by D. F. Jones
“You may wonder why I’m telling you this. I’ll tell you. You know there’s something mighty strange about this accident. You’ll want to talk about it; you’ll have your chance in this room — and nowhere else!” He let that sink in, his hard gaze resting briefly on the young faces in front of him. “This matter, on orders from the Pentagon, is classified Top Secret, and before we go any further, I’ll spell out what that means.” He did so, and ten minutes later he had a watertight document with all their signatures on it to prove the fact.
“Right,” he continued, “you’ll all be interviewed — some of you several times. Until you get my permission, all personnel remain at five minutes notice to report to this room, day or night!” He looked at Buckner, “Okay, Colonel.”
“Dismiss!” said Buckner, his face impassive, but he was still chewing on that “day or night” remark. He considered it good luck that in a long career he’d never met Kelly before, but he knew his reputation. The man did not kid.
When the room cleared and the stenographer sent for coffee and sandwiches, Kelly relaxed, running a beefy hand across his face. “Joe, how’s the documentation look?”
Colonel Joe Grauber was a slightly built man whose nondescript features concealed a sharp analytical brain, wide experience, and the ability to sense when a witness was dodging the truth.
“From my angle, first class.” He looked inquiringly at the major.
Franklin Arcasso was at first sight no gift to Air Force public relations. He was a lousy dresser, and at thirty-five he had a weight problem. Even in his cadet days he had been unable to achieve a smart, soldierly appearance. He was one of those men who could look badly dressed in swimtrunks. But there were other features. More than one senior officer, meeting him for the first time, had held back harsh comment on his appearance after viewing his ribbons: Although rumpled and crooked, they were of an exceedingly high grade. And an examination of his personnel file revealed more. He had majored in aerospace engineering at the Academy and become a combat pilot of outstanding ability and courage. He’d somehow found time to take a master’s degree in his specialty, and moved on to test flying. He was in this assignment now because his left arm was artificial, a souvenir of his last flight as a pilot. One of his better ribbons was also a memento of that flight: He had brought back an experimental ship under impossible conditions and landed it safely after ignoring repeated orders to bail out. He later claimed a radio malfunction.
“The technical data looks good, General, very good.” A cigar ash fell on his slacks. “The guy who put this documentation together knew his stuff.”
For half an hour the men worked, reading the reports, making notes, eating and drinking. Kelly nodded the stenographer out of the room. As the door closed, he spoke.
“This looks like a pretty fair statement to me.”
“Comment?”
“Agreed,” said Grauber, “but … ” He left it there.
“Nothing jumps out and bites me, General — apart from the whole goddam business. Of course, we have to be stone-cold certain this is the same aircraft reported lost off California.”
“You have doubts, Major?”
“No sir. Dog tags, airframe and engine numbers, tail number and squadron markings all match, but this is such a crazy case I have to see them with my own eyes. This whole thing’s fantastic. I’m not inclined to take anything on trust.”
Kelly nodded and sighed, letting his thoughts wander. “Fantastic,” he said at last, softly. “You have the right approach, Frank, but this is the same plane, let’s not kid ourselves.” He leaned back, belched. “As I see it, we have two different problems. The first is to decide — if we can — what happened to the F-4 between 0825 on April twelfth and 1401 August seventh. The second is to establish the reason or reasons for the crash. For my money the second’s easiest. We’ll take that first.”
They worked for seven hours, reading, inspecting the wreckage, interviewing witnesses, listening to tapes, and wearing out two stenographers on the side. The verdict was unanimous: pilot error, due to fatigue, shock, and unknown circumstances.
Hal Kelly slammed his file shut, glanced at his watch, then at his colleagues, his eyes red-rimmed. “For local consumption, I’m telling the station commander he may let it be known that the F-4 was on an experimental flight, missed its rendezvous with a tanker due to a faulty compass, and ended up here.” He glared at his audience. “So it’s thin — but can you do better? At least it’ll satisfy most people around this base — okay, I know, not the operations team or the aviators — but they don’t worry me. They’ll keep their mouths shut.
“That’s all, gentlemen. We start on the really tough questions in precisely eight hours.”
*
For three eighteen-hour days they stuck at it; for much of three nights they lay awake in restless thought. On the fourth morning Brigadier Kelly began the session without preamble.
“Before we go over the possibilities one more time, I’ve just received a dispatch from Washington which will save time. Based on a full fuel load-more than the plane could have had at the time it disappeared — Washington allowed a generous ferry range of two thousand miles. Within that range, every airfield with a runway even remotely long enough to handle an F-4 has been checked out. They’re satisfied the plane didn’t land anyplace from Alaska down to and including Mexico. Nor did it land in the Hawaiian Islands, or cross the Aleutian chain to Soviet Siberia — just supposing it had a lot of luck and a hundred knot tail wind all the way, which the met boys rule out. And finally — ” he paused, anticipating their reaction “ — the analysis of the fuel sample is in. It was one hundred percent honest-to-God USAF standard mix.”
Frank Arcasso’s metal fist crashed on the table. He knew, as they all did, that trace elements were added to Air Force fuel to deter thieves.
“Exactly, Major.”
Grauber spoke. “That news, General, also goes a long way toward discrediting the enemy seduction theory. I fail to believe that someone could have provided a tanker aircraft at the right spot at the right time and with the right fuel. And even if I could swallow that, I can’t accept that the F-4 crew had already been subverted, and took the plane to a secret RV with the tanker, and then, after all that, took the trouble to return the plane here! No weapon load of any sort — unless the disoriented pilot was the weapon. No, for my part I rule out that theory.” They had covered this ground repeatedly and they knew it, but they continued to do so in the hope that something new would occur to them.
“So the plane flew straight up its own ass and stayed there for four months?” Kelly asked sardonically.
“Look, General,” said Frank Arcasso, who had made up his mind and would stick to it, “as the junior member of this team, I give my verdict first — right?”
“Go ahead, Frank.”
“Sir, my view is based chiefly on the tapes. We’re all pilots; we know the man wasn’t kidding — he was lost. I accept that that is not hard evidence, but there’s little of that around. He had a lot of hours in fighters; it’s against all probability that this was the first emergency he’d met. His record shows no suspicion of combat fatigue. But he was lost and completely thrown by whatever happened. ‘The sun’s wrong’ and ‘the sun’s gone haywire’ are at the root of this accident. I’ve calculated there’d be a forty degree difference in the elevation of the sun between the two material times. And there’s the evidence of their watches: Both stopped at 0846 on the twelfth.”
“I accept that last item is very curious,” replied Kelly, “but what does it mean? Maybe whatever happened, happened at that time. That still doesn’t get us very far.”
“That’s true — if you think that was the only time the watches stopped.”
Both senior men stared at Arcasso. Grauber said, “You ask us to believe that both watches stopped sometime after 0825 on April twelfth, started again, and stopped for the last time on impact?”
“I hadn’t finished, Colonel. The watche
s possibly showed twenty-one minutes elapsed time from the original disappearance. There were twenty minutes between the first radar contact at 1401 and the crash at 1421. In my theory, only one minute is unaccounted for.”
“That’s way-out stuff, Arcasso.”
The major kept going. “My guess is the watches restarted around 1400 — along with everything else in the plane. I believe the pilot was rocked on his heels by the fact that the last time he saw the sun it was in a totally different place, and he was not aware of the passage of time. Sure, it’s a way-out theory, but it fits! Nothing else I can think of accounts for the pilot’s report that the fuel state was sixty percent. Okay, so he may have gotten it wrong, but I doubt it, and,” he said grimly, “watching that movie of the crash, and looking at the wreckage, I’d say he still had quite a lot on board at impact.”
“You’re prepared to say that this plane went out of time, into … suspended animation, for the better part of four months?”
Arcasso took a deep breath. “Unless you or Colonel Grauber can spot a fault — given my original premise — yes. If necessary, I’ll sign a minority report.”
“Grauber?”
“Much as I dislike it, I agree that Frank’s theory is the only one that fits. In this case the unbelievable is the only logical answer.”
Brigadier Kelly rubbed his face, walked over to the window, and stared out. “Right. Frank, get that steno in here. Christ! Washington’s going to love this!”
IV.
Brigadier Hal Kelly got it right, first time. After a major confrontation between him and his incredulous boss, the report was released to other, select departments. Their reaction was much the same, but all the top brass who read it appreciated two points: no other theory fit, and however crazy the answer, it was even crazier to suppose that three professional officers would wish to toss their careers down the drain for fun. Every attempt was made to tear the report to shreds, but always the detractors came back to the same problem — what other explanation fitted?
So the ostrich syndrome came into play. Men accustomed to taking decisive action were baffled by the report. It read like science fiction, but no one could fault it as a possible answer. Many took the only road out, treating it as a joke. As the file circulated, thickening all the while, snide comments appeared: “Call Mars” and “Bring back the UFO Committee!” Predictably, there were references to little green men.
Around the world, airplanes were being lost almost every week, and as the months passed, interest waned. By early 1975 the report had orbited the Pentagon twice. Someone added a note — “Not the Marie Celeste again!” — speeding it on its way to Central Registry and oblivion. The incident was forgotten, just one of those inexplicable events.
*
There are committees for everything in the defense world. Some give their all to the intricacies of female personnel’s dress. At the other end of the scale, tight lipped men brood over Soviet intentions and capabilities.
One such committee, of middle grade, dealt with air intelligence. To it came reports from many sources on widely differing matters, but all had some bearing on its subject. It might be the redeployment of a Soviet air group, the strange acquisition of a sophisticated air defense system by a bankrupt banana republic, or the abstruse scribblings of an astrophysicist in a foreign university. The committee members coordinated, evaluated, and disseminated; to those in the know they were “the jigsaw boys.” They met three times a week, more often if necessary.
A regular meeting took place on a bleak morning in February, 1977. From the conference-room window the Potomac could be seen, slate-gray between white banks of snow; to imagine the cherry trees would ever blossom again required a major act of faith.
But the view got scant attention. In the previous two days items had poured in, and the session proved long and tiring. By late afternoon, the jigsaw boys were anxious to get away; still more paper would be piling up in their offices.
“One final item, gentlemen.” The chairman looked down the long table. “A quickie. You may think it humorous.”
No one looked too hopeful.
“Back in March of last year, we had an item reporting the disappearance of an Aeroflot Ilyushin IL-14P — yeah, a real oldie — on an internal flight from Moscow to Irkutsk. Following usual Soviet practice for internal losses, no public announcement was made. Now — and this is the strange part — a previously reliable source says the plane has turned up again, at Vorkuta, North Russia.”
Heads turned to study the wall map.
“As you see, that’s way off the Moscow-Irkutsk flight line. In fact it’s about fifteen hundred kilometers north. Collateral intelligence suggests great Soviet concern; a plane load of high-power KGB men are known to have left Moscow in a hurry, destination maybe Vorkuta.” He shrugged. “What that adds up to, you tell me.”
Lieutenant Colonel Frank Arcasso, section head of AI (Tech) 4, and Major Chester Holmes, an old friend from Academy days and a top-drawer intelligence man, exchanged meaningful glances; the latter shook his head almost imperceptibly. Neither took part in the short discussion. The item would be kept on file; supplementary intelligence might clarify the matter.
The meeting broke up, but the two men did not leave. Arcasso got up and stared at the bleak scene out the window, while Holmes took his time packing up his papers. The room finally empty, Arcasso turned to his friend.
“Well?”
Holmes hesitated, fiddling nervously with the handle of his dispatch case. “I only saw the report. An awful lot’s happened since — since whenever it was — ”
“August ’74.”
“August ’74. It’s not surprising we’re the only ones who remember it. Chances are no one else even heard of it.”
Arcasso gestured impatiently. “That’s not what I mean, Chet.”
“Give me a chance. I was going to say that the angle that really bugs me is the absence of the F-4 report. It should be tied to this item. That in itself is strange — never mind the item itself.”
“Could be a foul-up — the computer failed to spit out the F-4 papers.”
“I don’t think so,” said Holmes. He looked up accusingly. “And neither do you.”
Lieutenant Colonel Arcasso (to his surprise but no one else’s, he’d been promoted) clicked his artificial hand on his case. “We can’t walk away from it. It could be a hang-up in the computer.”
“How about a private word with the chairman?”
Arcasso shook his head. “I’ll do a little checking first. Joe Grauber is now the boss of my old outfit. We were together on the F-4 case.”
“Watch where you put your feet, Frank.”
“You can bet on it. This is the scariest thing I’ve ever heard, and I have a shrewd suspicion I’m not alone in that opinion.”
*
Arcasso flopped in his office chair, lit a cigar and examined the ceiling as if it were a hostile sky. The cigar was half gone before he lifted the phone.
“Joe? Frank Arcasso. How would it be if I dropped by for a few minutes?” He sounded casual, but both men knew that “dropping by” involved a good fifteen-minute walk. The Pentagon is, after all, the largest office building in the world.
“Thought I might hear from you, Frank.”
Arcasso sat up in his chair. “Oh — why?”
“The tom-toms can be heard quite clearly up here,” Grauber said evasively. “Frank, I’ve got a stack of paper to clear before I leave for a duty cocktail party. Meet me at the east door in half an hour. We can talk on the way to my car; I’ll deliver you to yours.”
Arcasso replaced the receiver as if it were a sweaty stick of gelignite. Old Joe had not said so many things.
*
They met on time, for — as Arcasso knew — Grauber was a fanatically punctual man. But he was not prepared for the way his old colonel chose to play it.
“Frank — nice to see you!” A warm handshake, a firm grip on his arm, steering him to one side, out of the main
stream of workers flooding homeward. They went out slowly, down the steps into the bitter cold evening, Grauber talking genially, saying nothing.
Once clear of the building, his manner changed abruptly. “Okay, Frank. Talk.”
His strange conduct shook Arcasso, but not enough to stop him from taking a chance. Even to mention AI Committee affairs broke the rules in a big way. Grauber might be cleared for that grade of intelligence, or he might not; but it was not Arcasso’s business to tell him. Yet Grauber’s behavior indicated he knew something. Arcasso went beyond his original intentions, telling Grauber all. Grauber took it in silence.
“So why no F-4 file?”
Grauber’s answer stopped him dead.
“What F-4 file?”
Arcasso froze, then grabbed Grauber’s arm, their feet grating on the frosty tarmac. He stared open mouthed, his breath white vapor under the cold potassium lighting, while Grauber, unmoved, fiddled with a bunch of keys.
Grauber spoke softly, face turned downward. “No questions, and don’t talk to anyone. I’ll tell you this much: The real foul-up was in releasing that Soviet item to your committee. You — personally — will hear more. This is not just a Defense Department matter. Not any longer.”
V.
Next morning, Arcasso’s section found him unusually difficult to deal with, and they did their best to stay out of his way.
He tried to concentrate, but his mind soon wandered; he signed letters and initialed files without the slightest idea of their content.
Grauber had said it was no longer a Defense Department matter; he saw that, but where did it all end up — the State Department? — the President? If the Russian report was correct, the problem touched all humanity.
Grauber rang. Arcasso was expected at the State Department in thirty minutes, Room 439. That was all.