DEADLY DILEMMA by Dan Stratman (story read aloud .txt) 📗

Cyndi said, looking for an excuse to avoid voicing her true feelings. “They’re so different. And you know I can’t cook.”

“Trust me, I know. But I was only in the hospital for two days after you made dinner for me. It’s no big deal. We’ll order out.” He took her hand. “Look, if the Air Force trusts you with the key to unleash Armageddon, I figure I can trust you with the key to my”—a growing blush spread across his handsome face—“my apartment.”

“Your…apartment. Right.” Her twinkling blue eyes smiled. “I’d sure hate to disappoint Rocko. He’s much more sensitive than he lets on.” Cyndi leaned forward and reached for the key.

Suddenly, the ear-splitting sound of a klaxon blasted out from speakers in the LCC. They bolted up from their chairs, bumping the table.

The key to Lance’s apartment tumbled to the floor.

The table toppled over, crushing the rabbit’s foot.

Chapter Twenty-Two

“Close the blast door!” Cyndi yelled as they sprinted into the LCC.

Lance flipped the switch, starting the slow process of sealing themselves off from the outside world.

They grabbed their guns from the cabinet and strapped the holsters around their waists. After years of tedious sessions at the simulator practicing for this very scenario, they didn’t hesitate. The missileers went right to work.

Cyndi and Lance strapped in, pulled identical red binders from the shelf above the console, and opened them to the same page in each.

The blaring klaxon abruptly stopped.

They sat, frozen in silence, hoping with every fiber in their bodies that the next sound they heard would be an all-clear message identifying this as a drill.

The sense of tranquility in the LCC was unnerving. They could hear the stale, recycled air gently blowing from the vents.

Time seemed to stand still.

The speaker built into the console suddenly came alive with a five-second-long warble tone. Following the tone, a creepy, computer-generated female voice announced, “This is an Emergency Action Message. Enable code is delta, one, six, November, two, six, foxtrot.”

Using grease pencils, Cyndi and Lance wrote the code on plastic-covered sheets in their binders.

“Validate code,” Cyndi said.

Lance flipped pages in the binder then meticulously compared the code they’d heard to the one in his book. He looked up wide-eyed. “We just received a valid code.”

“That can’t be correct.” Cyndi read off the characters she had written down.

“It’s the same,” Lance said after checking her code.

Cyndi stared at the code in her book. “Are you absolutely positive?”

“I checked it twice. It’s a match.”

She took a deep breath, attempting to get her heartrate under control. Her foot nervously tapped the floor. “Enter”—Cyndi cleared her throat—“enter the enable code.”

“Roger that.” Lance carefully typed each character of the code into the computer.

“Enable code entered,” the female voice announced.

A vertical row of indicator lights in front of Lance confirmed each step as well.

A bright red warning light in the missile silo flashed, accompanied by two loud blasts from a horn. This was the only warning a person working in the silo would have received before being incinerated.

The Minuteman missile came to life as it began its power-up sequence.

Stabilizing brackets supporting the missile retracted.

A plume of white vapor vented overboard and spilled down the side of the missile.

POWER-UP SEQUENCE lit up on the next indicator light, indicating the completion of that step.

Cyndi and Lance jumped up and entered their codes in the padlocks attached to the red box.

She opened the box and pulled out an ordinary-looking key. Lance pulled out two cards encased in plastic, nicknamed cookies. They each took one and cracked them open. They both compared the codes on their cards to the earlier code.

The codes were an exact match.

“Upload launch code. Preparatory launch command bravo,” Cyndi said.

Lance didn’t respond. He couldn’t pull his gaze away from his card.

“Lieutenant Garcia, perform the next checklist step. Upload the launch code.”

Lance froze. His mind’s eye saw a terrifying sight—the inevitable outcome of what they were about to do—the shape of a fiery mushroom cloud.

“Lieutenant!”

Lance looked over. His face was ashen. “The launch code is valid,” he said, barely able to force the words past his vocal cords at anything above a whisper.

“I realize that.” She repeated her command. “Upload the launch code to the missile. Preparatory launch command is bravo.”

Lance typed out the code on his keyboard. His finger hovered over the Enter key. Beads of sweat formed on his brow. He wiped away the perspiration with his sleeve. Then he tapped the key.

A thick data transfer cable attached to an umbilical on the side of the missile carried the code to the guidance computer. Once the computer validated the target coordinates, the cable detached and fell away.

Ballistic gas generators detonated, launching the massive silo cover door across its rails and through the security fence. Two oval exhaust diverter tunnel outlets and the round opening over the missile were revealed.

The most destructive weapons on earth spent their pampered lives inside concrete cocoons kept at a pleasant sixty degrees. The silo was now exposed to the frigid winter air.

Ice crystals instantly formed as the different-temperature air molecules collided. Thick fog engulfed the silo, reducing visibility to only a few feet.

“Missile ready for launch,” the disembodied voice said.

Cyndi inserted her launch key into the console. It slid in effortlessly.

“Slow down; I have a bad feeling about this,” Lance said. “Let’s take a breath.”

“The launch code is valid, Lance. It’s our job to execute the launch order.”

“I understand that, but…”

Cyndi gripped the head of the key. “Get ready to launch.”

“Jesus!” Lance pointed at his monitor. “Our missile is going to take out the ten largest cities in China.” His voice cracked. “Over a billion people will die if we launch. This…this can’t be right. There wasn’t a single word about tensions with China in the intel briefing.”

“Missile ready for launch,” the disembodied female voice repeated.

“It’s got to be an exercise, then,” Cyndi rationalized. “The president wouldn’t just decide to nuke China for no reason.”

“But what if it isn’t an exercise? Hell, for all we