Contest III: Strike Enable

Overview: There were a lot of nuclear weapons on alert on fighters during WW Cold. The critical component was the strike enable plug, a device about the size of an old-fashioned electrical household circuit fuse. Without it the bomb doesn't work. The story tracks Rat Reynolds, a USAF fighter pilot who is many things to many people. His image changes depending upon who is seeing him. He is one thing to his troops, another to his boss, still something else to his women and even more to himself. He parallels the career of a Turkish AF fighter pilot who during the confusion of the Greek/Turkish war over Cyprus manages to purloin two strike enable plugs for weapons. As the Turk gains rank he gradually embraces Islamist radicalism and threatens global war with his weapons unless Rat can stop him.

Victor 

The blue step-van pulled to a halt outside the chain-link fence. Inside eight young men stood up and shuffled forward to the door. The youngest looked about twenty, but must have been older. The oldest was not quite forty. Each was clad in a grayish-green zippered jump suit and black leather boots. They each hauled a canvas duffle, shapeless but bulky, obviously heavy and clearly indispensable. They approached the fence cautiously as the driver of the van restarted the engine and dumped the transmission into gear then with a spurt of gravel from the rear wheels headed back down the approach road.

The fence was just a part of it. Twelve feet high, chain link topped with razor concertina, behind the barrier a twenty foot sterile area then a second fence, identical to the first. Light towers were spaced evenly every hundred feet along the perimeter and the corners of the compound were marked with fifty foot tall guard towers. One man could be seen in each of the two towers that were visible from the double entry gate. The barrel of a tripod mounted .50 caliber machine gun pointed skyward next to the guard who lounged lazily along the railing, his M-16 over his shoulder. A cast-metal box next to the outer gate held an olive-drab field phone. An ominous sign warned that this was a restricted area and off-limits to all persons except as approved by the installation commander. Trespassers would be shot. The first man in the line of new-comers opened the door and picked up the phone.

“Hey, asshole. It’s Rat. Let me in.”

The response was chilly. “Sergeant Moore, Victor Duty Officer, say again?”

“Hey, Sgt. Moore, It’s Major Reynolds. I’ve got the replacement prisoners. Buzz us in.”

“Sorry, Sir. I wasn’t sure who it was. The damn perimeter guard didn’t tell me you guys had arrived. Welcome aboard.”

The gate lock hummed softly and Rat Reynolds replaced the phone and tugged to swing the portal open. The eight shuffled through into the no-man’s zone. The ten-foot wide sidewalk between the two gates was flanked with a buffer of an additional twenty feet of neatly mown grass on each side, then a warning sign that further movement into the area between the fences could result in injury or death—the means of your demise was not described. It could mean the corner towers would open fire or maybe there were mines or maybe electrical trip wires or spiders ‘n snakes or who knew what else. But it was all bad. Prudent folks wouldn’t go there. When the first gate closed behind them, the second gate buzzed and Rat grabbed the handle.

“Hey Grunt, remind you of home? This look like your old Army post?” Grunt Stevens looked up at Bull Kinsey and sneered.

“Fuck you, Bull. Shut your trap or I’ll throw your bulbous butt out in the weeds and let the .50s chew you up.”

“Shit, Grunt, they’re Air Force. They wouldn’t shoot me, and even if they did try they’d probably miss. They ain’t your highly trained specialized Army teen-agers ready to kill. These guys can probably read.”

“Knock it off, Bull. You’ve got four days to play grab-ass after we get the change-over done. I wanna get in here, get the paper work done and get some lunch. You think the commies fuck around like this? Get serious.” Rat glared back at the bunch. Chuckles ran through the group. They hitched up their canvas equipment bags and slouched forward through the second gate.

A tall security police guard in starched fatigues with an M-16 slung over his shoulder snapped a salute. “Good afternoon, Major. Back so soon?”

Reynolds returned the salute and smiled at the guard. “Yeah, I just love this fuckin’ place. It’s like prison but without Big Leroy around.” The guard grinned and held the gate open as the procession passed through. “Who’s in charge today? I already heard Moore’s tender welcoming voice. Who’s lead bomb commander?”

“I think it’s Major Huntington, Sir. He’s only been on the pad since yesterday afternoon. The 612^th turns the crews over pretty fast. I’m glad to see the 613^th back again. You guys are a lot easier to deal with.”

“Nah, Sarge, we ain’t easier, we’re just too smart to try to change a bunch of crusty ol’ cops like you. It’s a lost cause.” Reynolds herded his charges down the walkway to the dark green one-story building fifty yards ahead. He scanned the area inside the fence. It was easily forty acres, maybe more, most of it paved with concrete. To the left two more green buildings stood, slightly larger than the Victor Alert offices that Rat was headed toward. Just beyond the two buildings the first Tab-Vee shelter rose, then as the pavement bent away toward the left, angling toward the two huge gates at the west end of the area, nearly a dozen more shelters loomed, each a huge arch of steel beams coated in concrete then painted in dull olive drab camouflage blotches. Reinforced garages on steroids. Huge steel doors were swung open on each of the shelters and in the first four along the taxiway the blunt black radomes of the alert Phantoms could be seen.

The eight men dumped their bags along the sidewalk outside the door to the VA office and filed inside. A pass-through window just to the left of the entryway door revealed a single desk office and two large green safes along the back wall. One safe was open to display a neat row of red expansion file folders labeled with large black numbers. The front file was number five. There were at least a couple of dozen in the safe. The other safe was closed with a sign hanging from the handle saying, “LOCKED”. An airman in fatigues stood at the window handing out folders one through four as the men filed inside. The newcomers paired up automatically and in a well-rehearsed ballet they displayed an ID card and a restricted area badge which they then clipped to a tab on the zipper of their Nomex coveralls. The badge picture and the ID card picture were compared to a file card that the airman examined. When the match was verified, a red file was handed to one of each pair. They then moved into the building to a large room with several tables neatly arranged in front of a blackboard and pull-down movie screen. Clearly a briefing area.