LIVE DROP
Harvey, Frank
LIVE DROP a short story by FRANK HARVEY THEY were squatting in a tight circle under the belly of the B-52 Stratofort listening to Colonel Walter Hunsicker, the Aircraft Commander, finish his...
...It was a little surprising to see it...
...In McKinny's dream it was morning and the ground crew was fueling the B-52 and everybody was very excited...
...But he couldn't scream...
...I'm fine," McKinny said...
...The plane is about ready to take off, sir...
...Down, boy," she said...
...It wai night and he could see the glow of a great city on the horizon, and, as the bomber flew along, he made out flickering red and blue neon signs and tiny strings of traffic headlights on the roads...
...There's nothing I can do about it...
...By morning he'd be back on top...
...A bright morning, familiar people around, an airplane ready for take off...
...He heard the engines of the C-97 rev up, felt the big plane begin slowly to move out from the hangar toward the takeoff position, and he had an urge to open his eyes and look out...
...Roger, Colonel," McKinny said...
...In his place was General Slade with his-rock-hard face and his hot eyes...
...But he'd never dropped a 20-megaton bomb before either...
...Initial Point coming up...
...The big jet pitched up slightly as the bomb went out...
...Jim Hines yelled triumphantly...
...He finished shaving, hastily stuffed his belongings into a B-4 bag, and followed Jim Hines through the sea-grape vines to the big Boeing C-97 transport which was waiting in front of the hangar...
...The girl—and Art McKinny saw now that she did not resemble the girl in his dream except for the hair and the mouth—patted Hines gently on the shoulder...
...Somewhere in the red shadows inside his head, a cunning thought had insinuated itself...
...You following through, navigator...
...But the accuracy of the drop was up to McKinny...
...Also to the boss at Offutt Field, Nebraska...
...There was no other choice...
...Look down, Mac...
...it was a faceless creature that seemed to be made of darkness and had eyes that looked like fire through the chinks of a burning building...
...Hey," Hines said...
...When the girl was gone, McKinny fastened his seat belt and sat waiting for the engines to rev up for take off...
...The dream still lingered in his head, almost as real as the sunshine...
...You're the star of the show, Mac...
...We don't have a ground radar team down there on this drop...
...Special for us...
...Not with that big blue egg behind him...
...Hines said, "Hey buddy—what's wrong...
...He had almost expected to see a radar console and a stubby tracking handle...
...An hour later, Art McKinny lay in his hut staring at the dark ceiling...
...He felt the heavy bomber begin to roll...
...A wall of seagrape vines which bordered the runway slid backward, began to blur, and then the grapes were gone and the slit was a delicate sky blue...
...He wondered what city it was they were going to bomb, and how many people lived there, and then he put these thoughts out of his mind and began concentrating on his k-system...
...He would outwit them—just in case this was another one of those fake plays...
...I got news...
...Captain Jim Hines was beside him going over his maps, and, strangely, there was a young hostess sitting in the crawlway looking at him...
...Fasten your seat belt and if you want' anything, just call me...
...Hey Mac," Hines said beside him...
...I'd like you both to fasten your seat belts...
...You guys won't be wearing dark glasses inside your face plates...
...Ann Francis is back...
...It was just like going into Los Angeles at night...
...He had seen the fading fireball, huge and crimson, big enough to burn a city...
...The look on Hines' face somehow sickened McKinny and he shut his eyes, just as the explosion came...
...He peered steadily into the scope, held his breath, and punched the red button...
...Strain was what it was...
...You want a lifesaver, Mac...
...Hey Mac," Jim Hines' voice called...
...Hines would double-check every move McKinny made...
...Good show...
...We are asking the impossible...
...Ground control has scored your drop at Eniwetok," the general said...
...But McKinny did not open his eyes...
...We have to report this, you know...
...He paused...
...He was very excited now, himself...
...D plus eighty," Carpenter's voice said...
...He knew he should be feeling right on top...
...He knew he should have stayed, but he didn't feel up to it...
...Nobody spoke...
...I dropped an H-bomb, sir," McKinny would say...
...Behind him were seventy-eight missions over the Reich in B-17's at the height of the JNazi fighter intercept...
...He looked down at it, in the jpeenish glow of the bombsight ijcopes...
...Hunsicker would hold altitude and air speed as constant as possible...
...Casually, so Jim Hines wouldn't notice, McKinny glanced down at his lap, at his hand...
...So rise and shine...
...D plus ten," Carpenter's voice said...
...They came to attention and saluted him...
...From behind the seagrape vines, where the hangar was, he could hear glasses clinking and the laughter and conversation of the victory party...
...You take the window," Hines said...
...Or should I say, down, Captain, sir...
...Great drop, McKinny," General Slade said...
...Good bye, Hines," McKinny heard General Slade saying to Jim Hines, in the line ahead of him...
...He returned it...
...SAC had been putting out dope for years about hitting TV aerials on the northwest corner of specific streets from 50,000 feet, night or day, rain or shine...
...He'd always had other things more pressing...
...Hines looked at him in surprise...
...The bomber wallowed and staggered in the shock waves pushed out by the fusion...
...The pre-drop sensations were setting in early this time: a stiffening of the face muscles, a dull nausea, and almost intolerable tightening and sharpening of all his senses...
...He was the Observer—the man who would track the target and release the H-bomb, and he had been chosen for this mission with considerable care...
...Inside the room, Hines said, "A Military Air Transport plane came in from Japan last night...
...It was tanned and steady...
...Not here in this plane...
...He did not want to look at Jim Hines and have him suddenly change into some crazy shape—or look out of the window and discover that they were not heading for Hickum Field after all, but for some strange city which they intended to wipe out with an H-bomb...
...The girl smiled...
...I believe I can give you a 500-foot bomb, sir," McKinny replied...
...Would He give out a spot promotion...
...Roger, Colonel," Hines' voice said...
...Those poor jokers, he thought...
...He was aware now of the tiniest fluctuations of the needles, of the steadily-changing situation on his radar scopes...
...A good night's rest would fix him up...
...Slade stuck out his hand and McKinny took it...
...It was impossible to see her clearly in the shadows, but he saw that she was young and very pretty, with blond hair and a crimson mouth...
...I had a lot of help, of course—but I really dropped the stuff that did it...
...His head ached and his eyes felt itchy...
...It was ridiculous—completely ridiculous—^but Art McKinny suddenly realized he didn't want to touch General Slade's hand...
...So there's no problem, really...
...If there's anything I can do, just call me...
...They were not on the island anymore, but on some strange base which McKinny had never seen...
...Mc-Kinny's mission was to wipe out the memory of that unfortunate booboo...
...He lathered his face and began to shave...
...We're too high to be hurt...
...Slade began to squeeze very hard...
...Then the air grew smooth and there was no sound but the drone of the jets...
...Slade paused...
...He would keep his eyes shut...
...There was all this tension damned up inside him, and if he could just scream he could get rid of it...
...No sweat there...
...He shut his eyes and tried to sleep...
...I burned 10,000,-000 people to death...
...McKinny's body went rigid...
...He'd shacked the target and gotten a spot promotion to light colonel, and this upcoming publicity could make his Air Force career secure...
...It had missed the target by four miles—which was most embarrassing to the Strategic Air Command...
...McKinney looked outside...
...We received a message from Offutt in the past ten minutes, and I guess the boss is pleased with your circular error...
...McKinny said suddenly...
...Now, in the darkness, he had an urge to get up and turn on the lights—which was odd, because he'd never been nervous in a dark room before...
...And then the silly jerks make us sit here...
...We shacked it...
...Now if things go sour," Hunsicker was finishing up, "I'll order Major McKinny to inert the big egg and get rid of it...
...McKinny raised his head and stared through the dimness...
...He took hold of the tracking handle with his right hand, his thumb on the button...
...McKinny was going to tell the Aircraft Commander to put this crazy girl off the airplane, but somehow it was too late...
...With the eight-mile fire ball you had," he said loudly, "I call that bomb a direct hit...
...maps and calipers...
...He wanted a cigarette, but the No Smoking sign was on...
...McKinny looked now at his right hand...
...Your circular error at Eniwetok," he said, "was one hundred and sixteen feet...
...She looked at McKinny, by the window...
...D plus twenty...
...And we want to see how well we did...
...He was a pioneer in jet bombardment: B-47's in Florida, and more than 1500 hours & the deadliest of them all, the fnighty Boeing B-52...
...I can't track a target and drop an H-bomb with my eyes shut...
...I've got no choice, he thought, SfSinemory of the fireball lying back in the shadows of his mind, dim and dreamlike, yet horribly real...
...They were sweating in their tightly-laced pressure suits, and now that the waiting and the practice were over, and they were going to make the live drop, they were jittery to be airborne...
...Let's get the show on the road...
...Well, honeychild," Jim Hines was saying to the girl...
...I'm mighty proud of you...
...but there was nothing wrong with his hand...
...He had never thought much about God or the hereafter...
...He was a stoop-shouldered man with a beaky nose, light-blue eyes, and a thin spot in his crew haircut...
...A good bombardier couldn't afford to think about anything but the mechanics of his drop —if he expected to shack the target and get spot promotions...
...Yeah," McKinny said...
...His right hand had begun to feel peculiar...
...He sat down near the window and looked at the seat in front of him...
...But he didn't...
...I call it right down the chimney of the cotton-picking shack...
...Harvey has written many stories on the Strategic Air Command and won the Aviation Writers Award for the best aviation article in 1954 with a story on the SAC...
...We'll be over water all the way...
...But he wondered now, as he shaved, what God would say if and when McKinny appeared before Him, front and center, to report...
...They won't fool me this time...
...We haven't been on board more than a few minutes...
...The pressure hurt and McKinny tried to pull his hand away, but he could not—and then it wasn't Slade any more...
...General Slade was waiting for them on the hardstand when they taxied in and stopped in front of the hangar at the secret base...
...He did not want to see the blond girl...
...Navigator following through, sir...
...Above them, in the open bomb bay, the hydrogen weapon looked huge...
...If he goofed—just a little—in those final agonizing seconds, he could fling that multi-million-dollar H-bomb far into the boondocks...
...Let me be the first to shake Mar hand...
...All right," McKinny said...
...He saluted, then thrust out his hand and Slade gripped it tightly in his powerful fingers...
...The flash will blind you permanently...
...But the B-52 didn't turn steeply and race away from its own blast...
...The general walked deliberately through the glare of the floods as they climbed out of the B-52...
...We're coming up on tb| Initial Point...
...Okay," Hunsicker said...
...TV interviews, magazine stories, all that kind of stuff...
...It's a long haul, and we can yak at each other to pass the time...
...He could feel his heart pumping blood steadily through his neck and face, and there was a soft sound in his ears, like wire brushes on a snare drum...
...Jim Hines looked incredibly pleased...
...D plus thirty...
...They rush us till we're half crazy," McKinny said softly and violently...
...A flight attendant was approaching along the asile...
...He was sitting, now, with his eyes shut, holding himself very tightly, because he wanted to scream...
...On orders...
...Now it was assembled, adjusted, ready: a robin's-egg-blue shell of steel that held the equivalent of 20,000,000 tons of TNT...
...He felt peculiar...
...I had to, sir...
...It began circling...
...He ran a quick and continuous sweep-check of every detail on the console that was important to the drop, and finally, in the last seconds, he held his breath and stared at the sight unwinkingly, and then his thumb pressed down firmly on the red button...
...A little panicky...
...Thank you, sir," McKinny said, and climbed quickly into the plane...
...Sergeant Witkowski opened his eyes cautiously and looked back...
...It illuminated metal and flesh with an acid brightness which held intolerably, then faded to red, to orange, and the sound caught them in a sustained ocean of roaring...
...They must be real stupid...
...I want to get my call in right now...
...McKinny breathed once, to give the bomb a clean separation, then spoke into the intercom, "Bomb away...
...He had disobeyed orders...
...The H-bomb had been airlifted from the states to 'this secret base in the South Pacific in pieces— to eliminate any danger of an accidental explosion...
...What are they waiting for...
...I'll just keep my eyes shut and sit still, and not move or think, and everything will turn out just fine...
...Bomb awayl" he shouted...
...Captain Dick Carpenter, the countermeasures operator, began to call off the seconds from drop time over the intercom...
...It's them or us...
...Hope you shacked her, Mac," Jim Hines said over the intercom...
...Mac—for Pete's sake...
...Sure," McKinny said...
...His right hand held the stubby tracking handle, thumb poised lightly on the red button...
...Don't worry, Mac...
...One more thing," Colonel Hunsicker said...
...McKinny opened his eyes to look at Hines—but Hines was gone...
...If the bomb sight is on the ball, I could come even closer...
...The dream he'd had had been somewhat like this...
...We're gonna be big shots...
...He slid out of bed, and walked into the bathroom...
...She was blond and very pretty, with a soft crimson mouth, and she smiled at McKinny...
...We don't expect a shack job, Mc-Kinny," General Lincoln Slade, the projectject officer, had said...
...Maybe later, when they got to Hickum Field, in Hawaii, he could get off by himself and scream and nobody would know...
...D plus ninety—" The blast filled the deepest recesses of the bomber with searing white light...
...It was crushed...
...He hoped to hit the Eniwetok target dead center and he would if it was humanly possible...
...His head felt fczzy...
...Wake up, boy...
...McKinny wet his lips...
...McKinny didn't reply...
...Generals had gotten their start with less...
...McKinny took a deep drag from his cigarette...
...Hines said, "What's your frequency...
...He shifted in his seat and shook his shoulders, trying to loosen up...
...He fed in his prefigured ballistics...
...Then Hines went on up the stairs into the plane and it was McKinny's turn...
...Many of his stories, fact and fiction, have appeared in the Saturday Evening Post, and one of them, Runaway Bomber, is now in production as a movie at Universal International in Hollywood...
...The steep and frantic turn—to get clear of the 20-megaton blast—sagged McKinny in the seat, and he heard the engines hoot to full military power as the bomber fled away at almost the speed of sound...
...It tingled and prickled as if he'd been lying on it for a long time in his sleep, and it felt moist—almost wet...
...The sound of whistling woke Major McKinny in his hut, and he sat up, blinking in the morning sun which flooded through the window...
...This was McKinny's show...
...Then the general's calm broke and he stepped forward quickly and thrust out his hand...
...You look as if you'd slept in a tree...
...It was radioed to us in code...
...It was very dim inside after the bright sunshine but he could make out Jim Hines beckoning to him from the rear and he walked on back...
...In the tailgun position, Sergeant Witkowski twisted around with his back to the observation window, wrapped his arms around his head and shut his eyes...
...General Slade was standing beside the passenger stairway saying goodbye to the officers...
...the narrow observation slit on his left and heard the B-52's eight jet engines rise to take-off power...
...His hand was lying on his right knee, and it wasn't smashed or bloody— "Damn it...
...He killed his winds...
...Don't look now—but we've got an angel aboard...
...So don't look back...
...McKinny—let me be the first to shake the hand of the man who made that drop...
...I know you say that to every girl flight attendant you meet, Captain...
...He'd stopped for only one drink...
...The brass wants us back home right away...
...Any questions...
...He wasn't paying any attention to Hines...
...Great dropf the faceless creature said enthusiastic...
...His face was deadpan...
...LIVE DROP a short story by FRANK HARVEY THEY were squatting in a tight circle under the belly of the B-52 Stratofort listening to Colonel Walter Hunsicker, the Aircraft Commander, finish his briefing...
...She's got lifesavers to chew while we take off...
...Maybe even spectacular...
...like the slick wingless body of a baby bomber in its mother's womb...
...They haven't even bothered to black out the place...
...Then he heard Jim Hines take a sharp breath beside him and whisper...
...What would God say to that, McKinny wondered...
...We shacked it...
...Then he spoke in the formal manner of generals with troops...
...He felt his right arm twitch...
...Don't be nervous, dear," she said...
...He took a cigarette from the pack on the bedside stand and lit it...
...The fireball was gone...
...We got a TWX from the Pentagon," Hines said with enthusiasm...
...Observer ready...
...Blood dripped Ibom the mangled fingers and fcneared on the metal console...
...I swear—for a minute I thought you were Ann Francis, the movie star...
...McKinny leaned groggily toward the window...
...They had taken off and were flying, very high and fast, over oceans and continents, and Hines was working steadily with...
...The sun was setting behind the B-52 and the eastern sky ahead was pale yellow with afterglow when Hunsicker's voice said curtly, "Pilot to observer...
...A mushroom cloud had climbed three miles high in the star-pricked evening sky...
...Major McKinny peered through FRANK HARVEY, a free lance writer specializing in aviation, was a lieutenant in the Navy, aviation specialist during World War II, and served on the aircraft carrier USS Midway as training officer...
...m Art McKinny's mind came to a sharp and steady focus on the k-system bombsight...
...McKinny screamed and Killed his hand away with all his Kength...
...He knew what General Slade had in mind...
...I'm all right now, McKinney thought...
...Jim Hines was grinning...
...This test was not to check the power of the weapon...
...He was a big man with a face like rock and hot eyes...
...Then the Initial Point was past...
...After he was sure the dangerous brightness of the blast had faded sufficiently, he had opened his eyes and peered back through the observation slit...
...Hines and Slade shook hands...
...McKinny nodded...
...Some months ago, in 1956, a hydrogen bomb had been dropped by a B-52 on the Eniwetok range...
...But he didn't feel right on top...
...We might as well stick together going over to Hickum," Jim Hines said at McKinny's elbow...
...You've got to tell the world how it feels to drop an H-bomb in the pickel barrel from 50,-000 feet...
...Maybe, now, if he just squinted his eyes a little against the glare, General Slade would turn into something dark and horrible, with fiery slits for eyes...
...He could hear Hines coming around the hut and opening the door...
...And he couldn't help looking 0t his right hand, from time to time, ffe turned on the cold water and Pttck his face into the stream and ttibbed vigorously with his palms, |j*ng to drive the fuzzy feeling may...
...You better get ready," Jim Hiaj| said...
...He couldn't loosen up...
...Something tightened inside him, like the coiling of a spring...
...Instantly the B-52 stood on its left wing, like a fighter...
...But we do hippe for a 500-footer...
...It was no good...
...He's authorized spot promotions for all of you, effective this date...
Vol. 21 • October 1957 • No. 10
