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“Absolutely Look at that slim silhouette There’s hardly any surface for radar to bounce off They’ve even painted it black like the stealth planes Let’s go inside,” Zavala said eagerly

They clih a hatchway in the plane’s belly anda short raht deck was unconventional Zavala sat in the rotating pilot’s seat and used a hand-operated las bubble He peered through the cowling, which was to the left of the wing’s center line The conventional switches and instruments were located between the pilot and the copilot, who sat at a lower level The throttle controls were suspended fro boats such as the Catalina

“Fantastic visibility,” Zavala said “It feels like being in a fighter plane”

Austin had settled into the copilot’s seat on the right He could see throughpanels in the wing’s leading edge While Zavala ran his fingers lovingly over the controls, Austin went to explore the rest of the plane The flight engineer sat in front of an ies about ten feet behind the copilot facing the rear He would have been unable to see out Austin thought the layout ard, but he was impressed by the headroom and the small bunkroom, head, and kitchen that indicated the plane was built for long-range missions He sat at the bo to picture hih above the bleak Siberian landscape Then he crawled into the bomb bays Zavala was still in the pilot’s seat, hands on the controls, when Austin returned to the cockpit

“Find anything back there?” he asked Austin

“It’s what I didn’t find,” Austin said “The bomb bay racks are empty”

“No canister bombs?”

“Not even a water balloon” He sirl, have we?”

Zavala grinned lasciviously “A case of love at first sight Older wo There’s still life in this baby” His fingers played over the instrulowed red

“She’s all gassed up and ready to go,” Austin said with disbelief

Zavala nodded “She enerator There’s no reason this stuff wouldn’t still work It’s been cold and dry here, and she was maintained in mint condition until they deserted this joint”

“Speaking of the joint, let’s take a look around”

Zavala reluctantly left the cockpit They climbed down from the plane and walked around the interior periar The space was obviously planned to service the plane efficiently Within easy reach of the aircraft were hydraulic lifts and cranes, test equip with tools They were as clean as surgical instrulanced around and called for Zavala

Stacked fro inside the room were dozens of shiny cylinders like the one they had discovered floating in the water off the Baja Austin carefully lifted a cylinder froht

“This is much heavier than the empty can back in my office”