“That’s it. I’m going to call Operations and order the first wave to start bombing up. They ought to be off by oh-eight-hundred. What about the Five-Nineteenth Wing?”
“They’ll be ready by ten,” Jesse said. “They’ve already started pre-flight briefing.”
For the first time in many days Conklin smiled. Uncertainty and fear had been routed. Now everyone knew what to do. “The first wave will go with target maps but without orders,” he said. “They keep on heading north until they reach Gander. If they don’t get orders sooner they’ll get them there, I hope. Anyway, a dispatch came in from Limestone saying they have authority to give us in-flight refuelling, anywhere along the route. I’m going to ask Limestone to have their tankers rendezvous with our Nine-Nines at Gander, so if any of our planes malfunction in fuelling they’ll have a place to light. If nothing has happened by the time they get to Gander I’ll send them on to Thule, and they can top off from tankers there. Whatever happens we’ll have a striking force, loaded, in the air, and in the north. That’s as good a break as anybody could ask, starting cold like this.”
Conklin called a sergeant and dictated a message to SAC. The saboteur at Hibiscus, Airman 2/c Stanley Smith, had been caught with three pressure bombs in his possession. By 1000, one whole wing plus twelve planes, armed with thermonuclear weapons and briefed for targets long ago assigned, would be in the air.
Now SAC’s commander was on the job. Almost at once his reply dropped on Conklin’s desk. “YOUR ACTION AFFIRMED. CONGRATULATIONS.”
At 0757 Jess was watching from Buddy Conklin’s double picture windows as the first of the twelve B-99’s, originally scheduled for the milk run to California, took off. The muted thunder of their engines, and the grace of their lifting wings, set his heart to pounding. War could be exciting, and even beautiful, if you could black out the end result. This would be no milk run. If they were sent on all the way—and Jesse was quite certain they would go all the way—they would encounter fighters, flak batteries, a whole family of inhuman guided missiles to be repulsed only by inhuman means, and perhaps weapons of which they had heard nothing and against which they could present no defense. But there was also a chance that they would all get through. If these twelve all got through, they alone would likely be enough. They would turn a sizable fraction of earth into a segment of hell. There was no past war in history that they alone could not have decided in an hour.
Jesse was still at work an hour later, and the B-99’s of the 519th Wing were being towed to the runways, one by one, when another message came in from SAC. An airman named Johnson had been caught with pressure bombs in his possession at Lake Charles, had crushed a metal vial filled with cyanide between his teeth, and had died before he could be questioned. At Corpus Christi another, Masters, had been taken. Masters had tried to kill himself in the same manner, but his guards had prevented it. Why Masters’ guards were alert was not explained. Masters was now engaged in making a confession. He had already implicated a fourth man, whose name he gave as Gregg Palmer. All bases were urged to be on the lookout for Palmer, to comb their rosters and their kitchens. All four men, according to Masters’ confession, were officers of the Red Army or Air Force.
As Jesse read this message, his eye felt jumpy. He could not focus it properly on the yellow teletype paper. His eye wouldn’t steady, and neither would his mind. He could not force himself to concentrate. When you possessed one eye only, it could get badly overworked. It was likely to rebel, and since it was the only eye you had, it was necessary to coddle it. He laid his head in the crook of his arm to relax for a moment. Four men, he thought. Four men fitted that warning from the FBI.
It could have been a minute later, or an hour, that he realized someone was shaking his shoulder. Conklin’s voice said, “Come on, Jess, wake up.”
Price lifted his head and opened his bloodshot eye.
“What about that private plane sitting out on the field?” Conklin asked. “Security wants to know when the passengers can get out. Security says they’re fuming. Any reason to keep ’em out there, Jess?”
“No. No reason at all,” Jesse said. He shook his head to make his brain come to life, as you shake a stopped watch. “I’m sorry. Forgot all about them.”
“I guess you’ve had it for a while,” Conklin said. “I’ll take care of them. You get some rest because I’m going to need you later. My driver will take you to the BOQ.”
“Okay,” Jesse said. “A little nap and a shower and I’ll be fresh.” He walked down to the first floor of administration and noticed a knot of airmen in front of the Air Police guardroom. The prisoner would be in there. He had to take a look at the man. He wasn’t too tired for that.
Jesse pushed his way through the group of curious airmen, a guard came to attention and saluted, and he walked inside. The man was under the floodlight in the interrogation room, seated. He was being questioned by Lundstrom and Fischer. Jesse recognized the blond, handsome, gray-eyed airman who several times had served him since he had been on the base. This was Smith. Except for a purpling eye, the man was unmarked.
Excessive fatigue can act as a drug. It can relieve a man of his senses. Perhaps it was the fatigue, or perhaps he thought again of Dinky, his friend whom this man had murdered. Jesse interrupted the interrogation by attempting to strangle Smith. Later, he could remember the whole episode only vaguely. He could not remember saying anything, or doing anything except that he walked into the circle of light and grasped Smith’s throat in his hands.
Lundstrom and Fischer pulled him off, with difficulty. They held Jesse against the whitewashed wall until they felt him relax, and he said, “Okay, okay. Lost my head.”
“I’d like to feed him to you, Jess,” Lundstrom said, releasing his arms, “but right now he’s mine.”
“Talk yet?” Jesse asked.
“Won’t even tell us his name.” Lundstrom turned on the prisoner. “Will you, Mr. Smith?”
Smith looked up, woodenly, one hand over his throat. His windpipe was bruised, and he was gasping. Momentarily, he had felt fear. It would be a shame to die now, Smith thought, almost on the eve of the attack certain to come. If he could only hold them off until Monday, everything might change. It would be smart, now, to feign serious injury. That crazy one-eyed major had done him a favor. Still holding to his throat, Smith pitched face down on the floor.
Lieutenant Fischer bent down and rolled him over on his back. “Hadn’t I better get a medic, sir?” Fischer asked.
“Yes,” said Colonel Lundstrom. “Right away.” He looked down at Smith’s face and smiled. He reached over, picked Smith up by the armpits, and lifted him back into the chair. “You’re going to get medical attention, all right, Mr. Smith, but it won’t be exactly what you expect.”
Smith closed his eyes and groaned and swayed. He didn’t like the sound of the colonel’s voice.
“You fellows don’t think that you invented confessions, do you?” the colonel went on. “I understand that sometimes, in Russia, it takes a week to ten days to get a confession out of a man. But we’re going to have a confession out of you about forty-five minutes after the doctor gets here. Oh, we could follow the Russian method. We could strip you naked and slap you around and prevent you from sleeping, but we haven’t got time for that. Ever hear of sodium pentathol, Mr. Smith?”
Somewhere, Smith knew, he had heard of sodium pentathol, but he didn’t exactly remember what it was. He would have to put on a good act, when the doctor arrived. He coughed, and tried to fall from the chair again, but the colonel’s hand forced him back.