They never learned what his speed was, because that was the last message Georgia Peach sent.
In a few minutes, at Corpus Christi, at Fort Worth, and the other big fields in Texas, they knew they had another. They had a vanishing jet bomber like the three from Hibiscus and the one from Lake Charles.
But this one was not quite the same.
It was over land, not water. It was witnessed. And there was a human survivor, although the B-99 itself was shredded into bits of metal that fell like silvery rain over a five-mile area not far from Texarkana. Except for the eight engines. They came down like smoking meteors.
This B-99 was making a contrail, a clean white chalk line across the pale blue blackboard of the winter sky, so that many eyes were turned up to it, and saw it happen. Most of them agreed that they saw a red flash and then an explosion. Or perhaps it was two explosions, a small one and a big one later. The witnesses spoke of a ball of orange fire and a black cloud where there had been no cloud before, but, being eyewitnesses, none of their stories were exactly alike. Some told exactly what they saw, but most related what they thought they should have seen, or allowed their memory to be influenced by the tales of others.
All agreed that out of the cloud a number of specks fell. When it was five or ten thousand feet above the ground—the guesses of the witnesses naturally differed—one of these specks changed shape. A filmy white parachute mushroomed above it, and, swinging gently, it floated to earth. The survivor, Master Sergeant George Lear, radarman, fell within five hundred yards of the 3-X ranchhouse and received immediate first aid. Both eyes were blackened, his scalp lacerated, his hands and face burned, his body bruised, and he was stunned and suffering from shock. But he was alive, and by the time the rescue helicopters and intelligence teams arrived on the scene he was able to talk.
Georgia Peach was fitted with ejector pods, and to this Lear owed his life. An ejector pod is a plastic capsule which encloses an airman’s seat. The front section is open so he can perform his duties. If it becomes necessary to abandon the aircraft, he pulls a lever at his side, a cowl drops to complete the closure of the capsule, and an explosive charge ejects the pod into space, exactly as a shell is fired from a gun. It is a desperate and dangerous means of escape, but it gives a man a chance. The pod protects his body, and prevents him from being pulverized by a six- or seven-hundred-mile-an-hour blast of air. However, within ten seconds, at very high altitudes, he must remember to put on his oxygen mask. Then he must remember not to leave the pod until the speed of his fall is slowed by heavier atmosphere. And after he pushes the pod aside in mid-air he should allow himself to fall to within ten thousand feet of earth before pulling his parachute ripcord. After that, he should look around for a hospitable spot on which to land, guide himself to this landing by manipulating his shroud lines, and remember to absorb the shock by rolling like a cat as his feet touch.
Master Sergeant Lear was the first B-99 crewman called upon to do all these things and he didn’t remember any of them. All he knew was that suddenly there was fire all around him and a tremendous noise and he was kicked hard in the rear. The next he knew he was holding on to his shrouds, swinging like a pendulum. That was all he knew. All.
A tremor ran through the communications ganglia of the Air Force. A hundred questions, a few answers, a few commands whined and hummed over the wires. From Hibiscus to the Pentagon, thence to the SAC command post in Omaha, finally to Fort Worth, the teletypes chattered an admonition from General Keatton. The intelligence teams standing by at the Texarkana hospital should rush, by fastest plane, all of Lear’s clothing, and his parachute, to the Wright Field research laboratories.
The intelligence officers had already thought of this, and when the order came the clothing was packed and ready. While Master Sergeant Lear couldn’t tell them anything, his clothing might tell them much. 6
From the moment that Corpus Christi reported that it had lost contact with a B-99 bearing the operational name of Georgia Peach, until a jet fighter was flying to Ohio with Lear’s clothing, Major Price stayed close to the communications center in Air Force. There was, really, nothing else for him to do. Until he was re-assigned to other duty by General Keatton, or someone countermanded General Clumb’s order dissolving the Intentions Group, he was a spectator.
He sent his secretary home at four, and then sat at her typewriter, attempting to phrase a personal message to Keatton that could go through official channels from the Pentagon to Hibiscus. Nothing he wrote made much sense, when he imagined the Chief-of-Staff, snowed under by the mounting emergency, reading it. Finally he condensed all that was ludicrous into one sentence. “OPERATIONAL PRIORITY X CLASSIFICATION TOP SECRET,” he wrote. “FROM MAJOR PRICE, DETACHED DUTY, TO GENERAL KEATTON X I THINK RUSSIANS WILL ATTACK US MONDAY MORNING X DO BE CAREFUL.” He laughed, ripped the paper out of the typewriter, and tore it into shreds. Then, out of habit, he dropped the pieces into the carton on which was stencilled: “Secret Waste.”
At dusk, frustrated and edgy, he left the Pentagon and drove back to Georgetown. He idled his car down Dumbarton, although this was not the quickest way home. Katy Hume’s apartment was on Dumbarton, and in recent months, with more and more frequency, he had felt a compulsion to use the street. Now, he looked up at her apartment. Her lights were on. Raoul Walback’s big blue sedan wasn’t parked on the block. Jesse Price dropped in to see Katy whenever he could think of an excuse, but he made it a point not to intrude when Raoul was there.
He needed to talk to her. She had, he realized, become a necessity to him. When a day passed without seeing her, he felt out of sorts and lonely. He parked around the corner and walked to her apartment.
When she answered his knock he sensed at once that something was wrong. When he had left her the night before she had seemed tired, physically, but still vibrant and full of fight. Katy had two things he greatly admired in a woman as well as a man, drive and bounce. Now the drive and bounce seemed missing. The corners of her face were etched with tiny lines as if she were suppressing physical pain. She looked listless, tired, beaten. She didn’t say she was glad to see him, or offer him a drink. All she said was, “Don’t tell me about the one today. I heard it on the radio.”
He put his big hands on her shoulders and said, “Come on, Katy, snap out of it. I think we’re going to get an answer out of this one.” Her shoulders were round and warm. Quite beyond his volition, as naturally as if she belonged to him, he pulled her close. Surprisingly, she put her face against his chest, and he could feel her body seeking his, molding herself to him. He crushed her. He kissed her hair, her eyes, and then she lifted her open mouth to his. Finally she moved her lips away and whispered, “I can’t breathe. I’m not going to run away, Jess. We’ve got all night. We’ve got a lifetime of nights, if you want me.”
He said, “I want you.”
She kissed him again, hungrily, for she had suddenly remembered something. A lifetime could mean fifty years—or five days. She said, “Why didn’t you ever do this before?”
“Never thought you wanted me to.”
“You could have tried.”
“I don’t poach, and Raoul had signs all over the place: ‘Posted—Keep Off.’”
“I guess he did, didn’t he?” She walked over to the couch and sat down, tucking her legs under her. “Today I ripped the signs down.”
He followed her to the couch and sat beside her and she let her head fall over on his shoulder as if it were the only natural place for it to rest. The lines of tension and weariness were erased from her face. She looked assured, ready. He sniffed at her hair. “You smell like a woman,” he said, and kissed her again.