“Snopes,” she said to the huge green slimy creature behind glass, “I’d like you to meet Carruthers. Carruthers, Snopes.”

“Snopes?”

“What would you name an eel?”

Jeremy looked at the eel in distaste. “I’d shake his hand, but I gather he doesn’t have one. My God, does he even have a head? Ugly bastard, isn’t he?”

She laughed. “I wouldn’t say that in front of him. Morays are the largest eel known in existence, you know.”

“One would hope. Is it a snake?”

“Actually, no, it’s a fish. They can be quite deadly.”

She felt a stab of guilt. Jeremy Carruthers was pleasant to be around and maybe wasn’t spying on her for Mac—and probably he didn’t deserve what she was going to do to him. But what choice did she have? Barky needed her.

“Ashley?”

She shot away from the eel exhibit and, refusing to look at him, began to yell for security. “Security! Security—quickly!”

With remarkable speed, two beefy security guards swooped down on Jeremy and grabbed him unmercifully by the elbows.

“What the hell is this?” Jeremy demanded, outraged. “Ashley, dammit—”

She addressed the guards, who knew her and, she suspected, had been briefed by their chief about the You coverage. “He won’t leave me alone. Must be crazy or something. I can’t seem to shake him on my own. Would you mind?”

“Not at all,” one said.

“Ashley!” Jeremy roared. “It’s the jewels, isn’t it? You’re getting them for your uncle. Don’t do it!”

The other guard asked, “What would you like us to do with him, Miss Wakefield?”

She shrugged. “Feed him to the sharks.”

14

Her feet were frozen, numb. Each step hurt more than the last. She kept moving because if she didn’t the others would stop, and then they would have to die, too. She thought of Vienna and warmth, and of what lay behind them, in shattered Budapest. It was dangerous to cross the border tonight, because of the cold, the dark, the Russians. The mad monk had said that was good: then they wouldn’t be expected.

“What will the Russians do if they catch us?” Judith Land whispered. It was too dark; Lillian couldn’t see her. But she knew how Judith would look—incomparably beautiful, terrified.

“Call our fathers, probably. They wouldn’t dare shoot us.”

“But András?”

“They’d have to shoot him.”

“Mac?”

Lillian made no reply. The water was past her knees. The effort to talk was too great as the freezing water soaked through her. Her cashmere coat would be ruined. Her mother would want to know what happened to it. “I gave it to a poor Hungarian refugee, Mother....”

Suddenly, behind them, there was a flash of light.

Judith screamed. Lillian grabbed her, clamping her hand over her best friend’s mouth, then her own. They both shook violently.

“Come!” a voice whispered to them from the pitch-dark in front of them. “Quickly. The border is very near.”

“But Mac—”

“He’s lost.”

“Oh, God, no!”

A firm arm gripped her, pulled her away from the light at her back, toward the darkness and the shadows. She clung to Judith, stumbling with her, staying together. They had to. There was nothing else now, only each other.