The Day Before Midnight

letters?”

Walls burned with shame. He shut his eyes. He could feel the tears running down his face, hot and bright. He squished the phone so hard he thought it’d snap in two, or maybe melt.

“Terminal countdown has commenced,” said the white bitch, snooty and far off and so much better than him. He wanted to kill the white bitch.

“Yes, suh,” he said. “I know my letters pretty good.” He was speaking slow, like a goddamn houseboy.

“Ah, good, great, God, terrific,” came the voice. “Now, if we work together and trust each other and don’t panic, well be okay, we’ll have plenty of time, we can do it by the letters. Okay, son. We can get it done, there’s still time, okay?”

Walls could feel the panic flashing quick and bright under the man’s voice as it fought through his Adam’s apple and throat full of gunk.

“Yes, suh,” he said, yassing the man to death, giving him what he wanted to get him smiling, like he was five again, just yassing and yassing him to death, all smiles and charm and secret shame. “We do it real slow, don’t panic, we be okay, fine, yes, suh.”

“Okay,” said the voice, “now, if you’re at the phone, you’re sitting in the chair, right?”

“Yes, suh,” said Walls, sliding obediently in the chair.

“Now, start at the phone jack, where the cord fits into the wall. Look at it, okay?”

“Yes, suh.” He fixed his eyes on the plug where the cord went into the wall.

“Now lift your eyes about two inches. To the left is a little handle. Then there’s a ridge. And at the ridge the control console sort of leans away from you. It’s not a straight angle, but it’s leaning away, right?”

“Yes, suh.”

“Okay, now, on that leaning part — you’re looking at its extreme left-hand side now — on the leaning part there are all kinds of switches. There’s five groupings of two columns, ten columns in all. The column groupings are broken down so that there’s a group of six — three and three in two columns-then a group of eight, that’s four in each column, then a group of four, two in each column. And there’s five sets of them, right?”

Fuck you, Jack, thought Walls. Wrong. Wrong and wrong again, sucker. It was a maze, a gibberish of little white boxes, and switches and wires, a nightmare. He closed his eyes, hoping it would go away, or that it would become clear. When he opened them, he was still in the maze.

“Do you see?” demanded the voice.

“I don’t see nothing,” he said.

“Look at it! Goddamn you, bastard, look at it!”

He could hear sobbing on the other end, hysteria, panic, terror.

Walls looked back, tried to see — the switches dazzled and flickered before him, seeming to squiggle into shapes like some kind of strange animal, a shape changer, a germy thing in some movie where people got whacked and cut.

“Terminal countdown has commenced,” came the voice of the white bitch, sweet as sugar. “Terminal countdown has commenced.”

Then, yes, he had it! Goddamn motherfuck yesyesyes! he had it. The columns, two of them twinned, and each of them broken down into little groupings, five of them, each to its board.

“Goddamn, motherfuck!” he shouted. “Hey, man, I got the bitch, I got the motherfucker!”

“Great! Great, great, great!” shouted the voice. “Terrific. Now, it’s—”

And the line went dead.

“It’s dead, it’s dead, it’s dead,” Peter screeched. “Jesus, it’s dead.”

“Terminal countdown has commenced,” came Betty’s voice on the loudspeaker.

Someone grabbed him, a sergeant, to calm him down.

“Just take it easy,” he said.

Peter looked into the dead military eyes. Don’t you understand, he thought, don’t you see what’s happening? Do you realize what’s at stake here. It’s—

“They hit the phone juncture, Doctor. Look.”

It was the officer, pointing to a box high up on the wall exposed to Soviet fire. It had been mutilated by a burst, hinges blown off, the mechanical guts of the switching mechanisms shredded so that they hung out like entrails.

“Is there another phone?” the officer asked. “A phone inside that connector. Anything outside of it’s dead. But maybe there’s something inside.”

Phones! Who remembered phones! Peter, who’d once lived his life in the maze of the blueprints of the South Mountain installation, tried to sort out his phone memories, something he’d never looked at. But it was there! He remembered, it was there!

“Down the hall,” he said. “About twenty feet. There’s another phone. It’s just a little ways.”

Their unbelieving eyes looked at him.

“You’re wide open to the Soviet guns there, Doc.”

“The bird is going to fly, goddammit!” Peter said.

“Man, they’ll cut you apart.”

“I just need a minute on the damn phone.”

“We’ll give you covering fire,” said the officer. “We’ll give you all we’ve got.”

“I’ll go with him,” somebody said. “He’s going to need somebody up with him firing too.”

Peter looked. The soldier had a sheepish look under his filthy face, and some semblance of familiarity. Then Peter realized: he wasn’t a soldier at all, he was that young FBI agent Uckley. Now, what the hell was he doing down here?

“Let’s go,” said Peter.

He ran to the corner; around it was the Soviet gun position and the telephone. Across the way Delta operators were firing on the Soviets. The noise of the fire was loud and percussive and frightening. Peter hated it, hated it all: the guns, the loudness, the sense of danger heavy in the air, and most of all he hated his own fear, which was like a living presence within him. And he hated her, Betty who was Megan, who loved him and hated him and whom he could never please.

“Terminal countdown has commenced,” Megan said.

Uckley was next to him. He had two of the little German machine pistols with long clips, one for each hand. He looked scared too.

The Delta troopers on this side of the hall were busy clicking their bolts or whatever they had to do to fire.

“You ready, Doc?” came the call.

Peter could hardly find his voice. “Uh-huh,” he squeaked.

“Okay, Delta, on my mark,” said the young officer. “Go!”

The Delta operators jumped into the hall and began to fire down it. The noise rose and to Peter it sounded like someone rolling an oil drum half full of nuts and bolts down a metal stairwell. He had the impression, further, of dust gushing and roiling. He ran in panic, splashing through the water. The air was full of streaks and flashes. Clouds of mist rose. The corridor filled with screams. None of this made the slightest sense. He reached the niche in the wall where the phone was mounted, and attempted to squeeze into it. A bullet hit close by, evicting a plug of cement from the wall, which stung him. Bullets were striking all over the place. There was something freakish, almost paranormal, in their rapidity. They flittered like insects, popping off the walls and kicking up gouts of water on the floor. Next to him the man Uckley was firing bursts from both guns simultaneously, and squeezing in on him, putting his body between the Russian fire and himself. He was squished into the darkness of the wall by Uckley’s warmth.

He picked up the phone.

It was dead.

He panicked, then thought to look at the receiver, saw that it was on a different line, punched the button, and the dial tone leapt into his ear.

“Hurry,” screamed Uckley, firing.

“Terminal countdown has commenced,” said Megan.