DEADLY DILEMMA

by Dan Stratman

  “Kiss my ass, pendejo!” Lopez jerked his rifle up into firing position.

  Pierce slapped him across the back of the helmet. “Stand down, dammit.”

  Inside the LCC, Cyndi chuckled. “I don’t speak Spanish, but he’s probably not going to buy you a beer when this is over.” She flashed a thumbs-up from across the opening. “Good job getting inside his head.”

  “Stafford, this is Major Pierce. I read your mandatory psych eval that was done before you entered missileer training. In his report the shrink said you were a rule follower, fiercely loyal, a high achiever, and a patriot. I believe him. Let’s go back to the base and sort everything out like good airmen. Do the right thing. Don’t tarnish your family name any more than it already has been.”

  Somehow, Pierce managed to claw at Cyndi’s confidence. The logical part of her brain couldn’t find the strength to brush it off, despite McNeil having told her Pierce had gone rogue. Because of that nature as a rule follower, a sliver of doubt had worked its way into Cyndi’s thought process, a kernel of guilt—exactly as Pierce had hoped. She sank back and slid down the blast door. Cyndi holstered her gun.

  “Don’t listen to his crap,” Lance warned.

  “What would your dad tell you to do if he were still alive?” Pierce asked with faux concern.

  “Cyndi, he’s messing with you.”

  Cyndi pulled her knees up against her chest. She looked around the LCC and shook her head in disgust. “Look what I’ve done.”

  In only a few hours she’d managed to expose a thermonuclear missile to the outside world and destroy millions of dollars’ worth of Air Force hardware, not to mention both of their careers.

  Some role model she was.

  She could see her father’s face. Disappointment was written all over it. The stern voice he’d used when he taught her to fly repeatedly played in her head. Your plane is out of control. You’re diving at the ground. What are you going to do, just give up?

  Chapter Thirty

  Cyndi stood up with a fresh look of resolve on her face. She edged closer to the door. “I don’t recognize your name, Major Pierce. Are you the commander of the 91st or 92nd Security Forces Squadron?”

  “Stop stalling, Captain.”

  “It’s important to know who I’m dealing with before I make any decisions. Which squadron, Major?”

  “What difference does it make which one I command? The reason you don’t recognize my name is because I just transferred to Warren.”

  Lance looked over at Cyndi and smiled.

  She winked at him. “Well, Major, the reason it matters is because there is no 91st or 92nd squadron at Warren.”

  “Shit,” Pierce mumbled under his breath.

  “I’m guessing from your guns you guys are SEALs? Maybe Delta Force?”

  “Enough!” Pierce jumped up. “There’s no way out of here except past us. You’re trapped and you know it. Come out with your hands up, and you won’t be harmed. That’s an order, Captain.”

  “You’re not in my chain of command. You might outrank me, but down here I’m in charge. I say what goes. Not you.”

  “General McNeil sure as hell outranks you. He gave me direct orders to bring you two back to the base, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

  “Strike two, genius!” Cyndi yelled mockingly. “I just talked to the general on the phone. He said you’ve gone rogue. He said he didn’t authorize any of this.”

  Pierce went silent as he reassessed his adversaries.

  “That prick sold us out,” Jackson growled to his leader.

  “McNeil is probably sending a security team to the site right now,” O’Brian stated nervously. “These two get out of here, and we’re headed to prison.”

  “Shut the hell up,” Pierce barked. “The missile is still in the silo. We’re gonna finish what we came here to do. Follow my lead.”

  “What about McNeil?” Lopez questioned.

  “Like I said, no survivors.” A chilling smirk spread across his face. “He’s mine.” Pierce slipped his Glock 17 into his waistband behind his back. “Hold your fire! I’m coming out!” he yelled down the hallway.

  A shape appeared in the smokey hallway.

  Cyndi gulped when she saw the size of the man. His hulking frame was silhouetted against the smoke by the ceiling lights behind him. His face remained hidden in darkness. “Drop your weapon!” she yelled.

  “Yes, ma’am. It’s your show down here.” Pierce put his rifle down and kicked it away. “I’m unarmed. Don’t do anything stupid.”

  “Tell your men to toss their rifles into the hallway,” Cyndi ordered.

  “Like hell I will,” O’Brian said.

  Pierce looked back. “Do it!”

  His men reluctantly slid their HK416s into the hallway.

  Pierce moved forward in a casual, friendly gait toward the LCC. He flashed the wide smile of a used-car salesman. “Look, I don’t know what General McNeil said, but obviously there’s been a huge misunderstanding. Let me in. We’ll get him back on the phone and get all of this straightened out.”

  “Stop where you are!” Lance yelled.

  Pierce stopped.

  Lance leaned back away from the opening. “He’s not getting in here.”

  “Lance! We’re outnumbered and outgunned,” Cyndi shot back.

  She had no illusions they could successfully take on four Delta Force operatives with only their Berettas and no close-quarters combat training.

  “What other choice do we have? Even if McNeil is right about Pierce going rogue, we can still use him as a bargaining chip to get out of here alive.” She turned and spoke to the shadowy figure in the hall. “Keep your hands where I can see them. You’re going to come into the LCC alone, then we’re closing the blast door.”

  “Smart decision, Captain. In a minute, this will be all over.” Pierce started forward.

  “Turn around,” Cyndi said. “Put your hands on your head and walk backward into the LCC.”

  “Crap,” Jackson murmured as he looked around at his teammates.

  Pierce raised his hands. His jaw tightened. “Relax, Stafford. You can see I’m unarmed.”

  “Do what I said! Turn around!”

  “Get ready,” Lopez whispered to the others.

  “How do I know you won’t just shoot me in the back?”

  “If you don’t turn around, I’ll shoot you in the front,” Lance declared, hoping to intimidate the trained killer.

  Pierce slowly lowered his hands toward his back. “I’m going to get a radio so my team can stay in contact with me after you close the door. They need to know that I’m safe.” Pierce flashed a hand signal to his team as he turned.

  Lopez stood and removed a radio from his vest. He held it out for Pierce.

  “No! Slide it to me!” Cyndi shouted.

  Lopez looked at Pierce.

  He nodded.

  Lopez slid the radio down the hall and up to the blast door.

  Cyndi leaned out to pick up the radio.

  With impossible speed, Pierce reached behind his back.

  “Gun!” Lance screamed.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  In a blur, Pierce snatched his pistol from his waistband. As he drew a bead on Cyndi, Lance catapulted across the opening and pushed her back behind the door.

  A shot rang out.

  The slug from the Glock hit Lance instead.

  He collapsed on the floor.

  Cyndi drew her Beretta, stuck it out around the door, and unleashed a volley of cover fire. With no idea where she was aiming, bullets ricocheted off the concrete floor and walls. Ceiling lights in the path of the bullets exploded in a white-hot shower of sparks.

  “Cover me!” Pierce dove for cover.

  His men crawled into the hallway and grabbed their rifles, ignoring the deadly projectiles. As soon as they got back behind cover, they switched their HK416s to full auto.

  All hell broke loose.

  Ten rounds a second gushed from each o
f the three weapons. The deafening sound of gunfire reverberated off the solid walls in the confined space. Pierce crawled back to safety and added to the fusillade of firepower.

  Bullets pinged off the massive blast door like annoying gnats. The ones that made it through the opening shattered after hitting the steel-reinforced capsule walls. Lead fragments and bits of concrete whizzed by the missileers, creating even more lethal threats to their survival.

  Cyndi dragged Lance away from the opening, leaving behind a trail of blood. She lay across his prone body to protect him. “Lance, can you hear me? Are you okay?” she whispered.

  “Been better,” he answered through clenched teeth. Lance was clutching his right thigh. When he pulled his hands away, thick crimson liquid coated them. Two holes in the leg of his flight suit were leaking blood. The bullet had passed through his upper thigh, missing the femoral artery by mere inches.

  Cyndi propped him up against the wall. She grabbed the first aid kit and wrapped the wound with gauze. When he was lucid enough to become aware of his surroundings, Cyndi sat next to him and cradled him in her arms. “Why did you do that? You’re so stupid. You could’ve been killed.”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” he weakly replied.

  “No.”

  Lance forced a grin. “If you got shot, who’d teach yoga class?”

  Cyndi looked lovingly into his deep brown eyes and shook her head. “You have the worst comedic timing of anyone I’ve ever met.” Despite her annoyance with his ill-timed sense of humor, she leaned down and planted a kiss on his lips. When their lips parted, she asked, “Can you shoot?”

  “I think so.” He pulled himself over to the edge of the blast door and squeezed off a few rounds.

  All this accomplished was to draw a fresh barrage of lead from the Delta team again.

  Cyndi and Lance returned fire as best they could, given the overwhelming firepower they faced. The few remaining ceiling lights were shot out. They ejected their empty clips, jammed in their last ones, and continued firing.

  The entire underground fortress was filled with gun smoke. The dark, hazy conditions made it impossible to see their targets down the hallway. Cyndi slowly angled her head closer to the blast door, squinting, straining to see through all the smoke. Great, she thought, this place was going to be my crypt.

  Cyndi fired off a few more errant shots then pulled back behind the door. “This isn’t working.”

  “We’re just wasting ammo,” Lance responded.

  “Hold your fire, I’m going to find a way out of here.”

  Not hearing any shots, the team members slowly crept out from behind their cover. Four large figures entered the smokey hallway. They crouched down and advanced toward the LCC.

  Lance saw movement in the hallway. He turned to Cyndi and excitedly announced, “Here they come!”

  O’Brian and Jackson lead the team down the hallway.

  “Hurry!” Lance yelled.

  Out of ideas, and nearly out of ammo, Cyndi searched the LCC. In an act of desperation, she grabbed a fire extinguisher off its wall bracket and hurtled it down the hall.

  Unable to discern what the metal object was that was bouncing toward them, O’Brian panicked and yelled, “Grenade!”

  The four men dove for the floor and scrambled back to safety.

  “What the hell is that supposed to do?” Lance asked with a puzzled look.

  “Trust me,” Cyndi replied.

  Seconds ticked by as they peered out into the smoky hallway.

  An overdose of adrenaline coursed through the veins of the hyper-aggressive alpha males. They were programmed for action, and now they were reduced to cowering behind doorframes, waiting for the next move from a couple of wimpy missileers.

  Ultimately, their colossal egos got the best of them.

  O’Brian jumped up. “I’ve had enough of this. We’re coming for you, assholes!”

  He and Jackson sprinted toward the LCC.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “Now!” Cyndi screamed.

  The two took aim at the fire extinguisher and let loose a volley of lead.

  Just before exhausting their final clips, the pressurized vessel exploded, spewing out white powder and a shower of jagged shrapnel.

  Pierce instinctively turned away from the blast, using his helmet to shield his face. When he attempted to get up, he felt a searing pain in his leg. A hot chunk of metal had imbedded itself in his calf. Without so much as a wince of pain, he yanked it out and tossed it aside. The team leader crawled across the floor until reaching the safety of the small room. Once inside, he tilted his head out of the doorway and whispered, “Team, report your status.”

  “Good to go,” Lopez replied from the room across the hall.

  Ominous silence filled the damp air. Burned sulfur from the gunpowder had filled the space with a repulsive smell similar to rotten eggs.

  Pierce squinted, trying to see through the dim haze.

  “O’Brian. Jackson. Report your status!” he repeated in a stern but hushed voice.

  No response.

  The phrase fog of war was never more valid than here in this subterranean battlefield. The dim hallway was filled with gun smoke, white extinguisher agent, dust, and fumes from the console fire. Intelligent tactical decisions became nearly impossible.

  “That bitch!” Pierce blurted out. Absent a response from his men, Pierce didn’t waste any time mourning their fate. He assumed they were dead and proceeded with his original plan. He flashed hand signals at Lopez.

  The few bulbs that remained lit in the LCC provided a glaring backdrop in contrast to the dark hallway. Pierce and Lopez unleashed another barrage of bullets on the opening.

  Cyndi and Lance stayed safely tucked behind the partially closed blast door as the bullets flew. Fragments from the rounds struck the phone hanging on the wall, shattering it.

  She reached up and flipped off the light switch, plunging the entire underground complex into total darkness.

  The operators reacted by simply lowering their helmet-mounted night-vision goggles over their eyes. The pitch-black scene took on an eerie green glow. They continued firing into the LCC, creating a blinding strobe light effect with their muzzle flashes.

  Cyndi took a small penlight flashlight out of her flight suit pocket and shined it at Lance. He was slumped back against the wall. The temporary field dressing on his leg had bled completely through. She grabbed him by the shoulder, “Stay with me. I need you. I can’t hold off these guys alone.”

  He mumbled something unintelligible.

  With bullets flying all around them, Cyndi kept her head down and quickly removed the blood-soaked gauze from his leg and tossed it aside. Lance writhed in pain as she wrapped his leg with a fresh dressing.

  After she’d finished, Cyndi looked at him and shook her head. “You’re no good to me this way.” She grabbed a syringe labeled MORPHINE from the first aid kit and removed the protective cap over the needle. “Time to cowboy up, Tex.” She didn’t bother being gentle. Cyndi jabbed the needle through his flight suit and into his thigh, just above the wound. She injected an amount that she thought would deaden the pain but not render Lance useless in their battle against Pierce and his men.

  Lance flinched and let out an anguished moan. He wasn’t sure if his clouded mind had processed the situation correctly, but he thought he saw a smile on Cyndi’s face as she administered the painful shot.

  The powerful narcotic took effect almost immediately. Pain from the gunshot wound slowly receded. Lance was able to stand with Cyndi’s help.

  With his arm draped across her shoulder, she helped Lance over to a chair at the console. He sat down and gingerly poked at the wound. “What do we do now?”

  Her deputy was injured, they were almost out of ammo, and they were fumbling around in the dark.

  And their opponents were highly skilled assassins with night-vision goggles.

  Suddenly, putting up with her overbearing mother back in LA didn’t seem
like such a bad alternative.

  Cyndi was overcome with feelings of dejection. She let out a heavy sigh. “If we want to come out of this alive, I only see one option.”

  “We’re in this together,” Lance said. “You lead; I’ll follow.”

  Cyndi crept over to the door. From behind safe cover she yelled, “Major Pierce, this is Captain Stafford! Are you out there? Are you still alive?”

  Hearing her voice, Pierce raised his rifle. He moved it in tandem with his NVGs as he scanned the opening, looking for movement. “Sorry to disappoint you, sweet cheeks, but I’m still very much alive. And so are all my men. Your little stunt with the extinguisher backfired.”

  “Hey, you can’t blame me for trying,” she responded flippantly. “We’ve held off the best of the best, but I know when I’m beat. I’ve decided to surrender. But only on my terms.”

  “I don’t think you’re in any position to be dictating how this is going to end, Stafford.”

  “Have it your way. I’ll just close the blast door and wait you clowns out. We have two months of food and water in here.” Exploiting their lack of knowledge about the condition of the LCC, she turned toward Lance and yelled, “Close the door!”

  “Wait!” Never having been in a launch control center before, Pierce saw his opportunity to complete his mission slipping away.

  “Smart decision, Major.” Cyndi summoned up all her confidence as she continued. “These are my conditions. When we leave here, you are to take us directly to General McNeil. I want a security team in place to guard the missile before we leave. My deputy, Lieutenant Garcia, is injured. He will need to be carried out. No one is to enter the LCC until I’ve had a chance to tend to his wounds.”

  “Your concern for the well-being of your deputy is touching,” Pierce said in a snide tone. “I accept your terms.”

  “I’m not finished,” Cyndi shot back. “I want your assurance no harm will come to me or Lance once we surrender.”

  His cold, dead eyes smiled. “You have my word. You will not be harmed.”