revealed a guard; before he looked up, Dillon muttered an informal greeting.
As the guard grunted his lazy response, Owen moved past Dillon quickly and quietly, noting that the Spaniard was portly, well settled into a snack of olives, cheese, and bread, and rather slow-eyed.
He looked up at Owen’s approach, suddenly anxious at the sound of swift, decisive movement. “Sir, I wasn’t-I didn’t-” He stopped and squinted as Owen got within arm’s-reach; the guard frowned, and his hand went to the short scabbard on his belt.
“Hey-” he started.
Harry Lefferts squinted into the murk and signaled on his handset for Doc Connal to lower him another ten feet in two intervals of five. The clouds had not risen as they approached the slopes on the west side of the Bay of Palma, which meant that they were damn near evolving into a ground fog.
Harry scanned under the thickening cloud bank to find the sea-level-and therefore, visible-landmarks he’d spotted during his approach. Using the lights at Fort San Carlos to the south, and Palma to the north as his points of reference, he confirmed his bearings. He looked at his compass, recalled the last time he had seen the dim outline of Bellver-probably about three minutes ago-and frowned. Unless he was completely screwed up on the numbers, he should be almost on top of Bellver’s lazarette loomed out of the darkness at him the same moment that the line started playing out in response to his request for the first five feet of slack-putting him on a course that would carry him up against the battlements with a solid whack before he cleared them. Worse yet, he realized with a jump of his heart, the guys in the dirigible were about to lower him five more feet-meaning he was actually going to miss the roof entirely and instead splat full into the side of the tower at ten miles an hour. Not great, in itself, but then he’d either get dragged straight up the near side of the lazarette and be caught on its crenellations, or slide around curve of its outer wall, bumping as he went, his line possibly snagging one of the toothlike merlons, snapping, and dropping him one hundred feet down into the dry moat.
Harry signaled quickly with the handset and reached his other hand around to unholster his. 357 automatic-a gun he was not particularly fond of, but was optimal for this situation. His signals-which were a three digit code for “emergency: raise me ten feet now: stop the airship now”-were evidently quickly received and understood; the second five-foot dip reversed into a hasty reascent that began as a lung-cinching snap. Wheezing, Harry reached behind to release two of the small spools of landing slack affixed to his main wire and did the same to his “fanny wire.” As he approached the wall-a little too high, now-he suddenly dropped two feet lower: his final altitude correction. At the same time, his butt swung down, leaving him in more of a sitting position as his course took his toes over the battlements, his feet out to brace against an impact or land. His gun was up, his eyes scanning for targets on the roof.
Well, he thought, here goes nothing.
Frank looked up as Asher’s assistant came back with the water and ethanol-and his heart sank. Oh no. Don Vincente Jose-Maria de Castro y Papas pushed into the room ahead of the returning guard, his eyes dark with genuine worry.
“How is your wife?” he asked, crossing to Frank in one stride.
Frank stared at him. S o it’s just like old times, huh? Just like that, all is forgiven. No hard feelings for the cold shoulder I’ve been giving you for weeks, even though I am lucky that it was you who beat me up. And I’ve never thanked you for the paper, the ink, the niceties, and especially for Asher, because there’s no other way Morales would allow a xueta into his precious Castell. So, despite my ingratitude and rebuffs, here you are, no resentment, just genuine concern. Probably ready to do anything for us, for her. You poor sap.
“Frank?” asked Don Vincente, the frown on his face deepening. “Are you quite all right?”
Asher’s voice was loud and scratchy. “I need quiet. Here,” he said to his larger assistant, “keep this handy.” Asher reached out a long, wicked looking knife; it didn’t look like any surgical implement Frank was familiar with, but then, he wasn’t too familiar with the doctoring tools of the seventeenth century. The tall assistant reached out, took the blade carefully. Dakis and one of the guards watched him closely until he set the knife down on the table in front of him.
In the meantime, Asher had asked for his smaller assistant to stand ready with two full quart-sized, long- necked bottles of water and ethanol respectively. “I may need you to wash away a great deal of blood and douse against infection,” Asher said grimly as his hands were busy behind the privacy blind. Giovanna, to whom he had earlier given a draught that he identified as opiated wine, murmured and moaned. “God help me,” Asher muttered, “this will not be easy.”
He seemed to be manipulating something gently when, suddenly, there was a splash of liquid on the floor: blood.
Castro y Papas flinched forward, clearly following an instinct to help, stopping himself as he inevitably realized that there was nothing to be done.
The smaller assistant asked, “Do you need the water or spirits, yet?”
“No, but have them ready. And you”-Asher looked up at the taller assistant-“be quick with that knife.”
In the same instant that Owen Roe O’Neill took his last, long step to close with the slow-eyed guard, he drew his dagger and thrust straight forward.
The weapon’s point entered the man’s heavy neck just where the Irish colonel had intended: at the larynx. As the guard wheezed horror and dismay, Owen withdrew the knife at an angle, dragging its keen edge sharply across the jugular vein. Dark blood spurted and the man, in the midst of scrabbling after his own weapon and trying to rock up to his feet, suddenly grabbed at the mortal wound.
Owen knew the man was dead, but this way he would die neither quickly nor silently: in the time it took him to exsanguinate, the guard might tip over boxes, flail about destructively, and thereby, bring other soldiers to investigate. Can’t have that. Owen, arm coming back from the exit slash, shot forward again into another thrust.
This time, the man was on his knees, moving feebly, when the Spanish dagger sunk almost four inches of its length into his temple. The guard’s struggles ceased abruptly; he fell forward, face down on the paving stones, the blood leaking out of him in an ever widening pool.
Owen turned to Dillon at the door. “Have you locked it?”
“Yes, Colonel.”
“Then get over here, on the double.”
Dillon did, and together they quickly found the box of spare culverin balls that had been placed square atop the trapdoor into the exit tunnel. Lifting the balls out, they lightened the crate and moved it aside, exposing the trapdoor.
Locked. They could blow the lock off, but that was loud-and besides, this room was for storing tools, also, wasn’t it? “Dillon, keep watch outside. Tell me when those late-night strollers are at the other side of the arms yard.”
“They’re over there now, Colonel.”
Owen quickly found what he was looking for: a hammer and chisel. He set the nose of the chisel in place, tried a test blow.
Nothing more was needed. Evidently the trapdoor had not been used in many decades, nor cared for in the meantime; the lock, its securing arm almost rusted through, came flying off with a dull clatter. He tapped a sequence of knocks on the door’s beams, a tattoo that the up-timers called “shave and a haircut.” He got the “two bits” response-and yanked open the trapdoor.
Thomas North’s dusty face looked up at him. “About bloody time, bog-hopper.”
“Get your lazy sassenach ass up here and sort out the men. We have a lot of work ahead of us.”
North came up in two bounds, swapped his nine-millimeter for his SKS, and stared at the locked door. “Any sign of the other element yet?”
Owen received his armor and the rest of his weapons from the oldest of the Wild Geese, Anthony Grogan, and shook his head. “No, we’re still waiting for Harry’s signal.”
“And what is the signal?” asked North’s xueta guide, looking up at them from his position in the secret tunnel.
Surely there’s no harm in telling the fellow now, Owen thought, but North only said, “Even down there, you’ll know it when you hear it.”
