The Diplomat's Wife(109)

“Rachel,” I whisper aloud, seeing her face. The road seems to stretch endlessly ahead of us. Staring out at pitch darkness on either side of the car, I fight the urge to scream. I look desperately at the clock on the dashboard. Twenty past seven. If the plane takes off, Simon will be beyond the authorities’ reach and Rachel will be gone forever. Bile rises up in my throat and I lean my head against the seat in front of me, praying we will make it in time.

Twenty-five minutes later, we pull up in front of Luton Airport and I leap from the taxi. Through the glass, I can see that the building is dark inside. The parking lot is deserted, except for a lone man lifting a bag from a garbage can. I run to him. “Excuse me. I’m looking for a flight to Moscow this evening.”

The man cocks his head. “Moscow? We don’t fly there. Airport is closed for the night, anyway.” My heart sinks. They are not here. Had Simon left the itinerary as a red herring to throw me off his trail? “Unless it’s a flight from the private hangar,” the man adds.

My breath catches. “Where’s that?”

He points behind the building to the right. “But you can’t…”

Not listening further, I start to run in the direction he indicated. Behind the airport building is an open field. Commercial planes stand idly in a row. To the right, far in the distance, I see another building, hear a low whirring noise. I begin to run toward the building, my lungs burning. As I draw closer, I can make out a single plane on the tarmac, smaller than the commercial ones. A man walks around the side of the plane and starts up the open stairs. At the top, he turns to look back. I recognize Simon’s silhouette in the doorway. I run faster. They have not left yet. But the propellers are starting to spin now, ready to go. He starts inside the plane.

“Simon!” I yell over the noise of the engine as I near. He does not hear me. “Simon!” He turns back. At the sight of me, his jaw drops. I can see him thinking that I should have eaten the chocolates, that I should be unconscious on the floor. “Where’s Rachel?” I demand, racing up the stairs.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says patiently, as though talking to a child. “Rachel was at home with you.” His voice is so sincere that for a second I almost believe him. Then his eyes dart toward the entrance of the plane.

“Rachel?” I call, starting up the steps.

As I try to push past him, he grabs my arm roughly. “You shouldn’t have come here,” he growls, his expression turning to rage.

Who is this man with the harsh face, the foreign, angry eyes? His fingers dig into my arm like a vise. For a moment, I consider playing dumb, stalling for time. But I cannot contain myself. “I know, Dmitri. I know everything.” His eyes widen. Anger flares inside me. He had been so arrogant, so certain I would never find out. He had not even bothered to destroy the evidence. “I know that you are working for the Soviets.”

He opens his mouth to start to deny my accusations. Then, looking over my shoulder at the deserted tarmac, he shrugs. “I’m a communist, Marta.” There is a hint of pride in his voice.

I stare at him, disbelieving. I had assumed that the communists had somehow persuaded Simon to spy. It had not occurred to me that he might be one of them. “For how long?”

“Years before I met you. Since college, in fact.”

Before he met me. Before we were married. I am flooded with disbelief. “But why? You were so insistent that I come to work for you, that I help you with your work…” My mind reels back to the day I heard Marek’s name in the meeting. “You needed me to find Marcelitis,” I say slowly, realizing aloud. He does not respond. I remember Simon’s anger at my going to Prague, his concern. It had all been an act. “You needed me to get the cipher. But you gave the cipher to the department…” Even as I say this, I know that it was a lie, too. I lunge toward him, reaching for his jacket. “Where’s the cipher, Simon?”

He holds me off easily with one hand, his grip stronger than I’ve ever known it to be. “The cipher is going back to Moscow where it belongs,” he informs me coldly. “And it is just a matter of time before Marcelitis is taken from the picture altogether.” He pushes me away hard.

I stumble, grabbing the railing to avoid falling down the stairs. You have to catch Jan first, I want to say. I am glad that I had not told him Jan was a woman. “But how did you know that I knew Marek, that I would volunteer to go?” I ask instead. “You knew, didn’t you? About my work with the resistance, my contacts?” Simon does not answer. “But how?”

There is a noise behind Simon. “Hello, Marta,” a familiar voice says. My heart stops. A woman appears in the door of the plane, and at the sight of her brown hair and full figure, I gasp.

There, in the door of the plane, stands Dava.

I stare at her, not breathing. I remember the clover scent on Simon’s coat last night, the woman’s voice on the phone. It does not seem possible. Dava who nursed me back to health in Salzburg. Dava who told me to go to England. “Dava?” I manage to say at last. She does not reply but looks back at me unblinkingly.

“When Dava found you at Salzburg, we knew you were perfect,” Simon says. The Soviets must have planted operatives in the displaced persons camps to look for refugees to work for their cause. Simon continues, “She knew that you had been a political prisoner so we did some checking. Your experience, your connections, made you a natural.” I suddenly remember the conversations about the war Dava and I had sitting on the terrace at the palace. It had never occurred to me that she was assessing my political views for the communists. “But we knew you would never work for us willingly,” he adds.