‘It—umm—it must take a lot of skill.’
‘Some.’
‘And—uh—experience.’
‘Right.’
It was all she could do to keep from groaning. Yes. Some. Right. At this rate, it would take the entire flight before she got a whole sentence from him.
She cleared her throat again. ‘Have you been flying long?’ He glanced across at her and she smiled politely. ‘I mean, did you take it up recently, or have you always done it?’
It was, she knew, an inane question and yet, to her amazement, it did the trick. Jake Prince gave her a genuine smile—and an entire sentence in response.
‘What you’re asking is, do I really know how to handle this aircraft. Is that the question, Miss Oliver?’
Dorian clasped her hands in her lap. ‘Yes,’ she said, smiling back at him. ‘That’s right.’
‘Well, you can breathe easy. I’ve had more than a thousand hours in planes like this one.’
‘Is that a lot?’ she asked pleasantly. ‘I don’t know anything at all about flying.’
‘It’s enough.’
He fell silent again, and Dorian’s brain began whirling. Keep him talking, she thought furiously. Don’t let him stop now.
‘Well, that’s good to hear. I’ve always wondered why airlines don’t give passengers information about their pilots. You know the sort of thing I mean.’ She gave a little laugh. ‘Name. Place of birth. Experience.’
‘Would it make you feel better if I said I’ve been flying since I was eighteen?’
He was clever, she had to give him that. He’d managed to neatly evade the two questions that really mattered. Still, it was the first bit of personal information he’d given her.
‘Have you?’ She smiled. ‘You’ve been flying for quite a while, then?’
He nodded and shifted his long legs under the console. ‘Almost twenty years.’
Her smile expanded. Another bit of information. Jake Prince was almost thirty-eight. How old, she wondered, was Jaacov Alexandrei? If only she hadn’t left all that stuff from the research file on the floor of the taxi…
‘Well,’ she said brightly, ‘that’s interesting.’
His head swivelled towards her. ‘Is it?’
‘Oh, yes, absolutely. I never—I mean, it’s so unusual to meet someone who knows how to fly…’ Why was he watching her with such sudden intensity?
‘Really?’ He smiled politely.
‘Really.’ She hesitated. ‘So, what else do you do? Besides fly, I mean.’
He leaned towards the console. ‘I work,’ he said, tapping his knuckle lightly against a gauge.
‘At what?’ His head came up, and she swallowed drily. Careful, she thought, careful, careful… ‘I mean, I’ve never met anyone who—who knew how to fly before. I just wondered if you’d learned as part of—part of your job, or—or…’ Why was he looking at her that way? Dorian’s tongue felt as if it were tangling in her mouth. ‘Or in the air force, perhaps,’ she said desperately. ‘Lots of young men learn to fly in the air force.’
‘No, I took private lessons.’
If only she had her notepad, she thought furiously. Or her tape recorder. But both were tucked inside her bag, lying uselessly beneath her empty seat on the chartered jet. But it would be OK. She had a good memory. All she had to do now was find a way to get him to confirm her most important suspicion.
‘In the good old USA.’ He glanced over at her. ‘That’s the answer to your next question, isn’t it?’
It took all her effort not to smile. Whoever Jake Prince was—even if he was the headline catch of a lifetime—he was, when you got right down to it, like every other human being in the world.
He loved to talk about himself and about his own interests. If she’d used her head and realised that from the start, she’d have—
‘Unless, of course, you made the assumption that a country as primitive as Barovnia wouldn’t have airplanes.’
Dorian looked up quickly. He was still smiling pleasantly, but an edge had crept into his tone.
‘Why, no—no, I didn’t make any assump—’
‘Stop talking rubbish, Miss Oliver.’
She blinked. ‘What?’
His smile fled, leaving his face cold and hard as granite. ‘Do you think I’m a fool? All this charming chatter, the pretty smiles—I told you it wouldn’t work on me.’
‘But I wasn’t—’
‘Please, don’t insult my intelligence.’ He leaned towards the control panel again and tapped his finger against a dial. ‘I know how you people operate.’
‘You people?’
‘I’ve dealt with reporters before. I know better than to trust them.’
‘Mr Prince, I don’t know what kinds of reporters you’ve known, but WorldWeek stands for honest reporting, and I—’
‘Do you know what an oxymoron is, Miss Oliver? It’s a figure of speech, using words that contradict each other.’ He gave her a tight smile. ‘Military intelligence, for example. Or holy war.’
Dorian’s chin lifted. ‘Look here, Mr Prince—’
‘But my favourite is “honest reporting”.’ His smile grew even more grim. ‘So before you toss out whatever lies you think will get you a scoop or an exclusive or whatever in hell it is you and your pals would sell your souls for—’
There was a bang, and a sudden, shrill whine filled the cabin. The plane began to shudder, and all at once Dorian’s argument with Jake Prince didn’t seem terribly vital.
‘What’s wrong?’ she demanded.
Prince didn’t answer, but then, Dorian thought wildly, how could
he? He was flicking switches on the control panel with a swift precision that was, in itself, terrifying.
‘Mr Prince? What is it?’
‘We’ve lost an engine.’
‘We’ve—we’ve lost an engine?’ Her gaze fell to the sweep of mountains below, to their snow-capped peaks rising razor-sharp against the blue sky, and her heart seemed to stop beating. ‘Are we going to crash?’
Prince shook his head. ‘No. We can make it on one engine.’ He hit another switch, and the plane steadied itself.
Dorian closed her eyes. ‘Thank God,’ she whispered. ‘For a moment there, I thought—’ Her words tumbled to a halt. The plane was losing altitude, heading slowly but steadily downwards. She swung towards him, her eyes wide. ‘We’re going down.’
He nodded. ‘Yes.’ His eyes never left the windscreen. ‘Make sure that belt’s tight, Miss Oliver.’
‘But you said—’
‘I know what I said.’ His mouth narrowed into a grim line. ‘This plane is designed so that it can fly on one engine—but, considering what lies ahead, I think prudence is the better part of valour.’
Dorian looked from Jake Prince’s granite-like profile to the mountains ahead. Her hand went to her throat. They made the mountains that had preceded them seem insignificant, and she knew, without question, that he was right.
‘I see.’ Her voice shook a little. This was it, then. She was in a plane with a man she didn’t know, in a place she’d never been, and they were about to crash.
‘No.’ His voice was clipped. ‘You don’t see. We’re not going to crash.’
‘You don’t have to pretend,’ she said quietly. ‘Whatever’s going to happen will happen.’
He reached across the narrow cockpit and put his hand over hers. Instinctively, she let her fingers curl into its comforting strength.
‘There’s a plateau ahead—do you see it?’
He jerked his chin towards the south and she followed the gesture.
‘You mean, that little patch of grass?’
Prince nodded. ‘We can set down there.’
‘It doesn’t look very large,’ Dorian said softly.
His hand tightened on hers. ‘Trust me, Dorian. I’ve landed in less space than that.’ He gave her a quick smile. ‘It’ll just be a little bumpy.’