Forbidden Area

by Pat Frank

  “I’d like it fine,” Cusack said. “If I had Saturday night off I’d go to Orlando and get me a girl. What’s the catch?”

  “No catch,” Smith said. “You just take my shift tonight and I’ll work for you Saturday night. Ciocci says it’s okay.”

  “It’s a deal,” Cusack said. “I’ve got nothin’ to do tonight. What’s with your Saturday night gal? You got another?”

  “Don’t know yet,” Smith said, and winked. “Let you know in the morning.” He shaved, dressed, obtained a twenty-four-hour pass from Captain Kuhn’s clerk, and walked slowly towards the administration building, thinking of his timing. Betty Jo would be home with the car shortly after five o’clock. It was a three-hour drive, at conservative speed, from Orlando to the point on the beach between Ponte Vedra and St. Augustine where the submarine would be waiting according to his original instructions. If he left Betty Jo at ten he would be at the beach at one. That was the best hour. At one in the morning very few cars would be on that road, and nobody on the beach.

  Stan Smith walked past the administration building and leaned on the fence separating the flight line from the unrestricted areas of the base. The aircrews and grease monkeys were having a ball, all right. They were swarming over the planes like ants around beetles. Smith smiled. They wouldn’t find anything today. They’d never find anything, never. That crazy American sergeant with the Russian colonel’s epaulets bouncing on his shoulders had known his way into SAC’s bombers, all right. What was his name? Horgan. Smith wondered how long he had been dead. At four o’clock he sauntered over to the bus stop behind administration and left for Orlando.

  Within the administration building Brigadier-general Platt had finally whittled out a news release, and edited it until he hoped it would suit Keatton, and appease Congress, the public, and the press. It was a simple statement of fact:

  “General Thomas Keatton, Air Force Chief-of-Staff, has ordered a twenty-four-hour halt in operations of the B-99 intercontinental bomber to facilitate search for possible faults in the aircraft. General Keatton emphasized that there is as yet no proof of either structural failure or sabotage. However, B-47 and B-52 type bombers now in reserve are being prepared to replace the B-99 should extensive modifications prove necessary.”

  Platt showed the draft to Keatton and said, “Do you think this is all right, sir?”

  Keatton read the release. “You are sure it’s necessary?”

  “I am, sir. If you’re busting a couple of thousand planes out of mothballs you can’t keep it a secret for long, and news of the stand down will leak, too. So we might as well tell it first, and tell it straight.”

  Keatton initialled the release. “I don’t think it’s going to please anyone this side of Moscow,” he said, “but at least it shows we’re doing something. Gives us a chance to breathe.”

  6

  At eight o’clock that evening PFC Henry Hazen called for Nina Pope. The Pope house was a two-story example of a type of architecture known as St. Augustine Ugly. That is, it was neo-Spanish with New England Victorian influence, its walls pink stucco and its roof red tin. Nina’s father sat in the living room, his head tilted back against the greasy upholstery of the only comfortable chair, his shoeless feet up on an unstable table. Bill Pope’s coat, belt, and holster hung on the walnut clothes tree. His belly protruded over his waistband. I’d like to see that big tub of lard on the obstacle course, Henry thought, but what he said was, “Evening, Mr. Pope. Nina home?”

  Deputy Pope didn’t bother to answer. He shifted in his chair and the table creaked under his feet and he looked at Henry with eyes blank and hostile.

  Henry smiled. He wasn’t afraid of Pope any more. He imitated the voice of a drill instructor. “I said: Is Nina home?”

  “Why don’t you yell upstairs and find out?” Pope said.

  Henry called, “Nina.”

  “Coming right down,” she answered, and he heard her footsteps on the stairs. They had been out together each night of his leave, and each night she had worn a different dress. This night it was blue organdie, with silver sandals, for dancing.

  She said, “Goodnight, Dad,” and she took Henry’s hand and they started for the door.

  Pope’s feet hit the floor and he said, “Where d’you think you goin’?”

  “Dancing,” she said.

  “Where?”

  “Jax Beach.”

  “You’re lyin’. Every night you’ve been out with this trash you’ve said you were goin’ to the movies—” he mimicked her voice—“or dancin’. Think I’m stupid? Bed full of sand every morning. You’ve been layin’ out on the beach with him.”

  “So what’s wrong with swimming?” Nina said.

  “Swimming! That’s a new name for it.”

  Nina said, “You’re a dirty old man!” For a long time, for years, she had been wanting to say that, and now it had burst out of her.

  Pope got out of his chair. Henry stepped in front of Nina and loosened his shoulders and spread his feet a little. He hoped that Pope would swing on him. If Pope swung Henry knew what he was going to do. He was going to break his arm and then smash his windpipe with the edge of his hand. Of all the courses in the Marine Corps schools, judo had been most beneficial for Henry.

  Pope decided not to swing. He said, “I don’t want no more layin’ on the beach.”

  Henry turned his back on him and said, “Let’s go, Nina.”

  They drove to Jacksonville Beach on AIA, not speaking of what was in their minds. They went to Millie’s and danced and drank beer, but the beer seemed tasteless and there was no rhythm in the music. Finally Nina said, “I guess I’ll get myself my own room tomorrow. I can’t stand him any more.”

  “I wish I could take you to the Coast with me,” Henry said.

  “Wouldn’t I look good on a troop transport? I can wait, Henry. It isn’t so bad waiting if you’ve really got somebody to wait for. You’re somebody, now.”

  He looked at his watch. “Almost twelve. Let’s go back to our place.”

  “Do we have to go back there, Henry? It scares me. Why can’t we go somewhere else?”

  “It’s just our place.”

  “You really want to go back there because you think that thing will come out of the ocean again, don’t you?”

  “I keep thinking about it,” he admitted.

  She said, “All right, if you have to. But I hope we never see it again.”

  He paid the check and they drove south again, past Ponte Vedra and on along the unlighted, deserted highway until they came to their place. There was a soft south wind, and it was a night unusually warm for the season. Henry parked, as usual, off the road so that the car was shadowed by the fronds of palms. She took off her shoes, and Henry found the swim suits and blankets in the back seat, and they got out and climbed over the dunes to the sea. That night, while they undressed, she did not tell him not to look.

  six

  SMITH WATCHED his speedometer carefully once he was headed north from St. Augustine on AIA. The shell road leading to the beach would be easy to miss, and there were few check points beyond the last cottage. There was the place on the road where pocked asphalt gave way to conquina. Then, several miles beyond, was a jog in the otherwise uncurving highway, a cluster of billboards, and finally a spring and drinking fountain. It was exactly three and three-tenths miles from the spring to the shell road. He had been careful to measure it, several months before, in daylight. He drove very slowly on the last three-tenths until his headlights picked up a break in the solid wall of palmetto. He turned into the shell road and allowed the wheels to follow the ruts. When the breakers gleamed ahead he switched off his lights, shifted into low gear, and crept out onto the hard-packed beach. He saw no other tire marks. He swung in a circle, and re-entered the path so that his getaway would be quick. He stopped the engine, took a flashlight from the glove compartment, and tested it once again. Now it was necessary to make a reconnaissance, as he had been instructed to do, but befor
e that he would rest for a moment and think. He had been taught that the time to meet an emergency was before it happened. It had been taught that the most minute flaw in a plan always developed into a disastrous crevasse in the stress of crisis. He must reconstruct everything he had already done, and he must be certain that future action was safe.

  He had stayed with Betty Jo, as planned, until ten. She had been glad enough to see him, and delighted when he told her he wasn’t going to remain in Jacksonville with his friends. He was just going to pick them up downtown, drive them to Jacksonville, and return immediately. He would be back, he told her, about five in the morning. She should leave the door open and he would slip in and get some sleep and then they would have breakfast together before she drove to work. He looked at his watch. It was one-ten. The timing was just right, and the beach apparently deserted. But he had to make sure.

  Smith got out of the car and walked north along the beach, following a wavy line of small shells, the signature of the last high tide. Now the tide was low, the moon in its last quarter. It was considerably darker than the night he had landed, but still the night was crisp and clear, the visibility good, and the moonlight bright enough so that the figure of a man, say a surf fisherman, would be visible at a quarter mile against the white sand. He paced off three hundred yards, stopped, scanned the beach and the crests of the dunes to the north, and then turned south. He walked leisurely and confidently. He passed the shell road, its entrance blocked by his car, and went three hundred paces to the south and surveyed the beach again. There was no doubt of it, it was all clear. He returned to the car, took the flashlight from his pocket, pointed it at the sea, apparently barren of ships and life, and gave the signal. Two shorts—three longs—two shorts. He repeated it, dit dit, dah, dah, dah, dit dit. He waited for the space of two breaths, and the answer came, one long, one short.

  Nina and Henry had dressed and were walking at the edge of the surf when they saw the reflection of headlights in the sky far to the south. They paid no attention until they saw that the car was moving very slowly, barely creeping. When it soundlessly turned into the shell road, Nina whispered, taut with fear, “What if it’s Father?” Before he could answer she broke away from him and ran for their hollow.

  Henry doubted that her father could have tailed them, or somehow discovered their place. It wasn’t plausible. Even if it was her father, he was damned if he was going to run. So he followed her, without haste, and joined her in the hollow between the dunes just as the car’s lights went off. Nina stepped close to him, pressed herself against him, and said, “You don’t think it’s Father, do you, Henry?”

  “I don’t give a damn if it is,” Henry said.

  “Maybe it’s only a fisherman,” she said, finding composure in his strength.

  “Not at this moon and this tide,” he said. “It’s probably just a guy and girl doing the same thing we’re doing.”

  The car, lights extinguished, ran out on the sand and made a tight circle, tiny shells crunching under its tires. Henry saw that it was a new Chevvy, two tone. White and green, he thought, although color was deceptive in the moonlight. It entered the shell road again, and its motor died. They waited for something else to happen and when nothing happened Nina said, “I guess you re right. Just a couple, smooching.”

  But, after a minute or so a man got out of the car and walked to high-water mark, then turned north, towards them. He following the line of shells, his head moving from side to side as if he searched for something. Nina shrank lower. “Don’t move,” Henry whispered. “So long as you don’t move he won’t see us.”

  When the man was directly opposite, Henry saw that he was in Air Force uniform.

  “What’s he doing?” Nina asked, after he had passed.

  “Maybe he was down here fishing just before dark,” Henry said, “and lost his wallet or maybe a ring or something. Now he’s looking for it.”

  “Think we ought to go out and help him?”

  “No.” Henry’s reply was instinctive and immediate. In the back of his mind he didn’t believe the Air Force man was looking for anything but people. In the back of his mind was the shock and terror of that other night when the armed men had swarmed over the beach, and a car had been landed from a submarine. Maybe something was going to happen again. If anything happened again, this time his own action would be different. Maybe he was going to get another chance.

  The man kept on going for perhaps two hundred yards beyond their hollow. He stopped and looked around. He’s looking for people, all right, Henry thought, excitement growing inside him. The man then returned, walking at a steady, even pace. He kept on going south. He’s doing a patrol, Henry thought. A reconnaissance. They watched him until he turned again, and went back to where he had left the car. When the flashlight signalled, Henry was not greatly surprised.

  He peered out to sea. If there was anything out there you couldn’t tell it under the waning moon, But he did see, distinctly, the answering signal. “They’re coming again,” he told Nina, and put his arm around her shoulders.

  This time they never did see the submarine, but eventually they saw the boat.

  Before they saw the boat they could hear its motor. Then a thin white bow wave appeared, and then the slim, dark shape itself. It was no landing barge this time. It was, Henry saw, a gig, or launch. It idled just outside the breakers, picked an incoming wave, and rode it towards the shore. When it broached on the sand, four men jumped out and held its gunwales. A fifth climbed over the side, holding a box or package in his arms. The Air Force man was at the water’s edge, by then, waiting. When he received the package it appeared an extension of his arm. Held thus, it looked like a suitcase.

  The two men were together for only a few seconds. Then the Air Force man walked quickly back towards the shell road and his car, and the other man climbed back into the boat. His four companions walked the boat into deeper water, waited for an interval between breakers, and pulled themselves over the side. Its engine started, it breasted the crest of a wave, and soon was free of the surf and heading back out to sea. Henry was still watching it, straining for a glimpse of the mother ship, when he heard the car’s starter whine, and the murmur of its engine. The car’s lights came on as it moved along the shell road, just before it turned into the highway. When Henry stared out to sea again, he was not sure he could see the boat at all, and soon there was nothing. There were only the swells, the moon, the rustle of the south wind in the rice grass and palmettos, and the girl’s frail shoulder cupped in his hand. He said, “Come on, let’s go!”

  “What are we going to do?” Nina said. “Where are we going?”

  He said, “We’re going to Mayport.”

  The Navy carrier base, and an auxiliary field capable of receiving the fastest jets, was at Mayport, at the mouth of the St. Johns twenty miles or so up the coast.

  3

  The man who landed to give Smith his resupply was the German navigator, Karl Schiller. His black, waterproof coveralls were uncomfortably hot, and his face was dripping sweat as he handed Smith a suitcase wrapped in plastic, except for the handle. “So we meet again,” he said.

  “Surprised?” Smith asked. He could see that Schiller was grinning.

  “Somewhat,” Schiller said. “It seems that you’re doing well. We’ve been hearing about you, you and your friends.”

  “Yes. Are there any further orders?”

  “No change for you.”

  “And when I’ve used these up?”

  “Nobody has told me a word.” Schiller winked. “But after that I don’t think you’ll have to worry.”

  “Then I won’t be seeing you again?”

  “No. We were to wait for you here until Sunday. After Sunday, we have other business. Auf wiedersehn, Smith. Have you found a hole?”

  Before Smith could ask what he meant Schiller had turned his back and was sloshing out to the boat. Smith walked back to the car. He opened the trunk, placed the suitcase inside, and then shut
the trunk carefully. He looked beyond the beach. The boat was already past the breakers, moving swiftly to sea. It had all gone smoothly and quickly as he expected. He got into the car, stepped on the starter, and eased it along the twisting shell road. When a canopy of palms blacked out the moon, he switched on the lights. A few more yards and he was on AIA, headed back for St. Augustine, and then Orlando.

  As he drove, he evaluated Schiller’s words. Schiller had been cryptic, and yet he had certainly indicated something big was coming. Whatever it was involved Schiller’s submarine. It would not come on Sunday, because the submarine had received orders to remain on station until then. So it would probably come Monday. What could a submarine do? Smith had learned more from the American press and news magazines than he ever had been told in Russia. For one thing a submarine could fire guided missiles, either V-1 type jets or V-2 type rockets, with nuclear warheads. That was it. Why else would Schiller ask, “Have you found a hole?” For all he knew, the target for Schiller’s submarine might be Orlando. It might even be Hibiscus, although this seemed doubtful, for Hibiscus was set out in an area of wasteland, woods, and lakes, an isolated and difficult target.

  Anyway, he himself was doing the job at Hibiscus. By Monday, action by the Red Navy and Air Force against SAC might be superfluous. What was Monday? Christmas Eve.

  4

  Ensign Higginbotham was officer of the deck, on the dog watch, that morning at Mayport. Higginbotham had been on duty at May-port for three months, and in this time he had drawn O.D. in the small hours with disturbing regularity, and in all that time nothing whatsoever had happened. Mayport was the quietest of installations. Every week or two a carrier put in from the Mediterranean, or the Caribbean, to swap air groups and refuel. The new air group flew in from Mainside, Jacksonville, and the planes were trundled directly onto the hangar decks by small tractors. Refueling was the concern of the carrier captains and the oilers. All the permanent party at Mayport had to do was keep the place shipshape, so that this exchange could proceed smoothly. That, and catch sea trout in the turning basin, or take the crash boat out after king mackerel beyond the jetties. By reputation, Mayport was happy duty.