Pat Frank - Forbidden Area

Simmons looked at Felix Fromburg and asked a question, “Could SAC be taken out of the play by sabotage?”

The FBI man’s lips pursed as if to taste the words before he permitted them to leave his mouth. “No,” he said finally, “I don’t believe SAC can be successfully sabotaged. Security on SAC bases is more rigid than on any installations in the country, including the AEC and the U.S. Mint. It would have to be an inside job, and that I cannot imagine.”

“Well,” said Simmons, “I say thank God for SAC.”

The only telephone instrument in the conference room, a “hot line” from the Pentagon switchboard for matters urgent and official, rang. Simmons answered it, handed it to Price, saying, “For you, Major.”

Price spoke his name into the phone, listened, said, “Thank you, Maude,” and hung up. Two small canyons appeared in his forehead above the hawk-beak nose, and his single eye narrowed. He turned to his colleagues and said, “Speaking of SAC, two B-Nine-Nines are missing. Vanished. Lost in the Gulf, like the one in November. That was my secretary, up in Air Force.”

Sometimes, as now, Jess looked positively forbidding, Katharine Hume thought. She said, “Well?”

“It could be collision,” said Price, “or navigation snafu.”

They were all silent, thinking. Katharine said it, glancing at Felix Fromburg, “Or sabotage?”

“Or sabotage,” Fromburg acknowledged. “I didn’t say it couldn’t happen. I just said I couldn’t conceive of it, which may only mean that I don’t have Katy’s imagination.

“No use getting excited until we know,” Price said. He still frowned.

“I’m excited,” said Katharine. “It’s my Air Force, too. I’ve got a brother in it. On a SAC base in the Midlands.”

“I think we should get this excited,” said Simmons. “I think we should get this forecast out as quickly as we can. If everyone is agreeable, I’ll turn it over to General Clumb, for distribution, right after the meeting.”

“Does he have to see it?” Katharine asked. Clumb was not one of her favorite generals. Clumb had definite views on the role of women in the military establishment, which he had expressed, publicly and often. She, in turn, had quoted to him Clemenceau’s opinion that wars were far too important to be left in the hands of generals.

“Yes, he has to see it,” said Simmons. “We operate under the aegis of his section, and the forecast has to go through channels, like everything else. Another thing—let’s try to answer, ‘When?’ Oh, we may be way off, but I think it’s up to us to try. Let’s scrape up everything pertinent in our own departments, and be back here at eight tomorrow.”

“Eight!” said Raoul Walback. “Tomorrow?” He had been invited to play golf at Burning Tree that afternoon. He had intended to ask Katy to go dancing that evening. That was out, too. She would be communing with whatever oracles dwelt behind the blank white marble of the AEC, and he would be racing around the CIA’s haphazard cluster of old buildings walled off in Foggy Bottom, a highly secret compound known to its inmates as the “campus.” And the routine of the Walback household provided for breakfast at eight-thirty, and Raoul enjoyed his regularity.

“Eight,” said Simmons. 3

The news of the missing B-99’s travelled more swiftly to the Pentagon in Washington than to the room of Airman 2/c Stanley Smith in Barracks 37, only a mile from Hibiscus Operations. Hibiscus was the newest of the super-bases constructed under the emergency budget. It covered an area of twenty-two square miles, enclosed by maximum security fencing, floodlit in the darkness hours. Around the perimeter, at intervals of five hundred yards, bulked concrete flak towers mounting the rapid-fire 75-millimeter Skysweepers, or smaller platforms with heavy machine guns. An elf couldn’t sneak into Hibiscus without a pass from the commanding general.

Since one of the aims of SAC was to encourage re-enlistment, thus maintaining its skilled cadres of mechanics, technicians, and fliers, much thought and expense had been devoted to the comfort and happiness of the airmen. Hibiscus did not look like a military installation, but like a pastel-hued development freshly created in the tourist belt. Its theaters, clubs, and public rooms were air-conditioned. It had seven swimming pools, a golf course, baseball diamonds, and tennis courts. Flame vine and bougainvillea softened the stark outlines of its ammunition dumps and restricted areas. Palms flanked the streets. Azalea beds and clumps of camellias were in their second year of growth and flower. Banks of hibiscus and gardenias shielded the barracks. True, this town also possessed a gray factory district composed of enormous shops and hangars, and an area forbidden to most of its 4,500 inhabitants—the flight line. On the flight line customarily rested between ninety and a hundred and twenty B-99’s, their wings drooping with tons of fuel.

Barracks 37 did not resemble a barracks at all. It could have been an airy dormitory at the University of Miami, or an apartment house of small efficiency units at any one of a hundred new Florida subdivisions. Most of the men in Barracks 37, like Stanley Smith, were graduates of the Cooks and Bakers School and were rated as Food Service Helpers. They could not advance far in grade, and yet Barracks 37 was one of the most comfortable and coolest buildings at Hibiscus. The Air Force recognized the importance of its cooks, for it regarded the stomachs of its fliers with solicitude. If indigestion drops an infantryman in combat, the others in his fire team simply close ranks and assume his duty. Indigestion to a pilot or radarman at 55,000 feet can wreck a mission, or lose a $2,000,000 piece of equipment plus two hydrogen bombs. Conceivably, a stomachache could spare Moscow.

Airman Smith’s duties began at midnight and ended at eight in the morning, five days a week. He had asked for these odd hours and never requested a change. Smith was one of the quietest and oldest men in Barracks 37. Also, he was popular. He always had plenty of money, which was to be expected since he was one of the best poker players among the cooks, and never went out on tears and threw his dough around. It was known that he had a girl in Orlando, a doll. He was seen, sometimes, driving her car. He had Fridays and Saturdays off, choice days. A man who worked the midnight shift could pick his days. He was entitled to it. Smith never talked much about himself, or his girl. He was a solid man, and would surely make sergeant in a hurry.

On this Monday Airman Smith was awakened at two in the afternoon by his roommate, Phil Cusack, who was still young enough to be troubled by acne. Cusack came from Morgantown, West Virginia. His father had been a miner and he would have been a miner also had it not been for the Air Force. Cusack had never lived so well, and so clean, before. He had no plans beyond the Air Force, except that he never wanted to go back to West Virginia.

Smith was just stirring out of sleep when Cusack opened the door and said, his voice unnaturally high, “Hey Stan!” Usually, Cusack was careful not to disturb Smith until after he had shaved, because his roommate was grumpy when first awakened.

Smith rolled over on his back and opened his eyes. “Yeah?”

“Hell out on the flight line. Two more Ninety-Nines are gone.”

“Gone?”

“Twenty minutes out on this morning’s mission, and then no radio contact. Like they kept on climbing right into the sky. You ought to hear the crews at lunch. Ape sweat.”

“Too bad,” said Smith.

“Fourteen guys gone. Glad I’m fryin’, not flyin’.”

Smith swung his legs out of bed and stretched. It had been so easy. He said, “Cusack, how about trotting downstairs and getting me a cold Coke?”