“I’m not a Jew.” That pricked Kolb’s Aryan outrage as Ian had thought it would. “I’m Austrian, pure descent!”

Even a small apartment like this one took a long time to search thoroughly. Nina checked every floorboard for loose nails, every cupboard for false backs, every bedspring and dinner plate and item of clothing, as Ian hammered at Kolb. He put a third of the bottle of scotch into the man, as he alternated between cutting sarcasm and a whip-snap roar that had Kolb cringing in his chair. Ian learned his real name was Gerhardt Schlitterbahn. Ian learned a tedious amount about the business Kolb had done in Austria for the Third Reich, assessing Blüthner pianofortes and first-edition volumes of Schiller confiscated from Jewish families. Ian learned how Kolb nearly starved after the war, how Daniel McBride had agreed to sponsor him in return for lending his expertise to the shop—and that was where the man clammed up.

It didn’t matter if Ian threatened to come back with an arrest warrant, if he put money on the table, if he threatened to get Kolb sacked by informing his employers that the man they had sponsored was a Nazi. Kolb ignored both bribes and threats, mouth sealed shut. He was drenched in sweat, half drunk, sniffling and flinching whenever Ian came within arm’s length, but he wouldn’t admit he had aided any fellow Nazis, and he wouldn’t list names.

Nina stood behind him, fists on hips, shaking her head. She’d torn this apartment apart with the kind of brutal efficiency Ian envisioned in secret police raids, and found nothing. If Kolb had incriminating lists or documents, they weren’t here. Disappointment rose sharp and bitter in Ian’s mouth.

Kolb gnawed his lip, eyes yearning for the scotch. You know, Ian thought. You know where she is. So much knowledge locked behind that clamped mouth.

“You’re severely trying my patience, Fritz,” he said at last.

“I have nothing to tell you.” Kolb spoke in a righteous rising whine. So very hard done by. So wronged. “I’ve done nothing, nothing at all—”

Ian didn’t mean to move. He didn’t realize he’d risen until he swatted the bottle of scotch to the floor in a shower of glass, sank a hand into Kolb’s collar, dragged him out of his chair, and hoisted him up against the wall. “You cataloged stolen books while the people who owned them were shipped off in cattle cars,” Ian said. “Don’t tell me you did nothing, you little Nazi shit.”

Kolb squeaked, eyes huge. Ian hoisted him another inch, off the floor, so the man’s face abruptly started turning purple. “Tell me who you helped get here.” Ian heard the blood rushing in his ears. “Tell me who you’re protecting.”

Lorelei Vogt. Give her to me.

Kolb just stared, whimpering, and Ian had never wanted to hurt a man so badly in his life. Fling him to the ground and give his face a few good stamps, till he was spitting blood and tooth splinters out along with names.

He won’t talk, the thought whispered. However much Ian scared him, Kolb feared something else more. Very possibly die J?gerin. If I were a cringing paper pusher nursing a bottle of scotch, I’d be quite scared of what a woman like that could do to me—a woman who killed six children in cold blood. Ian heard the thought come cool and ruthless. You’ll have to hurt him quite a lot to make him more afraid of you than her.

At that point, though, information couldn’t really be counted on. People in enough pain would say anything to make the pain stop.

But Ian didn’t care. He wanted to do it anyway. He wanted to beat this man to a pulp.

He heard a snick behind him, and he didn’t need to look back to know Nina had unfolded the razor from her sleeve. Anything he did, his wife wasn’t going to stop him.

Ian took a long breath and lowered Kolb back onto his straining toes. He stepped back, fishing his handkerchief out and wiping his fingers clean of scotch splatters as Kolb sagged gasping against the wall.

“Maybe I believe you, Fritz.” Ian fought to keep his voice light, conversational. “Maybe you’re just a sad man left over from a bad war, trying to make his way in the world. You’re lucky my colleagues”—waving a hand, implying hordes of faceless associates from the police department, the immigration bureau—“have other names more interesting than yours.” Ian collected his hat, Nina her notebook. The razor had been stowed. Only the smell of liquor, the crunch of glass underfoot, and the fear in the little German’s eyes gave away what had almost happened.

It still could happen, Ian thought. A fist to the gut, then when Kolb doubled over, bring the knee up and break his nose. The crunch would be glorious. “Do I need to mention that you shouldn’t think of leaving Boston?” Ian asked instead.

“No,” Kolb said at once.

“Good. Innocent men don’t run. You run, I’ll come after you. And I won’t be so friendly next time.” Ian clapped his fedora over his hair. The rage was draining, leaving a sick feeling in the gut. Bloody hell, Graham, what did you almost do?

“Have a good day,” Ian managed to say, and fled.

Chapter 30

Nina

July 1943

Russian front near Taman Peninsula

Drink your Coca-Cola, rabbit.” Nina yawned, stepping up onto the wing and passing Yelena a pair of stimulant tablets. “It’ll be eight runs at least.”

Eight runs over the Blue Line, the stretch of German fortifications between Novorossiysk and the Sea of Azov, a razor-edge thicket of searchlights, antiaircraft batteries, enemy airdromes, fighters on alert . . . The Night Witches had been hammering at the same stretch since they’d been transferred here in the spring. They’d been so jubilant, sweeping into their new post flushed with pride because by now everyone knew that they were pushing the Fritzes back. The swastikas were falling back before the red stars, and the 588th had their part to play.

The Forty-Sixth, Nina reminded herself as the Rusalka was cleared to take off. The 588th had been renamed the Forty-Sixth Taman Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment in February. “Five other regiments of U-2 fliers in our next division, ladies,” Bershanskaia said with pride, “and not one has been named a Guards regiment.”

“The men don’t have our sortie numbers!” Nina had called from the back of the crowd, and even as Bershanskaia cut her hand downward to quell the resulting laughter, she smiled. Because they all knew it was true. The other regiments flew hard, but they didn’t push their planes and themselves to the absolute limit. They hadn’t fought to come to the front, only to be called little princesses.

It had been a very long time since anyone called a Night Witch a little princess, but Nina didn’t think any of them had forgotten.

Yelena was saying something, Nina realized, pointing at the U-2 lined up ahead of them. “. . . worried about her,” Yelena said, nodding at the other plane’s pilot who was staring blankly out of her cockpit. “Irina hasn’t been right since Dusia died.”

“Irina didn’t bring her pilot down alive,” Nina said. In April, Dusia had taken a shot through the floor of her cockpit from a Focke-Wulf—clipped through the skull, dead in an instant. Her navigator Irina had had to land, stiff with shock, but she’d gone back to flying the next night. “She thinks she should be dead too, not sitting in her pilot’s place.”

“Don’t tell me you think that!”

“No, but she does.” Promotion from the rear cockpit to the front happened over the body of another pilot. You lost a sestra, you had to slot another into her seat and keep flying. Nina shivered, touching her star-embroidered scarf for luck.

A smooth ascent into the cloudless sky—tonight they took off fourth. Nina felt her pills kick in, giving the world its slowed-down razor-edged clarity, the glass-clear alertness. She’d pay for it later, jittering and blinking and unable to sleep, but it was worth it to feel this awake and alive, sliding immortal through the sky.

“Searchlights,” Nina called through the interphones as they approached their target. Yelena had already seen those four searching columns, had already started her descent. Nina saw the lead plane in the cross-beams, a white spot bleached colorless—

And then it turned from white to red in a sudden burst of flame.