“I’m not leaving my pilot.” That surge of protectiveness overcame Nina again, laced this time with tenderness. “Navigator’s first job.”

She caught up, taking Yelena’s hand, and the long fingers tangled through hers. Nina’s throat caught. They made their way to their U-2, staring up at it silently. Just a black shape against the stars. No proper airdromes so close to the front; on a fine summer night like this the planes sat in silent camouflaged rows in the flattened grass. Where will we be flying by winter? Nina wondered. If the German army was still in full advance by then, would it mean Moscow had fallen? Probably Leningrad too, starving and encircled, and Stalingrad . . .

“What do you think tomorrow’s targets will be?” Yelena’s voice was soft in the dark.

“German depots or ammunition supplies,” Nina guessed.

Yelena ran her hand along the bombing rack under the lower wing of their plane. “Not much firepower on a U-2.”

“Enough to disrupt, pester. Like a mosquito—you know that.”

“But we’re just one mosquito in a big war.”

“One mosquito in a cloud of mosquitoes,” Nina corrected. “And a cloud of mosquitoes can drive a man or even a horse so mad with pain, it’ll plunge into the lake and drown itself.”

Yelena noticed Nina’s involuntary shudder at her own words. “What?”

“Drowning. The one thing I’m afraid of.” She took a steadying breath, for a moment tasting the iron tang of the lake, feeling her father’s hand shoving her head under the ice. “What do you fear, Yelenushka?”

“Getting captured and tortured. Crashing . . .” Yelena shivered. “What if it’s us tomorrow?”

Nina was silent. There was only faint starlight, but she had no trouble seeing Yelena’s pale face. She saw it clear as day: the wide-set long-lashed eyes, the firm lips pressed into a line to keep from trembling, the dark hair that had grown from its training-day chop into short dark curls around her long neck. Nina reached up, taking hold of Yelena’s flying scarf with its half-stitched blue stars, and tugged her down so they could see eye to eye. “It won’t be us,” she said, and she fit her mouth over Yelena’s. Soft lips, soft cheeks, fingers sliding into Yelena’s soft hair. A moment’s stiffening, a surprised little sound like a startled cygnet disappearing into the warmth between them. Then there was a tentative parting of lips. A slender hand alighted on Nina’s cheek, and her blood turned to quicksilver.

Yelena’s eyes were wide when they pulled apart. Nina wanted to soar. She didn’t need the U-2 to take flight, she could take a running leap and fling herself up among the stars. With one hand she patted the plane, and with the other she seized Yelena by the wrist. “This bird needs a name,” she said. “Come on.”

They rummaged in the temporary mechanic headquarters, begging a can of red paint and some brushes from the few mechanics still prowling among their planes, and carried it all back to their U-2, pulling aside just enough of the camouflage to get to work. Yelena did the painting while Nina and her sharper nighttime eyes directed the placement of the letters. “That last word is wandering up—down, stick down! Does Raskova know she picked a pilot who doesn’t know up from down?”

“Does Raskova know she picked a navigator who can’t give the simplest of directions?” Yelena swiped Nina with the paintbrush.

Dawn was perhaps an hour away by the time they finished. The last mechanics had gone; Nina and Yelena were surely the only two not asleep in their quarters. They surveyed their work, Nina sitting on the U-2’s lower wing feet swinging, Yelena standing at her side head tilted. Along the fuselage, neat red letters read To Avenge Our Comrades with the names of the regiment’s first two losses. On the other side was the U-2’s new name.

Rusalka.

“Silent and immortal,” Yelena said. “I like that.”

“So do I,” said Nina and reached out to tug Yelena’s mouth to hers again. Not surprising her this time, moving slow to give her a chance to tug away—please don’t tug away—and she didn’t. Her hands cupped Nina’s face, her lips hungry and shy. Nina felt the swoop in her stomach that she always felt when she began spiraling nose-first into a stall. The weightless delirium of falling.

“I haven’t—” Yelena said uncertainly, lips still brushing Nina’s, her fingers wound tight through Nina’s hair. “Why me?”

“Because you’re the best flier I’ve ever seen,” Nina said. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in the air as you.”

“Girls don’t—aren’t supposed to—”

“I don’t care about aren’t supposed to,” Nina said roughly, sliding off the wing to pull her pilot down to the ground. The shadow under the Rusalka’s wing was dark as a lake, the crushed grass sweet and soft. Fumbling around overalls—was anything less designed for lovemaking than overalls? Nina had enough coherence left to wonder. Everything felt unfamiliar, intoxicating. Yelena had such smooth skin, an endlessly curving spine like a string of pearls, what seemed like a kilometer of ivory-pale waist. It should have been awkward, a dance they didn’t know, but it wasn’t at all. They were a perfect pair in the sky, moving like one—they could move like one down here on the ground, with the protective shadow of the camouflaged U-2 hiding them from sight, and the distant noise of ground fire and antiaircraft guns hiding any stifled, curlew-soft sounds of pleasure. My pilot, Nina thought, her hand stroking over Yelena’s hip. Mine.

“Dawn,” Yelena whispered eventually. “We should get back.”

“Don’t want to.” Nina yawned against Yelena’s arm.

“We have to, rabbit.” Kissing Nina’s temple. “Tonight we fly.”

Nina opened her eyes to the pinkness at the east. She already wanted stars again, wanted darkness, wanted night. Wanted the night to wrap up the three of them, herself and Yelena and the Rusalka, and send them to do what they’d been born to do. Nina sat up, feeling her lips curl in a smile. “I can’t wait.”

Chapter 19

Jordan

Thanksgiving 1946

Boston

Jordan sat in the red glow of the safelight, flipping the Leica’s shutter back and forth. Even the darkroom smelled of burned turkey. I’m not crying, she told herself. But her breath hitched from time to time, and even the familiar embrace of the darkroom was no comfort. Perhaps upstairs Anneliese was sobbing and Jordan’s father was consoling her and Ruth was wondering why her very first Thanksgiving was not happening, after all. And at some point Dan McBride would come down here and say—

Jordan flinched. The crumpled look on Anneliese’s face, the destroyed hunch in her shoulders as she fled the dining room . . .

I was right. So why do I feel I got it all wrong? Jordan’s thoughts flickered back to the photographs, the Iron Cross, Anneliese’s dead father and his tattoo and the incriminating date, then she caught herself looking back at the image of Anneliese fleeing the dining room, studying it clinically, for signs of lying. Of putting on an act. A bone-deep wince followed: Haven’t you done enough?

Round and round. Photographs and so-called proof and a ruined holiday. The only thing she knew for certain was that she was no longer sure of the case she’d put together. No longer sure of anything at all.

Finally it came—the sound of the darkroom door opening. A light switch flicked, the red glow of the safelight drowned in the harsh glare of white overhead bulbs, and then there was her dad, coming down the steps. Jordan made herself face him, putting the Leica aside. She met his gaze, knowing her face was already twisting up, but she couldn’t stop it. He didn’t look angry. She might have braced herself against anger. He looked exhausted, sad, disappointed. A look that made her shrivel inside, because she’d rather die than disappoint her father.

“Anna’s finally sleeping,” he began. “I’ve scraped together some dinner for Ruth. Do you want any?”

“No.” Jordan’s stomach was roiling so hard, she didn’t think she’d ever eat again.

“I don’t know what to say.” He sounded so weary, so defeated. “I don’t know how to—fix this. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you more about Anna, that she’d changed her name. It’s my fault.”

“It’s not your fault. She’s the one who lied, Dad,” Jordan managed to say. “To you, and to me. Even if everything she said was true about why she did it, she still lied.”