1635: The Papal Stakes

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The up-timer security precautions surrounding access to their aircraft facilities in Mestre had been challenging to navigate, Valentino admitted, but time and luck had been on his boss Rombaldo’s side.

As Valentino tugged his uniform coat straight, he conceded that the up-timers had an almost impossible job maintaining tight security around their flying machines, simply because the complicated vehicles needed so many mechanics and support crew. In addition, there was a constant running back and forth by special artisans who manufactured precision replacement parts, including screws and bearings. With all that traffic, flawless base security was an impossibility.

But as it turned out, there had been an even easier way into the USE’s waterside airplane repair and refitting complex in Mestre. Although the aviators themselves oversaw most of the primary engine and structural repairs, they had almost a dozen assistants. Classified into two strata, mechanics and junior mechanics, it was they who did the physical hammering and lifting and replacing and tightening and loosening. All under the watchful eyes of the two aviator-mechanics.

However, in just the past week, one of the senior mechanics had announced his departure. He had apparently been offered a position with a firm determined to build airships; they needed a person with extensive knowledge of, and experience with, up-time engines. In addition to even better pay, it was the chance of a lifetime: the mechanic, a down-timer, was now going to work as a senior, hands-on motor expert.

Predictably, one of the junior mechanics was be bumped up to fill this hole, and that in turn put a hole in the roster of the junior mechanics. With the Jupiter’s support staff thus down one man, the aviators had interviewed a number of the more experienced technical assistants: a glorified term for the even larger work crew that fetched parts, maintained regular supplies, and ensured the safe storage of fuels and lubricants. The inevitable result: one of these was promoted to become a new junior mechanic. And this meant that someone had to be brought in to become a new technical assistant, which was itself understood to be an apprenticeship position. Which, for Rombaldo, had been the operational equivalent of finding a diamond under his pillow.

Having comparatively modest entry requirements, the position of technical assistant had been a perfect fit for any one of a dozen persons a local underworld chief had markers on. In the juridical parlance favored by the shady lawyer retained by this underworld chief, these were persons who were susceptible to extortion, due to their prior misdeeds-the evidence of which was now in the underworld chief’s hands, thanks to some tips by the shady lawyer. Rombaldo had purchased the marker on one of these compromised individuals: a rakishly handsome thirty-year-old precision tool-maker who had indulged in a rather torrid affair with a slightly older woman, a fading beauty who had married well above her station. To a brother-in-law of one of Venice’s august Council of Ten, no less.

The arrangement was simplicity itself. The tool man-a nickname which became a predictable source of bawdy humor, given the nature of his indiscretions-would apply for the position of technical assistant. If successful, he would then follow a few simple instructions. He would, on completing his assignment for Rombaldo, receive the incriminating evidence on him back into his hands. No doubt he would burn those damning (and deliciously indiscreet) letters as soon as he received then. And would just as surely rush to reassure, and possibly reembrace, the nervous Venetian trophy-wife, who would once more be secure in the unassailable esteem-and legally-filed will-of her elderly spouse.

Rombaldo had been forced to purchase the tool man’s letters for the exorbitant sum of three hundred lire. However, it was a crucial resource and worth the great price, much like any other valuable commodity.

And so, thought Valentino, to business. He looked over at one of Rombaldo’s better local hires, a cheery fellow named Ignatio who enjoyed a good joke and the occasional torture of hijacked house pets. Valentino nodded approval of Ignatio’s matching uniform. Arguably, it looked even better on this new henchman, who had served briefly in the militia. Ignatio had not joined those ranks out of civic-mindedness, of course; it had been for the quite lucrative black market contacts he made there.

Valentino glanced at their papers, fakes which had been quite challenging for Cesare, Rombaldo’s forger, to duplicate. The up-timers had evidently employed a few rather clever tricks in the crafting of them, but Cesare had painstakingly overcome the difficulties. Valentino now passed the fruits of those labors to Ignatio. He stared at them. Valentino shrugged. “Our lives could depend on these papers. I thought you might like to check yours, at least.”

Ignatio shook his head. He smiled, but also blushed. “No need. I can’t read.”

“Oh,” answered Valentino, who pocketed the papers and suppressed his admiration for Ignatio’s honesty-all the more because he concealed his own illiteracy with shamed diligence. He led them out of their rented room, down the stairs, and toward the door that would put them upon the streets of Mestre.

And in plain sight of the up-timers’ aircraft repair compound.

Valentino arrived at the gate, hand upon sword, a firm, almost grim look plastered on his face. The face that stared back at him was fair, sunburnt, topped by auburn hair scorched into red-gold by the Italian sun. The uniform of a USE Marine from the embassy detachment was unmistakable. Two of his comrades cradled carbine versions of their army’s standard flintlock; the posture was not threatening, but their weapons could easily be swung into a ready position.

“Business?” asked the one at the gate.

“Extra guards for the compound,” Valentino answered in Italian. “Sent by the Arsenal.”

The freckled nose of the guard quirked a bit at the stream of clearly unfamiliar words. “ Arsenal? Garda? You help USE?”

Valentino nodded twice, severely. “S i. Garda. USE.”

The gate guard nodded. “Papers.”

Valentino presented them, saw the other two guards studying him. And he thought: Now I’ll find out if I got enough of the bloodstains out of this shirt. Pity that it took a knife in the neck to kill the real guard sent by the Arsenal: messy business.

But in a country full of stained clothing, whatever telltale marks there might have been on Valentino’s uniform excited no particular interest by the guards. The one with the brown-red hair opened the gate, returned their papers, pointed ahead and then made a leftward hooking gesture with his hand. “Take the third left. Dritto. Sinistra.”

With an abbreviated salute, Valentino entered the compound, Ignatio close behind him.

“So you understand your duty?” the Marine asked Valentino, speaking with a faint German accent.

“Yes. We walk the parmenter-”

“Perimeter.”

“ Si, yes, ‘perimeter.’ One of us inside, one of us outside. I walk in this direction, like the arms of a clock; my man goes against the clock’s direction. Yes?”

“Yes. So why don’t you start your firs-wait a minute; here comes the last of the fuel. Stand here for a moment. Guard the other barrels.” The Marine left to speak with a startlingly handsome man who was pulling a safety-railed handcart loaded with six casks that, even at this distance, gave off a distinct petroleum smell. It was equally obvious, from the descriptions Valentino had been given, that the glorified fuel stevedore was none other than the Tool Man.

The other Marine inside the building wandered over to Valentino and his partner. “So you’re from the Arsenal, eh?” he asked, a good-natured smile creeping on to his ruddy face. This one spoke with less of an accent; was either Scottish or Irish, Valentino guessed.

“ Si, Arsenal.”

“Drinking mate of mine serves the same masters, richt enuf. Would you know Roberto Giacomo? Fine husky lad about yea tall?”

“No capito; no understand.” Valentino lied. Just what he needed: some overly friendly pigeon who happened to know someone in the Arsenal.

“Well, I can try my Italian,” said Mr. Friendly in a fair approximation of the Venetian dialect. Wonderful. The buffoon was a linguist on top of it. This was just getting better and better. And Ignatio was becoming visibly anxious, which in his case meant an increasing likelihood that he was going to do something singularly violent and stupid.

“ Per favore,” called the first Marine from over by the fuel casks, “help us? Per favore?”

Valentino almost thanked the man for providing an excuse to get away from his chatty fellow guard. The Venetian thug stepped lively to the hand-cart and helped to keep it from tipping as the German-accented Marine and the Tool Man turned it. He then laid a thoroughly unnecessary steadying hand on the cart’s rail as they wheeled it over alongside the other three, similarly loaded trolleys; he was happy to be doing anything other than fending off friendly inquiries about Arsenal troopers from the Scotsman.

“That finishes it,” affirmed the senior German marine with a curt nod. Turning back to Valentino, he said, “Now then; vee shall measure the time of your watch from-”

Tool Man coughed lightly. “Sir.”

“Yes?”

“The fuel: you must sign to confirm receipt of it. And you, too,” he said, speaking over the shoulder of the German to the Scottish Marine, who approached readily enough.

The German Marine was looking at the proffered papers with a frown. “I have signed these papers before,” he declared. “When you brought the first handcart. Surely you remember? When you knocked on the door, vee-”

The Scotsman was now leaning over to stare at the papers himself, his back fully exposed. Valentino looked over at Ignatio and nodded.

The knife in Valentino’s forearm scabbard slid down quickly and smoothly into his palm. He hopped, light as a dancer, to a position directly behind the German. The trick to this maneuver, he had found over the years, was to do everything at once, rather than in sequence.

So he simultaneously grabbed a fistful of the Marine’s medium length hair with his left hand and pulled sharply backward, even as his right hand came up and drew the plain, quillonless blade sharply across the German’s arched neck.

Blood sprayed out over Tool Man, who gasped and stumbled back against the trolley, eyes bulging. The German tried to struggle, but at the end of the neck-slicing sweep, Valentino gave a quick, well-practiced flip of his wrist; the point of the knife dug in just before it cleared the ear, clipping the carotid artery. The blood spray, which had already started diminishing, briefly surged again before the German lost strength, swayed, and fell over in the rapidly widening red pool.

Which was when Valentino realized that Ignatio was having some unexpected trouble: the Scotsman had apparently spent some time wearing armor in the field, and had retained some of those old habits. A light gorget, unseen beneath his collar, had intercepted enough of Ignatio’s identical slash so that the resulting wound was serious, but not immediately debilitating. Now the big Scot had Ignatio’s knife-hand in one powerful, meaty paw, and was steadily moving his own right out of his assassin’s weaker grasp. Toward his pistol.

Valentino assessed, measured, leaped and struck out straight from his shoulder with his own blade.

It entered the Scotsman’s back at a right angle to, and left of, the spine, just under the scapula. It plunged in so hard and fast and level that the edge of the handle almost pushed into the wound.

The Scot quaked once, a groan dying out of his chest as he swayed, and then fell forward, heart pierced from behind.

Ignatio’s grateful smile annoyed Valentino, who snapped, “Quick! Close and lock the main door!”

Ignatio complied quickly. In the meantime, Valentino stripped off his Arsenal uniform and glanced at Tool Man. “You have the change of clothes for us?”

“Yes, right here.”

“Good. Lay them out on the floor. Quickly.”

“Yes, but what do we-?”

“There is no ‘we,’ here. I tell you what you do. First, break open the smallest of the fuel casks and spread the contents around. Stave in a few of the others.”

Ignatio had returned, a grin on his face. “Now what?”

“Strip. Wipe off any blood. Then get into those clothes.”

“Which are-?”

“Which are what porters wear here in the compound, as well as some of the technical assistants.”

“And then?”

“And then watch the door.” Valentino turned to Tool Man, saw that he was almost done spilling out the first container of gasoline into a wide puddle. “You.”

“Yes?”

“There is another way out of here, yes?”

“Yes, a side door. Over there. Only big enough for one person.”

“Does it lead to the alley I saw between this warehouse and the next?”

“Yes.”

“Excellent. That is how we are leaving.”

Tool Man looked suddenly relieved. “Thank you.”

“Why?” asked Valentino, as he pulled a pre-cut fuse out of his discarded pants pocket and snatched up the Scotsman’s pistol.

“I–I thought you were going to kill me.”

“What? Why?”

“Because I saw your faces. I did not think you would let me live.”

“Old wives’ tales,” scoffed Valentino. “If we went around doing that, we couldn’t very well successfully blackmail people to help us, could we?”

Tool Man looked even more relieved.

Valentino used the narrow end of the pistol’s ramrod to unseat and tear up the currently loaded charge. Once it was loose enough, he shook it out upon the floor. “Ignatio?”

“Yes?”

“Is our way still clear?”

“Yes.”

“We’re leaving by the side door. But we won’t start running until the chaos starts. Then, we’ll just be a few more workers rushing to get out the gates.”

“Hey, yeah. That’s smart!”

Valentino managed not to roll his eyes. He made sure there was ample powder in the pistol’s pan, closed the frizzen, cocked the hammer. “Here,” he said to Tool Man, “take the other end of this fuse. Now, walk away, toward the fuel, pulling it out straight.”

Tool Man complied.

“Now, lay the fuse down along the floor. Make sure the last two inches are in the puddle of fuel.”

Again, Tool Man did as he was told.

“No, no,” said Valentino with a shake of his head, “you’ve done it wrong.” He walked over, kneeled down, made sure an extra half inch was immersed in the gasoline. “There, that’s right. Do you see the difference?”

Tool Man nodded.

“And don’t forget,” Valentino added as he stood up, “we need to keep those false papers you brought.”

“Why?”

“Best you don’t know.” Valentino pointed. “You left them on the trolley, there.”

Tool Man turned around to look at the indicated spot. As he did, Valentino slid out his dagger again and jabbed it into the back of Tool Man’s neck, just below the base of the skull. As the first spasm went like a wave down the body, Valentino re-angled the last bit of his thrust higher, pushing the point so it went up under the skull’s occipital shelf.

Tool Man fell over, quaking.

Valentino wiped his knife on the body. “You know,” he observed sagely, “a lot of those old wives’ tales are true.” He rose, walked to the dry end of the slow-burning fuse and kneeled down, calling to Ignatio. “Are we still clear?”

“No one in sight.”

“Then get out the side door and stay in the shadows. Now.”

As Ignatio complied, Valentino scooped the powder from the pistol’s extracted charge into a small pile, mounded up over the dry end of the fuse. Then he leaned the pistol over toward it, so the frizzen was almost in contact with the loose powder.

He heard the side door open and Ignatio’s footfalls recede through it.

Valentino squeezed the trigger. Without a charge in the barrel, the weapon simply made a hoarse FARAFF! when the striker hit the powder in the pan, which flared out and down to touch of the powder atop the fuse.

Valentino stood there long enough to make sure the fuse had caught. Then he turned and sprinted for the side door.

Tom Stone handed another cup of coffee toward Miro, who only shook his head, eyes upon the disaster taking place across the lagoon.

The embassy’s veranda afforded them an excellent view of the black plume of burning petroleum. Of course, everyone in Venice could see that. But from the veranda, they were also able to discern the fierce, bright flickers at its base. Meaning that, since the flames were visible from this distance of almost three miles, it was, in actuality, nothing less than a full-blown conflagration. In leaden silence, they continued to sip coffee and contemplate the unfolding of the infernal spectacle before them.

As Tom put his cup back upon the table, a mushroom cloud of seething, yellow-orange flame roiled up, momentarily obscuring the dense black smoke. But even as it threw its defiance at the sky, the fiery fist curled over on itself and died.

“That would be last of the gas still in containers,” Tom observed calmly.

Miro nodded, waiting, counting the seconds. Just as he reached fifteen, a low roar reached them. It peaked as a kind of hoarse imitation of a siege gun volley, and then dwindled back down to nothing.

The gulls, attention focused on the scraps that might be available from the humans on the veranda, continued wheeling in their disinterested arcs.

“Well, I’d say we’re pretty much screwed,” Tom commented, sipping at his third cup of coffee.

“We haven’t seen the flare signaling ‘plane lost,’ though.”

“Not yet. But there’s no knowing if the fire will reach the plane itself. If they followed my instructions, they moved the fuel to the warehouses furthest away from the hangar. But a fire like that-” He put down his coffee and rubbed his eyes with both hands. “Estuban, given the message Harry Lefferts sent yesterday, I have to admit: I’m getting pretty worried. I should never have let Frank go to Rome.”

Miro spoke softly. “Unless I am much mistaken, you could no more have compelled him to remain here than you could have brought yourself to issue such an ultimatum. You may have chosen to craft your family along atypical lines, Tom, but since you love and respect each other, they must have been good lines.”

“Yeah. Maybe. But right now, those lines are all pointing at the same destination: disaster.”

“No, I do not think so.”

Tom looked over, eyes controlled-probably trying hard not to indulge in false hopes, Miro guessed. “Really? You mean we have some good news, for a change?”

“My balloon will get here within the week. Certainly before the Wrecking Crew returns from Rome.”

“Empty handed,” Tom amended glumly.

“Not quite. They don’t have Frank and Giovanna, but they gathered essential information, which all indicates that they will need extra resources for the job. Extra resources which are coming in on the balloon.”

“Yeah, Estuban, but not all of the resources you wanted; the repair parts for the Monster took precedence. Now we’re not going to be able to get it airborne until we get some more fuel down here. Which means another balloon ride.”

Miro nodded. “Yes, Tom. I know. I wish we had another balloon.”

“You and me both. Listen: I’m not annoyed at you, Estuban. You’ve been a life-saver in all this. Where would we be at this point if we didn’t have your balloon?”

Miro shrugged. “In a few years from now, we wouldn’t have to be depending on a single balloon. Or, even if we were, we wouldn’t be restricted to such small payloads.”

Tom shrugged, somewhat distracted. “Well, even the hydrogen design is no bigger than the one you’re using currently.”

“True. But size is not what determines payload.”

Tom nodded, snapping out of what Miro guessed was the trance of an increasingly worried parent. “Sorry; yeah, of course. With more than three times the lift of hot-air, hydrogen is going to really boost how much mass even a balloon of the same size can carry. And since you don’t have to carry fuel for a burner that keeps the air in the envelope heated, you free up a huge amount of the carrying capacity-volume as well as mass-for cargo. About nine tons useful payload instead of the current limit of just under one ton, if I remember the design specs.”

Miro smiled. “I see you’ve been doing some extra reading.”

“Always do, before I get involved in money stuff.”

“A smart investor always considers the investment carefully.”

“Well, yeah, that too. But that’s not really what I meant.” Tom’s big feet started their customary rocking. “Making money is just not that important. Money comes, money goes, and it’s bullshit when it’s around. Makes people sick in their heart and their head. But right now, it seems there’s no choice but to live with it. So if I’m going to get involved in something where I have to worry about how much money I am going to contribute, and what it’s going to be used for, I look really carefully at what I’m buying. I mean, is the project worth all that worry? Is it going to make that big a difference?” Tom’s feet stopped imitating a pair of big, matched metronomes. “Your balloons are worth it. Until I had read through the specs of the hydrogen airship, I didn’t realize just how much they’re worth it. And I’ve got to have a concrete understanding of those details before I can bring myself around to getting involved on the money side of a project. Because if I didn’t, then when all the shit about costing and pricing and amortization of assets begins-and it always does-then I’d get disgusted and walk away. What keeps me committed to a project is what it’s about, what it’s achieving. The money stuff-win, lose, or draw-just makes me want to run the other direction.”

Miro shook his head and smiled. “Tom, did you ever read the Talmud?”

“Uh, some. Not much. Long time ago. Why?”

“Because although you could not sound less like it, some of your opinions about money-about everything worldly, for that matter-are very reminiscent of its wisdom.” Miro sighed, as he looked at the black plume that no longer had any visible flames at its base. “I’m relatively sure that my childhood rabbi would find as much to disapprove of in me as he would find salutary in you. No doubt he would suggest that God destined our paths to cross so you could improve my materialistic soul.”

Tom scoffed. “Well, first off, you’re not the materialist you think you are. I see your eyes when you talk about those balloons. I know a dreamer when I see one, man. I’ve been looking in the mirror a long time, you know.” Tom grinned sheepishly. “And if you were all about money, you wouldn’t be down here on this ‘at cost’ gig, overseeing the rescue of my son and the safety of the pope.”

“And a shining success I’ve made in both cases,” Miro grumbled.

“Okay, Estuban, now let’s not talk pity-party shit, okay? If anything, I was the one in a god-damned rush to get Harry to Rome; you were the one who wanted to wait for a few more resources, in case the job was ‘more problematic.’ Your very words. Your only problem is that you listened to a distraught father and let Harry flex his authority muscles, instead of laying down the law. But you’re the new guy, and Harry has a lot of successes, so basic human dynamics got in the way. And your instincts about those dynamics were not bad ones, either. Besides, I’m sure Ed Piazza and Don Francisco gave you a few sermons on being a team player, and the problems of having authority over people who really didn’t know you, and who had a pretty good track record of getting things done on their own. Probably said something like, ‘don’t think of yourself as a leader; think of yourself as a coordinator.’”

Miro kept his face blank; actually, Piazza had used the term “facilitator” rather than “coordinator,” but in every other particular, Tom Stone’s rendition of Miro’s sessions with Grantville’s intelligence cadre was eerily accurate.

“And as regards the pope, you’re doing the best job anyone can. You’ve got more security forces inbound, and the safe house will be ready in a week. And that”-he pointed at the pillar of smoke-“probably couldn’t have been stopped. Again, you called the event before it occurred. ‘Too big and too much traffic to be secured properly.’ That’s what you said when we walked around the compound after the crash, figuring out how to protect the plane from Borja’s saboteurs.”

“Being right doesn’t help if you aren’t effective, too.”

“Man, you sound like some kind of business school hard-ass, now. Listen: you want to beat yourself up? Fine. But do it on your own time, and know- know — that it’s all bullshit. You did what you could. You protected the plane. They got the gas.” Tom shrugged. “They’ve got professionals, too. Which is another prophetic point you made the day you got here: ‘just because you can’t see enemy, doesn’t mean they’re not here.’”

Miro nodded. “And have been here for weeks, probably. This was simply the first time they had to tip their hands. If they hadn’t acted, we’d have had the plane working again within a few weeks and removed the pope. Or could have quickly extracted the Wrecking Crew a day’s sail beyond Ostia after a successful rescue in Rome. Now, without a plane, we’re the ones racing against the clock, not them.”

Tom nodded back at Miro. “But, thank the Great Pumpkin, we’ve still got your balloon, because if we didn’t, it would be ‘game over, man.’ So-” Tom leaned forward, fists resting gently on his knees “-what’s the new plan?”