Scareforce (7 page)

They went into the supercooled computer room and started the process that removed all power from the banked computers. As
the thinking machine slowly ground down, the silence became overwhelming. When the last switch had been thrown, they reentered
the bay.

Above them, on the catwalk, Ron was standing in the door to the flight station. He appeared to be frozen to the spot.

“I thought you guys were going to turn everything off?” He yelled the question to the men below without turning from his perusal
of the flight station.

“What d’ya mean? We did,” answered Ted. “It’s dead as a doornail.”

“Dead, huh?” Ron turned from the doorway. His face was white and his eyes were wide.

“Maybe you better come up here and take a look at this then.”

The two technicians bolted up the stairs and into the flight station. There they stared at a technological impossibility.
For the flight station was anything but dead. Without the benefit of software or computers or even electrical power the station
was up and ready to go. All the lights blazed, all the gauges registered, all the dials moved. The sound of eight powerful
simulated engines poured from the speakers. The windows glowed with the scene of the runway stretched out in front of the
plane, clear and ready for the next flight.

But who was going to make that flight?

The three men locked and left the building. According to the laws of electricity as they knew them, the simulator was completely
shut down. If someone or something was running the computers with different laws, they were content to let them have at it.

Much conjecture has been expended concerning the ghost of the simulator. A ghost is usually tied to a place from his past
or a place where he died. But the sim is completely new and modern. It was built of new and sterile parts. The building was
constructed for the sole purpose of housing the simulator. Even the ground that it sits on has no history that would attract
a spirit. As far back as can be determined, the land was vacant, first as prairie, then as farmland, and finally as a vacant
lot on an Air Force base.

There is only one part of the simulator that was not constructed originally for its use, and therein may lie the answer. While
the flight station looks like an airplane on the inside, the outside only needs to look like a box. And for the most part
it does. But the designer was given the opportunity to add some flare to the device. Old models of the B-52 were retired and,
after years of faithful service, were on their way to the smelter to be recycled into newer vehicles. He was able to rescue
at least part of one of the old Buffs (Big Ugly Fat Fellows) and incorporate it into the modern simulator. The skin covering
the cockpit and windows was removed and included on the flight station nose.

Maybe this piece of the old war bird held more than metal and glass and plastic and rubber. Maybe it was the home of something
long dormant and resting. Maybe the simulation aroused it, attracted it, and now amuses it.

Or maybe another type of Air Force just needs the practice.

A
S a young man sitting nuclear alert, I never really felt the enormity of my situation until one incident brought it all into
perspective. We were on alert at a West Coast base when a computer in the early warning system made a mistake. As a result
of the glitch we almost launched the fleet. After that I knew the meaning of real fear. Sometimes the known is worse than
the unknown.

What’s the scariest place you can think of? Think it’s an old, ramshackle
Psycho-like
mansion with an infamous past and an unsavory present? The kind that you joke about with your friends at school, scaring
and daring and parading your courage? But your bragging freezes in your imagination as you pass the house on the far side
of the street. You know that the undoubtedly haunted hovel will star in your dreams. Is that your idea of frightening?

Maybe you grew up on splatter flicks and movie special effects creatures. No scary old house for your nightmares. You need
alien claws and technoshock surroundscare to get your teeth chattering. Only Freddy’s smile can call up your chills.

Let me tell you of a scarier place. A place that demands your attention and can steal your breath and your heartbeat in a
fraction of a whimper. How about living and working in the exact center of a bull’s-eye? It’s not visible and it’s not always
the same size but it’s always there and it’s very real. One more thing. It’s got the most powerful, deadly, devastating weapon
ever dreamed of aimed right at its heart.

This place is an Air Force base in the heart of the heartland. That means it’s in a place that’s not very populated and definitely
not a must-see on the jet set tour.

Grand Forks Air Force Base is located near the Red River Valley of that great and frozen state of North Dakota. The “Forks”
is not a major base as military bases go, but it has major standing in another league. It’s a senior stalwart in the coldest
of battles. It is armed with weapons of Armageddon proportion. Its nuclear arsenal is formidable. An astute observer noticed
that North Dakota, given sovereign status, would become the third largest nuclear power in the world.

Generations of warriors assigned to this base went about their careers and their lives in the middle of this bull’s-eye. The
enemy knew of them and their power. They were required by command and by law to feign ignorance of their own power to the
public. “I can neither confirm nor deny that,” was the only statement they could make. But they knew the weapons were there.
And their enemy knew that the weapons were there. And they knew the enemy had trained his own doomsday device at them. So
they lived and worked and played and slept in the bull’s-eye, never certain of anything except their duty.

The fear was there. It was a constant undercurrent that seasoned their lives. And it wasn’t just the fear of what their enemy
would do if given the chance. It was also the fear of what they could do to themselves if they weren’t very careful and very
good.

They knew they were living on time not borrowed but wrested from a cruel fate. Years before, when the weapons were new and
the threat was new and computers were new and filled whole buildings, a private company was asked to look at the fledgling
nuclear force. The brass were concerned about the growing number of accidents involving nuclear weapons.

They went outside their carefully groomed force to a company famed for objectivity and analytical skill. They asked them to
study, delve, question, and observe. And they asked them to ask their big-as-a-house computing machine two questions.

The first was, “Will we have an accident resulting in a nuclear detonation?” And the second was only to be asked if the first
resulted in a yes. It was, simply, “When?“

The company dug and worked and gathered and finally fed all their careful study to the computer. And they asked the first
question. Without hesitation the electronic oracle said, “Yes.“

The company personnel who fed data into the new thinking machine suddenly lost some of their celebrated objectivity. The machine
that they served and to some degree worshiped, had just predicted death on a monumental scale.

Fearfully, then, they prepared the second question. The tubes glowed and the wires vibrated as the metal mind contemplated
the question. Then it unfurled a strip of paper from an orifice.

The scientists took the answer from their creation. Afraid to look yet afraid of not knowing, they unraveled the answer. As
if in jest, the machine had named a range of dates for the catastrophe. But the dates were for five years in the past. It
took a moment for the implication to soak in. The computer was telling them that they were living on borrowed time. The event
could take place at almost any moment unless something changed to avert it.

This information was rushed to the military officials who had ordered the study. For the first time in peacetime the military
command did not hesitate. They called in all the safety and security experts they could find and began the task of redesigning
the control of these weapons of mass destruction.

The basic rules they formulated for the protection of these most-destructive of weapons have survived for over thirty years.
It is a credit to the rules that the country that houses the weapons has survived also.

Those rules continue to guide the guardians of atomic weapons. The Strategic Air Command, the central figure of the nuclear
triad, is the guardian of most of the nuclear weapons on American soil.

If you have ever been on a SAC base, you will know that they take their control of these weapons seriously.

At a base like Grand Forks, the reminders start when you cross the boundary of the base. Or when you attempt to cross the
boundary. No one gets on the base without the express consent of the base commander. That consent comes in the form of documents,
orders and such. Everything must be in order.

After you enter the base, security doesn’t let up. In fact it gets tighter the nearer you get to the weapons. A Strategic
Air Command base has two distinct police forces. There’s the normal type that you would expect in any community. The law enforcement
group handles the routine police business of the base. They patrol the streets, handing out moving violations and parking
tickets where needed. They protect the businesses on base and make sure that everything runs smoothly and legally.

But there’s another police force that few know of. Its job is to guard the weapons of mass destruction. Its members apply
the rules that came from that early study. They enforce those rules strictly. They know that everyone is living on borrowed
time. The job must be done right or the sword of Damocles will fall as predicted. They are dead serious about their work.

As you get closer to the areas where the weapons rest, the control becomes ominous. You see the tall fences, not one but rows
of them. The area in between is sterile and swept. If you knew a little about the job, you would be chilled to learn that
these well-maintained spaces between the fences are called killing zones.

Look closer at the fences. They are topped not by normal barbed wire but by something unique. It looks like the concertina
wire used in Vietnam but it’s different. It’s flat and sharpened. It’s called razor wire by the troops and is so deadly that
we are restricted by wartime conventions from using it on foreign soil.

Move a little closer and you start to see the signs. If you can get close enough to read one, you will see phrases like “no
unauthorized entry,” and “express written permission of the command authority,” and “use of deadly force is authorized.“

But if you can get close enough to read the signs, it has already been determined that you have a legitimate reason to be
there. The security guards have methods of surveillance that even the people who work there have no knowledge of. They are
dead serious in their work.

Within the alert area, where the bombers sit poised and loaded for the final war, the security is intense. Even the crew members
who work there daily must prove their right and need to be there a hundred times a day. No one strolls idly around the bombers.
You must have a purpose to be there.

Each aircraft has its own personal guard. No one gets within fifty feet of the bomber without proper authorization and recognition.
And there are guards who watch the guards. And another echelon behind that one to watch the watchers. Trust is not a given
here.

On a dark fall night, the guard on alert sortie number three walked his post by the giant bomber. The aircraft was lit by
stadium lights high above the ramp, but the structure of the huge bomber blocked the light in many areas. The aircraft was
wreathed in shadows.

The airman paced the line around the bomber, constantly alert, his eyes sweeping the darkness. It might seem to be a dull
job. But SAC did a lot to prevent boredom from being a player in nuclear security.

The young man knew that his movements were constantly being watched and evaluated. Many agencies were given the job of testing
the security he provided. Any of those could suddenly attempt to penetrate his area to gauge his ability. Punishment for failing
to pass these tests was immediate and painful. Any member of this elite force who failed could find himself the exact opposite
of his profession: a prisoner.

Sweeping his area of control, the security policeman paced the line. Suddenly, his eyes registered movement from the periphery
of a large shadow. He rushed to the point of the aircraft boundary, charging his weapon as he ran. Even if it was a test,
he must react as if it were the real thing. The evaluators would identify themselves before he could use any of that deadly
force.

But it wasn’t a test. High above the alert area, in a darkened control tower, the next echelon of security scanned banked
monitors of television screens. The low-light cameras covered every square inch of the compound. Just to make sure that the
cameras missed nothing, a guard paced the catwalk outside the tower, watching everything through high-powered binoculars.

Suddenly the attention of these overseers was riveted to the area of sortie number three. The muffled popping coming from
that area wouldn’t have meant much to an untrained observer. Certainly not the end of the world. But that’s how the guardians
above the aircraft took it.

Immediately, sirens rang out. Both men were on their radios alerting all agencies and all security police on the base. Calls
went out to a different part of the airfield. A helicopter, on twenty-four-hour alert, started its engine with a bang and
a whine. The pilot pulled it off the ground and swung violently toward the alert facility as the last armed soldier clambered
aboard.

All over the base, high-ranking officers were running for their vehicles. With red lights flashing, they converged on the
heart of the base.

Everyone was responding to the same message. Everyone was reacting to the same rush of adrenaline that accompanied the words.