Three quarters of the runway passed, and she was still glued to the ground. Time seemed to dissolve in a blur. They all felt as though they w re flying into a void. Then suddenly the lights of the jeeps parked beside the end of the runway burst through the curtain of rain.

"God almighty!" Stromp blurted. "Pull her up!"

Dennings waited another three seconds, and then he gently eased the wheel toward his chest. The B-29's wheels came free. She had barely clawed thirty feet out of the sky when the runway vanished and she struggled over the forbidding water.

Morrison stood outside the warmth of the radar but under the downpour, his four-man staff dutifully standing behind him. He watched the takeoff of Dennings' Demons more in his mind than his eyes. He saw little more than the lurch of the bomber as Dennings thrust the throttles forward and released the brakes before it was lost in the dark.

He cupped his ears and listened to the engine's pitch diminish in the distance. The uneven sound was faint. No one but a master flight mechanic or an aircraft engineer could have caught it, and Morrison had served in both capacities during his early Army Air Corps career.

An engine was slightly out of tune. One or more of its eighteen cylinders was not firing continuously.

Fearfully, Morrison listened for some sign the bomber was not going to lift off. If Dennings' Demons crashed on takeoff, every living thing on the island would be incinerated within seconds.

Then the radar man shouted through the open door, "They're airborne!"

Morrison exhaled a tense sigh. Only then did he turn his back on the miserable weather and walk inside.

There was nothing to do now but send a message to General Groves in Washington informing him that Mother's Breath was on her way to Japan. Then wait and hope.

But down deep the general was troubled. He knew Dennings. The man was too stubborn to turn back with a bad engine. Dennings would get the Demons to Osaka if he had to carry the plane on his back.

"God help them," Morrison muttered under his breath. He knew with dread finality his part of the immense operation didn't stand a prayer.

"Gear up," ordered Dennings.

"Am I ever glad to hear those words," grunted Stromp as he moved the lever. The gear motors whined and the three sets of wheels rose into their wells under the nose and wings. "Gear up and locked."

As the airspeed increased, Dennings dropped the throttle settings to save on fuel. He waited before beginning a slow and gentle climb for altitude until the airspeed touched 200 knots. Unseen off the starboard wing, the Aleutian Island chain slowly curled northeast. They would not sight land again for 2,500 miles.

"How's that number-four engine?" he asked Mosely.

"Pulling her share, but she's running a tad hot."