Colonel Cascio listened, immediately understood, and was filled with a terrible confusion. He knew that in the position of these outraged Russian officers he Would feel the same way. Cascio glanced around the room. Everyone was immobilized by the strangeness of the situation.
The President’s voice continued “Premier Khrushchev has behaved as I believe I would under similar conditions. He has delayed retaliation. And I think he believes that this is an accident. But we must convince him, and his chief advisers, that it is. I order every American to cooperate fully with Soviet officers in whatever attempts they make to shoot down our invading bombers. This is a firm and unalterable command. You are to give whatever information the Soviet officers may request of you. Let me emphasize that any hesitation, any withholding of information, may have the most tragic consequences. Are there any questions?”
The President paused. There were no questions.
“Gentlemen, I wish you success,” the President said. “This is a difficult situation for all of us. I expect you to conduct yourselves as patriots and to carry out my orders without hesitation.”
The President’s line clicked dead.
General Bogan turned to look at Colonel Cascio. Cascio’s eyes were green and they had a hard glow in the dim light.
Suddenly a voice came up on the “touch” phone. It was the voice of the Russian translator in the Soviet Union.
“Does the Bloodhound have both infrared and radar homing capabilities?” he asked. “A number of our fighter planes have been destroyed by a missile which seems to home not on the infrared source, but the radar transmitter. Is that possible?”
“Colonel Cascio will answer your question, sir,” Gem. eral Bogan said. He nodded at Cascio.
Colonel Cascio looked at General Bogan. Even in the dim light General Bogan could tell that the blood had drained from Cascio’s face. His eyes rolled slightly in his head. Then his throat began to work as if the muscles were out of control, seized by a convulsion. It was the throat of a man sobbing, but no sound came from Colonel Cascio’s lips. He shook his head. His hand reached for the button below the “touch” phone and then, his finger only an inch from the button, he Went rigid. His entire body seemed frozen, gripped by a spasm of immobility. He did not tremble, he did not ipeak, he simply arched into a posture that ached with tension.
General Bogan felt nausea rise in his stomach. He was not an emotional man, he knew he lacked intuition. But he understood perfectly the awful thing he was watching. For years Colonel Cascio had been trained to guard information, to be secretive, to be Suspicious of the Soviets. For half his life he had carried in his mind facts that bore the words TOP SECRET, and, with a tireless and unending diligence, he had locked them into a private part of his brain. And now he was asked to reverse all these reflexes, to shatter the training of a lifetime. But he had also been trained to obey orders, only orders which came from legitimate superiors. All of this was too much and Colonel Cascio was locked in a dilemma so cruel and sharp that he could not move.
General Bogan reached out and touched Colonel Cascio’s arm. It was like touching marble. With his Other hand General Bogan punched the “touch” button.
“Answer the question, Colonel,” General Bogan said. He spoke in a firm imperative voice. “The Soviets are listening to what I am saying.”
Around the War Room the tension became a pressure on the eardrums.
“That is a direct order,” General Bogan said.
Colonel Cascio’s mouth opened. The lips came back from the teeth. He swung his unseeing eyes toward General Bogan.
“A direct order,” General Bogan repeated softly.
Colonel Casdo made a sound. It was low, primitive, agonized. It was a growl of despair. His body relaxed. He shook his head.
“Marshal Nevsky, the Colonel who is our expert on this subject has suffered some sort of seizure,” General Bogan said. The translator spoke and over the “touch” phone there was a muttering of voices that grew in volume as Bogan listened. “We have prepared for such situations. Each of the men in the War Room has a standby who possesses the precise information which the active-duty man possesses.” General Bogan paused. He looked around the room. Lieutenant Colonel Handel was there, Cascio’s understudy. But Handel’s eyes were glued on Cascio. They were dose friends.
General Bogan struggled to keep control, to think dearly. He must quiet what he guessed was a rising suspicion in the distant Soviet headquarters. There could be no chancing a repetition of Cascio’s behavior. His finger started down a list of names. He skipped over Handel and stopped at the master sergeant who backed up both colonels.
“Sergeant Collins, report to the Commanding General’s desk at once,” he said.
A door at the side of the War Room opened and a sergeant, rotund and middle-aged, came trotting toward the general’s desk. He came to a stiff halt.
“Sergeant Collins, does the Bloodhound have both an infrared- and radar-seeking capacity?” General Bogan said.
“Yes, sir, it has both capacities,” Collins said, a cherubic smile on his face.
“Can the radar-seeking mechanism be overloaded by increasing the strength of the signal?” the Russian translator said quickly. The voices in the background of the Soviet headquarters had died away.
General Bogan felt his body sag. Apparently they bad decided to believe him.
“Yes, sir, it can be overloaded by increasing the transmission power output and by sliding through radar frequencies as quickly as possible,” Sergeant Collins sakL He was still smiling his anxious cherubic smile, quite unaware of the other men in the room staring at him, quite oblivious that he was unwittingly playing the role of Judas. “What happens is that the firing mechanism reads the higher amperage as proximity to the target and detonates the warhead.”
“Thank you, General Bogan,” the translator said quietly. “We have already communicated the information. We have rearranged our communications net so that tactical defensive maneuvers are controlled from this room.”
General Bogan realized with a quick simple insight that with the new communication network his War Room was actually directing the defensive operations of the Soviets.
The new information was reflected almost instantly on the Big Board. Two Soviet blips began to move toward one of the Vindicators. When they were five miles distant the Vindicator dropped. two tiny blips and the Bloodhounds hung almost motionless as their rockets began to ignite. They had barely separated from the bigger blip of the Vindicator when they were detonated by the information which Sergeant Collins had transmitted. Instantly the green fungus-like splotch on the Big Board enveloped the Vindicator. Then the ugly blip exploded into enormousness. The two Soviet fighters were caught in the spreading blast and disappeared.
The light on the “touch” phone went off. Sergeant Collins turned and walked slowly from the room, seeming to deflate as he went.
General Bogan looked at Colonel Casdo. The recovery was unbelievable. The man seemed relaxed, the hard glitter gone from his eyes. He appeared perfectly normal and spoke apologetically about what had just taken place.
“I am sorry, General,” he said. “I just could not do it. I don’t quite remember what happened. The back of my eyes seemed to turn white and I couldn’t see anything or say anything. I think I am all right now.”
“Colonel, it could happen to anyone,” General Bogan said. He knew this to be untrue, as did Cascio.
Actually General Bogan was watching his colonel carefully. He considered the possibility of replacing him with Sergeant Collins. In theory Collins knew as much as Cascio about technical details. But Colonel Cascio, by a combination of training, intuition, and skill, was a much more valuable person. General Bogan knew he would have to keep him on the desk. He was turning away when Cascio grabbed his arm.
“General, I think it is a Soviet entrapment,” Cascio said tensely. His voice was tight but under control. “We’ve known for weeks that they have been fooling around with our Fail-S
afe mechanism. I think they wanted this to happen. I think we should tell the President that we think it is an entrapment, that the Soviets are using the time to ready their ICBMs and to fly their bombers to advantageous position for a second strike.”
“But we do not have any evidence that they are moving their bombers,” General Bogan said sharply.
“But, General, they might be flying bombers in the grass,” Cascio said with urgency. “For all we know they might have hundreds of planes, already over the Arctic and heading for us. Also they may have fired ICBMs and put them in the trajectories of the known
and identified satellites. Remember, sir, we computed that problem and decided that satellites could be used to mask ICBMs.’?
“Maybe, but I am not going to report anything that I do not know for sure,” General Bogan said.
“I think we should recommend a full-strength strike immediately by all air-borne units to be followed by other strikes as soon as ICBMs and standby units can be activated,” Colonel Cascio said.
“That decision rests with the Pentagon and the President,” General Bogan said slowly.
“Look, General,, those people at the Pentagon don’t know the situation the way we know it,” Colonel Cascio said. “They have secondhand information, they are not trained to evaluate an enemy who knows every trick in the book. They are in the political game. So is the President. We, those of us in this room, we are in the war business. We know it better than anyone else. If we move now and decisively we can still save the situation. Even though we’ve backed down from Condition Red we have enough bombers in the air to launch a crippling first strike. As you can see on the Big Board, the Soviets don’t have anywhere near the defensive capacity we thought they might have.”
General Bogan’s head ached. He felt as if the neurons of his brain had begun to burn, like filaments that were overburdened with electricity. He stared at the Big Board and the blips and signs seemed like enormous and threatening mysteries. By a single action, one command, he could simplify everything. He sat down.
Colonel Cascio went on talking, but General Bogan did not hear the precise words, only the sound of persuasion.
General Bogan felt an odd and sudden companionship with Colonel Cascio. He was bitter toward an undefined authority, toward the “they” in Washington who had overburdened him. He turned in the chair. He felt smaller, more secure, more elemental. His fingers knotted into fists, his mouth opened slightly and gasped for air. He felt a terrible self-pity, an infantile sense of being asked to do too much. His body curled in the chair, he felt saliva gather in the corners of his mouth. He had the sensation that he could remember nothing of what he had just heard. His memory stopped and was only a second long. With a sense of relief he felt a sensuous sliding away into irresponsibility, into numbness, into something primordial. He felt a gurgle begin in his chest, a kind of primitive and very comforting voice. He felt warm, enclosed, removed. The sound reached his lips.
Then Colonel Cascio turned and looked at him full face. That look was enough. For a change had taken place. The hard, fixed stare was back in Cascio’s eyes. Colonel Cascio was mad, crazy. The heat was gone from General Bogan’s mind. Slowly he came to an upright position. He smiled the smile of a civilized man at Colonel Cascio.
“Colonel, you may not be aware of it, but you are talking mutiny,” General Bogan said quietly. “One more exchange like this and I will have you taken from the War Room.”
Colonel Casdo nodded, but his expression remained rigid.
The President’s voice flooded back into the room. “General Bogan, will Group 6 break radio silence as they approach Moscow?”
“Yes, sir, just before they get within lob range of their target they have insu&ictions to open regular radio communications.”
“And when will that be?” the President asked.
General Bogan calculated quiddy, “Well, sir, it should be just about any time now.”
“Very well,” said the President, “make arrangements for me to talk personally with the commanding officer of Group 6 as soon as he reopens radio communications.”
“Very well, sir.” Bogan pointed a silent order to Lieutenant Colonel Handel, who rushed from the room to make the necessary arrangements.
The light on the “touch” phone went on. A voice spoke quickly in Russian, the translator overriding the Russian, translating even as the other voice spoke.
“This is Marshal Nevsky in Ziev,” the voice said.
“We recently developed a radar-masking device which is installed on all our bombers. It picks up enemy radar signals and automatically distorts them. When your radar signal comes back it has been skewed anywhere from five to one hundred miles. We assume your planes have similar devices. Does your detection apparatus also pick up an incorrect location?”
“No, sir,” General Bogan said. “On our plotting boards we have the correct latitude and longitude of our planes because of a compensating device on our radar which automatically corrects the radar signal which comes back from our planes.”
General Bogan knew what the next question would be.
“Can you give us the longitude and latitude of the three planes left in the air?” Marshal Nevsky asked.
“We can do that, but we cannot give you their altitude,” General Bogan said. “We have not been able to correct our altitude.determining radar to compensate for the distorting signals from the planes.”
“Will you please give us the position of the three planes?” Marshal Nevsky asked. “We can fly fighters at various altitudes once we know their approximate position.”
General Bogan felt weary. He leaned forward to push the lever which would open the intercom to the appropriate desk-console. Suddenly there was a stunning pain against his skull, a ringing in his ears; the room reeled and he had the quixotic impression that electricity had suddenly poured out of the telephone into his head. He was on the floor staring up at the lean contorted face of Colonel Cascio. And Casdo was talking in a firm and authoritative voice over the War Room intercom, the heavy crystal ash tray with which he had hit General Bogan still in his hand.
Group Commander Grady flew in total blackness, broken only by a single glowing scope. This scope combined both range and altitude radar results in such a way that it gave a stereoscopic image of the terrain ahead of them. At this altitude and speed the eye could not perceive a hill or tree or power line or smoke stack in sufficient time to take evasive action. But the scope picked out even the smallest raised obstades and projected them blackly on the screen so that Grady merely had to lift the plane at the indicated spots to clear.
Occasionally when the scope showed fifty or sixty miles of dear terrain ahead, he glanced out of the windows into the quiet Russian night. He could see the lights of villages. Trucks and cars moved along highways. Occasionally the lights of a factory would glow in a great complex. Somehow the sight of normal activity disturbed Grady. He knew that a blackout was no protection against a nuclear bomb but it was also clear that the Russians were making no attempt to go to their bomb shelters.
Grady was beyond the point of rational analysis. The stress of fighting off the Soviet attacks, the bitter and blunt fact of watching his own planes go off in great smears of blast and light—all of this had reduced him to a tough, skeletal, and very single-minded person. He knew only one thing: get to the target.
“How is No. 2 plane doing?” he asked the Defensive Operator.
“She is hard to track so low but occasionally I can catch her,” the operator said. “She’s about fifty miles away and at nine o’clock. I think she may be losing a little speed and might be damaged.”
“In a few minutes we will be at lob range. Let me know five minutes before we get there,” Grady said. “We can come up on the TBS and find out what shape she is in then.”
At lob point the Vindicators could elevate their noses, turn to afterburners, and “lob” their bombs onto the target. The “lob” distance could, depending on speed and missiles
, range up to fifty miles. If they broke radio silence before that time there was a possibility that the Soviets would launch rockets designed to run the reciprocal of a radio beam and home in on the Vindicators. Once they approached the lob range, however, SAC headquarters wanted to know it, for it was virtually a certainty that the bombs could then be delivered and an evaluation made of the American strike. Past the lob-range point the planes were also free to communicate with one another if they desired.
“Six minutes to lob point,” the navigator said. On the terrain scope a long, low range of hills came up slowly. They were twenty miles away and they would be reached in approximately forty seconds. Grady began to lift the nose of the Vindicator slightly.
“We are five minutes to lob point,” the navigator said triumphantly.
“Turkey 2, Turkey 2,” Grady spoke into the TBS microphone. “This is Turkey 6. What is your condition?”
“Turkey 6, this is Turkey 2,” a voice said with remarkable distinctness. “We have suffered some slight wing damage because of shrapnel, but all it has done is reduce our speed. We are down to 1,350 miles an hour and the drag seems to be even.”
“Turkey 2, our condition is excellent,” Grady said.
“As far as I know we have not been hit. We are now four minutes to lob point and I am going to report to base.”
Grady reached forward and picked up another microphone.
“Ultimate No. 2, Ultimate No. 2.” Grady said crisply. “This is Turkey 6. Do you hear me?”
“We read you five by five,” a dear voice said in his ear. “We have a message for you.”
“I am not authorized to receive messages,” Grady said. “I am merely reporting that we are approaching the lob point and are undamaged.”
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