Drago loomed out of the shadows. “You were expecting brand-new B-29?”
“No — it’s just — can this thing make it to Casablanca?”
“No,” Drago replied.
“No?!”
“The fuel will take us as far as airstrip I know near Valencia, Spain. From there Olga can reach Casablanca.”
Grace regarded the aircraft. “It doesn’t look like Olga can get off the ground.”
Drago was insulted. “My Olga won the first Zurich-Mombasa air race. She dropped supplies to partisans in Seville. She landed in cyclone in Istanbul when it was still called Constantinople.”
She sighed. “I guess we’d better get going, then.” She reached into the briefcase and pulled out a fat bundle of bills. “Ten thousand. And another ten when we get there.”
He snatched up the money and stuffed it into the depths of his voluminous coat. “I am not greedy. Ten thousand is plenty if it means I don’t have to go to Casablanca and get killed. Farewell, foolish girl.”
Grace was outraged. “We had a deal!”
“Here is advice to pass to your grandchildren someday: Trust no one.”
In a rage, Grace brought the heel of one of her new boots down on his soft shoe. He howled in pain and reached for her, but she was already vaulting into the cockpit of his plane, pulling down the canopy as she dropped to the seat. In a flash, she had the engine running and was beginning to taxi out of the hangar.
He tried to block her way until the whirling propeller drove him back. He watched in astonishment as his beloved Olga rolled out onto the tarmac and headed for the runway. In a horrified instant, he realized that the plane was not stopping.
Drago sprinted headlong across the airfield and hurled himself onto the lower wing of the biplane. Undeterred, Grace began to taxi in a serpentine motion in an effort to shake him off. Hanging on for dear life, he crawled between the struts to the fuselage, reached up, and managed to flip open the canopy. “Stop!”
In answer, Grace opened the throttle, sped down the runway, and pulled back on the yoke. With a mighty roar, the biplane left the ground.
Watching the airfield fall away from him lent strength to Drago’s panic. He hoisted himself up and over, and tumbled into the passenger seat. “All right,” he wheezed. “I will take you to Casablanca.”
“Why should I believe you?” she shouted over the roar of the engine.
He was wide-eyed. “Because you have proven yourself worthy of my fear!”
When the aircraft crossed the border into occupied France, Drago was at the controls and Grace was in the passenger seat, hugging the briefcase to her chest.
Her journey to Casablanca had begun.
Their flight path followed the coastline, not that Grace could tell. Occupied France was under strict blackout orders, so there were no lights beyond the occasional wisp of illumination sneaking out from behind dark curtains.
Drago navigated by starlight and the dim glow cast by a crescent moon. Occasionally, he consulted a torn and ratty map that lay open on his lap.
Grace squinted out the window into the gloom. “How do you see where you’re going? I can’t even make out where the water meets the land.”
“Don’t have to see,” the pilot grunted. “Olga knows the way.”
“Funny name for an aircraft,” Grace commented. “Is it after your wife?”
“My gun.”
Grace stared at him. “You named your plane after a gun?”
“It was very good gun.”
She scanned his shaggy, inscrutable features, trying to determine if he was serious. One thing was certain: He could not be trusted. He had already tried to double-cross her once and wouldn’t hesitate to do it again.
For the present, though, the pilot seemed content to be piloting, and the biplane jounced above the coastline, plodding southwest. Grace did not remember sleeping, but she awoke with a start, instantly aware that something was different. There was no longer unbroken darkness below them. Lights shone from farmhouses and the occasional village.
“We’re off course!” she cried. “You’re taking me to the wrong place!”
He shook his head. “We have crossed over Spanish border. No war here.”
“Sorry.” She was chastened but relieved. Fascist Spain sympathized with Germany but was technically neutral. Where there was no fear of bombing, there were no blackout restrictions.
“You have father?” Drago asked her suddenly.
“Why should you need to know?” Grace demanded.
He shrugged. “I am father. My daughter, I hope, will never go on purpose to a place of battle.”
“Well, my father is out of the picture,” Grace said bitterly, “so I can’t know his opinion on this or anything else.”
“He is dead?”
Grace shook her head. “Just — gone. He left us.” As much as she resented James Cahill for that, she would have given anything to see his face right then. Mother, too — her fair features, pale skin, and auburn hair. The gentle way she spoke your name, even when she was angry. The kindness that radiated from her …
No, don’t think about that! Father might come back, but Mother never will….
“I, too, did this thing. Left my family.” Drago’s gravelly voice betrayed no emotion. “I hope one day my daughter will understand.”
“What’s to understand about your own father deserting you?”