A Story

Here is the other story I promised a few weeks (months?) back. It is a fiction inspired by a 'real' legend. As my earlier writing sample was presented with no editing and with minimal polishing, this one has been reworked a fair bit. The strongest, yet valid, criticism the original received as a writing class submission was the readers' difficulty slogging through jargon and depicted procedures. It is this area in which I did the most revising, hoping to smooth out and clarify those things that I am - I was - so close to that it's difficult for me to know how to water them down.

Feel free to offer your critiques and make suggestions, and let me know if, after reading it through (and IF you could read it through!) any confusing jargon or confounding procedure from the beginning became clearer by the time you reached the end. Don't be afraid you'll hurt my feelings. You will. This is my baby. But I have to know where it fails in order to fix it.

And it's pretty long. At Times New Roman 12 pt. font single-spaced, it's eightteen pages. Prepare yourself for that. Go potty now. Crack open that beer or cork that wine. Just don't pass out before you finish! :^(



Incident At Alpha Five
by Farrago


“’Legend has it that Alpha five was built on an old Indian burial ground.’ Quintero looked at me with his shit grin. That was the last thing I needed. Why do people always have to pick on the new guys?”

I looked first at Lieutenant Kirby at my bedside, then between my suspended feet at Agent Gage, the guy from the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. Neither answered. Gage stepped toward my bed from where he was leaning against the bathroom door in my sterile room. He had already made the orderlies move the other patients out of the room so they wouldn’t hear. He spoke curtly. “Just keep going, Randy. I need to know everything.”

I looked to the lieutenant. He nodded and leaned back in his chair.


* * *


The tour had started off just as badly as any other. Up at 3:45 a.m., I shook off the grog in the shower. After two years in the Air Force running this same routine, you’d think I was used to this. I hadn’t shined my boots the night before, so I spent a few minutes brushing them off in my dorm room between getting dressed and running to the chow hall. They looked presentable enough. At the chow hall I met Sugar Bowl.

“Hey! Nice boots, dickhead!” He was always a joy to talk to at 4:30 in the morning.

I suppressed a greeting just as cheerful and looked at his chubby face. If it wasn’t embossed on his uniform, I would never remember that Sugar Bowl’s real name was Brown. He and I went through Security Specialist Technical Training together at Lackland Air force Base, and one of the instructors there gave him the nickname because he didn’t like his haircut, thought it looked as though someone had placed a large bowl on Brown’s head and trimmed the hairs that hung below it. The name followed Brown to Montana, mainly because of people like me who wouldn’t let him forget it, and he abused anyone equal or lower in rank who called him by the name. I reached up and stroked his smooth, pale, round cheek and faked a lisp. “Oh! My goodness! You shaved!”

“I shined my boots, too! There’s a full inspection this morning, and the colonel is gonna love your shine!” He’s not a bad person, Sugar Bowl, but when he’s got somebody, he really lets him have it. And he had me. Under the glaring fluorescents of the chow hall, my boots looked like shit.

At the squadron, nothing was different. Leaning against the wall in line for weapons issue, bitching because the camper and escort teams had posting priority and were allowed to cut in, I realized that every team that cut in meant a later and later guardmount and post, prolonging my dread of the inspection from hell.

“Mornin’ Steve,” I said to Sergeant Jenkins when I finally got to the armory window. I slid my weapons issue card to him and said, “I’ll have the usual.” He didn’t laugh. I said the same thing every posting day. He picked up my card and disappeared into the racks of M-16 rifles.

Beside me, at the other issue window, Sergeant Rodriguez, one of the Flight Security Controllers in Charlie flight area, dropped one of his magazines full of M-16 rounds. A chorus of men’s voice rose up from various corners, and I joined in: “Jeep!” It was a word reserved for a newbie, someone with no experience, but it was also used when someone of any level of experience made a stupid mistake.

When Jenkins returned he spoke. “Congratulations, Bogner.” He placed the magazines fully loaded with rifle rounds on the counter, and I placed them in the magazine pouches on my web belt. He pointed the weapon into the sand-filled clearing barrel suspended from the ceiling and pulled the rifle’s charging handle, sliding the bolt away from the chamber with the flat “shuk” noise that, after two years of this routine, was so familiar to me. Jenkins looked into the chamber to make sure it was clear of any foreign objects – or more importantly, a bullet – turned it to show me, and then handed it through the window. “Full weapon breakdown and inspection on recovery day!” said Jenkins, pulling my weapons issue card and a grease pencil out of his pocket, and writing on the card a large letter “I” and circling it.

“Christ!” I spat. “Why don’t you guys have us do that on posting day? We got nowhere else to go, then!”

Jenkins shrugged and said, “Rules.” Then he called for the guy in line behind me.

I walked to the clearing barrel, rifle muzzle pointed at the ceiling, rifle at a forty-five degree angle four inches from my chest. Some people get angry if you don’t hold the rifle at port arms during the clearing procedure. Rules. And it would be the same procedure in reverse on recovery day. After I stripped and cleaned my rifle for inspection, of course.

Senior Airman Quintero – that morning’s clearing barrel official – waved me forward and snapped to attention. I reached into my ammo pouch and pulled out one magazine, and I handed it to Quintero. I walked to the bright red barrel and pointed my rifle into it, showing Quintero the open ejection port, the oval cut into the side of the rifle where the spent shells would be spit out after being fired. He looked into the open oval and the empty chamber and said, crisply, “Clear, SIR!” I rotated the rifle clockwise, revealing the other side to him. He looked first at the fire selector lever beside my thumb, and said just as crisply as before, “Safe, SIR!” Some of the other guys in the room were laughing at Quintero’s performance. He never really took the military crap seriously, and now being so “short,” with fewer than six months left before getting out, he openly showed his hatred for it. I reached down and slapped the bolt release on the left side of the rifle, feeling the whole thing jump as the bolt slammed into the chamber with a flat “shak,” completing the two-step sequence that was started at the armory issue window. Quintero handed the magazine back to me, and I slid it into the magazine well on the rifle until I heard the telltale ‘click’ that told me it was locked into place. The weapon was “half-safe,” not a danger to anyone until the charging handle was pulled back to send a round from the magazine into the chamber. As I stepped away from the barrel I looked at Quintero and said, “Lighten up, Frances,” quoting a line from one of my favorite films.

Without acknowledging my joke, he barked, “Sir! Yes, SIR!” He was giving the guys in line a good morning. As I walked out of the armory, the “shuk-shak” sound of M-16 rifles being cleared behind me reminded me of the firing range. Weapons requalification always got me excited – a magazine loaded with standard issue 5.56 millimeter NATO rounds, sliding it into the magazine well until it clicked, pulling the charging handle back and hearing the bolt slide back, the distinct sound of smooth, oiled metal sliding against smooth, oiled metal. “Shuk!” Then releasing the charging handle and the distinctly different sound of a cartridge being stripped out of the magazine and into the chamber – “SHLAK!” Ready to rock and roll! I’ve consistently been one of the top five marksmen on Bravo Flight since I got to Montana.



“SQUADRON! ‘Ten HUT!” The guardmount room suddenly became quiet, with the exception of Quintero humming just under his breath something close to “California Here I Come.” Standing next to him, I couldn’t help but hear. Lieutenant Colonel Robbin, our squadron commander, walked between the two formations of Security Specialists, all armed, all shiny – except for me – and stopped in front of Lieutenant Kirby and Master Sergeant Hickson. The lieutenant and the master sergeant presented perfect salutes, and the lieutenant said to the colonel, “Sir! The flights are ready for inspection.”

Colonel Robbin first inspected Lieutenant Kirby, then Sergeant Hickson, and then he executed a crisp about-face and stared ahead at the two flights. Guardmount is a formality in the Air Force cop world, a personal inspection at the beginning of every shift, and something I’ve resented since I joined. It’s worse for cops at other bases who have to do it daily, so I guess I shouldn’t complain about having to do it once every nine days. But then, people in every other Air Force specialty have to do it only two or three times a year. Colonel Robbin had assumed command earlier in the year, and was a little more into formality than Major Wooten, his predecessor.

“BRAVO FLIGHT!” Sergeant Hickson barked, “Parade REST!” As one with the rest of the flight, I stepped my left foot out to a shoulder-width stance and brought my left hand from my side to my rear waist, leaving my right hand at my shoulder, on the rifle’s carrying strap. Colonel Robbin began the inspection with Delta flight, with Lieutenant Kirby and Sergeant Hickson in tow. Right behind me I heard Sugar Bowl whisper.

“The colonel’s gonna make you lick your boots, ‘Boogner!’” He had his nickname. I had mine.

In the middle of a military formation, I couldn’t respond verbally, but with the advantage of parade rest, with our hands behind our backs, I silently bent my wrist upward and curled all of my fingers but one. I heard a brief snort from Sergeant Bearse, next to Sugar Bowl, and then silence. Despite my quiet triumph, the image of me licking my own boots squashed my smile.

Soon Bravo flight was at attention, and the colonel worked his way to me. To my surprise he didn’t make a comment to me. He stepped from the man to my left, snapped a perfect right-face to look me dead in the eye, then he examined me from top to bottom – beret, haircut, shave, uniform – every detail from head to foot. His eyes returned to mine, and then he mumbled “Boots.” Sergeant Hickson jotted it down on the roster sheet on his clipboard. Colonel Robbin then crisply executed a left face, took a step to my right, directly in front of Senior Airman Hoffman next to me, with Lieutenant Kirby and Sergeant Hickson mimicking the colonel not quite as crisply. As the colonel examined Hoffman in the same manner as he had me, Lieutenant Kirby stared me straight in the face. Colonel Robbin moved on again, and this time Sergeant Hickson stood directly in front of me looking, without moving his head, first at my face, and then at my boots, and then at my face again. Each time, his lips drew back at one corner and his right eyebrow lifted higher, communicating his disapproval. The colonel moved on.

The colonel didn’t give his usual speech that morning; he had meetings to go to, and since he left the room with our flight commander on his tail, I was spared Lieutenant Kirby’s wrath. Sergeant Hickson still managed to make an example of me, anyway. “Senior Airman Bogner! Front and Center! Show the troops a proper post briefing.”

I faced the formations and snapped to attention. Out on post I could rattle off my post briefing crisp and clear for the colonel or Sergeant Hickson and any visitor, but in front of the troops, all of my friends, I was a quivering ball of sweat. I hitched and stuttered through it. “Sir, Airman Bogner reports. As Alarm Response Team leader my primary responsibility is to provide an armed response to any alarms or situations that exist at the Launch Facilities in my flight area, and to supervise and direct my team member in such response. Other responsibilities include weekly inspections of Launch Facilities, and domestic tasks at the Launch Control Facility. My team member and I are each armed with one M-16 rifle and...

“Okay, good enough,” said Sergeant Hickson.

As I returned to formation there was some half-assed applause, and a muffled laugh from Sugar Bowl. I was glad I wasn’t posting with him.

Hickson began the routine announcements. “Alpha crew, there’s a change in your post. Airman Campbell, report immediately to the 342nd guardmount room. You’re the swap this tour.”

I looked over to Tim Cambpell as he looked over to me. We worked well together as an ART, but not this time out. He was this week’s choice for the 341st Missile Security Group’s personnel swap. It had started a couple of months before as a remedial lesson in comradeship after two guys, one from the 342nd Missile Security Squadron, and one from ours, the 341st, got into a fistfight at the NCO club. The group commander, the base’s top cop, liked the swap idea so much he decided to make it a regular thing. He thought that tearing a young guy from his familiar surroundings and the people he works best with and putting him with people, procedures, and places that are practically foreign to him was good for the ‘espirit de corps’ of the whole Group. All it did for ‘de corps’ was piss them off.

As Tim began gathering his equipment, Sergeant Hickson then said, “Airmen Quintero and Bogner, you will swap shifts as ART leaders.” This meant that I would be working nights with the swap troop from the 342nd. Since Quintero was a short-timer, Hickson didn’t trust putting anyone new with him because of his attitude. Also, since the swap guy doesn’t know our flight areas, he would be put on nights so if he did anything stupid nobody would see him and embarrass us. Hickson then confirmed my assessment. “Bogner, keep Quintero away from the swap and he should do okay.” The troops laughed. “I’m trusting you to train the swap properly.” Hickson paused a moment, an eyebrow arching mischievously. “And maybe the swap can train you to shine your boots.” The guardmount erupted in loud, brief laughter. I paid for my boots infraction in full. “Show this guy how we do things in the ‘41st,” said Sergeant Hickson.

“Yes, SIR!” I barked.

Seregeant Hickson looked at me with that same pulled back lip and arched eyebrow, a look that read, “don’t call me ‘sir,’ I work for a living.” He wasn’t much for the military pomp, either, but I considered it change back from what I paid him.

I looked to Quintero, on my right, just as he was pretending to nod off while standing. He jerked his head up with a snort and said, “Chit, man!” exaggerating his East L.A. Chicano dialect. The post change would mess him up. For tours when he’s scheduled to work nights, he stays up all night before posting day so he can sleep well through the afternoon. I do the same thing. For me this was a plus. Even though I wouldn’t be working with my good friend, Campbell, as soon as we arrived at the Launch Control Facility and changed over with the old crew, I could go straight to bed! It also meant that we wouldn’t be hassled with any exercise scenarios because there’s usually nobody out in the flight areas the first night.

Just as Sergeant Hickson began his departure safety briefing, the troop from the 342nd came in. Hickson waved him to the front of the room and told him to turn around and face us. “Troops,” Hickson announced, “meet Airman Green. He will post with us for this tour in the field. Please show him your hospitality and your respect.” And then Hickson mumbled into his hand as though he was clearing his throat: “…even though he is from the ‘42nd!

As all of the other troops laughed, I noticed how shiny and stiff and new the one single stripe was on green’s uniform sleeve.

I leaned over to Quintero and whispered harshly, “Great! They sent us a fuckin’ jeep!”

Quintero jerked his head up with a snort again and said, “Chit, man!”


* * *


“Quintero!” I groaned. “Lay off the jeep.” I looked at Green and said, “Don’t listen to him. It’s a load of crap, and Quintero’s full of it.”

We were halfway to Alpha Launch Control Facility when Quintero had changed subjects from his latest jailbait conquest to the mystery of Alpha five Launch Facility. He was sitting between Airman Green and me on the middle seat of the Air Force issue dark blue Chevy Suburban.

Green blinked at me for a few seconds and then focused on Quintero again. “Indians?” Green’s eyes had the look of a little kid who wanted to go into the carnival spook house, but needed a reason not to.

“Blackfeet.” Sergeant Rimbaux spoke to the rear view mirror from his spot behind the steering wheel, alternating his gaze between Green’s reflection and U.S. 89 vibrating beneath us as we headed east. His smooth, Cajun-spiced voice made the subject even more eerie to hear about, and I’m certain he realized it. “Da Blackfeet was at the diggin’, telling the white men that they was disturbin’ the dead, an’ that they would pay fo they crime.”

Staff Sergeant McCrindle, beside Rimbaux in the front passenger seat, said, “Ram-bo, you and Quintero BOTH fulla shit!” The two black men looked at each other and, after a silent glare, both burst into laughter. To speak to each one separately, they had nothing in common but the color of their skin. Rimbaux was a backwoods country boy from somewhere in Louisiana bayou country, and McCrindle was a street-tough homeboy from Philadelphia. One would think that Rimbaux’s smooth, laid-back personality and McCrindle’s choppy, high-strung one would clash, but they didn’t. Each seemed to complement the other and they got along smoothly with lots of laughter between them. The hulking Suburban straddled the yellow line under the influence of Rimbaux’s laughter, and McCrindle corrected him, laughing anew. “Get back on this side, ‘Bo! Ain’t you got lines in the road in ‘Loosiana?’”

“What roads?” Rimbaux’s laughter intensified with his own joke, and he took the Suburban all the way to the left side of the pavement.

I leaned across Quintero and said to Green, beneath the laughter, “Welcome to the 341st Missile Security Squadron!”

He faked a laugh. His brown eyes shifted from me to Rimbaux, almost as if we would leave the pavement if he were to look away from him too long.

“Don’t worry about these guys, I said, waving my thumb at the front seat. “We usually make it there alive.”

After wake-up that afternoon, I gave Green a tour of Alpha Launch Control Facility. During dinner I asked him what he thought.

“It’s a lot smaller than the LCFs in the west side of the complex.”

Though true, the west side is no different from the east side. Each LCF supports a launch crew sequestered in a capsule deep in the earth, who control ten missiles dispersed across the Montana countryside. These crews wait, day in and day out, for the order to launch any or all of their missiles, doing their part to aid in the destruction of the earth’s living creatures. Topside, the LCF building houses teams of Security Specialists who regularly run around to all of the launch facilities, where the missiles are housed deep under ground, in response to alarms detected out there, or just to make routine checks to make sure the alarm systems are working correctly.

“Which one do you work?” I asked, as if I would know where any of the flight areas on that side of the missile complex were. I had never gone beyond Great Falls in that direction.

“Romeo.”

“Oh.” It was all I could think of to say. Then, “East complex was here first, so everything built later had all the improvements.” Green’s face was blank, so I continued. “Alpha was the first Minuteman II launch complex built, actually. We’re sitting on history.” Green’s expression didn’t change. I had recalled this information, so now I felt compelled to spit it out to him. “During the Cuban Missile Crisis, in 1962, Alpha was Kennedy’s ‘ace in the hole.’ He convinced the commies that aiming their missiles at us from Cuba was a bad idea.” Green was as ignorant to the history of Malmstrom Air Force Base as I was when I first heard about it. Only Green didn’t even seem to know which Kennedy I was talking about. I looked up at the clock and said, “Five ‘til seven. Let’s change over.”

Rimbaux buzzed the lock to let us into Flight Security Control when we knocked. He and McCrindle had already changed over and were sharing a laugh about something as we came in. I noticed that McCrindle’s camouflage fatigue shirt was completely unbuttoned, his O.D. green undershirt untucked and ruffled, exposing the ‘outie’ protruding from his flat, brown belly, his belt unbuckled and his boots unlaced.

“Jeez, Mac!” I said. “You’re supposed to wait until you’re ready for bed to get undressed!”

“What you talkin’ about, Bog?” he said, straight-faced. “I been like this all day!” I laughed along with him and Rimbaux, and Green even relaxed a little with a chuckle.

I turned to Rimbaux and said, “Okay, boss. Brief me.”

He turned his head to face his feet propped up on the desk and spoke to them and the piece of paper with his notes on it. “ART on da road, on da way back. You gotta weekly at Alpha four due by midnight. Alpha seven gone off six times today – that’s where the ART just comin’ back from. And we got a camper at Alpha five.”

“You’re kidding! Since when?” I thought he was joking until he reached forward and pulled McCrindle’s report from the desk.

“They just arrived. Had maintenance doin’ routine, and outer zone system wouldn’t reset when they tried to leave. Escorts sat two hours waitin’ fo’ da camper.”

I looked at Green and sighed. “It’s gonna be a long three nights.”

Green cocked his head at me. “Why’s that?”

“Well,” I said, “when a site has a camper team on it, the ART…” It dawned on me as I spoke that, in our earlier conversation, I hadn’t thought to ask Green just how much of a jeep he was. “How long have you been at Malmstrom?”

Green looked to the ceiling to calculate. “Two months.”

“Fuckin’ 42nd!” I muttered to myself, rubbing my face with my hand. Then to Green: “Do you remember anything from orientation? From TECH SCHOOL?”

Green shrugged tentatively.

“When a site has a camper team on it,” I sighed, “the dedicated ART has to relieve them for two hours out of every 24 so they can get a shower and a hot meal. We usually wind up stuck out there for a lot longer because they can never find the LCF on their own. Their two-hour break doesn’t start until they arrive at the LCF. While they’re on relief, they’re the responding ART, so if there are any alarms, their two-hour break clock stops, and it doesn’t start up again until they return to the LCF.

“It’s worse at night, and since they initiated at the start of our shift, you and I are their relief. That’s why it’s gonna be a long three nights.

“Oh.” Green’s face was blank. It was all he said.

“Only two,” Rimbaux said.

“Huh?” I looked at him.

“Only two nights. They just got there. You don’ gotta go tonight.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Of course, he was right. I was just so pissed at the idea I had assumed was effective immediately. Then another thought occurred to me. “Maybe they’ll fix the O.Z. by tomorrow afternoon, and we won’t have to go at all.”

“Mebbee, mebbee,” said Rimbaux, nodding at his boots.

Just as Quintero and Hoffman, the day-shift Alarm Response Team, were pulling in, the missile commander housed in the capsule deep in the earth below us called on the intercom. “Status Detroit, Alpha seven.” Since we used common, unsecure radio frequencies in the flight areas, the Air Force had devised generic codes that wouldn’t necessarily tip off scanner buzzards when something serious happened. A “Detroit” was the code to let us know that the outer zone security alarm system had been triggered at the Alpha seven site again. At least its O.Z. system worked!

Green and I ran out to meet Quinetro and Hoffman at the Alarm Response Team vehicle, a Ford Bronco, painted the same dark blue as the Suburban we had arrived in earlier in the day, its bright yellow identification decals blooming in the late afternoon sun hitting the passenger door as Hoffman opened it. As we quickly changed over, I slapped Quintero on the back and asked, “What’s the story with Alpha seven, man?”

“I don’t know, man,” he replied, looking up at me with drooping, very tired, coal black eyes. “I been out there all damn day. Seen a gopher hole on site, but no gopher. If you see him, kill the fucker!”

“Rah-JO!” I said, plopping the Kevlar helmet on my head and unshouldering my rifle. An O.Z. alarm is usually nothing to be alarmed about, but the Air Force has rules, and just in case there really is something sinister happening at a LF, we have to be prepared with our Kevlar helmets and our Kevlar vests on and fastened when we leave the LCF. Of course, once we leave, the helmets come off and the vest is opened until we arrive at the LF, just in case it’s Sergeant Hickson conducting an exercise. I climbed into the Ford Bronco’s driver seat, and Quintero trotted to the LCF gate to let us out. As I drove past him I looked to him and shouted through the open window, “Get some sleep!”

He shouted back, “Sir! Yes, SIR!” snapping to exaggerated attention and giving a goofy salute.

Green watched Quintero out the back window of the Bronco for a few seconds as we drew away from him, and then he turned to me and said, “Is he always like that?”

“He’s short,” was my only response.



Arriving at Alpha seven Launch Facility about an hour later, I immediately saw what had triggered the alarm. Silhouetted against the clear western sky, right in the middle of the O.Z., was what Quintero hadn’t been able to glimpse earlier in the day: a lone gopher, up on his haunches and viewing his domain.

“You know how to kill a gopher, Green?”

He stared at me for a second, then blinked, and said, “Are you serious?”

“As a heart attack.”

“Why kill it?”

“He lives here,” I said. “If you just chase him off, he’ll just come back after we leave and trigger the alarm again and again.”

Green looked at his rifle timidly. A light breeze blew through both of our open windows, causing the hair in his outgrown brown flat-top to flitter like fresh cut grass. “So, we shoot it?”

It was the same reaction every new ART member in the missile fields had when confronted with this situation. It was mine when I was in Green’s position. “No. We can’t do that. Too dangerous for the locals and the launcher site. We’re supposed to protect Air Force resources, not shoot at them.”

Green looked out at the gopher, searching his young mind for ideas. “No,” he said. “I don’t know how.”

I grabbed the microphone attached to the Bronco’s mobile radio, and pressed the transmit button. “Alpha control, Alpha sixty.”

A few seconds went by, then the radio speaker burped. “Go, sixty,” crackled Rimbaux’s voice.

“We have visual of a gopher on site. Likely cause. Over.”

“Roger, that, sixty. Proceed on site and escort him off. Over.”

“Ten-four.”

I looked at Green. “Turn on the lights and unlock the gate.” I opened my door and stood just outside the vehicle. I removed my flak vest and put on my beret. While Green unlocked the gate I opened the hood on the Bronco.

“What are you doing?” Green asked over his shoulder while he fiddled with the lock.

“Watch and learn, my boy,” I said. “Watch and learn.” Along the driver’s side fender panel, under retaining clips, was the vehicle’s jack handle, a straight, steel rod, hinged in the middle, with a squared “S” bent into one end, intended to be used as a crank for the jack when changing a tire.

I turned to face the Launch Facility. With a few cosmetic differences, all Minuteman missile silos are the same: a huge concrete launcher lid shaped like a six-pointed diamond, perched on a set of rails, which point south. Why all silos point south, I don’t know; maybe it has something to do with the rotation of the earth. I never bothered to ask. Around the launcher lid at four corners are the outer zone field motion detectors, large, circular things with plastic covers, each perched atop a vertical pole and facing in toward the launcher lid. As far as I’m aware, they’ve been called “banjos” forever, and if you relax your mind a little bit, you can see the resemblance to the namesake instrument, stood up on its tuning head. It was this system of sensors that had detected our gopher, which was now clearly aware of our presence.

“Open the gate slowly,” I ordered Green. “Be as quiet as possible.” He followed my instructions well.

With the jack handle in my hand I walked through the LF gate. The gopher reacted cautiously, dropping to all fours and moving a few steps toward the north end of the launcher lid. That’s where its hole was, at least the hole where it intended to make its escape. I scanned the area north of the lid and found the telltale signs of the hole: a slightly raised berm created by the discarded dirt from the gopher’s digging. I moved to my left, toward the area north of the lid.

“Walk along inside the fence,” I said to Green, pointing in the opposite direction from where I was heading. “Stand at the end of the rails.” I waited while Green got into position. I unclipped my handheld radio and raised it to my mouth. The gopher was occupied with Green’s movement, so I inched a little closer to its hole.

When Green reached the rails, I keyed the mike of my radio. “If the gopher comes over the lid toward you, charge after him.” Green fumbled for his handheld radio as I spoke. “Make as much noise as possible. But don’t move until he comes over the ledge. Got it?”

My radio spat, “Got it.”

I stepped forward, kicking the gravel before me. The gopher spun to look at me, crouched and ready to dart for its hole. I leaned forward and then broke into a sprint right for the gopher’s hole, screaming like an idiot. The startled gopher ran a few tentative steps toward his hole and then abandoned the idea, making a run for it in the exact opposite direction, right for the edge of the launcher lid.

Green seemed almost as startled by my actions as the gopher, and when the gopher went over the ledge, I think Green’s scream was as much astonishment as it was following instructions. Either way, it worked, and the frightened gopher’s survival instinct kicked in. When it hit the concrete at the base of the lid, it scrambled away from Green and under the lid.

“Aw, CRAP!” shouted Green. “He got away!”

I trotted to the edge of the lid and hopped off. “No he didn’t. Come here. Look.” I pulled my flashlight off of my web belt and lay flat on the concrete. Green did the same. I shined the light beneath the lid and found the gopher, squeezed as tightly as it could manage into the smallest space it could find, against the launcher lid seal. Inwardly, I was a little embarrassed at myself. My usual ART member, Tim Campbell, had perfected the gopher hunt to a science, and could wrangle any gopher under the lid without my help. Whenever I tried it alone, the gopher always managed to disappear into one of its many other holes. But my two-man method works, at least.

“Huh!” Green snorted. “Now what?”

“Just keep the flashlight on him,” I said. I unfolded the Bronco’s jack handle and slid it under the lid.

“You gonna stab it?” asked Green.

The end of the jack handle is too blunt for that. “Tried that once,” I said. “Didn’t work. They’re hardy little fuckers.”

I maneuvered the flattened tip of the jack handle underneath the gopher’s neck and pressed up as hard as I could, trying to strangle the poor creature. It took about twenty seconds for it to stop struggling, and its little limbs went slack. Using the end of the jack handle, I pulled its limp little body out from beneath the launcher lid. Using my right foot I positioned it so that its head was toward me, its tail away. I placed the heel of my right boot over its head. Green’s eyes went briefly wide, and then he turned his head slightly, closing his eyes in disgust as the gopher’s skull crunched under my heel.

“Why’d you have to do that? He was dead already.”

“Are you sure of that? My first gopher, I just strangled it. While I looked at it, wondering what to do next, it came to and ran back under the lid. How long does it take to strangle a gopher to death? I don’t know. So you knock him out and squish its head. It’s the most humane way we can do it out here.”

I agreed with Green. I didn’t like doing it, but I had done it so many times now that it was just part of the job. It was the modified law of the jungle. If I didn’t kill it, it would just keep triggering alarms. Besides, there are probably more gophers in the Montana missile fields than there are people in the United States, so I don’t think a few hundred a year going MIA would tip nature’s scales.

I squatted before the little corpse and grasped it by its stubby, little tail.

“Now what are you doing?” asked Green.

I walked with the gopher dangling from my thumb and forefinger to the fence and tossed it up and over, as far beyond the fence as I could muster. Walking back to Green, I said, “Scavengers will find it and eat it. We took care of the gopher problem here, we don’t want to leave it on site for the scavengers to trip the alarm.” I continued past Green. “Come on. You still have to do the topside check.”

Against procedure, I walked the topside while Green trotted through his check, and he pointed out the differences between the west complex LFs and those here in the east complex. I answered his questions, and he seemed to be aware enough of the differences.

From Alpha seven we drove directly to Alpha four and completed the weekly inspection due there. On the way back to Alpha LCF, the Bronco’s radio barked. “Alpha control, this is Alpha five.” It was the camper team Rimbaux had told us about.

After a couple of seconds, Rimbaux’s smooth voice called back. “Alpha control. Go ahead, five.”

“Site is secure. Bravo lima.”

The radio went silent, and I could picture Rimbaux running his finger across the code page, finding the camper guard’s authenticator numbers matching ‘B’ and ‘L,’ and keying his radio microphone. “Ten-four, Alpha five. Control out.” Just a comfortable reminder of the camper relief in our future.

Green looked at me for a few seconds, and then at the radio. I knew what he was thinking.

“What was Quintero talking about today? About Alpha five?”

I sighed and remained silent, hoping he would drop it. He wouldn’t.

“Bog?”

I sighed again. “The story goes that, back in the fifties, when they were building these missile sites, some of the Blackfeet tribe protested at Alpha five. They complained that the digging was disturbing an ancient burial ground. The Air Force said, ‘Sure. We’ll stop,’ kicked the Indians off the site, and continued building. End of story.”

“Then what’s the big mystery?” Green hadn’t taken his eyes off of me.

I sighed yet again and rolled my eyes. “There have been rumors since the missiles came on line that the spirits of the dead Indians roam Alpha five looking for their lost graves.”

In the sparse light from the twilight sky around us I could see Green’s eyes bugged wide. “No shit?” He was almost whispering.

“They’re just rumors, Green! Ghost stories.” I shouted at him. “I’ve spent more nights at Alpha five than I can remember, and all I’ve seen out there was the fence and the trees! Don’t let Quintero and Rimbaux spook you. They’re just fucking with you because you’re a jeep.” After my words I held my eyes steady on the road, occasionally admiring the dazzling array of colors offered after one of northern Montana’s typical Big Sky sunsets, and breathing in the fresh, late June air blowing in through the Bronco’s open windows. Neither of us spoke again until we arrived at Alpha LCF.

The rest of the night was quiet out in the Alpha flight area. I sat in the lounge, nodding off in front of the TV while the VCR spun out “Ghostbusters.” I had seen it at least fifty times already. It was the only tape at the LCF, and Campbell wasn’t here with his usual stash of porn videos. Green spent the rest of the night in the office shooting the shit with Rimbaux.



The next evening I was again at the dinner table with Green. I had had trouble sleeping through the day, and I wasn’t in a mood to talk. But Green was.

“So, where are you from, Bogner?”

I paused, trying to work a piece of corn hull from between my teeth with my tongue. It sounded almost like I was trying to remember. “Ohio,” I replied, finally. I picked up the cob and tore another mouthful of corn into my mouth.

“Oh,” said Green. He paused while I chewed, but when I stabbed a piece of Salisbury steak and put it in my mouth instead of asking him where he was from, he answered as if I had. “I’m from Washington state. Near Olympia.”

“Mm-hmm,” I chewed. I know Washington like I know the back of my head.

Green was quiet for a few minutes while he ate. He stared at the salt and pepper shakers while he chewed. His expression seemed to change, to sink. I started to wonder what he was thinking about when, without turning his eyes from the shakers, he asked, “Do you think we’ll have to go to Alpha five tonight?”

“Aw, Jesus, Green!” I groaned. “That’s what you get for sitting there and letting Rimbaux fill your head with his ghost stories. Do I have to tell you again? Alpha five is just a bullshit story made up to scare new guys like you!”

Green’s facial expression didn’t change, but he was looking at me now. I waited for him to say something, but he stayed quiet. I looked at the clock. It was past seven. I stood up. “Come on. Let’s change over.”

Quintero, sprawled on the lounge sofa in front of “Ghostbusters” for his hundredth time at least, had overheard our conversation. As we walked past the sofa toward the office, he said, “Ey, Green! I seen a ghost at five. Yeah, she was beautiful. Got her in the camper all night!” He lost his steel and began to laugh at his own joke.

Green turned away with a red face.

Quintero called to Green’s back, “Watch out for them ghost bitches, Green! They’ll wear you out!” Quintero was still laughing when the door to the office closed behind us, shutting out his laughter.

After changeover, Rimbaux dispatched us to Alpha five for the twenty-four hour camper relief. We were halfway there when our radio barked. “Alpha sixty, Alpha control.”

Green grabbed the mike. “Alpha sixty. Go.”

Rimbaux was quick and to the point. “Status Detroit, Alpha three.”

"Ah, Christ!” I groaned.

I pulled the Bronco to the side of the road and began turning it around. Green keyed the mike and said, “On our way,” he said brightly. He seemed relieved.

I rolled down the window and said to the steering wheel, “We’re not gonna make it to five until it’s dark. I just know it.” Alpha three is just as far from Alpha LCF to the west as five is to the east.

An hour and fifteen minutes later we arrived at Alpha three. Nothing and nobody on site, so we checked it out and locked it back up. After authenticating with Rimbaux, I burned my finger while destroying my code page.

“Are you okay?” Green asked me with a grin.

“Just shut up!” I was taking my frustration and lack of sleep out on him, and I shouldn’t have.

As soon as Alpha three’s alarm system reset, we headed back to Alpha five.



“Alpha control, this is Alpha sixty.”

“Control. Go ahead.”

By now the sun had hidden itself beneath the west, but the sky in its aftermath still glowed red, pink and purple. The earth around us was now only variations of gray. I steered the Bronco along the access road, the gravel crunching beneath its tires, our headlights creeping up onto a dull, gray, chain-link gate and, as we slowed to a stop, onto a weathered, blue sign affixed to the fence beside the gate, paint chipping badly, its yellow letters, “A-5” barely visible. Tucked comfortably in the trees, the site is practically invisible in daylight from the road that brought us there. At night it takes a skilled veteran to find it.

I sighed into the mike, “Arrived Alpha five.” I killed the Bronco’s motor and headlights. As the silence rushed in through the Bronco’s open windows, I could understand why anybody might get spooked out here. In the quiet darkness, Alpha five had more in common with a cemetery than with anything else – secrets buried in the ground, a concrete slab marking the location. Only this secret delivers death, and the concrete bears no epitaph.

After a few moments, the only sign of life on the site revealed itself to us: the dome light inside the cab of the camper came on as the team exited it. At my instruction, Green turned on the site lights. As the team approached the gate I recognized the camper team leader, also from my technical training class.

“Hey, Goober! That you?” I called through the gate.

“Ay, Boogner!” Airman Cooper called back. The Air Force runs on stupid nicknames. Nicknames and abbreviations.

Rimbaux initiated the tedious process of cross-authenticating, instructing each member of each team to send his secret number, in code, to control, and verifying each member’s number to make sure none of us was a Soviet spy bent on dismantling the United States’ intercontinental ballistic missile system.

Rimbaux then radioed that we were indeed secure for changeover and Green began to unlock the gate.

“What’s it like out here tonight?” I asked.

“Dead,” said Cooper.

With that, Green snapped the padlock open and swung the gate out toward me, its hinges creaking vibrations eerily through the fence around the whole site.

“Who’s the jeep?” asked Cooper, walking out through the gate, his camper team member right behind him.

“That’s Green. He’s a swap.”

Cooper shook his head. “They still doing that?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Group made it a regular thing.”

“How’s Sugar Bowl?”

“Still Sugar Bowl.”

Cooper snorted and slapped my shoulder, and said, “Welp, I’d like to stay and talk, but I need a shower…bad!”

I plugged my nose and mocked surprise. “That’s YOU?!”

Cooper laughed and slapped me on the shoulder again. “Fuck you, too, Boogner!”

Green and I grabbed our ‘C’ bags, which, when we aren’t responding to an alarm, contain our helmets, Kevlar vests, gas masks, first aid kits, extra canteens, and a few other whatnots the Air Force decided we need to carry around with us. We stepped inside the fence perimeter and watched as Cooper locked the gate. We stood at the gate while Cooper turned the Bronco around, and his team member fumbled with the light switch key beside the gate. With the rear end of the Bronco facing us, Cooper stuck his head out the driver’s window and shouted, “Later, dudes! Don’t let the spooks get ya!”

In the same instant, the team member figured out the light switch, and the site went completely dark, save for the red glow of the Bronco’s brake lights. I looked at Green, and despite his washed out features in the bright red light, I saw the look of fear set in his face, and in his wide eyes.

“Damn it!” I muttered to myself. He was jittery enough before coming here. He didn’t need anyone’s encouragement. The passenger door closed, and Cooper and his team member, whose name I never caught, crunched away from us down the gravel access road, now the dedicated Alarm Response Team for the Alpha flight area.



I sat for the first half-hour riveted to the mobile radio, listening to Cooper and his member try to find their way to the LCF. Rimbaux was an ART leader in Echo flight area for three years, and had only worked in Alpha flight area twice before becoming a Flight Security Controller here, so he had no idea how to get them home. Finally I got on the radio and talked them in. It was just like in the movies where they talk down a passenger at the controls of a doomed plane, only no one was going to die if I failed.

I was beat. “You mind if I catch a nap?” I asked Green. He just looked at me in confusion. “We’re a camper team, now. One of us can sleep.”

“Okay.” he looked out at the darkness.

“How many tours have you been out on, Green?”

“This is my third.”

“Holy f…” I bit my tongue. “Jesus Christ! You really are a fuckin’ jeep!” Green remained silent. I sighed. “Well, it’s gonna be about four hours before they get back, so wake me up in an hour and then you can crash.”

Still looking out into the black, he nodded and said, “Okay.”

I slid down on the old Dodge’s bench seat until my knees brushed against the dash. I pulled my beret over my face and folded my arms over my chest. The sudden quiet gave me an eerie comfort. I dozed for a while. I don’t know how long. It could have been an hour. It could have been two minutes. It was that kind of a nod. But when I woke up, Green was breathing in short gasps. When I sat up he jumped.

“You okay, Green?”

He was leaning forward with his hands on the dashboard, darting his eyes back and forth, peering out into the darkness. He swallowed loudly and said, “Yeah.” He was actually panting.

“What’s wrong?” I looked out into the darkness as well. “Did you see something?”

“No.” He shook his head slowly.

I leaned toward him as if my stern gaze would get a straight answer out of him. “Green. What’s the matter?”

I could hear his hands squeezing the dashboard, his fingers squeaking against the cheap, leather-look plastic as he tried to put the words together. “Rimbaux said that you can only see the Indians if you believe they’re here.”

I fell back against the driver’s door and buried my face in my hands. “Jesus Christ! You’re freakin’ out on me!”

“No! No! We talked about it for two hours last night. He wasn’t trying to scare me. He says he knows they’re here, and they’re angry.”

“Angry?!” I shouted. “What? Are they gonna kill us? If Rimbaux wasn’t trying to scare you, I’d hate to see you right now if he was!” I leaned toward Green again to make my point clear, to make sure my order was understood. “Calm down. There ain’t no ghosts.”

“He says the Blackfeet was a peaceful tribe, but they…”

“GREEN!” I cut him off. “Rimbaux is a country puke from Louisiana! He don’t know shit about Indians from Montana!”

Green persisted. “They want us to leave, Bogner! We have to—OH MY GOD!!” His eyes bulged wide in their sockets. They were fixed over my shoulder, out the driver’s window. Despite the darkness his face seemed to be illuminated.

A fright jolted me. I felt as though I had been punched in the chest, my heart thudding wildly at the sensation that something was behind me. “What?!” I yelled. I snapped my head around to see what Green was looking at.

Nothing. Nothing but the Montana night.

“Did you see that?!” Green was screaming. He scrambled to look out every window at the same time.

“I didn’t see anything, Green!”

“She was looking right at us! We gotta get out of here!”

How did this guy get in the Air Force? I wondered as my heart slowed. “What are you talking about? We can’t go anywhere.” At that, he slugged me. I leaned back and shook off the sting in my lip. I tasted blood, and I saw red.

“You DICK!” I screamed, lunging at him and grabbing him by the hair. I cocked my fist back to repay the favor plus gratuity, but just before I could let it go, something ran past his window toward the front of the truck. I got up off Green and looked out through the windshield, my head and heart throbbing to the panic pace of my heart.

She was standing there on the launcher lid, looking at us. Something Quintero had said rang in my mind. Was it a coincidence? Or was he telling the truth? She was beautiful. Straight black hair, soft, reddish-brown face, plain hide smock. Despite the night, I could see her clearly, as if in daylight.

Green sat up and screamed, “There she is!”

She turned away from us, jumped off the launcher lid and ran. When she got to the fence, she stopped and looked at us once again. After a few seconds, she turned to the fence and ran through it, disappearing into the wall of pine trees thirty feet beyond.

I blinked a couple of times, uncertain I had really seen what I thought I had seen. I looked at Green, and he completely lost it. He grabbed the front of my uniform shirt with inhuman strength and screamed hysterically, “We gotta get out of here! WE GOTTA GET OUT OF HERE!”

I grabbed his hands and pried at his fingers until I was able to free my shirt and push him away. I wanted to tell him to calm down, but I was shaking almost as badly as he was. I turned on the truck’s headlights and opened the door.

“You can’t go out there!” Green’s voice cracked. His panicked, bloodshot eyes bulged out at me, at the same time denying me permission to get out of the truck as pleading with me not to.

I only looked at him. I grabbed my handheld radio from the seat and left him there. I stepped in front of the truck, my shadow from the headlights a looming giant against the pines where she had dissolved. I walked across the smooth concrete launcher lid to where I had first seen her, and then I jumped the three feet to the concrete below, just as she had. I walked toward the fence. I heard a door open on the Dodge.

“Come on, Bogner. Let’s just get out of here.” Green’s voice was still wracked with panic.

“We can’t!” I yelled. “Get on the radio and tell Rimbaux we’ve got a situation here.” I stopped at the point in the fence where she had been, and I touched it. Then, cutting through the quiet of night like a bolt of lightning, I heard it: the distinct sound of smooth oiled metal sliding against smooth oiled metal – shuk-SHLAK! Green had chambered a round in his M-16. I froze.

“Green?” I called, my back to him. “What are you doing?”

“Just get in the truck, man. We’re getting out of here.” His voice was shrill, high, but not as frantic. I could hear him trembling.

I turned to face him, but could only see the painfully white circles of the Dodge’s headlights.

“Okay,” I said. “Okay. I’m coming back.” I walked slowly toward the camper. It bothered me that I couldn’t see him.

Green barked an order. “Hurry up! We should’ve lef –HOLY SHIT!! I can see them! They’re all over the woods! They’re coming after us!”

I tried to call to him, tried to calm him down, but it was too late. The silence of the forest was destroyed by the flash of yellow light and the hot pepper of Green’s M-16 firing at full automatic, shifting left to right and back again, spraying wildly into the tree line. I didn’t even have time to dive for cover. I felt a dull impact across my thighs, and my legs were knocked out from under me, like a good football block.

When I came to, I was face down on the gravel, bleeding from my nose or my mouth. I heard the shiver-churn of the truck’s starter, and then the rumble of the big-block Dodge engine as it came to life, instantly growing to a fierce roar. Gravel crunched and metal creaked, and then the whole fence around me shuddered as the camper punched through the gate. I reached for the handheld radio, about three feet in front of me, and then screamed as pain shot through my legs as though someone had staked me to the ground through them. I caught my breath and tried again, pulling myself to within inches of the radio’s rubber coated antenna. I couldn’t make it.


* * *


“Then what did you do?” Air Force Office of Special Investigations agent Gage leaned forward, into his fifth page of notes.

“I’m not really sure,” I said. “I think I passed out.” I searched my memories. “I dreamed that the pain stopped.”

“And then?”

I looked at the OSI agent for a moment. “And then I woke up in a hospital bed surrounded by doctors and nurses.”

He flipped through his pages of notes for some time, and then he looked at me suspiciously. “Now, you were on the launcher lid when you were shot?”

“No,” I replied. “I was in front of it, beyond the rails, down by the south fence.”

“You said you came to at one point. Do you remember where you were?”

“I was spitting gravel and blood out of my mouth. I was right where I had been standing.”

He and Lieutenant Kirby looked at each other, the expressions on their faces matched. The OSI guy looked back at me. “You’re certain that you weren’t on the launcher lid when Green left you?”

“I’m certain,” I replied.

The agent scratched his forehead as he stared at his notebook.

“Is there something wrong?” I asked him.

“Yeah.” He threw his notebook down on the chair next to the lieutenant. “At what point did Green patch you up?”

I stared at him for a second, I’m sure the look on my face was classic. “Patch me up? He couldn’t get away from there fast enough, he was so scared. He wouldn’t have stopped long enough to scratch an itch, let alone patch me up. He left me there, right where I fell. He probably didn’t even realize what he did.”

Lieutenant Kirby cleared his throat and spoke, his tobacco-scarred voice grating against the calm of the room. “If Green had patched him up, he would have had a lot of Bogner’s blood on him. When they picked him up, he was dry as a bone.” Then the lieutenant hack-laughed. “Well, dry of blood, anyway. Charlie ART found him, camper on its side in a ditch, about six miles from Alpha five. Say he was screaming, shaking, and fouling his drawers. Shrinks still haven’t gotten him to say anything they can understand.”

Agent Gage pursed his lips. “Okay.” He picked up his notebook again and flipped one page back and forth a couple of times. “After you relieved the camper team, when did you turn on the site lights?”

“I didn’t.”

“Did Green?” The agent’s face was reddening, and his creased forehead was shiny with sweat.

“No.”

“After he shot you, did Airman Green turn on the site lights?” He seemed irritated, almost angry.

“No, he didn’t.”

The OSI agent stepped toward the bed menacingly. “How do you know that if you were passed out?”

“Agent Gage,” Lieutenant Kirby interrupted. “The only way to turn on the site lights is with LF keys, at the switch outside the gate. The Alarm Response Teams are the only ones who carry them, and the camper crew was already back at the LCF…with the keys.”

Agent Gage looked at the lieutenant. “The camper teams are LOCKED inside the site?”

Lieutenant Kirby nodded. “They can’t leave the site unsecure. They’re the topside security when the technology fails.”

“Well, what if there’s an emergency? A silo fire, or something?”

Lieutenant Kirby glared at Agent Gage for a moment. “Well, Green got out without a key, didn’t he?”

The room was quiet for several seconds. I looked at Agent Gage. “So, what’s wrong?”

The lieutenant looked again at the agent, who shook his head at the lieutenant, and then both looked at me. “Airman Bogner,” said Lieutenant Kirby, “when the emergency teams got to Alpha five, the lights were on. You were lying on your back on the center of the launcher lid, and your wounds had been treated.” The confusion in the lieutenant’s face, as well as on Agent Gage’s, was intense. “The technique was primitive, but whoever dressed your wounds knew what they were doing. They saved your life.

“The doctors who performed the surgery on your legs said that, had your wounds been left untreated, in the time that passed after Sergeant Rimbaux heard your call and before the emergency teams got to you, you could have bled to death three times over.”

I looked into Lieutenant Kirby’s eyes. “My call?”

The lieutenant motioned with his head to Agent Gage, who flipped several pages back in his notebook. “Yeah. Sergeant Rimbaux’s statement.” He read from his page stiffly, ‘”Shots fired. Shots fired. Shots fired.” And then nothing. I knew it was Bogner’s voice, but he sounded sleepy.’”

“I don’t remember calling in,” I said.

Agent Gage sighed, raising his eyes to me from his notes. He stared at me for a few seconds, apparently searching his thoughts for any other questions. “Is there anything else you can remember? Anything you haven’t told us?”

I thought back, found nothing, and slowly shook my head from side to side.

“Do you have any questions for me?” he asked.

“Green saw something that made him fire,” I said. “Did they find anything out there?”

The lieutenant hack-laughed again and stood up. “Nothing but some splintered trees and a couple of shot-up deer.”

As the men left the room, I called to the lieutenant. “Sir? Do you believe me?” He stared at me. Silent. “I know I saw her, sir. I couldn’t be mistaken about it. She was beautiful.”

Lieutenant Kirby looked down for a second at his beret in his hands, and then said, “You take it easy, Airman Bogner. We’ll probably be back in a day or two with some more questions and have you tell us the story again.” Then he slid out of the room.

He didn’t believe me. He didn’t need to say it. They could come back every day and ask me to tell them the story, trying to find something different from any of the other days, because they didn’t believe me. But they wouldn’t find anything. I couldn’t tell it any differently because there’s no other way to tell it than how it happened.

I adjusted the bed down flat and looked at my feet hanging by cables above the bed. I sighed and closed my eyes. In a little while I knew I’d be asleep, and she’d come to visit me again to take away the pain like she had since I first saw her three nights ago. She is beautiful.