Alas, Babylon Read online

  Lib turned off Happy Hendrix. She said, “What’s it mean?” Randy shrugged. “That business in the Mediterranean? It’s happened before. I guess that’s one of the dangerous things about it. We get shockproof. We’ve been conditioned. Standing on the brink of war has become our normal posture.” He turned to Dan. “I think we should lay in some drugs—an emergency kit. How about prescribing for war, Doctor?”

  Dan fumbled in his jacket pocket and brought out a pad. He moved slowly and seemed very tired. “I’ll give you both some,” he said, starting to write. “Stuff you can use yourselves without my help. And for your mother, Elizabeth, extra bottles of insulin. Also, I’ll order some oranise from a drug house in Orlando. Local pharmacy doesn’t carry it yet.”

  “I thought you’d decided not to experiment with it on Mother?” Lib said.

  “Insulin,” Dan said, continuing to write, “requires refrigeration.”

  Dan dropped the prescriptions on the bar. “Good night,” he said. “I’m delivering a baby at the clinic at seven. Caesarian section. Life goes on. At least that’s what I’m going to believe until proved otherwise.” He rose and shambled out of the room.

  Lib walked around the counter. “Hold me,” she said. Randy held her, crushed her, strangely without any passion except fear for her. Usually he had only to feel her body, or brush his lips across her hair and smell what she called “my courting perfume” to become aroused. Now his arms were completely encircling and completely protective. All he asked was that she live and he live and that things remain the same.

  She kept rolling her smooth head against his throat. She was saying no to it. She was willing and praying the clock to stand still, as Randy was; but, as Mark had said, this was against nature.

  She raised her head and gently pushed herself away and said, “Thanks, Randy. I get strength from you. Did you know that? Now tell me, what should I do?”

  “You’d better drive back to your house and speak with your mother and father.”

  “I don’t think they’ll believe it. They don’t pay much attention to the international situation and Mother doesn’t ever like to talk about anything unpleasant.”

  “They probably won’t believe it. After all, they don’t know Mark. Put it up to your father, as a business proposition. Tell him it’s like taking out insurance. Anyway, be sure and get Dan’s prescriptions filled.”

  “I’ll get the medicines tomorrow,” she said. “Food isn’t a problem. Our cupboard isn’t exactly bare. What are you going to do, Randy? Hadn’t you better get some rest if you have to be at the airport at three-thirty?”

  “I’ll try.” He took her into his arms again and kissed her, this time not feeling protective at all, and she responded, her fears contained.

  They left the house as the distended red run dropped into the river where it joined the wide St. Johns. She got into the car. He touched her lips again. “If you need me, call.”

  “Don’t worry. I will. See you tomorrow, Randy.”

  “Yes, tomorrow.”

  Now at this hour, when the cirrus clouds stretched like crimson ribbons high across the southwest sky, in such a hush that not even a playful eddy dared stir moss or palm fronds, the day died in calm and in beauty. This was Randy’s hour, this and dawn, time of stillness and of peace.

  His eye was attracted by movement in a clump of Turk’s-cap across the road, and then again, he saw the damn bird. There could be little doubt of it. Even at this distance, without binoculars, he could distinguish the white-rimmed eyes. Moving very slowly and in silence, drifting from bush to bush, he crossed the lawn.

  If he could cross the road and Florence Wechek’s front yard without frightening it, he might make a positive identification.

  Florence and Alice Cooksey watched him. Florence had been observing him from behind the bedroom blinds while he talked with the McGovern girl, and kissed her goodbye, a disgusting public exhibition. She had watched him stand in the doorway, hands on hips, alone and, for a long time, motionless. Then incredulously, she had seen him bend over and stealthily move toward her, and she had called Alice. “There he is!” she said triumphantly. “I told you so. Come and see for yourself. He’s a Peeping Tom, all right!”

  Alice, peering through the louvers, said, “I think he’s stalking something.”

  “Yes, me.”

  They watched while he crossed the road, placing his feet carefully as a heron feeding on minnows in the shallows. “The sneak!” Florence said.

  He reached Florence’s lawn and for a moment hid behind a clump of boxwood. “He’s going around the side of the house,” Florence said. “I think we can watch better from the dining room.” She ran into the dining room, Alice following.

  Bent almost double, he advanced from the boxwood toward the Turk’s-cap. Suddenly he straightened, threw an imaginary hat to the ground, and Florence heard him say distinctly, “Oh, God dam!” At the same time she heard Anthony shaking the cage on the back porch. Anthony had come home for the night. Then she heard Randy on the back porch. Anthony squawked. Randy swore, and shouted, “Hey, Florence!”

  She opened the kitchen door and said, “Now look here, Randolph Bragg, I’m not having any more of your prowling around the house and staring at me while I’m dressing. You ought to be ashamed!”

  Randy, mouth open, astonished, stared at the two birds, Anthony on the outside of the cage, Cleo fluttering within. He said, “Is that your bird?” He pointed at Anthony.

  “Certainly it’s my bird.”

  “What kind of a bird is it?”

  “Why he’s an African lovebird, of course.”

  Randy shook his head. “I’m a dope. I thought he was a Carolina parakeet. You know, the Carolina parakeet is, or was, our only native parrot. A specimen hasn’t been identified since 1925. They’re supposed to be extinct. If that isn’t one, I’m willing to admit they are.”

  “Is that why you’ve been spying on me? I saw you at it this morning, with glasses.”

  “I haven’t been spying on you, Florence. I’ve been spying on that fake Carolina parakeet.” He noticed Alice Cooksey standing behind Florence, smiling. Alice was one of his favorite people. He really ought to tell Alice about Mark, and what Mark predicted. Ought to tell Florence as well, but Florence still looked upset and angry. He said, “Now, Florence, cool off I’ve got something important to tell you.”

  “Bird watcher!” Florence shrieked. She slammed the kitchen door in his face and fled into the house.

  Randy put his hands in his pockets and strolled home. The world was real crazy. He’d talk to Florence and Alice in the morning, after Florence settled down.

  In his kitchen, Randy made himself a cannibal sandwich. Lib considered his habit of eating raw ground round, smeared with horseradish and mustard and pressed between slices of rye bread, barbarous. He’d explained it was simply a bachelor’s meal, quick and lazy, and anyway he liked it.

  He trotted downstairs and examined the purchases lined on shelves and stacked in closets. Some of it was pretty exotic stuff for an emergency. Perhaps he should make up a small kit of delicacies. If the worst happened, this would be their iron rations for a desperate time. If nothing happened, it would all keep. He selected a jar of English beef tea, a sealed package of bouillon cubes, a jar of Swiss chocolates and a sealed tin of hardcandies, a canned Italian cheese, and a few other small items. He placed them all in a small carton, wrapped the carton in foil, and took it up to the apartment. The teak chest in the office was a fine place to hide it and forget it. He rummaged through the chest, rearranging old legal documents, abstracts, bundles of letters, a packet of Confederate currency, peeling photograph albums. Lieutenant Peyton’s log and a half-dozen baby books—all family memorabilia judged not valuable enough to warrant space in a safe deposit vault but too valuable to throw away—and made space for the iron rations at the bottom.

  At seven o’clock he listened to the news. There was nothing startling. He flopped down on a studio couch, picked up a
magazine, and started to read an article captioned, “Next Stop—Mars.” Presently the words danced in front of his eyes, and he slept.

  When it was seven Friday evening in Fort Repose, it was two o’clock Saturday morning in the Eastern Mediterranean, where Task Group 6.7 turned toward the north and headed for the narrow seas between Cyprus and Syria. The shape of the task group was a giant oval, its periphery marked by the wakes of destroyers and guided-missile frigates and cruisers. The center of Task Group 6.7, and the reason for its existence, was the U.S.S. Saratoga, a mobile nuclear striking base. In Saratoga’s Combat Information Center two officers watched a bright blip on the big radar repeater. It winked on and off, like a tiny green eye opening and closing. Interrogated by a “friend or foe” radar impulse, it had not replied. It was hostile. For thirty-six hours, ever since passing Malta, Saratoga had been shadowed. This blip was the latest shadower.

  One of the officers said, “No use sending up a night fighter. That bogy is too fast. But an F-11-F could catch him. So we’ll let him hang around, let him close in. Maybe he’ll come close enough for a missile shot from Canberra. If not, we’ll launch F-11-F’s at first light.”

  The other officer, an older man, a senior captain, frowned. He disliked risking his ship in an area of restricted maneuver while under enemy observation. He always thought of the Mediterranean as a sack, anyway, and they were approaching the bottom of it. He said, “All right. But be damn sure we chase him out of radar range before we enter the Gulf of Iskenderun.”

  Chapter 4

  Helen Bra’s battle was over, and she had lost. The tickets were in her handbag. Their luggage—Mark had made them pack almost all the clothes they owned and paid an outrageous sum for the extra weight—was piled on the baggage cart already wheeled outside on the concrete, fine snow settling on it. She had lost, and yet fifteen minutes before plane time she still protested, not in the hope that Mark would change his mind. It was simply that she felt miserable and guilty. She said, “I still don’t think I ought to go. I feel like a deserter.”

  They stood together in the terminal lobby, a tiny island oblivious to the human eddies around them. Her gloved hand held to his arm, her cheek was pressed tightly against his shoulder. He pressed her hand and said, “Don’t be silly. Anybody with any sense gets out of a primary target area at a time like this. You aren’t the first to leave, and you won’t be the last.”

  “That doesn’t make it right and it isn’t right. My place is here with you.”

  He pulled her around to face him, so that her upturned mouth was inches from his own. “That’s just it. You can’t stay with me. If and when it comes I’ll be in the Hole, protected by fifty feet of concrete and steel and good earth. That’s where my place is and that’s where you can’t be. You’d be somewhere on the surface exposed. If you could come down into the Hole with me, then you could stay, darling.”

  This was something he had not said before, a fact she had not considered. Somehow it made her feel a bit better, yet she continued to argue, although dispiritedly. “Still, I think my job is here.”

  His fingers banded her arm and when he spoke his voice was flat, a direct order. “Your job is to survive because if you don’t the children won’t survive. That is your job. There is no other. You understand that, Helen?”

  On the other side of the drafty terminal Ben Franklin and Peyton buzzed around the newsstand, each with a dollar to spend on candy, gum, and magazines. They knew only that they were getting out of school a week early, and were spending Christmas vacation in Florida. That’s all Helen had told them, and in the excitement of packing, and greeting their father, and then packing more bags, there had been no questions. Helen said, “I understand.” Her head dropped against Mark’s chest. “If this business blows over you’ll let us come right home, won’t you?”

  “Sure.”

  “You promise?”

  “Certainly I promise.”

  “Maybe we could be home before the next school term.”

  “Don’t count on it, darling. But I’ll call you every day, and as soon as I think it’s safe I’ll give you the word.”

  The loudspeaker announced Flight 714 for Chicago, connecting with flights east and south.

  The children ran over to them. Peyton carried a quiver and bow slung over her shoulder. Ben Franklin a cased spinning rod, his Christmas present from Randy the year before.

  Mark shepherded them outside, and toward Gate 3. He lifted Peyton off the ground and held her a moment and kissed her, disarranging her red knitted cap. “My hair!” she said, laughing, and he put her down.

  He noticed other passengers filtering through the gate. He drew Ben Franklin aside. He said, “Behave yourself, son.”

  Ben looked up at him, his brown eyes troubled. When he spoke, his voice was intentionally low. “This is an evacuation, isn’t it, Dad?”

  “Yes.” It was Mark’s policy never to utter an untruth when replying to a question from the children.

  “I knew it as soon as I got home from school. Usually Mother gets all excited and happy about traveling. Not today. She hated to pack. So I knew it.”

  “I hate to send you away but it’s necessary.” Looking at Ben Franklin was like looking at a snapshot of himself in an old album. “You’ll have to be the man of the family for a while.”

  “Don’t worry about us. We’ll be okay in Fort Repose. I’m worried about you.” The boy’s eyes were filling. Ben Franklin was a child of the atomic age, and knowledgeable.

  “I’ll be all right in the Hole.”

  “Not if… Anyway, Dad, you don’t have to worry about us,” he repeated.

  Then it was time. Mark walked them to the gate, Peyton’s glove in his left hand, Ben Franklin’s in his right. Helen turned and he kissed her once and said, “Goodbye, darling. I’ll phone you tomorrow afternoon. I’ve got the duty tonight and I’ll probably sleep all morning but I’ll call as soon as I get up.”

  She managed to say, “Tomorrow.”

  He watched them walk to the plane, a small procession, and out of his life.

  At nine o’clock Randy awoke, aware of a half-dozen problems accumulated in his subconscious. The problem of transportation he had neglected entirely. He certainly ought to have a reserve of gas and oil. Half his grocery list remained to be purchased. He had not filled Dan Gunn’s prescriptions. He had yet to visit Bubba Offenhaus and collect Civil Defense pamphlets. He went into his bathroom, turned on the lights, and washed the sleep out of his eyes. Lights! What would happen if the lights went out? Several boxes of candles, two old-fashioned kerosene lamps, and three flashlights were cached in the sideboard downstairs, a provision against hurricane season. He had a flashlight in his bedroom and another in the car. He added candles, kerosene, and flashlight batteries to his list. Everything, except the gasoline, would have to wait until tomorrow anyway. With Helen to help him fill in the gaps, it would be easy to lay in all the essentials Saturday.

  He changed his clothes, shivering. The nights were getting cooler. Downstairs the thermometer read sixty-one and he turned up the thermostat. The Bragg house had no cellar—they were rare in Central Florida—but it did have a furnace room and was efficiently heated by oil. Oil! He doubted that he’d have to worry about oil. The fuel tank had been filled in November and thus far in the winter had been mild.

  In the garage Randy found two empty five-gallon gasoline cans. He put them in the car trunk and drove to town.

  Jerry Kling’s station was still open, but Jerry had already turned off his neon sign and was checking the cash register. Jerry filled the tank, and the two extra cans, and as an afterthought Randy asked for a gallon of kerosene and five extra quarts of oil. Driving back on River Road, Randy slowed when he reached the McGoverns’. All the lights were on in the McGoverns’ house. He turned into the driveway. It was ten-thirty. It was not necessary that he leave for the Orlando airport until two A.M.

  It was near dawn in the Eastern Mediterranean when Saratoga, working up
speed in narrowing waters between Cyprus and Lebanon, catapulted four F-11-F Tigers, the fastest fighters in its complement. By then, the reconnaissance jet that had shadowed Task Group 6.7 through the darkness hours had vanished from the radar screens. The Admiral’s staff was convinced another would take its place, as on the previous morning, but this day the snooper would receive a surprise. Task Group 6.7’s primary mission was to take station in Iskenderun Gulf and give heart to the Turks, who were under heavy political and propaganda pressure. The force’s security would be endangered if its perilously tight formation, in this confined area, was observed.

  Quite often the flood of history is undammed or diverted by the character and actions of one man. In this case the man was not an official in Washington, or the Admiral commanding Task Group 6.7, or even the Captain or Air Group Commander of Saratoga. The man was Ensign James Cobb, nicknamed Peewee, the youngest and smallest pilot in Fighter Squadron 44.

  Ensign Cobb was assigned Combat Air Patrol duty on this Saturday morning simply because it was his turn. He was scarcely five feet, six inches tall, weighed 124, and looked younger than his twenty-three years. Under a flat-top haircut, his red head appeared knobby and outsized. His face was pinched, and mottled with freckles. In the presence of girls, he was shy to the point of panic. In the wonderful ports of Naples, Nice, and Istanbul, he distinguished himself as the only pilot in Fighting Forty-Four who never found reason to request a night’s liberty ashore.