Pat Frank - Forbidden Area

He heard the door open and the voice of Buddy Conklin saying, “General, Major Price is here to see you.”

He turned, unsurprised, to greet Price. He had lived long enough to always expect the unexpected. “Hello, Major,” he said. “What’s the panic?”

Jesse said, “Sir, I know what’s blowing the Nine-Nines.”

“What?” The word cracked flat and emphatic, like a ruler slapped on the desk.

“Pressure bombs.”

Keatton’s eyes contracted into blue specks. “Pressure bombs?”

“Like the Germans planted on the Cottontails in Italy. Remember, sir?”

“No. I remember hearing that the Cottontails had a lot of trouble, but that was before I was transferred to the Fifteenth. Tell me about those pressure bombs, son.”

Jess looked around the office and noted the blackboard on the rear wall. “Do you mind if I use this to make a sketch?” he asked.

Keatton sat down on the edge of his desk. “Go right ahead.”

“Those bombs,” Jesse said, “were simply explosive devices activated by a simple altimeter. They looked like this.” Jesse drew a foot-long cylinder and divided it in half with a chalk mark. “On this side,” he said, “was an ordinary bellows. In the middle, a battery and fuse. On the other end, explosives. You sneak the pressure bomb into an aircraft. As the plane rises and the outer air grows thinner the air inside the bellows expands. It keeps on expanding until the end of it makes electrical contact with the battery and fuse. It’s as easy as turning on a flashlight. Then up she goes.”

“Very simple,” Keatton said, “and ingenious. What happened with the Cottontails?”

“The Cottontails,” Jesse said, “were a hard luck B-Twenty-Four group based down on the heel of Italy near Lecce. Everything they did went wrong and the Germans began to harass them. The Luftwaffe always liked to pick on stragglers, whether it was a single plane or a tough luck group. They planted an agent in the Cottontails’ base. Planes began to blow up on the way to target. They usually blew just as the Fifteenth was forming up over the Adriatic, at between eight and nine thousand feet. Finally they caught the spy—I don’t know how. They found one of these pressure bombs. They took the spy out on the end of the runway and shot him. After that, the Cottontails became a pretty good group, but it was really hell on morale when their aircraft were blowing.”

“It’s not very good for morale now,” said Buddy Conklin. They all looked at him but that was all he said.

Keatton asked, “What makes you think pressure bombs are being planted in the Nine-Nines?”

“It’s the time factor mostly. I can’t get it out of my mind. The three planes from this base and the one from Lake Charles all disappeared between eighteen and twenty-five minutes after takeoff. That means they all probably blew up—I am assuming that’s what happened to them—somewhere between eighteen and twenty-eight thousand feet at normal rate of climb. But the one from Texas was up an hour before it blew. It just occurred to me that the Texas plane’s flight plan must have called for low level at the start of his mission—ducking under radar or waiting for escort or something like that. If my hunch is right he blew at the same altitude, too. That’s right, isn’t it?”

“Exactly right,” said Keatton.

“Then the analysis from the laboratory at Wright triggered my memory. Same kind of plastic explosive you find in a mine—or a booby trap—and I remembered the Cottontails.”

Buddy Conklin asked a question. “Where did the Kraut spy stick these pressure bombs?”

“In the wheel nacelles, under the wings.”

For a moment they were all silent, a mental picture of the B-24 and the B-99 forming in the mind of each, and each estimating the action he now must take. It was Colonel Lundstrom who spoke first. He addressed his words to Keatton. “I think, sir, that we’d better send a warning to every SAC base.”

“Yes,” said Keatton. “That right now.” The SAC commanding general was back in Omaha, working with his staff on the enormous task of reconverting to B-47’s and B-52’s, if and when the order came. Keatton added: “Authorize SAC to stand down for twenty-four hours. There will be complete inspection of all aircraft. Particularly in the wheel nacelles and other openings accessible to ground crews. You’ll write up the order for me, Lundstrom. I want it circulated out of Omaha immediately.”

Buddy Conklin looked up at the clock over the door as if it had shouted at him. With a single quick movement he stepped to the desk and flipped up a key on the intercom. A voice came out of the little box. “Tower.”

“This is Conklin. Recall the mission!”

“What’s that?” The man in the tower spoke like a southerner, and he spoke slowly.

“This is General Conklin. Recall today’s mission. All five aircraft. Now, damn it!”

“Yes, suh!”

Conklin held the key open and they could hear the man in the tower speaking into the microphone in a clear cadence, an urgent drawl. “Hibiscus Tower to Cornell flight. You are to return to base immediately. . . . Hibiscus Tower to Cornell flight. You are recalled. Return to base immediately. . . . Hibiscus Tower to Cornell One, Two, Three, Four, and Five . . . General says come on home. . . . Hibiscus Tower . . .”

Conklin let the key fall. The administration building was air-conditioned, but sweat beaded his forehead. He looked at the clock again. “Twenty-six minutes from takeoff. That what you make it, sir?”

“I didn’t time it,” said the general. “I saw them off, but I didn’t count time on them.”

They waited, watching the clock. Jess started to fill his pipe, discovered that his fingers wouldn’t behave, and thrust it back into his pocket.

In three minutes Conklin again pressed the intercom key. The voice, shaky, said, “Tower.”

“This is Conklin. Did they acknowledge?”

“Sir, I can’t seem to raise Cornell two and Cornell three. Others are on the way home.”

“Keep trying,” Conklin said. “Let me know if you get them.” He closed the circuit and for an instant placed both palms on the desk, and swayed and seemed about to fall. Then he straightened. His face was white and wet and suddenly he looked very old.

Jesse wanted to speak to General Keatton. He had to tell Keatton all else that was on his mind. “General,” he began, “the reason I’m here—” He closed his mouth. Keatton wasn’t listening. The general was staring through the window, watching for his aircraft, waiting to count his chicks as they came home to roost. Like England, like Italy.

Conklin said, “Jess, come on into the exec office with me. I’ve got to get air-sea rescue going. Lots of other things. Since you’re here, you might as well make yourself useful.”

When they were out in the hallway Conklin put a hand on Jesse’s shoulder and said, “I think we’d better leave the old man to himself for a while. Every time a plane goes in, he dies a little too.” 5

Since he was still under twenty, Phil Cusack regarded Stan Smith as a man of considerable sophistication as well as mature years. Most of the time Smith was taciturn, but once in a while he opened up and spoke learnedly of women, poker, and the ways of rich civilians in big cities, subjects fascinating to Cusack. So Cusack was careful not to antagonize his roommate, and the one thing that made Smith really sore, in addition to having anyone mess around with the gear in his foot locker and closet, was to be prematurely awakened out of sleep. But on this day the news was so big that Cusack shook Smith’s shoulder and woke him up, although it was not quite two o’clock in the afternoon and Smith rarely arose before three. “Say, Stan,” he said, “guess what?”