Alas, Babylon Read online

  When he climbed into the cockpit of his aircraft, Peewee Cobb’s whole character changed. The instant his hands and feet were on the controls, he became as large and fast as his supersonic fighter, and as powerful as its armament. As compensation for outer physical deficiencies, he was gifted with superb reactions and eyesight. He was rated superior in rocketry and gunnery. He got a fierce thrill in pushing his F-11-F through the mach, and to the limit of its capability. He could outfly anybody in the squadron, including the Lieutenant Commander who led it, and who had once said, “Peewee may be a mouse aboard ship, but he’s a tiger in a Tiger. If I sent him up with orders to shoot down the moon, he’d try.”

  Now, for the first time, Peewee Cobb was flying CAP under wartime conditions, in a fighter armed with live rockets and with orders to intercept and destroy a snooper if it appeared. Climbing steadily in the darkness, he prayed that if the bogy came back, it would attempt to penetrate his sector. If it did, nobody would laugh at his size, his squeaky voice, his face, or his ineffectual awkwardness with women, ever again.

  Peewee Cobb had been given a code name, Sunflower Four, and instructions to orbit over an area of sea off Haifa, astern of Task Group 6.7. If the hostile reconnaissance jet came in from a base in Egypt or Albania, he would be in a position to intercept. His fighter was armed with Sidewinders, ingenious, single minded rockets, heat-seekers. A Sidewinder’s nose was sensitive to infra-red rays from any heat source. Peewee had fired two in practice. They not only had destroyed the targets, but had unerringly vanished up the tail pipes of the drones.

  At thirty thousand feet, Peewee judged he was on station and called for a radar fix. The missile-cruiser Canberra, closest ship in the formation, confirmed his position. As he circled, the sky in the southeast grew light. When the sun touched his wingtips, the sea was still dark below. Then gradually, the shape and color of sea and earth became plain. He felt entirely alone and apart from this transformation, as if he watched from a separate planet. He checked his map. Far to the east he picked out Mount Carmel, and a river, and beyond were the hills of Megiddo, also called Armageddon. He continued to orbit.

  His earphones crackled and he acknowledged Saratoga. The fighter controller’s voice said, “Sunflower Four, we have a bogy. He is at angels twenty-five, his speed five hundred knots. Your intercept course is thirty degrees. Go get him!”

  So the snooper was already north of him and racing up the coast, hoping to hang on to the flank of the task group and observe it by radar from a position close to friendly Syrian territory. Peewee took his heading and pushed his throttle up to ninety-nine percent power. He slid through the mach with a slight, thrilling tremor. Every fifteen or twenty seconds he made minute alterations in course in response to directions from Saratoga, which was holding both planes on its screens.

  Then he saw it, flicker of sun on metal, diving at great speed. He pushed the Tiger’s nose over and followed, reporting, “I am closing target.” He touched the switch that armed his rockets, and another calling for manual fire, singly.

  The chase had carried him down to nine thousand feet and the bogy was still losing altitude. It was a two-engined jet, an IL-33, Peewee believed, and remarkably fast at this low level. There was no doubt the bogy knew he was on its tail, for reconnaissance aircraft would be well equipped with radar. His speed held steady at mach 1.5, but his rate of closure slowed.

  Far ahead Peewee saw the Syrian port of Latakia, reputedly built into an important Red submarine base. Within a few seconds he would be within Syrian territorial waters, and a few more would carry him over the port itself.

  At this point Peewee should have dropped the chase, for they had been strictly warned, in the briefing, against violating anyone’s borders. He hung on. In another five seconds

  The bogy finked violently to the right, heading for the port and its anti-aircraft and rocket batteries and perhaps the sanctuary of an airfield in the brown hills and dunes beyond.

  Peewee turned the F-11-F inside him, instantly shortening the range.

  He pushed the firing button.

  The Sidewinder, leaving a thin pencil mark of smoke, rushed out ahead.

  For an instant the Sidewinder seemed to be following the flight of the bogy beautifully, and Peewee waited for it to merge into the tail pipe of one of the jet engines. Then the Sidewinder seemed to waver in its course.

  Peewee believed, although he could not be certain, that the bogy had cut its engines and was in a steep glide. Following the Sidewinder, Peewee lost sight of the bogy.

  The Sidewinder darted downward, toward the dock area of Latakia.

  It seemed to be chasing a train. That crazy rocket, Peewee thought.

  There was an orange flash and an enormous ball of brown smoke and black bits of debris rushing up to meet him. Peewee kicked his rudder hard and climbed away from it, compressed within his G-suit and momentarily losing his vision. Then the shock wave kicked him in the rear and he was out over the Mediterranean again. He was asking for a vector back to his ship when another flash reflected on his instrument panel. He banked to look back, and saw a black cloud, red flames at its base, rising from Latakia.

  Fifteen minutes later Ensign Cobb, freckles standing out on his white face like painted splotches, was standing in Admiral’s Country of Saratoga trying to explain what had happened.

  Randy Bragg pulled up in the rear driveway of the McGovern house, wondering whether he should go in. He was not exactly popular with the elder McGoverns, which was why Lib visited him more often than he visited her.

  Whenever he entered the McGovern home, Randy felt as if he were stepping into an enormous department-store window. The entire front of the house, facing the Timucuan, was plate glass clamped between thin stainless steel supports, and every piece of furniture appeared unused, as if a price tag and warranty would be found tied to one of the legs. Lavinia McGovern herself had thought up the basic plan, collaborated with the architect, and supervised the construction. The architect, pleading a hotel commission in Miami, had returned part of his fee and absented himself from Fort Repose before the foundation was laid.

  On his first visit, Randy had not endeared himself to Lavinia. She took him on what she called “the grand tour,” proudly showing off the multiple heat pumps insuring constant year-round temperature; the magnificent kitchen with electronic ovens and broilers operated from a central control panel; the cunning round holes in the ceiling which sprayed gentle light on dining-room table, bar, bridge table, and strategically located abstract statuary; the television screens faired into the walls of bedrooms, living room, dining room, and even kitchen; and the master bedroom’s free form tub, which extended through the wall and into a tiny, shielding garden. There were no fireplaces, which she called “soot-producers,” or bookshelves, which were “dust catchers.”

  All was new, modern, and functional. “When we came down here,” Lavinia said, “we got rid of everything in Shaker Heights and started fresh, bright, and new. See how I’ve brought the river right to our feet?” She indicated the expanse of glass. “What do you think of it?”

  Randy tried to be at once tactful and truthful. “It reminds me of an illustration out of Modern Living, but—”

  “But?” Lavinia inquired, nervously.

  Randy, feeling he was being helpful, pointed out that in the summer months the sun’s direct rays would pour through the glass walls, and that the afternoon heat would become unbearable no matter how large and efficient the air-conditioning system. “I’m afraid that in summer you’ll have to shutter that whole southwest side of the house,” he said.

  “Is there anything else you think is wrong?” Lavinia asked, her voice dangerously sweet.

  “Well, yes. That indoor-outdoor bath is charming and original, but come spring it’ll be a freeway for moccasins and water snakes. On cool nights they’ll plop in and swim or crawl right into the house.”

  At this point Lavinia had squealed and clutched at her throat as it suffocating, and her hus
band and daughter had half-carried her to the bedroom. The next day plumbers and masons remodeled the sunken tub, eliminating the outdoor feature. Later, Lib explained that her mother dreaded snakes, and had been solely responsible for the design of the house. Randy never felt comfortable in Lavinia’s presence thereafter. And Lavinia, while attempting to be gracious, sometimes became pale and grew faint when he appeared.

  Randy’s relations with Bill McGovern were little better. On occasion, after a few extra drinks, he disagreed with Mr. McGovern on matters political, social, and economic. Since Bill for many years had been president of a manufacturing concern employing six thousand people, few of whom ever disagreed with him about anything, he had been affronted and angry. He considered Randy an insolent young loafer, an example of decadence in what once might have been a good family, and a sadly scrambled egghead, and had so informed his daughter.

  So Randy, sitting in his car, hesitated. He was certain to be coolly received. Lib didn’t expect to see him until the next day, but he had a hunch she needed him now. He guessed a considerable argument was going on inside. Lib would be verbally overpowered by her father, and Mark’s warning go unheeded. Randy got out of his car.

  Lib opened the north door before he could ring. “I thought I heard a car in the drive,” she said. “I’m glad it’s you. I’ve got troubles.”

  Bill McGovern was standing in the living room, wrapped in an ankle-length white bathrobe, smiling as if nothing were funny. Lavinia McGovern, her eyes swollen and pink against pallid skin, lay back on a chaise. She held a hankerchief to her nose. Bill was bald, square shouldered, and rather tall. His nose was beaked and his chin prominent and strong. In his toga of toweling, and with feet encased in leather sandals, he looked like an angry Caesar. “So here comes our local Paul Revere,” he greeted Randy. “What are you trying to do, frighten my wife and daughter to death?”

  Randy regretted having come in, but now that he was in he saw no point in being anything less than frank. “Mr. McGovern,” he said—ordinarily he addressed Lib’s father as Bill—“you aren’t as bright as I thought. If I gave you a hot tip, from a good source, on the market, you would listen. This is somewhat more important than the market. I thought I was doing you a favor.” He turned to leave.

  Lib touched his arm. “Please, Randy, don’t go!”

  “Elizabeth,”—when her parents were present he always called her Elizabeth—“I’ll leave things the way they are. If you need me, call.”

  Lavinia began to sniffle, audibly. In a worried voice Bill said, “Now don’t rush off half-cocked, Randy. I’m sorry if I was rude. There are certain things you don’t understand.”

  “Like what?” Randy asked.

  Bill’s voice was conciliatory. “Just sit down and I’ll explain.” Randy continued to stand.

  “Now I’m twice as old as you are,” Bill said, “and I think I know more about what goes on in this world. After all, I know quite a few big men—the biggest. All these war scares are concocted by the Pentagon—no offense meant to your brother—to get more appropriations, and give more handouts to Europe, and jack up taxes. It’s all part of the damnable inflationary pattern that’s designed to cheat people on pensions and with fixed incomes and so forth. Now I know your brother thinks he’s doing the right thing, and I appreciate your telling Elizabeth. But chances are your brother’s been taken in too.”

  “Have you been listening to the news for the past few days?”

  “Yes. Oh, I’ll admit it looks bad in the Mideast but that doesn’t scare me. We might have a little brushfire war, like Korea, sure. But no atomic war. Nobody’s going to use atomic bombs, just like nobody used gas in the last war.”

  “You’ll guarantee that, eh, Bill?”

  Bill locked his hands behind his back. “I can’t guarantee it, of course, but only the other day I was talking to Mr. Offenhaus. You must know him. Runs Civil Defense here. Well, he isn’t worried. Says the only real danger we face is being overrun by people swarming out of Orlando and Tampa. He doesn’t even think there’s much chance of that. Fort Repose isn’t on any main highway. But he does say we’ll have to watch out for the dinges. Keep ’em under control.”

  “Please, Bill!” Lavinia said. “Say darkies!”

  “Darkies, hell! The dinges are liable to panic and start looting. Oh, the local niggers, like Daisy, our cook, and Missouri, the cleaning woman, may be all right. Mr. Offenhaus was talking about the migrant labor, the orange pickers and so forth. So if Mr. Offenhaus isn’t worried, then I’m not worried. Mr. Offenhaus strikes me as a pretty solid businessman.”

  Randy knew that Bubba Offenhaus had been picked to head Civil Defense because he owned the only two ambulances, which with the addition of black scrollwork doubled as hearses, in Fort Repose. “Did you talk to him about fallout?” he asked.

  “Well, no, I didn’t,” Bill said. “Mr. Offenhaus said they sent him some booklets from Washington but he’s not passing them around because they’re too gruesome. Says why worry about something you can’t see, feel, hear, or smell? Says it’s just as bad to frighten people to death as kill them with radiation, and I must say that I agree with him.”

  Lavinia said, “If it came I suppose we’d have rationing like last time and all kinds of shortages. Bill, don’t you think we ought—no, I won’t think of it. Please, let’s not talk about it any more. It’s horrid.” She dabbed at her eyes and tried to smile. “Randolph, when your sister-in-law comes won’t you bring her over for dinner? Afterwards, we could play bridge. Perhaps you’d like to play a rubber now? I now you’re going to stay up to meet the plane, and I’m too overwrought to sleep.”

  “I’m sure Helen will be delighted to come to dinner,” Randy said. “As for bridge, I’ll take a rain check. I still have some things to do at home. Good night, Lavinia. Sorry I upset you.”

  Lib came out to the car with him. “Didn’t get very far, did I?” he said.

  “You started Dad thinking. That’s far.”

  Overhead he heard multi-engined jets. On that night there was three quarters of the moon. He looked up, and seeing nothing, knew the jets were military aircraft, too high for their running lights to show against the bright sky. On any night, if you listened for a while, you could hear the B-52’s and 47’s and 58’s, but on this night there seemed to be more of them.

  “Where are they from?” Lib asked. “Where are they going?”

  “I guess they’re from McCoy and MacDill and Eglin and Homestead,” Randy said, “and I don’t think they’re going anywhere much. They’re just stooging around up there because they’re safer up there than on the ground. When you can hear them floating around like that, high, you know you’re all right.”

  “I see,” Lib said. For the second time, he kissed her good night.

  When he reached home it was almost midnight. He made coffee and, yawning, turned on the radio and tuned an Orlando station for the late network news. The first bulletin jerked him wide awake:

  “From Washington—The official Arab radio, in a broadcast from Damascus, claims that American carrier planes are conducting a violent bombing attack on the harbor of Latakia. This news broke in Washington just a few minutes ago. There has been no reaction from the Pentagon, which at this hour of night is lightly staffed. However, it is reported that high Navy and Defense Department officials are being summoned into emergency conference. We will give you more on this as we receive it from our Washington newsroom. Here is the text of the official Arab broadcast: ‘At about six-thirty o’clock this morning’—please remember that it is morning in the Eastern Mediterranean, which is seven hours ahead of American Eastern Standard Time—‘low-flying jet aircraft, of the type used on United States aircraft carriers and bearing United States insignia, brutally and without warning bombed the harbor area of Latakia. It is reported that civilian casualties are high and that many buildings are in flames.’ That was the text of the Arab broadcast and that is all the hard news we have at the moment. Latakia is the most
important Syrian harbor. Within the last few years it has been heavily fortified, and there has been extensive construction of submarine pens under the direction of Russian technicians. It is generally regarded as one of the most powerful anti-Western naval bases in the Mediterranean. It is known that units of the United States Sixth Fleet are now in the Eastern Mediterranean, and that these units have been shadowed by fast, unidentified aircraft…”

  The network announcer went on to other news, and Randy’s phone rang.

  He picked it up, irritated. It was Bill McGovern. “Did you hear the news?” Bill asked.

  “Yes. I’m trying to get more of it.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I don’t think anything, yet. I want to hear our side of it.”

  “Sounds to me like we’re starting a small preventive war,” Bill said.

  “I don’t believe that for an instant,” Randy said. “You don’t prevent a war by starting one.”

  “Well, we’ll see who’s right in the morning.”

  Mark Bragg missed the first news flash on Latakia. At that moment he was straightening up the house before driving to Offutt to assume direction of Intelligence analysis in the Hole. He had been recalled from the Puerto Rico mission because SAC’s Commander in Chief, General Hawker, felt that in this newest crisis senior members of his Operations and Intelligence staffs should maintain a round-the-clock watch. An attack is rarely planned to conform to a victim’s five-day, forty-hour week so Hawker divided his most experienced officers into three shifts covering the whole day. As SAC’s third-ranking Intelligence officer, junior to the A-2 and his deputy, both brigadiers, Colonel Bragg naturally drew the most onerous hours—midnight to 0800.