Darkness Before the Dawn (Maggie Bennett 2)

Again that beautiful, flashing grin that matched Vasili’s. “At your service, mister. Welcome back to Gemansk. You too, miss.”

Maggie winced. Returning to Gemansk had never been high on her list of priorities. But it was too late to worry about that now. She had to concentrate on why they were there, on how thankfully immune she was to Randall’s appeal, in order to get through the next couple of days.

Leopold hoisted their luggage and took off at a trot. From the back, his eerie resemblance faded somewhat. He was dressed in the uniform of all teen-agers: faded jeans, a Mickey Mouse T-shirt, and Nikes over neon-green socks. Six years ago, Vasili had managed jeans but nothing else of western culture, and his hair had been shorter than Leopold’s long black mop. Yet the resemblance was still unnerving.

“Who—?” she began, but the swift, almost imperceptible shake of Randall’s head silenced her question before it had been formed. She didn’t need to turn around to know that their exit from the Gemansk airport hadn’t been accomplished as easily as she’d first thought. In the fitful summer sunshine, she could see tall shadows behind them. “Who would have thought we’d decide to spend our first vacation in years in Gemansk?” she continued without missing a beat, once more clutching Randall’s sleeve as she leaned into him. “I wouldn’t call this the garden spot of the world, darling.”

“Sightseeing wasn’t particularly what I had in mind for the next few days, Maggie,” he said in his deep, slow voice. And even though she knew that the words were solely for the benefit of their military escort, and even though they were words she didn’t want to hear, she felt a slow, languorous burning in the pit of her stomach.

“We didn’t have to travel thousands of miles to make love, Randall.”

“With your family always around, we had to do something drastic.” His hand reached out and covered hers; his long, thin fingers stroked hers—a warning. The burning flamed a little higher.

She smiled up at him and tossed her blond hair out of her face long enough to get a glimpse of their escort. There were three of them, tall, blank-faced, uniformed men. She looked up at Randall’s distant face and clutched him a little tighter, a perfect parody of a clinging, impassioned female. Was it a parody? she derided herself.

They’d arrived at Leopold’s taxi, a battered Fiat that had clearly seen better decades. Leopold had already stowed their luggage and was standing by the open door, ready to usher them in with all the aplomb of a Helmsley Palace doorman. His soulful brown eyes went to the men following his passengers, then back to them. His face was impassive.

Maggie’s heart was thudding beneath her thin cotton suit, and her palms were sweaty on Randall’s jacket. He wouldn’t like that, she thought with distant amusement, releasing her grip as she started to climb into the car.

“One minute, please.” The words were barked out. Maggie slammed her head on the car ceiling, and it took all her shredded self-possession to pull herself back out with at least the appearance of calm.

“Yes?” Randall said haughtily; Randall could be very haughty indeed.

The soldiers ignored him. Their leader was shorter, older, and meaner, and his expressionless face was marred by small, hostile eyes. “You forgot your purse, Miss Bennett.”

A shadow crossed Randall’s face, inexplicable and instantly gone. “Silly of you, darling,” he drawled, holding out his hand for it. “Didn’t you notice?”

Maggie cursed herself furiously as she shrugged and smiled sweetly and stupidly at the nasty little man in front of her. He ignored Randall’s proffered hand, moved up to Maggie, and handed it to her. It was a large straw bag, almost empty, and when Maggie took it from him she noticed that it seemed heavier than when she’d placed it on the customs desk.

“You should be more careful, Miss Bennett,” he said. “If you were to lose your papers, you would have a great deal of trouble leaving our country. We wouldn’t want anything to mar your—vacation.” The sneer was clear in his voice, the suspicion strong.

Maggie gave him her most dazzling smile, but it left him stonily unmoved. “You’re very kind. I promise to be more careful.”

“At your serv

ice, miss.” He bowed, clicked his heels together like a perfect Prussian officer, and moved away, his dark, suspicious eyes lingering.

Maggie stared after him, her fingers clutching the purse, until Randall half-pushed, half-shoved her into the taxi. Moments later, they were careening out of the airport. Leopold was driving very fast, very badly, and he was whistling.

“Of all the stupid, idiotic moves,” Randall upbraided her, his voice low and biting. “How could you be so half-witted? What did you have in that goddamned purse, anyway? I suppose now everyone knows why we’re here.”

“Everyone already knows,” Leopold offered from the front seat. His dark eyes met theirs in the rearview mirror. “You can’t keep anything from the secret police. You just have to be faster than they are.”

“Damn,” Randall muttered. “I should have tied you up and left you in the bathtub.”

“Listen, Randall, there was nothing the slightest bit incriminating in my purse,” she shot back. “If they know why we’re here, they didn’t learn it from me. Look.” She dumped out the contents of the purse onto the tattered cloth seat between them—dumped it out and then sat very still, as a wave of nausea swept over her.

“What is it, Maggie? What’s wrong?” Randall was never one to miss her reactions. It was lucky that she wasn’t planning to hide anything from him, she thought dizzily.

With a shaking hand, she reached down to pick up the small clutch bag that had fit so easily into the spacious confines of her purse. It was white; the leather was smudged and stained and cracked with age. She opened it, her fingers trembling, and pulled out the passport with Margaret Mullen’s name inside, the visa, the money, even the Chanel Number Five. Everything was there, just as she’d left it six years ago when Randall had rescued her from that tiny cemetery shack, rescued her and left Jim Mullen to die by his own hand.

Randall took the white purse out of her hand with surprising gentleness and opened the passport and the visas. He let out a quick, surprised breath. “I’d forgotten that you have a habit of losing your purse,” he said after a bit. He stared down at the picture of a younger Maggie, eyeing it objectively. “You’re even prettier now,” he said, putting the papers back into the clutch bag.

“For heaven’s sake, Randall, do you have to be so damned cool about everything?” she snapped, pushing her hair out of her face with trembling fingers.

“Better than being hysterical about something we can’t do anything about,” he replied, and his common sense angered her even more. “We’d be much better off spending our energy trying to figure out who knows what and why they put this in your purse. I imagine it’s a warning. But why didn’t they just arrest us at the airport or, even better, refuse to allow us to enter? They could have put us back on the next plane—it’s done often enough.”

“I would think, mister, that they want you to lead them to members of the Resistance,” Leopold offered from the front seat as he careened around a corner.