proportion to the offense.
But that was Juliet’s genius, to have understood exactly what kind of offense would have enough common resonance with the downtrodden masses to whip them up into the near-rebellious frenzy she had generated by three o’clock. At which point, the crowd had been ready to march on the Palazzo Mattei. But Juliet had redirected that fury, and marshaled what were now very much her forces, crafting a far more organized-and usefully timed-riot in front of the haughty gates of Palazzo Giove Mattei.
Which was now under way. The motif of the broken handle had, as Juliet had known it would, struck a chord with the less-affluent workers who were predominant in the neighborhoods near the Tiber. Now, as dusk was approaching, the anger of the mob was building, the chants becoming more fierce.
Yes, Harry thought, I certainly do love it when a plan comes together. He looked down the scope again; there’d be ample light for at least another twenty minutes, by which time they’d be done with the job and heading back to the boats. He played the scope across the crowd; roofs occasionally obstructed his view, particularly of anything that might be situated in the immediate lee of any given building. But, thanks to the piazza surrounding the fountain, the arched doorway into the target building, the Palazzo Giacomo Mattei, was in clear view. And over that arch, he could see into the courtyard beyond.
There was a dim light in the windows of Frank’s rooms. The two-tiered loggia just beyond them, at the rear of the courtyard, was dark. A good sign: probably no guards there, as usual.
Harry cheated the scope up to the rooftop belvedere of the Palazzo Giove: one guy, staring over the lip down at the crowd in the street below. Nothing to worry about, but Harry would take him out first: an easy shot at only one hundred twenty-five yards.
He roved the scope across the interlocked roofs of the three palazzos of the squarish insula, checking for traps as he went. First the Giove, which dominated the southern and eastern halves of the compound; then the Giacomo on the west; and finally the Paganica on the northwest corner. Harry saw nothing new and no movement. As usual.
Satisfied, Harry turned to one of the lefferti. “Now, give the signal.”
The young fellow nodded and leaned out the rear of their own crude belvedere; he uncovered a bull’s eye lantern briefly. He resealed it, waited two seconds, uncovered it again. Repeated the process a third time and waited.
In the house across the street and just beyond the walls of the Ghetto, a light came on in the second story window closest to the now-unguarded gate known as the Porto Giuda.
Sherrilyn Maddox stayed well within the jagged hole in the roof of the gutted church that overlooked the Palazzo Paganica. She saw a light appear in the second story window of the Ghetto-hugging house that she had been watching for the last fifteen minutes. She turned to face the dark behind her. “We’re on,” she hissed at the rest of the Wrecking Crew, whom she could barely make out. “Push those ladders over the street and get them snug on the roof of the Palazzo Paganica. Felix, Paul, you’re the lightest, so you go over first and secure them in place. Then Gerd, you start on your way; you have a lot of roofs to scramble across.”
“Yes, but they are flat, so they are easy.”
Sherrilyn smiled. “If you say so. Let’s move.”
Owen Roe O’Neill tapped the earl of Tyrone on his thick, sturdy shoulder and pointed to the yellow glow in the signal window. “First light,” he muttered.
John nodded, and turned to his assault team: all the Wild Geese and a half dozen of the oldest lefferti. They had spent most of the day in this street-accessed storeroom, located just north of the fountain where Juliet had begun the Broken Handle Riot. “Weapons ready, lads. And stand to stretch your legs. Starting in five minutes, we’ll be running and fighting without rest until we’ve left Rome behind us.”
The knock on the door was not the dinner Frank had been expecting; it was Don Vincente Jose-Maria de Castro y Papas. In armor.
“Signor Stone.” His voice was very different from when they went on their now habitual garden walks. “It truly pains me to disturb you and your radiant wife at this late hour, but I am afraid I must intrude.”
“Vincente, what is-?”
Giovanna must have heard something he had missed. “Frank, my love, do not ask questions; let him in. And come here, to me.”
Frank looked at Don Vincente, who would not look him in the eye. Standing aside, Frank asked, “What’s wrong? Is-?”
“All is well, Signor Stone. A mild disturbance in the street.”
“Sounds more like a riot, to me,” Giovanna offered from the doorway of their bedroom, her dark eyes lightless but tracking Vincente around the room as he inspected it for-for what?
“Is it? A riot, that is?” Frank asked.
“What? Yes, yes it seems so.”
“A shortage of food? A new round of executions?” Giovanna had folded her arms and stood planted in the space between the rooms. “A toddler trampled under the hoofs of Spanish horses?”
Don Vincente did not look at her directly as he retracted the wick of the room’s oil lamp, dimming the light. “A scuffle over drawing water from the fountain. A minor nuisance. It will pass quickly.”
“Yes, no need to worry about Italians, eh? An easily routed rabble.”
Now Don Vincente looked at her. “Signora, of this, be sure: I have never said, or thought, such a thing. Only a fool discounts the anger and resolve of patriots seeking to liberate their homeland.”
If that did not mollify Giovanna, it was at least so blunt an admission that it momentarily took the wind out of her sails.
Frank however, had a new topic of conversation he wanted to pursue. “So Don Vincente, I wonder if you could explain something.”
“Certainly, Signor Stone.”
“If the riot is just a minor nuisance that will pass quickly, why are you here?”
Vincente looked up at him and sighed. “Because those are my orders.”
In the hall just outside their suite, Frank heard movement: men in equipment, jostling lightly against each other. He looked in that direction; Sergeant Ezquerra was now standing in the doorway, hand on the hilt of his sword. That worthy shrugged when both he and Giovanna looked at him, and the accompanying smile was so brittle that Frank thought his face might break into a shower of terra-cotta pieces.
Frank turned back toward Vincente, pointed. “And he has the same orders? Along with the dozen or so others I can hear behind him?”
“Yes.”
“And just how many more of your men are waiting even farther beyond the hall outside my room?”
“That,” said Vincente, averting his eyes uncomfortably, “I cannot tell you.”
“You don’t know?”
“I am not allowed to say.”
Frank stared at him until Vincente met his eyes again. “It’s not just a riot, is it?”
Vincente looked sad. “Of course not.”
Harry watched as Sherrilyn and the others reached the roof of Palazzo Giacomo Mattei, just east of the room in which Frank and Giovanna were being held. As soon as they got in position, they crouched low, Matija shrugging off a haversack: Gerd’s demolition gear.
Harry swung his scope right, to the south and the east, and saw, at a considerably greater distance, Gerd’s spare outline, returning from his first assignment. He was moving spiderlike across the roofs, keeping to the shortest path that would bring him back to Sherrilyn’s vertical entry team. Behind him, a wisp of smoke was now visible: the diversionary fire he had started near the southeast corner of the insula, the point furthest away from the northwest corner occupied by the palazzos Paganica and Giacomo. Harry cheated the scope a little farther south to the rooftop belvedere on the Palazzo Giove: empty, now. Maybe one of the folks in the crowd had heaved a few rocks at the observer he had seen there earlier. At any rate, the coast was clear.
Harry turned toward the lefferto with the light and nodded. Once again, the young fellow commenced signaling with his bull’s eye lantern.
John O’Neill saw the second signal window illuminate on the second floor of the tall building beside the Porto Giuda. He pushed open the storeroom door, revealing the fountain that dominated the small square. He jerked his
