The Day Before Midnight by Stephen Hunter Page B

lean middle-aged officer walked with utter lack of self-consciousness to the front of the room.
    “Dr. Thiokol,” he said without a smile, “we need to talk.”
    Their eyes met; the fellow looked focused and excited at the same time. Peter knew many career military types; they were okay, a little literal-minded, perhaps. And generally quite conformist. But this guy had something a little extra: He looked like a young dragoon officer racing toward Waterloo in 1815. Peter had seen it in a few bomber pilots, usually the wilder kinds, the ones who wanted to go thermonuclear three times a week.
    “Okay,” Peter said to his students, “you guys get out of here now.”
    The students trundled out, gossiping among themselves.
    Then the officer held up
Nuclear Endgames, Prospects for Armageddon
by Peter Thiokol, Ph.D.
    “In this book you talk about what you call the John Brown scenario, where a paramilitary group takes over a silo.”
    “Yes,” said Peter. “I was told by a very high-ranking officer that it was the stupidest thing he’d ever read. It hadn’t happened since 1859 at Harpers Ferry and it couldn’t happen now.”
    “Well, it seems to have happened.”
    “Oh, shit,” said Peter, who didn’t like to swear. He found his breath suddenly ragged. Somebody took over a bird? “Where?” But he knew.
    “South Mountain. High-force threshold. Very professional take-down.”
    The major sketched in the details of the seizure operation as they were known and it was clear he had been thoroughly briefed.
    “How long ago did this happen?” Peter wanted to know.
    “Going on three hours now, Dr. Thiokol. We have people there now, setting up an assault.”
    “Three hours! Jesus Christ! Who did it?”
    “We don’t know,” said the major. “But whoever, they know exactly what they’re doing. There’s been some kind of massive intelligence penetration. Anyway, the commanding officer/ground wants you along to advise. All the signs are that they’re going for a launch. We have to get in there and stop them.”
    So it had started. It was close to the final midnight, and he thought of all the things he had meant to say to Megan but never had. He could think of only one thing to say, but it was the sad truth, and he said it to this soldier.
    “You won’t make it. You won’t get in there. It’s too tight. And then—”
    “Our specialty is getting into places,” the officer said. “It’s what we do.”
    Peter saw his name stenciled above his heart against the mud-and-slime pattern of the camouflage.
    SKAZY , it said.
    The officer looked at him. They were about the same age, but the officer had that athlete’s grace and certitude to him. His eyes looked controlled, as if he had mastery even over the dilation of his pupils. It suddenly occurred to Peter that this would be an elite guy. What did they call them? Alpha? Beta? No, Delta Force, that was it, a Green Beret with an advanced degree in homicide. The guy looked like some kind of intellectual weight lifter. He had incredibly dense biceps under his combat fatigues. He’d be one of those self-created Nietzschean monsters who’d willed himself toward supermanhood by throwing a bar with iron bolted to the end up and down in some smelly gym for thirty or so years. Peter felt a sudden sadness for the deluded fool. He had half a mind to argue, out of sheer perversity. For if the idea that they could get in was this Skazy’s vanity, Delta would be disappointed tonight.
    Peter had a sudden sense he was in somebody’s bad movie. The world should end in grace, not Hollywood melodrama. It couldn’t even destroy itself well. He almost had to laugh at earnest Skazy here, the Delta Viking. It’s not an airliner you’re trying to crack, he wanted to say, it’s a missile silo, with the best security system in the world. I ought to know; I designed it.
    “Let’s go,” said Peter. He reckoned the world didn’t have much longer to live, and he wanted to be there for