this white man’s room with the seconds running out and some bad motherfuckin’ shit about to go down.

“Uh, son, tell me,” the voice asked, trying to stay calm, odd currents firing through it. Walls had heard this voice a million times. It was a white guy who’d just realized he was dealing with Mr. Dumbjiveassniggerboy, but also knew if he pissed Mr. D. off, Mr. D. he take top of the motherfucker’s head off, and so going real poh-lite, you know, like real sloooow, so as not to rile him.

“Uh, son, do you know the letters? Do you know your alphabet? Not words, now, but do you recognize the