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More than that, there had been no distress calls or warning of trouble. Nineteen minutes out of Hibiscus Base, which lies between Orlando and Tampa, this B-99 had reported that it was at 20,000 feet, on course, speed 550 knots, climbing towards its most efficient ceiling of 55,000, with everything normal. After that, silence--nothing. It was the mystery that annoyed General Keatton. Once, a long time before, he had led his shattered air division back to England with forty-two B-17's missing from his formations. But he knew what had become of them. He had seen. This way, it was different. Long after it was officially announced that the search had been called off (it would have been cruel to keep the families in suspense because of a million-to-one hope) Keatton kept an air-sea rescue squadron quartering the Gulf. And the Air Force quietly offered a five thousand dollar reward to any fisherman or shrimper who could bring in a bit of wreckage, no matter how minute.

For there was something else, unpublicized.