Vylander gazed at the strip of asphalt ahead. The snowfall had lightened, and he could almost see the halfway marker. His heart began to throb a little faster, keeping time with the rapid beat of the windshield wipers. God, he thought to himself, it looks no bigger than a shuffleboard court. As if in a trance, he reached over and picked up his hand mike.

"Buckley Control, this is Vixen 03. Ready to roll. Over."

"She's all yours, Vixen 03," the familiar voice of Admiral Bass scratched through the headphones. "Save a big-chested native girl for me."

Vylander simply signed off, released the brakes, and shoved the four throttles against their stops.

The C-97 pushed her bulbous nose into the blowing snow and began her struggle down the long ribbon of pavement as Gold began calling out the increasing ground speed in a monotone.

"Fifty knots."

All too soon an illuminated sign with a large number 9 flashed by.

"Nine thousand feet to go," Gold droned. "Ground speed seventy."

The white runway lights blurred past the wing tips. The Stratocruiser lunged onward, the powerful Pratt-Whitney engines straining in their mounts, their four-bladed propellers clawing at. the rarefied air, Vylander's hands were cemented to the wheel, his knuckles twisted white, his lips murmuring intermingled prayers and curses.

"One hundred knots… seven thousand feet left."

Burns's eyes never left his instrument panel, studying every twitch of the gauge needles, ready to detect the first signs of trouble. Hoffman could do nothing but sit there helplessly and watch the runway dissolve at what seemed to him an excessive rate of speed.

"One twenty-five."

Vylander was fighting the controls now, as the vicious crosswind attacked the control surfaces. A trickle of sweat rolled unnoticed down his left cheek and dropped into his lap. Grimly, he waited for some sign indicating that the craft was beginning to lighten, but it still felt as though a giant hand were pushing against the cabin's roof.

"One hundred thirty-five knots. Kiss the five-thousand-foot marker farewell."

"Lift baby, lift," Hoffman pleaded as Gold's readings began falling one on top of the other.

"One hundred forty-five knots. Three thousand feet left." He turned to Wander. "We just passed the go, no-go point."

"So much for Admiral Bass's safety margin," Vylander muttered.

"Two thousand feet coming up. Ground speed one fifty-five."

Vylander could see the red lights at the end of the runway. It felt as though he were steering a rock. Gold kept glancing at him nervously, anticipating the movement of the elbows that meant the major had engaged the controls for the climb. Vylander sat still, as immovable as a sack of Portland cement.

"Oh God… the one-thousand-foot marker, going, going, gone."

Vylander gently eased back the control column. For almost three seconds, which seemed an eternity, nothing happened. But then with agonizing slowness the Stratocruiser slipped the ground and staggered aloft a scant fifty yards before the asphalt stopped.

"Gear up!" he said hoarsely.

There were a few uneasy moments until the landing gear thumped inside their wheel wells and Vylander could feel a slight increase in airspeed.

"Gear up and locked," said Gold.

The flaps were raised at four hundred feet and the men in the cabin expelled a great, collective sigh of relief as Vylander banked into a shallow turn to the northwest. The lights of Denver blinked beneath the port wing but quickly became lost as the overcast closed in. Vylander didn't relax fully until the airspeed crept over two hundred knots and the altimeter showed thirty-five hundred feet between the plane and the ground.

"Up, up and away," sighed Hoffman. "I don't mind admitting I had a couple of tiny doubts there for a while."

"Join the club," said Burns, grinning.

As soon as he broke through the clouds and leveled the Stratocruiser out at sixteen thousand feet on a westerly heading over the Rockies. Vylander motioned to Gold.

"Take her. I'm going to make a check aft."

Gold looked at him. The major did not normally relinquish the controls so early in the flight.

"Got her," Gold acknowledged, placing his hands on the yoke.

Vylander released his seat belt and shoulders harness and stepped into the cargo section, making sure the door to the cockpit was closed behind him.

He counted thirty-six of the gleaming stainless-steel canisters, firmly strapped to wooden blocks on the deck. He began carefully checking the surface area of each canister. He searched for the usual stenciled military markings denoting weight, date of manufacture, inspector's initials, handling instructions. There were none.

After nearly fifteen minutes he was about to give up and return to the cockpit when he spotted a small aluminum plate that had fallen down between the blocks. It had an adhesive backing, and Vylander felt a tinge of smugness as he matched it to a sticky spot of stainless steel where it had once been bonded. He held the plate up to the dim cabin light and squinted at its smooth side. The tiny engraved marking confirmed his worst fear.

He stood for a time, staring at the little aluminum plate. Suddenly he was jolted out of his reverie by a lurch of the aircraft. He rushed across the cargo cabin and threw open the door to the cockpit.

It was filled with smoke.

"Oxygen masks!" Vylander shouted. He could barely make out the outlines of Hoffman and Burns. Gold was completely enveloped in the bluish haze. He groped his way to the pilot's seat and fumbled for his oxygen mask, wincing at the acrid smell of an electrical short circuit.

"Buckley Tower, this is Vixen 03," Gold was yelling into a microphone "We have smoke in the cockpit. Request emergencylanding instruction. Over."

"Taking over the controls," said Vylander.

"She's yours." Gold's acceptance came without hesitation.

"Burns?"

"Sir?"

"What in hell's gone wrong?"

"Can't tell for sure with all this smoke, Major." Burns's voice sounded hollow under the oxygen mask. "It looks like a short in the area of the radio transmitter."

"Buckley Tower, this is Vixen 03," Gold persisted. "Please come in."

"It's no use, Lieutenant," Burns gasped. "They can't hear you. Nobody can hear you. The circuit breaker for the radio equipment won't stay set."

Vylander's eyes were watering so badly he could hardly see. "I'm bringing her around on a course back to Buckley," he announced calmly.

But before he could complete the hundred-and-eighty-degree turn, the C-97 started to vibrate abruptly in unison with a metallic ripping sound. The smoke disappeared as if by magic and a frigid blast of air tore into the small enclosure, assailing the men's exposed skin like a thousand wasps. The plane was shaking herself to pieces.

"Number-three engine threw a propeller blade!" Burns cried.

"Jesus Christ, it never rains… Shut down three!" snapped Vylander, "and feather what's left of the prop."

Gold's hands flew over the control panel, and soon the vibration ceased. His heart sinking, Vylander gingerly tested the controls. His breath quickened and a growing dread mushroomed inside him.

"The prop blade ripped through the fuselage," Hoffman reported. "There's a sixfoot gash in the cargo-cabin wall. Cables and hydraulic lines are dangling all over."

"That explains where the smoke went," Gold said wryly. "It was sucked outside when we lost cabin pressure."