She was taken aback. Having never stood within twenty yards of him until this moment, she had never noticed how thoroughly his dark springy hair and mutton chops covered his brow, cheeks, chin, and lips, nor how brightly his eyes burned within that curly nest. She felt herself drawn to his eyes. There was something strangely familiar about them.

“Poor design?” he asked in straightforward, unaccented English. “I take that as a personal insult.”

Josephine stared back in utter amazement.

She covered her mouth with her greasy glove, staining her cheek. Marco Celere’s voice—the voice he had used only when they were alone—the faintest Italian accent, speaking the British phrases he had learned as a teenager apprenticed to a Birmingham machinist.

“Marco,” she whispered. “Oh, my Marco, you’re alive.”

Marco Celere gave her the tiniest wink. “Shall I send our audience packing?” he murmured.

She nodded, still pressing her glove to her mouth.

Marco raised his voice and addressed the Van Dorn mechanicians in his familiar Dmitri Platov Russian accent. “Gentles-mens, de idea is dat too many cooks making cold soup. Let Platov being alone genius fixing Josephine aviatrix machine.”

Josephine saw the detective-mechanicians exchange glances.

“Josephine being helper,” Platov added.

The detectives were staring uncomfortably, Josephine thought. Did they suspect? Thank God, Isaac wasn’t here. Chief Investigator Bell would question the shock on her face. These younger, less experienced operators sensed something out of kilter. But were they clever enough to challenge the mechanician-machinist who everyone in the race knew as “the crazy Russian” Platov?

“It’s O.K.,” said Josephine. “I’ll be his helper.”

The head Van Dorn nodded his assent. After all, she was a better mechanician than any of them. They retreated to the ropes they had strung to hold the newspaper reporters at bay. “We’ll be right over here if you need us, Josephine.”

Marco said, “Are passing Platov monkeying wrench, Josephine.”

She fumbled for the tool. She could barely believe her senses. And yet she felt as if she had awakened from a nightmare that had started the week she married Harry Frost when she saw him punch and kick a man nearly to death for smiling at her. Her husband had never hurt her, but she had known from that moment on that he would one day, suddenly, without warning. What a fearful price she had paid for her aeroplanes, waiting, on tenterhooks, even as Harry applauded her passion for flying and bought her machines—until last autumn, when he grew suspicious of Marco.