“That's big country,” Zavala said lazily. “Any idea of our next port of call after Nome?”

Austin leaned back, laced his fingers behind his head, and stared into space. His broad mouth curled in a wry smile. “More or less,” he said.

Zavala knew his partner wasn't trying to be mysterious. Austin simply didn't like surprises. When time allowed he cautiously collected the facts before making a move. Zavala pointed downward. “I'm sure it doesn't come as any surprise to you that there is more down there than less.”

“Something like six hundred thousand square miles, last I heard. I have no illusions about the formidable task we're up against. We could search until we became eligible for NUMA pensions and not find a thing.” Austin's brow furrowed in thought. “That's why I decided to work my way backward from what we know, not what we don't know.”

Zavala swiftly grasped the premise. “We know what the tar get was in the Soviet Union.” He pointed on the map to the northwest coast of Alaska where blunt fingers of the ragged coastline, all that remained of the old land bridge, reached to ward Asia. “What was the flying wing's statistical range?”

“Around three thousand miles cruising at around five hundred miles per hour. I'm assuming that its fuel storage capacity would have been beefed up to extend the range as much as possible for this mission.”

“There's always the possibility of midair refueling,” Zavala said.

“I've taken that into consideration. I'm guessing that they would have kept the operation simple and short to avoid detection.”

Taking a sharp pencil in hand, Austin drew an arc from Barrow to the Yukon Delta.

Zavala let out a low whistle. “You're talking about a trip that could be more than a thousand miles from target. That's still a lot of territory to cover.”

“It's bigger than some states,” Austin acknowledged. “So I made an educated guess. The cloak-and-dagger boys wanted to keep this crazy scheme as hush-hush as possible. Building a new base would be costly and time-consuming, and most important, it might attract unwanted attention.”

Zavala snapped his fingers. “They would use an existing base.”

Austin nodded. “During World War II, Alaska bristled with gun emplacements and airfields because of fears Japan would invade. Each red dot on the map denotes an airstrip from World War II.”

Zavala pondered the problem. “What if the base were secret?”

“It was secret, at least up to now.” Austin jabbed the map with his pencil at Nome and drew a wide circle around the dot. “We'll find what we're looking for here, although I must admit that with all the suppositions I've made, it's still a crap shoot.”

Zavala studied the map, and his lips twitched up at the corners in his trademark smile. “How can you be certain this is the right area? The plane could have taken off from dozens of places.”

“I had a little help from a ghost.” Austin reached into his jacket pocket and produced a small spiral-bound notebook. The brown cover was worn, but it was still possible to read the words “U.S. Army Air Force” and the name inked just below. He handed the notebook to Zavala. “This is the diary of Buzz Martin's father, the pilot who flew the wing on its last mission.”