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After a moment, he added more than a little throttle.

“I just want him off my damn airplane, and the sooner the better.”

[FIVE]

Thirty minutes later, Darmstadter began a slow descent for the deck.

Canidy heard his voice, a much calmer voice now, come over the headset: “About that time, buddy.”

Canidy nodded, then unfastened his harness.

“I’ll check back with you shortly,” Canidy said.

He removed his headset and left the flight deck.

* * *

It was still noisier than hell in back. And now very chilly.

Canidy found the beefy Kauffman moving the first of the gear—two large duffels and the two wooden crates of Composition C-2—from the bulkhead to the aft door. He was impressed by how Kauffman carried his bulk with a casual ease. And how he came across as completely self-confident. Nothing seemed to bother him.

When he came up on the flight deck after we took out the Giant, he acted like that was a daily thing for him.

The anchor-line cable ran the length of the ceiling, from the bulkhead at the flight deck all the way back to the aft bulkhead at the troop door.

Canidy, sliding his hand along the cable, casually walked aft, then suddenly stepped on something small and round, and immediately felt both feet start to go out from under him. He caught himself with the anchor-line cable, dangled for a moment, then regained his footing.

He looked down.

The fucking deck’s awash in a sea of spent .30 cal!

He really let loose with that Browning. . . .

Canidy kicked at the brass shells as he walked to the back. He found John Craig van der Ploeg now sitting in the last seat on the port side, next to the troop door. The smell of vomitus remained, but only slightly.

The Browning machine gun had been moved backward on its track, clearing the doorway. In a pile next to it, their hinged lids open, were four empty .30 caliber ammo cans.

That’s eight hundred rounds.

How the hell did he quickly reload three times?

And without melting the barrel?

Or maybe he did melt it. . . .

Van der Ploeg looked up at Canidy and saw him staring at the ammo cans.

Between the

sound of the propellers and the engine exhaust and the whistle of the slipstream, the noise at the troop door was close to a roar. Van der Ploeg had to almost shout to be heard.

“They shot first,” he announced in a dazed monotone.

“What?”

“They shot first,” he said in an even louder dazed monotone. “So I shot back.”

Canidy looked at him.