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

of it when he saw the insane look in Pierce’s eyes. He wisely stayed silent, got up, and started another search of the LCC.

Lopez began at the left end of the room. He moved aside a stack of manuals then stopped and looked up at the ceiling. A puzzled expression formed on his face. During his initial sweep he hadn’t noticed a round metal hatch built into the ceiling.

Above it, a sixty-foot-long steel tube connected the LCC to the surface. For obvious security reasons, the existence of an alternative route for getting out of the underground bunker after an attack had been kept classified since the 1970s.

Lopez assumed their vanishing prey had gone up the emergency escape tube. Without getting clearance from Pierce first, he opened the hatch. Wet sand, designed to absorb the shock wave from a nearby blast, poured out of the three-foot-diameter tube. Fifty-four thousand pounds of sand first crushed Lopez, then suffocated him.

The tidal wave of sand knocked Pierce off his feet. He got on his hands and knees and scrambled away from the spreading pile. Once he was a safe distance away, he rolled onto his back and collapsed on the floor. Pierce stared up at the ceiling, pounded his fists on the floor, and screamed, “Fuck!”

The sense of impotency Pierce felt lying on his back with nothing to show for it was obvious. His curses echoed off the solid LCC walls until it ricocheted back and struck Pierce squarely in the ego.

Months of planning his revenge for the death of his only friend had gone up in smoke. His team was dead, the console was too damaged to use, the missile remained in the silo, his career with Delta Force was over, a security team was likely on its way, and most infuriating of all, the two missileers had somehow turned into ghosts and vanished into thin air.

He closed his eyes and tried to focus his mind on his next steps. A faint sound caught his attention. Pierce opened his eyes and turned his head to the side. The layer of sand on the floor was slowly disappearing like sand running through an hourglass. He got up and looked at the strange pattern. The missing grains of sand formed a perfect grid across the floor.

Pierce knelt and brushed away the sand. He thumped each tile on the floor with his fist. One of the tiles bounced slightly. He pushed down on its corner, which raised up the far end. Sand poured into the opening. Pierce lifted the tile and flung it away.

Miles of new wiring needed to be installed between the old LCC and the new missile silo. A raised platform had been built to provide a pathway for it all. The new floor was eighteen inches above the original concrete floor.

Pierce pulled out his flashlight and pointed it down the wiring tunnel. In a quick move, he put his head into the opening then pulled it back in case his targets were still armed. In that brief moment he was able to see a small beam of light and two dark shapes far down the tunnel moving away from him.

A burst of optimism had invigorated Lance when Cyndi had shown him the wiring tunnel. The morphine was doing its job blocking the pain in his leg, so he didn’t hesitate to leave the LCC. He scrambled forward on his stomach as fast as possible in the confined space.

Cyndi was right behind him. She saw a beam of light flash by. “Get your ass in gear, Lancelot. Pierce just discovered the wiring tunnel.”

Gunshots rang out. Bullets whizzed by their heads. Pierce was firing blindly down the tunnel.

The sound of each shot echoed in the confined space. As deafening as the noise was, it beat getting hit by a 9 mm slug. The ringing in their ears would go away. A direct hit to a vital organ would spell doom.

So far, luck was smiling on them.

Pierce pulled his gun back out of the tunnel and jammed in a new clip. He was much bigger than either of the missileers. To have any hope of fitting in the confined crawl space he’d have to get rid of every piece of protective equipment he had. The rifle was useless. He stripped off his helmet, tactical knee and elbow pads, and vest. Only his pistol and flashlight would accompany him. He crammed himself into the space headfirst. Sheer determination, and seething anger at his prey for escaping his grasp, propelled him forward down the small tunnel.

Any concerns about claustrophobia had been stripped from his consciousness years ago by the cruel methods of confinement repeatedly administered during the six-month Operator Training Course. That part of the training had washed out more candidates than any other.

Lance stopped when he bumped his head into something. He’d reached the end of the tunnel. He banged his knuckles on the flat surface. The unmistakable sound of metal reverberated off the steel plate. He pounded on it with his fists. The plate didn’t budge.

The tunnel had widened slightly at the end to accommodate the thick cables curving left and right as they went off to their assigned equipment. The thick plate covered an opening in the silo wall that allowed maintenance crews to access the wiring.

Lance tucked himself into a ball and slowly spun himself around until his feet faced the plate. With his good leg, he kicked at it with all his might. The plate still didn’t budge. “Help me,” he told Cyndi.

She banged on the plate with her fists while Lance kicked. Her efforts did little to help. Cyndi tried to rotate her body around but was unable to with Lance filling most of the cramped space.

“Hug me,” he said unexpectedly.

“What?” Cyndi replied with disbelief. “We have a maniac with a gun coming after us, and that’s where your brain is?”

In the dark tunnel, Lance winked. “Maybe later. Right now, we need to figure out a