BOMBING IN FIFTEEN
MINUTES
Heads down, through a
corridor where congressional staffers hurry about carrying papers,
urgently calling one another. A cadre of dark-suited Secret Service
agents closes in, hustling Roger along in the wake of the committee
members. A wailing like tinnitus fills his ears. “What’s
happening?” he asks, but nobody answers.
Down into the
basement. Another corridor, where two Marine guards are waiting
with drawn weapons. The Secret Service guys are exchanging terse
reports by radio. The committeemen are hurried away along a narrow
service tunnel: Roger is stalled by the entrance. “What’s going
on?” he asks his minder.
“Just a moment, sir.”
More listening: these guys cock their heads to one side as they
take instruction, birds of prey scanning the horizon for targets.
“Delta four coming in. Over. You’re clear to go along the tunnel
now, sir. This way.”
“What’s happening?” Roger demands as they rush him into the
corridor, along to the end and round a sharp corner. Numb shock
takes hold: he keeps putting one foot in front of the
other.
“We’re now at DEFCON
1, sir. You’re down on the special list as part of the house staff.
Next door on the left, sir.”
The queue in the
dim-lit basement room is moving fast, white-gloved guards with
clipboards checking off men and a few women in suits as they step
through a steel blast door one by one and disappear from view.
Roger looks round in bewilderment: he sees a familiar face. “Fawn!
What’s going on?”
The secretary looks
puzzled. “I don’t know. Roger? I thought you were testifying
today.”
“So did I.” They’re
at the door. “What else?”
“Ronnie was making a
big speech in Helsinki; the colonel had me record it in his office.
Something about not coexisting with the empire of evil. He cracked
some kinda joke about how we start bombing in fifteen minutes, then
this—”
They’re at the door.
It opens on a steel-walled airlock and the Marine guard is taking
their badges and waving them inside. Two staff types and a
middle-aged brigadier join them, and the door thumps shut. The
background noise vanishes, Roger’s ears pop, then the inner door
opens and another Marine guard waves them through into the
receiving hall.
“Where are we?” asks
the big-haired secretary, staring around.
“Welcome to
XK-Masada,” says Roger. Then his childhood horrors catch up with
him, and he goes in search of a toilet to throw up in.