Page 21 of Flight of Dreams

“Not too early.”

He peers at the ceiling as though trying to decide the time of day. “Don’t worry, when I get home my days of sleeping in are over. I have three children. They wake up at the most ungodly hour every single day.”

“Anytime after seven.” He parts ways with Späh, who turns at the stairs to head up toward A-deck, and returns to his room.

The pistol is still there. He moved it to the bottom of his suitcase when he went to dinner. The American feels the reassuring weight of it in his hands. The cartridge is still loaded. His room has not been entered. He can tell this by the little clues he set in place before leaving: one corner of the pillowcase tucked underneath. The closet door closed but not latched. The sink set to a faint drip. The shirts folded at the top of his suitcase. He takes a deep, satisfied breath and begins to undress for bed. It will take some time to quiet his mind. It will take much longer to fall asleep.

He has just stretched out on the berth when the door to the next cabin opens. Laughter. A man’s voice, and then a woman’s. Whispers. The door closes with a loud click.

It is well past midnight now and the airship is eerily quiet. Too quiet for the woman to be speaking as loudly as she does.

“Do you think he’s right?” she asks.

“Ssshhhh,” her partner says, and then lower, “About what, Liebchen?”

“About the bomb.”

The American sits up straight, every muscle tense, breath held, listening for whatever it is they will say next.

THE JOURNALIST

“Ssshhhh.” Leonhard stands behind her, his lips close to her ear. Warm. And his voice is little more than a whisper. “It’s Colonel Erdmann’s job to worry, not yours.”

“But—”

“Quiet, Liebchen.”

“He said—”

“I know what he said.”

Gertrud loves Leonhard’s hands. He is bright and educated and easily the funniest man she has ever met, but his hands are not the soft, indolent hands of an academic. They are broad and strong and calloused. They are the hands of a man who has never known a sedentary day. And right now those hands snake around her waist, stroking, massaging until they find the top button of her skirt. He flicks it open with two fingers and the fabric at her waist relaxes. Gertrud is never more aware of how much older Leonhard is than when he touches her. It is startling how much skill he has acquired in those two extra decades.

“I know what you’re doing,” she says.

When Leonhard tugs at her skirt it falls a few inches to settle on her hips.

“I’d say it’s fairly obvious.”

“You’re trying to distract me.”

Gertrud’s skirt drops to the floor, and Leonhard moves those nimble, calloused fingers to her blouse. One button. Two. Three. He spreads the collar open, revealing an elegant sweep of clavicle and the pale ivory of her camisole. Next he shifts his attention to the opening at the back of her slip as he unbuckles her garters from behind.

“You never did tell me what you were thinking,” he whispers. Leonhard tugs lightly at her earlobe with his teeth.

It takes a beat too long for Gertrud to find her question. “When?”

“When you came out of the toilet after dinner. You looked sad and guilty, like you could cry but were too angry. Why?”

“Egon. I hadn’t thought of him for hours.”

“Ah. I thought so.” He gently pulls her to him, her back pressing against his chest. Leonhard is warm and solid, and she settles against him. “Egon is at home with your mother, asleep. You should sleep as well.”

“There’s little chance of that.”

“Oh?” One of those hands she loves so much drops between them and makes its way under her slip.

“It isn’t going to work, you know.”