1635 The Papal Stakes Read Online Free PDF Page B

beds.”
    “Matthias,” gasped Rita, “how did you know to—?”
    “Why, Frau Mailey suggested I have our gear ready, in the event that the rendezvous would be—what is your word?—‘compromised.’”
    James straightened up. “It’s great to have a girlfriend who’s always thinking.”
    “Particularly when no one else bothers to. Matthias, are you just about through?”
    “Yes; could Herr Severi lend hands?”
    Arco was inside before Matthias had completed the request.
    Rita looked back down the road. “How long do you figure we’ve got?”
    Tom shrugged. “Could be as much as ten minutes. They’ll have to gather together, see how many searchers they’ve got, and then eliminate which ways we definitely didn’t go. We’re near the northern limits of the town, here, and the lack of walls is a big help, but if we’re not moving soon—”
    Matthias and Arco came bustling out the door, the latter adding, “Our account is settled, with a tip to encourage the owner’s tardy mention of our lodging here.”
    “Excellent. Now, Matthias, dump the batteries in the river.”
    “What? But Captain Simpson, they are priceless—”
    “And make sure the jars break on the rocks. Everything else that will sink goes in the water as well. We can’t afford any extra weight and I don’t want them to learn that we had a radio. Did you get a general signal out?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “And were the conditions right for it to be heard in both Padua and Chur?”
    Matthias shrugged as he sent the battery-jars crashing down among the rocks of the Mera. “It is a good time for a signal…I think.”
    Tom led them into a sustainable trot. “You think ?”
    Matthias shrugged as he jogged. “You can never know for sure, Captain.”
    Well, that’s just great, thought Tom as he noted the cardinal already laboring to maintain the pace, and Melissa putting on a pain-proof, but increasingly pale, face.
    Just great.
     
    Odo leaned back from the radio, frowning. “No, Ambassador, it is neither a failure, nor meteorological interference. Matthias simply went off the air—like that.” He snapped his fingers sharply.
    Sharon tried to keep the frown off her face. “Was there any word, any warning that—?”
    Her husband put a fine, but very strong, hand on her shoulder. “Beloved, there was no warning. And nothing you could do that you have not already done.”
    “I could have listened to you a week ago, Ruy, when you warned me against setting up this rendezvous. Getting our five people over the Alps is tricky enough with Spanish and Milanese troops watching the alpine approaches from Lake Como to Chiavenna. I should never have agreed to burdening them with the exfiltration of Cardinal Ginetti, as well.”
    “My heart, it is most difficult to refuse a pope, particularly when his reasons are so compelling.”
    A soft voice from the doorway echoed Ruy’s logic. “Indeed, Ambassadora Nichols, the fault—if any ill has befallen your father and your friends—is entirely mine.”
    Sharon turned, wondering—given the very dark black complexion she had inherited from her father James Nichols—if the flush of heat she could feel in her face produced any visible sign. “Your Holiness, my apologies. I did not know you were standing there.”
    “Hovering unseen outside doorways is, alas, a bad habit. It also provides much information one would otherwise not have.” Pope Urban VIII smiled. “I’m sure this bad habit had more to do with my becoming pope than any worthiness in the eyes of Our Savior.” His tone was jocular, but shaded with penitence, also. Urban had been more somber since his rescue from the Castel Sant’Angelo by Ruy and Tom. Or perhaps it was a result of learning that over a dozen cardinals who had been his friends, or at least allies, had been disappeared, and probably killed, by the Spanish invaders, based upon the thinnest of pretexts or, in some cases, outrageous prevarications. Urban seemed to feel their