The Book of Truths Read Online Free Page B

corridor a missile from a silo in North Dakota would be on to hit Moscow. Yeltsin had his nuclear football open and was ready to toss the damn thing by pushing all the right buttons.”
    “Only time a world leader has ever activated its nuclear suitcase,” Eagle threw in, because Eagle always threw in knowledge… and history… and movies. “Never even happened during the Cuban Missile Crisis.”
    “We were lucky Yeltsin was probably drunk,” Mac said. “That’s one thing you can at least count on with the Russians. Remember in Albania with the biological—”
    “Eagle,” Moms cut in, “inform the personnel on the ground we’re coming in and they can disperse.”
    Mac snorted. “Run for the fucking hills more like it. They only took an outer perimeter, anyway.”
    “One minute,” Eagle announced.
    “Thirteen on the countdown,” Doc added, still typing away.
    “Going to jump soon, Doc,” Moms said. “Secure the computer. Kirk, when we touch down, I want you working with Doc to figure out that second code.”
    Roland moved to the very edge and looked down. The sun was setting in the west, casting long shadows across the highplains. Snowdrifts were piled here and there, but at least they weren’t at the height of winter, with Christmas not far away.
    “Go!” Eagle announced as the green light flickered on above Roland in the tail section of the plane. The verbal prompt wasn’t necessary as, like Pavlov’s dogs, Roland was gone at the green.
    Roland let gravity take charge. He spread his arms and legs to get stable. Then he pulled his arms to his sides, tucked his head into his chest, and missiled down toward the target.

    “Clarence?” Peggy Sue knew exactly how to slide her husband’s name under his rib cage by putting the emphasis on the second syllable.
    Her mother had taught her well.
    But not well enough since she was living inside a practically unheated, no-flowing-water concrete bunker in the middle of Nebraska.
    Clarence dropped the last case of water, frozen solid from sitting in the bed of his pickup during the two-hour drive back. “What?” he demanded in that tone men use to indicate to their wives, significant others, and even one-night stands that they don’t want to hear the real question following the question mark behind their name.
    “I ain’t never seen this light blinking before.”
    Clarence checked his irritation. “What light?”
    “This here.” Peggy Sue pointed to an open metal cabinet next to the pipe she’d been using as a clothesline. “I just pulled that cupboard open to see if—”
    “It ain’t a cupboard,” Clarence said. “I told you not to touch nothing.”
    “What is it then?” Peggy Sue had picked up the uncertainty in his voice and twisted the dagger a little. “You don’t know what it is, do you?”
    It was a flashing orange light. Anyone could see that.
    On a piece of crumbling masking tape underneath it, someone had scrawled PINNACLE in black marker. The container had a metal door, which Peggy Sue had opened, and was four feet high by two wide. There were a lot of lights, but only one was active. An old keyboard rested at the base of the cabinet connected to the panel by a single cord. Another piece of masking tape, which had half-peeled over the years, was above it. The same hand had simply written, ENTER CODE—GOOD LUCK OR GOOD-BYE
!
If they’d used emoticons back in the day, there probably would have been a :) there. Below it in pencil, someone had added:
Smoke ’em if you got ’em.
    “Oh, crap,” Clarence muttered. “You sure done it now, Peggy Sue.” He slammed shut the door as if doing so solved the problem.
    “You don’t even know what I done.”

    “Get ready!” Moms called out on the team net as she staggered to the edge of the ramp, loaded down with weapons and gear. She was tall, though not as tall as Roland, spotting him a little over four inches. She had wide shoulders above surprisingly narrow hips, giving her a body