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

way to fit two bodies in a space only big enough for one. I’ll lie flat. You climb on top of me. We’ll wriggle around until your feet are facing the plate. Then you can help me kick it.”

“Oh…right,” Cyndi said sheepishly.

She lay across Lance. Their bodies twisted and intertwined in ways that would make a contortionist blush.

Finally, Cyndi’s feet were facing the metal plate. A bullet ricocheted off the plate just as they were about to kick. With renewed motivation, they slammed their feet against it. A corner bent outward. A hopeful ray of light shone through. More kicks bent a second corner.

“Harder!” Lance yelled.

Two more kicks, and the plate fell away, clanging against the concrete below as it landed.

Cyndi poked her head out the opening. A layer of dense fog began right below the opening, obscuring the view of the silo floor. She had no way of gauging how far the drop was. Cyndi looked out at the sixty-foot-tall Minuteman missile. It appeared that the opening was located about halfway up the missile. Jumping down thirty feet without knowing if the floor were clear of any equipment or if there was a floor at all in this section of the silo would be suicide.

Cyndi looked up. Brilliant blue Wyoming sky filled the large opening. Snowflakes swirled around in the wind. As enticing an escape option as the opening would have been to solve their predicament, the smooth silo walls made it impossible to climb to safety. They might as well have been at the bottom of a deep concrete well.

She looked over to her left. The data cable that had been attached to the missile umbilical dangled down, four feet away from her. The remaining cable disappeared into the fog. There was no way to tell if it reached the floor.

Cyndi turned to face the silo wall. She leaned to her right and reached out as far as she could. The thick cable was only six inches from her outstretched hand.

She ducked back into the tunnel and asked, “Do you trust me?”

Lance’s eyes narrowed. “Is this one of those trick questions women like to ask?”

Cyndi didn’t have time for his jokes. “The data transfer cable is next to the opening. We can shimmy down it to the silo floor. You’re taller than me, but with your injured leg I doubt you can do the gyrations necessary to reach it. I need your help.”

Lance stuck his head out the opening. “I see what you mean.”

“That’s why you’re going to have to trust me. With your help I should be able to reach the cable. After I reach the floor, I’ll swing the cable over to you.”

“What if the cable ends just below the fog? You’ll break every bone in your body dropping to the floor. Neither of us has ever been in a missile silo before. Who knows what might be down there?”

Sounds of Pierce struggling to crawl through the narrow tunnel grew louder.

“I can’t promise you this will work”—Cyndi pointed back down the dark tunnel—“but if we stay here, we die.” She cupped his hand in hers. “I’m willing to take the leap of faith if you are.”

Lance was certain there was a double entendre hidden somewhere in her last sentence, but a bullet whistling past his ear persuaded him to concentrate on their only option for survival. “Time to go!”

Cyndi maneuvered her body out of the opening and stood on the bottom edge. Lance provided the anchor by grabbing her left wrist. She grabbed his wrist as well.

Lance could feel her pounding heartbeat in her wrist. “Are you okay?”

“Don’t worry; I’ve got this.” Her trembling voice was less than reassuring.

Facing the wall, Cyndi extended her right arm. The cable was still out of reach. She leaned to her right. The pathway to surviving their deadly dilemma was now only two inches from her grasp. “A little more. I’ve almost got it.”

Lance extended his arm as far as he could.

Cyndi lifted her right foot off the edge and swung her leg out to help extend her reach.

Just as she opened her hand to grab the cable, Cyndi’s left foot slipped.

She disappeared into the dense fog.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Dangling by her left arm, she bounced off the silo wall. “Don’t let go!” she yelled.

“I’ve got you!”

Cyndi thrashed around trying to gain a foothold on anything projecting from the smooth silo wall.

Her weight threatened to pull Lance out of the opening and plunge both to their deaths. He braced his feet against the sides of the opening and sat up. Lance reached down and grabbed Cyndi’s wrist with both hands.

She reached up and clamped on to his arm with her free hand. Her sweaty palm made it hard to get a firm grasp.

Lance looked down at the surreal scene. Cyndi was swaying in and out of the fog. The top half of a thermonuclear missile, that may or may not ignite at any moment, loomed a few feet away. And a bloodthirsty Special Forces commander was getting closer by the second.

Lance had joined the Air Force for the adventure, but this was a bit much.

“Swing me over to the cable!” Cyndi yelled. “I’m going to hook it with my foot!”

Lance swung Cyndi back and forth like the pendulum in a grandfather clock. She looked over at the cable visible above the fog to help gauge her distance from it. On the third swing she decided she was getting close. Cyndi kicked her right leg out to the side as far as she could.

The inside of her ankle snagged the thick cable. “I got it!” Cyndi dragged the cable along the wall with her foot as she returned to the center of the arc.

Lance stopped swinging her and breathed a sigh of relief.

She released her grip on Lance’s wrist with her right hand and snatched the cable. “When I say, let go of my left arm.”

“Roger that.”

Cyndi took a deep, calming breath. She looked up at Lance for encouragement before committing to