The bureau had yet to reply when the authorities learned of an explosion outside Thermopolis, Wyoming (I'm fuzzy on some details, but not that one; my Alaskan missionary mind refuses to forget such a warm-sounding place). Residents had seen what appeared to be a parachute, rocketing toward earth with fatal speed. Shortly after came a tremendous explosion, and bright flames of a bizarre red hue leapt in answer to the sound. The next morning, locals set out to discover what had happened, and there, fifteen miles northwest of town, they came upon a great crater littered with shrapnel. There was talk of comets and flying saucers. The police notified the military.

Not long after, the Fourth Air Force, responsible for the air defense of the western United States, learned of a gigantic paper balloon that had crashed outside Kalispell, Montana. Its construction, though elaborately conceived, was somewhat makeshift, and authorities initially believed it had been assembled and launched from a nearby German prisoner-of-war camp or one of the Japanese internment camps.

But within the next few weeks, dozens more balloons were sighted. Some as far north as Saskatchewan and others just south of Santa Barbara. And while evidence of some of the early landings had disappeared in explosions, more balloons began to be recovered intact. (One western sheriff bravely, or comically, leapt after a balloon's trailing line as it near ed the ground; it bounced and dragged him across the desert for several miles before he finally managed to stop and anchor it.)

The balloons found intact dispelled much of the mystery that had initially surrounded them. Since the Japanese had assumed any evidence of the balloon weapon would be destroyed in an explosion, they had done little to mask the weapon's source: serial numbers and other designations, written in Japanese, were printed directly on the balloon. Further evidence was found in the sandbags that served as ballast: government geologists determined the sand used was particular to the east coast of Japan 's mainland, or largest island, Honshu.

Slowly, it became clear what was happening. Japan had developed and was deploying the world's first intercontinental warheads. And so far, America 's defense consisted of tall trees and wide-open spaces.

CHAPTER 3

WE WERE IN THE AIR BEFORE SUNRISE, THE CAPTAIN, HIS men, their prize, and me all onboard a C-47 bound north. We refueled at first light in Seattle, and then started up to Anchorage. What takes three hours today took nine back then-or more, depending on whether the pilot had ever flown to Alaska before.

I wish the trip had lasted even longer. Three hours, nine hours- one hundred hours probably wouldn't be enough transition time from the Outside world to Alaska. But these are the illusions planes perpetuate: the intimacy of great distances, the seeming absence of life below, and worst of all, the notion that by flying over the land, you have somehow conquered it. I rely on planes now; we all do. But there is an aspect to them that I hate, and it is the distance they put between you and the ground. The view, of course, is gorgeous, but it is completely sanitized, static beyond the glass, sometimes hidden beneath clouds. It allows you to think of Alaska the way the rest of the world does, a gigantic, postcard-perfect park, its mountains and trees and glaciers, however distant, reassuringly reachable and safe.

I still remember that first trip, how strangely soft everything below looked, the towering peaks buried in snow and clouds. I would have stayed at the window the entire time, but the captain called me forward to hear my explanation of how I'd ended up at Fort Cronkhite. He offered no explanations of his own in return, other than to say that my leave had been canceled. He said I'd find out what I needed to know soon enough-both about my posting and our odd cargo. I asked if I could take a look at the wreckage stowed in the cargo bay, and for a moment, he looked ready to agree, but then shook his head and told me to catch some sleep. I went to my jump seat and closed my eyes, but all I could see was that balloon, floating there, closer and closer, bigger and bigger. I wanted to reach out and touch it, but I couldn't, even while dreaming. I finally fell back, frustrated, and let the balloon hang there in my mind, my arm lifted, hand outstretched.

WHAT I CAUGHT, instead, was a message delivered to me directly by the empire of Japan.

I'd gone downtown into Anchorage after we landed, and was standing on Fourth Avenue, screwing up my courage to enter a bar. I had plenty of choices. A low-flying plane buzzed overhead. No one looked up; enough planes were flying in and out of Elmendorf Field those days that the skies above were noisier than the streets below. But then we heard the rumble of antiaircraft guns, the whine of more planes. While my fellow passersby dove for the sidewalk-or the safety of a bar entrance-I stood there, stupidly, staring up, watching the sky fall.

The plane had dropped a barrage of leaflets, printed on very thin, rose-colored paper. For a few minutes, the air was full of them, thousands of slips dancing between those of us still standing, as though human speech had hardened with the chill and become visible.

SSURRenndderr, it began, and I remember the spelling very specifically, because it seemed like the writer was drunk-or that it had been written for drunks, in which case, it had found its target on Fourth Avenue. As other people bent to pick up the slips, I tried sounding out the word as it was written, but my efforts were drowned out by a tremendous explosion. I dropped.

It has always surprised people, especially later in life, that I am so skittish at the sound of an explosion-they think ice-cold stoicism was the first thing they'd teach someone defusing bombs. But the truth is just the opposite. You were trained to be afraid, to be cautious, to move slowly, and if you sensed a boom, to flatten yourself before the blast did. I wouldn't be surprised if they taught things differently now, but back then, we weren't really learning how to defuse bombs. In some cases, it didn't matter if we made mistakes or not-either way, the bomb would disappear. Whether or not we went with it was up to us.

The end of the message was more curious, just three words: WOMAN! FAMILIES! FARMS!!! It summoned up some kidlike frustration in me: I wanted to know what they were saying. Surrender, yes, but what about this last bit? Why one woman? Whose families? What farms?

I stayed down on the ground, even as I heard other folks getting up. I guess I was instinctively waiting for the all-clear signal from training days, and once I came to my senses, I slowly dusted myself off. When I heard nothing but voices, and in the distance, some sirens, I realized they'd gotten the plane. They'd shot him down, or perhaps he'd crashed-one of those then-bizarre “kamikaze dives” we'd heard happened much farther south in the Pacific theater. I read my slip again, said the word aloud, softly, felt my tongue flicker like a snake's: “SSURRenndderr.” I wasn't much of a soldier. Just hearing the word-hearing me say it-made me shiver slightly.

Most other folks were laughing and yelling. One of the bar owners had burst onto the street shouting that he would honor the slips as coupons, each worth a penny before 5 P.M. Another door to another bar popped open with shouts of a better offer. Soon enough, the streets of Anchorage were overcome with the sort of riot that the pilot, gone to his glory had intended.

I USED TO JOKE-I suppose you could call it joking-that the kamikaze pilot represented the whole of my Alaskan welcoming committee. He certainly did better than the Army which did its best to ignore me during my first weeks above the sixtieth parallel, to such a degree that I eventually had wandered downtown in time for the kamikaze pilot.