by Eric Flint
Sanchez shrugged. “Besides, if you send men charging through a door with the expectation that they will be immediately under attack, they will kill the first thing they see. It is only human nature. And should we be wrong about who is in that room—well, I am not prepared to have innocent lives on my conscience.”
Hastings was not eager to add them to his long list of regrets, either, but he was even less eager to take the risks necessary to create the tactical situation that Sanchez had envisioned. However, for good or bad, the decision was not his, and it had been made. “Then, Colonel, if I may—?”
“Proceed, Lieutenant. And remind your men: speed is everything. They must not stop to look. They must carry out the plan and then assess.”
“I have impressed that upon them, sir. You will give the necessary orders to Luton?”
“Who?”
Hastings nodded toward the trooper huddled in the alcove to the right.
Sanchez leaned, caught sight of the man, and nodded. “I shall coordinate from here.” He smiled. “For now.”
Hastings held in a sigh. Would this be the day when, finally, the legendary Ruy Sanchez would actually sit out a fight? For the sheer sake of keeping things straightforward and simple, Hastings hoped it would be. But he had his doubts. Axe in hand, he started up the stairs.
* * *
Larry Mazzare got his trembling foot on the last step up to the top of St. Peter’s bell-tower. The sniper and observer turned, stared. The sniper only looked at their unexpected visitor for a moment; shrugging, he huddled back down over his weapon, and arranged the sandbags upon which his weapon rested, making sure that the lever still had an unobstructed downward range of motion.
The observer, who had an Aldis lamp in one hand and a pair of excellent down-time Dutch binoculars in the other, tried to make a little bow. “Your Eminence, I wasn’t—that is, we didn’t expect—”
Panting for breath, Larry waved off the man’s courtesies. “Didn’t expect. To be. Here myself,” he wheezed out. Damn, when was the last time he’d run? Or jogged? Or did anything other than worry? That had to change pronto. But for now—“We were breaking for lunch when I saw Ruy—er, Colonel Sanchez bolt out of the Palais like the hounds of hell were after him. Stopped the messenger before he could leave. Found out what was happening and where.”
“And you knew to come here?” The observer sounded like he was poised between utter amazement on one side and utter disbelief on the other.
Larry shook his head. “Back in my world, I was a hunter, too. Priest or no priest, meat was expensive. I wasn’t going to starve, but there were some families and shut-ins who needed that protein. So, sure I came up here; best hunter’s stand in town, from what I can see. And I knew it would have a vantage point, given where the messenger said Sha—Ambassador Nichols had detected the radio transmissions.”
The observer shrugged. “Can’t say that I understand what’s going on half as well as you seem to, Your Eminence. But—are you just here to watch?”
Larry shook his head. “More to help. If I can.”
“Well,” the observer mused, “we do need one more hand.”
“For what?”
The observer pointed to an iron hammer lying beside the sniper’s bench. “For that, Your Eminence.”
“And what do I do with it?”
The observer smiled. “I’ll tell you when the time comes. But for now, just stand next to the bell—”
* * *
Hastings reached the landing, handed the axe to Rolf, who was slightly shorter, but more heavily built, then crouched to the left of the target door.
Rolf signaled the other trooper to join him. Together they readied themselves in front of the door, Rolf prepared to unleash a kick just to the left of the knob, the other ready to shoulder it in.
Hastings raised his hand, three fingers up. He silently mouthed a countdown as he folded each finger back into his palm: “One. Two. Three—”
Rolf’s kick broke the old lock easily, and the two of them were in the room before the door had finished swinging back on its hinges.
Hastings, Glock trained on the target door, spared a quick look. No personal effects: just a cot, ratty blankets, and happily, a much-stained and many-seamed table that was clearly used both for food preparation and eating.
By the time Hastings had taken that in, Rolf had pinned the door back, putting it—and him—out of sight from the target door. He brought the axe around swiftly at the top hinge and half split the wood in which it had been fixed. A moment later, the other trooper had worked the table around so that it faced the door. He tipped it forward with a crash; it was now cover for at least two kneeling men.
Hastings turned back to look at the target door, gave a thumbs-up down to Sanchez at the bottom of the stairs, and hoped to Jesus Christ Almighty that Rolf would be quick with that axe…
* * *
Rombaldo, sitting with Giulio in yet another attempt to teach his fellow Italian how to send and copy coded communications from the radio, started at the crash just beyond their door. “God’s balls, what’s that?”
Laurin, who was sitting in the alcove with the shotgun, glanced toward Radulfus, who was up in one smooth motion, his hand out for the weapon.
“Might be the neighbors—” Martius began.
A heavy blow followed by a splintering sound put aside any notion that this could be any typical domestic disturbance.
As Laurin handed off the shotgun to Radulfus and scooped up the Hackenjoss & Klott revolver from the top of an empty box next to entry, he waved toward Martius. “Take a look!”
“Me?” said Martius in a voice that was altogether too high and too loud.
Another splintering blow landed someplace just beyond the door: it sounded like something metal clattered away from the impact.
“Yes, you, idiot,” Rombaldo hissed, running over the contingencies he and Dolor had worked out if the watch ever came knocking. Except, if that was the watch, why hadn’t they just come busting in?
Martius was still delaying.
Another splintering blow. Radulfus, who had squatted down in the alcove and had lined up all the ready shotgun shells in front of him, nodded and mouthed the word “axe.”
“Go open the door, damn you!” Rombaldo said in a low gutteral voice. “Now!”
Martius paced cautiously to the door, and, hand trembling, turned the knob and pulled it toward him.
* * *
At the same moment that Rolf brought down the axe a fourth time and the door to the small room sagged on its mostly separated hinge, the target door opened.
The trooper beside Rolf brought up his rifle, shouted, “Halt!”
The door across the landing immediately slammed shut.
Rolf grabbed his room’s listing door, gave it a twist: a groan and a snap and it came free of the bottom hinge. As he maneuvered it into the narrow space between the door frame and the table, he pitched his head at the target door and grunted, “What did he look like?”
“Medium height, medium build, nervous as a witch at a bonfire.”
Hastings nodded, whispered, “Tell them to come out without weapons. By order of the City Watch.”
Which the trooper did. There was no response. However, it sounded as if people were scurrying around in the rooms beyond the target door.
* * *
“You’re sure?” asked Rombaldo.
“Sard! Of course, I’m sure,” Martius almost whined. “Hibernians, two of ’em. In the room across the way. An’ it’s already blocked off by a table.”
“How did they find us?” Giulio hissed, wringing his hands, and glancing at the shuttered rear windows.
“Doesn’t matter,” Rombaldo snapped. “They did.”
“It matters if one of you is a betrayer,” Radulfus observed evenly.
From beyond the door, came a youngish voice. “By order of the City Watch, you must come out, unarmed.”
Laurin padded two steps away from his position
near the door. “I saw them, too. These asslickers have rifles. Copied up-time rifles. Powerful. We can’t fight our way out.”
Rombaldo ignored Laurin, whose conclusion had been implicit before he’d opened his mouth. Of course they couldn’t fight their way out: the Hibernians had clearly taken their time to formulate a plan. Which meant they had had time to gather sufficient numbers. And they probably had the watch—or the local soldiers, or both—here with them. Rombaldo sighed; even though he and the others had up-time equivalent weapons—and the shotguns were arguably much better suited for a shootout in such close quarters—there was no way they could fight their way out the door, down the stairs, and off to—
To where? They had to disappear. And there was only one way to do that. Well, two, actually, but there was no reason to share that detail at this particularly moment. “Giulio, take the escape rope and crawl out the back window.”
“It’s not night-time, and they could be out there!”
Rombaldo rolled his eyes, even as he thought, yes, they most certainly could be out there. “So open one and check first, dolt! And if it looks clear, shinny down with the rope. We’ll follow. Martius, get the other shotgun and cover him.” That addition had the effect of making Giulio a great deal less anxious.
“And what about us?” Radulfus gestured to Laurin and himself.
“Shoot them if they try to get in. Follow us down as soon as we’re out the window.”
Giulio, next to the window and about to undo the shutter latch, turned toward Rombaldo. “And what are you doing?”
Rombaldo was going into the other room that he and Dolor had divided between them. “What do you think? Getting the other revolver and the papers that we can’t afford them to find. Now go!”
* * *
Larry Mazzare decided that a cardinal’s cassock had been designed to keep heat in, not let it out. Although the air was cool, particularly up here, his body felt like it was trapped in its own, mobile sauna—
“Middle window opening!” cried the observer, so loudly that Larry was afraid their enemies might hear. “Your Eminence, one ring of the bell, please.”
Larry complied, striking the side of the bell with the hammer. It made an odd sound: sharper, less resonant. At the same time, the observer leaned back where he could no longer be seen from the building, but was visible to Zehenter’s team, just twenty yards farther along the line of houses and hidden in their shadows. He turned up the wick of his Aldis lamp, aimed it, and began flicking out a message.
The sniper’s voice was almost a bored monotone. “One man, slight build. Crawling out on the roof of the building beneath it.”
Larry looked over his shoulder. Saw the spare fellow pulling something behind him. “Is he playing out a rope?”
“Your Eminence has keen eyes. He is indeed.” The sniper adjusted the scope, then his rifle, tracking with the target. He leaned his head toward the observer. “What is Zehenter saying? Do we take the shot?”
The observer shook his head. “No. CO wants this guy as a prisoner. Let him get most of the way to the ground; the Burgundians will bag him when he’s dangling on his rope.”
Which the spare man was already doing as he went over the roof of the adjoining building, scrabbling down toward the ground just beyond the low graveyard wall. The observer triggered his Aldis lamp, then raised his binoculars.
A moment later, three Burgundian swordsmen came charging out of the shadows. Even up in the bell-tower, their shouted orders to surrender were audible, albeit faintly.
But Larry, who was not busy sending signals or lining up a shot through a scope, noticed what neither of the Hibernians did: a shadow moving near the window. “Movement at the window,” he muttered.
The sniper cursed and twitched his rifle back in that direction.
But not before a figure there leaned out with something cradled in his hands. Something that looked very much like—
Two shotgun blasts split the dry afternoon air in quick succession. Two of the Burgundians fell over, one writhing, the other going down heavy, limp, motionless. The other Burgundian fell in his haste to reverse his charge.
The sniper began firing rapidly at the man in the window, who had inadvisedly paused there to reload his weapon. The first bullet clipped the window sill. The lever clacked. The second shot was an overcorrection; plaster jetted out from the building’s outer surface, just shy of the window. The smoke from the first two rounds, blowing up and back, went past Larry’s face as a fast blam!-krakchak; blam!-krakchak sequence began, cleared just in time for him to see the fourth round hit: a slight puff of dark red. The fractionally seen form tumbled away from the window.
At the same moment that the one unwounded Burgundian finished stumbling and scampering back into the shadows that were out of the window’s field of fire, the observer called out: “First target cutting across graveyard. Eleven o’clock, range increasing.”
The sniper had paused to put two more rounds in the big Winchester’s magazine, looked up to see the observer’s finger tracking along with the slight man. He swung his weapon in that direction and laid it atop the sandbags in one smooth motion.
“Ten o’clock,” continued the observer.
The sniper squeezed the trigger; a gnat’s breath later, the top half of an old tombstone behind the fleeing man disintegrated in a small, angry explosion of talclike white smoke.
Larry held his breath. It was essential that none of the assassins escape, but to see one, probably unarmed, gunned down as he fled—
Before Larry Mazzare could decide what he should—what he could—say, the sniper had levered another round sharply into the Winchester’s chamber, paused, exhaled, and squeezed the trigger—all in less than two seconds.
The tiny figure, the only one amidst the forest of stone death markers, went down, arms outstretched and tilted up, as if trying to break a fall and reach out to heaven, all in the same motion.
Larry hung his head.
“That’s done,” said the sniper, who immediately started reloading his weapon again.
“Your Eminence,” asked the observer.
Larry looked up, hoped he wouldn’t vomit.
“I’ve just seen another man moving, beyond the windows. He has a gun. You have to ring the bell. Again.”
Larry, wondering bitterly if anyone in all of Besançon now doubted that the second floor of that house was “strongly defended,” raised the hammer.
Chapter 31
The church bell—a distant and uncommonly flat sound—rang again.
“Scheisse,” muttered Rolf.
Hastings simply nodded. It wasn’t as if, given the two shotgun blasts from within, there was any doubt that the room would be strongly held against them. He gestured Rolf over to join him next to the target door, gave a hand sign that the first trooper on the stairs, Bruggeman, was to take his place. The next trooper advanced up the stairs, two of the Burgundians stepping up to wait just behind him.
Rolf gathered his equipment, vaulted the door-and-table barricade/parapet, and crouched down next to Hastings. “Scheisse,” he repeated vehemently, glaring at the door. “I’ll bet you want me to splinter that lock.”
Hastings patted him on the shoulder. “This is what they pay us for.”
“But why always us, sir?”
“What do you mean?”
“First, there was that insane fight inside the farmhouse in Molino, and now, here. Why do we always get the room-to-room situations?”
“Just lucky, I guess. But this time, I think we’ve improved the odds. Substantially.” Hastings pointed to the two Hibernians sheltering in the right-hand room, their Winchester .40-72’s laid atop the overturned table. “Bruggeman, Haaf: if we come under fire, return it. If you see a target, take it.” He glanced at the trooper waiting on the top step. “Stand ready, Wachter.” He turned back to Rolf. “You count it out.”
Rolf nodded; he looked at Wachter until their eyes were locked on each other. Rolf drew back the axe
and silently mouthed the count: “One. Two. Three…”
Rolf swung the axe—too hard. It bit into the door above the handle. “Scheisse!” he shouted.
The response from the room—two pistol shots—punched holes in the target door, then the door laid sideways in front of the table. But having penetrated two stiff surfaces, the bullets did not have enough energy to make any significant progress through the thick tabletop. Bruggeman and Haaf each put a round back through the door.
Rolf already had the axe in motion. This time, it landed just above the handle. A splintering crunch and the target door gapped. As Rolf hauled the axe back, Wachter leaned around from his position at the top of the stairs, struck the door with the butt of his gun, and tucked back again swiftly.
A shotgun blast erupted outward through the opening door. A pistol round punched through the wall alongside Rolf. Hastings reached up, grabbed the sergeant’s belt, and pulled him down as Bruggeman and Haaf returned fire.
Hastings glared at Rolf. “At this range, walls are concealment, not cover.” He glanced over at the barricade. “Layout like downstairs?”
“Yes, sir, and the alcove is where we expected it.” Haaf answered from behind the table; it sounded as if he was reloading. A wise use of time, reflected Hastings as he raised his left hand—in the thumbs-up position—to where Sanchez would see it.
From the entryway downstairs, he heard the Catalan’s reply. “Understood. Trooper Luton, stand ready.”
* * *
Rombaldo had wasted a precious second debating whether he actually should remove a few of the other random papers near the radio. In that moment, the axe had crashed into the door a second time, splintered the lock, and more shots were traded. Well, no reason to wait.
Rombaldo went directly to the small, heavily shuttered window in the room he and Dolor shared, swung the latch away quietly, holstered the pistol he had scooped up, and swung his left leg out over the ledge.
It was about fifteen feet to the ground, which he would have simply risked jumping had the window not been so narrow that he had to exit sideways. But the walls on either side of the window came out from the building, hemming it into its own narrow channel. So, hanging onto the top of the frame with both hands, and bringing up his left leg so that his foot was braced hard against the wall to the right of the window, he moved his right leg out so that it was next to the other. Extending his knees slightly, he felt the left-hand wall grind into his back. Pushing hard with his legs, he removed his hands from the top of the window frame and began to shrug and shimmy his way down the channel.
