1635 The Papal Stakes (51 page)

North took up the paean of praise for the SKS. “I won mine in a poker game at the Thuringen Gardens just before I was incarcerated. A most excellent weapon. A man with an SKS is easily worth ten with muskets. Probably more. Now, Estuban, about my Hibernians: did you happen to—?”

Miro smiled. “The six who will arrive tomorrow were trained on the weapon the week before they left. From what I am told, they adapted to it rather quickly.”

Thomas smiled around the table. “You know, I am actually beginning to feel that this mission might not be suicide, after all. But now I’m a bit worried about the safety of the pope; by shifting these troops to our rescue mission, it means at least two weeks will pass before his security detail is reinforced.”

Miro spread his hands. “It can’t be helped. But the odds are in our favor, there. Borja’s agents would have to be very lucky to discover Urban’s hiding place within that short a period of time. And if the signals from Grantville are right, the new reinforcements should be there in only ten, maybe eleven, days.”

Sherrilyn frowned. “Wait a minute; how is that possible? I mean, if every day from now until then was perfect flying weather, you might get a round trip completed in that time, but—” Miro tried to keep the smile off his face, but she saw it. “Wait a minute—we have another balloon?”

“We do now. The second one constructed—and finished only two weeks ago—was just leased by Ed Piazza for ‘official emergency use.’ Franchetti’s nephew has been preparing it for service, familiarizing himself with its particulars.” He turned to Thomas. “It is picking up Lieutenant Hastings and a few more of your Hibernians at Chur, but, in order to keep the pope’s location a secret, they are debarking at Campofontana.”

“Where?” asked Harry, Sherrilyn, and Owen simultaneously.

Miro answered. “A small town, up in the foothills of the Lessenia Mountains.”

“That doesn’t help me much,” commented Sherrilyn.

It was Thomas who provided more information. “I believe Campofontana is just south of the Little Dolomites. It’s all Hemingway country, up there.”

“Huh?” said Sherrilyn.

“You know:
A Farewell to Arms
. The campaign in the Italian Alps. A bit slow reading for my tastes, but memorable.”

Miro nodded. “The terrain there is rather forbidding. Landing at Campofontana should keep the arrival of the reinforcements away from any of Borja’s observers, although it will mean a somewhat long walk to Urban’s safe house. However, they should get there long before any assassins do. The next cargo will be the gasoline for the Monster.”

“Fetched by the balloon that will arrive in Venice tomorrow?” asked Harry.

Miro smiled. “No. That balloon will soon be committed to other operations.”

“Such as?”

“Such as ours.”

Sherrilyn screwed up her face. “We’re taking the balloon with us to Rome? Who’s going to fly it?”

“Virgilio Franchetti has agreed to assist in the rescue, and he is an excellent pilot.”

“Yeah, but what if something happens to him? Then we’re stuck.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Why?”

“Because I can also fly the balloon—more or less. You see, I’m coming with you.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Thomas was not sure that he had heard correctly. “I beg your pardon: you are coming with us?”

Miro nodded. “That is correct.”

North stilled a very annoyed internal voice.
Just when it looks we’re reassembling a team of seasoned professionals, the pencil-pusher decides to become a field agent. How bloody typical.
“Estuban,” he said in his very best, and carefully groomed, tone, “are you sure this is wise?”

Miro smiled. “No, I am not.”

Well, that’s a relief. Partially.
“Then why, may I ask, have you decided to become part of a field operation?”

“First, to solve the problem that Sherrilyn indirectly raised: I am the only extra pilot for the balloon, albeit not a very good one. But second, and far more important, if we lose Frank and Giovanna’s trail, you are going to need the advice of someone who knows every city, and almost every coastal mile, of the Mediterranean.”

Tom considered the profound merits of that argument.

Merits that Sherrilyn did not immediately see, evidently. “Why do you say we might lose their trail? Do you think the Spanish might move them?”

“Absolutely. I expect them to.”

“Good grief, why?”

“Because I would.”

“No offense, Estuban, but that’s kind of crazy. That’s—”

“That’s called breaking contact,” Harry pointed out quietly. “It’s SOP for good intelligence work. Particularly in a situation like this one. The Spanish know we’re working against the clock. So if they can force us to waste time just finding Frank and Gia all over again, it’s unlikely we’d have enough time left to be able to mount a second operation. And if we did, it’s likely to be a rush-job, and therefore, prone to disaster. No, the guy working for Borja now has either read our playbook, or has been schooled in the down-time equivalents.”

“So even though they kicked our asses—?”

“—their best strategy is to move Frank and Giovanna. Quickly.” Harry shrugged. “I suspect they’ve already shipped the two of them out of Rome; best to move them right after they beat us. They know our local networks are so shattered or shuttered that they probably won’t detect the activity, for now.”

Owen frowned. “Then how do we find their trail at all? No one will have any word of where they’ve gone, or even when they left.”

Thomas scratched his left ear. “That might not necessarily be true, Owen. Do you remember the first boat we transferred to when we were fleeing Rome?”

“You mean the
scialuppa
that we rendezvoused with farther down the Tiber?”

“Yes, that one. Well, when we left them for the
barca-longa
that brought us back here, we—that is to say Harry and I—put them on retainer.”

Owen smiled. “Did you now?”

North smiled back. “Yes. Harry and I wound up getting their whole, sad story as we were heading down toward Anzio. Seems they are fishermen out of Piombino, near the Tuscan border, and can’t make a fair quatrine. The Spanish sutlers wait on the docks and impound their catch the moment the mooring lines are fast. So they’re making more money by having us pay them to sit still, than having the Spanish only pay a quatrine for a
scudo
worth of fish.”

“And do you think they’ll be reliable?” Sherrilyn sounded dubious.

“As much as family can make them; their master is the brother-in-law of the senior remaining
lefferto
.”

“And who would that be?” Owen asked.

Harry’s voice was dark. “Piero. You know him. Wounded at the attack and, if he’s smart, far away from Rome. He was pretty sure that Borja’s people would be looking for him. Real hard. And I agreed.”

Miro leaned his chin into his hand. “Why him?”

“Because Piero was one of the two main sources from which the
lefferti
were getting inside information on what was going on in Borja’s villa. And I’ll bet anything that Borja’s new spymaster identified those informers, and then used them to feed us the disinformation that corroborated my belief that the Spanish were undermanned at the
insula
Mattei. And once the attack was over, and the Spanish had those informers in their torture chambers, the remaining
lefferti
were as good as dead if they didn’t run like hell.”

Miro nodded. “Unquestionably. Now, about this Piero. He has agents watching the traffic along the Tiber?”

“Yes. Relatives, in fact. And he can pass news to the master of the
scialuppa
that took us up the Tiber, who could at least follow them for a day or two and get a basic idea of their course. So if anyone is removed from the
insula
Mattei, we’ll know about it, and have some sense of which way they were sent.”

“Which is another reason why we need to leave immediately,” added Owen. “If there is no more intelligence than that on their movement, we will lose their trail pretty quickly. The Mediterranean is a big place, after all.”

Miro smiled; Thomas was tempted to characterize the expression as “sneaky.” “Yes, it’s big, Colonel, but the number of places where the Spanish might keep two such prisoners for an extended amount of time is actually fairly limited. I agree that we must leave at once, but if the
scialuppa
can trail them for even one day, I think I’ll be able to narrow down their probable destinations to a fairly small list.”

“So you don’t think they’re going to stick them on some desert island somewhere with a platoon of guards?” Sherrilyn sounded disappointed.

“Absolutely not. First, the Mediterranean is thick with pirates. The Spanish cannot risk keeping the prisoners in anything other than a stronghold. And with a pregnant woman, they must have access to midwives or Hebrew physicians.” Miro’s smile went from “sneaky” to positively “wicked.” “And that alone narrows the list quite a bit.”

Sherrilyn nodded, her bangs bobbing. “Okay, Don Estuban, then what’s our plan?”

Miro shrugged. “To depart quickly and remain flexible.”

Sherrilyn blinked when it was clear that Miro was done speaking. “And that’s it? That’s the plan?”

North shrugged. “Don Estuban is right: we don’t have enough specifics to even begin to know what we might need to do, let alone where or when. Our only option is to gather up any sufficiently portable resources that might conceivably give us an edge and get moving as quickly as possible. I suspect we can get a lot of what we’d want from the airplane facility in Mestre: extra communications gear, tools, wire, maybe even a spare engine for the balloon, if that’s where they are kept.” He turned to Miro. “Is there any reason we can’t leave tomorrow?”

“One,” Miro answered. “I had the Monster’s gas tanks tapped for the remaining gasoline in them. The amount of energy gasoline produces in the balloon’s engines, versus other fuels, makes it too valuable to leave behind. It would give us one ‘high performance’ flight with the dirigible. And we might need one, before we are done.”

North heard something more than general prudence behind Miro’s last comment. “You foresee something in particular, Estuban?”

Miro shrugged. “Once the rescue is over, we may need to move Giovanna Stone very quickly. If it takes a long time to find the two of them, or if the escape is a narrowly managed affair with the Spanish in hot pursuit, she might not have much time left in her pregnancy.” Miro frowned. “Add to that the possibilities of bad seas, a shipwreck, or running from the Spanish on land if we are compelled to abandon ship and take our chances ashore. A pregnant woman either can’t or shouldn’t be asked to do any of those things. So, once we have her in our possession, we may need to put Giovanna and Frank in the balloon and send them home—or at least to a safe, well-staffed birthing place.”

Owen was nodding. “Sensible. Will the gasoline be on hand in time for us to leave in thirty-six hours?”

“It should be,” answered Miro. “We are loading it on the
barca-longa
, which will carry most of the team. The overflow personnel will be traveling in the same
gajeta
that brought you back from Rome the first time.”

“Once we rendezvous with the Italian fishing boat, you’re going to have to assign an admiral, too,” commented Sherrilyn. “But none of us have much experience with high-seas mayhem.”

Thomas had never seen Miro’s eyes go so flat or serious. “I do.”

Sherrilyn cocked her head. “Don Estuban, I know you have a lot of experience on the seas, but shouldn’t we have someone with—?”

“Miss Maddox. You apparently think that being a merchant in the Mediterranean is an enterprise that does not involve combat. I must tell you that you are mistaken. Quite mistaken.” Thomas believed him.

Evidently Sherrilyn did too; she shut up.

North stood. “Very well, then. With your permission, Estuban, I am going to brief our troops. And please do not take it amiss that I resume calling you ‘Don Estuban’ in front of them; we’ll want that measure of public formality, I think.”

“I quite agree. Gentlemen, Miss Maddox, I thank you for your willingness to move again so quickly. A good night’s sleep is in order for us all. I doubt we’ll have many of them from here on out. Captain Lefferts, one last moment of your time, if you please.”

Sherrilyn was strolling—well, limping—along the length of the monastery’s arcade when she heard Harry calling after her. She turned, saw him approaching, waited—

—and wondered: why had Miro kept him after the meeting was over? And why was he coming to talk to her now? Suddenly, she was more afraid of the possibility of his talking than she was of his long silences.

Which he had a lot of, these days. The formerly talkative
bon vivant
Harry Lefferts had undergone a startling transition since the debacle in Rome. Whereas in the wake of such a reversal, self-indulgent men might have become snappish or sulky, Harry had simply become very silent. On the journey home, he spoke when necessary and otherwise kept his thoughts and his company to himself, distancing himself from all others equally, even his long-time friends on the Wrecking Crew.

So, as he drew up to Sherrilyn, she was uncertain about what he might say. Which was, it turned out, wholly unexpected. “How’s your knee, Sherrilyn?”

“My knee? You mean—? Hey, hold on. I’m just fine; a little tired, that’s all. Old sports injuries do that, you know.”

Harry nodded. “I know. I also saw how you were running by the time we were retreating from the Palazzi Mattei. I don’t want any one of us taking unwise risks—any of us. Well, those of us who are left.”

Sherrilyn swallowed her arch but threadbare denials about her very real knee problems; she intuited that Harry’s self-recriminations were not merely conversational, but prefatory to some urgent message. “Okay; what’s going down, Harry?”

“Me. I’m going down on the chain of command.”

“What?” Sherrilyn felt her face grow hot. “What is that bastard Miro doi—?”