Zavala laughed with delight. “You should have been a magician. You couldn't have done better pulling a rabbit out of a hat.”

“This rabbit jumped into my lap. After Sandecker met with LeGrand, the CIA poked around and came up with Martin's personal effects. They must have been in a hurry to get rid of in criminating evidence and didn't vet the stuff thoroughly. Buzz found the notebook tucked into his father's uniform. He thought it might contain something of importance and gave it to me just before we left Washington.”

Zavala thumbed through the curling pages. “I don't see a de tailed map to follow.”

“You didn't think this was going to be easy, did you?” Austin took the book back and opened to a page where he had placed a yellow sticky tab. "Martin was a good soldier. He knew that loose lips sink ships. Most of the diary is devoted to how he missed his wife and kid. But he let a few things sneak in. Here, let me read you the first paragraph:

“To my dear wife Phyllis and son Buzz. Maybe someday you will read this. I had a lot of time on my hands and started this diary on the way to No-Name. If the brass knew I was taking notes, I'd be in hot water. This thing is even more secret than the Manhattan Project. As the spooks frequently reminded me, I'm just a dumb sky jockey who's sup posed to follow orders and not ask questions. Sometimes I feel more like a prisoner: I'm kept under close supervision with the rest of the crew. So I guess this journal is a way of saying, hey, I'm a person. They're feeding us well, Phyllis, I know how you worry about the way I eat. Lots of good fresh meat and fish. The Quonset hut was not made for the frozen north. The snow slides off the roof but metal is a lousy insulator. We keep the wood stove going day and night. We'd be better off in an igloo. The plane gets the first-class accommodations in its hidey-hole. Sorry to complain. I'm lucky to be flying this baby! I can't believe an aircraft as big as this can maneuver like a fighter plane. It's definitely the aviation wave of the future. ”

Austin stopped reading. “He goes on to say how homesick he is and how glad he'll be to get back.”

“Too bad Martin didn't get to enjoy that future. He had no idea he was not only a prisoner but a condemned man as well.”

“Martin wasn't the first or last patriot thrown to the dogs in the interests of what the higher-ups said was the greater good. Unfortunately he can't have the satisfaction of knowing his little diary will show us the way to No-Name.”

“That's even more obscure than the dateline they used to use during the war: 'Somewhere in the Pacific.' ”

“I thought so, too, until I remembered a story I heard years ago. Seems a British Navy officer sailing off Alaska in the 1850s saw land that wasn't on the chart so he wrote in '? Name.' The Admiralty draftsman who recopied the chart thought the question mark was a C and that the a in Name was an o. No name became Cape Nome which became Nome. Here's something else: 'Uneventful trip from Seattle. Plane handles like a dream. Touched down thirty minutes past No-Name.'”