took several calming breaths. “We’re going to die.”
Rudy turned his head toward her, his eyes fierce with determination. “Not if I can help it.”
As much as she’d have loved to fall into the warmth his energy stirred, Sabine gripped the armrests of her seat and remained tense.
He must have noticed because he said, “There are lots of islands off the coast of Greece. We’ll find one and land there if we have to.”
Did he actually think they’d find a lovely Greek island and have a nice little landing as if they’d planned it all along? She sat with tight, aching muscles for long, unbearable minutes. Each second felt like her last. At any moment the plane would roar down to the water and it would be over.
“We’re getting close,” Rudy said at last.
“Really?” She couldn’t let herself believe it.
The plane gave her a jolt. The engines cut then roared to life. Cut. Roared.
Her heart thudded sickly in her chest. A lump of fear lodged in her throat.
They were running out of fuel!
“I think I see something,” Rudy said.
Sabine strained to see through the night but saw nothing. Was he hallucinating in the face of death? The plane lost elevation as it sputtered along. She gripped the armrests tighter. They were going down. She didn’t think she was lucky enough to survive two crashes in one day.
“Do you see it?” Rudy asked. He sounded excited.
She turned to look at him. How could he be enjoying this? He glanced at her and smiled, then jerked his head toward the front of the plane.
Sabine looked there and searched once again for something in the distance. She saw faint lights and panic spiraled out of control.
“We’ll never make it!” It was too far.
“We’ll make it,” he assured her. “All we have to do now is find a place to set this thing down.”
“Don’t you mean crash it?”
The plane’s engines cut and this time died altogether. Rudy guided the plane toward the lights. They were losing elevation fast. Lower. Lower. She could see the surface of the water now. Oh God, they were going to hit!
Instead, the plane whizzed by a rocky shoreline. The shape of a rooftop was next. One of the wings clipped the top of a tree. Rudy tilted the aircraft to one side to avoid another tree, then leveled it as a gently sloping hill appeared below them.
“This is as good as it’s going to get.”
Sabine squeezed her eyes shut and screamed as the plane struck the ground and bounced and rattled and shook. Her body jerked forward as Rudy worked to bring them to a stop. Loud thunks beneath the plane were the only clue to the kind of terrain they’d landed on. A tree branch smacked Sabine’s side of the plane and cracked the front window. The plane slowed. Ahead, she saw the side of a mountain growing larger through the cracked window. The plane slowed to a safer speed but not enough to avoid impact. The crash threw her forward, but the shoulder harness held her body in place. Then she blacked out.
Moaning, she came to and looked around. Rudy was yanking off his harness. He scrambled out of his seat, crouched beside her and held her face in his hand, breathing fast as he inspected her.
“Are you all right?”
She nodded dizzily. “I think so.”
He reached for her lap and unfastened her harness. “We have to get out of here and destroy this plane before anyone finds us.”
Wasn’t it already destroyed enough? She used his sturdy body as leverage and climbed to her feet. Wobbling, she leaned against the side of the plane and waited while he hurried to gather what gear they might need. After he threw a rucksack outside, he helped her through the door. She waited for him there while he set an explosive.
Hooking the rucksack over one arm, he took her hand. “Come on.” He led her down the hill, away from the plane.
Sabine stumbled and gripped Rudy’s T-shirt to steady herself. When he slowed to a stop, she fell against him.
He dropped the rucksack and put his arm around her. Pulling a black device from his pocket, he depressed a button. A violent explosion followed. Sabine watched as the burning plane lit up the night and gave her a glimpse of rocky peaks surrounding the hilly earth where they had landed.
“Can you walk?”
She looked up at him and nodded, not really all that sure how long she could. But she didn’t want him to have to carry her anymore.
Rudy led her the rest of the way down the hill. An hour later, they hiked over a steeper hill. Sabine thought of them as hills because they were nothing like the mountains she grew up in. Southwestern Colorado was filled with fourteen-thousand-foot giants that made these look like foothills.
Her limbs were trembling by the time they crested the peak. Rudy stopped. Sabine hooked her arm with his as she had several times along the way and leaned against him, breathing hard and closing her eyes even though she saw lights at the bottom of the slope that relieved her immensely.
“It’s a village,” he said, and she heard relief that matched hers and something else. Incredulity at their fortune.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“I don’t know. One of the Greek islands.”
She turned to study his profile, unable to comprehend how she’d come from a small concrete cell awaiting a horrific death to something as magnificent as a Greek island.
Rudy began walking again, taking her support with him. She collapsed to her hands and knees. A very strange sensation. She had no control over the movement of her legs. Virtually all her strength had abandoned her. Combined with her throbbing and stinging body, she was finished. Her head pounded like lightning strikes with each pulse of her heartbeat.
Rudy cursed. Two strides brought him back to her. He lifted her into his arms, rucksack hanging from one arm, and carried her down the slope. He found a footpath and followed it.
“Don’t lie to me when I ask you a question.”
She looked up at his rugged face. “I didn’t lie.”
“You said you could walk.”
“I did walk.”
He looked down at her beneath a scowling brow.
“You didn’t ask how far. We’ve been walking a long time,” she said.
He didn’t respond but the scowl remained. Several minutes later they reached the main road going through the village. It was paved but it was the only one that was. No one moved in the street, but it was late at night.
A door opened in a building to their right. An older woman wearing a dark, embroidered dress spoke rapidly in a language Sabine didn’t understand. She looked at Rudy when he answered fluently in the same tongue.
He stopped walking and spoke to the woman awhile longer. The woman pointed up the street and spoke again.
Moments later Rudy carried Sabine to a white mortar building with neat rows of square windows lining the first and second floors. At the door, he put her down but kept his arm around her waist for support. She leaned against him while he opened the door, her legs shaking. Inside, a small sitting room with a single light burning on a simple desk illuminated walls covered with row after row of ornately painted plates. Rudy stepped inside with her and closed the door behind them. A short, thin man with dark hair and missing front teeth yawned as he emerged from a dining area, slipping into a robe.
Rudy deposited Sabine onto a chair and spoke to the man, whose name seemed to be Alec. They exchanged words until Rudy finally nodded and handed over a few American bills. Alec handed him a key, and Rudy turned and approached