Trinity's Child

by William Prochnau

  “. . . Zero-Two-Six-Six-Four, you will ditch in the sea. Escort aircraft and air-sea rescue have been launched. Repeat, you will ditch in the sea. We have NCA orders to bring you down or shoot you down. Acknowledge. . . .”

  Kazaklis glanced hurriedly down at the carrier. Two small specks, one after the other, lifted off the deck. He banked the B-52 straight toward the approaching storm.

  Alice could feel the ripple of the E-4's wash now. The plane's four immense engines, 747 engines, kicked churning air back at them like a pickup spinning out of gravel. They had closed to about a quarter-mile. The E-4's pilot occasionally bobbed and weaved, feinting a dive, bluffing a turn, but mostly he raced full throttle. They had him and he knew it. The general had a sick, sinking feeling in his gut and he was certain Smitty did, too. They both had spent time aboard the other plane. Alice could envision the E-4's staff still hunched over their machines, just as his people hunched over theirs, doing their jobs even as the end neared— men and women, friends and acquaintances, golf partners and old colleagues who had paused in the halls of SAC headquarters just yesterday and asked: How's Madge?

  “General?”

  Alice did not appear to hear the voice.

  “General. Excuse me, sir.”

  He turned slowly and looked into the worried but determined face of the communications officer.

  “General, I've got Olney again. It's important.”

  Alice ran a beefy hand slowly up his cheeks, gouging, until the fingers squeezed at his eyes. “Damn you, lieutenant,” he said with quiet desperation. He could feel the shadow of the E-4 at his back.

  “Sir, it's the President.”

  Alice dropped his hand abruptly and stared at her in confusion. “Condor?”

  “No, sir,” she replied. “The President.”

  “I don't understand,” he said slowly.

  “I don't understand either, sir. But I have the President on the radiophone. The President. He says it's urgent.”

  Alice turned away and looked out the cockpit window. They were closing methodically on the E-4, its towering tail fin seeming to inch toward them. “Break it off, Smitty,” he said. Then he added, as he left the cockpit: “Don't let him stray far.”

  The F-18 Hornets were on them quickly, one off each wingtip so snugly they almost scraped metal. Sidewinder missiles, far superior to the Soviet ACRID's they had evaded over the Arctic, were slung under the wings and tucked tightly near the fuselage of the crack Navy fighter-interceptors. But Kazaklis and Moreau knew the Hornets would not need their missiles to make a fatal sting. Old-fashioned bullets—a quick chug-a-chug-a from the Catling guns in their white needle noses—would bring the Buff down now. They would not even see it coming. Since Halupalai's ejection, they not only were crippled and defenseless but they had no vision to the rear of the airplane.

  Kazaklis swept his eyes across the horizon. The storm was closing in on three sides. But it still lay miles distant and out of immediate reach. He also knew the storm was a dubious haven, that it could prove as fatal to the wounded bomber as the lacing they would get from the made-in-the-U.S.A. machine guns. He turned his gaze back toward the Hornet hovering only a few feet off his wingtip. The fighter tipped its wings like kayak paddles in the universal signal to come down or be taken down. Kazaklis could see the pilot clearly, being not much more than one hundred feet away. He was fuzz-faced in his white helmet, barely out of college, and much younger than Kazaklis. Join the Navy and see the world, Kazaklis thought grimly. The carrier pilot signaled Kazaklis flamboyantly, his gloved hand raised high, the thumb pumping down, down, down.

  Kazaklis grinned. “I think that boy's serious, Moreau.”

  “Jesus Christ, Kazaklis,” Moreau shot back, “sometimes I wish your brain were as active as your prick.”

  “I'm surrounded by hostile forces, threatening from the outside and boring from within,” he replied, still grinning.

  “Knock it off.”

  “What the hell do you want me to do? Wave my meat out the window at 'em? You think they'd die of envy?”

  Moreau looked at him in dismay, desperately trying to suppress a smile. “Die of laughter, more like it,” she said. “The Navy's not intimidated by four-inch guns, Kazaklis.”

  Kazaklis swiveled his head abruptly toward Moreau, his eyes futilely trying to feign outraged indignation. Instead, he broke into giddy laughter. Moreau began laughing too. Suddenly the cockpit was filled with uproarious, convulsive laughter, the two of them giving way to the exhaustion and hopelessness, venting the repressed fear and loss, easing the incredible tension. The release lasted only a moment. Out of the corner of his eye, Kazaklis caught the first glimpse of the F-18 spitting fire into the emptiness in front of them, clearing its weapons in one final warning.

  “I'd say that boy's very serious,” Kazaklis said, the laughter gone, the eyes glued on the blue-and-white fighter still hovering just forward of his wingtip.

  Moreau also had abruptly stopped laughing. “Okay,” she said, “so what do we do? Put it down?”

  Kazaklis gazed down into the ocean. The carrier was behind them, nowhere in sight. “No,” he said. “No, I'm not going that way. Hauled out of the drink by some eager-beaver rescue team on their last drill, plopped down on the deck, grilled by naval intelligence. Then slammed into the brig until some Russky submarine commander pops a couple of kilotons into the hull. No, thanks. That big baby won't make it through the day. Surprised she made it through the night.”

  Out the left-hand window, the young Hornet pilot gestured toward his face mask. “He wants to talk to us,” Kazaklis said. “You think he wants to negotiate?”

  “Mmmmm,” Moreau grunted.

  Kazaklis flicked on the radio, searching the bands until he found them.

  “Air Force Zero-Two-Six-Six-Four . . .” the radio crackled.

  “That's us, pal,” Kazaklis replied. “Our friends call us Polar Bear.”

  “Okay, smart-ass,” the fighter pilot snapped back, “our orders are to bring you down or shoot you down. Do you understand?”

  “Already got that message, buddy. I think we'll stay up. My friend here's afraid of sharks.”

  “Roger, Zero-Two-Six-Six-Four. Your choice. You know what a Sidewinder will do to that beat-up crate of yours?”

  “Come off it, sailor. You don't need a missile. Save your heavy stuff for the bad guys.” Kazaklis paused, turning on his little-boy-amazed voice. “You know I got a lady in the right-hand seat?” He could hear Moreau's groan over the sound of the engines. “Puttin' all that lead in a lady. Now, that's hard to stomach, huh?”

  “Bring you down or shoot you down,” the radio crackled again. “Your choice, flyboy.”

  “Hokay, sailor, we sure do understand your problem, havin' orders and all,” Kazaklis drawled. “Lemme make it a little easier for you. Now, our navigator's dead, and our radar man's dead, poor souls. That means we can't see out the back of the airplane. Our EWO's dead, nice guy he was, too. That means we can't send out decoys, as if they'd do some good. Our gunner's dead, and he was the creme de la creme”—Kazaklis glanced at Moreau, grinning; you like my French, Josephine?—“and that means we couldn't shoot at you even if we could see you. Now, we also got a hole about three feet square in the top of this gem of SAC's mighty fleet, and that means we can't go for altitude. So, with the benefit of all that priceless intelligence, why don't you fellas just wheel around and pump a few rounds into us, not wastin' too many?” He stared into the face of the Navy pilot. Then Kazaklis theatrically gestured toward Moreau. “You want to say good-bye to the lady?”

  The Navy pilots stared briefly into the cockpit of the B-52. A voice echoed out of the F-18 off Moreau's wing. “We don't want to do this, buddy.” Then, in unison, the two fighters peeled off into their turns for the loop around that would bring them back in for the kill.

  “So much for that,” Kazaklis said.

  “Good God, man,” Moreau said, shaking her head in amazement, “is that how you racke
d up all those scores in the Boom-Boom Room?”

  “Wel-l-l-l,” Kazaklis drawled, “in the Boom-Boom Room the four-inch gun helped.”

  “Alice here.”

  Sweat poured off the general, soaking through his clothing. He had steeled himself, the way a strong man does, for the ultimate moment. If the last-minute reprieve was a blessing, his bodily functions did not accept it. The tension release had been too sudden. All his systems seemed ready to fail now, almost as surely as they would have flooded in release with the snap-lock opening of a hangman's trapdoor. His hand shook, his breathing came in short gasps, his voice quavered, or so it seemed to him, and he was certain that was why he received no instant reply.

  “Alice here,” the general repeated, a trifle louder, a touch more stridently. He had every excuse to feel paranoid, and fleetingly it occurred to him that he had been had.

  “This is the President speaking,” a voice said. It was a familiar voice, with a resonance he had heard hundreds of times. Alice drew a deep breath, trying to pull his rebellious bodily functions back into harmony. He instantly fell back on his training. A familiar voice was not enough in his world.

  “Day word?” Alice asked automatically.

  “I don't think we have time for that, general,” the voice said.

  Dammit! The unexpected response jarred Alice, steadying him as it also angered him. Now what the hell was going on? Anyone could fake a voice. The President of the United States would know better.

  “Listen, pal,” Alice barked caustically into the phone, “we haven't had a President since Calvin Coolidge who would've tried that line of shit. I don't know what you are, but you give me the day word. Now. Or you'll find yourself alone in a phone booth.”

  Alice heard a slight, appreciative—and familiar—chuckle. “Day word's Cottonmouth, general,” the voice said. “The command word's Trinity, and the action word's Jericho, bless our tumbling walls. Now you'll ask for the authenticator codes, right?”

  “Bet your ass, buddy,” Alice said, fingering the small card in front of him.

  “I don't have my authenticator card, Alice. It's lost and you either trust me or more than Jericho's walls will come tumbling down.”

  Alice sagged. “Without that card, you're a phony,” he said wearily. “I don't know who you are.”

  “So what do we do now, general? Check my baseball averages? Play the old Brooklyn Dodgers game? You want Betty Grable's measurements? Or is it Bo Derek this time around? What do we do?”

  “We hang up,” the general said flatly. “I won't talk to you. I'm disconnecting.”

  “You . . . hold . . . on . . . general.” The sweat from Alice's forehead dripped off his eyebrows, stinging his eyes. He wanted to believe. “This is the President of the United States calling you. Authenticator card or no authenticator card. We can play it by the book and blow the world to smithereens. That's what the book calls for. That's where it's taking us. Is that where you want to go?”

  Alice didn't answer. The irony of being accused of playing by the book was lost on him, his mind darting down too many deadend alleys. The perspiration was causing his hand to slide down the receiver. It fleetingly occurred to him—a bolt out of nowhere and departing just as fast—that their greatest mistake had been to expect anyone to act rationally under this pressure. He wanted a cigarette.

  “I need a patch through to the E-4,” the voice said. “I know you can talk to them. We can hear you. We can't reach them from Olney. I know where the plane is. I know who's aboard. The Secretary of the Interior is aboard. He thinks I'm dead. He thinks he's the President. I must talk to him. Fast. About the submarines. Do you understand?”

  Alice still said nothing.

  “General, for Christ's sake, do you want the precise location? The E-4's flying over Paducah, Kentucky. You're also flying over Paducah, Kentucky. You're damn near on his ass! As your Commander-in-Chief, I'm telling you you're too fucking close to him! One spooked Soviet submarine commander decides to take a potshot, and neither of you will be worrying about goddamned authenticator cards! There won't be any cards! Then where the hell will we be? Answer me, damn you!”

  “Where is your card?”

  The general heard a pained sigh. “Damned if I know, general. On the South Lawn, which I crawled across on my belly. In the back end of Nighthawk, which got blown down in a gully, me in it. Lost in the rubble of somebody's front yard when a kid packed me five miles on his back to this godforsaken hole. In the Olney incinerator with the bathrobe I was wearing when Icarus called.” The voice drifted, as if the man were in great pain. “Damned if I know.”

  “Without the card, the E-4 won't give you the time of day.” Alice looked at the clock. It read 1925 Zulu, one hour and thirty-five minutes to go.

  “You let me worry about that, general. That's what I get paid for. I think it's time to earn my pay.”

  Alice stared into the hands of the clock. “The risk . . .” he mumbled, more to himself than the man on the phone.

  “Risk?” the voice bellowed into Alice's ear. “This is a bad time to be talking about risk, general. I'm not asking you for information, though God knows I could use some. Do you think I'm a Russian, spoofing you? Good God, man, they would have read you the numbers so fast your head would spin. They probably have more of our goddamned cards than we do. I just talked to the Soviet Premier. You want me to call him back and ask him for the numbers?” The voice shook, wavered, and then returned very wearily.

  “Fucking little credit card. Charge-a-war. Damn, it's probably the one thing we did keep secret from the Russians. Or I would get it from the Premier. Hell's bells, man, I couldn't read you the numbers if I had the card in my hand. I’m blinder than a bat.”

  Alice slumped over the phone, rocking slowly.

  “It's a bad day for book players, general. I guess orders won't do any good, but I'm asking you to patch me through. Will you do it?”

  Alice pulled himself back up to an erect and militarily correct posture. He reached in search of a cigarette. In the private niche the pack of Pall Malls lay crumpled and empty. “Yes, sir, Mr. President, of course I will. I should brief you on a few matters first.”

  Over the next five minutes, while the clock spun toward 1930 Zulu and Smitty dropped slightly off the tail of the E-4, Alice told the President about the extent of the damage to the world, about Polar Bear One's unprompted turnabout made for reasons known only inside the B-52, about his own decision to turn the remaining bombers, about the Soviet response and Condor's reaction, and, most important, about the timing of the submarine attack just ninety minutes hence. The President did not interrupt once.

  As Alice concluded, the President let out a low, long whistle and asked, out of genuine curiosity, “What made you believe me, general?”

  The general stared into his small countdown watch, brushed at a forehead now dry of sweat, and replied: “Believe you, sir? I'm not sure I do.”

  “Yes,” the President pondered. “I thought as much. Please patch me through now.”

  “Certainly, sir. I wouldn't count on much, though, with the radio relay coming from the Looking Glass.”

  “General?”

  “I was just about to ram him, Mr. President.”

  “Ram him?”

  “Ram him.”

  The mood inside the B-52 had moved from giddily rambunctious to eerily introspective. Little conversation took place between the two survivors of the flight of Polar Bear One. Kazaklis flew directly toward the dark and roiling wall of clouds, but he knew they were out of reach. The storm had edged around the three sides of their visibility and the cockpit had grown dark again. It was not the total darkness of night-light red, but worse—gray and gloomy and foreboding. The light lay behind them, as did their pursuers.

  The F-18's had broken off several minutes ago and it would take several more for them to complete the attack run. It would not require more than one pass. The only human noise in Polar Bear One was the occasional crackling sound o
f the two Navy pilots coordinating their maneuvers. Kazaklis had tapped into their radio frequency, wanting to give Moreau time to eject. He had not made the decision for himself.

  “Red Fox One, this is Red Fox Two, into the turn . . .”

  “Lost you in the sun, Red Fox Two . . .”

  In his mind Kazaklis could see the two deadly jets—F-18's were top of the line—sweeping into majestic arcs away from each other to swoop back together behind him.

  “About two o'clock. . . . You'll pick me up in a second. . . .”

  “Roger, Two. Got you now. Let's not get a bloody nose out of this. . . .”

  Kazaklis shook his head at Moreau and broke the silence between them. “Bloody nose,” he said sarcastically. “Buggers are worried about shooting themselves in the foot.”

  “Do we have to listen to the play-by-play, Kazaklis?” Moreau's voice was brittle.

  Kazaklis shrugged. “You want a black hood?”

  Moreau looked at him without replying.

  “Have you ever ejected from one of these beauties, Moreau?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “You want me to throttle it back to a couple hundred knots?” He asked the question compassionately. They both knew airmen who had become instant vegetables taking the windblast head-on. They also both thought immediately of Halupalai.

  “No,” she said. “Are you going to eject?”

  “I dunno, Moreau. Right now I feel like riding the old boy down, if I get the chance. It could blow, you know.” He looked at her beseechingly. “Please, Moreau, I'd like you to jump. They'll pull you out.”

  Moreau started to speak.

  “Okay, Red Fox Two, pull it in a little tighter,” the radio crackled. “You see 'em?”

  “Roger, One. Got 'em. Three miles.” “Okay, Two. Let's go for it.”

  “Larry?”

  “Two?”

  “Real shit duty, isn't it?”

  “Everything's shit duty today, Red Fox Two. In we go.”