`Now you’re lying.’ A big tear rolled out of one wide blue eye and down the soft cheek and on to the pillow. She pulled the sheet up over her eyes.
Bond reached out and put his hand on her arm under the sheet. The arm flinched angrily away.
`Damn the bloody machine,’ he said impatiently. `But for God’s sake, Tania, you must know that I’ve got a job to do. Just say one way or the other and we’ll forget about it. There are lots more things to talk about.
We’ve got to arrange our journey and so on. Of course my people want it or they wouldn’t have sent me out to bring you home with it.’
Tatiana dabbed her eyes with the sheet. Brusquely she pulled the sheet down to her shoulders again. She knew that she had been forgetting her job. It had just been that. . . Oh well. If only he had said that the machine didn’t matter to him so long as she would come. But that was too much to hope for. He was right. He had a job to do. So had she.
She looked up at him calmly. `I will bring it. Have no fear. But do not let us mention it again. And now listen.’ She sat up straighter on the pillows. `We must go tonight.’ She remembered her lesson. `It is the only chance. This evening I am on duty from six o’clock. I shall be alone in the office and I will take the Spektor.’
Bond’s eyes narrowed. His mind raced as he thought of the problems that would have to be faced. Where to hide her. How to get her out to the first plane after the loss had been discovered. It was going to be a risky business. They would stop at nothing to get her and the Spektor back. Roadblock on the way to the airport. Bomb in the plane. Anything.
`That’s wonderful, Tania.’ Bond’s voice was casual. `We’ll keep you hidden and then we’ll take the first plane tomorrow morning.’
`Don’t be foolish.’ Tatiana had been warned that here would be some difficult lines in her part. `We will take the train. This Orient Express. It leaves at nine tonight. Do you think I haven’t been thinking this thing out? I won’t stay a minute longer in Istanbul than I have to. We will be over the frontier at dawn. You must get the tickets and a passport. I will travel with you as your wife.’ She looked happily up at him. `I shall like that. In one of those coupes I have read about. They must be very comfortable. Like a tiny house on wheels. During the day we will talk and read and at night you will stand in the corridor outside our house and guard it.’
`Like hell I will,’ said Bond. `But look here, Tania. That’s crazy. They’re bound to catch up with us somewhere. It’s four days and five nights to London on that train. We’ve got to think of something else.’
`I won’t,’ said the girl flatly. `That’s the only way I’ll go. If you are clever, how can they find out?’
Oh God, she thought. Why had they insisted on this train? But they had been definite. It was a good place for love, they had said. She would have four days to get him to love her. Then, when they got to London, life would be easy for her. He would protect her. Otherwise, if they flew to London, she would be put straight into prison. The four days were essential. And, they had warned her, we will have men on the train to see you don’t get off. So be careful and obey your orders. Oh God. Oh God. Yet now she longed for those four days with him in the little house on wheels. How curious! It had been her duty to force him. Now it was her passionate desire.
She watched Bond’s thoughtful face. She longed to stretch out a hand to him and reassure him that it would be all right; that this was a harmless konspiratsia to get her to England: that no harm could come to either of them, because that was not the object of the plot.