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eyes.
    “Is it so obvious?” she said.
    “Not at all,” replied Otto, “but you said you’d come to England in 1938. Why else would someone want to leave Austria when their savior, Adolf Hitler, was just marching in?”
    “Very clever,” said Leni.
    “If we get captured and they find out who you are …” Otto stopped. “Look, it’s too dangerous.”
    “It’s my decision, Otto,” replied Leni. “And what about you? Do you think you’ll get special treatment?”
    Otto shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said flatly. In fact, he’d spent half the night lying in his bed wondering exactly that. His sheet had been soaked with perspiration when he’d woken that morning.
    “Anyway, why did you leave?” asked Leni.
    Otto sighed. “My father was a Communist — before I was born, I mean. My mother, too. That’s how they met. When the Nazis came to power they went underground, tried to hide their past. He was a chemistry professor, so he was of some use to them. But eventually someone must have talked, and the Gestapo came and took him away. My mother and brother, too. I don’t know where they are now.” He stopped for a moment, felt his eyes pricking. “ Undermining the war effort , that’s what the Gestapo said when they arrested him.”
    “I’m sorry,” said Leni. Her voice was soft. At that moment, MacPherson marched out of the double doors leading from the drawing room onto the veranda.
    “Well, I’m afraid there’s rather a lot of weather over southern Germany,” he said cheerily.
    Leni and Otto exchanged an anxious glance. It was easy for him to be in good spirits; he wasn’t parachuting into enemy territory that night.
    “But don’t fret,” he went on. “I’ve pulled some strings, managed to get hold of a prototype plane. It’s being flown down from the factory this afternoon. It’s called a Mosquito, and it can fly higher and faster than anything we’ve got at the moment. Even has Rolls-Royce engines. It’ll get you there, safe as houses. Now, come along.”
    Leni stood up. “Do I have time to write a letter?” she asked.
    “Of course. We won’t set off for the airfield for half an hour, so take your time.”
    As Otto got up to follow Leni, MacPherson tapped him on the shoulder.
    “Otto, a quick word, if you wouldn’t mind.”
    Leni gave them a curious glance as she left the veranda. Otto sat back down again.
    “She’s a great girl, isn’t she?” MacPherson said, looking after Leni.
    “Yes, she is,” said Otto.
    “Nothing she can’t do, eh?” continued MacPherson.
    Otto began to feel on his guard. “I’d say so.”
    “But here’s the thing, Otto. At the end of the day, she’s still a girl and, well, girls, women, whatever you like, sometimes they can get emotional about things, I think you’ll agree?”
    Otto didn’t want to agree. After all, he’d been the one whopanicked in the water. Besides, what was wrong with being emotional when something was important?
    “I suppose so,” he said.
    “Exactly.” MacPherson was now looking at Otto steadily. “So that’s why I need to talk to you about one last matter, just us men together … without Leni. All right?”

Adrenaline was making Leni’s heart thud. Encased in a thick flying suit and leather helmet, she was lying inside the bomb bay of the Mosquito, on the actual bay doors. Otto was beside her. Their parachute release lines were fixed on to metal O-rings above them, next to a steady red light. Leni kept an eye on it while she wiggled her toes, trying to keep the pins and needles at bay. The light would start to flash as they reached the drop zone and then switch to green at the moment of release. At that point the doors would drop open and gravity and the slipstream would suck them out, snapping the release line tight and opening their chutes. The whole business would take no more than a few seconds.
    Her heart continued to thump. It was dark inside the bay, and the noise from the engines was deafening.