“WHAT—”
This time he didn’t cut her off with a hiss but by laying his hand over her mouth. “What are you doing?” she whispered. There was no reply. Roxy just listened—to water lapping against the vessel, to her two companions’ strained breathing.
To the engine. Not theirs. A far more powerful one, getting nearer fast. Then voices came, muddled by thick cloth and shouting. One male voice, strident and demanding. A softer female one, cajoling. They spoke in thickly accented German—that and the speed of their talk, together with fear enhanced by her lack of air, rendered the conversation all but incomprehensible to her.
The strident voice got less so. She heard something lifted, thrown back; a hatch, perhaps. Then there came a banging, metal on metal. Some female cursing, as crude as any man’s. Some male laughter at it. The hatch went down—and the engine fired up.
“Dankeschön, dankeschön!” Frau Fromer cried.
The engine went up a notch in power and Roxy felt the boat shifting. She made a tent of the tarp in the hope of more air, but Jocco pulled her hand away.
“Not yet,” he whispered.
They lay there for several more breathless minutes that felt like an age. Finally, she heard Betsy call the all-clear. Ferency and Jocco threw the tarp back and they emerged, gasping like newborn chicks. “What was that?” Roxy asked.
“She claimed we were broken down. There was no way to flee without this bluff.” As he spoke, Jocco got up and moved toward the wheelhouse, letting forth a burst of enthusiastic German. As she followed, Ferency bent over the painting, lifted it and carried it to the boat’s stern.
When Roxy reached the wheelhouse, Jocco hastily stepped back, releasing a woman from his clasp. Betsy Fromer was dressed in shabby worker’s overalls, had a dirty red bandana around her neck and a seaman’s cap wedged onto a mass of curly hair. Her face—makeupless, an almost perfect oval, with unruly eyebrows and a ski-jump nose—was smudged with diesel. She looked like a movie star acting the role of a tramp. And she didn’t look too displeased at Jocco’s thank-you. Gave Roxy one swift, appraising glance before turning her eyes ahead to the business of steering the boat under the Friedrichs Bridge.
Jocco at least had the courtesy to look a little abashed. “Roxy, this is Betsy. I was just congratulating her on her brilliance.”
“Is that what you were doing?” Roxy replied. “Charmed,” she added, holding out a hand.
Which Betsy ignored, only grunting while she turned the wheel. They moved from light into dark as they passed beneath a bridge arch.
“Betsy speaks no English, I am afraid,” Jocco continued, as Roxy lowered her hand.
“Well, I’m sure we’ll get along fine.” Roxy turned to him. “Where’s my gear?”
“In the back there. Under those tarps.”
“Thanks.” She stepped out of the wheelhouse, adding, “You two kids be good now.”
As she moved to the stern of the boat, she heard them start up again, her querying voice, his soft answers.
She found her gear, such as it was—her satchel and her valise which held her few clothes; flying trousers, boots, shirts, spare dresses. She looked around, at the banks of the Spree, the city passing by. The boat moved fast; they were already nearly under a second bridge, the vast bulk of the cathedral on her right. She needed to change but didn’t really want to go back and ask the captain where she could. Shrugging, she lifted the dress to her hips—then noticed Ferency sitting with his back to the bulk of the painting. He was watching her keenly.
“Hey,” she said, “care to give a girl a little privacy?” He shrugged, made a pretense of looking away. She sighed, and stepped into her trousers, then hoisted them up and over her stockings, before pulling the dress over her head and laying it on top of her case. She put on the cleaner of her two shirts, though it was a narrow choice, then pulled on her flying jacket. She’d be warm for a while, but she’d be grateful for warmth soon enough, up in the air. If all went to plan. After rolling her dress, she shoved it into the suitcase. She’d press it when she got to somewhere civilized. Herr Bochner would be annoyed, but nothing to be done.
“Hey, Mr. Chameleon,” she called. “Know where we are?”
“Berlin.”
“Funny. Do you know the city?”
“I live here three years. From 1929 to—”
“So?” She gestured to the bank passing fast to their right. “Where are we?”
He squinted. “This area we approach is called Treptow. There is a big park—”
“Treptow. Heard of it. Beyond that there’s another park, uh, Plant-something.”
“Plänterwald. Isn’t it a little late for sightseeing?”
“How will I know when we reach Plänterwald?”
He looked ahead. “The river widens. A—how you say?—narrow land comes in from the left.”
“A promontory?”
“Perhaps. Opposite its tip is Berlin Island. You will see a church on that, a square tower. Just beyond is Plänterwald.”
“How long?”
“I am no sailor—”
“Guess?”
He shrugged. “Fifteen minutes?”
“Good.” She looked at the draped painting he rested against. “Why did you bring that back here?”
“Spray at the front. Excuse me.”
He rose, gave a curt bow, then moved back toward the wheelhouse. Roxy sat on the least dirty bollard she could find and pulled on her boots. There was a breeze off the water that cooled her a little, but she was still hot. She leaned out over the side, peered ahead, scanning for landmarks. Fifteen minutes, the forger had said, but she couldn’t relax. Not yet.
It was nearer twenty before she noted the yacht coming out of another body of water to her left; saw the sunlight reflecting off a spire to her right, on an island. It was time to act.
She walked to the wheelhouse, stuck her head into the doorway. Jocco was perched on a shelf, his long legs dangling. He’d changed back into civvies too. Betsy glanced at her, grunted something, then put her gaze forward again.
“We gotta make a stop,” Roxy said.
“No. There is a toilet below here.” He gestured to a small doorway behind him, some stairs.
“Not that kind of stop.” Roxy stepped into Betsy’s eye line, spoke in her clear German. “We have to pull in to the Plänterwald dock.”
“What?” The blue eyes swivelled to her. “No,” she replied, “we make no stops.”
“Roxy?” Jocco came off his shelf, took her arm. “What is this nonsense?”
“You’ll see. Just pull over to the dock.”
She said it without any edge. But Jocco took his hand away as if he’d been burned. “No. You know the plan. We go straight to Templehof. If things go wrong and they somehow discover the fake—”
“Plans change,” she said in English. “And if we don’t stop, you’ll have to change them again, because you’re going to have to fly the plane out. I won’t do it.”
“You must. I cannot leave now.” Jocco’s eyes narrowed in anger, his strong jaw set.
She leaned into him, lowered her voice. “This is part of my deal. Take it or leave it.”
He noted the look in her eye, one he recognized. “But why this stop?”
She smiled. “You’ll just have to wait and see.”
They held each other’s gaze, neither blinking—until he did. “We pull into Plänterwald.” Betsy started to speak. “We pull in,” he said, and pushed past Roxy to leave the cabin.
Roxy grinned. “He’s got such a temper, don’t you find?”
“No English,” Betsy said, sourly. But Roxy thought Frau Fromer understood well enough.
Two minutes later, Betsy was spinning the wheel, heading for a dock. A small ferry was just pulling away from it, filled with families out for a day’s fun. Roxy moved to the bow, scanning the crowd on the dock. She spotted Herr Bochner straightaway, because, unlike the gay, summer-clad crowds around them, he was dressed drably in a heavy coat and wore a hat. Frau Bochner had to be one of the women near him. Relief flooded her. So many things could have gone wrong. But they’d made it.
She stood tall, started waving. It took him a while to spot her, but when he did, Herr Bochner gave her one short wave back.
Jocco came to stand beside her. “What is this? Who is that man?”
“His name is Bochner. He made the dresses.”
“What?”
She turned to him. “I helped get his wife released from Sachsenhausen concentration camp. I promised I’d fly them out.”
“You did what? Fuck, Roxy! You take this risk?”
“A small one, considering what we’ve just done.” She tried for a joke. “C’mon, Jocco, you know the score. Always go for a mixed cargo. Guns. Rum. Bruegel. Refugees.”
He did not smile. “But no one is released from such places.”
“She was. I used your dollars well.” She smiled, squeezed his arm, held on to brace herself as the boat bumped into the car tires set into the dock wall. Betsy shouted something. Shaking his head, Jocco grabbed a rope, leaped off and wound it around a thwart.
The boat steadied and Roxy jumped off. Bochner was moving to her and they met at the dock’s edge. “You made it,” she said, then peered past him. “Where’s your wife? Washroom? Let’s get her. We gotta go.”
She went to step around him. He raised the arm that held the small case he carried, blocking her. “She is not coming,” he said.
“What?” Roxy went cold. “That sonofabitch cheated you? Then we need to—”
“No, Fräulein.” He swallowed and lifted eyes she now noticed were swollen and red. “My Marthe is dead.”
There was no corpse before her. Yet the sensations that came were almost the same as when she saw one. The world’s noises almost all gone, a high-pitched whine in their place. A pain in the stomach as if something had kicked her, taking her air away. She looked up and saw that Bochner was still speaking, but she couldn’t make out the words. Though from somewhere distant she heard her name being called insistently. She managed a breath, tried to focus on what the tailor was saying.
“What?” she said. “Stop. What?”
Herr Bochner closed his eyes. “She died in the camp.”
Roxy staggered, clutched the man’s arm to stay upright. Because it hit her now, what she’d done. She’d sought to save a life. But by trying to strong-arm the guard, she’d killed Frau Bochner, almost as directly as if she’d held the gun.
The world fully returned on the thought, the terrible thought. Jocco hissing her name from the boat. Tears squeezing between the tailor’s reddened eyes. “I killed her. Oh God, this is my fault.”
She still held his arm, the only thing keeping her up. Now he reversed the grip, took hers. “No, no. Marthe died last week. I got the official letter. Influenza.”
She shook her head, trying to clear it. “So that scumbag—”
“He was trying to get money. He knew I would not know yet.”
Anger focused her. “That bastard. What can we—”
“Nothing. We can do nothing.” He shook his head. “I thought to stay, to punish him when he came for more money. Maybe…” He shrugged, a helpless gesture. “But I am not them. I am not a murderer. And I thought of my daughters in Belgium, orphans if I did. So I came alone.”
“Roxy!” Jocco’s voice, his hand on her other arm. “We have to go now. Police are coming.”
She looked. Two policemen were indeed walking down the wharf toward them. So she let him help her aboard. Bochner followed and a moment later Jocco cast off. Betsy pulled away fast and they were soon in midstream.
Roxy found she was still unsteady, lowered herself to sit on a hatch cover. Bochner joined her. They sat for a long moment, unmoving, until the tailor took her hand.
Quite soon after the Plänterwald, a waterway opened from the river to their right. A canal, Roxy knew, though the name had slipped her mind. Bochner supplied it. “Der Britzer Zweigkanal,” he said. “Where are we—” His brow unfurrowed. “Of course! It leads near to Templehof, the airfield, ja?”
“That’s right.” It was Roxy’s turn to frown. “Though, a canal has locks, right? How long will this take?”
“Locks?” When she’d explained the word, he said, “No. This canal has no locks.”
“Good.” Roxy found she didn’t want to move just yet. Or speak. She realized with a sudden, intense clarity that all she wanted, all she needed to do now, was to fly.
The canal was narrow. There were times when they scraped sides with boats that came the other way, or the slower cargo barges they had to pass. The crews on those, and the strollers on the towpaths, glanced at them as they went by. An occasional greeting was called, to which Betsy always grunted a reply.
The canal entered a wider basin. Lots of boats were there, mainly barges, lined up on the dockside. Workers unloaded vessels. Jocco went to the prow, and beckoned to Roxy. “Templehof is over there,” he said. “Do you see the cranes?” She nodded. “Hitler has ordered a massive expansion of the airfield. It is one large construction site. It is how we planned to get the painting in. But now?” He looked past her to the refugee, hesitated. “What happened here?”
She told him fast. Her hope. Her failure.
“Roxy, what were you thinking?”
She swallowed. “I wasn’t. I was…I thought I could help and I just…just screwed things up.”
She looked away. After a moment, she felt him touch her shoulder. She turned into his arms.
“You care, Roxy. You pretend you don’t, but you do.” He put a hand on her hair, stroked. “And you have had this success. We will get him out.”
He kissed the top of her head, then moved away. She watched him go, watched as he picked up a rope. Jesus, she thought, startled by the sudden force of it. I love this guy.
Jocco jumped onto the dock and swiftly secured hemp to metal. “Quickly now,” he called, reaching down as Roxy helped Herr Bochner up and over the gunwales. Ferency appeared from the rear, struggling with the painting in its grey shroud. She helped him too. Jocco took the painting and set it down on the dock, then hauled her out by one hand, her other clutching her life’s possessions, all in one small bag.
“What now?” she said.
“This way.”
He bent over, lifted the painting and moved off. She and Bochner followed. “Hungarian not coming?”
Jocco didn’t stop. “He waits with Betsy. They both wait for me. I return here after you take off.”
She stopped, looked back. “Good luck, Mr. Chameleon,” she called.
Ferency didn’t reply for a moment, simply stared at her. Then he said, “Have a safe flight, Miss Loewen,” before turning and moving away.
Betsy was not in sight. Aw, Roxy thought, no fond goodbyes? Still, if she’d lost Jocco to another woman, she’d probably be less than gracious too.
She caught up with the two men at the gate out of the small dock. Beyond was a line of trucks, freight from the barges being loaded onto them. Jocco, having set down his burden for a moment, hoisted it again and strode to a truck at the far end. It was smaller than the others, an outsized van, open backed, with a lot of house painter’s junk in it—cans, brushes, stepladders, paint-spattered sheets. He carefully lowered the painting into it all, stood back and stretched.
“Herr Bochner, we will have to cover you back here. You will keep very quiet, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Roxy, you will ride in the cab with me. You have your papers?”
“I do.”
“Then let us help your friend in.”
There was nowhere in the back that could be comfortable, but Roxy folded some of the tarps for padding and placed them in one corner. Herr Bochner slid in. Roxy covered him with a couple of sheets and helped Jocco build a ramshackle nest of paint tins, buckets and stepladders around him. “Not for long,” she whispered, then jumped down.
“What?” she said, to Jocco’s amused look, as she climbed into the cab.
He shook his head. “Roxy Loewen. Always for the little people.”
“Well, you guys with your revolutions and your wars always forget who you are fighting for.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “It’s for him.” She slapped the dashboard. “Now, drive. I’ve been on the ground way too long.”
Jocco pulled his truck into a line of them, all heading slowly away from the wharf on a narrow road that soon joined a bigger one. They followed, heading toward the cranes. They passed a shiny new sign, which sported a swastika and a picture of happy Teutonic workers labouring on the ground while planes flew off in all directions overhead. “Templehof Field: Gateway to the New Reich.”
There were two gates ahead admitting traffic. One had a smaller line. Jocco pulled into the longer one. She raised a querying eyebrow. “Watch,” he said in reply.
She watched. The other line may have been smaller, but it moved more slowly. Three guards came out and poked around the bed of every vehicle. While at the head of theirs she could see a man in uniform, waving papers wildly at the driver of a cement truck, who just kept shrugging.
“And watch this,” Jocco said, hitting the horn.
He started a fanfare, an orchestra of discord, high and low, staccato and stately, a crescendo of sound that first froze the gate guard ahead, who turned and stared, slack jawed, and then started shaking his fist with one hand while shoving the papers back at the cement driver with the other. The man climbed into his cab, accelerated away; the next pulled up and was even more cursorily dismissed. With Jocco and some of the others still plying their horns—the orchestra had switched to a more free-form jazz style—a swifter appraisal of papers and goods continued. Their line moved. It was only when they were one back that someone at the other gate noticed and Roxy saw an officer—her lessons in collars and cuffs back at the museum telling her his rank was lieutenant—emerge from the hut and start toward them. As he did, the truck ahead pulled away and Jocco was on.
“Well, friend,” he said, “what crime did you commit to land the worst job in Germany?”
The guard had to be in his late fifties, his pudgy features slick with sweat. Thick white hair, revealed when he took off his cap and wiped his brow on his sleeve, lay dank on his head. “It’s the truth, friend. Five hours I’ve been standing here. No cigarette break. Everyone angry. It’s the shits.”
“It is good and necessary that the state banned trade unions, of course,” Jocco said. “But it’s a pity that some of our protections went with them, no?”
The man’s eyes, shifting between the approaching and now-shouting officer and the tooting line of trucks, focused on Jocco’s for a long few seconds. “A pity indeed.” He glanced once at the papers Jocco held, once more at the bed of the truck, then looked again at the officer, in range now and making his displeasure known in a stream of foul language. Slapping the roof of the cab, he said, “Proceed, comrade.”
As the officer strode up, swearing, Jocco pulled away. “Comrade?” Roxy asked.
Jocco gave a swift grin. “When Hitler took power, there were nearly as many Communists in Germany as Nazis. We’d killed one another for years—now they’d triumphed. But they couldn’t kill all of us, or throw everyone in camps. Who would work in their factories, build their coliseums? The leaders, yes. The workers?” He shrugged. “They adapted. They took jobs if they wanted to survive.”
“You knew the guard?”
“No. But friends did.”
On the other side of the fence, several roads diverged and progress was faster. The whole area looked like some kid had spilled his toy building set. Trucks were parked higgledy-piggledy everywhere; piles of stacked wood and twisted mountains of metal wire lay scattered about. They drove toward what Roxy recognized as a control tower, standing proud of the chaos. “That’s not what I remember it looking like,” she said.
“It’s not the one you saw,” he replied, swinging the wheel left at a junction. “That one is.”
She peered ahead. A smaller tower was there. Jocco’s words confirmed her memory. “Separate runways. One for freight and one—” he turned again onto a slip road, making for a big hangar “—for passengers.”
They pulled in at its side. Roxy looked anxiously all around, didn’t spot Asteria where she’d left her. “There,” Jocco said, leaning across her, pointing. “I called ahead, told them to prepare her. You go speak to the mechanic. I will deal with the papers.”
She gave a happy little cry and stepped out of the cab, then remembered. “Are you all right?” she asked, leaning over the truck-bed wall.
Herr Bochner’s reply came, muffled. “I am all right.”
“Not long now.”
She moved away, trying to stop herself running. “Hey, baby,” she said, laying her fingers on the Lockheed’s propeller blade, “how you been?”
A young mechanic in overalls as dirty as his blond hair and face appeared from under one wing. He had sullen eyes, a tic in the corner of the left one. He was chewing gum. “Yours?” he asked in German.
“Mine,” she replied, in the same tongue.
He had a clipboard under one arm, which he now flourished. “Instructions were to perform only a top overhaul. I have done so.” He re-ticked each item on the checklist, telling how he had inspected every valve, screen and rod, replaced all the spark plugs and two piston rings. He was mechanical, precise—and yet there was a tension to him Roxy couldn’t quite understand. But then she decided that she must just be giving him her butterflies. They’d returned to her stomach and, like her, all they wanted to do was fly.
The mechanic coughed abruptly, and thrust the clipboard at her. “I am sorry, uh, what is your name?”
“Jürgen,” he replied, as if doing her a favour.
“Thanks for all you’ve done. Will you help me start her?”
He looked away, to the control tower. “Okay.”
She climbed up through the cabin hatch, hung her jacket and slid into her seat.
The ignition switch was on Off. She set the gasoline switch to On.
“On,” she called. As Jürgen turned the propeller slowly, she pumped the primer three times, then shut the primer valve and opened the throttle a touch.
She could see the mechanic’s hands on the propeller.
“Contact?” he called.
Roxy flipped the magneto switch to Both, then repeated, “Contact!”
She saw the propeller swing fast through, heard Jürgen cry “Clear!” She turned the magneto booster fast.
Asteria breathed into life. She could hear immediately that Jürgen, although he was taciturn, had done good work. The engine moved smoothly, no knocks. She took the revs up to 550 per minute. Within half a minute, the oil pressure gauge began to register. All was well, and she advanced the throttle, took the rpm up to 1,000. The engine would need to run like that for ten minutes.
She flipped open her hatch window. “Thanks, Jürgen,” she shouted.
He stared at her for a long moment, then pivoted and walked away.
She sat back, felt the hum passing through her like an electric current, charging her up. Closed her eyes and smiled.
“Hey!”
The shout brought her from her reverie. She looked back down the cabin. Jocco had his head thrust through the hatchway.
“All good?” he called.
“All perfect,” she replied. “Mechanic was a bit of a pill but…” She rose, went back. As she went, she noticed a foot-square steel box that hadn’t been there before, against the plane’s right side. Saw that someone had scrawled Ersatzteile across it in black pen. “Spare parts.” A good mechanic would include a box of what a pilot might need for running repairs. Jürgen, for all his grouchiness, was clearly one of the best.
Jocco had pulled the truck up close to the plane, its rear facing the stairs. He got out and looked around, then pulled down the truck’s back flap. She grabbed her valise and threw it in the hold. Then came the painting. Jocco rested it on the edge of the hatch, Roxy held it there until he could climb up. He brought it up near the cockpit, strapped it tight into the side wall to the pilot’s right, just in front of the spare-parts box. “Quickly now,” he said, and jumped down. Roxy followed.
Bochner blinked into the bright sunlight. He was stiff and Roxy helped him up the steep, narrow stairs. The Lockheed had been fully adapted for cargo, but there was a row of four webbing seats down the left side. She lowered one and strapped the tailor in. When she turned, she saw that Jocco sat in the co-pilot’s seat.
She flopped into hers. “Joining me?”
“You know I hate it when you drive. You take too many risks.”
“Ha!” She grabbed his arm. “Damn! We have to go back to the gallery. Now!”
“What? Why?”
“The Braque painting. I left it there. It’s worth five grand.”
“Heh,” he said, shaking his head. “What do you take me for? A thief?”
They laughed. Then both fell silent for a time. “Did we do it?” she asked finally.
“Nearly. You remember all I have told you.”
“Yeah, yeah. Your father meets me at Liège Airport. He’s bribed the airport personnel—”
“Shh!” Jocco glanced back at Bochner, though there was no chance of him hearing above the engine’s purr.
“I’m sorry, Jocco. I just had to.”
“Always for the little guys, Roxy.”
“Not always,” she said, reaching for him. “Sometimes I like the big guys too.”
The kiss was long, fervent. It sent a different shudder through her, along the same currents the engine had opened up. Both made her glow. She broke away. “I mean it—why not come with me?”
He pulled back. “I cannot. I have things to do.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Things to do like Betsy?”
He shook his head. “No. Betsy and I are long finished. Besides—” he grinned, shaking his head “—I think you would actually kill me.”
She ran her fingers along his chin. Then she lifted them away and slapped him lightly. “Better believe it,” she said. “Hey, didn’t I need to show a passport or something?”
“The manifest says it is me who is flying. And only for a sightseeing tour over Berlin. With so many tourists here for the Olympics, it is most common. It is why we are at the end of the passenger terminal. They are overworked, so they do not check so much. Put on your helmet, lower your voice—they will not be able to tell.”
“Well then.” There were so many things she wanted to say and no way to say them all. So she put her fingers on his face again and pushed. “Get outta here already. I gotta fly.”
He levered himself out of the seat, paused to stare down. “I see you in Brussels in three weeks.”
“Don’t be late.” She reached back to her satchel, pulled out her flying goggles and helmet, and slipped them on. Her flying jacket was on the hook beside her seat where she’d hung it. She shrugged into it, began buttoning. Looked up. “You still here?”
He nodded. She knew he knew that she hated goodbyes.
“Be careful, Roxy.” He glanced back at the painting. “Don’t fly too close to the sun.”
“Me?” she replied, then shooed him away. She followed him to the back hatch, pulled it shut, locked it and returned to her seat. Opening the throttle to full, she murmured, “Let’s go, baby,” and leaned out the window. “Chocks away?” she called loud.
“Chocks away!” he shouted.
When she saw him step clear, she pushed the throttle a little way forward, and the plane began to taxi. There was only one plane ahead of her, an older Boeing 80-A. It had twenty seats, each one was taken by tourists, no doubt. Just as she pulled in behind, it must have received clearance, because it lumbered forward and swung onto the runway. She pulled a little farther forward, and watched the departing bird for clues as it took off into the wind. Satisfied, she reached for the radio and switched it on. Someone—Jürgen, no doubt—had already tuned it to the correct frequency.
Guttural German came from her headset, clear enough to understand: “Lockheed 227. Mark 3A DDD, you are cleared for takeoff.”
She growled a “Received. Out.” And replaced the radio.
The plane before hers had made it look easy. She glanced at the windsock. It showed a light wind blowing nearly straight on. She taxied to the runway, then turned into it, advancing the throttle steadily, increasing her revs. The engine dropped into a throaty roar.
As she built speed, she pushed the stick forward to lift the tail wheel, then eased it back. The Lockheed had a light load—a Bochner and a Bruegel. So she hit the right speed fast and smoothly pulled the stick. At two hundred feet she glanced at her compass. Liège, her destination, was only two points off due west and about 360 miles away. With this load, a full tank and this purring engine, she could fly her top speed all the way and be there in just over two hours. This time, with Jocco’s advance in her pocket, she was going to check into the best hotel. She’d have a steak brought to her while she bathed. They wouldn’t even have to cook it.
Her heading took her back over the airfield. She was probably three hundred feet up as she passed, low enough to see the dock, with Betsy’s barge still there and what looked like Jocco’s truck pulling up. Then she thought she saw a body of uniformed men moving toward it—but the low cloud she entered took away her sight.
She shivered. It was probably nothing, just her nerves. Besides, Jocco was a big boy, and he’d take care of himself. Her part of the deal was taking care of Icarus. All their futures depended on that. She glanced at the compass again and headed west.
About an hour and a half in, the clouds had gone and she could look down on the big industrial sprawl of Cologne. Beyond it, a river widened; she’d found the Meuse. Follow that and it would lead her straight to her destination. She could almost taste the Scotch.
She heard a faint popping sound. A scream reached her a second before the smoke.
Whipping around, she saw flames. They were just behind her, on the right side of the plane. Herr Bochner had unstrapped himself and was beating at them with his coat. His efforts only seemed to spread them. That, and the accelerant she could smell—gas, stingingly sharp. “Leave it!” she yelled. “Strap yourself in!”
Roxy pushed the stick forward. She knew only one thing. Flames on a plane meant she had to get to ground—quick.
She glanced back. Bochner was strapped in again. But before him, the flames were spreading from their source—that box of spares, all consumed now. They reached and dissolved the shroud over the painting. She had a sudden sense of Icarus plunging to his death; of Daedalus, his father, screaming his anguish.
She touched the parachute under her seat but knew she could never use it. It would mean death for Bochner.
She’d closed her throttle, about all she could do to sustain her glide, which was still way too fast. She tried all she could to slow it.
The ground had to be close. She turned and screamed “Brace yourself!” even as the first wheel struck. But for a brief, terrible second she didn’t turn back. She could only stare at the painting, fully revealed now, dissolving in fire. She saw Daedalus; saw that instead of a father’s anguished scream, this Daedalus’s face revealed only a wild and triumphant glee. And seeing it, she knew in a moment what Ferency the forger had done; knew what Jürgen the mechanic had done. Knew what betrayal was.
The second wheel struck. Opening her throttle wide and pulling hard back on the stick, she tried to jump over the barn that was suddenly, certainly, there.