by Peter Bryant
He picked on a name. Not because he expected any particular trouble from that man, in fact quite the reverse, but because it was he who had spoken first, and a specific warning to an individual is always more effective than a vague threat to a crowd. "Goldsmith," he said, "if you speak once more before I give you leave, you’ll face a general court when we get back to the States." His voice was cold, and precise. It left no room for any doubt he meant exactly what he said.
He waited just long enough to make sure his warning had sunk in. Then he continued, in the same cold voice. "That goes for everyone in the crew. Let’s not have it happen again."
There was silence for all of ten seconds. Goldsmith broke it. "Captain?" His voice was tentative, but quite steady now.
"Yes?"
"I was out of line. Sorry."
Brown grinned. He was grateful to Goldsmith. Quite unintentionally he had given Brown the chance to weld the crew into a tight combat team right at the start, to get them over the inevitable initial shock of the attack orders. Brown thought he could ease off now with perfect safety provided he got them busy right away on their combat duties.
He said, "That’s O.K., Herman. Forget it. Break out the orders, Stan. Garcia, you distribute them."
Stan Andersen unlocked the metal drawer built in under his chart table. It contained half a dozen fifteen by ten envelopes exactly the same in appearance as the one Quinten had opened. Altogether SAC had twenty-one alternative plans, lettered from A through U. But of those, only six applied to the 843rd. Their targets were the vital ones, simply because they had the most modern, best defended bombers in the Command. If any bombers flying could fight their way through the supersonic fighters, the ground and air launched missiles, which the Russians had sited to defend those targets, the 52.K’s could. So naturally, the vital targets were theirs.
Andersen broke the seals on the envelope marked "R". The others he had already replaced in the steel drawer. It contained an incendiary device which could be operated manually in event of emergency, and would be set off by an inertia switch in event of the bomber crashing.
Garcia distributed the individual folders. There was one each for radar and radio; one for the gunnery officer, the engineer, the bombardier. One for each of the two crew members whose duties would begin and end with twenty minutes’ work a few hundred miles from the target. And for the navigator and the captain, a copy each of a bulkier folder which included the orders for the other crew members as well as their own.
Brown glanced quickly at his orders, saw that he did not need to alter height or speed on the first leg, and said, "First course as soon as you like, Stan. Don’t wait to plot it, a rough heading will do."
"Kay. Roughly zero seven five."
"Zero seven five." Brown glanced at his heading indicator. Two three zero. He increased the rate of port turn, the servo controls calling for no more effort from him to tilt the huge swept back wings than he could supply with the tip of a finger. He rounded out of the turn, made the inevitable small correction, and said, "Steady on zero seven five."
Andersen noted the time, set his ground position indicator to the co-ordinates of Bear Island, and fed into the machine the wind velocity he had computed on the run up to the X point. The speed and height were already set. From now on the gadget would automatically compute his ground position, and display it in everchanging co-ordinate figures. Provided of course, that the wind and speed Andersen fed in was accurate. A large provision at fifty-five thousand feet. His busy fingers moved rapidly over the chart, measured distances and angles, transmuted them into marks on a spherical slide rule, noted the resultant figures on his log. He had quite forgotten his girl in Klamath Falls, Oregon. It was not a likely target.
Brown’s girl lived in Seattle. He had met her when, with other 843rd pilots, he had gone to the Boeing plant for a three day conference on certain tricky points which had shown up after the 52.K’s had flown five or six training missions. She worked as a stenographer in the accounts offices there. A tall, lissom brunette, the girl he had planned to marry at the end of his next overseas duty. He tried to put out of his mind the knowledge that Seattle and the Boeing plant would certainly be a priority target. He succeeded, but only by plunging into the detailed check of crew assignments.
First communications. "Mellows, you got the acknowledgment off?"
"Yes, sir. Aircraft number and the second group. AGRB. Like we were briefed."
"O.K. Check these points. Complete radio silence. Listen on what wavelength?"
"Nine two one five kay-cees. Captain. That’s a frequency, not a wavelength."
Brown smiled. "Too technical for me. All right, code procedure?"
"I’ll read out what it says. To ensure the enemy cannot plant false transmissions and fake orders, once the attack orders have been passed and acknowledged the CRM 114 is to be switched into the receiver circut. The three code letters of the period are to be set on the alphabet dials of the CRM 114, which will then block any transmissions other than those preceded by the set letters from being fed into the receiver. I’ve set up the CRM, Captain."
"O.K., Mellows. Engineer?"
Master Sergeant Federov, three generations removed from the vast grain lands of the Ukraine, a taciturn, sturdy man whose only love was the smooth efficiency of Alabama Angel’s infinitely complex machinery, grunted his presence.
"No change yet. Check with me five minutes before point A. Bombardier?"
Lieutenant Harry Engelbach, not as taciturn as Federov, quiet in normal social intercourse because of an overwhelming shyness, had lost all trace of that reticence now. He said, "Primary target the I.C.B.M. base at Kotlass, Captain. One weapon, fused air burst at twenty thousand. Second weapon to be used if there’s any foul up with the first. Otherwise, the secondary target gets it. The supply centre for the Kotlass base just outside Archangel. Fused air burst at twenty five."
"O.K. You have your target approach maps?"
"Yes. Approach and vicinity charts and transparencies for both. Kotlass should be easy, Captain. The aiming point is almost at the junction of the Dwina and Suchona rivers. They’ll show up real clear on the scope."
"Let’s hope so. Gunnery?"
"Gunnery," Goldsmith said. His voice was calm and steady, differing from normal in the absence of the flippant bantering note that usually was present.
"O.K. Herman, nothing for you yet. You can arm your hornets up ten minutes before A point. You happy about them?"
"I’m happy. I’d be happier if we could carry twice as many, but these ten beauties should do. I’ll check with you before I arm them."
"O.K. Herman. Radar, you stay on search for now. You don’t begin counter measures until we tunn in on the attact leg. We’ll check the counter-frequencies when I’ve altered course. How about it, Stan? You have that course for me?"
Andersen noted a final figure on his log, and said, "Zero eight one. Alter fifty seconds from now."
"Roger." Brown leaned forward to make the alterations on the gyro. There were only two of the crew he had to contact now; Garcia, and another sergeant named Minter. They had flown a lot with Alabama Angel, but neither of them had yet contributed anything more positive to the actual operation of the plane than serve coffee. Yet, without them, the present mission could not have been ordered.
"Ordnance?"
"Sir?" It was Garcia who answered, as he always did. Garcia was the live wire of the pair, a girl chaser, a likeable, volatile man. But from past experience Brown knew that Minter would be listening, and would carefully carry out any orders he was given.
"As soon as the navigator comes up with an estimate for A point, I’ll let you know about your job."
"Estimating 10.41 at A point," Anderson broke in quickly.
"Give or take anything?" Brown asked lightly. There was an appreciative chuckle from the crew. Brown was pleased. This was the delicate part, the instructions which might trigger again the emotional disturbance which had threatened when the attack or
ders were received. He went on quickly, "Don’t answer that, Stan. Only kidding. All right, you two, you can begin to arm them up at 10.33. Number one for twenty thousand air burst, number two twenty-five air burst." Now. It was said. Any comment from the crew? Five seconds went by. None. Brown smiled again. He thought a cup of coffee would be good right now. "How about some coffee, Garcia?"
"Right away, Captain."
Minter said slowly, "Hey Garcia, Bim for twenty air and Bam for twenty-five air, that right?"
"Sure," Garcia said, "that’s right."
Brown was staggered. He could understand how the crews of previous wars had often chalked names on high explosive bombs. But to give names to these things? He started to ask a question, changed his mind before the words had left his mouth. The bombs were Garcia’s and Minter’s special charges. The two sergeants had to arm them, convert them from inert if highly expensive chunks of metal, into killers with a power potential capable of removing a city the size of New York from the face of the earth. If they liked to give the weapons names that was none of his business, so long as their job was efficiently done. He felt quite sure it would be.
Two minutes later, while the crew read carefully through their assignment sheets, Garcia served the coffee. But Goldsmith did not tell his story, and nobody invited him to tell it. There seemed to be a tacit agreement the story would not be at all funny. Not now.
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Chapter 4
Sac Hq. Omaha, Nebraska
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10.05 G.M.T.
Moscow: 1.05 p. m.
Washington: 5.05 a.m.
At a hundred listening posts throughout the free world, in hot climates and in cold, out of scorching desert and arctic tundra, the slender radio masts lift their receiving aerials high into the air. These are the stations which maintain a guardian watch, picking up signals from airborne bombers, and sometimes signals from the ground to those bombers. They are the junction points of the invisible spider’s web of radio. They cover the whole of the northern hemisphere and ninety per cent of the southern. They never sleep.
Seven of them received the attack orders to the 843rd Wing. A further four heard the acknowledgment signals from the bombers. Within minutes the signals had been filtered through the listening stations’ sector centres, back through the main area centres, to arrive with a clatter of teletype machines at SAC’s command post in Omaha, Nebraska.
Here again the signals were filtered. They passed through the decoding room, where individual airmen automatically channelled them to the duty officer, as standing orders required when signals included any form of attack instructions. He in turn routed them on to the duty operations officer. Exactly six minutes after the attack orders had gone out from Sonora the first plain language transcript landed on the duty operations officer’s desk. Three minutes later, the last of the individual acknowledgments had landed there too.
The duty operations officer never ranked below full colonel. He had immense discretionary powers. In certain circumstances he could order SAC into the air before obtaining authority from the commander or his deputy. Naturally, he would be called upon to justify such an action when he notified the commander. But if he could prove the emergency was such he felt it right to issue the orders without wasting the two or three minutes which might be necessary to locate the commander and obtain his approval, then his action would be affirmed.
The duty colonel read the first transcript, then dropped it to look intently at the threat board, which was kept up to date at two-minute intervals on information supplied over a closed circuit from NORAD. He read two or three of the acknowledgment transcripts, while he considered his course of action. The SAC commander was in Washington, but the deputy was sleeping peacefully a few hundred feet above the colonel’s head.
The colonel instructed his assistant, a grey haired major without wings who looked after administration and staff details, to get the deputy commander down without delay. Then he picked up the red line phone and asked the operator to get him Sonora. He was a few years junior to Quinten, but ten years previously he had served with him in Berlin. He knew Quinten well, and liked and respected him. In under ten seconds he heard Quinten on the line. He said, "General, duty operations SAC. We have some transcripts of signals supposed to have been exchanged between Sonora and the eight forty-third wing. Did you know about them?"
He listened intently as Quinten began to speak. For half a minute he listened, then held the phone away from his ear after the click from the other end told him Quinten had cut off. He flashed the operator, said urgently: "Get the deputy at Sonora on the second line."
The operator said, "Pardon me, Colonel, there’s no deputy at Sonora right now, he’s gone to England with the eight forty-third. The exec’s sitting in as deputy for a few days. Major Howard."
"Howard? Oh sure." The colonel knew Howard about as well as he knew Quinten. "Get me Howard, then."
"No can do, Colonel. That line’s out. There’s been a fault on it the last two hours. Matter of fact, General Quinten was worried about it. Got me to check his own line."
"O.K." He replaced the phone and sat thinking for a long minute. Then he glanced at the threat board again. Nothing seemed to have changed. He began to give orders. All SAC bases to immediate readiness. Crews to be briefed, and planes positioned at the end of runways with full war load. Establish contact with Sonora through the normal PBX, personal call to Major Howard. Stratotanker bases alerted for maximum effort, every KC-135 they had to be ready to go. Establish contact with Sonora by radio and teletype. All SAC wings already airborne with war load to head for nearest tanker rendezvous. The SAC commander in Washington to be located wherever he might be. There were dozens of details to be seen to, he didn’t know quite how many. He was ploughing steadily through them when the deputy commander arrived.
Very quickly, he outlined what was going on, what he had done. While he was talking he was interrupted twice. Once to say it was impossible to raise Sonora by radio or teletype. No response to signals. Again to inform him Sonora PBX was not accepting inward calls.
The deputy commander was a two star general. He could go way further than a colonel. And did. Two more wings were ordered off, with instructions to head north. Later orders would reach them by the time they got to one of the tanker rendezvous areas. All overseas SAC bases were brought to immediate readiness. Ent Air Force Base at Colorado Springs was contacted, and the NORAD headquarters there alerted to the possibility of enemy air attack. NORAD took the alert in its stride. A major air exercise was already in progress. SAC called off the attacking forces. NORAD brought in all its fighters for refuelling and arming, and ordered the Distant Early warning stations from Cape Lisburne to Baffin Island to warning red.
General Franklin, the SAC commander, was located in Washington. The general had attended a long and boring dinner the previous evening. He had a slight hangover and he was not in the best of moods. He demanded to know why the hell he’d been dragged out of bed at that hour.
The deputy commander told him. The two generals spoke for perhaps forty seconds, and then the deputy commander turned to the duty operations officer. "General Franklin wants to hear from you just what Quinten said. Try to remember his exact words."
The colonel took the phone. "Sir, I asked General Quinten if he knew about the orders received and acknowledged by the eight forty-third wing. As near as I can get to his words, he replied, ‘Sure, the orders came from me. They’re on their way in, and I advise you to get the rest of SAC in after them. My boys will give you the best kind of start. And you sure as hell won’t stop them now.’"
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Chapter 5
Sonora, Texas
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10.15 G.M.T.
Moscow: 1.15 p.m.
Washington: 5.15 a.m.
". . . how the enemy will come or when. Maybe as a missile from a submarine lying off coast. Because of our geograp
hical position I doubt that, but we can’t ignore the possibility. Maybe it will be a four-jet Bison or a turbo-prop Bear, with the same kind of weapons we carry in our fifty-two. Well, the NORAD boys are no slouches. I hate to say it as a SAC man, but I wouldn’t be too happy if we were assigned the task of breaking through the NORAD defence lines in time of war. They’re that good.
"Some of you men listening to me are probably saying about now—sure, that’s great, so we stop the bombers. How do we stop the inter-continental ballistic missiles? Well, I want to assure you all, and especially those of you who have homes maybe, or friends, in the big cities. You don’t have to worry about the I.C.B.M. It won’t be hitting us. I can’t reveal just how we know it, but you have my promise we do.