The Fighting Agents (Men at War 4)

"You can get it out of here?"

"No problem," Darmstadter said immediately, confidently.

A wild thought popped into Canidy's mind, and he asked the question:

"Loaded?"

"With what?"

"People. The team. Three others."

"Yeah," Darmstadter said, and then anticipated the next question: "I've got about two hours' fuel aboard. If I can find Vis, that gives me a thirty-minute reserve."

"What do you mean, if you can find it?"

Darmstadter pointed out the door. Canidy looked. It had begun to snow:

large, soft-looking flakes.

"Dolan was navigating by reference to the ground," Darmstadter said.

"Roads and railroads. I won't be able to see the ground. And I'm not sure I can find Vis just using a compass."

"That kind of snow won't last long," Canidy said reassuringly.

... fine, he thought angrily, that fucking snow is just what we don't need!

And then he realized that exactly the opposite was true. The snow was just what he did need. It would obscure the tracks the landing gear had made on the meadow. And, if he was right, and it left just a dusting of fresh snow atop the inch or two on the ground, it wouldn't interfere with a takeoff.

"Start it up," he ordered.

"I'm going to find a place to hide this big sonofabitch."

As he ran into the center of the meadow, looking for a break in the trees, someplace where the C-47 could be taxied to, he wondered whether his decision to use the Gooney Bird to get out of here was based on sound military reason (Darmstadter couldn't find Vis--he could; it was an available asset and should be used) or whether he subconsciously saw it as a lifeboat with himself as a drowning sailor, and was irrationally refusing to let it go, as drowning sailors will fight to get into an already loaded lifeboat, not caring that their weight will swamp it.

He snapped out of that by telling himself the decision had been made and there was no going back on it now.

He found no place to hide the airplane, now sitting where it had stopped with engines idling and Darmstadter looking out the window, waiting for instructions.

Canidy ran back to it and signaled Darmstadter to turn i

t around, then guided him to the edge of the forest, stopping him only when the nose was in the trees and the propeller on the right engine was spinning two feet from a thick pine trunk.

Three of the team members were watching him. He wondered if they were simply curious or had already decided he was crazy.

"You said there was a power saw," he said.

"Get it. Cover as much of this thing as you can with the largest boughs you can."

"Why don't you just blow it?" one of them, the one who was so concerned about Janos being in pain, said.

"You already got one fire."

"Everybody gets one question," Canidy said.

"That was yours. I don't want to hear another. The answer to your question is we're going to get out of here on that Gooney Bird."

"You'll never get that off the ground in that short a distance," the parachutist said.