DEADLY DILEMMA

by Dan Stratman

  “I had a little help, but yes, sir. My dad taught me to fly helicopters. He taught me a lot of things.”

  McNeil nervously paced the floor as he shook his head. “This is unbelievable. Do you two have the slightest clue how much trouble you’re in?”

  Cyndi and Lance looked at each other with complete confusion.

  “Hold on. Time out, sir,” Lance said.

  McNeil continued. “You refused to follow an Emergency Action Message. You abandoned an armed nuclear missile under your direct control. You stole an Air Force aircraft. You killed a Delta Force operator. You sabotaged a console and tried to launch a nuclear missile. You—”

  “What?” Cyndi barked, her face turning bright red. “We didn’t sabotage—”

  “It’s all beginning to make sense.” McNeil stopped pacing. He looked directly at Cyndi. “You’re the one behind this, Stafford. You just tried to nuke China.”

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  “What the hell are you talking about?” she bellowed.

  Lance had to restrain Cyndi before she could throttle the general.

  “I had nothing to do with this! We stopped the attack!” She struggled to get out of Lance’s grasp. “Let go of me! He’s lying!”

  Lance refused to let her go out of fear that Cyndi would rip the general’s head off after his astonishing accusation. “Calm down, dammit. Let’s find out what he’s talking about.” With Cyndi still encircled by his muscular arms, Lance said, “Sir, I don’t know what is going on here, but we had nothing to do with this. There’s a bug in the software.”

  “You really believe that, Lieutenant?”

  Lance relaxed his grip a little. “Yes. Cyndi and I saw it with our own eyes.”

  McNeil paused. “Are you always in the habit of addressing higher ranking officers by their first names, Lieutenant Garcia?” He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. “Is there something more going on between you two than just being a missile crew?”

  Cyndi and Lance broke eye contact with the general. Lance loosened his grip on her.

  McNeil laughed. “Son, don’t tell me you fell for the oldest trick in the book. A beautiful woman says she cares about you, and you throw all common sense out the window.”

  Lance let go and pulled back. “No, that’s not it at all. Cyndi…I mean, Captain Stafford just saved the world from Armageddon. Wyoming would be glowing in the dark for the next ten thousand years if it weren’t for her.”

  “This ridiculous explanation coming from such a reliable source as her lovestruck boyfriend, of course. How convenient.”

  “It’s true. I was there.”

  “Wise up, Son, it wasn’t a bug. The new software must have been deliberately designed to launch your missile no matter what you did.” McNeil tapped the side of his head. “Think, Garcia, think. Captain Stafford wrote the procedure manual for the new LCC. She and Dr. Zhao spent months designing the launch software. Either one of them could have doctored the code. God knows Dr. Zhao certainly had enough motivation to go along with her traitorous scheme after what those savages did to his family.”

  Lance’s eyes narrowed. “Why would she do that? She’s the number one combat crew commander in the entire wing. She has a spotless service record. Captain Stafford doesn’t have any axes to grind.”

  “Obviously, you don’t know her as well as you think.” McNeil headed for his office door. He pointed at the floor. “Stay right where you are.” McNeil entered his inner office and began rifling through the drawers in his desk.

  Lance grabbed Cyndi as she started toward McNeil’s office. “Wait. We need to—"

  “Let go of me!” Cyndi reared back and delivered an elbow strike to Lance’s ribs.

  Pain tore through his abdomen as his already cracked ribs absorbed the sharp blow. Lance let go of her and doubled over, clutching his chest. When Cyndi started to walk away, Lance lunged and grabbed her wrist. “Wait,” he struggled to say through gritted teeth. “What is he talking about? Why did he…” Lance winced in pain. “Why did he accuse you of being behind all this?”

  “I have no idea,” Cyndi shot back. She yanked her wrist free from his weakening grasp. “He’s lying. What possible reason would I have to do such a horrible thing?”

  McNeil emerged from his office holding a folder. He opened it up. “Plenty of reasons, it turns out.”

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  McNeil tapped the documents in the folder. “I did quite a bit of research on you, Captain Stafford. I wasn’t about to trust the new Alpha design to just any commander. I thought I’d found the right person. Obviously, I was wrong. The more I dug into your past, the more concerned I became. So, I called in a few favors from friends in Washington. The last details from your background investigation by the CIA came in this morning.”

  Cyndi’s jaw dropped. “You had me investigated by the CIA?”

  “Is that surprise I hear in your voice, Captain Stafford?” McNeil looked at her with a smug grin. “Or…could it be the sound a traitor makes just before being exposed?” He pulled a sheet out from the folder and began reading. “Graduated top of your class from missileer school. Expert helicopter pilot. Black belt in several different martial arts. Expert marksman.”

  “Anyone with a cell phone could have Googled me and found that out,” Cyndi said in her defense. “It doesn’t mean a damned thing. Why would I want to launch a nuclear missile?”

  “For revenge.”

  McNeil let the incendiary words hang in the air like a bad odor.

  “It’s the strongest motivation of all.”

  Lance straightened up, still clutching his ribs. He cocked his head and peered at Cyndi with apprehension. “What is he talking about? Revenge for what?”

  “I don’t know!” Cyndi pleaded. “I swear, I had nothing to do with this!”

  “Your record paints a much different picture, Captain Stafford.” McNeil ran his finger across the page as he read. “It says here you were kicked out of pilot training by the base commander himself. According to him, you were a danger to yourself and others.”

  “He tried to rape me!”

  “So, there must be a police report, correct? A harassment complaint? Something in your record that would corroborate your story?”

  “It’s not a story! He…I…It would have been his word against mine.” Cyndi turned to Lance. “It happened!”

  Lance listened but didn’t respond.

  “Then you accused the accident board that investigated your dad’s crash of a cover-up.” He craned his neck forward and looked more closely at the page. “Well, isn’t this interesting. According to you, it wasn’t your dad’s fault he crashed a perfectly good $300 million jet. No, of course not. According to you, there was a bug in the flight software. Yet not a single accident investigator concluded that a problem with the software was responsible for the accident.” He looked out over the top of the folder. “Please, another bug in the software? You two could have been a little more original when you concocted your story for what happened out there today.”

  “Crappy software happens all the time,” Lance volunteered. “My laptop crashed just last week because of a problem with Microsoft Windows. And that software is older than I am.”

  McNeil ignored Lance and flipped the page. “This is where your report gets most troubling. Your baseless claims of a cover-up became so outrageous that the general in charge ordered you to have a psychiatric evaluation by an Air Force doctor. For paranoia.”

  Chapter Fifty

  “He did that to try and get me to back off,” Cyndi fired back. “That’s one of the devious retaliation tactics that powerful people use when they can’t handle having their decisions challenged. They weaponize the mental health system to silence their critics. He was trying to ruin my reputation and discredit my allegations.”

  “So, the psychiatrist, he was conspiring against you, too?” McNeil said mockingly.

  “That Air Force quack wasn’t about to torpedo his career. He told the g
eneral what he wanted to hear. I went to three different civilian psychiatrists on my own. They all said the same thing. I was one of the sanest, most well-grounded patients they’d ever examined.”

  “I don’t care what they said. You are a disgrace to this command and all missileers.”

  Lance stepped forward. “Excuse me, sir. I have to speak up. Look, I know you outrank me by a million miles, but you’re wrong. Captain Stafford is the best damned missileer the Air Force has. Her willingness to spend day after day in a dank, claustrophobic cave and accept full responsibility for firing the bullet without any control over the gun or even why it’s being fired, proves she is the perfect role model for missileers.

  “I’m the one who refused to follow the launch order, not her. She was going to shoot me for not doing my job. That’s how dedicated to the mission she is.” Lance cleared his throat. “I don’t think I’ve ever said anything so…so illogical, but the fact she wouldn’t pull the trigger—in either situation—proves she is the least crazy of us all. I don’t care what you or that report says. I believe Cyndi.”

  McNeil looked at Lance and shook his head. “Gullible to the very end. How noble of you. Maybe if you heard it in her own words, you’d change your mind.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Two years ago, your girlfriend took herself off active missileer status for an entire month for what she herself described as”—McNeil rested his finger on the page and read directly from the report—“being emotionally unfit to be in command of a nuclear weapon.”

  The walls of the spacious office felt like they were closing in on Cyndi. Her heart began to race. “My dad had just died,” she cried out. “Of course I was upset. Who wouldn’t be after losing a parent? I needed time off to help my mom settle his affairs after the funeral. I was trying to do the right thing by taking myself off active status!”

  McNeil appeared unmoved by her explanation. “I’ll be leading the investigation during your court-martial. The resources of the entire US military will be at my disposal. All these sordid details from your past will be presented front and center at the trial. Trust me, neither of you will ever see the outside of a prison for the rest of your lives.” He turned to Lance. “Congratulations, Son, she just destroyed your future.”

  Cyndi was close to tears. “He’s twisting everything around. They’re just circumstantial, random events from my life. They don’t prove a thing. I didn’t do this, dammit!” She balled up her fists. “I’ll have my day in court. I’ll prove you’re wrong about me. You’re not going to get away with framing me for this.”

  “And how do you propose to stop me?” McNeil said tauntingly. “The same way you silenced your coconspirator, Dr. Zhao?”

  Cyndi recoiled back. “Dr. Zhao? What the hell are you talking about?”

  McNeil stabbed his finger toward Cyndi. “You killed him; that’s what I’m talking about!”

  Chapter Fifty-One

  “Whoa, hold on a minute,” Lance said with his hands raised. “I saw him leave on the helicopter with my own eyes on the monitor in the LCC. Cyndi couldn’t have—”

  “Three hours ago, I got word that Dr. Zhao’s helicopter was missing,” McNeil said. “The GEOSAR satellite picked up a distress signal from the emergency locator transmitter. Search teams found the crash site an hour later. There were no survivors.” McNeil closed the folder. “How did you do it, Captain? You’re a helicopter expert. Did you sabotage his helicopter somehow? Maybe you planted a bomb on board? I gotta hand it to you, Stafford”—McNeil gestured toward the parade field—“you’re doing a hell of a job covering your tracks.”

  Cyndi’s eyes filled with fire. “I could say the same thing about you, General McNeil.”

  “I’d caution you to be very careful with what you say,” McNeil growled. “You’re already in enough trouble. Threatening a general is hardly going to help.”

  “Major Pierce said you sent him out to Alpha One to secure the site and bring us back. But the sergeant at command post just said Colonel Wilmer hadn’t told you there was a problem yet.”

  Beads of perspiration formed on McNeil’s forehead. He wiped them away with the back of his hand. “I already told you, that lunatic went rogue. I had nothing to do with it.”

  “Then Pierce tried to kill us. We show up in your office, and you act surprised to see me.” Cyndi advanced toward McNeil. “What’s the real story? Did you send him there to rescue us or kill us?”

  McNeil went toe to toe with her. “Back the hell up, Captain. Now.”

  Lance grabbed her by the arm. “Cyndi, don’t.”

  Cyndi yanked her arm free.

  She spread her feet shoulder width apart.

  Her hands came up in front of her.

  Cyndi filled her lungs with a deep, oxygenating breath.

  Then she stepped back.

  Clueless as to how close he came to having his neck snapped, McNeil turned to Lance. With disdain dripping from his voice, he asked, “Do you trust your crew commander?”

  Lance stood next to Cyndi and draped his arm across her shoulders. “With my life. Sir.”

  “Did she happen to mention that she knows Major Pierce? In fact, knows him quite intimately.”

  Lance looked at her with a perplexed expression. “Is that true?”

  “Wait, I can explain.” Cyndi felt as if a noose was being cinched up around her neck.

  McNeil pulled an 8x10 black-and-white photograph from the folder. He handed it to Lance.

  He examined the photo then thrust it back at McNeil. “This doesn’t prove anything. Those two people could be anyone.”

  McNeil pulled out a second photo. Unlike the first one taken from across the park, this picture was a close-up of a handsome couple sitting together on a park bench, taken with a powerful telephoto lens. He held it up for them to see.

  Cyndi and Pierce were holding hands.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Lance’s arm fell from Cyndi’s shoulder. He moved away from her. “What is going on here? Why does General McNeil have a photo of you and Pierce together?”

  “Please, let me explain,” Cyndi said as she reached out for Lance.

  He pushed her hand away and increased the distance between them. “Just…don’t. Don’t touch me. I want to know why you are holding hands with the lunatic who just tried to murder us.”

  Cyndi snatched the photo out of McNeil’s hand. “This picture was taken years ago. Look at it.” She handed it to Lance. “I was just a kid.”

  He held the photo up to his face. Lance lifted his eyes and glanced suspiciously at Cyndi then back at the picture.

  “I was nineteen, living in Israel with my folks.” Cyndi’s expression saddened. “I was a lonely teenage girl in a strange country with no idea what I was going to do with my life. Pierce was a handsome American.” Her head sagged down. “It just happened.”

  “Then who took this photo?”

  “The CIA,” McNeil interjected.

  “Why would the CIA be following a teenage girl?”

  “Not her, you idiot. Pierce was training with Mossad in Israel. You don’t get to be a member of the most secretive Special Ops unit in the world and then expect your social life to be private. When young, inexperienced operators are in a foreign country, they’re under surveillance every minute of every day to avoid being snared in a honey trap.”

  “I swear, I never knew Pierce was with Delta Force,” Cyndi explained. “He told me he worked for a software company in Tel Aviv.”

  “But why didn’t you tell me you knew Pierce when he showed up at Alpha One?” he asked, confusion blanketing Lance’s face.

  “I thought he was a programmer, not a trained killer. Besides, there must be dozens of people in the service named Pierce. I couldn’t be sure it was him. He was wearing sunglasses at the front gate. Until he tried to kill us in the silo, I never got a clear view of his face.”

  Lance stroked his chin as he paced the floor. “Something’s not right. This doesn’
t add up. Pierce would have known it was you.”

  Cyndi’s body wilted at his observation. “That jerk didn’t even recognize me. Obviously, I was nothing more than a momentary distraction for him in Israel. He stole my innocence, then he dumped me two weeks later for a local girl.” Her voice cracked. “I never heard from him again.”

  Lance went over to Cyndi. He reached out for her hands.

  She took them but continued to stare at the floor. “I should have said something, even if I wasn’t positive it was him. I’m sorry.”

  Lance pulled her close and wrapped her arms around his waist. A smirk formed on his face. “You’ll probably find this hard to believe, but I’ve had my heart broken, too. More than once. Besides, you hardly had time to recite every detail from your secret teenage diary. We were a little busy trying not to die.”

  Cyndi looked up with tears in her crystal-blue eyes. The hint of a smile appeared. “Thanks, Ice Man.” She gave him a gentle kiss.

  “Are you really that blinded by her beauty?” McNeil asked, shaking his head. “Wake up, Garcia. The evidence is overwhelming. The only possible way you’re going to avoid a life sentence is to do the right thing. Cooperate and all this goes away.”

  “What are you talking about?” Lance shot back.

  “Stafford is the crew commander, not you. She’s responsible for what happened. Do the smart thing and say that in court and you get your future back.” McNeil made wide, animated hand gestures as he spoke. “You want out of the missileer field? Name your dream job.” He snapped his fingers. “Done. It’s yours. If…you make the correct decision.”

  Lance released Cyndi from his embrace. “Are you telling me to lie?”

  “You’re young, Garcia, you have your whole life in front of you. Do you want to spend the rest of it locked up in solitary confinement while you slowly go insane?”