Forbidden Area

Six

SMITH WATCHED his speedometer carefully once he was headed north from St. Augustine on AIA. The shell road leading to the beach would be easy to miss, and there were few check points beyond the last cottage. There was the place on the road where pocked asphalt gave way to conquina. Then, several miles beyond, was a jog in the otherwise uncurving highway, a cluster of billboards, and finally a spring and drinking fountain. It was exactly three and three-tenths miles from the spring to the shell road. He had been careful to measure it, several months before, in daylight. He drove very slowly on the last three-tenths until his headlights picked up a break in the solid wall of palmetto. He turned into the shell road and allowed the wheels to follow the ruts. When the breakers gleamed ahead he switched off his lights, shifted into low gear, and crept out onto the hard-packed beach. He saw no other tire marks. He swung in a circle, and re-entered the path so that his getaway would be quick. He stopped the engine, took a flashlight from the glove compartment, and tested it once again. Now it was necessary to make a reconnaissance, as he had been instructed to do, but before that he would rest for a moment and think. He had been taught that the time to meet an emergency was before it happened. It had been taught that the most minute flaw in a plan always developed into a disastrous crevasse in the stress of crisis. He must reconstruct everything he had already done, and he must be certain that future action was safe.

He had stayed with Betty Jo, as planned, until ten. She had been glad enough to see him, and delighted when he told her he wasn’t going to remain in Jacksonville with his friends. He was just going to pick them up downtown, drive them to Jacksonville, and return immediately. He would be back, he told her, about five in the morning. She should leave the door open and he would slip in and get some sleep and then they would have breakfast together before she drove to work. He looked at his watch. It was one-ten. The timing was just right, and the beach apparently deserted. But he had to make sure.

Smith got out of the car and walked north along the beach, following a wavy line of small shells, the signature of the last high tide. Now the tide was low, the moon in its last quarter. It was considerably darker than the night he had landed, but still the night was crisp and clear, the visibility good, and the moonlight bright enough so that the figure of a man, say a surf fisherman, would be visible at a quarter mile against the white sand. He paced off three hundred yards, stopped, scanned the beach and the crests of the dunes to the north, and then turned south. He walked leisurely and confidently. He passed the shell road, its entrance blocked by his car, and went three hundred paces to the south and surveyed the beach again. There was no doubt of it, it was all clear. He returned to the car, took the flashlight from his pocket, pointed it at the sea, apparently barren of ships and life, and gave the signal. Two shorts—three longs—two shorts. He repeated it, dit dit, dah, dah, dah, dit dit. He waited for the space of two breaths, and the answer came, one long, one short.

Nina and Henry had dressed and were walking at the edge of the surf when they saw the reflection of headlights in the sky far to the south. They paid no attention until they saw that the car was moving very slowly, barely creeping. When it soundlessly turned into the shell road, Nina whispered, taut with fear, “What if it’s Father?” Before he could answer she broke away from him and ran for their hollow.

Henry doubted that her father could have tailed them, or somehow discovered their place. It wasn’t plausible. Even if it was her father, he was damned if he was going to run. So he followed her, without haste, and joined her in the hollow between the dunes just as the car’s lights went off. Nina stepped close to him, pressed herself against him, and said, “You don’t think it’s Father, do you, Henry?”

“I don’t give a damn if it is,” Henry said.

“Maybe it’s only a fisherman,” she said, finding composure in his strength.

“Not at this moon and this tide,” he said. “It’s probably just a guy and girl doing the same thing we’re doing.”

The car, lights extinguished, ran out on the sand and made a tight circle, tiny shells crunching under its tires. Henry saw that it was a new Chevvy, two tone. White and green, he thought, although color was deceptive in the moonlight. It entered the shell road again, and its motor died. They waited for something else to happen and when nothing happened Nina said, “I guess you re right. Just a couple, smooching.”

But, after a minute or so a man got out of the car and walked to high-water mark, then turned north, towards them. He following the line of shells, his head moving from side to side as if he searched for something. Nina shrank lower. “Don’t move,” Henry whispered. “So long as you don’t move he won’t see us.”

When the man was directly opposite, Henry saw that he was in Air Force uniform.

“What’s he doing?” Nina asked, after he had passed.

“Maybe he was down here fishing just before dark,” Henry said, “and lost his wallet or maybe a ring or something. Now he’s looking for it.”

“Think we ought to go out and help him?”

“No.” Henry’s reply was instinctive and immediate. In the back of his mind he didn’t believe the Air Force man was looking for anything but people. In the back of his mind was the shock and terror of that other night when the armed men had swarmed over the beach, and a car had been landed from a submarine. Maybe something was going to happen again. If anything happened again, this time his own action would be different. Maybe he was going to get another chance.

The man kept on going for perhaps two hundred yards beyond their hollow. He stopped and looked around. He’s looking for people, all right, Henry thought, excitement growing inside him. The man then returned, walking at a steady, even pace. He kept on going south. He’s doing a patrol, Henry thought. A reconnaissance. They watched him until he turned again, and went back to where he had left the car. When the flashlight signalled, Henry was not greatly surprised.

He peered out to sea. If there was anything out there you couldn’t tell it under the waning moon, But he did see, distinctly, the answering signal. “They’re coming again,” he told Nina, and put his arm around her shoulders.

This time they never did see the submarine, but eventually they saw the boat.

Before they saw the boat they could hear its motor. Then a thin white bow wave appeared, and then the slim, dark shape itself. It was no landing barge this time. It was, Henry saw, a gig, or launch. It idled just outside the breakers, picked an incoming wave, and rode it towards the shore. When it broached on the sand, four men jumped out and held its gunwales. A fifth climbed over the side, holding a box or package in his arms. The Air Force man was at the water’s edge, by then, waiting. When he received the package it appeared an extension of his arm. Held thus, it looked like a suitcase.

The two men were together for only a few seconds. Then the Air Force man walked quickly back towards the shell road and his car, and the other man climbed back into the boat. His four companions walked the boat into deeper water, waited for an interval between breakers, and pulled themselves over the side. Its engine started, it breasted the crest of a wave, and soon was free of the surf and heading back out to sea. Henry was still watching it, straining for a glimpse of the mother ship, when he heard the car’s starter whine, and the murmur of its engine. The car’s lights came on as it moved along the shell road, just before it turned into the highway. When Henry stared out to sea again, he was not sure he could see the boat at all, and soon there was nothing. There were only the swells, the moon, the rustle of the south wind in the rice grass and palmettos, and the girl’s frail shoulder cupped in his hand. He said, “Come on, let’s go!”

“What are we going to do?” Nina said. “Where are we going?”

He said, “We’re going to Mayport.”

The Navy carrier base, and an auxiliary field capable of receiving the fastest jets, was at Mayport, at the mouth of the St. Johns twenty miles or so up the coast. 3

The man who landed to give Smith his resupply was the German navigator, Karl Schiller. His black, waterproof coveralls were uncomfortably hot, and his face was dripping sweat as he handed Smith a suitcase wrapped in plastic, except for the handle. “So we meet again,” he said.

“Surprised?” Smith asked. He could see that Schiller was grinning.

“Somewhat,” Schiller said. “It seems that you’re doing well. We’ve been hearing about you, you and your friends.”

“Yes. Are there any further orders?”

“No change for you.”

“And when I’ve used these up?”

“Nobody has told me a word.” Schiller winked. “But after that I don’t think you’ll have to worry.”

“Then I won’t be seeing you again?”

“No. We were to wait for you here until Sunday. After Sunday, we have other business. Auf wiedersehn, Smith. Have you found a hole?”

Before Smith could ask what he meant Schiller had turned his back and was sloshing out to the boat. Smith walked back to the car. He opened the trunk, placed the suitcase inside, and then shut the trunk carefully. He looked beyond the beach. The boat was already past the breakers, moving swiftly to sea. It had all gone smoothly and quickly as he expected. He got into the car, stepped on the starter, and eased it along the twisting shell road. When a canopy of palms blacked out the moon, he switched on the lights. A few more yards and he was on AIA, headed back for St. Augustine, and then Orlando.

As he drove, he evaluated Schiller’s words. Schiller had been cryptic, and yet he had certainly indicated something big was coming. Whatever it was involved Schiller’s submarine. It would not come on Sunday, because the submarine had received orders to remain on station until then. So it would probably come Monday. What could a submarine do? Smith had learned more from the American press and news magazines than he ever had been told in Russia. For one thing a submarine could fire guided missiles, either V-1 type jets or V-2 type rockets, with nuclear warheads. That was it. Why else would Schiller ask, “Have you found a hole?” For all he knew, the target for Schiller’s submarine might be Orlando. It might even be Hibiscus, although this seemed doubtful, for Hibiscus was set out in an area of wasteland, woods, and lakes, an isolated and difficult target.

Anyway, he himself was doing the job at Hibiscus. By Monday, action by the Red Navy and Air Force against SAC might be superfluous. What was Monday? Christmas Eve. 4

Ensign Higginbotham was officer of the deck, on the dog watch, that morning at Mayport. Higginbotham had been on duty at May-port for three months, and in this time he had drawn O.D. in the small hours with disturbing regularity, and in all that time nothing whatsoever had happened. Mayport was the quietest of installations. Every week or two a carrier put in from the Mediterranean, or the Caribbean, to swap air groups and refuel. The new air group flew in from Mainside, Jacksonville, and the planes were trundled directly onto the hangar decks by small tractors. Refueling was the concern of the carrier captains and the oilers. All the permanent party at Mayport had to do was keep the place shipshape, so that this exchange could proceed smoothly. That, and catch sea trout in the turning basin, or take the crash boat out after king mackerel beyond the jetties. By reputation, Mayport was happy duty.

Now Higginbotham was faced with the wildest sort of emergency, covered by no rules or regulations of which he had ever heard. Before him stood a tall young Marine, accompanied by a frightened girl in a wrinkled blue frock, carrying high-heeled shoes in her hand, and they had sworn to him that they had just witnessed what could be an enemy landing on the coast, or rendezvous with an agent. Not only that, but they claimed to have seen something even more fantastic in June of the previous year, involving a submarine, a landing barge, and an automobile. Higginbotham could not tell the Marine to go home and sleep it off. The Marine was undoubtedly sober. He could not tell him to inform the FBI or the police. This had happened at sea, and the sea was Navy territory and business. Besides, there had been a submarine contact reported from New Orleans only the past evening, and everyone was jittery about the disasters to the Air Force bombers, and the Marine claimed that it had been a man in Air Force uniform who had received the suitcase. So Ensign Higginbotham knew that he had to do something, and he had a premonition that whatever he did would be wrong.

At that moment the only vessels in Mayport were Coral Sea and her escorting destroyers, preparing to take aboard her aircraft at first light and sail back to the Mediterranean to rejoin the Sixth Fleet. The two carriers of Task Force 9.1, nucleus of the Atlantic Fleet’s hunter-killer group, were in the Gulf, co-operating with Air Force in the search for downed B-99’s. As a matter of fact almost everything afloat, in the Atlantic, was engaged in the same mission. In any event, Higginbotham could not order so much as a rowboat to sea. His authority did not extend beyond the sleepy limits of Mayport, and even in Mayport it was confined to those desolate hours when no other officers—he was junior to everyone on the base—were awake. There was only one thing he could do, and the thought appalled him. He would have to get Captain Clyde out of bed.

Higginbotham’s fingers edged towards the telephone gingerly as if it were a dozing rattlesnake. Even when he had a full night’s sleep, Captain Clyde was terrifying. Clyde was a bitter, bull-necked and bull-throated man who hated short duty and who, having been passed over, was condemned to it for the balance of his service. Higginbotham’s fingers jumped the last few inches and closed on the telephone. He lifted it to his lips and said, “This is the O.D. Let me have Captain Clyde.”

The base operator said, “What?” He sounded unbelieving.

“I said give me Captain Clyde. Yes, at his quarters.”

The captain answered the phone almost at once, as if it were beside his bed. “Well?” Captain Clyde wheezed.

“This is Higginbotham, O.D., sir. There’s a Marine here who says he’s seen a landing on the coast.” This was a very inadequate way to put it, Higginbotham knew, and he waited for the captain to blow him off the phone.

Incredibly, the captain simply asked, “What kind of landing?”

“From a boat, sir. He thinks the boat came from a submarine. He says they gave a suitcase to a man in Air Force uniform.”

Higginbotham waited for the captain to come fully awake and start screaming. Instead, Captain Clyde said, quite calmly, “I’ll be right over.” Then he hung up.

Captain Clyde, clad in a skivvy shirt, white trousers, and leather sandals, was in his headquarters building in two minutes. “All right, Marine,” he demanded. “Right smartly, what’s this all about?”

Henry Hazen told his story again. As he talked, the captain made notes. Twice he looked at the girl for corroboration. Although she was embarrassed, standing there barefoot, and frightened, he managed to tell exactly what he had seen.

Once the captain interrupted to say, “Higginbotham, has Coral Sea taken on fuel?”

“Yes, sir. Finished at twenty-three hundred.”

When Hazen stopped speaking the captain said, “Thanks, Marine, you’ve done well. Even if nothing happens, there’ll be a commendation in your jacket. Now you’d better take your girl home.”

Before they were out of the office Captain Clyde began to act. He called Mainside, the Naval Air Station in Jacksonville, and asked for patrol planes and helicopters. He called the blimp base in Brunswick. He informed the captain of Coral Sea, and the admiral aboard, and suggested that the ship be prepared for anti-submarine action. He called the Eastern Sea Frontier, Norfolk. He called the police in St. Augustine and the State Highway Patrol and the FBI. He even cut across service lines and channels and called Air Force in Washington.

He called for coffee and sandwiches and prepared to stay up the rest of the night.

Then he turned to Higginbotham and said, “Ensign, can you navigate a crash boat?”

Higginbotham said, “I think so, sir.” He had actually been at the wheel of the crash boat several times, on fishing expeditions, but he had never taken it out of sight of land.

“Well, rout out a crew and take out the crash boat. I relieve you of O.D.”

“Yes, sir,” said Higginbotham. Sensibly, he didn’t ask where to take the crash boat or what to do when he got there. The crash boat carried no armament but it did have a good radio. It was a million-to-one chance that he would find the submarine, or whatever it was, and if he did see something all he could do was call for help. But he was elated. For the first time since being commissioned, he had a real command, and the possibility of action.

An hour later, conning the crash boat through the jetties, he found time to marvel at the captain’s astonishing behavior. He did not know, of course, that Captain Clyde, then a gunnery officer aboard the battleship Nevada, had been sleeping soundly in the Moana Hotel, Honolulu, on Sunday morning, December 7, 1941. Clyde had heard gunfire, but it had sounded like target practice, and Clyde had covered his aching head with a pillow and gone back to sleep. When he finally did get up, his ship had sortied from her berth in Pearl Harbor. The Navy officially had forgotten this, Captain Clyde could not. But he could see that nothing like it ever happened to him again.

At 4:34 A.M. a teletype alarm went out to stations of the Florida State Highway Patrol and was relayed to what few cars and officers were on duty at that hour of lightest traffic. It read:

LOOK OUT FOR AND ARREST MAN DRESSED IN AIR FORCE UNIFORM, RANK UNKNOWN, DRIVING LATE MODEL GREEN AND WHITE CHEVROLET HARDTOP. SUITCASE IN TRUNK OF CAR. NO OTHER DESCRIPTION. THIS MAN IS WANTED BY FEDERAL AUTHORITIES AS A POSSIBLE ENEMY AGENT. HE IS PROBABLY DANGEROUS AND MAY BE ARMED.

The alarm was heard by Officer Huidekoper, a bulky road patrolman of middle years, who was sitting in his fast scout car, its lights on and engine idling, outside an all-night drive-in on the outskirts of Deland, a quiet college town south of Orlando. Huidekoper was eating a double pork barbecue roll, with French fries on the side, and washing it down with an extra rich chocolate frostee shake.

The alarm had a bizarre ring to it. He had never been asked to look out for an enemy agent before, and had never even imagined such a thing. The dispatcher repeated the broadcast. Huidekoper took another bite out of his barbecue and decided that headquarters in Tallahassee had been taken in by a practical joker. Anyway, it was hopeless looking for a car unless you knew the license number. He laughed out loud. A green-and-white Chewy! He saw at least a dozen every day. Why, he had seen one pass only five or ten minutes before, with its left tail light out. He had almost gone after it to warn the driver, but just then the car hop was bringing his snack. Certainly it was nothing to report. He hadn’t noticed whether the driver wore an Air Force uniform or a pink kimono. It would only cause confusion, and possibly get him laughed at, if he called the dispatcher. Of course if he did call it would be a cinch to intercept the Chewy he’d seen. Twenty cars could converge on it before it hit the outskirts of Orlando, if you included the county and city police. Huidekoper finished his frostee, dropped the container to the ground, yawned and decided to drive Route 11 to Daytona, where he knew he could get breakfast for free. 6

Stanley Smith drove the Chevrolet quietly into the carport alongside Betty Jo’s house and left the lights on while he unlocked the luggage compartment and brought out the suitcase. For the first time, he noticed that the left rear tail light was smashed, and not burning. He swore quietly. The woman was careless. Because of that light, he could have been stopped by the police. Anything that attracted attention was dangerous.

He took the suitcase into the house, peered into the bedroom, and saw Betty Jo was sleeping, her flaccid face looking grained and misshapen against the pillow. She was no doll without her makeup, he thought, but she had been useful, and would be useful again. He undressed, crawled into bed without waking her, and was soon asleep.

The sunlight was streaming into the room when he awoke. Betty Jo was dressed and standing at the side of the bed, a tray in her hands. “Orange juice, hot cakes, maple syrup, bacon, marmalade, and coffee,” she said. “How would you like this kind of service every morning?”

“I’d like it fine,” he said. The woman was marriage-crazy.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if you were here all the time? Have you ever thought about getting out of the Air Force, Stan?”

“Lots of times. But I’ve still got a year and a half to do.”

She set the tray at the foot of the bed, saw the suitcase on the floor within reach of his hand, and said, “Is that yours?”

“No. Belongs to one of the fellows I drove to Jacksonville. He forgot it. I’ll get it to him when he comes back.”

“Oh. Do you have to go back to the base today, dear?”

Smith sat up, drank the orange juice, and said, “Yes. I’m on twenty-four-hour pass.”

“What about tomorrow?”

“Can’t see you tomorrow. Have to work Saturday night. I swapped nights with Cusack. You know, my roommate. Maybe I’ll see you Sunday.”

She kissed him, and turned to the mirror to use her lipstick. She had to leave for work. He said, “Say, Betty Jo.”

“Yes?”

“You’ve got a busted tail light.”

“Oh, have I?” she said. “I didn’t see it.”

He could tell she was lying. “You sure have. Get it fixed.”

“Okay, I’ll get it fixed today, dear,” she said. She started to kiss him again, remembered her lipstick and barely brushed his hair with her mouth, and left.

It was a relief to have her out of the house. He finished breakfast, put the tray on a chair, and lay back on the pillow, staring at the ceiling, thinking. Getting the stuff off the submarine had been simple. Getting it on to the base was quite another matter. They were examining everything that went through the gate. He suspected that they would even be fluoroscoping all incoming mail and express parcels.

So the plan to follow was the one he had conceived first, the simple and open way, so matter-of-fact and meshed with routine that suspicion would be impossible. Every Friday afternoon Ciocci came to the city to requisition supplies for the mess. When Ciocci returned to Hibiscus this Friday afternoon he would have a passenger, and an extra package. Even if the package was inspected, which seemed improbable, its contents would appear normal. He got out of bed, opened the suitcase, and counted the bombs. Five, as before.

At ten o’clock Smith took a taxi downtown, and went shopping. He bought what he needed, five standard one-quart thermos bottles covered with imitation leather, and made sure they were packed in their original cartons. He returned to Betty Jo’s house and opened the store’s package carefully, for it would have to be rewrapped. He removed the five thermos bottles, each heavy as if filled with fluid, from their padded niches in the suitcase. He compared them with the bottles he had just bought. They looked identical. A thermos bottle was a thermos bottle. Whether you bought them in Stockholm, Sweden, or Orlando, Florida, they were the same. Only minute examination of their bottoms would show any difference. It was necessary that the thermos casing of the bombs not be airtight, for their trigger was the weight of air. The five from the submarine he dropped into the store’s cartons, and carefully rewrapped them. The five empties he placed in the suitcase.

At one o’clock that afternoon Smith appeared at the parking lot, opposite the courthouse, that Ciocci always used. The blue Air Force pickup truck was there, as usual. Smith climbed into the front seat, put his package in the back with the other bundles, and waited for Ciocci. In an hour Ciocci returned to the lot, arms laden. Smith got out and helped him and said, “Saw your truck. How about a ride back to the base, Sergeant?”

“Sure,” said Ciocci. On the way back to the base Smith listened to the latest poop on the missing bombers. The concensus of opinion, based on what the mess attendants and cooks had been hearing at meals, was that all of SAC would soon be back flying the old 47’s and 52’s. Most of the command pilots believed there was something radically wrong with the 99. “What makes it worse,” Ciocci said, “is that they can’t figure out what it is. That’s why they’re shook.”

At Hibiscus main gate the guards stopped them and they showed their passes and ID cards and Ciocci exhibited his requisition list. “Been buying crockery and junk for the mess,” he said. “Want to look?”

An Air Police sergeant checked the license plate and base number on the truck and examined the requisition list. He peered into the back of the truck, and estimated the time it would take his detail to go into each one. Behind the truck a line of vehicles began to grow. The sergeant waved Ciocci on.

The bombs were on the base.

Smith helped Ciocci unload at the mess hall, and set his own package aside. “That one yours?” Ciocci asked.

“Yes,” Smith said. “This one’s mine.” 7

While Smith was carrying his package from the mess hall to Barracks 37, General Keatton was holding his sixth or seventh conference of the day—he had lost count. This one was with Jesse Price and Katharine Hume, and it was bizarre as a meeting of California flying-saucer fans. Keatton knew Miss Hume vaguely, from the Pentagon. He knew she represented the AEC on the Intentions of the Enemy Group and therefore, despite her sex and age, must be of some stature. Since she had arrived at Hibiscus with Price he also assumed she was the major’s girl. The girl was doing most of the talking. She spoke with the detachment and technical knowledge, and in the military jargon, of a skilled staff officer presenting a problem to a class in the National War College. She was telling him that an attack on the United States was already in motion and that it was up to him, Keatton, to save the country.

Keatton would have called this melodramatic nonsense, except that he was all but convinced that the girl and Price were right. After a man has witnessed the explosion of a hydrogen bomb, and the performance of the new guided missiles, he can never look upon the world in the same way again. To Keatton, no prophecy could be more melodramatic than what he had already seen.

Keatton’s day had progressed from seeming trivia—a report of a suitcase being brought ashore, mysteriously, on the north Florida coast—to this apocalyptic forecast from the full red lips of a striking blonde—and yet he was aware that there could be a link between the two. He had joined with the Chief of Naval Operations in a request to press and radio that the Marine’s story not be made public. Lundstrom had said, “If we can keep it quiet for a while, that airman in the green-and-white car is going to try to get on this base, or maybe Mac Dill or Pinecastle, with that suitcase. When he does, we’re going to know it.” Press and radio had agreed, and the incident was not being publicized.

Now Price was urging him to keep the B-99 in operation, for when the attack came, the 99 would be the only aircraft certain to get through. “So long as you don’t ground the Nine-Nines,” Price was saying, “they can’t win, and if they can’t win they won’t strike.”

“You may be completely right,” Keatton said, “but the decision is not entirely in my hands. I can be overruled. I am giving orders to SAC to resume normal operation tonight. But if we lose one more plane, I’m afraid I’ll have to start replacing the Nine-Nines with reserve aircraft. After all, we know what’s happening to the Nine-Nines, we’re only guessing about the Russians.”

“It has to be sabotage—pressure bombs,” Jesse said. He realized that he had overextended his credit with the general. He had been able to present the group’s theory—this alone had seemed impossible only a few days before—now he was pressing his case too hard. Now he was bankrupt of influence.

“No, it doesn’t, son,” the general said. “You aren’t aware of all the facts. That Nine-Nine from Corpus Christi was carrying air-to-air rockets. Explosives in the warheads are like that which burned Lear’s clothing. Maybe the rockets were defective. Ordnance is working on it now. And we’ve examined every aircraft in SAC. Thus far, no pressure bombs, no tampering.”

Jesse knew that the interview was over. He said, “Yes sir. There’s just one more thing. Can I remain here for a while on detached duty?”

“Yes,” Keatton said. “I’m sure you can help Buddy Conklin.”

“Thank you, sir,” Jesse said. When he and Katy were outside he said, “Well, at least I’m still in the Air Force.” 8

As protocol required, Felix Fromburg, upon his arrival in Havana, had gone first to police headquarters to express an interest by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the robbery of Robert Gumol, banker from Upper Hyannis, Pennsylvania. He was introduced to the chief of police, and passed down the chain of command to José González, a lieutenant of detectives who had been placed in charge of the case, a man of much humor who could no longer be surprised at the lengths to which the American turistas would go to achieve disaster.

“This robbery is unusual,” said González, “only in the amount of money involved. Shorten the sum by three zeros, and I am sure it would be of no concern to anyone, even to Mr. Gumol himself. In fact, I have a feeling in my stomach that Mr. Gumol wishes he had not mentioned the matter, even for three hundred and eighty-five thousand dollars.”

“Understandable,” said Felix, “if a shortage shows up in his bank.” He felt en rapport with González, who, like himself, was rather small and physically unprepossessing. González’ brown face was marred by smallpox scars, but his mind was quick and logical.

González was thoughtful. “I doubt that it will be a shortage. It is something else—something queer. Now that you are here, I am convinced it is very queer.” One jet eye was hidden in a wink. “I know something of the FBI, my friend, and I know which division is yours, and I know your division is not interested in robberies, except of paper of greater importance than money.”

“That’s true,” said Fromburg. “Still, this particular money could be part of something else. Do you think you’ll catch the woman?”

“A certainty,” said González. “But we’ll catch her man, her pimp, first. The very size of the robbery—you call this type a ‘rolling,’ do you not?—insures its solution. Fives, tens, even twenties the man may spend without me knowing. But within an hour after he shows his first fifty dollar bill, I will know. He will never get to the hundreds, or the thousands. He will show himself, I think, within three days.”

González took Fromburg to Gumol’s hotel, and they went up to his room, unannounced. Gumol was seated in front of the opened French doors, a highball glass in his hand, staring out over the water. It was not yet the heat of the day but he was shirtless, his face was bright with sweat, and a river of sweat inundated the patches of gray on his chest and flowed across his thick and waxy middle.

Fromburg introduced himself politely and showed his credentials. An unpleasant-looking ape, he thought, and unhealthy, and smelly as a Skid Row stumblebum. Yet his questions, at first, were as diffident and respectful as any banker, and upright citizen, could expect. How had this unfortunate thing occurred? Would he please describe the woman? Had he mentioned having this large sum of money with him? And then:

“By the way, was this your money, or did it belong to the bank?”

“It was mine. Personal funds.”

“Did you draw it out of your account before you came to Havana?”

“No. Took it out of my safe deposit box.”

“Were the serial numbers of the thousand dollar bills registered?”

Gumol’s fingers twisted a knot of hair on his chest. “Why, no, I don’t believe so.”

“That’s going to make it difficult to trace them,” Fromburg said. “Of course you know the banking regulations concerning registration of thousand dollar bills?”

“Now look here, I don’t see why the FBI should be interested in this. I don’t think you have any right—”

Fromburg smiled. “Only trying to help you, Mr. Gumol, as we try to help any citizen.”

And he kept on pumping the questions. If it was true, as Gumol insisted, that the money was to be used for a Cuban business deal, then what was the deal? With whom? Was the money part of Gumol’s income? Had he paid taxes on it? How long had the money been in the vault? How much more cash did he possess? Would it be helpful if the Treasury Department was called in to refresh Gumol’s memory?

At the end of four hours Gumol seemed to break. “All right! All right!” he said. “Now, I’ll tell you the truth. Truth is that I’m running away from my wife. Maybe that’s a crime, maybe it isn’t. She’s a vicious, jealous old harridan. Made my life miserable. I’ve been saving up for years waiting to make the break. Now, why don’t you people try to get my money back instead of trying to pin something on me? You’re law enforcement officers, aren’t you?”

“Well, Mr. Gumol, I’m glad you came out with it,” Felix said. “It makes our job easier, knowing all the facts.”

Gumol relaxed a little, and Fromburg calculated the measure of his relief. “However, there are just a few more questions.” He began to dig into Gumol’s past history. He began to ask about Gumol’s father.

At six o’clock that evening González was wearied, and left.

Fromburg kept at it. Several times Gumol refused to talk further. Each time Fromburg found that he could prod him into answers by hinting at publicity, or extradition. It became obvious that Gumol was deathly afraid of something. Somewhere back in the United States was something more fearful than the anger of his wife or an investigation of his funds.

More rum was brought. Fromburg drank just enough to keep the edge on his energy. He allowed Gumol to take three drinks to his one. He allowed Gumol to drink until his speech slurred and he weaved in his chair like an animal brought to bay after an exhausting chase. Food was sent up. Gumol revived somewhat, and spun lies as he ate.

At length Fromburg judged his target was wavering. He said, in the same tone as he used for the most innocuous of questions, “Your wife says you’ve been getting money from the Commies, Mr. Gumol. Is that true?”

Gumol’s mouth was slack, his eyes dull as if he had been punched. He shook his head. “Lies. Another one of her dirty lies. She’d say anything to get me into trouble. Why, it’s ridiculous. Can you imagine a banker being a Communist?”

Fromburg nodded. “Why, yes, I can,” he said. “I have known millionaires who were Communists, and well-paid editors who were Communists, and a few government people who were Communists. So it isn’t hard for me to imagine a banker being a Communist, and it certainly isn’t difficult to imagine a banker dealing with the Communists, even if he isn’t one himself. Perhaps your wife was referring to some deals in foreign exchange.”

Gumol didn’t speak at once. He was reflecting on how much could be learned from old records. “It is always possible,” he said cautiously, “that years ago, before the war you know, my father may have executed a few commissions for them. Perhaps that’s where my wife got the crazy idea.”

“Perhaps,” Fromburg said. He looked at his watch. He had been at it twelve hours. It was about enough for that night. In the morning he would have Gumol go back over the whole story, have him retell his whole life history. Fromburg was confident that after he had caught the man in enough lies, Gumol would break. Now he wanted to give him something to think about. He wanted to be sure that Gumol’s night would be sleepless, and that he would be terrorized by his own imagination. “Mr. Gumol,” he said, “I happen to know that you’re here because you’re afraid. I don’t blame you. I don’t think your life is worth much, at this moment. Nothing’s going to save you, except perhaps the truth. Now I’m going to leave you but I’m going to be in the next room, and I’ll be back here for breakfast with you in the morning. Don’t try to leave. Lieutenant González wouldn’t like it.”

Fromburg rose, stretched, and left. When the door shut, Gumol fell across the bed, buried his face in the pillow, and sobbed. After a few minutes he began to claw at the sheets in rage at his own stupidity. 9

That night Katharine and Jesse went out to the flight line to watch her brother’s plane being readied for takeoff. Keatton had ordered an unorthodox emergency mission for six bombers from Hibiscus and thirty more from the other southern bases. Only elite crews were chosen. They were to range far out over the ocean, the Caribbean, and the Gulf, and scan the seas, outside normal shipping lanes, with their radar. The B-99 was not designed or equipped for anti-submarine patrol for it burned fuel at a fantastic rate at the lower altitudes, but it had an important asset—tremendous range. By proceeding to remote search areas at normal altitudes, and then dropping closer to the sea, their radar might, conceivably, find submarines cruising on the surface halfway across an ocean.

The mission was heartening proof to Jesse that Keatton was taking seriously the Intentions Group’s forecast, but he watched the preparations for another reason. He had forgotten how many things went aboard an aircraft in the final hour before takeoff.

There were oxygen tanks. “They look like bombs themselves,” he told Katy. There were flare guns, freshly charged flashlights, map cases, box lunches, thermos bottles, newly inspected rubber rafts with their compressed air cartridges for inflation, bulky cameras, cases of film, fire extinguishers, binoculars, extra radar tubes, first aid kits. There seemed no end to the equipment that could hide a pressure bomb.

Jess said, almost to himself, “But the cabin is pressurized.”

“What’s that?”

“I was just thinking that all that stuff is going into a pressurized cabin, so how could a pressure bomb work? But as soon as I asked myself the question I had the answer. Sea level pressure isn’t maintained in the cabin. They just try to keep it at a bearable level. They don’t even start to pressurize the cabin until they’re over ten thousand. When the Nine-Nine is at twenty-five thousand, pressure inside the cabin is held to about twelve. So if a pressure bomb is sneaked into the cabin, it must be set around there, just a little bit higher than the ones in Italy.”

He would tell General Keatton about it, if he had another chance to see Keatton alone. He would certainly talk about it to Colonel Lundstrom. Of all the security officers now on the base, Lundstrom had been most impressed by his pressure bomb theory. Lundstrom, too, had been in Italy and recalled the tragic legend of the Cottontails.

At eleven the planes were ready. Clint sauntered over to say goodbye. He squeezed Katharine’s shoulder and said, “See you people at breakfast. Or maybe brunch. Depends on our fuel consumption. A Nine-Nine doesn’t like to cruise around and around at under thirty thousand feet.”

“Yes,” Jesse said. “We’ll see you at breakfast.” He tried to make the tone of his voice as casual as the words. It was difficult. All his life, it seemed, he had said casual goodbyes which in a few hours were solidified as permanent, by death. He had lost so many friends. He hoped he would not lose this brother-in-law-to-be, who also promised to be a good friend.

Then Clint was gone. The great engines fired up and Jesse and Katy and the Air Police got off the flight line and found shelter in the lee of a crash truck and shielded their ears against the torturing roar. The mission took off. In the strange hush after, Katharine said, “Do you think he’ll come back?”

Jesse said, “Don’t beat yourself up, Katy.”

“I don’t think you can quite understand how I feel about those big brutes,” she said, “because you’re not a woman. To me, those planes are monsters.”

They walked over to Clint’s car and he helped her inside and he pulled her to him and kissed her. When she responded he knew that she had Clint off her mind, at least for a while. It was an hour before he drove her back to the Greshams’. 10

Since this was his night off, Stanley Smith stayed in Barracks 37 and played poker. To have reported for work in the mess hall when he was not required to do so, or even visited the kitchen, would have caused comment and brought him unwelcome attention. He could wait. He planned to take three of his thermos bottles to work on the following night, and two more Sunday night. That should finish SAC.

(It was not a night off for Masters, on a SAC base near Corpus Christi. Unlike Smith, Masters had never been able to ease himself into a position where he always had access to the flight lunches and coffee containers. Things had been quite difficult for him, and risky. But on this night he was determined to make a big effort, for it was his night of midnight to 0800 duty, when he would have his best chance of planting the booby traps. When he reported at the mess hall he carried a thermos bottle under each arm.)