A Fiction Series
Chapter 2: The Northern Track
By Cliff Potts
The radar scope swept in slow, steady arcs, the green line circling like it had a thousand times before.
Lieutenant Colonel Mark Bragg, United States Air Force, stood with one hand resting on the console, eyes fixed on the screen. Beside him, First Lieutenant Carter tracked the return as it sharpened with each pass. Staff Sergeant Wilkes stood behind them, arms folded, saying nothing.
“Range?” Bragg asked.
Carter checked the sweep.
“Three-one-two nautical miles, sir.”
“Bearing?”
“Track one-eight-zero. Due south.”
Bragg nodded once.
“Altitude?”
“Angels two-seven-point-five.”
“Commercial traffic?”
“Not on that line.”
The sweep came around again.
The return held.
Not clutter.
Not weather.
Not drift.
Something real.
“Count.”
Carter hesitated.
“Multiple groups, sir. Spread formation. Tight enough to be deliberate.”
“That’s not a count, Lieutenant.”
“No, sir.”
Another sweep.
“Range now two-nine-eight nautical miles.”
Bragg looked at the clock.
“Keep tracking.”
“Yes, sir.”
Far to the north, aircraft moved in disciplined formation through clear morning sky.
No weaving.
No scatter.
No uncertainty.
Just bearing, altitude, distance, and time.
Inside one cockpit, a pilot adjusted his heading by less than a degree and kept his voice level.
“Control, this is Sabre Two-One. Vector holding.”
“Sabre Two-One, maintain present heading.”
“Copy.”
There was nothing dramatic in any of it.
That was what made it dangerous.
Michael Doyle sat at the kitchen table with his coffee untouched in front of him.
The Chicago Sun-Times lay open but unread.
The radio played low.
Music. Announcer. Commercial. Music again.
Nothing unusual.
That was the problem.
Helen moved through the kitchen, finishing what needed to be finished before they all went downstairs again. Tommy had already been told to carry the smaller boxes. Carol lingered near the doorway, trying to understand the mood of the room.
At the far end of the table, Margaret Kowalski—Helen’s mother, widowed in the war when her husband went down with his ship in the Atlantic—sat with her hands around her coffee cup, watching Michael.
“They haven’t said anything,” she said.
Helen didn’t look up.
“About what?”
“Anything.”
Helen shook her head.
“They don’t always say something.”
Michael finally spoke.
“They usually do.”
Margaret nodded once.
“Yes.”
In the radar room, Carter checked the return again.
“Range two-eight-four nautical miles, sir.”
“Still on one-eight-zero?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Speed?”
“High subsonic.”
Bragg kept his eyes on the scope.
“Formation?”
“Disciplined.”
He disliked that answer because it told him more than a number did.
“Intercept status?”
“Aircraft airborne from northern sectors, sir.”
“Good.”
No one in the room relaxed.
Not even a little.
Michael leaned back slightly in his chair.
“You remember Korea,” he said quietly.
Helen didn’t answer.
Margaret did.
“They didn’t tell you first.”
Michael nodded.
“They never do.”
The radio continued.
A bright, ordinary voice broke in to give the hour and went straight back to the program.
No warning.
No bulletin.
No grim voice from Washington.
Nothing.
Helen dried her hands and turned toward him.
“You’re doing it again.”
“What.”
“Listening for something that isn’t there.”
He met her eyes.
“That’s exactly it.”
She didn’t like that answer.
Neither did he.
Far to the north, the pilot checked his instruments again.
“Control, Sabre Two-One. Request updated vector.”
A brief crackle.
“Sabre Two-One, adjust heading zero-one-seven. Maintain angels two-seven.”
“Zero-one-seven, angels two-seven. Copy.”
He made the correction.
Ahead of him, the sky remained empty to the naked eye.
The instruments said otherwise.
Tommy picked up one of the smaller boxes from near the basement door.
“Do I take this down now?”
“Yes,” Helen said.
Mike stood up from the table.
“We’re finishing the arrangement today.”
Helen nodded.
No argument. No hesitation.
The structure was done. The extension under the yard was done. The reinforced walls were done. The heavy door was hung and working. What they were short on was not concrete.
It was time and supplies.
In the radar room, Carter’s voice was lower now.
“Range two-six-one nautical miles.”
Bragg asked the question he already knew the answer to.
“Any deviation?”
“No, sir.”
“Any chance they turn?”
“No, sir.”
Bragg put both hands on the edge of the console and leaned in slightly.
“They’re committed.”
No one replied.
There was nothing to add.
Margaret rose from the table first.
That was unusual enough to make Helen notice.
“You all right?”
Margaret nodded.
“I’m fine.”
She wasn’t frightened exactly.
She was older than fear in that particular form.
What bothered her was quiet. The official kind. The polite kind. The kind that sat on top of a situation like a lid.
Her husband had gone down with his ship in the Atlantic, and the first thing she learned from the government was how little the government intended to say.
Some patterns didn’t improve with time.
The basement smelled faintly of concrete dust and damp earth.
Helen stepped into the shelter section first and pointed where she wanted things.
“Water along the wall. Food where we can reach it without climbing over everything. Cots in the back.”
Mike nodded.
“Radio near the door.”
“Phonograph too.”
He glanced at her.
She gave the smallest shrug.
“We’re not sitting in silence.”
Tommy carried his box in and set it down where he was told. Carol followed him, slower and more careful on the steps. Margaret came last, one hand on the rail, eyes moving over the reinforced wall and the heavy steel door.
Mike stood in the middle of the shelter and turned once, slow.
Finished.
Not full.
But finished.
Far to the north, the pilot finally saw them.
Tiny at first.
Then not tiny.
“Control, Sabre Two-One. I have visual.”
A pause.
“Confirm.”
“Multiple aircraft. Large formation. Bearing one-eight-zero relative. Closing.”
Another pause.
Then:
“Stand by.”
The pilot kept his voice even.
“Control, I am within range.”
Static answered first.
Then a voice.
“Sabre Two-One, stand by.”
He kept closing.
Back in the shelter, Tommy looked around at the cots and the stacked cans and the water containers lined up against the wall.
“How long are we staying down here?”
Mike answered without turning.
“Couple weeks.”
Tommy’s eyes widened.
“That long?”
“Maybe longer.”
Helen cut in before the question could get bigger.
“We’ll be fine.”
That was the line she meant to hold.
The line for the children.
The line for herself.
Carol frowned.
“Do we have to stay the whole time?”
Helen crouched slightly to look her in the eye.
“Yes,” she said. “That’s how this works.”
Carol didn’t like it, but she accepted it.
Margaret said nothing.
She had learned long ago that acceptance and agreement were two very different things.
In the radar room, Carter spoke again.
“Range two-three-eight nautical miles.”
Bragg looked at the clock.
Then back at the sweep.
Everything was happening on schedule.
That was the part he trusted least.
“Mark it,” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
Mike wiped his hands on a rag and looked around the shelter.
Concrete.
Steel.
Cots.
Boxes.
Water.
The small tabletop radio.
And in a drawer, unopened, his transistor set without a battery—insurance against something he couldn’t quite explain, only feel.
Enough for a little over two weeks if they were careful.
Not enough if his instincts were right.
Helen stepped beside him.
“We’re ready,” she said.
He looked at the walls, then at the low ceiling over the rear sleeping area buried under earth, then at the heavy door.
“Almost,” he said.
Above them, the radio in the kitchen played on.
Music.
Normal voices.
Ordinary Saturday life.
Unbroken.
Far to the north, the distance kept closing.
And in the cockpit of Sabre Two-One, a man waited for an order he was beginning to suspect would come too late.
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