Fail Safe (4 page)

"That gadget and the other gadgets in this room cost over a billion dollars, Mr. Raskob," General Logan said, carefully keeping any irony out of his Voice. "There is another room like this at the Pentagon and another at Colorado Springs. There are also several smaller versions at other locations around the world. There are also a number of planes, one of which is in the air at all times, which give a miniature version of this same information."

"Where are all these other rooms?" Raskob asked.

"I'm sorry, sir, but I cannot give you that information except on orders from my superiors or the President," General Bogan said. He hesitated and then went on, warned by the flush on Raskob's face. "It's what we call 'top secret for concerned eyes only.' That means that only those people who have a need for the information and can demonstrate that need have access to the information."

Suddenly Raskob smiled. "That rules me out," he said. "The only use I could have for the information would be to sell it to the Communists or use it to beat hell out of the military people at an appropriation hearing. What other kind of stuff can you show up on that board?"

Colonel Cascio leaned toward the levers on the desk. Before he touched them, however, a blue light began to flash over the Big Board. It flashed quickly a half-dozen times and then glowed steadily. The levers on the desk snapped back to neutral position without being touched by Colonel Cascio's fingers. General Bogan and Colonel Cascio stared at the Big Board. Already it had gone into another dissolve. A ticker machine at another desk-console started to stutter. The screen went blank and then steadied down on a large

projection of the area between Greenland and Canada. From a door at the side of the room six officers entered and moved to various desks. As instruments and scopes at the desks went on the illumination began to brighten the room.

Both Raskob and Knapp were staring at the board and glancing around the room with fascination.

"What's happened, General?" Raskob asked.

"I don't know yet," General Bogan said. Nothing in his manner indicated there was any cause for concern. "All I know is that we have gone to Condition Blue, which is our lowest position of readiness." He glanced at Colonel Cascio.

Colonel Cascio turned and walked over to the machine that was stuttering. He looked at the tape and then tore it off. By the time he returned to the desk the map had steadied down and a tiny bright red blip showed between Greenland and the eastern coast of Canada.

"Gentlemen, that is an unidentified flying object which has been picked up by our radar," General Bogan said, his eyes fastened to the Big Board. "Until we identify it positively it will remain a red blip and we will regard it as hostile."

The two visitors stared, mesmerized, at the red blip. It moved slowly across the projection. General Bogan knew precisely what was going through their minds. There was a possibility that they were viewing a real enemy, a plane or a missile, which was flying toward the United States with a hostile intention.

"What are you going to do about it?" Knapp asked. Since he had entered the War Room his voice had never been raised above a whisper. Now the whisper was almost hoarse.

"That information, Mr. Knapp, is not classified," General Bogan said with a smile. "The Soviets can

make a good guess about what we are doing. We always have a certain number of SAC bombers in the air. They have been informed of the Condition Blue and will start to fly toward their Fail-Safe points," General Bogan said.

"Fail-Safe?" Raskob asked,

"The Fail-Safe point is different for each group," General Bogan explained. "They also change from day to day. This is a fixed point in the sky where the planes will orbit until they get a positive order to go in. Without it they must return to the United States. This is called Positive Control. Fail-Safe simply means that if something fails it is still safe. In short, we cannot go to war except by a direct order. No bomber can go in on its own discretion. We give that order."

"They must get the order to 'go' by radio," Raskob said. "Is that right?"

"That's right, Mr. Raskob," General Bogan said. "Actually they do not receive the order verbally but it is transmitted to a small box which we call the FailSafe box, which is aboard each plane. That box is operated by a code which changes from day to day and can be operated only at the express order of the President of the United States. You have probably read that he is accompanied everywhere by a warrant officer from the Air Force who has the current code that would operate the box."

"Why don't you just give them a direct verbal yes or no and save yourself all this trouble?" Raskob asked.

General Bogan could tell Raskob was becoming restless. His eyes were fastened on the red blip and its inexorable progress.

"Actually we do both. But an enemy could easily come up on the same radio frequency and give whatever message it wanted just by imitating the voice of the President or one of our commanding officers," General Bogan said. With a smile, he added, "Remember that our President has a rather distinctive regional accent which can be easily imitated. Also, when people talk over the radio there is often a misunderstanding of what is said, especially if there is any radio interference. But there can be no interference with the FailSafe box. It can be activated in only one manner and at the express order of the President."

The Congressman turned from the board and spoke sharply to the General. "And what if someone up there

-or down here-cracks?"

"You will probably remember, Congressman Raskob, that last July, the Air Force testified before your committee on our program to give a psychological screening to any airman who had anything to do with nudear weapons," General Bogan added, trying to keep the irony from his voice. "From generals down to privates."

"Yes, sir, there are a number of people who believe that the Air Force has a high incidence of madmen among its air crews," Colonel Cascio said with a smile. "A few years back there was a lot of upset about whether or not an individual madman, ranging from a general down to the pilot of a plane, could start a war. With this procedure we may still have the madmen around but there is nothing they can do to start a war."

Raskob's eyes were back on the Big Board. Now he licked his lips. When he spoke his voice had something more than the rasp of irritation in it.

"Well, what else are you doing?" he asked brusquely. "Jesus Christ, that could be an ICBM or a Russian bomber and as far as I can tell you aren't doing very

much about it."

General Bogan could not resist. "We are doing a good deal right now. Fighter planes are flying toward

the unidentified object, ICBMs are going through the initial stage of preparation for launching, whole squadrons of bombers are being fueled and armed in case it really is an enemy vehide that is coming toward us," be said, "But, Congressman Raskob, if we went full out every time an unidentified object appeared on the screen we would need four times the appropriations that we now get from Congress. All-out safety is a very expensive thing."

Raskob missed the irony. "What do you mean 'every time that this happens'?" Raskob asked. "How often does this happen?"

"About six times a month," General Bogan said. "And if we went straight to Condition Red each time it would probably cost around a billion dollars."

instantly Raskob's face relaxed, his whole posture became easy. He laughed.

"O.K., General, you win," Raskob said. "I got that bit about the congressional appropriations. But you should have told me tha,t it happened six times a month. It can't be very dangerous if it happens that often."

"Sir, we never take a chance," Colonel Cascio said. His voice had an odd sharp inflection to it, almost reproving. "Right now we don't know what that object is. We treat it exactly as if it were an enemy vehicle of some sort. If we cannot identify it in a few more minutes or it acts suspiciously we will go to Condition Yellow. If we still are unsatisfied or things occur that complicate the picture we might even go to Condition Green. The last condition, as you know, is Condition Red. We have never gone to Condition Red, for that would mean that we actually considered ourselves at war and would launch weapons, all of our weapons, at the enemy. What all of this machinery assures is that if we do go to war it is not by accident or because of

the act of some madman. This system is infallible."

Colonel Cascio was wrong.

Branching off from the War Room is a warren of powerfully built and beautifully orchestrated rooms. Each room has a function. Each is protected by sheaths of reinforced concrete and a layer of lead. Each is air-conditioned. Each is linked to the War Room by alternate methods of communication. The whole thing is as symmetrical, efficient, and orderly as the mind and muscle of man can make it.

One room in the warren about the War Room is labeled Presidential Command Net. The door is guarded by an Air Force man twenty-four hours a day. Within the room-of classified length and classified breadth-there are six low, gray, squat machines. Above them is a sign which reads FailSafe Activating Mechanisms. Below that sentence and in heavy raised red letters are the words To be used only at express Presidential order. There are two desks in the room. One of them is in front of the bank of six machines. The other is behind the bank of machines.

Seated behind each of the desks is an enlisted man whose sole duty is tQ check the mechanical condition of the activation machine. The machines are deliberately not covered. All of the operating parts must be visible to the two inspectors. The air which is forced into the room is triple-filtered so that it is dustless.

At about the moment that Colonel Cascio said the word "infallible" a sergeant sitting at one of the desks stood up and walked around the bank of machines.

"Frank, how you fixed for cigarettes?" the ser

geant asked. "I'm out."

Frank tossed him a pack of Chesterfields. The sergeant reached to catch them. At that moment in Machine No. 6 a small condenser blew. It was a soundless event. There was a puff of smoke no larger than a walnut that was gone instantly.

The sergeant sniffed the air. He turned to Frank. "Frank, do you smell something?" he asked. "Like something burning?"

"Yeah, that's me," Frank said. "You bumming cigarettes all the time and then not paying me back, that burns me."

They grinned at one another. The sergeant returned to his desk. Things returned to normal... almost. A small shield hid from the sergeant's view the tiny knob of burnt carbon on top of the disabled condenser. No instruments on the table indicated a malfunction.

Congressman Raskob was a tough man. He regained his composure quickly. Now he was even enjoying the situation. It had something of the elements of politics

mit.

"Can you project the fighter planes that are flying toward the unidentified object onto the Big Board?" Raskob asked.

"Certainly, sir," Colonel Cascio said.

He moved some levers. A few feet from the red blip a phosphorescent worm began to glow, became more distinct, and then broke itself into six separate blips, all black. They were diminishing the distance between themselves and the red blip at a rate which was perceptible to the human eye.

"Those are Canadian fighters. They are probably subsonic planes so they will dose the unidentified ohject in a half hour or so."

"Colonel Cascio, what information do we have on the UFO?"

Colonel Cascio walked over to the machine and tore off a piece of tape. He handed it to General Bogan. It read, "UFO at Angels 30, speed 525, heading 196."

"That means that it's at 30,000 feet going 525 miles an hour on a compass heading of 196," General Bogan said.

"Just suppose, General, that the planes get there right on schedule, what are they likely to find?" Raskob asked.

"Usually it is a commercial airliner that has neglected to file a flight plan or has been blown off course by high winds," General Bogan said. "But keep in mind, sir, that there is a big blank space over the Atlantic where neither the radar sets from Europe nor America have the range to pick up planes. This wasn't much of a problem with slow-flying planes at low altitudes, but with jets going at high speeds and altitude they can drift a couple of hundred miles while they are 'in the gap.' Occasionally the radar itself makes a mistake and gets a blip off the moon or a swarm of geese or gets a false echo from a satellite. But the radar mistakes have pretty well been eliminated since 1960."

"Suppose it just looks like a commercial airliner but has actually been loaded up with thermonuclear bombs and is trying to sneak through, masquerading as a commercial plane?" Raskob asked.

"It's possible, but not likely," General Bogan shrugged. "The fighter pilots would raise the plane on radio and ask where it had started from and what its destination was and this would then be checked out with Federal Aviation Agency operators to make sure it was a legitimate flight. Also the fighter pilots, if they are the least suspicious, get dose enough to the plane to give it a good inspection. If there were seams and

hinges that indicated a bomb bay on what looked like a DC-8 that would change the situation. Plenty."

"What would you do in that case?" Knapp asked. "I mean that even after the fighters see the plane they still have some suspicions?"

"Probably not a great deal," General Bogan said. "The fighter pilots would order the plane to land or to turn around and if it ignored orders then we would have a tough decision. We would probably go to Condition Yellow and would start to launch more fighters and also bring up some of the bombers to a higher degree of readiness. But just a single unidentified plane by itself, still over a thousand miles from any Canadian or American city, doesn't constitute a very great danger. Any conceivable enemy would be launching a number of planes at us. What we would do is make sure that the single plane did not have a runaway pilot who wanted to commit hara-kiri on New York or MontreaL"

"General, can you add the SAC bombers that are flying toward their Fail-Safe point to the board?" Raskob asked.