Alas, Babylon Read online

  Mark put one hand on Hart’s shoulder and the other on Randy’s, and walked them toward the building. “Paul,” he told Hart, “you better get with General Heycock. He’s hungry and when he gets hungry he gets fierce. How about helping his aide dig up some transport and get him over to the O Club? We’re only here to gas up. Takeoff is in fifty minutes.”

  Hart looked up and saw three blue Air Force sedans swing up the driveway. “There’s the General’s transport right there,” he said, and then, realizing that Mark had tactfully implied he wanted to be alone with his brother, added, “But I’ll go along to the O Club, and get the mess officer on the ball.” He shook hands and said, “See you, Mark, next time around.”

  “Sure,” Mark said. He turned to Randy. “Where’s your car? I’ve got a lot to say and not much time to say it. We can talk in the car. But first let’s get some candy, or something, inside Ops. We didn’t load any flight lunches at Ramey.”

  The front seat of the Bonneville was like a sunny comfortable private office. Randy asked the essential question first: “What time do Helen and the children get in?”

  Mark brought a notebook out of his hip pocket. “Three thirty tomorrow morning, local time, at Orlando Municipal. Carmody—he’s Wing Commander at Ramey—has a friend in the Eastern office in San Juan. He ramrodded it through for me. The plane leaves Omaha at seven-ten tonight. One change, in Chicago.”

  “Isn’t that a little rough on Helen and the kids?”

  “They can sleep all the way from Chicago to Orlando. It’ll be just as tough on you, meeting them. The important thing is I got the reservation. This time of year, it took some doing.”

  “What’s the great rush?” Randy demanded. “What the hell’s going on?”

  “Contain yourself, son,” Mark said. “I’m going to give you a complete briefing.”

  “Have you told Helen yet?”

  “I sent her a cable from San Juan. Just told her I’d made reservations for tonight. She’ll understand.” He squinted at the gaudy dials and gleaming knobs on the dash. “Some buggy you’ve got here, Randy. Won’t be worth a damn to you. About Helen, she and I thrashed all this out long ago, but she won’t like it. Not at all will she like it, now that the time has come. But I’ll have her on that plane if I have to truss her up and send her air freight.”

  Randy said nothing. He simply tapped the car clock, a reminder.

  “Okay,” Mark said, “I’ll brief you. First strategic, then tactical.” He pushed a peanut-butter cracker into his mouth, found his pen, and began to sketch in his notebook. He drew a rough map, the Mediterranean.

  Mark doesn’t cerebrate until he has a pen in his hand, Randy thought, and can see a map. Probably makes him feel comfortable, like he’s holding a pointer in the SAC War Room.

  “The key is the Med,” Mark said. “For three hundred years the Russians have tried to pry open the Straits and debouch into the Mediterranean. Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, Czar Alexander, they all tried it. Now, more than ever, control of the Med means control of the world.”

  Randy nodded. Conquerors knew or sensed this. Caesar had done it, Xerxes, Napoleon, and Hitler failed. “If Xerxes had won at Salamis,” he said, “we’d all be speaking Persian—but that was a long time pre-Sputnik, and pre-ICBM. I thought the fight, now, was for control of space. Who controls space controls the world.” Mark smiled. “It can also happen just the other way around. We—by we I mean the NATO coalition—aren’t going to be allowed time to catch up with them in operational IC’s, much less control space. Now don’t argue with me. We have their War Plan.”

  Randy took a deep breath and sat up straight.

  “For the first time Russia has bridgeheads in the Mediterranean—here, here, and here—” Mark drew ovals on the map. “They have a fleet in the Med as powerful as ours when you match their submarine strength against our carriers. They have Turkey ringed on three sides, and if they could upset the Turkish government, and force capitulation of the Bosporus and Dardanelles, they would have won the war without fighting. The Med would be theirs, Africa cut off from Europe, NATO outflanked on the south, and one by one all our allies—except England—would fall into their laps or declare themselves neutral. SAC’s bases in Africa and Spain would be untenable and melt away. NATO would fold up, and the IR sites we’re planning never be finished.”

  “That was their gambit in ’fifty-seven, wasn’t it?” Randy asked.

  “You have a good memory, Randy, and that’s a good simile. The Russians are great chess players. They rarely make the same mistake twice. Now, today, they’re making moves. It’s the same gambit—but with a tremendous difference. In ’fifty-seven, when it looked like they were going to make another Korea out of Turkey, we warned the Kremlin that there’d be no sanctuary inside Russia. They took a look at the board and resigned the game. Then in ’fifty-eight, after the Iraq king was assassinated, we grabbed the initiative and landed Marines in Lebanon. We got there fastest. They saw that we were ready, and could not be surprised. They were caught off balance, and didn’t dare move. This time it’s different. They’re ready to go through with it, because the odds have changed.”

  “How can you know this?”

  “Remember reading about the Russian General who came over, in Berlin? An air general, a shrewd character, a human being. He brought us their War Plan, in his head. This time, they’re not resigning the game. They’d still like to win the war without a war, but if we make any military countermove, we’re going to receive it.”

  For a moment, they were both silent. On the other side of the flight-line fence, three ground-crewmen were throwing a baseball. Two were pitching, an older sergeant, built like Yogi Berra, catching. The plate was a yellow parachute pack. The ball whirred and plopped sharply into mitt. “That tall boy has a lot of stuff,” Randy said. Again, he felt he moved in the miasma of a dream. Something was wrong. Either Mark shouldn’t be talking like this, or those airmen shouldn’t be throwing a baseball out there in the warm sunlight. When he lit a cigarette, his fingers were trembling again.

  “Have a bad night, Randy?”

  “Not particularly. I’m having a bad day.”

  “I’m afraid it’s going to get worse. Here’s the tactical part. They know that the only way they can do it is knock off our nuclear capability with one blow—or at least cripple us so badly that they can accept what retaliatory power we have left. They don’t mind losing ten or twenty million people, so long as they sweep the board, because people, per se, are only pawns, and expendable. So their plan—it was no surprise to us—calls for a T.O.T. on a worldwide scale. You get it?”

  “Sure. Time-on-target. You don’t fire everything at the same instant. You shoot it so it all arrives on target at the same instant.” Mark glanced at his watch, and then looked up at the big jet transport, still loading fuel through four hoses from the underground tanks. “That’s right. It won’t be Zero Hour, it’ll be Zero Minute. They’ll use no planes in the first wave, only missiles. They plan to kill every base and missile site in Europe and Africa and the U.K. with their T-2 and T-3 IR’s. They plan to kill every base on this continent, and in the Pacific, with their IC’s, plus missiles launched from subs. Then they use SUSAC—that’s what we call their Strategic Air Force—to mop up.”

  “Can they get away with it?”

  “Three years ago they couldn’t. Three years hence, when we have our own ICBM batteries emplaced, a big fleet of missile toting subs, and Nike-Zeus and some other stuff perfected, they couldn’t. But right now we’re in what we call ‘the gap.’ Theoretically, they figure they can do it. I’m pretty sure they can’t we may have some surprises for them—but that’s not the point. Point is, if they think they can get away with it, then we have lost.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “LeMay says the only way a general can win a modern war is not fight one. Our whole raison d’etre was deterrent force. When you don’t deter them any longer, you lose. I think we lost some ti
me ago, because the last five Sputniks have been reconnaissance satellites. They’ve been mapping us, with infrared and transitor television, measuring us for the Sunday punch.”

  Randy felt angry. He felt cheated. “Why hasn’t anybody everybody been told about this?”

  Mark shrugged. “You know how it is—everything that comes in is stamped secret or top secret or cosmic or something and the only people who dare declassify anything are the big wheels right at the top, and the people at the top hold conferences and somebody says, ‘Now, let’s not be hasty. Let’s not alarm the public.’ So everything stays secret or cosmic. Personally, I think everybody ought to be digging or evacuating right this minute. Maybe if the other side knew we were digging, if they knew that we knew, they wouldn’t try to get away with it.”

  “You really think it’s that close?” Randy said. “Why?”

  “Two reasons. First, when I left Puerto Rico this morning Navy was trying to track three skunks—unidentified submarines—in the Caribbean, and one in the Gulf.”

  “Four subs doesn’t sound like enough force to cause a big flap,” Randy said.

  “Four subs is a lot of subs when there shouldn’t be any,” Mark said. “It’s like shaking a haystack and having four needles pop out at your feet. Chances are that haystack is stiff with needles.” He rubbed his hand across his eyes, as if the glare hurt, and when he spoke again his voice was strained. “They’ve got so blasted many! CIA thinks six hundred, Navy guesses maybe seven fifty. And they don’t need launchers any more. Just dump the bird, or pop it out while still submerged. The ocean itself is a perfectly good launching pad.”

  Randy said, “And the other reason?”

  “Because I’m on my way back to Offutt. We flew down yesterday on a pretty important job—figure out a way to disperse the wing on Ramey. There aren’t enough fields in Puerto Rico and anyway the island is rugged and not big enough. We’d just started our staff study when we got a zippo—that’s an operational priority message—to come home. And two thirds of the Ramey wing was scrambled with flyaway kits for another place. I made my decision right then. I just had time to arrange Helen’s reservation and send the cables.”

  Mark spoke more of the Russian General, with whom he had talked at length, and whom apparently he liked. “He isn’t a traitor, either to his country or to civilization. He came over in desperation, hoping that somehow we could stop those power crazed bastards at the top. He doesn’t think their War Plan will work any more than I do. Too much chance for human or mechanical error.” Mark used phrases like “maximum capability,” and “calculated risk,” and “acceptance of any casualties except important people,” and “decentralization of industry and control, announced as an economic measure, but actually military.”

  Randy listened, fascinated, until he saw three blue sedans turn a corner near wing headquarters. “Here comes your party,” he said. “Anything else I ought to know?”

  Mark brushed cracker crumbs and slivers of chocolate from his shirt front. “Yes. Also, there’s something I have to give you.” He found a green slip of paper in his wallet and handed it to Randy. “Made out to you,” he said.

  Randy unfolded the check. It was for five thousand. “What am I supposed to do with this?” he asked.

  “Cash it—today if you can. Don’t deposit it, cash it! It’s a reserve for Helen and Ben Franklin and Peyton. Buy stuff with it. I don’t know what to tell you to buy. You’ll think of what you’ll need as you go along.”

  “I did start a list, this morning.”

  Mark seemed pleased. “That’s fine. Show’s you’re looking ahead. I don’t know whether money will help Helen or not, but cash in hand, in Fort Repose, will be better than an account in an Omaha bank.”

  Randy kept on looking at the check, feeling uncomfortable. “But suppose nothing happens? Suppose—”

  “Spend some of it on a case of good liquor,” Mark said. “Then if nothing happens we’ll have a wonderful, expensive toot together, and you can laugh at me. I won’t care.”

  Randy slipped the check into his pocket. “Can I tip off anybody else? There are a few people—”

  “You’ve got a girl?”

  “I don’t know whether she’s my girl or not. I’ve been trying to find out. You don’t know her. New people from Cleveland. Her family built on River Road.”

  Mark hesitated. “I don’t see any objection. It is something Civil Defense should have done weeks—months ago. Use your own judgment. Be discreet.”

  Randy noticed that the jet transport’s wings were clear of hoses. He saw the three blue sedans pull up at Operations. He saw Lieutenant General Heycock get out of the first car. He felt Mark’s hand on his shoulder, and braced himself for the words he knew must come.

  Mark spoke very quietly. “You’ll take care of Helen?”

  “Certainly.”

  “I won’t say be a good father to the children. They love you and they think you’re swell and you couldn’t be anything but a good father to them. But I will say this, be kind to Helen. She’s—” Mark was having trouble with his voice.

  Randy tried to help him out. “She’s a wonderful, beautiful gal, and you don’t have to worry. Anyway, don’t sound so final. You’re not dead yet.”

  “She’s—more,” Mark said. “She’s my right arm. We’ve been married fourteen years and about half that time I’ve been up in the air or out of the country and I’ve never once worried about Helen. And she never had to worry about me. In fourteen years I never slept with another woman. I never even kissed another woman, not really, not even when I had duty in Tokyo or Manila or Hong Kong, and she was half a world away. She was all the woman I ever needed. She was like this: Back when I was a captain and we were moving from rented apartment to rented apartment every year or so, I got a terrific offer from Boeing. She knew what I wanted. I didn’t have to tell her. She said, ‘I want you to stay in SAC. I think you should. I think you ought to be a general and you’re going to be a general.’ There’s an old saying that anyone can make colonel on his own, but it takes a wife to make a general. I guess there wasn’t quite enough time, but had there been time, she would’ve had her star.”

  Randy saw Lieutenant General Heycock walk from the Operations building toward the plane. “It’s time, Mark,” he said. They got out of the car and walked quickly toward the gate, and Mark swung an arm around Randy’s shoulders. “What I mean is, she has tremendous energy and courage. If you let her, she’ll give you the same kind of loyalty she gave me. Let her, Randy. She’s all woman and that’s what she’s made for.”

  “Stop worrying,” Randy said. He didn’t quite understand and he didn’t know what else to say.

  Heycock’s aide fidgeted at the end of the ramp. “Everybody’s in, Colonel,” he said. “The General was looking for you at lunch. The General wondered what happened to you. He was most anxious—”

  “I’ll see the General as soon as we’re airborne,” Mark said sharply.

  The aide retreated two steps up the ramp, then waited stubbornly.

  They shook hands. Mark said, “Better try to catch a nap this evening.”

  “I will. When I get home shall I call Helen and tell her you’re on the way?”

  “No. Not much use. This aircraft cruises at five-fifty. By the time you get back to Fort Repose, we’ll be west of the Mississippi.” He glanced down at his bare knees. “Looks like I’ll have to change into a real uniform on the aircraft. I’d look awfully funny in Omaha.”

  “So long, Mark.”

  Without raising his head, Mark said, “Goodbye, Randy,” turned away, and climbed the ramp.

  Randy walked away from the transport, got into his car, and drove slowly through the base. At the main gate he surrendered his visitor’s pass. He turned into a lonely lane outside the base, near the village of Pinecastle, and stopped the car in a spot shielded by cabbage palms. When he was sure no one watched, and no car approached from either direction, he leaned his head on the wheel. He swallo
wed a sob and closed his eyes to forbid the tears.

  He heard wind rustle the palms, and the chirp of cardinals in the brush. He became aware that the clock on the dash, blurred, was staring at him. The clock said he had just time to make the bank before closing, if he pushed hard and had luck getting through Orlando traffic. He started the engine, backed out of the lane into the highway, and let the car run. He knew he should not have spared time for tears, and would not, ever again.

  Chapter 3

  Edgar Quisenberry, president of the bank, never lost sight of his position and responsibilities as sole representative of the national financial community in Fort Repose. A monolithic structure of Indiana limestone built by his father in 1920, the bank stood like a gray fortress at the corner of Yulee and St. Johns. First National had weathered the collapse of the 1926 land boom, had been unshaken by the market crash of ’twenty-nine and the depression that followed. “The only person who ever succeeded in closing First National,” Edgar often boasted, “was Franklin D. Roosevelt, in ’thirty-three, and he had to shut down every other bank in the country to do it. It’ll never happen again, because we’ll never have another s.o.b. like him.”

  Edgar, at forty-five, had grown to look something like his bank, squat, solid, and forbidding. He was the only man in Fort Repose who always wore a vest, and he never wore sports clothes, even on the golf links. Each year, when he attended the branch Federal Reserve convention in Atlanta, two new suits were tailored, one double-breasted blue, one pin-stripe gray, both designed to minimize, or at least dignify, what he called “my corporation.”

  First National employed two vice presidents, a cashier, an assistant cashier, and four tellers, but it was a one-man bank. You could put it in at any window, but before you took it out on loan, or cashed an out-of-town check, you had to see Edgar. All Edgar’s loans were based on Character, and Character was based on cash balance, worth of unencumbered real estate, ownership of bonds, and blue-chip stocks. Since Edgar was the only person in town who could, and did, maintain a mental index of all these variables, he considered himself the sole accurate judge of Character. It was said you could gauge a grove owner’s crop by the way Edgar greeted him on Yulee Street. If Edgar shook his hand and chatted, then the man had just received a big price for his fruit. If Edgar spoke, cracked his face, and waved, the man was reasonably prosperous. If Edgar nodded but did not speak, nemotodes were in the citrus roots. If Edgar didn’t see him, his grove had been destroyed in a freeze.