Page 17 of Flight of Dreams

“And yet you’re here. With us,” she says.

His grimace is one of resignation. “Duty calls.”

At this point Gertrud is well into her second virgin Maybach 12 and is the only person at the table who is not slurring. She speaks slowly to make up for it. “And all because of a few stupid bomb threats.”

Finally, finally Colonel Erdmann leans across the table and gives her what she wants. He pokes the polished wood surface with his finger for emphasis. “No, Frau Adelt, I’m not here because of the bomb threats. I’m here because the bomb threats are credible.”

THE NAVIGATOR

“Cologne?” Emilie tilts her chin to the side, curious. Her eyes are warm and brown and curious, so light they are almost the color of rust.

“Trust me.” Max takes her hand, laces his fingers through hers, and leads her brazenly down the keel corridor in full view of anyone who cares to watch. The corridor is empty, of course, it always is this time of night, but Emilie whips her head around anyway.

“No need to look so guilty, Fräulein Imhof.”

She lifts their entwined hands. “This is against the rules.”

“Which is exactly why it’s fun.”

They are getting perilously close to the door that leads into the officers’ quarters when Max stops short at the mailroom door. He frees her hand to unlatch the key ring at his belt. The lock sticks and he has to jiggle the key several times before the tumblers catch and align.

“Für’n Arsch!” Bloody useless!

The room is dark and musty. He fumbles for the light switch. Everything should be just the way he left it, yet it seems wrong somehow. The smell and the shadows and the mailbags piled against the wall all seem out of place.

“What’s that?” Emilie asks. She points at the lockbox.

“A protective case.”

“For the mail?”

“For certified letters. Legal documents, mostly. Stuff that’s more valuable than a postcard to your cousin back home. Correspondence that people have paid extra to keep safe.”

The mailroom is quiet. Still. There’s no sound except for the distant, faint hum of the exterior engines. This room, like most aboard the airship, is not heated or cooled, and there isn’t even the gentle whoosh of moving air. Emilie turns in a small circle in the middle of the room. “Safe from what?”

“Prying eyes. No one is allowed in here but me.” And Kurt Schönherr of course. He has the other set of keys. But Kurt won’t interfere unless Max falls down on the job. And that won’t happen unless Emilie becomes an insurmountable distraction.

She smiles at him as though able to read his mind. “Do your eyes pry, Max?”

He likes it when she’s coy. “Depends on the company.”

“Present company excluded?”

“Afraid not.”

“Good.” The smile she offers is filled with encouragement. Max considers it a wild leap forward on her part. “I’m breaking the rules, being here. Right?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“You’re a bad influence, Herr Zabel.”

“I do my best.”

“Don’t get me wrong. This is all very interesting, but it doesn’t look like Cologne to me.”

“It wouldn’t. Not in here.” Max lifts a bag from the hook by the door and points at the label. The word is printed in white block letters on the green canvas bag. “Cologne is below us. We’re flying over it right now.”

Max slides one arm through the strap and hoists the bag off the hook so that he can swing it around his shoulder. He scans the room once more, then leads Emilie back out into the corridor. The lock is even less cooperative this time, and he curses again, testing the knob several times before he’s sufficiently convinced that the door won’t swing back open. Max nods at the radio room door across the corridor. “Would you open that for me?”