"Uh-huh. So what are you going to man your force with-jockeys and playboys?"

"My brother and I had a White Russian outfit in Finland. I expect to recruit out of that pool."

"Aren't they scattered to h.e.l.l and gone by now?"

"No," Alex said. "I know where to find them."

"There's one thing more. The timetable."

"I'll have it as soon as I can."

"I didn't mean yours. I meant Hitler's. Inside a month it's going to start raining in Russia. Another month and that'll turn to snow. It's September now-by November it may have been decided. If Hitler takes Moscow you can forget your pipedream."

"Hitler won't take Moscow. Not that fast."

"You have a private line to the Reichschancellery that tells you this in confidence?"

"I spent some time in China," Alex said. "The j.a.panese are being absorbed there."

"What's that got to do with the price of vodka?"

"Stalin's got some of his best divisions on the China border waiting for a j.a.panese strike. The j.a.panese aren't going to turn that way. Zhukov has already put in requests for those troops to be transferred to the Moscow front. Stalin will sign the authorizations-maybe a week from now, maybe a month; it depends how close Guderian comes to Moscow."

"The timetable still applies. Stalin's ahead of the game once it's decided for sure. Your object is to knock him over while he's off balance-while the war's still undecided. That gives you your deadline."

"It's not a deadline," Alex said. "It's only a gamble. You know how military ops go. You can't predict a thing. You go by the odds. I think Stalin's on a tightrope and I think he's going to stay on it for quite a while."

"But the longer he has the better his chances. To fall off or to reach the safe end."

"Of course."

"Then don't let any gra.s.s grow under you."

"I'm already in motion," Alex said.

He found the two of them standing awkwardly beside a grey Plymouth at Andrews Field-John Spaight in a well-cut grey summer suit, Pappy Johnson in baggy seersucker. Alex stepped out of the Ford and the asphalt underfoot gave way softly in the heat. The two Secret Service men stepped out vigilantly.

"I'm quitting," Spaight said by way of greeting. "The only reason I came was to get out of the heat at Bliss. This is ridiculous." There were sweat stains on his suit.

"It's a volunteer thing," Alex said. "You can both go back right now if you want."

"Not until you clear up the mystery."

Alex shook his head. "If I explain it to you then you're in. I'm sorry but it has to be that way."

Spaight sighed theatrically and threw up his hands. "Look, we're here."

Alex consulted his watch. "We've got time before takeoff. Let's get under some shade."

In the flying officers' dayroom a huge ceiling fan revolved slowly and Pappy Johnson settled himself under it hipshot on the corner of the billiard table. Spaight brought three open bottles of Coca-Cola inside with him and handed them around and chose a place on the leather couch.

They had the place to themselves; it was two in the afternoon. Alex said, "How much did Buckner tell you?"

"Enough to whet our appet.i.tes," Spaight said. "A clandestine operation-commando-vital to the war effort, all that kind of c.r.a.p. He give you the same spiel, Captain?"

"Something like that. He sort of hinted I might end up in command of some uninhabited island in the Arctic Ocean if I didn't volunteer."

Alex said, "Disregard that. There won't be any penalty if you decide to pa.s.s it up."

"What's my job supposed to be?"

"Training pilots and bombardiers."

"Where?"

"In Scotland."

Johnson gave his toothy smile. "That's a lot closer to the war than I am now."

Alex turned to Spaight. "I asked for you for my chief of staff-for training and preparations. But it means I'll rank you."

"I did tell you they'd promote you, didn't I?"

"It may go against the grain. Does it?"

"Come off it, Alex. I don't mind taking orders from a man so long as I respect his brains. I'm a little flattered you picked me."

"You're only along for the ride. There won't be any glory in it-you'll both be left behind when this thing goes into operation."

Spaight thumbed the Coca-Cola bottle shut, shook it up and spouted foam into his mouth from eight inches away. "Can we at least watch from the bleachers?"

"I doubt it. Buckner wouldn't allow it."

"Buckner's a colonel," Spaight said. "I'll pull rank on the son of a b.i.t.c.h."

"I doubt that too, John."

Spaight nodded reluctantly. They both knew what neither had voiced: Buckner spoke with the voice of the White House.

Some of it was going over Pappy Johnson's head. "Where's that put me, then? Bottom of the totem pole again-the story of my life?"

"That's what you get." Spaight told him archly, "for wanting to fly a d.a.m.n fool airplane instead of pushing a pencil like the rest of us cunning ambitious b.a.s.t.a.r.ds."

It was going to work out, Alex thought. His two key staff officers were hitting it off.

A flight sergeant in fatigues put his head in the door. "Looking for General Danilov, sir...."

"I'm Danilov."

"Told me to tell you your plane's ready to go, sir." The sergeant saluted nervously, m.u.f.fled his curiosity about the three men in civilian clothes and went.

When they were pa.s.sing outside through the doorway Spaight said, "I notice how cleverly you've avoided telling us anything about what's really going on."

"There'll be time to talk on the plane," Alex said, tightening his eyes against the hot blast of afternoon haze.

The Secret Service watchdogs emerged from the shadows and crowded into the front seat of the waiting staff car beside the driver, two professionals in dark grey suits and hats. They had become an irritant to him in the past week; it would have been nearly impossible for a tail to keep up with Alex's movements because he had been on the run the whole time-Washington to Ohio, Michigan, back to Washington, New York, Washington yet again, now Andrews Field. If anyone was going to take a shot at him it would most likely be in Scotland after he came to rest. In the meantime these two had become as ponderous as excess baggage.

The plane was an Army C-39, the military version of the DC-2 pa.s.senger liner; inside the fuselage were sixteen seats in single rows on either side of an aisle in which Alex had to stoop when he made his way forward. Pappy Johnson had a word with the two-man flight crew and when the engines began to chatter Johnson came back to his seat and remarked, "That guy trained half the kids in my squadron. It's him you want for this job, not me."

"Has he ever dropped a bomb on a mocked-up tank?"

Johnson gave him an interested look. "No ..."

"Then you're the one I want."

The transport landed them at Logan Field at four in the afternoon and Alex came down the stairs ahead of the others and saw the three winged behemoths parked in a row beside a trio of C-47S at the end of the runway. Spaight and Johnson emerged from the pa.s.senger door and Pappy Johnson said, "Dear sweet Jesus."

John Spaight said, "They look like alligators with wings."

"You wait till you see them in the air. That B-Seventeen's the best combat aircraft ever built." Johnson came down the four metal steps eagerly and all but plucked at Alex's sleeve. "Those for us?"

"Yes."

"You mean it? All six of them?"

"That's our Air Corps."

Johnson stared at the three majestic aircraft with disbelieving awe. They dwarfed the Dakota transports beside them. "You do know how to make a man happy, Skipper."

Alex saw John Spaight wince. The two Secret Service men came down onto the concrete and Alex said, "This is where we leave you two."

"Not until you're airborne, General. That's the orders."

A civilian DC-3 was taking off, lifting and turning toward the south, beating up through a patchwork of clouds that hung out over Cape Cod Bay. Spaight said, "Let's don't gawk all day, Captain." He prodded Johnson's elbow and the five of them walked into the terminal.

An officious Army major had all the paperwork laid out in the airport ops room. Alex had to put his signature on a dozen doc.u.ments. The major kept talking in a clipped angry voice: "I'm not sure where you gentlemen get your drag but that's nearly a million and a half dollars' worth of airplanes. Every air squadron in the country's screaming for up-to-date bombers and the War Department in its wisdom decides to send these to G.o.dd.a.m.n England. Okay, I've put up six copilots and six flight engineers and five pilots out of the Ferrying Command pool-I gather one of you gentlemen will be lead pilot on the formation?"

"Me," Pappy Johnson said.

The major's acidulous attention flicked across him. "You'd better meet your crews then-Mister...?"

"Colonel," Alex lied gently. "Colonel Johnson."

The major didn't turn a hair. "Okay then Colonel. They'll want you to file a flight plan upstairs while you're at it-but meet your crews first."

Johnson ducked out of the room and the round-shouldered major came back to the desk and glanced through the papers Alex had signed. "I supposed it's all in order. But it's understood that you people are personally responsible for these aircraft. It's d.a.m.ned irregular." He turned stiffly past Alex and around behind the desk; reached forward and stacked the signed doc.u.ments neatly. Finally he said, "Just take care of those Flying Forts. We haven't got a whole lot of them to spare."

They waited in a private lounge behind the ticket counters. The two Secret Service men drank coffee and read newspapers. Spaight was smoking a cigarette. "Alex, you can't just leave me in midair with my a.s.s upside down."

"I can't make exceptions. I'm sorry."

"Then you'll have a lot of people indulging in speculations. Putting the pieces together I come up with a bombing attack on the Kremlin. Is that the plan?"

"No. That would wipe out some artwork and a few upstairs flunkies."

"Then I don't follow it. How can you get at Stalin from the air?"

"I'm sorry John. It's on a need-to-know basis."

"You're a pill, you know that?"

"Yes."

Johnson came in wearing a flattened Mae West over his flight jacket. It was a leather jacket with a big mustard fur collar lying open across his shoulders. Under the straps of the life jacket his pilot's wings could be seen. He tramped his lambskin-lined boots against the floor and beamed through his sweat. "Let's get some alt.i.tude before I swelter to death."

Spaight stubbed out his cigarette; Alex reached for his grip.

Pappy Johnson said, "Thanks for that impromptu promotion."

"I'll see if I can make it stick."

"No need. I don't care that much about rank-I fly airplanes is what I do." He pivoted toward the door, talking over his shoulder: "We'll refuel at Gander, be in Inverness tomorrow afternoon. Coffee and sandwiches on board. You'll have to ride the nose seats in my plane-those Dakotas are jammed with stinking big crates of stuff, they took all the seats out. All that junk belong to us?"

"That and more coming by convoy," Alex said.

The Secret Service guards went outside ahead of him. When he came through the doorway something chipped splinters out of the jamb beside him and something whacked his thigh like a sharp small hammer and then he was down and sliding.

He caromed against the backs of the Secret Service man's legs; the man went down and his automatic pistol fell from his hand. His partner was down on one knee with his pistol extended at arm's length, looking for a target.

Spaight and Pappy Johnson went belly-flat on the pavement. There was no cover except back through the doorway and the sniper had that zeroed in. He was somewhere across the runway in the tangle of scrub; there was a road beyond that, parallel to the runway, and then the Bay.

The guard was scrambling for his dislodged gun but it was close to Alex's hand and he picked it up by instinct because it was there: he put four fast shots into the scrub a hundred yards away, spraying from left to right, not because he expected to hit anything but because he wanted to rattle the sniper and throw off his aim. The .38 automatic bucked mildly against his palm, slipping on the sweat. He couldn't see where the bullets went; he hadn't expected to.

The other guard was sprinting left, breaking and zigzagging, angling toward the litter of weeds and shoulder-high scrub. It was probably his run that flushed the sniper: there was a quick crashing in the brush and then it all went still. The running guard was halfway across the runway and still zigzagging; the first man was drawling in Alex's ear, "You all right sir?" and reaching for his pistol. Alex handed it to him.

They heard the roar of an automobile and the sickening grind when its gears jammed into first; the screech of tires and then Alex had a glimpse of the moving black roof of the car. The guard beside him fired the last two out of his pistol and went into his pocket for a new magazine. His partner was pounding into the scrub across the field but the car had gathered speed; it wheeled inland to be absorbed into the Boston traffic.

"Shee-yit," said Pappy Johnson.

It took five hours and a telephone call to Washington before the Boston police allowed them to take off and even then all of them had to sign affidavits. A nervous doctor wanted to put Alex into hospital for observation but he managed to veto that. A big splinter from the doorjamb had gone straight through the fleshy outer part of his right thigh, drilling a subcutaneous tunnel and shredding the skin on the way out; the doctor ran an alcohol swab clear through it to cauterize the wound and taped it up with heavy bandaging. It hadn't bled much; there weren't many blood vessels in that part of the anatomy. Nor were there many nerves. A muscle had been frayed. It was more stiff than painful when he moved it.

The doctor said, "Best thing to do is sit on it. Tourniquet effect. Wad something up and put it under the bandage. Move it every ten minutes or so. An hour or so you'll go into minor shock-don't worry about it if you spend the next twelve hours asleep. But keep as warm as you can. Have you got heat in that plane?"

Pappy Johnson said, "No. We'll be using electrically heated flying suits."

"Set his up as high as it'll go."

They had dug the bullet out of the wall inside. It was a jacketed .30'06-the standard hunting and military caliber; they'd been sold by the millions in war-surplus ever since 1919. The police were sending it to the FBI lab along with whatever other clues their technicians had discovered in the sniper's shooting position but that was seacoast sand and it hadn't held footprints or tire tracks. They weren't going to learn anything.