Five
THREE IN the morning is an awkward hour for a man and a woman, unmarried and carrying only weekend luggage, to arrive in Orlando, or anywhere, by plane. The hotels will accept them, of course, but only with a leer, even when they request separate rooms. Katharine Hume and Jesse Price were both stimulated with the heady wine of fresh love, but they were aware that they needed sleep, and would have to sleep, eventually, and that it was best they sleep now, before the business of the day opened at Hibiscus Base.
They spoke of this problem as they waited for the airport bus. “I know we have to sleep,” Katy said, “but I don’t want to go to a hotel. I’m not prudish, or anything, but when we go to a hotel I want you to be able to walk up to the desk, look the clerk in the eye, and sign Major and Mrs. Jesse Price. You are going to marry me, aren’t you?”
“Certainly I’m going to marry you.”
“Well, why don’t you ask? You haven’t, you know. But don’t ask now. Wait for the right time. And I want it to be romantic, with a proper setting. Like under a frangipani tree in the moonlight.”
“I’m not a very romantic guy,” he said. He leaned over, his bristles brushing her cheek, and kissed her.
“Blackbeard the pirate!” she said.
By the time the bus reached the city they had decided to taxi on to Hibiscus. If her brother was listed for a morning mission he’d be up early. If he wasn’t, they’d wake him. Clint lived in the Bachelor Officers’ Quarters so she could not, of course, stay with him. But he undoubtedly would have married friends living on the base, and perhaps one of them might put her up. No problem existed for Jesse. “If there isn’t room in the BOQ or transient quarters,” he said, “all I need is a sack and six feet of floor.”
It wasn’t quite that easy.
At 4:00 A.M. the taxi dropped them at the guardhouse, a one-story structure of concrete block painted white, of the main gate. Over the gate was a gay orange-and-blue sign: “Welcome to Hibiscus A.F.B.—Home of the 83rd Air Division, SAC.” Under the gate stood two Air Police. Jesse noted that they carried tommy guns in addition to their sidearms. Inside the guardhouse was a second lieutenant of the Air Police and four or five enlisted men. All, even a man bent over a typewriter, were armed. Hibiscus was in a condition of alert.
The lieutenant, tall, thin, deeply tanned, and very young, looked them over carefully, almost angrily. He unbuttoned his holster. A sergeant, standing at the other end of the room, stark and bright with tubular lights, lifted a carbine and brought it to rest on the long counter so that it almost, but not quite, pointed at Jess’s middle. The lieutenant spoke. “I don’t know who you people are. But if it’s one of those penetration stunts this is the wrong time to try it.”
Katy said, “Oh!” In spite of her knowledge of war on the theoretical and strategic plane, she had never before encountered armed and hostile soldiers. They looked formidable, and dangerous, not at all like the immaculate Pentagon guards, whose weapons seemed only part of a uniform, like officers’ dress swords.
Jesse understood the lieutenant’s nervousness. Special Investigations teams kept security taut on SAC bases by attempting penetrations, so there was always a running battle between the uniformed Air Police, and the civilian-clad SI. The SI tried to crash the gate in ambulances and fire engines and phone company trucks. Occasionally they landed in an aircraft feigning distress. They posed as newspapermen and doctors, distraught wives and lawyers, and even, on occasion, adopted the identity of general officers. Air Police had been eaten out, and even dismissed from the service, for allowing themselves to be fooled by these teams, and the lieutenant, Hans Fischer, had no intention of allowing anything like that to happen to him. So Jesse, when he spoke, did so with care and precision. “We’re not from SI,” he said. “This lady is Miss Hume. She represents the Atomic Energy Commission, with an assignment in the Pentagon, and is here to see her brother. Her brother is Major Clinton Hume of the Five-Nineteenth Bomb Wing. I’m Major Price, attached to the Joint Chiefs of Staffs. I’m here to see General Keatton.”
From the other end of the room the sergeant said, loudly enough to be heard but not sufficiently loud to be called down for open insolence, “Now I’ve heard everything.”
Lieutenant Fischer said, “If you were here to see General Keatton his aide would have called and left your name. And you wouldn’t be coming in a taxi. You’d be in a staff car, or aircraft. You’ll have to do better than that, mister. Why don’t you two just go away and come back after eight o’clock, when I’m off duty?”
“Can’t,” Jesse said. “Our taxi’s gone. Want to see my ID card? We’ve both got all sorts of credentials.”
“I’ll bet you have,” said Lieutenant Fischer. “They always do.”
“Now look, Lieutenant,” said Jesse, wishing he had worn not only his uniform but decorations, “I was in the Air Force when you were in grammar school.”
“I’m not in grammar school now,” the lieutenant said. “I’ve had a post-graduate course. One of the lessons was not to get conned by the SI.”
Katy saw that the back of Jesse’s neck was becoming red, and she felt that if he said much more things might get even more complicated, and that it was best she intercede. “May I call my brother?” she asked.
“I’m not getting anybody out of the sack at this hour.”
“Well,” said Jesse, “what do you want us to do?”
“I don’t care what you do except don’t try to get on this base.”
“I’m hungry,” said Katharine. “Please, Lieutenant, may I call my brother?”
The lieutenant inspected her, considering the possibilities. She really didn’t look like a spy, but then, a spy wouldn’t look like a spy. Worse than a spy, she might be a WAF officer assigned to Special Investigations. There was only one way to find out. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” he said. “I’ll call the duty officer at the Five-Nineteenth. If you do have a brother there, and if he comes down and identifies you, then you can go in.”
“What about me?” said Jesse.
“Know anybody who can identify you personally?”
“Yes,” Jesse said. “General Keatton and General Conklin.”
“Major,” said the lieutenant, “you’ve got me over a barrel. You know I can’t call any generals. Nobody on this base has been getting any sleep, hardly, and if I woke up a general I’d find myself in Alaska checking Eskimos in and out of igloos. I’ll go this far. If there is a Major Hume, and if he comes down here and identifies his sister, then you can go along to the mess hall or his quarters in his custody. I’ll send two of my men to watch until you’re positively identified by an officer who knows you personally. But don’t try to go near the flight line or any of the hangars, because I’m going to give my boys orders to shoot you if you do. And before either of you go on the base, I’ll have to examine your bags. Now as a starter, let’s see your credentials.”
Forty-five minutes later Jesse and Katharine were eating breakfast with Clint Hume. They sat at one end of a long table in the Officers’ Open Mess, while at the other end, carbines in hand, sat two of the lieutenant’s men, steadfastly watching. Jesse began to doubt his conviction that the B-99 that had exploded over the Red River, and the others as well, had been sabotaged. No saboteur could get on a SAC base. Treason? He could imagine one treasonable or demented airman. Three, on three separate bases, seemed beyond the bounds of credibility.
The problem of quarters had been quickly solved. Jesse could squeeze into Clint’s room at the BOQ. Katy could stay, Clint was sure, at the home of Lieutenant-Colonel Gresham, his aircraft commander. On Hibiscus Base married light colonels rated a three-bedroom, two-bath house, since an Air Force survey showed that by the time an officer reached the rank of lieutenant-colonel he usually had at least two children. The Greshams, however, had no children, and therefore had a guest room. Clint was a combination navigator-radarman-bombardier. For the next three days he would be taking a refresher course in new radar—he gave no further explanation—and Katy and Jesse could use his car.