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Stokes' inexperience caused hesitation He was barely co to the top of the loop in preparation for the half roll when the 762into the floatplane's thin aluminum skin The windshield burst into a thousand pieces as shells hammered the instrument panel The Defender's pilot altered his aie It was an error that kept the Beaver in the air He should have blasted the engine

Pitt fired off his final three rounds and hurled hiet as possible in an act that was pure illusion

Remarkably, Stokes had completed the Immelmann, late to be sure, but now the Beaver was headed away fro his craft around 180 degrees Pitt shook his head in dazed incredulity and checked his body for wounds Except for a rash of small cuts on his face from slivers that had flown off the shattered windshield, he was unscathed The Beaver was in level flight, and the radial engine was still roaring sine was the only part of the plane that hadn't been riddled with bullets He looked at Stokes sharply

"Are you okay?"

Stokes slowly turned and gazed at Pitt through unfocused eyes "I think the bastards just shot hed and then his lips were painted with blood that seeped down his chin and trickled onto his chest Then he sluainst his shoulder harness, unconscious

Pitt took the copilot's control wheel in his hands and iree bank until he was heading back on a course toward Mason Broadht the helicopter's pilot off guard, and a shower of bullets sprayed the empty air behind the floatplane's tail

He wiped away the blood that had trailed into one eye and took stock Most of the aircraft was stitched with over a hundred holes, but the control systeine was still pounding away on every one of its cylinders

Nohat to do?

The first plan that ran through histhe helicopter The old take 'em with you routine, Pitt mused But that's all it could have been, an attempt The Defender was farBeaver with its ainst a ainst the slower cobra Only when it cao down to defeat The crazy thought running through Pitt's e of rocks about half a kiloht

There was a path toward the rocks through a stand of tall Douglas fir trees He dove between the trees, his wingtips brushing the needles of the upper branches To anyone else it would have seeambit misled the Defender's pilot, who broke off the third attack and followed slightly above and behind the floatplane, waiting to observe what looked like a certain crash

Pitt kept the throttle full against its stop and gripped the control wheel with both hands, eyes focused on the wall of rocks that looh the shattered windshield, and he was forced to turn his head sideways in order to see Fortunately, the gale swept away the trickling blood and the tears that it pried fro eyes

He flew on between the trees There could be no ht move at the exact moment in time A tenth of a second either ould spell certain death The rocks were rushing toward the plane as if driven froed boulders with black streaks He didn't have to look to see the needle on the alti on zero or the needle on the tacho toward destruction just as fast as she could fly

"Low!" he shouted into the wind rushing through the smashed windshield "Two meters low!"

He barely had tiave the control coluh to raise the plane's nose, just enough so the tips of the propeller whipped over the ridge,the crest by centimeters He heard the sudden crunch of metal as the aluminue The Beaver shot into the air, as graceful as a soaring hawk released froht of the bulky floats, which lay s on the aircraft decreased by nearly half, the ancient plane becaained another thirty knots in airspeed She responded to Pitt's coishness as she chewed the air, fighting for altitude

Now, he thought, a satanic grin on his lips, I'll show you an Immelmann He threw the aircraft into a half loop and then snapped it over in a half roll, heading on a direct course toward the helicopter "Write your will, sucker!" he shouted, his voice drowned out by the rush of wind and the roar of the engine's exhaust "Here comes the Red Baron"