by Pat Frank
A stranger, a civilian of about his own age, edged along the bar, looked at the headline over Smith’s shoulder, and said, “What d’you think’s wrong with those bombers?”
“I wouldn’t have any idea,” Smith said. He knew that SI men were on the prowl all over the place, not only at Hibiscus, but combing the bars and theaters and dance halls in Orlando and Tampa as well. He knew that Special Investigations men customarily wore civilian clothes, so you could not tell a sergeant from a colonel. But if you had long experience with undercover agents, as Smith had, then you could smell them, of whatever rank or nationality. This man was undoubtedly SI, probably a captain, listening for loose talk.
“I think it’s sabotage,” the man said.
“Do you?” said Smith. An agent provocateur, he thought, a clumsy one. Smith finished his drink and walked out. He stopped at a drugstore, twirled a rack of quarter books, and selected one called, Lost at Sixteen, with an undraped, nubile redhead bent back across its cover. Betty Jo liked to read, providing it was about sex. Then he took a cab to her house, south of the city on Orange Blossom Trail.
She wasn’t at home yet and the door was locked so he sat on the steps and waited. The house was one of a row of four-room dwellings, identical except for the color of their roofs, its construction modern but cheap. Betty Jo’s rent was $55 a month. She complained that this was more than she could afford, except during the winter season when the Sea Trout attracted the tourists and tips were good. Northerners tipped fifteen or twenty percent, she said, Southerners rarely more than ten, and the back country crackers sometimes nothing at all. Betty Jo often pointed out that the house was plenty big enough for two. On these occasions he usually gave her a ten or twenty to help out. Money wasn’t all she wanted, or what she was really after, but money stopped her worries and whimpering, at least temporarily. Presently a green-and-white Chevvy turned off the Trail into Kingsley Street and pulled into the carport. “Hi, honey,” he said, opening the door for her. Betty Jo was home.
Betty Jo’s maiden name was Iwanowski. She was wide-hipped, deep-bosomed, and heavily boned, the heritage of Slavic grandparents who had settled in Detroit. Her face was round and pleasant, her hair long and yellow, and her skin tough and tallow-colored, so that no matter how many hours she sunned she never seemed able to acquire a tan.
The men in her family had always worked in the automobile factories, but none had ever graduated beyond the ABC’s of the assembly line. Betty Jo herself was a little backward in her studies, but precocious in other ways. At sixteen she married Atkins, a marijuana-smoking drugstore cowboy, and part-time collector for a neighborhood bookie. She lived with Atkins, off and on, for two years. Then her father loaned her enough to take a bus to Florida and get a divorce. Florida divorces were almost as quick, and much cheaper, considering transportation and living costs, than Nevada divorces. That’s what the union lawyer in Detroit had advised her father. After the divorce came through she had stayed in Orlando. She was now twenty-four and seriously concerned about her future. She hated being a waitress, but it was all she knew. She wanted to get married to a good, solid man like Stanley Smith, with a steady job in the Air Force.
Stan Smith was the most considerate man she had ever known, and the handsomest. He had lunched at the Sea Trout two or three times, Fridays or Saturdays, always finding a seat at one of her tables, before he asked for a date. She had given him a date the first time he asked, and invited him to her house that first night, and not withheld herself from him. He was so handsome that she wondered why he had fallen for her, and inquired, frankly. He said that she reminded him of the girls back home. Back home, she understood, meant Iowa. She’d accepted it as a compliment since she’d known a couple of nice girls from Iowa, both of them pretty, and slim.
Stan had done a wonderful thing for her. He’d bought her a car, a brand-new Chewy hardtop. After that, she wasn’t at the mercy of the lousy bus service and it wasn’t so hard living out on the south end of town. Oh, she understood that it was really his car and he could take it and use it whenever he wanted. But he’d put it in her name, which to Betty Jo’s mind indicated his intention to marry her, because she was sure no man would give her a car unless he expected to get it back.
He was real kind, and generous, in other ways. He only wanted one thing from her, and she needed that too, so they never had any quarrels. Nor did she date anyone else, seriously, because she never knew when Stan would turn up. It could be any evening, early, because he always worked the midnight shift at the base. Generous and dependable as he was, in some ways Stan seemed strange. He could sit for hours, looking at her, without ever really seeing her. He ate anything she put in front of him, never said it was good or bad. Sometimes he talked in his sleep, and threshed wildly about, his right arm jerking as if throwing a baseball. She never understood a word he said, when he was like that, because his language was so garbled. It sounded almost foreign. It sounded like Grandpa Iwanowski when he was drunk.
This afternoon, when she stepped out of the car into Stan’s arms, she felt a little guilty. Backing out of her parking place downtown she had rammed the car behind her, creased the left rear fender of the Chevvy, and smashed the left tail light. She hoped he wouldn’t notice. She’d get it fixed after she was paid, Saturday. Inside the house, she kissed him and led him to the bedroom. Later, she cooked steaks. When he called a cab and left at ten-thirty, in time to make the eleven o’clock bus back to the base, she was curled up in bed, reading the book he had bought her.
Another evening had passed without him mentioning marriage. All he’d said, of importance, was that one night soon he’d need the car. He had promised some of his buddies to drive them to Jacksonville. He might be away for only a night, or for several days. It depended on length of leaves.
6
Raoul Walback was the first of the Intentions Group to reach a man on an upper level of government. The CIA Director was in Switzerland that week, but his Deputy Director for Administration, Clarence Clarey, was available. Raoul approached him on the social plane—he had a hunch this was the best avenue to Clarey’s attention—and asked him to dinner at his club, the Lochinvar. Clarey instantly accepted. Most of the CIA executives were upper upper, in New York or Chicago as well as in Washington, but Clarey was definitely upper middle, and his family probably lower middle. Raoul had never seen Clarey at the Lochinvar, or on the course at Burning Tree or even Chevy Chase.
Raoul greeted Clarey in the club foyer and had drinks sent in to the lounge, hung with portraits of the Cabinet members, Supreme Court justices, and the two Presidents who had belonged to Lochinvar. Between the first and second highballs a waiter brought menus and Raoul ordered for them both—Chincoteague oysters, terrapin Maryland, duck stuffed with wild rice, and a spirited Chablis, ’38. He could see that Clarey was impressed, but he refrained from mentioning the troubles at the Pentagon until the liqueur. Then he told the story, with emphasis on the need for haste. “I think you, as Deputy Director, can and should present the whole matter to the National Security Council,” he concluded. “We have to break this forecast out of Clumb’s desk.”
There were certain facts about Clarey that Raoul Walback didn’t and couldn’t know. One of them was that Clarey had been in government for twenty-four years, and he had not achieved his present eminence, and a $15,500 salary, by exposing his neck to the sabres, even though blunted, of major-generals, or by making recommendations, and attracting the attention, of any such powerful bodies as the National Security Council. Nine of those twenty-four years Clarey had spent as a $2,400 clerk three floors below the Archives Building. He escaped from this dungeon in 1941 by transfer to a new organization called the Coordinator of Information, then being established by General Donovan. CIO gave birth to twins, OWI and OSS, and after the war OSS metamorphosed into the CIA. Generals and admirals, professors and professional spies, researchers and administrators came and went. Clarey stayed on. By adhering to the government’s immutable laws for surv
ival—shunning all controversy, buttering his superiors, and keeping in touch with his congressman—through normal attrition he was now deputy director. He had not the slightest intention of jeopardizing his position and eventual pension, not for the hydrogen bomb or anything else. He rolled the stem of his glass between his fingers, pretending deep thought before he spoke. “To tell you the truth, Raoul,” he said, “I’m rather glad it happened.”
“You’re what?”
“I’m glad it happened. We need you back with us. I may say that both the Director and I have been somewhat disturbed by the actions of your group in the Pentagon. Stepping on our toes, you know. Duplication of effort. After all, CIA is responsible for gathering and analyzing strategic intelligence. By sending you as our representative to the Intentions Group, we really weakened our own position.”
“I’m afraid you don’t understand,” Raoul said. “We think it probable that we’re going to be attacked. By Russia, that is. On or about Christmas Eve. After Christmas, there won’t be any CIA, or Pentagon either.”
Clarey leaned back in his chair and laughed. “Oh, come now, Raoul. You’re over-dramatizing the situation. Now I’m no expert on Eastern Europe, but Russia hasn’t got the savvy and know-how and organization to attack this country.”
“They have savvy enough to make hydrogen bombs, and they know how to build aircraft and guided missiles and submarines to deliver ’em, and organization—why, Clarence, the Communist organization controls half the people on earth.”
Clarey said, “One day the whole thing will collapse.”
“Perhaps. But not by this Christmas.”
Clarey finished his crème de cacao. He didn’t want to offend Walback, whom he knew to be on good personal terms with the director, but the young man was talking madness. Obviously, he was overworked. “Raoul,” he said, “you have a place in the country, haven’t you? Why don’t you take off for a week or two, and then come back to us. Speaking personnelwise, we really need you back in CIA operations very badly.”
“I think,” Raoul said, “that a vacation is exactly what I’m going to take.”
7
The Secretary of State, that evening, was delivering a major address on East-West economic problems before the Foreign Policy Association. The Under Secretary was in the Philippines. One Assistant Secretary was waiting at National Airport to greet the Emir of a Middle East principality richly endowed with oil. The other assistant secretaries had already left Washington for the holidays. Since Christmas fell on Tuesday, and Christmas Eve would be devoted to office parties for those government workers remaining in the capital, a long weekend was coming. So Clark Simmons, in desperation, telephoned Walter McCabe at home. McCabe was a special assistant to the Secretary of State, with a nebulous overlordship of Eastern European Affairs.
Unfortunately, McCabe was entertaining the Yugoslav ambassador and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at dinner. He was carving the roast when the phone rang. When the maid said it was a Mr. Simmons, from the Department, McCabe did not at first place the name. McCabe was not a career diplomat. He was a super-market millionaire from Georgia, a generous contributor to the last election campaign. “Tell him if it’s important,” he told the maid, “he can call me back later.”
At ten o’clock Simmons called again, and by then McCabe had recalled that Simmons was the expert on Russia now working on some sort of a hush-hush job in the Pentagon. McCabe’s guests were still there, and both he and Mrs. McCabe were annoyed by the interruption, particularly since the maid publicly relayed Simmons’ insistence that McCabe come to the phone.
McCabe took the call on the extension in the study. “What’s so important that it won’t wait until morning?” he demanded.
“I wouldn’t like to talk about it on the phone. I think I’d better come on over.”
“Oh, come now. Let’s not be security-happy.”
Simmons was a little rattled. He didn’t know McCabe very well. He said, “Mr. McCabe, this is a matter of the national safety.” The phrase, “a matter of the national safety,” was used seldom, and never recklessly, in the Department. Its meaning was at once literal and cabalistic. It meant: “Drop everything else. This is of supreme importance.”
McCabe was not aware of the phrase. “What do you mean?”
“I’d better come on over.”
“Now look, Simmons, I’m entertaining some very important people. You’d better give me a general idea of what you want.”
Ever since he had been created a Foreign Service Officer, Class Eight, Simmons had been taught to take it for granted that all phone calls over unscrambled wires were monitored. He had been told never to say anything into a telephone that you would not care to have broadcast over the NBC combined network. So he found it difficult to phrase what he had to say. “I’d better start in at the beginning. We have been working on this forecast, and it must be got out immediately, and now our group has been abolished by General Clumb. You know he’s . . .”
“Simmons, are you drunk?”
“Certainly not!”
“Well, you sound drunk.”
“Mr. McCabe, I don’t drink!”
“Well, whatever this is, take it up through the proper channels. Goodbye!”
McCabe returned to the living room, smiled, and said, “Hope you’ll pardon me. Some sort of intramural scrap in the Pentagon.”
8
Commander Batt had better luck than Simmons. Since he was of an old Navy family, he had no trouble seeing Admiral Blakeney, and he was able to tell the whole story, in detail. Blakeney, who was also aware of the thirty missing Russian submarines, and the flotilla that had slipped out of the Baltic, was already somewhat worried, and he promised to take action. He could not, he explained, interfere with whatever was going on in the organization of the Joint Chiefs, which after all was on a higher echelon. He could, however, act directly, in his capacity as commander, Eastern Sea Frontier.
There was a hunter-killer task force, two light carriers and six destroyers, under his command. Unfortunately, at that moment the ships were steaming into the Gulf to co-operate with Air Force in the search for the B-99 missing from Louisiana, and on the way they would scout for the two lost off Florida the day before. There would be an uproar, and renewal of inter-service friction, if he called them off on the basis of no tangible threat. As soon as the survivors were found, or the search abandoned, he could use the task force, with its helicopters and dive bombers, for other duty; and the patrol bombers based at Jacksonville, Virginia Beach, and Quonset as well. Batt had to be satisfied with that.
9
Colonel Cragey, Felix Fromburg, Jesse Price, and Katharine Hume could not get through to anyone of influence and importance that day. Air Force, naturally, was in an uproar, and General Keatton constantly in conference. Four of the AEC commissioners had returned to their home towns for Christmas, and Katharine did not know the fifth.
She did, however, speak to a colleague, Dr. Nebel, a scientist of awesome reputation for his work on the H-bomb. “I think you will find,” Dr. Nebel told her, “that the National Security Council is already aware of this threatening situation if it already exists. We—that is, the AEC—might be making fools of ourselves if we called it to their attention.”
“I don’t believe it,” Katharine said. “If this attack is coming off, and the Security Council is aware of it, certainly they would have informed Civil Defense—and I’m pretty sure that hasn’t happened.”
“I’m not at all sure that they’d tell Civil Defense,” the scientist said, “unless attack was actually imminent. Think of the risk of panic. Orderly evacuation plans or not, there’d just be a wholesale rush to get out of the cities. New York traffic is paralyzed when one truck gets stuck for an hour in the Holland Tunnel. Imagine what would happen if two million people tried to get off Manhattan Island at the same moment. No, they wouldn’t say anything until the last minute. Any premature warning would immobilize whatever defensive disp
ositions the Army and Air Force plan to take. If word of it leaked, nothing would move—except through the air.”
Katharine wasn’t satisfied. “You know people on the National Security Council, don’t you?” she asked.
“Yes, I do.”
“Couldn’t you make an inquiry, unofficially?”
Dr. Nebel hesitated. “I suppose I could, but I’m not going to. To tell you the truth, Miss Hume, on principle I am against interference in political affairs by people in our position. We have our job to do, they have theirs. Whenever we step into their territory, we antagonize them and invite distrust.”
So Katharine had gone home, and to bed. At midnight the phone rang. It was Jess Price. He asked what she’d been able to do, and she said nothing. He said, “I tried to get Keatton all afternoon, and all evening. An hour ago I went out to eat. When I came back he had left his office. He’s on the way to Hibiscus.”
“Not another?” she said.
“No, not another. Not any since the one from Lake Charles this morning.”
She told him, in guarded words, about her disappointing talk with Dr. Nebel. He expressed no surprise. Then she said, “Jess, are you terribly tired?”
“No. Only my eye is tired. I’ve been reading.” He didn’t tell her what he had been reading, while waiting in the hope of seeing Keatton. He had been reading a new, and exciting, top secret report out of Wright Field. There had been a breakthrough in the development of the intercontinental ballistics missile.
It was eleven o’clock. She said, “Would you like to come up to my apartment for a drink, or a coffee?”
He said, “I’ll be right there.”