Joe Poyer - North Cape

When the engine failed a fourth time and the RPM’s fell and, kept on falling, he decided, enough, and threw the radio transmitter switches.

“Target One, Target One, acknowledge.”

The communicator buzzed on Larkin’s console. He snapped it on with an impatient motion and acknowledged sharply.

“Captain, this is the communications room. We are receiving an in-clear radio message from identity Beatle—”

“What the hell?” Larkin roared. “Did you say Beetle?”

“Yes, sir, he’s coming in on no Mo. and his voice is funny… kind of slow and broken.”

“All right…” Larkin was thinking fast. Obviously something had gone wrong. The recon aircraft was already fourteen minutes-late and now he was transmitting over an open channel, in-clear. “All right,” he repeated. “Pipe him up here and acknowledge.” Almost instantly, the bridge speakers burst into life with a rumble of static.

“Target One, Target One, acknowledge.”

Much longer, Teleman thought, and it would not matter. Already he could see several radar blips that he knew to be radio monitoring aircraft beginning to form a triangulation pattern.

“Target One, Target One, come in you blasted idiots. What the hell do… you think is going on up here?”

Teleman followed with a long string of profanity. If nothing else, that should convince them that he was an American.

“Identify yourself.” The message was short and in the clear. “Target One, Target One, stop playing games. This is Beatle!”

The eleven men on the bridge swiveled almost as one to stare in surprise at their captain. In a year and a half of these mysterious missions around the world this was the first time that anyone except Larkin had heard the hushed voice that came in at periodic intervals. The marine guard started forward, hesitated, as if not knowing,what to’ do. Then training took over and he strode over to Larkin’s desk. Larkin ignored him. He was now concentrating on the speaker and his communications officer acknowledging the call. The bridge operator had still not recovered from the unexpected shock and sat staring at his captain with a quizzical look on his face. Folsom moved to stand behind Larkin, he too ignoring the flustered marine.

“Quit horsing around down… there, I’m… I’m…”

“Target One, here, Target One here, status quickly.” Larkin’s voice was tight, the strain evident. He knew as well as did Folsom that this could be a Russian trick to draw them out, to establish radio fix down which a salvo of missiles could streak at any moment. The radar operator came to suddenly and with a half-choked shout swung back to his screens.

“Bandit… jumped over… Finland. Tail… surface badly-shot up… losing altitude… fuel almost gone… bandits waiting… stand by for transmission… this channel.”

“Beatle wait until within usual procedural range. Repeat, wait until within usual procedural range.”

“No good… cannot last that long.”

Teleman stopped, breathing deeply with the effort. The warm, comforting hands of sleep were again closing around him. He had to shake his head several times before he could focus his thoughts enough to even wonder why the PGMS was not compensating. Then he saw why. The single-minded computer feedback systems were convinced that he was jeopardizing the mission. The flashing MISSION ABORT sign was flickering at him. If he had. not over-ridden the controls earlier, the computer would probably have disregarded the threat of the Soviet fighters and decided Whether or not to run for home at top speed or trigger off the destruct bomb carefully packed away in the center of the aircraft.

Now he was becoming aware that his heart was beating like a trip hammer. His vision had closed to a narrow tunnel that encompassed only the instrument panel. How much more of this total body-system abuse he could take before his heart quit or he had a stroke he did not know. He knew only that he must get the message through to the RFK that the Russians had the optical tracking system.

“Target One, do not interrupt… prepare to receive… transmission. Bandits are onto… ball game… all in transmission…”

“No,” Larkin shouted. °We have a tanker on the way. He can reach you in less than fifteen minutes.”

If he could have, Teleman would have laughed. In fifteen minutes he could very well be dead, from several causes, not the least of which were Soviet interceptors.

“On my mark… five seconds to transmit… five… four… three… two… one… transmit.”

Over the radio Teleman could hear the squeal of tape decks spinning madly as twenty-six hours of constant speed recording on sixty-eight channels was transmitted. Then he leaned back exhausted. His job was done. The strain of the mission and the almost constant skirmishing with Soviet interceptors in the last eight hours, with only a few minutes sleep at a time, and the overload of drugs in his system caused a stultifying lethargy that was interrupted only by his heart rate. His portion of the task was indeed finished. And so was he. It had been twenty hours since he had more than a few snatched hours of drug-induced light sleep, with the rest of the time occupied in intense mental and physical’ concentration, again prompted by drugs. The A-17 began to fall off and he brought it back with difficulty. The tail section was beginning to vibrate badly again as he lost altitude into the storm, threatening to come loose somewhere aft of the cockpit at any moment. The engine coughed once more and resumed its dull steady murmur. The emergency reserve tank levels were pushing well into the danger zone now.

“Can you hold for tanker?” Larkin asked again. The familiar voice, was high pitched over the radio, rumbling faintly with storm-induced static.

Teleman brought himself upright with difficulty. “No… fuel almost gone… not even reach you… sorry about clear message… no difference… bandits onto everything… so don’t worry…”

Teleman stopped abruptly. He was beginning to ramble and every second he continued to talk brought the Russians that much closer. “Approximately ten minutes… flight left… losing altitude… down on… coast… destroy… plane.”

“You can’t,” Larkin almost shouted. “Try and make it…” Then he realized the futility of what he had been going to say. At five hundred miles an hour, that meant almost forty minutes or more to the ship, and with only ten minutes of fuel left — idiotic, he told himself savagely.

Teleman’s voice came again, weaker and weaker as he talked: “I’ll come in low… over coast… eject… plane… destroy.”

Larkin, standing on the warmly lit bridge of the RFK, could picture the lonely man in the cockpit of his damaged aircraft. He would be going slowly through the motions of setting the timer on the self-destruct charge. As soon as he ejected, it would begin to count off three. minutes. If Teleman did not eject within five minutes of setting the timer, it would go off anyway, with enough force to blow tiny pieces of. the aircraft over a five-mile area. Larkin figured quickly on a scratch pad, glancing from the Doppler distance readout to the radar operator, shaking his head.

“Target One, here. We are getting a position fix on you and will track you down. I’ll bring the ship in and pick you up as soon as the storm subsides enough to get a helicopter or boat in.”

Even as Larkin spoke the radio operator handed him a decoded note, which he read through and then handed to Folsom to read.

“The hell… you will…” Teleman muttered. “Get… those tapes back.”

“Sorry, I’ve just been directed to pick you up. Obviously they are going to want to hear about the bandits and fast. All overflights have been suspended until they can talk to you.”