Alas, Babylon
Pat Frank
 Randy (Randolph) Bragg, the protagonist, is a man who dabbles at law and lives a life with little purpose. He lives in the small Central Florida town of Fort Repose, which was founded by an ancestor during the 19th century. The scion of a once prominent Central Florida political family, Bragg is a former active duty U.S. Army infantry officer and Korean War veteran whose own foray into public life was a run for the Florida State Legislature which proved disastrous because of his open support for racial desegregation based on the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. Randy's life appears to be drifting down a somewhat aimless path when he receives a telegram from his older brother, Colonel Mark Bragg, an Air Force Intelligence officer currently serving with the Strategic Air Command (SAC) at its headquarters at Offutt Air Force Base outside of Omaha, Nebraska. In the telegram, Mark informs Randy that he is sending his wife and two children to stay in Fort Repose, and that he wants to meet with Randy during a brief layover he will have at McCoy Air Force Base, southeast of downtown Orlando. The telegram ends the message with an ominous code: "Alas Babylon", a Biblical reference that the Bragg brothers employed throughout their lives as a euphemism for disaster. Randy drives to McCoy AFB and initially meets with another old friend, an Air Force officer and pilot named Paul Hart; Randy then meets Mark's arriving plane. While the military jet is refueled, Mark explains to Randy the background for sending the urgent message. The Soviets evidently perceive a temporary weakness in U.S. and Allied defense posture and are believed to be staging an attempt to take advantage of the situation. A defecting Soviet military officer has brought the Soviet "war plan" to the West. Mark believes the Soviet plan is flawed and that the West would ultimately prevail, but danger lies in Moscow's belief that they can succeed, which emboldens them to risk war. Mark informs Randy that he is flying his family down to Florida to stay with him indefinitely - or until Mark feels the threat has passed. The brothers soon say their goodbyes, and Randy realizes that he may never see Mark again. Heading back to Fort Repose, Randy gets cash from the bank. He also privately gives warning of the impending war to those people of Fort Repose whom he believes to be his friends, including Dr. Daniel Gunn (perhaps Randy's closest friend in Fort Repose) as well as Elizabeth "Lib" McGovern, a young woman for whom Randy has come to care deeply. During the early hours of the next morning, Randy drives to Orlando Municipal Airport to meet his sister-in-law (Helen) and her young son and daughter (Ben Franklin and Peyton) arriving from Omaha. Meanwhile, in the Eastern Mediterranean, a U.S. Navy carrier task force is being shadowed by unidentified (and presumably hostile) aircraft. The aircraft carrier USS Saratoga launches a fighter aircraft to intercept, identify and (if necessary) shoot down the "bogie". U.S. Navy Ensign "Pee Wee" Cobb, one of the most junior pilots in Saratogas air wing, is flying the interceptor, an F11F Tiger jet fighter, off the coast of Syria (a Soviet ally) and locates the unidentified aircraft. He is given permission to pursue and attack. Cobb closes on the "bogie" and fires an AIM-9 Sidewinder heat-seeking missile, but the missile goes off course because the enemy plane shuts off its engines, and the missile hits an ammunition depot at Latakia, Syria, resulting in an explosion that may or may not have included nuclear devices. This event becomes the apparent casus belli for the Soviet Union to launch a preemptive nuclear strike against the United States and her allies. Early the following morning, Mark is on duty at SAC headquarters at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska, known as "The Hole". He and fellow officers express concern that reports of unidentified submarines ("skunks") approaching the US Eastern seaboard overnight, coupled with Moscow's unsettling silence following the attack at Latakia may signal the Kremlin is preparing to launch an attack. Mark recommends to SAC's commander, General Hawker, that SAC ask Washington to transfer the direct authority to use nuclear weapons, since the weapons-release process takes at least a minute and a half, and the U.S. expects only about a fifteen minute warning if the Soviet Union were to attack. This is granted. Minutes later, radar stations report what appear to be inbound Soviet missiles from over the Arctic, as well as possible submarine-launched missiles heading toward the East Coast. Mark realizes what he feared most has arrived and turns to walk back to his office. General Hawker orders all SAC facilities to go immediately to Red Alert. As Mark leaves, General Hawker says to him, "Thanks for the 95 seconds." In Fort Repose, Randy and his house guests are awakened by shaking due to the bombing of Miami and nearby Homestead Air Force Base. While looking at the glow to the south caused by the destruction of Miami, the family sees the nuclear explosion and mushroom cloud that destroys Tampa and MacDill Air Force Base, and which temporarily blinds Randy's niece, Peyton. These events culminate in what will later be called "The Day" by the residents of Fort Repose . . . in effect, a one-day war. The effects of "The Day" on Fort Repose are varied. Tourists are trapped in their hotels and the local bank manager tries to get instructions from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, via telegraph lines routed through Jacksonville (who already announced no messages will be sent North). But Jacksonville, as the home of Naval Station Mayport, Naval Air Station Jacksonville and Naval Air Station Cecil Field, is then destroyed by a follow-on Soviet nuclear strike and no advice is available. The local disc jockey at Fort Repose's AM radio station nervously reads instructions on the CONELRAD system. The only reliable method of news from the outside world is a shortwave radio receiver owned by one of Randy's neighbors, Sam Hazzard, a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral. Convicts escape from jails and prisons; the local retirement homes are filled with panicked people; and a run on the bank results in the bank closing and local merchants selling out of nearly all supplies. As the effects of the disintegration of society get worse, many prominent people fail. The local banker, Edgar Quisenberry, commits suicide once he realizes money is useless. Randy's political rival, Porky Logan, who obtained looted radioactive jewelry near Miami, becomes seriously ill with radiation sickness. Randy organizes his immediate neighbors to provide housing, food, and water for themselves, organizes the community into self-defense, guides his family, and helps find salt and new supplies of food when they grow short. He fights the "highwaymen" who murder residents and seriously assault Dr. Gunn in their search for narcotics and goods. Some in Fort Repose discover faith; others degenerate into drunkenness. Randy eventually learns that, as an active Army Reserve officer, he has the legal right to exercise martial law — shortly after he had already begun to do so, albeit in a de facto mode. The authority comes from an order of acting Chief Executive Josephine Vanbruuker-Brown (who prior to The Day had been the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, and is believed to be governing the country from Denver, Colorado) for any surviving active duty, reserve or national guard officers to form local militias. When Air Force helicopters finally make contact with Fort Repose again, and offer to move the families under Randy's care out of the area, none leave; they have come to believe that the life they have built in Fort Repose is at least as good, if not better, than the life they would face outside. The Air Force officer commanding the element of helicopters is Randy's old friend, Paul Hart. He reveals that Denver is now the national capital and that the United States won the war - but at a tremendous cost: the large-scale death and destruction suffered by the United States have left it a secondary (perhaps even tertiary) world power, and is the recipient of aid from third world countries such as Brazil and Venezuela. He also advises Randy's sister-in-law, Helen, that Mark was killed in the initial exchange that destroyed Offutt AFB and Omaha, leaving her free to marry Dr. Gunn, with whom she has now fallen in love. Paul also explains that nothing is left of Miami, Jacksonville, Tampa, and Orlando and that there are now two huge craters where McCoy AFB and downtown Orlando once stood. He also informs them that it will likely take a thousand years to get the contaminated areas decontaminated and habitable again. The book ends with the central characters bravely facing the "thousand year night" ahead of them.