General Bob Alvarado’s decision to arm the Thunder Hill staff turns a concealed government crisis into the prospect of armed resistance from within the Depository. Believing that Colonel Leland Falkirk is bringing the witnesses back to kill them—and intends to eliminate the staff as well—Alvarado quietly equips his people and prepares Miles Bennell for a possible confrontation with Falkirk and Lieutenant Tom Horner.

The threat behind the order

The exchange begins with the failure of a cautious strategy. Miles Bennell regrets that sabotaging the cover-up has proved too slow and reflects that openly violating the secrecy oaths might have been preferable, even at the risk of Falkirk’s anger and government prosecution. Alvarado’s response makes clear why he has come to speak privately with Miles: he needs an ally against the colonel. Neither man trusts Falkirk’s assurances. Alvarado does not believe that Falkirk has suddenly become reasonable or that bringing the witnesses back to the Depository means they will be studied rather than harmed.

Alvarado states his conclusion plainly: he thinks Falkirk will kill the witnesses and the staff. He attributes the colonel’s intended violence to the belief that they have all been taken over, a conviction Alvarado dismisses as foolish but treats as an immediate danger. His suspicion is not presented as proof that an attack has begun; it is the assessment that drives his preparations. The distinction matters. The staff are being armed in anticipation of what Falkirk may do, not in response to an already described assault.

Arming the Depository

The order arrives through the public-address system installed in every room in the Depository. After a crackle and whistle, all military and civilian personnel are instructed to report first to the armory for handguns, then to their quarters to await further instructions. Alvarado intends to use the official movement of staff to establish a defensive position without openly challenging Falkirk’s command. Once the personnel are in their quarters, he will tell them that Falkirk ordered them there but that arming them was his own decision.

His planned warning will explain that everyone is in danger from Falkirk and his DERO personnel, although some will understand the reasons and others will not. The handguns are meant to change the outcome if the colonel’s men later arrive to round up and shoot the staff: Alvarado hopes that his people will then be able to shoot back. The plan is therefore both protective and confrontational. It gives the personnel a means of resisting a threatened execution while keeping them, for the moment, inside the routine of reporting to the armory and returning to their quarters.

A concealed contingency

Alvarado assigns Miles a particular role in the contingency. He tells him to take a handgun and conceal it beneath a laboratory coat so Falkirk will not see that he is armed. Alvarado, in turn, plans to wear his uniform coat unbuttoned and hide a small pistol at the back of his waistband. The precautions reflect the need to prepare for violence without revealing the preparation to the officer who may initiate it.

If Falkirk appears about to order the staff’s destruction, Alvarado intends to draw his pistol and kill him. He will first alert Miles with a code word so Miles can turn on Horner and kill him as well. Alvarado insists that both men must be dealt with: if Horner remains able to act, he could kill Alvarado when Alvarado opens fire on Falkirk. Alvarado also emphasizes that he must survive, both from personal self-interest and because, as a general, he expects to be able to make Falkirk’s men obey him once their commanding officer is dead. The plan thus depends not simply on stopping two officers, but on preserving a chain of command that might prevent the anticipated killing from spreading.

Miles says he will be able to pull the trigger if stopping Horner requires it. He also calls Alvarado a good friend, pointing not only to their poker and chess games but to Alvarado’s having read all of T. S. Eliot. Alvarado answers with a line from Eliot’s The Waste Land, then opens the office door. In the cavern lights, he jokes about his father’s fear that an interest in poetry would make him a sissy: instead, the poem has helped persuade a friend to kill for him and save his life. He then invites Miles to come to the armory. The literary allusion does not cancel the danger; it gives their alliance a personal history at the instant they prepare to carry out a lethal plan.