Free Spies of the Balkans by Alan Furst

away."
    "Hold on." He turned to Saltiel and said, "Gabi, may I use your car for an hour?"
    Saltiel stared at him. I don't let anyone drive my car . "Well, I guess you can, if you need it." He was clearly not happy.
    "Did you hear that?" Zannis said, on the phone.
    "Yes."
    "I'll pick you up in ten minutes."
    It was a rough ride to the airport, some fifteen miles east of the city. Convoys of army trucks were rolling west, toward them, headed for the roads that went up to the Albanian border. And, being army convoys on the first day of a war, saw no reason, in the national interest, not to use both lanes. So more than once Zannis had to swerve off the road, the Skoda bumping over a rocky field. Teeth clamped together, he waited for the blown-out tire or the broken spring, though it happened, over and over again, only in his imagination. But that was bad enough.
    Meanwhile, from Roxanne, stony silence, broken occasionally by English oaths, bloody this and bloody that, delivered under her breath every time the trucks came at them. Finally, answering the unasked question, she said, "If you must know, it's just some friends who want me out of here."
    "Powerful friends," Zannis said. "Friends with airplanes."
    "Yes, powerful friends. I know you have them; well, so do I."
    "Then I'm happy for you."
    "Bloody ..." A muttered syllable followed.
    "What?"
    "Never mind. Just drive."
    Coming around a curve, they were suddenly confronted by a pair of gasoline tankers, side by side, horns blaring. Zannis swung the wheel over, the back end broke free, and they went skidding sideways into a field. The car stalled, Zannis pressed the ignition button, the Skoda coughed, then started. But the army wasn't done with them. Just before they reached the airport, a long convoy came speeding right at them--and this time they almost didn't make it. The car idled by the side of the road, pebbles hit the windshield, soldiers waved, Roxanne swore, Zannis fumed.
    The airport was deserted. The Royal Hellenic Air Force--about a hundred planes: a few PZL P.24s, Polish-built fighters, and whatever else they'd managed to buy over the years--was operating from air-bases in the west. A sign on the door of the terminal building said ALL FLIGHTS CANCELED, and the only signs of life were a small group of soldiers on guard duty and a crew gathered beside its antiaircraft gun. They'd built a fire and were roasting somebody's chicken on a bayonet.
    Roxanne had only a small valise--Zannis offered to carry it but she wouldn't let him. They walked around the terminal building and there, parked in a weedy field by the single paved runway, was a small monoplane, a Lysander, with a British RAF roundel on the fuselage. The pilot, sitting on the ground with his back against the wheel, was smoking a cigarette and reading a Donald Duck comic book. He stood when he saw them coming and flicked his cigarette away. Very short, and very small, he looked, to Zannis's eyes, no more than seventeen.
    "Sorry I'm late," Roxanne said.
    The pilot peered up at the gathering darkness and strolled back toward the observer's cockpit, directly behind the pilot's--both were open, no canopies to be seen. "Getting dark," he said. "We'd better be going."
    Roxanne turned to Zannis and said, "Thank you."
    He stared at her and finally said, "You're not going to England, are you."
    "No, only to Alexandria. I may well be back; it's simply a precaution."
    "Of course, I understand." His voice was flat and dead because he was heartsick. "Now," he added, "I understand." And how could I have been so dumb I never saw it? The British government didn't send Lysanders to rescue the expatriate owners of ballet schools, they sent them to rescue secret service operatives.
    Her eyes flashed; she moved toward him and spoke, intensely but privately, so the pilot wouldn't hear. "It wasn't to do with you," she said. "It wasn't to do with you."
    "No, of course not."
    Suddenly she grabbed a handful of his shirt, just below the