It was probably Leipzig, which from this height looked deceptively intact. He remembered Goebbels going there and giving one of his pep talks, spouting off amidst suitably Wagnerian ruins. Victory or Siberia! It hadn’t taken a genius to work that one out, even then. He still felt worried about leaving Effi, despite all her protestations. In the war she’d learned to take care of herself – that was what she’d told him. And he knew it was true, up to a point; these days she took time to consider, rather than jump straight in. But there were a lot of careful people pushing up daisies. The plane lurched again, and he told himself he’d be better advised worrying about his own safety. The way the DC3 rattled, it was easy to imagine the plane shaking itself to pieces on the ground, let alone in the winds now raging over Germany. The Soviet fighters which had shadowed the early part of the American flight had long since scurried back to base.
