The men at the table knew, with sympathy, what the glance meant. With the long effort at
“budget balancing,” with the many steps in reduction of Federal expenditures for military affairs, the armed forces had diminished in numbers. That meant, to officers like Colonel Eames, no promotion. As CO of the base he ought to have been at least a brigadier general. He remained a colonel just as the numbers of bombers at the base remained inadequate for the purposes envisaged in the event of war.
“What have they got on it?” Major Taylor asked. He was a fussy man who constantly tried to “move things ahead”—equipment, people, plans, conversations.
“Plenty,” Colonel Eames answered. “And not Flying Saucer material, either! Contrails over Nebraska, Iowa, Ohio and all the states down here in the Southwest. Definitely not our own.”
“Any contacts?” Major Taylor asked.
“None. Radar blips, though.”
“Plane types?”
The colonel frowned faintly at his impatient staff officer. “I’ll boil it down to this. GHQ is satisfied that there have been, for some months, numbers of Red planes over this country, flying very fast at very high altitude-probably turbo-prop types-probably photography recon.
None of our interceptors has so far gotten up to one fast enough to take a good look. We do have a few rather definite photographs, taken at long ranges with telephoto lenses from our own panes.”
“That’s pretty definite,” Captain Pierce murmured.