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Area 51, Nevada
“The dude is on vacation,” Shannon said as she plopped down on Cagney’s sofa. “Bartholomew is checking him out. I doubt he’ll find out where he is.”
“And just what makes you think he’s the one?”
“He disappeared on July 5th. Ring a bell? He’s a Senior Master Sergeant, the other guy on leave is a PFC. The rest of the jerks working there are wrench turners, they don’t have the brains to do this. You check out this dude, you’ll find something. His name is James Collins.”
“Collins!” Cagney yelled, jumping to his feet. “Son of a bitch. I know him. I flew some missions with him years ago. You know, training missions. He was in charge of arming the weapons. He fucked up, so I wrote him up and they sent him back to Elmendorf. What the hell is he doing at Nellis?”
“What do you mean, he fucked up?”
“He armed six nuclear weapons over civilian territory without the Captain’s command,” Cagney said. “He said he misunderstood the Captain’s order. There was no order. After that, they changed the protocol and took out the firing mechanisms.”
“Who was the Captain?”
“Simms,” Cagney said quietly. “It was Simms.”
“Sounds like a rehearsal, you ask me. And now he’s a mechanic at Nellis. A supervisor. Want to tell me any more about your great security, Cagney?”
“Jesus,” Cagney sighed as he slumped into his chair. “I’m trying to think where he would go. Let’s see.......”
“Pussy,” Shannon said.
“Huh?”
“Come on, General. Everybody in this place is terminally horny. Where would he go to get laid?”
“That’s it!” Cagney yelled, jumping to his feet. “Peru. He went crazy one night watching a beauty contest from Peru. He was on the recovery team, too. They did one there.”
“Did one what?”
“You know,” Cagney said, nodding toward the glass. “The room. The glass cylinders. Larry.”
“Oh, that Peru,” Shannon smiled. “I see. So Jimmy is getting his weasel shined down in Lima. Fat lot of good that does us. He can log onto the internet and detonate this shit any time he wants. Did you find anything interesting downstairs?”
“We took care of that,” Cagney said nervously. “Nothing can go off down there. Take my word for it.”
“But was I right?”
“Yes,” Cagney said quietly. “One was wired up.”
“To what?”
“Huh?”
“Wired to what? How could it be set off?”
“Damn it,” Cagney sighed. “You always ask the wrong questions, don’t you. We unwired it. What else matters?”
“What matters is that the asshole isn’t here! Come on, General, think about it. It had to be connected to something else, a computer, a phone line, whatever. And the other five will be, too.”
’’Shit,” Cagney sighed as he grabbed his phone. He muttered a few commands and hung up. “We’re on it. They’ll trace it out.”
“Good. You see what you can do to find this dope. I’ll be in my quarters with my friends. You’d better have beer for us, too.”