We’ve essentially memorized the exorbitant cost of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program ($1.5 trillion!), so of course we were bound to notice that fact that the price of the Air Force’s new B-21 bomber remains a tantalizing mystery.

Sen. John McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Service Committee, also noticed. The war hero and politician has actually requested numerous times for the Air Force to disclose the contract price for the long range strike bomber, to no avail.

“This is a critical program for our nation’s defense, and the American people deserve to know how many of their hard earned tax dollars will be spent in these initial phases as we embark on a major defense program expected to exceed $100 billion in total,” McCain wrote in a Mar. 10 letter.

When asked again about the price of the bomber during a Senate hearing in March, an Air Force spokesman kept his cards close to his chest. Real close.

Yes sir, at this time we have not released the contract value to everyone. We have released the service cost position and the independent cost estimate. We did release that. In base year ‘16 dollars it was 23.5 billion for the EMD phase.

We’re trying to balance the transparency that we want to do with the public so that they understand what we’re doing, but we’re also trying to protect the critical capabilities of this asset. Sir, we’re trying to prevent the ability of individuals to link different pieces that may be unclassified together to get an idea of where we’re—how the money is being spent.

They don’t want to name an exact price on the bomber because “individuals” might find out where money is being spent. Classified information is a two-way street, so both curious senators and terrorists will have to wait for the Air Force to declassify the bomber’s price.

Despite the figure cited above, estimates for the B-21 bomber have ranged between a hefty $33 billion to a heftier $58 billion. We’ll be back when we find out where the true price falls.