“The best way to keep a secret is to tell as many people as possible?” Gurley said. I tensed for a fist or foot to come flying. “Tell as many journalists?” he pressed. “We all have a job,” he said. “Our job is to beat the enemy to a bloody pulp. Their job is to sell papers.” I stared at the ground. “So newsmen can choose. They can either be on our side or the enemy's.” Gurley had concocted his own response plan for balloon sightings. Get a recovery team there as quickly as possible and collect or destroy any piece of evidence that the balloon had arrived. If the initial spotters or witnesses were military, the follow-up was easy. Gurley ordered their silence and made job-specific threats to ensure it.

If the witnesses were civilian, the job became a little more involved. Depending on what they had seen-or thought they had seen-Gurley would either order their silence (and call on them to consider that silence a patriotic duty) or, more often, he would tell them the balloon was a U.S. Army weather balloon that had gone awry. He wouldn't go into details, or make the balloon's mission seem secret at all, figuring that the more he downplayed its importance, the less likely the witness would be to spread the news.

But now, Gurley's plan-indeed, his whole mission-was in jeopardy. He had been summoned to San Francisco by his superiors to discuss the progress of balloon interdiction efforts. Or rather, the decline of such efforts. Early on, the numbers of balloons spotted had climbed steadily, week after week. Then they had stabilized, and recently, had begun to decline. The question now was whether to scale back American efforts to track and recover balloons. After all, resources were needed elsewhere, especially as U.S. forces drew ever closer to Japan. Instead of soldiers, the U.S. would now rely on local authorities and private citizens to find and report balloons. The press ban would be lifted; a general alert would be issued.

Gurley, of course, disagreed.

“It's not just about me, Sergeant,” he said. “It's not just that I sense dark forces are, yet again, trying to sweep me into some forgotten corner of the war. I have America 's interests at heart.” He looked at me. “This campaign has only begun. These first balloons, what have they carried? Piddly little incendiary or antipersonnel bombs? You don't develop an entire program like this to start a few brush fires. Think, Sergeant.”

I did, but all I could think of was how Gurley really was taking this personally.

“There's worse coming, Belk. That must be evident, even to you.” He looked at me and waited. “A man, Sergeant. Manned balloons. An invasion force. Saboteurs. Spies. Silently dropped behind enemy lines.” He looked back toward the terminal, as if to make sure no one had overheard him. “Angels, indeed.”

“Where?” I asked, or stammered, honestly frightened-though more of Gurley than of what his imagination had produced.

“Well, I doubt they're in goddamn San Francisco with my so-called superiors.” He turned around, waved broadly at the mountains that formed a backdrop to the base. “Here, Belk. Alaska. In the vast, concealing wilderness. Our backyard, Belk. We have to find them. And damn soon, before we get shut down. So you shall be busy while I'm gone.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, looking up to the mountains, their crowns still scabbed with snow.

Gurley followed my gaze. “Not up there, you ninny. Or who knows, maybe. But we're not going to go hiking around aimlessly- I'm certainly not going to go hiking around anywhere-no, start your search here. Back at 520. Start with the book. I trust you came up with nothing?”

“No sir,” I said. “Nothing yet.” I'd stayed in the office until midnight, staring at the book until the watercolor maps seemed to animate, its rivers flow and grasses glisten after a rain. Which seemed like more than a book could or should do, so I had closed it and crept back to the barracks for sleep.

Gurley shook his head. “Well, of course I didn't expect a child prodigy. Just someone to put in the tedious work of comparing the book's maps to ours, quadrant by quadrant, feature by feature. Tedious work-you can see why I thought of you.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but didn't utter a sound when I saw Gurley's face harden into the one he assumed before delivering a blow. “Sergeant Belk,” he said, low and even. “One balloon, one explosion, one leg. I almost had my war taken from me.” He straightened up. “I barely held on to my commission. I had to fight to even get posted to this godforsaken place. They'd rather have me in a bathrobe and wheelchair in Princeton. If we fail to find more balloons, or worse still, find one and handle it injudiciously-if I lose the second leg-or a hand, or an arm, or an eye, or the skin off my fucking face-it won't matter how much I yell. I'll be shipped home before the blood's even soaked through the bandages.” He took a deep breath. “Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“I shall close by letting you in on a final secret,” Gurley said. “A trifle compared to all that I have told you so far, but still, a secret, and an important one nonetheless.”

“Sir?”

“Right, then: I know almost nothing about defusing bombs.”

He paused.

“And thus, I shall leave those details… to you.”

I could only stare at him. He wore the same bomb disposal insignia I did. I'd assumed that when he'd gotten himself assigned to this mission he had picked up the bomb disposal training that went with it. Of course he would have. He'd learned, hadn't he, the price explosives exacted from the ignorant?

“Sir,” I began, searching for the best way to phrase this. He was an officer, I was the sergeant. The way things worked-

“You're incapable of this?” Gurley asked. “I was told you were the best in your class. Now that I have had some time to observe you, I can see that it was not much of a class, but still, I had certain expectations.”

“Sir,” I began, thinking back to Manzanar, the pit, Sergeant Redes, and the “rare” fuze pocket that had simply fallen out of the bomb. Damnedest thing. I tried again. “Our training was-I mean, didn't you- well-there was always, you know, an officer who actually did the, well, the last part. That's procedure, proper procedure and all.”

“So I understand,” said Gurley. “And so it was here, until recently. But, as I believe I've said, they've been trying to shut me down. Starve me. I used to have a full detail, including a young lieutenant, planning to read history at Oxford when this was all done.” Gurley's actor's mask fell for a moment, and then he resumed. “I must admit, I took a certain shine to him, although he was given to a younger man's ways. And, of course, he was no good at his job, or I assume as much, because he blew himself right up on the team's second mission.”

“I'm sorry to hear that, sir,” I said, though I was barely listening. All I could think of was: It s up to me-I'm defusing the bombs. And then: “ Your Nazis, they build a good bomb…”

“Well, I was pretty damn sorry as well. Not just because he was a good sort, but-an officer. That's when it struck me, this little swipe of genius: this is the work of an enlisted man. Talented, capable, yes, but enlisted. No need to waste officers on such. Surely you agree?”

“Sir, I'm not sure that, well, in training, they-”

“Yes, of course, they're always behind in training. No, no, Sergeant, I'm quite pleased with my proposal, and expect you to be as well. Or… I can… reassign you, if you like.” He looked back toward the terminal. “I'm frequently told that young and able men are needed to clear out caves and bunkers on treeless islands throughout the Pacific. North or south, your choice.” He waited.

“No, sir,” I said quietly.

“No to the north, or south? Aleutians or Philippines?”

“I'm your man, Captain,” I said. “For this mission.” Gurley said nothing for a full minute, and I could feel him staring at me the whole time.