Lost Voices 19: Forbidden Area by Pat Frank
Forbidden Area
By Pat Frank
7 May, 2000
Lost Voices
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Forbidden Area
Pat Frank
Bantam Books, 1956
213 pages
Synopsis: The Soviets are being pressured by their Chinese allies and by their domestic populations to resolve the Cold War. Narrowly averting a Chinese attack on Formosa, they promise that they have a plan for neutralising the USA. That this must done quickly is obvious, before the bomber fleets are made obsolete by ICBMs. Once the ICBMs are deployed by the USA, it will be impossible to contemplate a successful war on the US. Submarines and Russian bombers can kill most of SAC’s resources, it is felt, except for the planes too far away from the USSR, which must be sabotaged. Four agents are sent to the US to infiltrate SAC and place bombs on the B‑99s, the latest model. It is hoped that if enough planes crash mysteriously, the US will ground the B‑99 and temporarily replace them with older, inferior models of bomber which the Russian believe their air-defenses will handle. This should, the Russians hope, allow them to achieve a 75% kill of the US population on the first strike.