on it. Behind was an empty office with desks, telephones, filing cabinets, and a framed photograph of Lyndon B. Johnson. Pump flicked a wall switch to activate additional overhead fluorescents. Jay was shifting massive bolts on a door blocking the hall ahead.
“Blast doors,” Pump explained as he and Jay heaved the thick bulk of the door ajar.
An identical portal was visible farther along the corridor, the floor of which now noticeably sloped downward. We followed the pair into the space between the doors.
“These look like they’re made of concrete,” Remi noted.
Bolts on the second door were being retracted. “They are concrete,” Jay said.
“Built to withstand atomic attack?” Edward asked.
Jay activated more lights from an array of wall switches. “They probably would, but that’s not what they’re for.”
“Yeah?”
Pump had already forged ahead. As the area beyond the second door was illuminated, I could see him stop before a railing that barred his progress. Jay joined him, trailed by the rest of us.
Once, thousands of miles away, I had been taken as a child on a tour of a freighter docked in Vancouver harbour and had been suddenly led through a door that provided access to the ship’s engine room. From walking on the steel plate of a lower deck, I stepped over the threshold to find my feet suspended on a metal-mesh stair landing that overlooked a cavernous void. Below my shoes an immense hole dropped seemingly hundreds of feet to loud, frightening machinery.
The platform on which we now stood was similarly constructed of metal mesh. Fifty feet of empty space yawned below our shoes, with only the thinnest of metal sieves keeping me from plunging to certain death. For somebody afraid of heights, this situation was a nightmare. I recoiled rapidly through the doorway onto the solider ground of the corridor, bashing into Phil, who was bringing up the rear of our group.
Pump waved his hand at the expanse before us. “How do you like it?”
From my spot at the entrance to the platform, the view extended down to a concrete floor. A ring of lights set in the roof high above our heads illuminated the entire silo — about thirty feet across. The centre of attraction, however, was the missile. I was amazed at how gigantic it was. Its long black body filled the space from top to bottom, the pointed nose cone ending just under a circular steel door in the roof. When I gingerly put one foot out onto the platform again and clutched the rail to peer down, I could see the rocket’s tail disappearing into what looked like military blockhouses at the base. Spelled out in white down the body of the rocket was:
PAUL REVERE US ARMY
Jay began pointing out features of the silo. I was too stunned by the enormity and complexity of the vista we were gazing at to take in much.
“That’s fuelling gear over there. This stairway descends what we call the A wall of the installation. Halfway down you’ll see the bunker, which is the launch control station.”
“Where?” Edward asked.
“Two landings down. The staircase then continues to the silo floor.
There’s a catwalk across the blast deflectors at the base of the bird. The deflectors lead to tunnels that vent the initial exhaust, so this chamber doesn’t fill during countdown. The staircase rises up the B wall of the silo on the other side.”
“I never imagined it would be so big,” Willow said.
“Across from here on the B wall is the ready platform for servicing the bird’s guidance instruments.” Jay twisted his head to squint upward and pointed. “The arming platform is directly above us. The armoury where the nukes were stored is through there.”
Edward, Phil, and Willow craned their necks. “Where?”
“In from the exit to the arming platform. See it?”
They all nodded.
“Of course, munitions have all been removed,” Pump said.
“What are these little doodads above the stairs?” Remi asked.
“Coolant nozzles, man,” Pump said. “After launch the stairs have to be cooled in case people need to evacuate the command bunker by the stairs.”
“That’s an emergency procedure,” Jay explained. “Ordinarily, we get around by elevator. Back this way.”
A few steps retraced into the passage brought us to an ordinary elevator door. I hadn’t noticed it when we first hurried by, intent on catching up to Pump. We all crammed into the elevator, Jay punched a button, and the car slid smoothly downward.
When the doors retracted, we emerged into an already lit room that resembled a cross between an accounting office and an air traffic control operations centre. There were no windows, but blank TV monitors were suspended from the ceiling in many places and stood on a few desks. Pump hit a bank of switches against one wall, and a hum of machinery became audible.
“That noise is air conditioning,” Jay said. “Nothing very scientific.”
The rest of us gaped at the mysterious equipment scattered around the room. I recognized a radar screen, but evident at other consoles were arrays of dials, levers, oscilloscopes, control knobs, and much more. Everywhere I stared, complicated and unfathomable devices loomed.
“You really think the bunch of us can make this work?” I blurted.
Jay and Pump glanced at each other. Pump perched on the edge of a table, removed the pack, and lowered it to the floor. “Wayman’s right.”
“I am?”
“If we’re going to go any farther, man, we better get serious.”
“This isn’t serious enough?” Edward asked.
“We need to make a checklist,” said Jay. “Everything we have to know, what we need to do, and who’s going to do it, to get this bird up.”
Edward wheeled a chair out from a desk and sat on it. “Didn’t you geniuses make a list back at the Bay?”
“We wrote down all we could think of. Being here, a few more things come to mind.”
“Terrific.”
“Can you launch it?” Phil asked.
“Without blowing it up and killing us all?” Willow added.
“Without starting a nuclear war?” Phil came back.
“First step is, well, to get a list together.” Jay seemed unsure of himself for the first time. “We need paper.”
“Here’s a typewriter,” Remi said. “Should be some paper in the drawer.”
Pump slipped off the table. “Let me open it. I’ve got the gloves.”
“Who knows how to type?” Remi asked. “Wayman, you’re the journalist. You’re faster than I am.”
