Rather than heading for the warm building, Cyndi walked over to a black metal object mounted on a short post. It resembled the combination of a spinning bingo drum and a barbecue grill.
She slipped the paper with the entry code through a slit in the cage, along with the red envelope. Then she pushed a button. With a loud swoosh, flames ignited inside the cage. Seconds later, the classified information was reduced to ashes. Cyndi used a crank handle on the side to rotate the drum. Rocks inside pulverized the ashes, making it impossible to ever piece the remains back together. Lastly, Cyndi scooped out the ashes and tossed them into the air. Strong wind scattered the tiny grains of burned paper across the yard, mixing with billions of other grains.
Consensus among missile crews was that the person who’d devised this cumbersome code-burning routine had watched far too many spy movies.
On the way to the building, they walked by the 110-ton concrete slab covering the silo that protected the missile from the damaging effects of a nearby nuclear blast. Two parallel steel rails led away from the cover. They provided a path for the cover to quickly retract across when it came time to launch.
In case anyone working at the site was uncertain why they were there, stenciled on the silo cover were the words: MISSILE, NUCLEAR, 475Kt. On the next line came the glaringly obvious warning—USE CAUTION.
An unnerving sound—like the low guttural growl of a predator preparing to strike—emanated from the silo.
Lance put his index finger to his lips as if asking for silence. He gently patted the concrete blast cover as he walked past it. “Down, boy.”
At the door to the building, Cyndi waved her military ID in front of a badge scanner. It let out two short beeps. A small hidden door on the wall opened, and a retinal scanner slid out. Cyndi put her face up to it. A vertical beam of green light swept across. The door unlocked and opened.
Chapter Eighteen
Cyndi and Lance entered the inconspicuous-looking building. The facility that had once bustled with activity now had the eerie ambiance of a haunted house. Cobwebs had formed in the corners of doorways. A layer of dust coated every surface. Stale air greeted every breath.
The interior decorator had apparently graduated from the School of Utilitarian Design. They walked past the TV room where support crews had spent countless hours warding off the monotony. Lance dragged his finger along the dusty vinyl top covering a pool table. Rolled up mattresses sat on rusting metal-frame bunkbeds in sleeping rooms.
An uninitiated visitor would have never known a hardened bunker capable of kicking off World War III was buried sixty feet beneath their feet.
Unlike the game of horseshoes, close enough with a ten-megaton Russian nuclear warhead was measured in miles. The building, and its occupants, would have been vaporized by a Russian nuke landing anywhere nearby.
Only a direct hit could destroy the underground bunker.
The missile launch officers went to a room in the back of the building and boarded a freight elevator. There were no markings indicating where the elevator led. Cyndi pulled the rusted steel lattice door closed and pushed the only button on the control panel. Thirty seconds later, they stepped out of the elevator.
Fifty years without a sliver of sunlight ever making its way into this subterranean fortress had created a veritable petri dish of nauseating odors. The powerful smell of diesel oil, mold, and dank, stale air assaulted their nostrils. The remaining unidentified odors present would take a team of scientists from a secret government lab to correctly classify.
They were standing in a large, dimly lit area containing machinery that kept the facility operating. A long hallway to the right had various rooms on each side. At the end was a massive steel blast door that looked like a bank vault door on steroids. On the other side was a space so top secret that the public was only allowed to see sanitized, official Air Force pictures of it.
The first ICBMs had gone online back in 1961. The atomic club is so exclusive, more people will get hit by lightning in a single year than the total number of Americans who’ve ever been missile launch officers.
As they walked toward the blast door Lance ducked into a small room that served as a kitchen to drop off the food.
“Hey, Lancelot, read the sign!” Cyndi called out.
He stuck his head out of the room. “It’s Lance,” he said with a clenched jaw. “Only my mother is allowed to call me that.”
She pointed to a sign on the wall. NO-LONE ZONE. TWO-MAN CONCEPT MANDATORY.
The most sacrosanct rule in the long list of regulations designed to protect nuclear weapons was a requirement that no one ever be alone, even temporarily, in any area associated with nukes. The rule eliminated any opportunities for sabotage or an unauthorized launch attempt. By ducking into the kitchen, Lance had momentarily left Cyndi’s sight.
“Sorry, my bad.” Lance waited for her to join him. He pulled the box of food out of his backpack, plopped it onto the table, and opened the lid. “Let’s see what delicacies we have today.”
In the typical missile alert facility, a cook was included in the above-ground staff. Getting hot meals prepared by a talented chef made the difference between a tolerable alert shift and a dismal one. Since Alpha One was fully autonomous, their only sustenance for the next twenty-four hours would come from the cardboard box.
Lance peered down into the box and nodded approvingly. “Nice. T-bone steaks, eggs, bacon, caviar.”
“Let me see that.” Cyndi nudged Lance aside and dumped out the contents on the table. Bottles of water, bananas, and stale turkey sandwiches wrapped in cellophane tumbled out. “Wonderful,” Cyndi said sarcastically. “Just what
