Command and Control

Colonel Moser left the Missile Potential Hazard Net and used the Security Police Net to speak directly with Morris. It was almost one in the morning, and a decision had been made. He told Morris that three airmen should put on RFHCO suits. A checklist had been prepared, and Moser wanted him to copy it down, word for word.

Morris grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil and, while sitting in the front seat of Brocksmith’s truck, copied down the instructions.

It was the same checklist that the command post had prepared two hours earlier, except that the 200 ppm fuel vapor limit had been raised to 250 ppm.

Morris spent fifteen minutes listening carefully and writing down exactly what Moser said. They finished — and then Moser paused, told him to stand by, and signed off.

Morris sat in the truck, waiting. Twenty minutes later, Colonel Moser was on the radio again. There was a slight change of plan: instead of entering the silo, the two airmen in RFHCOs should enter the control center.

Moser stressed that the men should avoid passing through any fuel vapor. He didn’t want anyone to get hurt. And he passed along General Leavitt’s instructions that no electrical switch should be turned on or off without permission from SAC headquarters.

Colonel Morris left the truck, gathered the members of PTS Team B, and read them the final checklist. He went through every step. And he said, we don’t want any heroes out there. We’ll do exactly what’s on the paper, and that’s all, and then we’re all going to come back.

“Colonel, this is unreal,” Jeff Kennedy said. Kennedy could not believe that this was the plan. It was insane. It made absolutely no sense to send men into the launch complex through the access portal, instead of the escape hatch. The access portal was a much more dangerous route. If you went through the escape hatch, the trip to the control center would be quick and direct, and you wouldn’t have to open any blast doors with a goddamn hand pump. If you went through the escape hatch, you’d be protected by the blast doors, not impeded by them. And the escape hatch was on the opposite side of the complex from the missile. The access portal was a lot closer to the missile. Why send anyone in there? Of course you’d have to sample for fuel vapor every step of the way; you’d be in danger every step of the way. To reach the control center, the men would have to pass through the blast lock — and it was full of fuel vapor six hours ago, when PTS Team A opened the door a crack, took a peek, and then had to slam it shut. Why send anyone down the longest, most dangerous, most likely to be contaminated route? Kennedy thought this checklist must have been written by somebody who’d never set foot on a Titan II complex. Of course you can fit a man in RFHCO through the escape hatch, Kennedy argued. He’d just been through the escape hatch, so he ought to know.

Kennedy, this is the plan, Morris said. This is the plan that’s come down, and that’s it. End of discussion.

Sergeant Hanson had selected the three men who’d enter the complex and the three who would wait in RFHCOs, halfway down the access road, as backup. Kennedy wasn’t one of them. Kennedy and Hanson didn’t get along. Hanson wished Kennedy had returned to the base with the rest of PTS Team A. As team chief, Hanson was in charge of this operation. He didn’t think you could fit through the escape hatch in a RFHCO. He liked the checklist, and if Kennedy didn’t, that was too bad.

David Livingston, Greg Devlin, and Rex Hukle, a farm boy from Kansas, climbed into the back of a pickup truck, wearing their RFHCOs. Colonel Morris got into the front seat, along with Hanson and Captain George Short, chief of the field maintenance branch at the 308th. Before the truck drove down the road to the complex, Jeff Kennedy jumped into the back.

Outside the gate, Livingston, Devlin, and Hukle drew straws to see who would be the first to go in. Walking over to the exhaust vent, alone, as fuel vapor poured out of it, seemed like a brave thing to do. All of them were willing, but this felt like the best way to choose.

David Livingston drew the short straw.

Before anyone could enter the launch complex, a hole had to be cut in the chain-link fence. The gate was still locked, nobody had the key, and climbing over the fence in a RFHCO could tear the suit. Morris, Hanson, and Short spent about fifteen minutes making a hole with bolt cutters. They finished at two in the morning. Livingston put on his helmet and his air pack and prepared to go in. Although the pack was designed to hold an hour’s worth of air, the command post had instructed that it should be used for just half an hour. The air packs were considered unreliable — and running out of air amid a thick cloud of fuel vapor could kill you.