One Second Per Second

look at each other. No words are spoken. Abioye, who is usually the epitome of calm and cold reason, is biting her fingernails. We may find out what her talk-out-loud voice sounds like before the night is over. I begin to rock in my chair and immediately get a disapproving look from Gallie. Is it too late to come up with a better plan? One slightly less insane than the guy we’re trying to neutralize? Yes, it is too late. It’s much too late. I rock again. Gallie will just have to deal with it. Nothing is in our hands at this point. We decided on it, we planned it, we brought together the team to deploy it, and now what the plan requires is that we sit dumbly and wish that we’d kept in touch with a god to pray to. The Air Force crest has vanished and now the screen is dark and grainy but for yellow digits in the top left corner counting down from 4 minutes and 12 seconds. I hear indistinct voices in the background and over them Ahmed announces “Four minutes.” Right here we seem to be breaking the one second per second rule in that this seems eternal. Prasad stands and leans against the wall. I see Gallie is now rocking in her chair and I shake my head at her. She smiles.

In the grainy image an object becomes discernible and a crosshairs appears on it. “Target fixed,” Ahmed says. The object is the outline of the Leatown Resort and Spa. If only those poor bastards knew.

“The evacuation happened?” I ask.

“Of course it did,” Zhivov replies. “As far as we know. Just relax Toad.” This means that the resort occupants had been bussed away en masse (“as far as we know”) in response to a fake bomb threat, although fake is not exactly the right word here. I stand up and pace.

“Accel flight positioned,” I hear Ahmed say. Then I hear a second voice.

“Confirm, Kellerman,” she says. I know her voice from the drills, but not her name. She’s the commander of the second aircraft–the one carrying the accelerator. Hell, this can’t work. What were we thinking? “Euler orientation for accel is set and confirmed.” Okay, this ensures the missile has the same orientation after it’s acceled and comes out the other side–if it works.

“Four, three, two, ...” Ahmed counts down “... one, launch.” I hear a faint voice saying launch confirmed. A set of numbers appears at the bottom on the monitor. The first figure is the elevation of the missile. That’s the one that has all my attention. If that number hits zero, then a resort and spa becomes a crater. “Eleven seconds to accel ... ten, nine ... standing by to switch homing signal ... seven, ...” Okay, so at the moment of acceleration, the homing system needs to deactivate and then reactivate, and then the destination becomes an eighteenth century mansion instead of a twentieth century spa. In theory, just fine, provided the missile comes out at the correct orientation. “ ... five, four three, ...”

“Targeted.” It’s the woman’s voice. I’m tracking: 17,000 feet, 16,000 feet. “Beam on,” she says. I’m not breathing. 15,000 feet, 14,000 feet. Jesus. Way too low. “That’s a miss,” she says calmly.

“Fuck,” Zhivov says just before me. Abioye jumps to her feet.

“Instruct to abort?” Ahmed asks. At least it sounds like a question.

“Negative, retargeting.” 12,000 feet, 11,000 feet. My hands are on my head and my heart is hammering hard on my rib cage. 10,000 feet. “That’s a hit.” The elevation counter freezes at 10,000 feet.

“Agghh,” I shout, but it’s drowned by cheers. Gallie grabs me for a tight hug. Prasad’s fists are raised in victory and Abioye’s hands part so we can see her face again.

“That was some bullshit,” Zhivov says.

“Bullshit indeed,” says Prasad. Then Gallie shushes us as the female voice begins to report out.

“Orientation, spatial and temporal coordinates all within tolerance,” she says with a casual professionalism. “Sorry about the hiccup.” This woman must have liquid nitrogen in her arteries. In my mind’s eye I see the fireball that devours the mansion and its arsenal. I see Asmus evaporate at its white hot core. I see the barn untouched and its occupants enjoying the fireworks. I see a smoldering crater. It would be more than nice if what I’m seeing anything approaches what actually happened.

 

 

 

FORTY-FIVE

There’s a certain joie de vivre among us that’s probably unjustified, but I’ll take it. The strike was timed for one week (local time) after the day Gallie, Bess and I escaped. The thinking was that that was enough margin to ensure a slight temporal miss wouldn’t put us in the target zone. The temporal logic of that thinking is a quagmire but I couldn’t have begun to come up with a counterargument. Then, the rescue mission is timed for three days after the strike. Again, that gives some margin, but not too much because the TMAers are not the survivalist types. Of course, three days on the far end translates to as much time as we need at our end. We just need to program the accelerators to land at the right time and place.

In the euphoric aftermath of the strike, Abioye and Prasad relax the lockdown. They’re not dumb enough to think that Asmus or his goons wouldn’t have plenty of time between our escape and the strike to come after us. But they’re not immune to the zeitgeist of the moment and must have figured they’d take a few risks.

I could have visited the Bevans again–my home, my father’s bar, myself. The thought of introducing Bess to my dad was an amusing one. A weakness of mine has always been that I’m prone to act on amusing thoughts. Profound thoughts, compassionate thoughts, pragmatic thoughts, spiritual thoughts, creative thoughts, erotic thoughts are all fine, but any imbecile can