"Sure," Owens said. "I’ll do that."
Brown turned to the very last page in the folder. He looked at the count-down clock for a moment. God, had only two more minutes gone by? How long were the other eighty-one going to seem? He thought back rapidly to the checks he had made. Gunnery, navigation, radar, fuel. Fuel? "Any idea on endurance yet, Federov?"
"I have the answer at this height and speed, Captain. Gives you five thousand two hundred from the A point. I’m still working on the other one."
"Thanks, Federov." Brown relaxed. He was two hundred over the safety limit for this particular target. Allowing for adverse winds, and extra fuel used in changes of altitude which might be forced on a bomber for tactical reasons as it approached its target, plan R called for Alabama Angel to have the equivalent of five thousand air miles in the tanks at the A point. He had a small margin to play with.
He glanced again at the count-down clock. It was showing eightly. Perhaps he thought, even now, there would be something which would. . The eighty clicked implacably into seventy-nine. He said, "Garcia, Minter."
The two of them replied together, Garcia’s voice blending with the deeper notes of Minter’s.
Brown took a deep breath. "Let’s get to work," he said. "Number one first. Arm and fuse for air burst at twenty thousand. I’ll check the stages with you."
Garcia said quietly, "Request release trigger for number one."
"Releasing." Brown jerked down a switch on the instrument panel, held it down while he thumbed a button on the left side of the panel with his other hand.
"I have it," Garcia said.
Brown let the switch flip up, took his thumb from the button. The crew listened quietly to the preparations. And Alabama Angel continued to push ten effortless miles behind her each minute on the way to the primary target.
Chapter 8
"Sit down, Paul," Brigadier General Quinten said easily. He waved his hand to a comfortable chair in front of the desk.
Paul Howard looked carefully at the general as he sat down. He noted the haggard face, and the small twitch in the cheek under the right eye. But he also saw that the general’s right hand was steady. And that was the hand holding the point four five pistol the general had produced, as if by magic, as soon as he heard Howard’s first few words.
Quinten lit a cigarette. "So you’ve got on to it," he said. "How did you know?"
"Combination of things," Howard said slowly. "Mostly, the question of a bell ringing. It was there in back of my mind all the time, but it took a while to register. General, that red line phone makes a hell of a noise when it rings. Earlier on, when I came into this office and found you already speaking on that phone, I knew there was something missing. I didn’t know just what. But a few minutes ago I realised it. I hadn’t heard the bell. If it had rung, I’d have heard it for sure. So I began to get the idea you’d made the call to SAC yourself, strictly for my benefit." He paused, waiting for some positive reaction from Quinten.
But Quinten was not disturbed. "So far you’re adding things up right," he said lightly. "I’m not going to quarrel with your conclusions. Go on from there."
"Well, sir, then I got to thinking about the second call, the one that came through while I was talking to you. You said something like, ‘I hear you. All right.’ Something like that. It was just what you would have said if you’d picked up the phone for the first call and asked the operator at SAC to check your line. Anyway, I switched my radio on. The miniature one I keep in my desk. All the stations were transmitting normally, even the small local outfits."
"So?"
"So you’d said we were at warning red. That means air attack imminent. In that case all the small stations would have shut down. The networks would have shifted over to the Conelrad stations. That hadn’t happened. It was then I realised."
"I see," Quinten murmured. "Paul, I was going to tell you anyway. I’d already told SAC, when I sent you to fetch the security officer, because it’s too late for anyone to do anything about it now."
Howard lit a cigarette. He noticed the general had put the pistol down on the desk. But it was within easy reach of his right hand. He remembered one of the general’s hobbies was pistol and small-bore rifle shooting. He relaxed. "I don’t see how it’s too late. SAC can recall the wing," he said.
"No, they can’t. You weren’t at the briefiing, were you?"
"You know I wasn’t."
"So you don’t know the three letter group I gave the wing, for setting on the CRM 114 after they received their attack orders?"
"No, I don’t."
"Neither," Quinten said calmly, "does anyone at SAC."
"But the letters are pushed out by SAC," Howard protested, his voice rising slightly. "They’re bound to know."
Quinten shook his head. "Paul, there are some things about SAC operations you don’t know, and neither does any officer under base commander or deputy commander level. SAC supplies the general code group, sure. But the group for plan R is originated by the base commander himself. There’s a good reason for it. We’ve learned a lot about the nature of Communism and its adherents. We also know we are liable to be attacked at any time. All right, suppose a sudden attack knocked out all our bases except this one. Suppose someone in high places knows the general code group of the day. Someone who is a Communist, or a fellow traveller."
"That isn’t even a possibility," Howard said angrily.
"You’re wrong, Paul. It is a possibility. In a world which can construct an H-bomb and put up its own artificial moons, even contemplate a break-out into space, nothing is impossible. Nothing. Oh, I agree the possibility is very slight, but it exists. Anyway, suppose things happened as I said. I get my planes into the air. But they aren’t going to be much good if the enemy can get through to them and turn them back, or maybe divert them to a base where they can be caught on the ground a few minutes after landing. Plan R takes care of that. We’ve come a long way since Pearl Harbour. That taught us a lesson we’ve never forgotten, and the results of that lesson are written into plan R."
Howard shifted in his chair. Suddenly it was all very clear to him. He remembered how Majors Bailey and Hudson had asked permission to go on a hunting trip. The general had agreed immediately. Come to think, he was almost sure the general had suggested it. Bailey and Hudson had been at the briefing. Apart from the crews of the wing, and the general himself, they were the only officers who had.
"That’s why you sent Bailey and Hudson off?" he asked.
Quinten frowned. For the past fifteen minutes the pain in his head had subsided to a dull throb. Now suddenly, it was again hot and active, clawing at his brain like a wild thing. He said quietly, "I don’t know. Certainly, in the couple of minutes before the boys reached their X points, it was one of the factors influenced me to send them on in. That, and the news about the I.C.B.M. site, and the fact we were running a NORAD exercise so I knew our defences would be alert. You were standing in as deputy, which helped a lot. Colonel England would have smelled a rat immediately I mentioned plan R."
"I don’t see why."