Pat Frank - Forbidden Area

“Oh. Do you have to go back to the base today, dear?”

Smith sat up, drank the orange juice, and said, “Yes. I’m on twenty-four-hour pass.”

“What about tomorrow?”

“Can’t see you tomorrow. Have to work Saturday night. I swapped nights with Cusack. You know, my roommate. Maybe I’ll see you Sunday.”

She kissed him, and turned to the mirror to use her lipstick. She had to leave for work. He said, “Say, Betty Jo.”

“Yes?”

“You’ve got a busted tail light.”

“Oh, have I?” she said. “I didn’t see it.”

He could tell she was lying. “You sure have. Get it fixed.”

“Okay, I’ll get it fixed today, dear,” she said. She started to kiss him again, remembered her lipstick and barely brushed his hair with her mouth, and left.

It was a relief to have her out of the house. He finished breakfast, put the tray on a chair, and lay back on the pillow, staring at the ceiling, thinking. Getting the stuff off the submarine had been simple. Getting it on to the base was quite another matter. They were examining everything that went through the gate. He suspected that they would even be fluoroscoping all incoming mail and express parcels.

So the plan to follow was the one he had conceived first, the simple and open way, so matter-of-fact and meshed with routine that suspicion would be impossible. Every Friday afternoon Ciocci came to the city to requisition supplies for the mess. When Ciocci returned to Hibiscus this Friday afternoon he would have a passenger, and an extra package. Even if the package was inspected, which seemed improbable, its contents would appear normal. He got out of bed, opened the suitcase, and counted the bombs. Five, as before.

At ten o’clock Smith took a taxi downtown, and went shopping. He bought what he needed, five standard one-quart thermos bottles covered with imitation leather, and made sure they were packed in their original cartons. He returned to Betty Jo’s house and opened the store’s package carefully, for it would have to be rewrapped. He removed the five thermos bottles, each heavy as if filled with fluid, from their padded niches in the suitcase. He compared them with the bottles he had just bought. They looked identical. A thermos bottle was a thermos bottle. Whether you bought them in Stockholm, Sweden, or Orlando, Florida, they were the same. Only minute examination of their bottoms would show any difference. It was necessary that the thermos casing of the bombs not be airtight, for their trigger was the weight of air. The five from the submarine he dropped into the store’s cartons, and carefully rewrapped them. The five empties he placed in the suitcase.

At one o’clock that afternoon Smith appeared at the parking lot, opposite the courthouse, that Ciocci always used. The blue Air Force pickup truck was there, as usual. Smith climbed into the front seat, put his package in the back with the other bundles, and waited for Ciocci. In an hour Ciocci returned to the lot, arms laden. Smith got out and helped him and said, “Saw your truck. How about a ride back to the base, Sergeant?”

“Sure,” said Ciocci. On the way back to the base Smith listened to the latest poop on the missing bombers. The concensus of opinion, based on what the mess attendants and cooks had been hearing at meals, was that all of SAC would soon be back flying the old 47’s and 52’s. Most of the command pilots believed there was something radically wrong with the 99. “What makes it worse,” Ciocci said, “is that they can’t figure out what it is. That’s why they’re shook.”

At Hibiscus main gate the guards stopped them and they showed their passes and ID cards and Ciocci exhibited his requisition list. “Been buying crockery and junk for the mess,” he said. “Want to look?”

An Air Police sergeant checked the license plate and base number on the truck and examined the requisition list. He peered into the back of the truck, and estimated the time it would take his detail to go into each one. Behind the truck a line of vehicles began to grow. The sergeant waved Ciocci on.

The bombs were on the base.

Smith helped Ciocci unload at the mess hall, and set his own package aside. “That one yours?” Ciocci asked.

“Yes,” Smith said. “This one’s mine.” 7

While Smith was carrying his package from the mess hall to Barracks 37, General Keatton was holding his sixth or seventh conference of the day—he had lost count. This one was with Jesse Price and Katharine Hume, and it was bizarre as a meeting of California flying-saucer fans. Keatton knew Miss Hume vaguely, from the Pentagon. He knew she represented the AEC on the Intentions of the Enemy Group and therefore, despite her sex and age, must be of some stature. Since she had arrived at Hibiscus with Price he also assumed she was the major’s girl. The girl was doing most of the talking. She spoke with the detachment and technical knowledge, and in the military jargon, of a skilled staff officer presenting a problem to a class in the National War College. She was telling him that an attack on the United States was already in motion and that it was up to him, Keatton, to save the country.

Keatton would have called this melodramatic nonsense, except that he was all but convinced that the girl and Price were right. After a man has witnessed the explosion of a hydrogen bomb, and the performance of the new guided missiles, he can never look upon the world in the same way again. To Keatton, no prophecy could be more melodramatic than what he had already seen.

Keatton’s day had progressed from seeming trivia—a report of a suitcase being brought ashore, mysteriously, on the north Florida coast—to this apocalyptic forecast from the full red lips of a striking blonde—and yet he was aware that there could be a link between the two. He had joined with the Chief of Naval Operations in a request to press and radio that the Marine’s story not be made public. Lundstrom had said, “If we can keep it quiet for a while, that airman in the green-and-white car is going to try to get on this base, or maybe Mac Dill or Pinecastle, with that suitcase. When he does, we’re going to know it.” Press and radio had agreed, and the incident was not being publicized.

Now Price was urging him to keep the B-99 in operation, for when the attack came, the 99 would be the only aircraft certain to get through. “So long as you don’t ground the Nine-Nines,” Price was saying, “they can’t win, and if they can’t win they won’t strike.”

“You may be completely right,” Keatton said, “but the decision is not entirely in my hands. I can be overruled. I am giving orders to SAC to resume normal operation tonight. But if we lose one more plane, I’m afraid I’ll have to start replacing the Nine-Nines with reserve aircraft. After all, we know what’s happening to the Nine-Nines, we’re only guessing about the Russians.”

“It has to be sabotage—pressure bombs,” Jesse said. He realized that he had overextended his credit with the general. He had been able to present the group’s theory—this alone had seemed impossible only a few days before—now he was pressing his case too hard. Now he was bankrupt of influence.

“No, it doesn’t, son,” the general said. “You aren’t aware of all the facts. That Nine-Nine from Corpus Christi was carrying air-to-air rockets. Explosives in the warheads are like that which burned Lear’s clothing. Maybe the rockets were defective. Ordnance is working on it now. And we’ve examined every aircraft in SAC. Thus far, no pressure bombs, no tampering.”

Jesse knew that the interview was over. He said, “Yes sir. There’s just one more thing. Can I remain here for a while on detached duty?”

“Yes,” Keatton said. “I’m sure you can help Buddy Conklin.”