The Cloud Atlas

“My word, dear Sergeant. When I told you to search out incoming balloons, I was just-well, not joking, no, not joking at all, this is deadly serious-but I don't expect you, or anyone, to really know where each individual balloon is going to land. It's touching, of course, that you stayed up all night in an effort to obey my somewhat facetious order-facetious, Belk? Another word for your list-and if that atlas tells you something about the balloons' design or construction that we don't already know, or if you pick up something that leads you to believe you know what general areas they're targeting, or what they might be planning, okay.”

“Shuyak,” I said. Was that what Lily had said? Every time I tried to replay the memory, the sound of what she said changed. But my mouth was still working, words kept coming out. “Oh-seven-hundred Alaskan War Time tomorrow morning.” Now Gurley looked at me sharply. “North-northwest corner of the island.”

“The corner?” he asked slowly. “You're making this up.” I was.

“Corner-quadrant-whatever. The northwest part of the island,” I said. It was exhilarating, lying I felt more specifics arriving-wind speed, temperature, type of blast-but what reason remained in me held my imagination in check.

He looked up at the map again. “Closer in, maybe.” He ran his hand back along the Aleutian Chain, up onto the Alaska Peninsula and over to Kodiak. “Eureka,” he said. “Shuyak? Just north of Kodiak, right?” I nodded. He tapped the map. “That's not so far from here.” He thought about this, and then asked, “Oh-seven-hundred?” I nodded. He stared at me for a long moment. “The problem is, Belk,” he said, and stopped. He started again. “The problem is, Belk, you have to be right. You know what they told me in San Francisco? They want to press ahead with their foolish plan. Blow this all wide open. Remove the censorship directive. Let every last American know about these bombs, set the masses all to looking for them. Which is a stupid idea, but that doesn't matter, Belk. We'd be out of a job, or we'd wind up with a job similar in stature and function to the clowns who sweep up elephant dung at the rear of a circus parade.” He cupped his chin and regarded Shuyak. When he turned around, he was in the midst of trading masks- Wronged Captain for Effete Ivy Leaguer, or perhaps the Brusque CO.-or else he had forgone one altogether. His voice was softer, too. Normal, pitched well below the range at which he usually delivered his lines. “But if you're right, Belk-think what this means.”

“We'll save lives,” I said, caught up in Gurley's growing excitement.

“We'll save our jobs,” he said, “and our secrets, at least for a little while longer. I asked for a month; they gave me two weeks to prove there was a compelling reason not to lift the press ban. This could be a reason. If I can tell them we've cooked up a way to predict arrivals, landings, well-that really changes matters. I'd be offering them a chance to stay one step ahead, of the enemy, and the public.”

He stopped and thought about this. All the while he'd been talking, I'd been trying to work up the courage to interrupt him and better rein in his expectations. But I couldn't then and I couldn't now, and so when he said, “You'll go, then,” I simply nodded and stood. Before I left, he had one more thing to add: “You'll go alone, of course. If it turns out you're wrong, it's best you fail alone.” He picked up the phone. “I'm sure you understand.”

GURLEY HAD LIMITED (and diminishing) authority over a special Army Air Corps crew that was stationed at Elmendorf Field. They had all been nominally trained in the spotting and destruction, though not recovery, of balloon bombs. More important, they had all been sworn to secrecy, to such a degree that none of the men would even talk to me when I got out to the field at first light, around 4 A.M. I wasn't sure what Gurley had told them, other than our destination and my name.

We were to take a floatplane out to Shuyak, a modified PBY Catalina that looked about as ungainly and makeshift as the balloons. It had the hull of a boat but the snout of a plane; its wings extended heavily from the top of the fuselage, like the arms of a lumbering giant. Pilots called it a two-fisted airplane; once in the air, you wrestled it more than steered it.

A young airman outfitted me with gear, including a chest-pack parachute.

“What's this for?” I asked.

“First flight over enemy territory?” he answered, not looking at me.

“We're just heading to Shuyak,” I said. “That's well behind the front lines.”

He corrected my pronunciation and said again, “Like I was saying, this your first flight?”

“I don't understand,” I said. “I thought only the two outermost Aleutian islands were ever occupied by the Japanese. And they're long gone.”