The Boeing C-97 Stratocruiser bore the look of a crypt. Perhaps the image was bred by the cold winter night, or perhaps it came from the gusting snow that was piling an icy shroud on the wings and fuselage. The flickering lights from the cockpit windshield and the fleeting shadows of the maintenance crew served only to exaggerate the chilling scene.

Major Raymond Vylander, United States Air Force, did not care for what he saw. He watched silently as the fuel truck drove away and vanished into the stormy darkness. The loading ramp was dropped from the rear of the great whale-like belly, and then the cargo doors slowly swung closed, cutting off a rectangle of light that spilled onto a heavyduty forklift. He shifted his gaze slightly and stared at the twin rows of white lights bordering the eleven-thousand-foot Buckley Naval Air Station runway that stretched across the plains of Colorado. Their ghostly luminescence marched into the night and gradually faded behind the curtain of falling snow.

He refocused his eyes and studied the weary face reflected in the windowpane. His cap was pushed carelessly back, revealing a dense thicket of umber hair. His shoulders were hunched forward and he wore the taut look of a hundred-meters runner poised for the starter's gun. His transparent reflection, bleeding through the glass into that of the aircraft in the background, caused him to shiver involuntarily. He closed his eyes, pushed the scene into the far reaches of his mind, and refaced the room.

Admiral Walter Bass, who sat on the edge of a desk, neatly folded a meteorological chart, then patted his sweating forehead with a handkerchief and nodded at Vylander.

"The weather front is moving off the eastern slope of the Rockies. You should break out of the overcast somewhere over the Continental Divide."

"Providing I can get that big-assed bird off the ground."

"You'll do it."

"Lifting a heavy plane with a full fuel load and a cargo weighing seventy thousand pounds in the middle of a blizzard with a thirty-knot crosswind from a ground altitude of five thousand feet isn't exactly a garden-variety takeoff."

"Every factor has been carefully considered," Bass said coldly. "Your wheels should leave the earth with a margin of three thousand feet of runway to spare."

Vylander dropped into a chair like a deflated balloon. "Is it worth risking the necks of my crew, Admiral? Just what is so damned vital to the U.S. Navy that it has to drag an Air Force plane out in the middle of nowhere in the dead of night to haul some junk to an island in the Pacific Ocean?"

For a moment Bass's face flushed, and then it softened. When he spoke, it was gently, almost apologetically. "It's painfully simple, Major. That junk, as you call it, is a top-priority cargo destined for a highly classified test program. Since your Stratocruiser was the only heavy transport within a thousand miles that can do the job, the Air Force consented to put her on temporary loan to the Navy. They threw you and your crew into the bargain, and that's all there is to it."

Vylander shot Bass a penetrating stare. "I don't mean to sound insubordinate, Admiral. but that's not all, not by a long shot."

Bass walked around the desk and sat down. "You're to consider it a routine flight, nothing more."

"I'd appreciate it, sir, if you'd throw me a bone and enlighten me as to what's inside those canisters in my cargo cabin."

Bass avoided his eyes. "Sorry, it's highly classified material."

Vylander knew when he was licked. He swayed wearily to his feet, picked up the vinyl folder containing his flight plan and charts, and walked toward the door. Then he hesitated and turned. "In the event we have to ditch — "

"Don't! If an in-flight emergency develops," Bass said solemnly, "you ride her down into a nonpopulated area."

"That's asking too much."

"I'm not making a formal request; I'm giving an order! You and your crew are not to abandon the aircraft between here and your destination, regardless of how dire the circumstances."

Vylander's face clouded. "Then I guess that's it."

"There is one more thing."

"Which is?"

"Good luck," Bass said, his lips edging into a tight grin.

It was a grin Vylander didn't like, not one tiny bit. He pulled open the door and, without replying, walked out into the cold.

In the control cabin, slouched so far down that the back of his head rested a good foot below his headrest, Lieutenant Sam Gold, Vylander's copilot, preoccupied himself with a flight checklist while, behind him off to his left, Captain George Hoffman, the crew's navigator, fiddled with a plastic protractor. Neither man paid the slightest acknowledgment to Vylander as he stepped through the bulkhead door leading from the cargo cabin.

"Course plotted?" Vylander inquired of Hoffman.

"All the preliminary dirty work has been figured by the Navy experts. Can't say as I agree with their choice of scenic routes, though. They've got us flying over the most desolate country in the West."

A worried expression came over Vylander's face, which didn't go unnoticed by Hoffman. The major looked over his shoulder at the huge metal canisters strapped down in the cargo section and tried to summon up a vision of their contents.

His contemplation was interrupted by the Buster Keaton-deadpan face of Master Sergeant joe Burns, the flight engineer, peering around the cabin door. "All buttoned up and ready for the wild blue yonder, Major." Vylander nodded without taking his eyes off the sinister-lo o king canisters. "Okay, let's put this chamber of horrors on the road."

The first engine turned over and sputtered to life, followed quickly by the other three. Then the auxiliary-power unit was unplugged, the chocks holding the wheels were pulled, and Vylander began taxiing the overburdened aircraft toward the end of the main runway. The security guards and the maintenance crew turned away and scurried for the warmth of a nearby hangar as the prop wash lashed their backs.

Admiral Bass stood in the Buckley control tower and watched the Stratocruiser crawl like a pregnant bug across the snow-swept field. A phone was clutched in his hand and he spoke quietly into the receiver.

"You may inform the President that Vixen 03 is preparing for takeoff."

"When do you figure its estimated time of arrival?" asked the stern voice of Charles Wilson, Secretary of Defense, through the earpiece.

"Allowing for a fuel stop at Hickam Field, in Hawaii, Vixen 03 should touch down in the test area approximately 1400 hours Washington time."

"lke has scheduled us for 0800 hours tomorrow. He insists on a detailed briefing of the upcoming experiments and a running report on Vixen 03's flight progress."

"I'll take off for Washington immediately."

"I don't have to paint you a picture, Admiral, of what would happen if that plane crashed in or near a major city."

Bass hesitated in what seemed a long and terrible silence. "Yes, Mr. Secretary, it would indeed be a nightmare none of us could live with."

"The manifold pressure and the torque read a shade low across the board," announced Sergeant Burns. He watched over the engineer's panel with the intensity of a ferret.

"Enough to abort?" Gold asked hopefully.

"Sorry, Lieutenant. Internal-combustion engines won't perform in the thin mountain air of Denver like they will at sea level. Considering the altitude, the gauge readings are par for the course."