When a leased Boeing 727 vanishes after two passengers murder the pilot, Army intelligence officer Major Carlos Guillermo Castillo, a veteran of the Special Forces, is called in by the president of the United States to uncover the truth.

"Shortly before Christmas in 1943, five Army aviators left Alaska's Ladd Field on a test flight. Only one ever returned: Leon Crane, a city kid from Philadelphia with little more than a parachute on his back when he bailed from his B-24 Liberator before it crashed into the Arctic. Alone in subzero temperatures, Crane managed to stay alive in the dead of the Yukon winter for nearly twelve weeks and, amazingly, walked out of the ordeal intact. 81 Days...

Interweaves the adventures during wartime and beyond, of three remarkable aviators--Charles Lindbergh, Eddie Rickenbacker, and Jimmy Doolittle--who defined aviation during the great age of flight.