Carmen here.
Now I think about it, it's a wonder I didn't faint.
I walked slightly ahead of Dottie outside and down to a car. I did absolutely nothing except what she said to do.
Miranda and Jack were planners, right? They'd have worked something out...
I tried to keep a mental track of how we got where we were going, but I couldn't keep it straight.
We arrived at Stark's hangar as it was starting to get dark.
I got out slowly, with Dottie keeping her eyes on me the whole time.
I kept my eyes on her, too.
Howard Stark and Ivchenko were standing by one of the airplanes.
"Fräulein," greeted Ivchenko.
I turned my attention to him, gathering all of the calmness I could. "What do you want?" I'm proud to say my voice was very calm, almost emotionless.
Dottie grabbed my shoulder and raised her fist to hit me.
"No," said Ivchenko. "No."
She released my shoulder.
"Hey, Blondie!" said Mr. Stark.
Seriously. NOW?! I rolled my eyes at him. "Hello, Mr. Stark. Oh, and Ida is the name you're trying to remember, Mr. Stark."
"Oh! Yes, Ida!" Mr. Stark grinned. "I knew I'd remember!" He gestured to his head. "Steel trap."
Dottie hit him.
I would have too.
"How did you even know that?" asked Dottie.
Whoops. "I..."
"She's my secretary. She would remember."
I don't know why he lied, but he did me a huge favor so I didn't question it.
"You're his secretary?" repeated Dottie with an expression of pity. That's right. Pity. "How and why?"
I imagine most of Stark's assistants and secretaries would be jaw droppingly gorgeous. I'm not ugly by any means, but I'm not exactly modeling material either.
I shrugged. "It seemed like a good idea at the time... is my connection to Mr. Stark why I'm here?"
"What do you know about –" he named a person I'd never heard of before. I will omit the name.
"Nothing."
"No, you wouldn't. Your family prefers to forget about him – he was killed in Russia, in the Battle of Stalingrad. He's a cousin of yours, I believe."
Okay, that was just spooky. What could he know about my family? "Did you know him?"
He nodded. "Before the war." He returned his attention to Dottie.
I made a mental note to ask my parents about the person after all of this – if I survived, of course.
Ivchenko turned his attention to Mr. Stark. He began to twist the ring around on his finger, telling him to focus.
I glanced around the inside of the hangar, wondering if I could find ear plugs anywhere.
Not with Dottie watching me the way she was.
They got Mr. Stark into the airplane and sent him off.
"Hundreds of thousands of people," said Dottie. "They're going to die when he reaches the city. And you don't look at all bothered."
"I am. Are you?"
"You're German, you should be happy about the VE day celebrations being ruined."
"The Americans allied with you in the war. Shouldn't you be unhappy?"
She glared and said nothing.
Miranda here.
As soon as they left, we went into action.
Of course, the SSR knew where the hangar was, so we looked it up in their files on Howard Stark.
The files were arranged very badly. About half of them were out of order, and the rest were arranged oddly. Have any of you ever read From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler? If you haven't, do so. If you have, you'll remember a scene where two of the characters are trying to look up a file and it's filed in the last place they think of.
It was like that.
Who puts the location of a plane hangar under the name of the field which is the location? You'd never find it unless you already knew it!
We stumbled across it almost by luck – by luck, I mean Jack got so frustrated he knocked a bunch of the files onto the floor and I found it while I was picking them up. I thought girls were supposed to be the overemotional ones?
"Should we go help Carmen?" asked Jack.
"Jack!" I stared at him in horror.
"It's not because of what happened earlier! It's because we try to change things as little as possible and if we show up..."
He did have a point. "Did we have a plan for this?"
He shook his head. "Didn't have enough time to make plans for every problem."
The one thing we didn't get around to... I groaned.
"I know what I think, Miranda. But I'll reserve my opinion until you've told me yours."
"Don't you dare agree with me just to keep the peace, Jack."
"I wouldn't. Remember what happened in New Jersey?"
No, he certainly hadn't agreed with me then. "Was that town in New Jersey?"
He shrugged. "I'm not sure either, that's just my best guess. But what do you think?"
I can't describe what was going through my head. I was thinking clearly – quite clearly.
"Let's get her, Jack. There. Now tell me why it's a terrible idea."
"Actually, that was what I was going to say we should do. You're the more logical of the two of us."
"So I'm the Spock to your Mccoy?"
"Something like that. Except I don't have pointy ears or eyebrows. And you're hardly a doctor."
"I'm still a genius. And I'll have a doctorate in something in a few years."
"Still not a doctor, though."
"Are we going to find Carmen?"
"Right." I pushed back from my chair. "Let's go. No, wait a second."
I pulled off the shoes I'd chosen to wear and switched them out for the pair I'd brought from home – anachronism or not, walking for miles in heels isn't my idea of fun.
And it was miles that we walked.
We walked as quickly as we could without drawing any attention to ourselves.
Jack didn't help by constantly checking our surroundings. Seriously, if anyone was following us, it's like throwing up a giant sign that says "WE'RE TOTALLY NOT SUSPICIOUS OR IMPORTANT OR ANYTHING! HONEST!" Don't roll your eyes, Jack. It's true.
"Do you think we'll get there in time, walking?" I asked.
"Well..." Jack hesitated. "Estimating the distance and approximate time the event will occur..."
"We don't know the time, or the distance."
"You don't, but I'm a genius. We know things." He hesitated a moment. "At our current walking speed we'll be there an hour and seventeen minutes before sunset."
"What's your equation?"
He rattled it off. It meant nothing to me.
"I'll trust your math." I made a mental note to brush up on my advanced math. No matter how little I care for the subject, it has its uses.
We more stumbled on the hangar than found it, to be honest.
It was a good ways outside of the city. We were both exhausted and it was getting dark as we got there.
We lay in the grass at a good distance, where we wouldn't be observed, and concocted a plan.
Assuming, of course, that Carmen was actually inside there and wasn't lying dead in an alley or something.