Philip Wylie - Tomorrow!

“That’s pretty definite,” Captain Pierce murmured.

Eames nodded. “Very definite. With commercial stuff getting higher every year, of course, and moving faster, GHQ was pretty unwilling to accept the evidence at first. Besides, since the peace efforts are apparently on the verge of success, they didn’t believe the Reds would be foolish enough to push their northern recon planes over our states and cities. In fact, they took it for granted all last year that such stuff was being suspended.”

“We’ve felt them out,” Major Wroncke stated.

“And gotten burned for it,” Major Taylor said crisply.

“What’s the interpretation?” Captain Pierce asked.

Colonel Eames turned away and frowned. “None. Yet. The point is, we’re being ordered to put on a big show. For the next six weeks there are going to be ‘air exercises.’ That’s what the public, and the world at large, will be told. We’ll get everything in the air we can, as high as we can, with cameras and arms, also.” He tapped the brief case. “Orders here for a new friend-or-foe recognition pattern. Using that, we are expected to keep open eyes, to photograph anything unidentified we see, to fire on it when and if we can overtake it. Bombers are to do the job, not interceptors. The bombers can go up, stay, and cruise.”

Major Wroncke whistled.

Colonel Eames smiled without pleasure. “In a nutshell,” he said, acknowledging the whistle. “At this base, it means a lot of partly trained crews are going to have to fly some of the latest equipment. It means a logistic problem, just to keep what we’ve got up and on patrol. Six weeks is a long time. We aren’t supplied for it, so we have to get supplied, fast. It means we’ve got to expand the intelligence side; an Intelligence officer is supposed to fly in every plane.”

Captain Pierce laughed. “That’s going to chop up the Lieutenant, here, mighty fine.”

Charles also laughed a little, but his face was serious. “Excuse me, sir,” he said to the colonel, “but did Major Blayert show you the fabric at the last meeting?”

“Fabric?” the colonel repeated.

“That the rancher brought in, sir?”

They were looking at him. Eames said, “I’m afraid I don’t get it, Lieutenant. Blayert certainly didn’t bring ‘fabric’ of any kind to the Intelligence meetings, if that’s what you mean.”

Charles had felt it his duty to explain. But now he flushed. His superior officer hadn’t mentioned the shred of old cloth. By mentioning it now, in the major’s absence, Charles would be doing his superior officer a disfavor. But it was too late to stop. He explained briefly:

“A few days ago, about ten, an old rancher-prospector came to the base, here, in his Ford.

He had found, somewhere up in the Sawbuck Mountains, a piece of fabric, greenish, with some letters stamped on it in white ink. Stuff had been outdoors quite a while; it was faded. Looked like denim, about that weight. The point was, the lettering was Russian, the man thought.”

“Was it?” Eames asked sharply.

“Yes, sir. Numbers and initial letters.”

“Where is it?”

“In the office safe, I think, sir. Or a security cabinet. Major Blayert thought it of no importance. That is”—Charles felt further embarrassment—“he thought it could have been part of some war trophy or souvenir somebody had brought back from Europe, years ago, after the Second World War. Some piece of Russian equipment. A pillow cover, maybe.

Or wrapping from a box that held something.”

“What did you think, Lieutenant?” the colonel asked.

“It occurred to me, sir, that it could have come from a plane. Accident aloft. Explosive decompression might have ripped out some seat covering. Lining. Something.”

“But the major didn’t agree?”

“No, sir.”

Eames considered. “I’d like to see it. Maybe send it to the Pentagon. It could be more evidence of this sort of business.” He drew a studied breath and went on. “Anyway, appropriate orders for all of you here are being made out, as of now. We’re going, ostensibly, to hold air games. Actually the entire continent is to be scouted by the Air Force, at high altitude, for the next six weeks. During that time, incidentally, there’s to be a change in alerts. Condition Yellow will be confidential, as it used to be years ago.”

“Isn’t that risky?” Major Taylor snapped.

“GHQ thinks not. They’ve got good information lines into Russia, China, the satellite states. No sign of activity. No mobilization. No evidence, from any channel, of large air preparations. Attack is therefore regarded as out of the question. The point is, if Condition Yellow stood as at present, every tenth civilian sky watcher and every other Filter Center would constantly be reporting our own flights: they won’t be announced. Our own planes, then, would touch off hundreds of false alerts; Condition Yellow would flash into every city time and again.

The only way to prevent that is to return to the confidential basis.”

Charles said impulsively, “If the enemy knew, it would make a good opportunity for…

!” The colonel grinned. “It would, if the ‘enemy,’ as you call him, showed any signs now of preparation. But he doesn’t. So the Pentagon feels the plan is safe. The official opinion is that this business of reconnaissance is one more stupid action, one more mere crude breach of ordinary international etiquette. They spar for peace, but they can’t resist the improved chance it gives them to sneak a few photographs.”

“Sounds like them,” Major Taylor grunted.

“Still,” Charles said, “if they wanted to get our planes up, foul our warning system—”

The colonel nodded. “Orders,” he said. “Any more questions, gentlemen?”

There were none. The meeting ended. Colonel Eames walked across his office with Charles. “Bring back the fabric.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And don’t worry, Lieutenant, about the air games and your ‘enemy.’”

“No, sir.”

“I did myself, Chuck, at first. Went through exactly your train of thought. We have to rely on our own Intelligence.”

It was the first time the colonel had ever used Charles’s nickname, even his first name.

Charles was unaware that his commanding officer even knew his whole name. He felt flattered.

But he also perceived that the slight familiarity involved a skillful act. Things at the base were about to tighten up. Half-trained men were going to undertake the work of trained crews. Ships, inevitably, would crash. People would be hurt, and killed. The colonel, almost instinctively, had began to behave with that increased intimacy which danger and morale required.

All Charles replied was, “Yes, sir.”

But the colonel stayed beside him, walking toward the door. “I even called Washington myself, before the meeting,” he said. “I suggested restoring Condition Blue to the alert system, just in case. They thought I was crazy. And I guess I was.” He opened the door because Charles couldn’t, so long as the colonel talked. “I’ll put you in a staff car,” he said. “Long way back to your quarters, and a real cold day.”

Charles thanked him. He saluted and started for one of the cars.

The colonel called, “And about that—material. Appreciate your mentioning it. Proper, under the circumstances.”

A damned good officer, Charles thought, as a sergeant drove him swiftly along the edge of the big field.

The Mildred Tatum Infirmary for Colored was a large, brick building on the corner of St. Anne and James streets in River City. Its location, four blocks north of the heart of “Niggertown,” was due to a number of factors, none of which was related to the convenience of the patients or the requirements of therapy. Emmet Sloan had always liked colored people in a genuine, if somewhat patronizing, way. His grandfather, coming to River City from Illinois after the Civil War, had been an abolitionist and for a time had run an “underground railroad station” on the bloody road that led slaves from the South to freedom.