“Well, who wants to share in a secret that everyone knows?”

  “This isn’t incompetence, Ezquerra. This is an occasion where Napoleon’s axiom does not hold.”

  “Who is Napoleon?”

  “A famous up-time general who advised, ‘Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence.’ Except the flaws of this prisoner transfer are not the product of incompetence: they reek of malice. Or rather, malign plotting. These instructions we were given-to follow at a distance and remain watchful for any attempts to surreptitiously follow the coaches-means that our masters are trailing the hostages like bait in the water. Which could get the two of them-no, the three of them-killed.”

  “By whom? Their own people?”

  “Sergeant, how long have you served before the cannon?”

  “Almost an hour now, sir. Or perhaps eight years. Honestly, I’ve lost track; serving under you is such a singularly pleasant experience, that time just seems to fly by.”

  “So, you have been a soldier for a lifetime and a half. And so you have seen how often casualties are inflicted upon one’s own side: inaccurate fire, confusion, poor visibility. The causes are legion, but the lesson is all one: if weapons are used, people die-and the wielders of the weapons rarely, if ever, have complete control over who dies.”

  Castro y Papas jerked his head at the second coach. “They are playing passe-dix with the lives of hostages whose safety is their responsibility. One of whom is a woman with child.” Don Vincente spat. “It is a stain upon the honor of every one of us who must take part.”

  Ezquerra shrugged. “Maybe, but would you not agree that it is also a clever plan?”

  Castro y Papas sighed. “Perhaps. If the audience for which they intend this show is here to see it.”

  “And do you think they are?”

  Don Vincente sighed. “We shall find out soon enough, perhaps.” He snagged the reins of his horse, jumped a foot up into the waiting stirrup, and mounted with fluid ease.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Sherrilyn’s voice was calm. “The carriages are moving.”

  “Is Juliet back with her street-urchins?”

  “Harry.” An English-accented mezzo piped up from below. “I’m right down here in the street.”

  Thomas North smiled. What ears that woman had! There was no under-the-breath spousal grumbling in big George Sutherland’s house, that much was certain…

  Juliet added, “-and I am currently surrounded by eager palms that want to be filled.”

  “With bread?”

  “No. With quatrines.”

  “Robbers.”

  “They take after their idol, Harry ” — Who smiled. “Okay, give ’em what they want. We can’t lose track of Frank and Giovanna, now-whichever carriage they turn out to be in. This could still be our opportunity to grab them.”

  Thomas suppressed a start of surprise. An opportunity to grab them? There were four carriages, one with the Barberini family crest stained with the brown-maroon of dried blood, all starting out from the front of Palazzo Rospigliosi. All had opaque leather blinds bound in place to cover the windows, and each had a cavalry escort. North failed to see how this was an opportunity to retake the hostages.

  Thirty minutes ago, when the first of the carriages and cavalry began pulling up in front of the palazzo, Harry had started issuing preparatory orders for ambushing what he presumed would simply be a well-escorted prisoner transfer. But he had also had the foresight to suggest that Juliet should summon the young minions she had recruited over the past two days, in the event that there was more than one potential target to keep track of. The youngsters had responded swiftly; since many of them were related to lefferti- both alive and dead-they were glad and excited to do something that might injure the Spanish.

  And it was now obvious that today, Spanish security was not merely going to be the product of strength, but guile: the carriages were arranged to move separately, rather than en convoy. Thankfully, Harry was a flexible tactician; he now revised his earlier orders with admirable dispatch. “Sherrilyn, take your team up to the roof; use the flue to relay reports down to me here. The rest of you”-his gaze took in the remaining members of the Wrecking Crew, except Thomas-“get down to the ground floor. And be ready to split up; we may have to follow more than one of those carriages.”

  By the time Harry was done giving orders, his binoculars were already back up to his eyes. And Lefferts’ very next word told North that his own fears regarding the Spanish plans had been vindicated: “Shit.”

  North was pretty sure of the answer, but asked anyway. “What’s happening?”

  “Two of the carriages are heading northeast, toward the Quirinale. The other two are heading south; they’ll pass right under our window.”

  “Probably making for the Corso. Harry, if these pairs split up”which they will — “we’re not going to be able to chase all of them.”

  “Damn it,” muttered Lefferts. “I just didn’t expect them to play ‘shell game’ with us.”

  “Yes, a bit unsporting. And even if we could follow them all, there’s no way any of the groups doing so would be large enough to mount a successful ambush and retake the hostages.”

  Harry thought for a moment and then leaned over toward the fireplace, shouting up the flue. “All right: here’s the new plan, Sherrilyn. You keep eyes on the targets as long as we can. I’ll watch from here, too, but will mostly be coordinating with our guys on the ground floor. Juliet’s kids should be able to keep up with the carriages easily enough to see where they all go. Rome’s widest streets are still none too wide, so they’re not going anywhere too quickly. When we’re no longer able to keep track of them from this vantage point, we’ll choose the most likely shell under which the Spanish have hidden the hostages and go after that one.”

  “Carefully,” amended North.

  “Not so carefully that we’re too late to strike, if the opportunity presents itself.”

  Thomas nodded, but thought: if it’s not already too late.

  “Well, spank me hard and call me Sally.” Sherrilyn saw her team, Felix Kasza and Donald Ohde, start slightly. She smiled. However profane the men of the Wrecking Crew thought themselves-and they had good reason for that self-image-they were always startled when a provocative new colloquialism came from Sherrilyn.

  Donald recovered first. “What’s up?”

  “Not our odds of grabbing the hostages,” Sherrilyn answered. She pointed, keeping her eyes planted on the binoculars. “One coach is going northeast along the Via Recta, but it looks like it’s preparing to turn left. Probably to head north along the Strada Felice. Another carriage has gone west. I can’t see it just now, but-yeah, there it is, turning right to get on the Corso, heading north.”

  From down below, Harry’s annoyed shout hooted out of the flue at her right elbow. “Sherrilyn, you seein’ all this?”

  “Yeah, I’m seeing what you’re seeing and more.”

  “What’s happened to the two that just passed beneath us?”

  Sherrilyn pivoted on her heels, scanned with the binoculars, and caught sight of the boxy carriages swaying into and out of view beyond the buildings to the southwest. “They’re still going southwest along the Via Recta-no, wait; one has just veered into a small westbound street.”

  “What’s over there?”

  “Nothing. They’re probably taking a shortcut to get to the Strada papale.”

  “And the other?”

  “Looks like they’re following along to the end of the Via Recta. Again, nothing much in that direction, unless they’re looking to get to the Via dell’Aracoeli. And-wait a minute.”

  “What?”

  Sherrilyn strained her eyes; were those two mounted men, far behind the last carriage, also following it? They just seemed like ordinary travelers from the look of it, but No. She caught the glint of a light steel gorget when the one closer to her vantage point turned to look behind and his collar gapped, revealing the neck armor beneath. Now that she knew what to look for, she could see the telltale signs of a plainclothes tail. The overstuffed saddle bags that probably concealed weapons, the buff gloves, the way they sat their horses: they were military.

  And they were now looking with increased interest at two of Juliet’s child-recruits. Looking at them very attentively as they followed along behind the coach, playacting the part of a lord and lady. The two horsemen urged their mounts into a slightly faster walk, peering at the two nine-year-olds more closely. And mouth suddenly hanging open, Sherrilyn realized why:

  My god, those horsemen are not merely security; they’re the watchers for anyone who tries to follow the carriage surreptitiously. They’re watching for us.

  “So, we’re busted? Totally?” Harry rubbed his chin meditatively.

  Sherrilyn nodded. “This shell-game they staged: it was a set-up. To see who, if anyone, would follow.”

  “Pretty crafty,” admitted Harry.

  “More than that.”

  Harry turned to look at North. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean this tactic of theirs was damned near oracular in its presumptions. Here we are in Rome, conducting reconnaissance preparatory to a hostage rescue. First they give us exactly what we want to see: the hostages, about to move into the open. But then they throw us what you Americans call a ‘curve ball’: our objective, although right under our noses, is now moving in one of four possible directions. Thereby baiting us to make a weak attempt to get the hostages now, either by hitting all the coaches, or by striking blind at one or two. At the very least, they figure we might reveal ourselves by following a little too eagerly, a little too closely. All staged so they can either strike us preemptively, or at least get a look at our methods and some of our personnel.”

  Harry frowned. “Are you saying we’ve been ratted out?”

  “Eh? Oh, you mean an informer from our side?” North shook his head. “No, I very much doubt that.”

  North felt Sherrilyn’s eyes studying him closely as she asked, “Why do you doubt it?”

  North had to think that through: his tactical instincts had raced ahead of his deductions. “Any informer who knows enough to betray us would have solid information regarding our numbers and our general appearance. Whoever is behind this shell game ploy would have used that information to craft a more precise plan to lure us into killing range.

  “I suspect he anticipates that someone will try to rescue Frank and Giovanna, and that they will logically be sent by the USE. But beyond that, I doubt he has anything more than guesswork, although I wouldn’t be surprised if the Wrecking Crew is high on his list of probable rescuers.”

  “Then he’d have numbers and identities, right there.”

  “Maybe. But from what I heard during my own travels, Harry, intelligence on the Wrecking Crew is pretty sketchy other than that you are its very visible and distinctive leader. How many members the Crew has, and how consistently you all operate together, is unclear. For instance, people in London are convinced that Julie Sims is a part of the Wrecking Crew, thanks to that sharp shooting during the Tower of London escape.”

  “A classic, that one.” Harry beamed at the walls in happy reminiscence.

  “Yes, the talk of Europe. Which unfortunately, may be hurting us now.”

  “Whaddya mean?”

  “Well, commando teams are useful, in large measure, because they are covert. Covert, as in unseen and unknown.”

  Harry frowned. “I guess I see your point. We’re not exactly an unknown quantity.”

  “Harry, I think it might be worse that that. It’s possible that whoever is running the show on the other side of the curtain may have made a study of your methods. Let’s ignore your technological edge, for a moment. None of your strikes to date could be pulled off without a great deal of advance reconnaissance. That means you, or your agents, observe a target before you strike, often for a long time. That means you are in your area of operations well before you drop the hammer.”

  Harry nodded. “And so, the guy running the show for the Spanish today put out Frank and Giovanna as bait, figuring that even if he didn’t know where we were, that we’d be somewhere close by, probably watching. Maybe being tempted to do something stupid.”

  Thomas nodded. “That’s the gist of it.”

  The Crew, sans George and Juliet, had been silent throughout the quick council of war that had been summoned on the rooftop. It was Donald Ohde who looked out over the half-classical, half-ramshackle Roman cityscape. “So do we know anything else?”

  Sherrilyn had taken another quick, four-points-peek with her binoculars. “The coaches are moving pretty slowly, except the one that went north on Strada Felice in the direction of the Pincio.”

  “Toward the old embassy and the Palazzo Barberini,” nodded Harry.

  “Yeah. They’re moving at a pretty good clip. Juliet’s kids are not going to keep up with that one. Besides, the farther north they go, the more sparse the crowds and the houses. The kids are going to start sticking out more, particularly when they have to start running to keep up. And they’ve been told not to be obvious, so I think we have to assume that they’ll stop following that coach any minute now.”

  “Does that coach seem to be in more of a rush than the others?” Thomas could hear the predatory anticipation in Harry’s tone.

  Sherrilyn shrugged. “Hard to tell. Maybe they are. But it might just be that there’s a whole lot less traffic out there. So it might be that those Spanish want to move faster, or simply that they can move faster.”

  Donald Ohde nodded. “And the other coaches?”

  “I’ve lost sight of the two that went south and west.”

  “Any guess where they might have been headed?”

  Sherrilyn consulted her map: a tangled composite of modern and recent cartography. “The first one which turned off the Via Recta could follow along the Strada papale, or might be making for the Ponte Sisto, and over the river into the Trastevere district. It’s a rat-warren over there. The one that went south-that’s even harder to say: maybe toward the Forum, maybe toward the new palazzi north of the Jewish ghetto, maybe all the way to Isola Tiberina. Again, a maze.”

  Harry nodded thoughtfully. “And the closer one that went north?”

  Sherrilyn raised her binoculars in that direction. “Still on the Corso, moving slowly.”

  “And the kids got chased away from that one?”

  “Yeah, the outriders seemed to assume that our kids were beggar urchins, trying to trail along and stick out their palms at the quality when they finally got wherever they were going. So we’ll have no way to know if that’s the one carrying Frank and Giovanna.”

  Thomas cleared his throat. “I would make one addition to Ms. Maddox’s summation. We cannot actually be sure that Frank and Giovanna are in any of the coaches. Our informer in the Spanish command indicated that this transfer was taking place, and we have certainly observed movement consistent with a transfer. But how do we know-know for sure-that, in the end, the hostages really have been relocated? Or that they were conveyed to a new prison by one of the four coaches? As far as we know, they could have been sealed in an old barrel being removed for disposal from a rear entrance.”

  Harry nodded. “Okay. That makes it imperative we get a pair of eyes on each of the wagons we can still see to follow. So we’ve got to put a new tail back on the northbound wagon. The same goes for the one that’s headed for the Pincio along the Strada Felice. We’ve at least got to have someone trail them in an attempt to determine-even if it’s after the fact-where they deposited their passengers. If they’ve got passengers, that is.”

  Donald shouldered his gear. “Right. Teams?”

  “Juliet stays behind here. The kids will eventually return and make their reports on the southerly wagons, and they’ll all want their quatrines. And she’ll need to set up some occasional watches on wherever those southbound coaches dropped off their passengers.”

  “I’ll tell the missus.” George started down the stairs.

  “Not so fast, George; tell her on the way out.” Harry turned to Thomas. “You, Sherrilyn, and Felix will follow the coach going north along the Corso. When you find where it has stopped, break off, and head east to rendezvous with us one block west of Palazzo Barberini. The rest of us will fall back on that point as soon as we’ve finished following the coach heading toward the Pincio along the Strada Felice.”

  “They’ve got a long head start on you, and that’s quite a walk.” Thomas considered the manpower in each group. “Why so many people in your group, Harry?”

  “Because”-and Lefferts started shouldering his own gear-“I’ve got a funny feeling about that coach heading to the Pincio. There isn’t a lot up there.”

  “So?”

  “So, they must have anticipated that that one would move faster. And if Frank and Giovanna are in one of those coaches, that’s the one they’d want to make sure we can’t cut off. And oddly enough, the coach heading to the Pincio is the only one of the four that is arguably getting away. I find that-” he turned and smiled like a wolf seeing a lame rabbit “-suspicious. It could be an opportunity, too. If they get a little too cocky, if they think they’re safe and out of our reach, well, I want most of the Crew’s manpower on hand to take advantage of their mistake.”

  Thomas nodded. Yes, that all sounded good, and maybe Harry was right. But on the other hand, Lefferts was counting on the kind of slipup that Thomas doubted their opponent would make. Their unknown adversary seemed too methodical to create a situation in which the hostages would be easily snapped up by the opposition.

  “We’re moving.” Harry headed for the stairs. “Now.”

  “Are you sure this is the place?” Owen asked in a low voice.

  John O’Neill looked up at the second story of the unfamiliar house. “I think so, but I’m not sure. When I was here, students stayed back there.” He waved farther down the street by which they had approached St. Isidore and its college, which was only a small wing added onto the church’s rectory.

  O’Neill looked up beyond the steep, flanking steps at the porticoed white facade of the church: two tall openings framed an even taller, wider archway that was in line with the doors. Bordered on three sides by the lush green vegetation of the largely unbuilt Pincio, Luke Wadding’s Irish College looked unchanged from when he had visited it, shortly after its opening ten years ago.