"O.K. You have your target approach maps?"
"Yes. Approach and vicinity charts and transparencies for both. Kotlass should be easy, Captain. The aiming point is almost at the junction of the Dwina and Suchona rivers. They’ll show up real clear on the scope."
"Let’s hope so. Gunnery?"
"Gunnery," Goldsmith said. His voice was calm and steady, differing from normal in the absence of the flippant bantering note that usually was present.
"O.K. Herman, nothing for you yet. You can arm your hornets up ten minutes before A point. You happy about them?"
"I’m happy. I’d be happier if we could carry twice as many, but these ten beauties should do. I’ll check with you before I arm them."
"O.K. Herman. Radar, you stay on search for now. You don’t begin counter measures until we tunn in on the attact leg. We’ll check the counter-frequencies when I’ve altered course. How about it, Stan? You have that course for me?"
Andersen noted a final figure on his log, and said, "Zero eight one. Alter fifty seconds from now."
"Roger." Brown leaned forward to make the alterations on the gyro. There were only two of the crew he had to contact now; Garcia, and another sergeant named Minter. They had flown a lot with Alabama Angel, but neither of them had yet contributed anything more positive to the actual operation of the plane than serve coffee. Yet, without them, the present mission could not have been ordered.
"Ordnance?"
"Sir?" It was Garcia who answered, as he always did. Garcia was the live wire of the pair, a girl chaser, a likeable, volatile man. But from past experience Brown knew that Minter would be listening, and would carefully carry out any orders he was given.
"As soon as the navigator comes up with an estimate for A point, I’ll let you know about your job."
"Estimating 10.41 at A point," Anderson broke in quickly.
"Give or take anything?" Brown asked lightly. There was an appreciative chuckle from the crew. Brown was pleased. This was the delicate part, the instructions which might trigger again the emotional disturbance which had threatened when the attack orders were received. He went on quickly, "Don’t answer that, Stan. Only kidding. All right, you two, you can begin to arm them up at 10.33. Number one for twenty thousand air burst, number two twenty-five air burst." Now. It was said. Any comment from the crew? Five seconds went by. None. Brown smiled again. He thought a cup of coffee would be good right now. "How about some coffee, Garcia?"
"Right away, Captain."
Minter said slowly, "Hey Garcia, Bim for twenty air and Bam for twenty-five air, that right?"
"Sure," Garcia said, "that’s right."
Brown was staggered. He could understand how the crews of previous wars had often chalked names on high explosive bombs. But to give names to these things? He started to ask a question, changed his mind before the words had left his mouth. The bombs were Garcia’s and Minter’s special charges. The two sergeants had to arm them, convert them from inert if highly expensive chunks of metal, into killers with a power potential capable of removing a city the size of New York from the face of the earth. If they liked to give the weapons names that was none of his business, so long as their job was efficiently done. He felt quite sure it would be.
Two minutes later, while the crew read carefully through their assignment sheets, Garcia served the coffee. But Goldsmith did not tell his story, and nobody invited him to tell it. There seemed to be a tacit agreement the story would not be at all funny. Not now.
Chapter 4
At a hundred listening posts throughout the free world, in hot climates and in cold, out of scorching desert and arctic tundra, the slender radio masts lift their receiving aerials high into the air. These are the stations which maintain a guardian watch, picking up signals from airborne bombers, and sometimes signals from the ground to those bombers. They are the junction points of the invisible spider’s web of radio. They cover the whole of the northern hemisphere and ninety per cent of the southern. They never sleep.
Seven of them received the attack orders to the 843rd Wing. A further four heard the acknowledgment signals from the bombers. Within minutes the signals had been filtered through the listening stations’ sector centres, back through the main area centres, to arrive with a clatter of teletype machines at SAC’s command post in Omaha, Nebraska.
Here again the signals were filtered. They passed through the decoding room, where individual airmen automatically channelled them to the duty officer, as standing orders required when signals included any form of attack instructions. He in turn routed them on to the duty operations officer. Exactly six minutes after the attack orders had gone out from Sonora the first plain language transcript landed on the duty operations officer’s desk. Three minutes later, the last of the individual acknowledgments had landed there too.
The duty operations officer never ranked below full colonel. He had immense discretionary powers. In certain circumstances he could order SAC into the air before obtaining authority from the commander or his deputy. Naturally, he would be called upon to justify such an action when he notified the commander. But if he could prove the emergency was such he felt it right to issue the orders without wasting the two or three minutes which might be necessary to locate the commander and obtain his approval, then his action would be affirmed.
The duty colonel read the first transcript, then dropped it to look intently at the threat board, which was kept up to date at two-minute intervals on information supplied over a closed circuit from NORAD. He read two or three of the acknowledgment transcripts, while he considered his course of action. The SAC commander was in Washington, but the deputy was sleeping peacefully a few hundred feet above the colonel’s head.
The colonel instructed his assistant, a grey haired major without wings who looked after administration and staff details, to get the deputy commander down without delay. Then he picked up the red line phone and asked the operator to get him Sonora. He was a few years junior to Quinten, but ten years previously he had served with him in Berlin. He knew Quinten well, and liked and respected him. In under ten seconds he heard Quinten on the line. He said, "General, duty operations SAC. We have some transcripts of signals supposed to have been exchanged between Sonora and the eight forty-third wing. Did you know about them?"
He listened intently as Quinten began to speak. For half a minute he listened, then held the phone away from his ear after the click from the other end told him Quinten had cut off. He flashed the operator, said urgently: "Get the deputy at Sonora on the second line."
The operator said, "Pardon me, Colonel, there’s no deputy at Sonora right now, he’s gone to England with the eight forty-third. The exec’s sitting in as deputy for a few days. Major Howard."
"Howard? Oh sure." The colonel knew Howard about as well as he knew Quinten. "Get me Howard, then."
"No can do, Colonel. That line’s out. There’s been a fault on it the last two hours. Matter of fact, General Quinten was worried about it. Got me to check his own line."
"O.K." He replaced the phone and sat thinking for a long minute. Then he glanced at the threat board again. Nothing seemed to have changed. He began to give orders. All SAC bases to immediate readiness. Crews to be briefed, and planes positioned at the end of runways with full war load. Establish contact with Sonora through the normal PBX, personal call to Major Howard. Stratotanker bases alerted for maximum effort, every KC-135 they had to be ready to go. Establish contact with Sonora by radio and teletype. All SAC wings already airborne with war load to head for nearest tanker rendezvous. The SAC commander in Washington to be located wherever he might be. There were dozens of details to be seen to, he didn’t know quite how many. He was ploughing steadily through them when the deputy commander arrived.