Vespers Rising (The 39 Clues #11)(34)

In answer, Grace opened the throttle, sped down the runway, and pulled back on the yoke. With a mighty roar, the biplane left the ground.

Watching the airfield fall away from him lent strength to Drago’s panic. He hoisted himself up and over, and tumbled into the passenger seat. “All right,” he wheezed. “I will take you to Casablanca.”

“Why should I believe you?” she shouted over the roar of the engine.

He was wide-eyed. “Because you have proven yourself worthy of my fear!”

When the aircraft crossed the border into occupied France, Drago was at the controls and Grace was in the passenger seat, hugging the briefcase to her chest.

Her journey to Casablanca had begun.

Their flight path followed the coastline, not that Grace could tell. Occupied France was under strict blackout orders, so there were no lights beyond the occasional wisp of illumination sneaking out from behind dark curtains.

Drago navigated by starlight and the dim glow cast by a crescent moon. Occasionally, he consulted a torn and ratty map that lay open on his lap.

Grace squinted out the window into the gloom. “How do you see where you’re going? I can’t even make out where the water meets the land.”

“Don’t have to see,” the pilot grunted. “Olga knows the way.”

“Funny name for an aircraft,” Grace commented. “Is it after your wife?”

“My gun.”

Grace stared at him. “You named your plane after a gun?”

“It was very good gun.”

She scanned his shaggy, inscrutable features, trying to determine if he was serious. One thing was certain: He could not be trusted. He had already tried to double-cross her once and wouldn’t hesitate to do it again.

For the present, though, the pilot seemed content to be piloting, and the biplane jounced above the coastline, plodding southwest. Grace did not remember sleeping, but she awoke with a start, instantly aware that something was different. There was no longer unbroken darkness below them. Lights shone from farmhouses and the occasional village.

“We’re off course!” she cried. “You’re taking me to the wrong place!”

He shook his head. “We have crossed over Spanish border. No war here.”

“Sorry.” She was chastened but relieved. Fascist Spain sympathized with Germany but was technically neutral. Where there was no fear of bombing, there were no blackout restrictions.

“You have father?” Drago asked her suddenly.

“Why should you need to know?” Grace demanded.

He shrugged. “I am father. My daughter, I hope, will never go on purpose to a place of battle.”

“Well, my father is out of the picture,” Grace said bitterly, “so I can’t know his opinion on this or anything else.”

“He is dead?”

Grace shook her head. “Just — gone. He left us.” As much as she resented James Cahill for that, she would have given anything to see his face right then. Mother, too — her fair features, pale skin, and auburn hair. The gentle way she spoke your name, even when she was angry. The kindness that radiated from her …

No, don’t think about that! Father might come back, but Mother never will….

“I, too, did this thing. Left my family.” Drago’s gravelly voice betrayed no emotion. “I hope one day my daughter will understand.”

“What’s to understand about your own father deserting you?”

“Some things you must do,” he informed her. “To make money. To survive. If this was not true, I would not be taking you to Casablanca.”

In the reflected light of the instrument panel, Grace peered at her pilot. Every wrinkle and pockmark, she imagined, had probably been etched by some cruel happenstance or experience.

Life is hard for everybody, not just the Cahills….

Drago’s voice interrupted her reverie. “In one hour we stop to refuel. If there is fuel.”

“If?” she echoed in alarm. “You mean there might not be?”

“Wartime,” he said grimly. “Even neutral countries have rationing.”

“But what if we can’t take off again?”

He shrugged. “General Franco’s men are not known for their trust. I will be arrested as spy. Your youth might save you. Maybe.”

Valencia appeared in the distance, glittering against the dark coastline. There was an otherworldly quality to being suspended in midair, in the cold and gloom of Olga‘s cabin, passing over Europe’s storied cities. Despite the tension of the moment, Grace felt strangely free. It was almost as if the crippling fact of her mother’s death, her father’s disappearance, even the responsibility of caring for Fiske couldn’t find her up here.

Drago veered inland, skirting the city to avoid attracting unwanted attention. Half an hour later, a double row of lights appeared amid the inky fields.

“Is that it?” Grace asked anxiously. For the past ten minutes, she had been watching the dropping fuel gauge. Pretty soon they were going to have to land, whether it was in the right place or not.

Drago nodded. “I told you. Olga knows the way.”

Whether credit was due to Olga‘s knowledge or Drago’s skill, they were soon down on a concrete runway, taxiing toward a stack of fuel drums.