Pitt briskly dried his lean body and then shaved. After he finished, he blew the tiny black hairs out of the cordless electric shaver and patted his face with British Sterling aftershave lotion. When he stepped into the bedroom, Giordino and Colonel Lewis were waiting.

Lewis sat on the edge of the bed and twisted one end of an immense red handlebar moustache. His large rosy face and twinkling blue eyes along with the large brush on his upper lip gave him the appearance of a jolly lumberjack. His movements and his speech were rapid, almost jerky, giving Pitt the impression that the Colonel had a pound of ground glass in his crotch.

"Sorry to break in on you like this," boomed Lewis. "But I'm interested in knowing whether or not you've run onto anything substantial concerning the attack yesterday."

Pitt was nude, but he didn't give a damn. "No, nothing positive. I've several hunches and a couple of ideas, but very few absolute facts to build an airtight case with."

"I was hoping you might have stumbled on a lead. My Air Investigation Squadron has struck out."

"Have you found any remains of the Albatros?" asked Pitt.

Lewis rubbed a hand across his sweaty forehead. "If that old crate crashed into the sea, it left no trace; not even a small oil slick. It and its pilot must have vanished into thin air."

"Maybe it reached the mainland," said Giordino.

"Negative," replied Lewis. "We can't find a soul over there who saw it going or coming."

Giordino nodded in agreement. "An old plane painted bright yellow with a top speed of only one hundred and three miles an hour couldn't help but be noticed if it crossed over the strait into Macedonia."

Lewis took out a package of cigarettes. "What really confuses me is the fact that the attack was well planned and executed. Whoever raided the field knew no aircraft were scheduled to land or take off during his strafing runs."

Pitt buttoned his shirt and adjusted the gold oak leaves on his shoulders. "Obtaining information would be easy since everyone on Thasos probably knows that Brady Field becomes a ghost town on Sundays. Actually this whole affair is very similar in strategy to the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese down to the detail of sneaking in through a pass in the island mountain range."

Lewis lit his cigarette, being careful not to singe his moustache. "You're right, of course but there's no doubt that your unexpected arrival in the flying boat caught our attacker, as well as ourselves, off guard. Our own radar failed to track your Catalina because you flew the last two hundred miles on the deck." He exhaled a cloud of smoke. "I can't begin to tell you what a welcome surprise it was to see your old bird come thundering down out of the sun."