Canidy then thought he saw that Darmstadter had glanced his way. That was confirmed when he heard Hank's voice in his headset.

"You might want to give it a little longer, Dick."

"Give what?" he said, yawning.

"That beauty sleep of yours didn't take."

Canidy balled his fist and raised his index finger in Darmstadter's direction.

Canidy then said: "Anything exciting happen while I was out?"

"Nothing since you came back and filled the flight deck with that delightful barf odor."

"I thought that was my imagination. Sorry."

"How do you think he's doing back there?"

"I was just wondering that myself. With any luck, he's been passed out the whole time."

Darmstadter then pointed out the windscreen at about three o'clock.

"Pantelleria is about sixty miles that way," he said. "I'm sure we've been picked up on the Freya RDF, but maybe the Krauts won't bother with just one blip way out here. If we don't get any action from Pantelleria, it'll likely come at Sicily."

When Canidy had studied the photo-reconnaissance images of Sicily-taken from thirty thousand feet by USAAF P-38 Lightnings with the belly painted sky blue-he'd also viewed the images of Pantelleria.

While the photos had shown no massing of troops or materiel on Sicily-which could have meant that there were none . . . or none yet . . . or that they were being very well concealed-the photos did show that Pantelleria, a solid forty-two-square-mile rock in the middle of the Strait of Sicily, was heavily fortified.

Ringing the island were at least fifty easily recognized concrete gun emplacements, some seventy-plus Italian and German fighters and bombers at Marghana Airfield, and U-boats and S-boats almost daily calling at the two ports. The recon images also pinpointed the distinctive tall antennae of the Freya radio direction finder stations.

There was no argument among the AFHQ brass that Pantelleria in Axis hands would cause serious problems with the invasion of Sicily and, conversely, that Pantelleria in Allied hands would be a great asset for staging fighter aircraft to provide close air support during OPERATION HUSKY. Thus, Eisenhower laid on OPERATION CORKSCREW, with its secondary purpose being to gauge the amount of high explosive needed to pound the enemy into submission. Knowing how much HE it took there would help them prepare enough HE for Sicily. The first attack by air had occurred on May 18.

The heavy round-the-clock bombing of Pantelleria begins "next Wednesday," Canidy thought, recalling John Craig van der Ploeg's announcement. Major General Jimmy Doolittle's Northwest African Strategic Air Forces would begin sending more than a thousand bombers each day.

Over the intercom, Canidy said, "Maybe we should have waited a week. Then they really will be too busy to worry about us."

"Yeah," Darmstadter said with a chuckle, "but damage is done. All we can do is hope they can't find us up here."

Canidy scanned the night sky but saw only the sea of stars above and, below, the stars reflecting on the sea itself.

A few minutes later, Darmstadter's voice was back.

"We're about an hour out from Marsala. I'll get back down on the deck when we're twenty miles out. Then, crossing the coast, I'll pop up to seven hundred AGL for putting you in the DZ. After you guys jump, I'll continue eastward, making three or four turns to throw off anyone who might figure out we were over your LZ. And on the way out, I'll pass over Palermo while Kauffman scatters those psy-op leaflets. Then we head home. Sound good?"

He glanced at Canidy and saw that he was giving him a thumbs-up.

We should be fine, Canidy thought. Their ack-ack couldn't hit shit over Tunisa, and judging by the aerial recon photos of Sicily, the Krauts haven't even put in any antiaircraft defenses yet.

And all the Me-109s and FW-190s were at the Messina airfield. None at Palermo.

Of course, there's always the possibility that that all could have changed an hour ago. . . .

Darmstadter finished: "With any luck, no one will ever know we were here. And if they do see us coming in low, they'll think I'm an idiot who had trouble finding Palermo just to drop a bunch of flyers."

The OSS Morale Operations Branch produced psychological warfare-everything from radio broadcasts to leaflets designed to cast doubt-and despair and worse-that the Axis did not have a snowball's chance in hell of winning the war.

Back at Dellys, Canidy had seen Kauffman loading boxes of the "psy-op" materiel on the aircraft. It had come from a print shop in Algiers that Stanley Fine had taken over.

"You gotta see what they're coming up with," Kauffman had said to him, cracking open a few boxes and pulling out samples. "It's great stuff."

The first eight-by-ten sheet Kauffman handed him showed a sketch of a wooden cross with a German helmet on top and the single word: You?

The next one had a sketch of a leering Nazi SS storm trooper with his boots on the throats of a young man and woman holding Sicilian flags. In Italian were the words: How Much Longer?

Another simply read: Why Die for Hitler?

"And here's the best," Kauffman said, handing Canidy a stack of very thin paper squares that he realized was meant to be toilet paper. Each sheet was imprinted in German with: "Let's stop this shit, Comrades! We do not fight for Germany-but only for Hitler and Himmler. The Nazi Leaders lied to us, and now they are saving their own skin. They send us to die in the mud, saying hold out until our last bullet. But we need our last bullets to free Germany from this SS shit! Enough! Peace!"

Canidy asked Darmstadter, "Did you get a look at those leaflets?"

"Yeah, they're pretty good-" He suddenly pointed out the windscreen, above them at ten o'clock. "Shit!"

Canidy quickly leaned over and looked past Darmstadter.

He saw that they were closing in on an airplane.

Exhaust glow! Multi-engine.

That's one big sonofabitch . . . a transport?

And we almost ran right up its ass- No! We're about to!

"It's fucking descending on us!" Darmstadter announced, and automatically began an evasive maneuver, pulling back on the throttles as he banked the aircraft to the right.

Canidy watched as the enormous aircraft filled the windscreen, hung there a moment, then very slowly started to grow smaller.

Damn that was close!

And in another moment they would've seen us alongside.

And then what?

With the Gooney Bird standing on its starboard wing and slipping away to the right, there suddenly came from the rear of the aircraft a familiar heavy vibration.

What the hell?

That feels like automatic gunfire!

In the next instant, long flames began to light the sky above them. Canidy could now make out that the big and boxy aircraft had a swastika on the vertical stabilizer.

Then came more heavy vibration, a steady endless stream of it.

That sonofabitch!

It's the Browning!

And damn he's burning through ammo!

The flames grew longer across the sky-That's fuel that's catching fire! He hit a fuel cell!-and then suddenly the German aircraft's starboard wing was engulfed in flames.

Then came a bone-rattling BOOM!

Darmstadter and Canidy shielded their eyes, the intense, sudden light nearly blinding them.

The explosion sheared off the burning wing. The airplane, its fuselage now rapidly burning away, pitched violently left-and began to spiral downward.

Darmstadter yanked the yoke to level out the Gooney Bird, then slammed the yoke and throttles forward.

The nose dropped and the airframe began making a louder and louder hum as the airplane rapidly lost altitude.

Canidy watched the airspeed needles spin.

"Airspeed two-twenty," he called out as the aircraft approached its top speed of 250 miles per hour.

"Two-forty . . .

"Two-sixty . . .

"Two-eighty-five . . . Hank?"

Darmstadter did not reply.

"Three-ten, Hank!" Canidy called.

He's going to tear the goddamn wings off!

Just then, shy of 325 miles per hour, Darmstadter pulled back on the throttles.

The hum of the airframe was deafening-but it slowly began to ease.

"Two-seventy," Canidy then called out.

It took him a moment to realize that the heavy, steady vibration from the Browning had stopped.

Canidy rubbed his eyes and tried to focus on the control panel. They were still losing altitude but not nearly as fast. The altimeter indicated 5,500.

"Airspeed two hundred," Canidy announced, "and we're dropping through fifty-five hundred feet."

Darmstadter, scanning the night sky, eased back on the yoke. The aircraft began leveling off. Canidy saw that the altimeter was now indicating 5,100 feet, the airspeed 180, and he called that out.

Darmstadter maintained that level and speed for five minutes, quietly scanning the sky. Then he turned and looked at Canidy.

"Nice flying," Canidy said.

"What the hell was that, Dick?"

"Goddamn big. And goddamn close."

"I noticed."

"And goddamn German, for sure. I saw the enormous swastika on the tail."

"Yeah, so did I," Darmstadter said, his tone sarcastic. "It was nicely lit, I recall." He paused, then repeated, "What the hell was that?"

Canidy answered with a question: "Did you count six engines?"

"Yeah. Pretty sure I did. So, a Giant? What the hell is a Giant doing out here alone?"

"Trying to wipe us out of the sky, for one. A Giant would explain how the Browning ate up the wing and maybe the fuselage, too. They're fabric."

The six-engine high-wing Messerschmitt Me323 Gigant had an airframe built of lightweight tubing and covered in doped canvas, giving the aircraft a twenty-ton payload. It had clamshell doors that formed its nose, through which it could quickly load and unload everything from 88mm flak cannons to half-tracks to Panzer IV tanks to 120 troopers.

"Maybe it's one of those that got away," Darmstadter said after a moment. "Last month, some P-40s and Spitfires scrambled after a couple dozen Giants that were being escorted not far from Pantelleria. We shot down all but six or so." He paused. "Maybe that was one of the six."

Darmstadter was quiet a long moment. Canidy noticed that he still had his hand firmly on the throttles, and now that he finally was letting go, and flexing his fingers, he saw why.

His hands are trembling. . . .

Canidy said, "Well, beyond there being one fewer Giant for the Third Reich, there is good news."

"What?"

"You get to paint your first kill on the nose of this bird."

Darmstadter didn't respond to that. Instead, he said: "Speaking of that, do you want to go back there and kick his ass? Or do you want me to do it?"

"Why?"

"Damn it, Dick, those Giants have four thirteen-millimeter machine guns!"

"Five, normally," Canidy offered.

"Okay, then five! To our one!" He scanned the sky again. "And what if there'd been escorts?"

"I don't know that John Craig is fully at fault, Hank."

Darmstadter turned to look at Canidy.

"Meaning?" he challenged.