"No, just the two. I thought I had a little fuzz a minute ago," the EWO said, "but it faded out." He didn't need to explain that with the sensitivity of his instruments, he was probably getting readings on garage-door openers as well. A moment later another ground radar was plotted. The patrol line angled back west one by one as they passed the coverage of the two E-767's, still on a southwesterly base course, now halfway down the largest home island, Honshu, which was well over three hundred miles to their right. The copilots of each of the four aircraft looked exclusively west now, while the aircraft commanders scanned for possible air traffic to their front. It was tense but routine, not unlike driving through a neighborhood in which one didn't want to live. So long as the lights were all green, you didn't get too worried—but you didn't like the looks your car got.

The crew of the third E-767 was unhappy, and their fighter escorts even more so. Enemy aircraft were looking at their coastline, and even if they were six hundred kilometers out, they still didn't belong in the neighborhood. But they switched their radar systems to standby. Probably EC-135's, they thought, surveillance aircraft, assembling an electronic order of battle for their country. And if the American mission were to gather information, then the smart thing to do was to deny them the information they wanted. And it was easy to do, or so the radar-controller officers told themselves.

We'll go closer in the next time, the aircraft commander told himself. First electronics experts would have to examine the data and try to determine what was and what wasn't safe, betting the lives of fellow Air Force officers with their conclusions. That was a happy thought. The crew relaxed, yawned, and started talking, mainly about the mission and what they had learned. Four and a half hours back to Elmendorf, and a shower, and some mandated crew rest.

The Japanese controllers were still not completely sure that they'd had contacts at all, but that would be determined by examining their onboard tapes. Their patrol patterns returned to their normal monitoring of commercial air traffic, and a few comments were exchanged on why the devil that traffic still continued. The answers were mainly shrugs and raised eyebrows and even more uncertainty than had existed when they'd thought they were tracking contacts. There was just something about looking at a radar screen for more than a few hours. Sooner or later your imagination took over, and the more you thought about it, the worse it got. But that, they knew, was the same for the other side in the game, too.