Nina shrugged. “So we kill her.”
“No.” Ian came around the desk, covering the ground between himself and his wife in one stride. “We are not a damned death squad. We are better than that. Dead men don’t pay. They don’t suffer. The world learns nothing from them. Without public justice, it’s all pointless. We do not kill targets.”
“Okay,” she said. “We don’t kill her. I kill her. I have no problem with that.”
“What the bloody hell is wrong with you?” Ian’s voice rose to a shout. “If you’d kill Lorelei Vogt in cold blood, what makes you any different from her?”
“I don’t do it for fun like her,” Nina flared. “I do it because she tries to kill me. Because I see her kill your brother.” Nina stepped closer, head tipped far back to nail her gaze to his. “Russians don’t forget that like Englishmen.”
Ian stared down at his wife, close enough to feel her contained fury blazing up at him. She stared back, eyes narrowed, hair a blond feral mane. “I will not seek justice for one ruthless killer of a woman by joining forces with another,” he said at last. “Get the fuck out of my office.”
Nina tilted one shoulder in a shrug and moved toward the door.
“Hey!” Tony protested, starting forward, but Ian whipped around.
“I have always said I won’t work with anyone who advocates for vigilante justice, Tony. Do not even try to tell me she is joking.”
“Am not joking,” Nina said, taking her old jacket off the hook by the door.
“I know you’re not,” Tony replied. “You’d open die J?gerin’s throat ear to ear and walk away smiling. But so would you, Ian, if you ever let yourself admit it.” Tony shook his head. “You might know more Latin than your wife here, but don’t think that makes you better than she is. You’ve got a savage in there too, you just pretend he’s never coming off the leash.”
“He never is coming off the leash,” Ian said evenly. “Because I happen to believe that principle should be stronger than the need for vengeance.”
“Excuses certainly are,” his partner bit back. “You know the real reason you won’t follow Lorelei Vogt to Boston? I do. Because you’d rather let a murderess walk free than take the risk of your righteous white hat ever slipping off.”
Nina looked over her shoulder in the doorway. “Is true,” she said.
Maybe it is, Ian thought. Which is why I will not risk it. Control is what separates men from beasts.
“Send me a telegram when you get back to England,” he told Nina finally. “So I know where to notify you of divorce proceedings. Feel free to follow her out, Tony. As long as I’ve known you, you’d follow a woman’s arse and an easy argument before you’d ever follow what was right.”
“I wondered my first day here how long it would take you to fire me.” Tony reached for his hat. “So long, boss.”
Chapter 18
Nina
May 1942
Engels
She was beautiful. Olive green with red-painted stars, proud and new. Nina laid a hand on the sun-warmed wood.
Who are you? the U-2 seemed to ask.
“A friend,” Nina breathed back. All over the airdrome, the pilots and navigators of the 588th were examining their new planes. They would fly soon to join the Fourth Air Army on the southern front in the Donets Basin region. These planes would see combat.
Yelena stood back, hands in her pockets. Nina turned, still stroking the propeller blade like the nose of a dog. “I know you’re disappointed it’s not a fighter,” she said, already feeling protective of the U-2. She wanted to cover its ears, make sure it didn’t hear it hadn’t been its pilot’s first pick. “But this girl will do us fine.”
“I know.” Yelena’s smile had a wistful edge as she came and patted the propeller. Nina hadn’t expected to be picked for the fighters, but Yelena had wept disappointment upon learning that she too had been assigned to the night bombers. Secretly, Nina was relieved. The regiment of fighters had claimed tiny fiery Lilia and a good many others she was surprised to realize had become friends. At least she wasn’t losing Yelena. The intensity of her own relief had startled Nina.
“Is it really so bad?” she ventured around an unexpected tightness in her throat. “Flying a U-2 with me?”
“I’d have liked to fly a Yak-1, but . . .” Yelena’s smile faded. “I told you I was born in Ukraine, before my family came to Moscow?”
“Yes.”
“My old village has been overrun by Germans,” Yelena said softly, and Nina’s hand fell from the propeller. “Mama had word from her sister. Everyone was fleeing, roads jammed with people carrying bundles, children screaming, dogs howling. And German planes flew along the roads, strafing the crowd. My grandparents are dead. My cousins, dead.” She stopped, lashes dropping in a quick, fierce blink. Nina wanted to put an arm about Yelena’s shoulders, but held back. “I don’t care if I only fly a U-2 and not a Yak,” Yelena finished. “I’d fly a broom, as long as I was able to fight the Fritzes.”
“And you’ve got the best navigator in the 588th,” Nina pointed out.
Yelena gave a watery smile. “The most modest too.”
They were going to fly well together, Nina already knew that. Marina Raskova had assigned all the pairings herself, and Nina’s heart lifted when she heard her assignment. Yelena was better but Nina was bolder; Yelena had sharper reflexes, Nina had keener eyes. They’d balance each other perfectly.
“So, Comrade Lieutenant Vetsina,” Nina said. “From here, it’s my job to keep you alive. You fly the plane and I fly you, so you have to do everything I say.” She said it jokingly, but the flash of protectiveness that went through her was oddly fierce. Were all the other navigators already so worried about their pilots’ safety?
“Don’t worry, Comrade Lieutenant. I’m a nice steerable creature. Just like her.” Yelena looked up at their U-2, slinging an arm about Nina’s neck. Nina leaned her head against that warm, firm shoulder. “What shall we name her?”
“I think . . .” Nina blew out a thoughtful breath, smelling the soap Yelena had used to wash her short glossy hair, contemplating their plane. What beautiful words those were: their plane. “I think she’ll tell us when she’s ready, don’t you?”
THEY FLEW OUT on a warm May morning, Raskova in the lead. She’d be taking command of the day bombers but had vowed to personally escort all the regiments to their front first. She rose into the air like an eagle, one hundred and twelve eaglets following her, red Soviet stars flashing in the May sunshine. They leveled off below the racing clouds, Yelena’s head moving in the cockpit ahead of Nina’s as she snugged their U-2 tight and swift into formation. Major Raskova waggled her wingtips as the last plane veered into line, and they all waved back, the ripple moving down the line of wings like laughter. Nina realized her eyes were streaming tears behind her goggles—she hadn’t cried since the very first time she’d taken to the air at nineteen. Yelena took her hand off the stick and stretched it back over her shoulder, giving Nina a blind wave, and Nina waved back. Without even seeing her pilot’s face, she knew Yelena had an ear-to-ear smile.
No one was smiling when they touched down at Morozovskaia. “Those bastards,” Nina spat. An escort of fighters from the Fourth Air Army had risen up to escort the 588th in, only the men hadn’t been content to fly escort; they’d flown attack patterns like advancing Messerschmitts.
“They’re friendlies,” Yelena had shouted back to Nina, who tensed as she saw the first attacking swoop. “They’re just playing—” She held their course, but several of the younger pilots had got flustered and dove out of formation.
“Raskova’s going to have their balls for earrings,” Nina snarled once everyone was safe on the ground.
“They didn’t mean any harm,” Yelena argued. “It’s just hazing. Everyone coming new to the front is in for some hazing.”
“Especially if you’re us,” the argument shot back. “Comrade Stalin’s pet project—”
“—because we’re girls—”
“Well, don’t show them any reaction,” Yelena said as they fell into march exiting the airfield. “Heads high, ladies.”
Nina kept her eyes narrowed and her chin lifted as they walked the gauntlet of smirking men in flight overalls. Some wag from the back called out, “What’s the matter, girlies, can’t you tell stars from swastikas when you see ’em on a wing?” Nina broke marching rhythm to throw him an obscene gesture.
“Enough,” Major Raskova barked, all-seeing as ever. “You’ll be based out of Trud Gorniaka, ladies, find your billets. Don’t get comfortable. With the front so unstable we could be moving any day or any hour—”