Pat Frank - Forbidden Area

Jesse closed the key and opened another, to the security shack on the flight line. A Lieutenant Marble identified himself. “This is Major Price, acting exec,” Jesse said. “There’s a Beech with an engine out coming in on Runway Three. I’ve cleared it for emergency landing. I want you to get two men—just two—out there. People in the Beech have orders to clear the runway and not get out of the plane. I don’t want that plane near the hangars or the line. They’re supposed to have a crew of two and four passengers. Have your two men hold them out on the lot until you hear from me.”

Lieutenant Marble said, “Just two men? That’s dangerous, sir.”

“You heard me.”

“I’d like to have that order in writing.”

“You’ll get it. Now I don’t want any big flap, any alert. I just want two of your men to get that Beech out of my hair.”

“It may be one of those goddamn Special Investigations penetration stunts. I’ll get reamed if they jump my men.”

“You won’t get reamed. I will. Get going.”

Jesse looked at the clock: 0516. That damn’ cripple had cost him at least three minutes. Where was Conklin? What was holding him up? Had this been an ordinary morning, the Beech coming in through the darkness would have absorbed all his thought. He brushed it aside, now, as probably of no importance. Just so, when making your final run on the target, it was possible to forget flak batteries the instant you were past them.

He concentrated on his next move. It was best not to call Operations, or make any changes in scheduled missions. That would come later, but meanwhile he must do nothing to disturb normal routine, lest the man named Smith become frightened or suspicious. Also, Lundstrom would be acting on the assumption that preparations for the morning missions would proceed as scheduled, just as he would assume the flight line’s Air Police would be available.

Now Jesse faced a problem of logistics. He had twelve B-99’s out on the line, their wings packed with fuel, every engine and instrument tested for takeoff, the crews no doubt aboard, and engaged in pre-flight checks. Yet they were as harmless, except for defensive armament, as New York—Miami transports. Within an hour—perhaps in less time—he would know something, one way or another. He looked at the clock again: 0518. Where in hell was Buddy Conklin? How long would it take to bomb up? Two hours, perhaps, and every minute wasted now was an extra minute the twelve 99s would be earthbound. Who had the power to bring out the bombs? Maybe he did. He would find out.

He roused from sleep the elderly colonel in charge of the special weapons magazine. The magazine was simply a concrete bunker, air-conditioned and with internal temperature maintained at a constant level, buried in the ground under a bright green carpet of rye grass behind the ordnance building. Here the bombs slept. In a space no larger than a three-car garage was enough primordial power to sink Florida.

Jesse identified himself and said, “I am speaking for General Conklin. Colonel, this is a war alert. Can you break out twelve supers?” The supers at Hibiscus had a plutonium trigger, hydrogen core, and natural uranium casing. The trigger alone was a bomb with five times the power of that first one, the one that levelled Hiroshima. The yield of the supers at Hibiscus was fifteen megatons, about the same as the one tested in the Pacific in 1954. Blast and heat would destroy everything within fifteen miles of ground zero. Used above land, the supers would spread lethal radioactivity over an area of at least seven thousand square miles. Used on a seaport, the effect might be considerably greater, because salt water would be converted into radiosodium and radiochloride, and this deadly mist would shroud an area larger, but not exactly calculated. These were considered nominal supers.

The colonel said, “I can break out the supers. How soon do you plan to bomb up?” He asked the question as casually as if he had been invited to cocktails, and wished to know the hour.

“Can you have them ready in an hour?”

“They’re ready now. But my crew is sleeping. I think I can make it in an hour, all right. By the way, is this really it?”

“It is either it, or close to it. We’ll know soon.” Jesse put down the phone and told Captain Challon, “Call General Conklin’s house. See if he’s on the way.”

He was adjusting his mind to his next move when the colonel in charge of special weapons called back. The colonel said, “Just checking. Just wanted to be sure it wasn’t a hoax. I’ll have the supers on the flight line in an hour. Loaded on dollies. On the hard stands.”

“Thanks, Colonel,” Jesse said. When the chips were down, all of SAC could move in a hurry. It was always like that. Even an old colonel could behave like he had a rocket in his tail. What next? Men. For maximum effort, Hibiscus had not enough crews. Many pilots had been dispatched to New Mexico and Arizona to bring in the second-line aircraft. He was reasonably certain, now, that the older planes would not be needed. The B-99 was proved a sound aircraft. The missing aircrews would be needed, and soon. He sent messages to the reserve bases ordering the Hibiscus men home at once.

Challon said, “The general’s wife said he left home at least ten minutes ago.”

So something must be wrong with Buddy. Maybe Buddy Conklin had moved too fast. Maybe Buddy was on the way to the base hospital. Jesse decided not to call the car pool, or Air Police. Everything must proceed as usual. No rumors of unusual activity must reach the mess hall. He started replanning the morning mission. The crews, already briefed for a milk run to southern California and back, would have to change their thinking in a hurry. Whatever happened, he was sure they would be flying east, not west. The moment for which they had been trained and conditioned for years—for some, ever since graduation from high school or college—was close. For the crewmen, the change would not come as too radical a shock. A day rarely passed during which they were not reminded that they could expect it that day, or the next. It would simply mean a shift of map cases, a new flight plan, reconsideration of load, course, and distance, and a real bomb instead of a concrete dummy. Of course it would also mean anticipation of sudden death, but for this they had been conditioned also, as deeply as men could be.

For their wives it would be different. If their wives had awakened when their men woke, they had already kissed them goodbye, not without fear, because of the previous B-99 disasters, but still fairly confident that their men would be home for a late dinner. Sometime later in the day, when the news broke, the wives would know that their men might never come home at all.

Now what? He messaged Limestone, Maine, asking them to prepare to load tankers for possible rendezvous with 99’s from Hibiscus. The people at Limestone would have seen the first message from SAC, and very likely would soon get orders from SAC, but he wanted to be certain that the Hibiscus bombers, which had a chance to be first away from the continent, would not lack fuel if it was decided to send them on to enemy targets. At least Limestone would know what was being planned, although they would have to get the execute signal from higher headquarters later.

He looked up at the clock: 0522. He swung in his chair to call Challon, and Buddy Conklin came into the office, hatless, hair uncombed, no insignia of rank on his open shirt, dripping sweat and with his hands and face smudged with grease. “The damn’ car!” he said. “Sorry it took me so long. Choked gas line. That damn’ car is a lemon.”

Jesse told him what had happened, and what he had done thus far, realizing as he spoke how much authority he had assumed, for an acting executive officer. Even with Lundstrom’s backing, he wondered whether he had gone overboard.