by Peter Bryant
Howard knew then what he had to do. He didn’t believe the story about the super bomb. That was just the politicians pressing the panic button again. Nor did he believe the attack on Sonora had been motivated by anything much more than an attempt to conciliate world opinion. But he had just seen a man die. Not a mongoose, or a cobra, but a man. That was where Quinten was wrong. It was all right for animals to kill by instinct. It was all wrong for men to kill except in direct self defence. Nothing could justify it. He crossed to the desk and picked up the telephone. For a few moments he had held the fate of the world in his hands. But he did not know that. He only knew that he could see what was right, and he had to act in accordance with what he saw.
The connection with the Pentagon was almost immediate. His call was answered by a colonel whose name was unfamiliar. "Pass your message, Major," the colonel said.
Howard took a deep breath. "I’ll pass it to the President," he said firmly. "No-one else."
He braced himself for a storm of angry words from the other end. But they did not come. Instead, there was a moment’s silence, and then a new voice said, "Major Howard? This is General Steele, Chief of Staff. You can pass your message to me, son."
Howard hesitated. This was the big brass. If he bucked it his career was finished for sure. But he stuck to his guns. "General, I’m sorry, sir," he said. "I don’t recognise your voice. I think I have the recall code group for the eight forty-third, but I insist on passing it to the President personally. I’ll know his voice all right."
Again Howard was surprised by the response. General Steele said nothing more than, "Hold on son, I’ll get him."
Howard felt an intense nervousness come over him as he waited. He’d stuck his neck right out now. He’d insisted on direct access to someone outside of the proper military channels. His military sense of fitness was outraged, yet his common sense insisted he was right.
He heard a few faint noises in the background, and then a voice he knew was speaking to him. The tones were quiet, precise, cultured. He identified them instantly. The voice said, "This is the President, Major. General Steel tells me you might have the recall group for the eight forty-third wing. You may pass it to me."
Howard found his nervousness had left him. There was something about the voice had given him confidence and assurance. He began to speak.
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Chapter 19
"Alabama Angel"
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11.45 G.M.T.
Moscow: 2.45 p.m.
Washington: 6.45 a.m.
Lieutenant Stan Andersen was satisfied. The new course was working out fine, taking them in a straight line to the target. He laid his pencil down and said, "Clint."
"Yes, Stan?"
"How’re you doing? Anything I can get you?"
"I’m making out," Brown said quietly. "Don’t worry about me, I’m not hit bad." The pain was less savage now, or maybe he was more used to it. It didn’t worry him nearly so much as the numbness which was gradually moving up his back and into his shoulders. He knew he was getting weaker, that his reserves of strength were fast being expended. Well, in another half hour or so it wouldn’t matter. Federov could take over, and he could sleep. He was beginning to feel very tired.
"That’s great," Andersen said. But he wasn’t too sure. He’d seen the mess the fragment had made of Brown’s clothing, and the wide area soaked with blood. He went on, "Shouldn’t need any alteration in course now. Estimate twelve zero eight at target. We’ve been lucky, there’s a dandy of a tail wind. Engelbach, you can take her in on visual and target radar. We start climbing at twelve hundred exactly, so you’ll have about five minutes after reaching height to pick up the aiming point and make corrections before you let her go. O.K.?"
"O.K., Stan," Engelbach said. He arranged in order the series of strip maps prepared for just such an eventuality as a bomber having to run the last two hundred or so miles to target at low level. Ordinary maps were little use at this height. The low level strip maps showed only the prominent landmarks, one every three minutes flight. From these the bombardier could make the small corrections which might be necessary to keep the bomber heading straight in. The first of the landmarks was the Pinega River as it flowed across the track from east to west, and the next the same river nearer its source flowing west to east. He looked out ahead into the white blur of the approaching landscape.
Ahead of Alabama Angel a dozen red flames appeared, coming down from above, getting further away and lower, moving much faster than the bomber. They exploded on the ground, a vivid cluster of brilliant flashes. Seconds later the bomber flew over the point where the explosions had occurred, and rocked in the violently churning air they had left.
"Rockets," Brown said quietly.
"There he goes, overshooting to port." Andersen, now he had finished navigating, had his head up in the astrodome. "Looks like a delta-wing type. See him, Clint?"
Brown had caught the merest glimpse of a slim delta-wing shape, black against the surrounding whiteness. "I think so," he said cautiously. "Think he’s coming in again?"
"I lost him. He aimed off too high on that one."
"Yeah," Brown said. There was an intolerable itching in his left foot. He tried to wriggle the toes of the foot, and found he couldn’t move them. Then he tried to move the whole foot. Again, no response. He realised his left leg had died on him, and he began to have an idea just how badly he’d been hit. He thought for a moment that he’d conceal it from the rest of the crew. But that was futile. If he passed out without warning at this height they’d be into the deck in less than a second. He said, "Federov."
"Captain?"
"Federov, I want you to stand by my seat. Keep watching me. If I look like going forward, haul her up higher fast until you can drag me out. You understand?"
"Sure," Federov said. He moved forward to stand beside Brown.
"Clint, you’re hit bad." Andersen’s voice was urgent. "How do you feel?"
"I’ll make it." With the assertion Brown’s confidence returned. It had wavered for a few moments. Now it was strong again. He’d make it because he had to. He’d hit the target because the target just had to be hit. It was as easy as that.
"Fighter," Andersen shouted. He had picked out the dark blur as it dived, lost it momentarily, then seen the red flare as it fired its rockets. This cluster hit a half mile behind Alabama Angel. One or two strays carried further, but the nearest was two to three hundred yards behind the bomber. Seconds later the black delta shape flashed by above them.
"My God," Engelbach said. "Solid wall of flak ahead. Maybe five miles. Man, it’s solid. No space to squeeze through."
Brown looked out ahead, lifting his gaze from the point of ground a mile ahead of the bomber he had been concentrating on.
Englebach was right, he thought. It was a wall. As far as he could see ahead the sky was criss-crossed with arcing lines of tracer, laced with hundreds of small explosions. He looked quickly to port and starboard. The flak wall seemed to extend without limit in both directions.
Suddenly there was a bigger explosion among the lines of tracer. Something glowed, showered out flame, dropped swiftly to earth and exploded. It could have been the fighter which had just made the attack. Brown thought. Pilot probably concentrating on instruments, never even saw it. He said quickly, "What do you make of it, Stan?"
"Looked like they hit an airplane. Maybe the same fighter just tried to take us out."
"Yeah," Brown said, "but I didn’t mean that. You think we should go through. Or try to get round it. Or maybe go over the top?"
"I wouldn’t think it was any use trying to go round it. They’ve probably got Kotlass ringed in. It’s their number one target, the highest of all priority ones. To go over it is out. That’s what it’s there for, to force a low level attacker up where the fighters can get at him with a certain chance of hitting him."
"So we go through," Brown said calmly. He reached forward and ad
justed his radio altimeter for two hundred feet. "I’m going right down on the deck. Anything gets us at two hundred feet will be a real lucky shot. Any more speed in hand, Federov?"
Federov shook his head no. "Nothing more," he said sourly. "Not a single, lousy knot. We’re stretched out full now."
"Yeah, I figured that." It was funny, Brown thought, the way the Russians could afford the number of guns to ring a place like Kotlass, still two hundred miles away. He began to figure out the number of guns it would require, then gave the effort up as useless. He only knew it was a hell of a lot.
"How far you make it now?" he asked.
"Guess I underestimated," Engelbach said. "Must have been more than five miles. The target radar shows the first concentration about two now."
"O.K." Brown said easily. He brought the big plane down to two hundred. Ten seconds to go. He hunched a little in his seat, purely instinctively. The movement brought a vicious, unexpected stab of pain. For a moment he almost wished the bomber would be caught right away in the flak. Then the pain would be over. But as it subsided into a heavy but bearable ache he forgot it and concentrated on the delicately precise job of flying the airplane at the ridiculous height of two hundred feet.
In the cold air the lazy arcs of tracer glowed with a white incandescence. They crossed and re-crossed in a graceful, lethal pattern. Here and there the sudden bright red eruptions of explosions were quickly born and as quickly died. Brown forgot his wound, the pain, the numbness which was penetrating inside his shoulder muscles now, in the determination to break through the wall. Maybe it was like the sonic barrier. Maybe, once it was broken, there was smooth air, and quiet, and easy passage. Or maybe it continued all the way to the target. Brown tapped his last reservoirs of energy, and poured his strength into the concentration needed to burst through the flak.
And Alabama Angel, so low as to be almost sliding along the ground, hurled herself at the last obstacle between her and her fulfilment, which was the I.C.B.M. base at Kotlass.
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* * *
Chapter 20
The Pentagon
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11.50 G.M.T.
Moscow: 2.50 p.m.
Washington: 6.50 a.m.
There was little conversation in the room within the War Room. Since the unconcealed threat by the Marshal, nothing more had come over the air from Moscow. Twice, the President had tried to re-establish personal contact. But the speakers in the room had remained ominously silent.
Steele had reported that there were still no positive signs that the Soviet bomber force was taking the air. Franklin felt a passing regret that Quinten’s plan, which had succeeded beyond all possible doubt, would mean only annihilation for everyone, not the brilliant victory it deserved. Somehow it did not make sense to forge a weapon of the finest metal, temper it to an infinite hardness, polish it to a dazzling perfection, only to find that it could not in any case be employed without destroying its wielder as surely as the enemy it struck down. Well, he thought, that was the twentieth century. They had to live with it. Or rather, he amended, to die with it.
The intelligence colonel came in to report another bomber destroyed. Again the destruction had occurred in an area known to be allocated to the testing of experimental missiles. Three down, but twenty-nine still flying on, most of them only ten minutes away from their targets now.
Zorubin broke the gloomy silence. "How long will we have?" he asked.
"Six weeks, possibly. Perhaps a little less, perhaps a little more. We will of course provide transportation for you to return to Russia, if you wish it."
Zorubin shook his head. "No, Mr. President, I think not. I have no ties in Russia. Most of my life I have passed outside it. I think I will stay here in Washington. It has occurred to me now I no longer have to live a life of the utmost decorum, I can perhaps accept some of the invitations certain of your ladies have hinted they would be happy to extend to me. On the average, they are much more attractive than our Russian women," he continued reflectively. "Excessive concentration on political and economic theory may produce a well informed woman. It certainly produces a dull one, from the point of sexual attraction, don’t you think?"
"No doubt," the President said stiffly. He could understand Zorubin’s attitude, especially when one considered that Zorubin had already accepted and rationalised the fact he must inevitably die. But he could not sympathise with it.
"Eat, drink, and be merry," Zorubin said lightly. "I remember a wily old British diplomat in London who . . ." he broke off as the call light of General Steele’s phone flickered.
Steele picked up his phone and listened. "Put him through," he said sharply. "Right away." He waited a few moments, then said, "Major Howard? This is General Steele, Chief of Staff. You can pass your message to me, son." He listened for the reply. Then he said, "Hold on son, I’II get him."
Steele laid down the phone. "Mr. President," he said quietly. "The exec at Sonora thinks he knows the recall group. He’ll only pass it to you personally. Shall I get him switched through to your phone?"
The President was already standing. "No," he said quickly, "I’ll come to yours." He moved swiftly round the table. Even with the best run switchboard, calls sometimes got lost when they were switched from one extension to another. One small error by an operator now could mean the difference between life and extinction. He accepted the phone from Steele, and took a deep breath.
"This is the President, Major," he said. "General Steele tells me you might have the recall group for the eight forty-third wing. You may pass it to me."
At Sonora, Paul Howard felt no trace of nervousness. "I don’t know whether I’m right, sir," he said clearly, "but I think I am. You see, sir, General Quinten was talking a lot to me in the last couple of hours. And most of the time he was doodling on his notepad."
The President interrupted quietly. "Keep telling me about it. Major, but first, right or wrong, give me the code letters. Even seconds count now."
"Sir, I think they will be some combination of the letters O, P, and E."
"I’ll repeat those," the President said. "Some combination of O, P, and E." He spoke clearly and slowly. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Franklin take off at a run for the door. The wall clock showed five minutes to twelve. He felt a wild excitement mounting in him. Maybe they’d save the world yet. "Now, carry on, Major."
"Well, sir, General Quinten explained to me just how he saw the attack he’d ordered. He saw it as the only possible way to stop an attack on this country he was sure was coming. He figured that all the factors needed for success were present, and the eight forty-third would be able to destroy Russian offensive strength. If things worked out the way he calculated them, he thought this country would not receive any damage. Obviously he must have miscalculated somewhere."
"No," the President said. "He didn’t miscalculate. His plan, as far as it went, has worked out with complete success. He didn’t miscalculate on the information he had, but his information wasn’t complete."
"Then there was a good reason why this base was attacked?"
"A very good reason."
"Oh," Howard said. "I figured there had to be. Anyway, after telling me how it would work, Quinten explained why he had taken the action. His reasons sounded pretty convincing to me. They boiled down to the fact if we didn’t destroy the Russians now, they would certainly destroy us in the next year or so. He said the only way we could ensure peace was to kill them now. He told me a story about some mongoose breaking a cobra’s eggs to illustrate what he meant."
"Rikki-tikki-tavi," the President murmured.
"Yes, sir, that was the name. The general kept talking about peace, and he used the expression peace on earth at least twice. Once when he asked me what the sound of a SAC wing going off really meant, and once when he said the men he was allowing to die on the airfield were dying for that.
"After the medics had taken his body away, I glanced through the note-pad he’d been
using to scrawl in. Most of the scrawls I could read seemed to have some connection with what he’d been telling me about, which I figured must have meant he was thinking about those things deep down. There was my own name, and the names of the targets. I remember one of them was the Kotlass I.C.B.M. base. Then I noticed on one page he’d written down the phrase Peace on earth. I looked back through the pages and I found it was written again and again. Not only that, but on one page he’d underlined the initial letters of each word, and written them down below in all their possible six combinations. Right then, something told me that was it. One of them was the code group."
"Hold it," the President said. Franklin had come back into the room. The SAC commander was smiling.
"It worked," Franklin said. "OEP was the correct group. The acknowledgments are coming in now."
