Conspiracy Read Free

center of the floor.
    On the platform was a cage of chicken wire, in which sat a single white rabbit. The rabbit was alive; it was safe to enter. The sergeant left the door open, following the mandated procedure to maintain a clear path for an emergency exit.
    Around the rabbit and the platform were the bombs. Gray cylinders with a dull metallic sheen, each five feet long and one foot in diameter, their noses rounded like torpedoes. They were stacked row upon row, all around the perimeter of the circular igloo and almost up to the platform in the center, with only enough empty space to form aisles for the loading cart that was parked at the foot of the steps.
    “You see the problem?” asked the sergeant as he followed the new man down. 
    His voice reverberated between the smooth steel surfaces of the bombs and the hard curve of the concrete ceiling, and he spoke more softly. The sergeant didn’t want to sound too disrespectful of the army to the new man; that wasn’t good for morale, and besides, he had a personal rule not to badmouth his employer while he was on the job. If you didn’t like Uncle Sam, he often told himself, you didn’t piss and moan, you got out. On the other hand, if you saw a problem and had a constructive solution to propose, you spoke out.
    The air inside the igloo smelled of steel and machine oil. The sergeant realized he was taking shallow breaths, even though he had the mask for safety. He forced himself to inhale deeply as he took the final step down to the concrete floor. Fear might be healthy, but you couldn’t let it work on you. You had to work on it. That was another of his favorite sayings, and he made a mental note to pass it along. He would check the corporal’s respiration rate coming into the next igloo.
    “You know, we’ve got seven hundred tons of Sarin gas right in here with us,” he said, “and it’s got less protection than a single nuclear missile.”
    By the time they were climbing out of igloo number six, the sergeant had fully explained his theory that the gas ought to be stored in tunnels between the igloos, where the steel tanks couldn’t be ruptured by falling cinder blocks. He had also given his views on the safety regulations developed for toxic substances control, and was just beginning to get warmed up on his favorite topic, the increasing Soviet menace, when they were out in the fresh air again and he saw the corporal taking off his mask.
    “Hey,” he said, as he locked the door of Unit Six behind him. “We’re not through yet. There’s eight more to go.”
    “Itches,” said the corporal. “My face itches like hell.” He was bent over, his back to the sergeant, rubbing the flesh around his chin and cheeks.

5
     
    Sharon took the elevator up to the Soviet press office. In the cab were instructions in five languages, thoughtfully provided by the Spanish government. Sharon remembered some of her German from high school, but the others were impenetrable. She hoped Zadiev, the press liaison who had lodged a protest against tonight’s UBS program, would have an interpreter.
    Walking down the polished marble corridor, she thought about how little she really knew of the current state of U.S.-Soviet relations. She followed the news as part of her profession, but Soviet motives had always seemed a cold, far-off mystery to her. And lately, after the Soviet economic offensive that had stunned the West, the Russians seemed even more unpredictable. 
    Speculation had run freely; it was widely rumored that these World Cup games here in Spain were of vital importance to the Soviet strategy because of the futbol passion among so many Third World and OPEC nations. Might the complaint the Russians were making about the documentary that UBC’s Dan Richards had done of their team be somehow connected? 
    Sharon suddenly felt out of her depth, as though she might make some unknown error tonight that could be used by the Russians in ways she had never imagined.
    She cut