Forbidden Area

by Pat Frank

  Even had the Kremlin planned evacuation, it could not have been carried out. The skeletal communications system, wretched transport, and lack of housing and feeding facilities in the countryside would not permit an evacuation—not in the Russian winter.

  It was this knowledge that nothing could be saved in the Russian cities—not even people—that may have brought action in the Kremlin. Exactly what transpired in its stone labyrinths may never be known, any more than it will be known, exactly, what occurred on the night that Beria was seized and executed, or the day that Stalin’s nine doctors were arrested and put to torture, or the day that Malenkov humbled himself, lived, and fell. There are few elder statesmen and former premiers in Russia, and no publication of frank and truthful memoirs.

  Radio Moscow fell silent for twenty-three minutes. When it resumed broadcasting there was no explanation of having been off the air, but the voice was different. Clark Simmons, listening intently in Washington, realized that Radio Moscow had changed announcers. Knowing how a shift in government is often extended even to the lowest echelon, in so vital an instrument of policy as the state radio, he understood its significance.

  The new announcer approached his subject in an oblique manner, which was to be expected. The government was considering certain changes in foreign policy, of great importance. Everyone was urged to keep tuned for an announcement later.

  Then Radio Moscow was silent again.

  Thirty-five minutes later it resumed broadcasting, this time through the voice of still another announcer. Not only had the policies of the government been changed, this third announcer said, but there had been changes in the membership of the Presidium as well. Except for two deputy premiers, all former members of the Presidium had resigned. There was a new Premier—he named a marshal whose name had vanished from the public prints weeks before.

  The Premier’s first act had been to express his hopes for peace. In addition, he announced that all forces then engaged in maneuvers were being recalled. The new Premier admitted that the unhappy disposition of these forces had provided unchallengeable grounds for hostile action. All Red Navy ships adjacent to North American waters had been ordered back to home ports, and the Red Air Force had been ordered to remain on the ground.

  This was as close as the Kremlin could come to surrender without losing complete control of the Russian masses, Clark Simmons knew. He deduced that there had been two revolts within the Kremlin. The first had been a division within the Presidium itself. The second, more definitive, had been the rebellion of the Red Army against Party domination.

  Simmons decided to drive to New State and report for duty. He felt there was a chance that they might find his knowledge useful.

  3

  The President had not left the White House. According to his calculations and the Navy’s, danger to his personal safety could not develop before Monday morning, unless enemy planes were sighted at the DEW line. In such an eventuality the executive departments would disperse out of Washington. He and his personal staffs would retire to an underground command post a safe distance from the capital. There were two such shelters, each the center of an elaborate communications network, reserved for presidential use. One had been used in the Civil Defense rehearsals for evacuation. Its location was supposed to be secret, but of course it wasn’t. The location of the second, more distant from Washington, was actually secret, and it was from this second command post that he would continue his functions as Commander-in-Chief, when the time came. On the south lawn helicopters were waiting, their rotors slowly churning.

  Now the President sat at his desk in the oval office of the administrative wing, watching the minutes jump up on his electric clock. The office was vast as a small ballroom, and often seemed to him a place awesome and lonely as a haunted wood, but now there was no empty space there. With him in this room were the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the members of the National Security Council, and the Director of Central Intelligence. And others, many others, but these others, while men of prestige and importance in their own spheres, were silent, unimportant, merging gray-white with the ivory panelling of the walls. Later they would tell their children and grandchildren that they had been present, and perhaps describe the scene in articles and books, explaining exactly what really happened. They would magnify their part in it, as the years passed, which is the way of politicians, statesmen, generals, and plain people, but in fact they played no part at all. The Constitution of the United States is so shaped that in a moment of supreme emergency all the responsibility, and therefore all the power, rushes into the hand and heart of one man.

  Messages arrived steadily, were passed from hand to hand by the President’s secretaries and assistants, winnowed down to the most urgent and critical. These alone found their way to the President’s desk.

  One such message was brought in by the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, typed on a single sheet of paper. The President read it, read it again, frowned, and wished it weren’t there. But it was there, and having reached his desk at this moment had become part of history. It could not be ignored, or ever forgotten. But with a clean, clear decision to make in exactly one hour and eighteen minutes, it complicated his task immeasurably. His responsibility now embraced not only the people of the United States, but the world.

  Moscow’s second broadcast, swiftly translated, reached him at once. He read it, looked up to witness the relentless march of the minutes, and shook his head. “That’s not enough,” he said. “Those submarines have got to be surrendered.”

  Navy spoke. “I’d rather not have those submarines any closer to our coast than they are right now.”

  “Can’t they be boarded at sea?”

  “Yes, we can board them at sea. It’s possible, but risky. Even if they’re ordered to surrender, how do we know all their skippers will comply? And, sir, it’d only take one. Some fanatic captain might be willing to trade his life and his command for New York, and maybe Washington too.”

  “So we let them get back to Russia?”

  “No, sir! I want to sink ’em!”

  A general spoke, a four-star general who had fought Germans and Italians for four years on the battlefields of Africa and Europe, and fought the Russians for ten across conference tables in Berlin and Vienna. “Sir,” he said, “we’ve got a lock on them. We can hit them where they live, safely. We’ve caught their fleet at sea. Their planes must be massed on their bases. All we have to do is proceed according to plan. We can smear every base, every industrial complex, once and for all.” The general’s voice cracked. He could not contain his anger and emotion. He held out his fists, clenched. “We can eliminate them, now and forever. That is self-preservation, sir. Our children can live in peace.”

  The President watched another minute die. He had fifty-four minutes left. He lit a cigarette, and discovered that one was already burning in his ash tray, a fluted white clamshell bedded in gold, a token from the Japanese Emperor. A present from the Emperor, long ago, in appreciation of America’s forbearance in victory. For the past year, at his wife’s insistence, the President had limited himself to five cigarettes daily. Now he had smoked, or at least puffed on, at least thirty since he awoke with the news from Hibiscus at seven-fifteen that morning. He looked at the clock again. It was 2:09. It was his moment of decision. He said, “We can’t do it.”

  He ground out both cigarettes, not heeding the rustle of surprise, the quick drawing of breath, that in the aggregate became a gasp, of the others in the office. “We can’t do it because if we killed Russia we might also kill the United States. We might kill everybody. I mean literally. I have this memorandum from the Atomic Energy Commission.” He picked it up and allowed it to flutter back to his desk. It was a pretty late hour to be getting something like this, he thought. But he knew government. It always took a crisis to blast out a difficult decision. He could imagine that they had argued about this memorandum for months, perhaps years, in the AEC. Probably not all the scientists agreed with it, or
all five commissioners thought it properly worded. Probably there was dissent. But a majority had felt that they could not allow him to act until he had seen this caveat. They had unloaded the responsibility on him. That’s the way it always was, and always would be. It was the terrible price of the presidency. Responsibility was the silent assassin whose permanent home was the White House. A minute flipped. They all expected him to say more. They expected an explanation.

  “You all know,” he said, “that for many years we have conducted very extensive research into the effects of excessive radiation, short range and long. At one time or another we’ve had at least forty scientific groups, in universities and foundations, look into it. I have just received a warning that an attack such as we have mounted, and are prepared to deliver, will not only eliminate Russia as a power, but will make a large part of Europe and Asia uninhabitable for months, perhaps for years. That’s not all. An attack of this sort will endanger life everywhere in the world. Oh, not instantly. Not all in a day, or a generation. The general speaks of his children. I am thinking of his children’s children as well. I have to. And any lesser attack, not completely crushing, would expose us to reprisal.” He turned his head until his eyes found a blue uniform among the officers clustered at the right of his desk. “Is that not true, General Keatton?”

  Keatton was not prepared for the question, but he knew the answer. It had been reached, in staff studies, long ago. “That is true, Mr. President,” he replied at once. “We have to hit ’em everywhere, or nowhere. If we fail to eliminate all their bases we are bound to lose cities. A second attack, and perhaps a third, would be necessary.”

  “Gentlemen,” the President said, “I’m not going to pull the trigger.”

  Later, the President often wondered what it was in the memorandum that had allowed him to decide so quickly, and with so little hesitation, and with certainty of rightness. He thought it was the sentence about radiostrontium, an uncommon chemical of fantastic toxicity which would be one of the awful by-products of the supers. A ten-megaton bomb would produce only three pounds of radio-strontium. But a tiny fraction of an ounce, scattered over a square mile, would cause bone tumors in humans. It would contaminate the soil and be dangerous for years. He could not bring himself to spread a cancerous cloud around the earth, or sow cancer on any part of it.

  4

  So there never was an X-Day, or a D-Day, or an H-Hour. The cities lived.

  The remnants of the Russian submarine flotilla that had been ambushed by Coral Sea retired across the Atlantic. By no means all the Russian submarine strength was contacted, so it was assumed that this flotilla had been en route to southern targets. The main body, following, remained unseen and unscathed.

  The bombers of the 519th Wing went as far as Thule. There they landed and remained for several weeks. In the redistribution of SAC’s strength, bombers were kept aloft, prepared to strike, day and night.

  There were casualties. As many people were killed in the evacuation as would ordinarily die on the highways, and by crimes of violence, on a long summer holiday, such as when July 4 falls on a Monday.

  It was necessary to postpone the celebration of Christmas, in most homes, until New Year’s. Millions of families, out of food and gas, were stranded in distant towns and villages Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Millions slept in barns, in their cars, in warehouses, railroad stations, and jails. Others were more fortunate, and for a few days lived in luxury and pleasant surroundings such as they had never enjoyed before. Country clubs and resort hotels suddenly discovered they were catering to the masses, free.

  Hundreds of thousands from Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Washington, and Richmond had fled to the Cumberlands and Shenandoahs. Of these a lucky hundred or so discovered the Walback lodge near Front Royal. Their host at first had been hostile, actually threatening them with a rifle. But when he saw how many they were, and how determined, he admitted them. At the lodge they had everything they needed for their comfort and pleasure, just as if Walback had been preparing his place for such an emergency. Some of his guests were so impressed with his hospitality that when they left they took with them souvenirs, such as silver spoons and forks, heirlooms fashioned by Kirk of Baltimore, that were more than a hundred years old.

  After their last guest departed, the Walbacks returned to Washington. It was early January by then, and the country was pretty well back to normal. Henrietta Walback never tired of telling of her experiences and hardships, when she had been forced to entertain the rabble.

  Business quickly restored itself, since people had to work to live. Congress met and approved the President’s action, although a minority faction would always contend that he had been weak and soft.

  The two captured saboteurs were tried and executed. Stanislaus Lazinoff, alias Stanley Smith, requested that he be allowed to die before a firing squad, as befitted an officer of the Red Army. His request was denied. He was tried for murder, not espionage or treason. He was electrocuted at the state prison in Raiford, Florida, with five witnesses. There were no flowers. Pravda and Izvestia applauded the executions, branding the saboteurs tools of the previous criminal regime.

  Gregg Palmer, the missing man of the four, was never found. Hunting for Palmer was almost as difficult as hunting for a Smith. Felix Fromburg, detailed to the search for six months, was sure that Palmer had never joined the Air Force. It was Fromburg’s opinion that Palmer was the shrewdest of the four. Finding himself in the United States with $40,000 in cash, he had considered the odds carefully and decided to take his chances with the West. He had discarded his synthetic identity and adopted another, and now was lost among 160,000,000 citizens as completely as a single drop of water in a broad lake. Perhaps he had married, bought a farm or business, and joined the Kiwanis Club. It was anybody’s guess. Fromburg felt he would never be found, for his training in Little Chicago had fitted him superbly to mix with the population.

  Betty Jo Atkins was questioned, and testified at Smith’s trial. She was fearful that he would curse or rage at her publicly, and was puzzled and then angered by his complete indifference. During the trial he seemed bored, and when she testified glanced at her only once, and in contempt. Actually, Betty Jo benefited considerably from her relationship with Smith. She was paid a thousand dollars to sign her name to her memoirs for a confession magazine, and another five hundred to appear on a television show, and she regained possession of the green-and-white Chevrolet.

  PFC Henry Hazen was promoted to corporal.

  Clark Simmons was picked as one of the members of an inspection team to visit Russia. Agreement on methods for complete inspection of all armaments production, nuclear weapons, and military strength, seemed really promising, after the years of futile palavering. The Geneva Spirit revived, and everyone hoped that this thaw was permanent.

  Colonel Cragey again resigned from the Army and resumed his teaching at Charlottesville.

  Steve Batt repaired the hole in his game room, at considerable cost, and was advanced forty numbers towards his captaincy.

  Jesse Price remained at Hibiscus on Conklin’s staff. Conklin recommended his promotion to full colonel, skipping the intermediate grade, and he was sure the SAC commanding general, and Keatton, would approve. In an Air Force where crewless rockets were replacing planes, a pilot’s eyesight would be of little importance, since pilots were obsolescent.

  The Intentions of the Enemy Group remained dissolved, to General Clumb’s satisfaction. But General Clumb himself was uprooted from the Pentagon and exiled to a desert post in Arizona to superintend the storage and care of obsolete tanks and armored cars.

  Katharine Hume wrote the AEC that she was remaining at Hibiscus, on annual leave. Nobody seemed to have missed her.

  One night, in the new year, Jesse took Katharine to dinner in the city. The place was noisy, the Florida lobster tougher and stringier than usual. It was not the atmosphere he wanted. Rather abruptly, he suggested they return to the base.

  On the drive bac
k to Hibiscus she nestled close to him, saying little, as if she expected him to say much. But traffic was heavy, and with only one eye it was necessary for him to concentrate on driving.

  Once on the base he drove to the O Club. It was crowded, for the 519th Wing was newly returned from Greenland, and happily thawing out. Jesse and Katharine had one drink, avoided a dozen gay groups, and he led her back to the car. They drove to a quiet lane near the golf course. Three other cars were parked there before them. He turned back, and drove past the hangars and across concrete to the fence protecting the flight line. The 99’s stood there, moonlight on their wings, the wings drooping like great birds roosted for the night.

  “Pretty, aren’t they?” he said.

  She dropped her head against his arm. “Yes they are, now.”

  He kissed her. “This will have to do for our romantic place,” he said. “It’s the only romantic place left around here. Ready to get married?”

  “I’ve been ready.” She was thoughtful for a moment. “Some people think the President was too soft. Men may think that, but not women. I know he was right. If we’d erased Russia, I don’t know that I’d be so anxious to get married. Years ago a fellow wrote a story about all the men being sterilized by a big nuclear explosion. If there had been a war, I don’t think anything so quick and simple would have happened. It would have been much worse. A big bang, and then a long, long whimper.”