Arc Light (11 page)

“Sir! First Lieutenant Bailey, Stanley R., sir!” He was about
Chandler's height but thinner, younger.

“How are you doing, Lieutenant,” Chandler said, reaching out to shake his hand before the line moved forward again. After Bailey said hello to Master Sergeant Barnes, an awkward silence descended on the little group.

“I guess we're all headed to Europe,” Bailey finally said, and Barnes and Chandler nodded.

“Slovakia,” Chandler said, and it was Barnes's and Bailey's turn to nod. Chandler noticed that the soldiers around them had grown quiet, their attention discreetly directed to the three men's conversation.

“What unit are you men with?” Chandler asked his companions.

“4th Infantry,” Bailey said. “Scout Platoon—1st of the 3rd. I was home on leave.”

Chandler looked at Barnes. “Same for me. Batt Staff—2/2.”

They looked at Chandler for a second before Bailey said, “What about you, sir?”

“Oh. I'm, uh, I'm in the Reserves.” Chandler paused awkwardly before going on. “I've been assigned to the 4th also. Division Intelligence.”

Bailey raised his eyebrows. Chandler didn't know what that meant. Was he impressed? Or was it one of the scorned staff jobs that soldiers from combat units despised?

They were getting close to the door of the armory-in-a-cage, and Chandler had begun noticing a variety of sounds from inside. There was a constant background noise from the cage—the clicking and jingling sounds of metal on metal, some sharp and light, others dull—that rose over the camouflaged backs of the soldiers ahead. And there was that steely smell.
Weapons,
Chandler thought.

“15813416—Davis—649-38-5831!” he heard called out. Rifle and soldier's serial numbers. The procedure was dimly familiar to him. Standard procedure at the rifle rack.

At the door to the cage, a counter with a soft, dented black top became visible. Behind it enlisted personnel rushed off and returned with “personal weapons.” Most were the standard M-16A2 assault rifle, with its familiar squat, black plastic stock. Chandler felt the first tingle of excitement, and he tried to look as calm and businesslike as the others in line.

“Sixteen!” the first armory worker behind the counter shouted in a high-pitched voice. She was a small woman with short, straight brown hair. A soldier strode over to the rack, jerked a rifle out, and returned to the counter.

Chandler looked down the line that ran at a right angle through
the cage along the counter. Some of the soldiers were obviously grenadiers. They got M-16s with an M-203 40-mm grenade launcher attached underneath the rifle's barrel. Others had SAWs, or Squad Automatic Weapons—the army's long-awaited successor to the World War II-era Browning Automatic Rifle. Out of the corner of his eye Chandler caught sight of a tall, broad-shouldered man farther down the line as he threw a 100-round belt of ammunition over his shoulder, the yellow brass standing out starkly against his camo blouse.

Ammunition!
Chandler thought with alarm, never having seen ammo this close to weapons anyplace other than at the range.
Jesus!
he craned his neck to see that the man carried an M-60 machine gun. The ammunition on the belt was the old, and noticeably larger, 7.62-mm NATO cartridges.

“MOS?” the woman at the counter asked.
Military Occupation Specialty,
Chandler translated.

“Nineteen,” Barnes said.
Infantry,
Chandler thought, trying to remember.
No, Armor.

She immediately barked over her shoulder. “Sixte-e-en!”

Chandler racked his brain for his own MOS.
What the hell's the officer's MOS for Intelligence? Thirty-five or something like that? I don't even know my own MOS!

The woman turned back to face Chandler. “What flavor, sir?” she asked.

“Pardon me?”

“Your personal weapon. What'd ya like?”

“Well, uh . . . what've you got?”
God, that sounds stupid,
Chandler thought.

The woman, a platoon sergeant, glanced back at the racks of weapons, and Chandler's eyes followed hers. He saw antitank missiles in cases on the floor. “We've got it all,” she said, turning back, “but I'd suggest an M-16. There're some nine millimeters back here but . . . I don't see how a pistol would do anybody much good.” She chuckled.

So I just order a weapon,
Chandler thought.
“An M-60, a coupla Stingers, and throw in a case of Dragons. You can never be too careful.”
“Oh, uh, that'd be fine,” Chandler said.

“What?”

“An M-16. I'll just take an M-16.”

“Sixteen!” she yelled, and Chandler stepped down the counter.
Now we're in business,
he thought.
Headed for Europe. Got an M-16 and my American Tourister luggage, and . . .

“ID, sir,” a soldier said as he was handed an M-16 from behind.

After some fumbling and almost dropping his MasterCard, Chandler handed him his military ID. “16473980” he read off the rifle's stock, pausing to look at Chandler's ID. “Chandler—429-89-5463.”

“16473980—Chandler—429-89-5463!” repeated the scrivener of the great book of weapons at a desk behind the counter.

The soldier at the counter handed the rifle to Chandler. It was heavier than he remembered, and the rifle sagged in his hands as its weight was transferred. It seemed new—brand new. The stock was faintly oily, Chandler noted.
No, that wouldn't be. It's plastic. My hands . . . my hands are faintly oily,
he decided.

He moved on. The rifle was solid, tangible. Its hard grips and the power of the rounds it could unleash gave him confidence. He felt more like a soldier.

“Havin' fun, sir?” a young man with nerdy military-issue shatterproof glasses asked good-naturedly as he placed four 30-round magazines of ammunition on the counter. One hundred and twenty rounds of 5.56-mm ammunition,
to go with my M-16,
Chandler realized.
Maybe a thousand bucks' worth of brand-new assault rifle. Fires single shots or, with a quick flick of your right thumb, a burst of three rounds so quick you couldn't repeat the sound with your tongue if you tried.
Chandler had tried, he remembered, after a fair number of drinks with some friends from work who were asking about disparate things military.

There was one more stop.

The words were spelled out in black on a yellow background. Easy to read, even in a panic. Three injectors stuck out of their pockets on the sides of the pouches lining the counter ahead, which were being picked up and carted off one by one. The pouches, Chandler knew, contained a gas mask and chemical-warfare suit. He picked one up and strapped it to his left shoulder, leaving the cage for the open air of the high-ceilinged hangar. Whereas the rifle had calmed him down, given him a sense of confidence, the chemical-warfare gear had the opposite effect.
You stick—no, not stick—jam the injectors into your thigh,
Chandler's mind reeled off as he headed toward an empty bench,
right into the skin and muscle of the top of your thigh, straight through your clothes. All three of ‘em, one after the other. The tip is spring-loaded.

Atropine.
The word echoed in Chandler's mind. Atropine: nerve gas antidote.

Melissa Chandler stared transfixed at the television as she held her overnight bag already packed for the hospital. The pain seized her abdomen once again, but she concentrated on what they were saying on CNN.

“I'm getting something here, Susan,” the reporter said from the Washington, D.C., studio, reading a piece of paper. “It appears that there is activity around many of the principal government office buildings here in Washington, and high government officials who have been working long hours during what all have stated to be this critical early phase of the Korean War have been coming and going—or more correctly just going—in the past fifteen minutes or so. Helicopters can be seen—”

The anchorwoman interrupted him. “I'm getting something on this end, excuse me, Doug.” She read the computer monitor off to the side. “It says here the Associated Press is reporting that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has undertaken an evacuation of key government officials from Washington and has sent word to the state authorities advising them to do the same. The AP wire report says that the President is already on his way from the White House to an unknown destination.” The cramp shot pain once really hard, and Melissa winced. “Doug, does this make any sense to you?”

“Well, Susan, it . . . it certainly sounds like the kind of evacuation that's always been planned in the . . . in the event, and I hate to even say the words. . . . I'll just have to wait for a little more information.”

Oh, my God,
Melissa thought and ran to the phone to call David. “The Los Angeles cellular telephone user you are trying to call is either unavailable or out of the Los Angeles cellular telephone area. Would you please try your call again later.”

“Susan, I've just been handed a note that says an unnamed Congressional source—and I'm just reading what I was handed here—an unnamed Congressional source confirms that a full-fledged emergency evacuation of top government officials is currently taking place. This . . . this is simply unprecedented. It's never happened before.”

“Could this indicate—and this of course would just be pure speculation at this point—but could this indicate that some risk of . . . of nuclear war is at least perceived by whoever . . . whoever ordered this evacuation?”

“Well, Susan, that was obviously what I was alluding to earlier,
but it's really way too premature to even speculate about that right now. The North Koreans do have nuclear weapons, but it is unthinkable, highly unlikely, I would say, that they would ever use them against this country, even if they could. And in all my talks with Defense Department officials, not one has ever even expressed the least concern about that.”

Oh, my God,
Melissa thought as she stood there with her bag, staring at the television report.
What do I do?
she thought. It was just her. She was all alone, and she had to make the decision by herself. The unsteady picture now on television was of a black government car speeding out of an underground parking lot with a police escort.
We're at war,
she reasoned,
and they're evacuating Washington. And CNN is talking about nuclear war.

She laughed as she felt a wave of nausea, and in her shaky state tears welled up in her eyes.
And I'm standing here in Los Angeles, California, all by myself and going into labor!

“We go now to our Fort Worth bureau,” the anchorwoman said.

A reporter stood in the glow of bright light against a chain link fence and an otherwise black night. In the distance a nondescript building was lit by a single spotlight. The man was unprepared and fumbled with his earphone while speaking to someone off camera. After a few seconds he straightened and said, “Good evening. A few minutes ago—” His report was cut off by the roar of jet engines. The reporter half turned to look over his shoulder. At the right edge of the picture there appeared four brilliant streaks of blue, grouped in two sets of two, making their way toward the center of the screen and away into the distance. The long exhaust flames lifted slowly into the air as the camera zoomed unsteadily in on the dark, nearly invisible aircraft.

The camera refocused on the reporter, who yelled over the receding noise. “Planes have been taking off here from Dyess Air Force Base a few miles away from our CNN bureau for several minutes! We don't know what's going on, we only just got here.”

“Do you know what kind of planes those are?” the anchor-woman asked, her brow knitted.

“I'm not exactly sure,” the reporter said. “It's very dark. Dyess is home, however, to a great number of bombers, B-l bombers, which on any normal day you can see lined up wingtip to wingtip just over this way.” He pointed into the darkness. A roar erupted again. “Here comes another one!”

Melissa had seen enough. She grabbed her bag and headed for the car.

Crown Helo landed less than 100 feet from the E-4B, a huge 747, after the high-speed flight from the White House. As soon as Lambert and the President's entourage exited, the helicopter took off and headed away in the dark.

As they approached the plane, whose jet engines already whined at a loud volume, Lambert saw another group of men, in military uniform mostly but some in casual civilian clothes, climbing the stairs to the plane's door. Security troops in blue uniforms bloused into their combat boots and wearing black berets—air police, Lambert guessed—stood at intervals down the length of the aircraft, M-16 rifles at the ready and pointing out.

The President and First Lady began climbing the stairs, and Lambert and the White House military liaison with the nuclear codes and several Secret Service agents took to the steps behind him.

Lambert heard, “Everybody on board!” from somewhere below, followed by the sound of running boots as the air police headed for the stairs. By the time Lambert got to the landing at the top, the first pair of men were in line behind him.

Lambert stepped into the aircraft past another armed air policeman and followed the President into the narrow corridor to the right.

“Welcome aboard, Mr. President. My name is Brigadier General Sherman. I'm in charge of ‘Kneecap' operations.” The general shook the President's and then Lambert's hands. “General Thomas is in conference right now, so let me give you a quick tour of everything here to get you oriented.” He led them down a narrow corridor to the cockpit through the line of air policemen who streamed aboard. The three-man crew was going over a checklist. “There will be ninety-four of us on board this evening,” General Sherman continued. “We've got three SAC flight crews, nine men and women, from the 55th Strategic Recon Wing out of Offut Air Force Base, Nebraska. They're the very best. Then we've got another eighteen aircraft crewmen in charge of food, repair, and maintenance.”