Mark Bondurant Livres

Two master spies, one German, one English. Enemies and lovers, they play a private game that will rearrange Europe, and then the world.

We were stranded in Brussels, practically thrown out of music school even as we first walked in the door. They wouldn't listen to anything except the newspapers and the British. "The scandal" they moaned. So we were stuck thousands of miles from home and six months until my parents return. What were we going to do? Do what we set out to do of course, go to music school - this time in Paris! But then the Institution, damn them, blew up Vic.

It was fall of 1892 and we were two days out of Las Palmas in the Canaries, all the passengers we ferried out of the Congo were gone, off to the aerodrome or looking for other passage to Europe, and we were just Red again and there was no reason I should feel this way. We escaped from the Congo, we got away. Better than got away. We had our cargo, and money. We won, even though they lost. They all lost everything, even their lives. But the deck was surging under me and the wind was at my back. I stood in the worn spots, staring forward at the binnacle, checking her heading. She tossed, stretched out before me. 154 feet, riding low, the rising sea breaking over her bow, all blue in the morning light. I could feel the pull of the wind whistling in her rigging, her sails taught. I inspected them with a critical eye. We'd have to pull in the gaffs before she hits, I thought, but it could wait for breakfast. I loved that wet and cold wind, washing away the world.