Ariel's Crossing - Bradford Morrow [132]
Maybe he was hallucinating again. That angel had disappeared, but now he could swear he heard people crying out his name. A man and a woman. And as the stars began to reveal themselves, two tiny white lights like two more earthbound stars began to shine not too far ahead of him, well below the horizon. Right foot forward, left planted foremost once more, the pilgrim progressed.
Sergeant James Carpenter was the kind of negotiator who could charm the rattles off a snake, but those who refused to be charmed risked getting harmed. That was the word on him at Holloman. He was a follower of rules, no-nonsense, a sharp base MP, not to be messed with. Sometime after midnight, Jim was ordered to duty. Cleared for high-security tasks, he hoped there hadn’t been an accident on the range, hoped they weren’t mounting a search and rescue. Having been through such ops before, he knew there was little satisfaction in discovering a debris field and dead airman. Twelve of them sat for the briefing. No mishap, but reconnaissance had picked up a single individual, apparently on foot, and a separate group of three, apparently on horseback, that had also crossed onto the military reservation.
This was never welcome intelligence. Often, however, it proved to be small beer. No contact had been made, nor any communication received. Likely scenario was that the intruders were not fully aware of the gravity of their risk. An advance unit was monitoring them at present. Since, by luck, no trials or tests were scheduled, the only immediate liability was their exposure to unexploded ordnance, a problem all would have to live with for the moment. Absent any evidence of espionage, the order was to watch and wait. As everyone at the briefing understood, the area impacted was not particularly sensitive. If some hunters had wandered over the fence hoping to pick off a gemsbok or even a mustang—crazy bastards did that from time to time—the modus would be to escort them back to the perimeter and provide them with a summons that the DOI could follow up on. In the event this was an antinuke civil-disobedience enterprise, another likely scenario, then normal procedures would be followed. Just watch, Jim thought. Bunch of garden-variety tree-huggers. The whole business was going to turn out to be nothing more than a big fat nuisance.
With three troops under his command, he moved out at 0200 hours in a land carrier outfitted with night-vision—didn’t bother with the fancy paraphernalia. Or choppers that might create more chaos and drama than the situation called for. They sped along the level interior service road, lighting up the yellow foglamps. It would be a couple hours’ drive before they’d come into visual range. The mood among the rangers was spirited. Going to bust some delinquents, always a worthy cause. Jim quashed the capricious atmosphere, however. Men who served under him served with dignity. His silence in the passenger seat inspired the MPs in back to refrigerate.
Last year was the fiftieth birthday of the A-bomb demo model, and they’d anticipated a real ratcheting up of civil disobedience, large crowds of protestors, crews from national television, and what all, but July 16 had come and gone without so much as a serious peep. The usual gang of peaceniks, aging longhairs with their pony-tails, antiwar eggheads, disenfranchised ranchers, a few local media types in their double knits and Tony Lamas. Hadn’t someone tried to chain himself to the obelisk monument out at ground zero? Escorted him off in bracelets, if memory served, and the story barely made the papers.
Never failed to amaze him how people thought they could change the world through acts like that. Protestors, for criminy sakes. Putting themselves and others in harm’s way just to underscore an idea that every man, woman, and child on the planet already understood? Atom bombs are hazardous to your health. So what else was new? Well, the other two outfits were deploying north and southwest of targets, and his team would be going to engage during daylight,