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The spin was still pulling hard as Pierre stumbled up the ladder to the cockpit level. It was raised eight feet above the main deck, tucked inside the upper curve of the nose.
The two pilots were sitting in their seats as calmly as if nothing was happening.
“All clear. Let’s go!” He held onto the handrail several feet behind the pilots’ seats and shouted above the roar that echoed through the plane. Between the big engines and the open door just at the base of the cockpit ladder, he could barely hear himself.
Tango might have said something like, “About time.” But Pierre couldn’t have heard that right.
Rather than yanking off his harness, Gutz reached forward to the control cluster.
Pierre wasn’t a pilot, but he’d been aboard planes for his entire Air Force career. Gutz unfeathere
