Fade Out

by Patrick Tilley

  ‘How long do you think this is going to take?’ asked Connors.

  ‘Most of the day,’ said Harris. ‘But don’t worry. We can handle it.’

  ‘Now that these trucks will be leaving empty, do you want to use them to move the horses out?’

  ‘No, sir,’ said Cameron. ‘The diesels can’t go everywhere. When we start putting down these flares, we’re going to be spread out. We’ll need the horses to keep in touch with the work groups.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll get out of your hair.’

  MILES CITY/MONTANA

  It was just before nine as Larsen drove Connors down the hill past the airport. There was an Army roadblock at the northern end of the bridge across the Yellowstone.

  Recognizing the yellow truck, the soldiers lifted the barrier and waved them through. Larsen paused to ask the way to the Armory, then sped across the bridge and into town, slowing to the regulation fifteen mph as they crossed over the Milwaukee Railroad tracks on to Seventh Street.

  The two converted diesels loaned to Colonel Reese were parked outside the Armory. Connors was pleased to see that both of them had armed cadets sitting in the cabs. While Larsen’s squad brought them up to date on the latest situation, Connors went in to see Colonel Reese. Reese had been up all night, and was in the middle of shaving.

  Connors told him to go on shaving and sent for the officer in charge of the National Guard. He and Reese confirmed that their units had finally managed to move all the evacuees out of the cutoff zone, and had set up new roadblocks around the blacked-out area. Connors told them that there was a possibility that it could expand again – to a radius diameter of 691 miles.

  Reese cut himself. ‘Holy Moses…’ The National Guard colonel sat down heavily. ‘Do you realize the impact that could have on this town? There are nearly ten thousand people here.’

  ‘You think that’s a problem?’ Connors ticked off the towns on his fingers. ‘It’s going to black out Helena, Butte, Billings, and Great Falls, Bismarck in North Dakota, Rapid City, South Dakota, and Sheridan and Caspar in Wyoming, and Regina, north of the border in Canada. But I must emphasize, it is only a possibility, and that information is top secret.’

  ‘What the hell’s causing it?’ asked Reese.

  ‘I don’t have time to go into that now,’ said Connors. ‘But it’s linked with the fade-out.’

  ‘Do your people know when it might happen?’

  ‘No. It could be any time between now and five A.M. on Wednesday morning.’

  ‘Sheee-itt… For how long?’ Reese abandoned his shave.

  ‘We don’t know,’ said Connors. ‘Maybe not for long. Maybe not at all.’

  ‘But what the hell can we do?’ asked the National Guard commander.

  ‘Sit tight,’ said Connors. ‘You’ll get immediate assistance from Washington.’ There was no point in telling them that if the cutoff zone went to 691 miles, it might spread even farther. If it did, Washington wouldn’t be able to help anybody. That kind of news could wait until Tuesday evening. ‘How well do you know the editor of the Miles City Star?’

  ‘Pretty well. Been on a couple of fishing trips together.’

  ‘Could he get something printed in secret?’

  ‘Yeah, I would think so. He knows how to work every machine in the place.’

  ‘Okay, I suggest you get him to run off a few thousand leaflets setting out the situation. Maybe you could include a map. Make absolutely sure no one else sees them. Lock ’em up here. If the cutoff zone spreads and blacks you out, start distribution and use the diesels to get copies to Glendive and Billings. Ask them to reprint and pass the information on to the other cities affected. We’ll take care of Glasgow. If you get the signal to stand down, burn them. Is that clear?’

  ‘Yeah…’

  Connors headed back up Highway 22 feeling he had one less problem on his mind. The idea of ten thousand people suddenly finding themselves immobilized, deprived of all electric power – and with no means of finding out what the hell was going on – had been disturbing him. And yet their plight was piddling compared to the larger cities of Montana, Helena, Great Falls, Billings, and Butte, the big mining town. If the air pumps stopped, if the mine cages froze halfway down the mile-deep shafts… Connors shuddered at the thought. It was insane to go on trying to keep it secret any longer. The President would have to go on the radio and tell everybody what might happen…

  Connors stopped at the base camp and picked up Wedderkind. Everyone else had disappeared. Connors looked eastward out of the cab window. ‘Shouldn’t there be some people working out there?’

  ‘There are, but they’re still on the run-in line about three miles away. The plan is to start at the outside and work in. That way, everyone will be close together when they get through. It’ll mean a quick getaway.’

  ‘Neat…’

  Larsen put his foot down and drove north past the empty houses at Broken Mill.

  Before leaving for Miles City, Connors had dispatched a diesel to Jordan to arrange for a plane to pick them up and fly them to Glasgow, He meant what he’d said to Arnold about not flying again, but it was a hundred and eighty miles from Jordan to Glasgow AFB by road, and in the present state of the railroads, about three days by train…

  GLASGOW AFB/MONTANA

  After calling Allbright to confirm that the flares would be positioned in time for the attack, Connors and Wedderkind both spoke to the President and gave him their firsthand assessments of the situation. Connors told him about the last-minute delay over the flares, and urged him to consider making a radio address to the nation. Their conversation ended inconclusively, but Connors did manage to extract an assurance that the President would ask Press Secretary Jerry Silvermann to make immediate arrangements to relay a broadcast from Camp David. During and after the last three-week fade-out, there had been a lot of press comment about the lack of any direct pronouncement by the President on what was deemed, by many, to be a critical situation. The brunt of the questioning had been borne by Jerry, who had remained mercifully in the dark, spokesmen from the Defense Department, and NASA’s Manned Flight Director Chris Matson.

  Connors and Wedderkind lunched with General Golubev, Grigorienko, interpreter Dan Chaliapin, and the members of the research group who had gone to Glasgow AFB to brief them on the project, then took off for Jordan at 2:15 P.M. This time, their flight path went right over the Fort Peck reservoir. Connors, convinced that lightning never struck twice in the same place, closed his eyes, and pretended to go to sleep.

  Larsen was waiting at the airstrip alongside the second backup diesel. Connors and Wedderkind climbed aboard and settled back for the fifty-mile drive to Crow Ridge.

  THE WHITE HOUSE/WASHINGTON DC

  By the middle of the afternoon, the President still hadn’t left for Camp David. He stood at the curved window looking out on to the White House lawns, struggling to find the words that would, without creating panic, alert the nation to the dangers it faced. The President suddenly found himself wishing he’d ordered Connors to fly back to Washington. He picked up the phone and asked to be put through to Major Jessup, the project link man at Glasgow AFB. As the operator went to switch the call through to the President, the line went dead. Repeated attempts over the next two minutes failed to re-establish the connection. A few seconds later, a call from SAC headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska, confirmed the breakdown. Every circuit in SAC’s specially strengthened landline communication network is checked electronically every three seconds. The SAC report that zipped out of the high-speed teleprinter in the Pentagon at the rate of over six thousand characters a minute confirmed that all contact had been lost with Glasgow AFB, the Minuteman 3 missile complexes at Great Falls, and Malstrom AFB, Montana, Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, and Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota. The cutoff zone had expanded – not in ninety hours as anticipated, but in thirty. The progression was now clear. In ten hours, it could expand again.

  Fraser, Clayson, and Wills came across town from the Pe
ntagon by helicopter and McKenna flew in from Virginia. They joined the President in the Situation Room, in the basement of the White House. One of Will’s staff colonels projected a colour slide that had been prepared as soon as they had received news of Brecetti’s predictions.

  ‘It’s bad,’ said Fraser. ‘If the time interval between jumps is being divided by three, the whole of the USA could be blacked out by three A.M. tomorrow morning.’

  Three hours after midnight… The President tried hard to fix the time in his mind. Every high-speed form of transport immobilized, every communication link severed, industry crippled, cities strangled, the armed forces and law enforcement agencies paralysed, the interwoven power structure of state and federal government struck blind, deaf, and dumb. How could he hold it together? How could anyone hold it together?

  The telephone rang. Fraser picked it up. ‘Good. Send it up.’ He replaced the receiver and turned to the President. ‘A message from the Soviet Premier just came over the hot-line teleprinter.’

  The President managed to get his brain back on line. ‘Oh, good.’ He coughed to loosen the clamped muscles in his throat.

  There was a knock on the door. An Air Force Lieutenant Colonel from the Communications section came in with the message. Fraser passed it to the President.

  The President put on his glasses and scanned it quickly. ‘I’ll read it out. It’s timed at 01:06 hours – What’s that?… six minutes past one, Tuesday morning. Hell, is it already tomorrow over there? – and it’s addressed to the President of the United States and begins “Dear John” – ’ He looked up with a forced smile. ‘This must be the “Dear John” letter to end them all.’ He went on reading. ‘“We have just learned that the neutralizing field around Commissar has expanded to eleven hundred kilometres. In view of the imminent threat of a further expansion, we propose to advance the time of our attack by twenty-four hours to 06:00 hours today, Tuesday morning. We believe it is vital we synchronize attacks. Failure to act together could have incalculable consequences. I therefore urgently request you advance time over target accordingly.

  ‘“We thank you for your recent exchange of scientific research data and look forward with renewed hope to a further period of close co-operation” – snide bastard – “Please advise me of your affirmative decision no later than 17:30 hours Washington time. Your friend, Alekseii Vasilyievich Leonovich, Premier of the Council of Ministers of the Supreme Soviet,” et cetera…’

  The President dropped the teleprinter message on the table and looked at the wall clock. The time was 5:13 P:M.

  ‘That makes it thirteen minutes past three in Montana,’ said Fraser. ‘If we go with the Russians, that means our planes have to hit Crow Ridge at five P.M., local time.’

  ‘But Mel, for God’s sake, the place is surrounded with people putting down those flares! The Air Force cadets, Mack’s people, half the research group – there’re nearly two hundred and fifty people out there! Are you asking me to just wipe them out without giving them a chance to get away? Isn’t there any way to get a message to them?’ The President looked anxiously at the others. ‘Mack? Chuck, Vernon? Surely to God you can come up with something!’

  ‘What’s more important,’ asked Fraser, ‘the lives of two hundred and fifty people or the future of two hundred and fifty million?’

  One of the battery of telephones rang. Fraser answered. ‘… Good… hello, Mitch? Stand by –’ Fraser covered the phone. ‘Pending your decision, do I have your permission to order the B-52s to bomb up?’

  The President’s hand went to grip the bridge of his nose, then dropped back on to the table. ‘Yes… tell him to keep that line open and stay close to the phone.’

  Fraser looked across at Clayson. ‘Is it okay if I short-circuit the chain of command?’

  Clayson nodded. ‘Go right ahead.’

  ‘Mitch? This is a CAMPFIRE takeoff alert. Bomb up and stand by for an immediate Go signal…No, we’ll try to contact the people on Crow Ridge, but you’ll have to go in without the flares. Hold this line open… Okay.’

  USAF SPECIAL WEAPONS CENTER/KIRTLAND AFB/NEW MEXICO

  Allbright hooked the phone into the amplifier and looked out of the window of the operations trailer. The hardstand on which the B-52s had been parked for the last five weeks was empty. He turned to his senior SAC controller.

  ‘What was the last signal we received from Firebreak One and Two?’

  ‘They just entered the approach pattern.’

  Allbright and the SAC controller went outside and scanned the sky. The SAC controller pointed at the sky over the southwest corner of the airbase.

  ‘There they are – look…’

  The two aircraft were in loose formation, heading towards the runway, but they were still just specks with wings. Allbright cursed himself for not having kept one aircraft on the ground.

  ‘Call them up and get them down here fast – and hit the siren.’

  The SAC controller shot back into the trailer. The siren wailed. The ground crews tumbled out of the ready room and came on the double towards Allbright. He gave his voice a parade-ground boom.

  ‘Gentlemen, your planes will be coming in over the fence in about two minutes. The White House has just called a CAMPFIRE runway alert. I want those planes bombed up, refuelled, checked out, and ready to roll in under ten minutes.’

  ‘But sir, they haven’t even landed yet. They have to come off the runway, taxi – ’

  ‘Exactly.’ Allbright cut the crew chief short. ‘You’re going to make this the fastest turnaround time in the history of the Strategic Air Command. Get moving!’

  THE WHITE HOUSE/WASHINGTON DC

  Fraser looked at the wall clock. ‘Five-fourteen… It’s about eight hundred miles from New Mexico to Montana, and the maximum speed of a B-52 is six hundred and sixty miles an hour. Chuck?’

  ‘Minimum flight time, runway to target with a hot start is one hour eighteen minutes – but that’s at optimum altitude. At forty thousand feet, their speed will be trimmed by fifty knots. From the latest weather reports they could have a tail wind on the last half of the trip.’

  Fraser looked at the President. ‘If Moscow is going to receive your message by five-thirty, you have a maximum of eight minutes to decide. Personally, I don’t think there are any other options open to us. Every second we hold back reduces the time Mitch’s aeroplane will have to get lined up on the target.’

  ‘Chuck, if Mitch’s plane can fly in there, can’t you contact the nearest airbase and ask for a volunteer to fly in and drop a message to the people around the Ridge?’

  General Clayson opened his thick data file and checked the list of active airbases outside the cutoff zone. ‘The nearest is Warren AFB on the southern edge of Wyoming. It’s an ADC fighter base. Nearly four hundred miles away from Crow Ridge.’

  ‘What’s that, thirty minutes’ flying time?’

  ‘Yes, plus the reaction time. They’ll have to rig up a message canister and find some way to drop it. The release gear for underwing stores is electrically operated.

  ‘So throw it out of the cockpit.’

  ‘Sir, this is a Mach 2 aeroplane we’re sending in, not an old barn-storming JN-4.’

  ‘Chuck, I don’t give a shit how it’s done, just get on to it right away.’

  Clayson picked up one of the phones at the far end of the room. It was five-fifteen. The President reached for the pencil and pad in front of him and wrote swiftly in sloping capitals.

  CUTOFF ZONE NOW SEVEN HUNDRED MILES. CAMPFIRE ATTACK WILL TAKE PLACE SEVENTEEN HUNDRED HOURS TODAY LOCAL TIME PRESIDENT ORDERS YOU TO CLEAR FIRE ZONE IMMEDIATELY.

  He tore the sheet from the pad and passed it to Fraser. ‘How’s that?’

  ‘Fine…’

  ‘Make sure they spell out the time… you know – so there’s no – ’

  ‘Confusion. Right.’ Fraser handed the message to McKenna. He took it over to Clayson.

  ‘Does that note mean we can give the Russians an
affirmative on CAMPFIRE?’

  The President closed his eyes, rubbed his forehead and nose, then looked up at Fraser. ‘I’d just like to hang on till Chuck fixes something.’

  ‘Should be no problem. You called a full alert last night. Warren’s an ADC base so they must have a third of their pilots strapped in on cockpit alert.’ Fraser swung round in his chair. ‘Any movement on that aeroplane, Chuck?’

  Clayson was busy talking quietly in the background. He raised his thumb.

  ‘Make sure whoever goes in knows he’ll have no electrics,’ called Fraser.

  Clayson signalled he understood.

  The President saw Fraser, McKenna, and General Wills look at him expectantly. All through his term of office, he had been dreading this moment. Under him, America’s military forces had been spared an armed conflict. No soldier had died as a result of a Presidential decision. He had been the Peace candidate. Now he had to face the idea of sentencing two hundred and fifty people to instantaneous oblivion or – depending on how far they could run – hideous burns or a slow death from radiation sickness…

  Fraser lifted the red telephone linking them with New Mexico. He gave General Allbright a quick rundown on the view from Washington and got a situation report on CAMPFIRE. Fraser held out the phone to the President. ‘Firebreak One and Two were returning from some last-minute target practice when we called the runway alert. They’re being armed and refuelled now. They’ll be ready to go at 17:30. Mitch would like to talk to you.’