by Gregg Loomis
He checked the deadbolt lock and set the chain latch, a procedure as routine as brushing his teeth. Within minutes, he was asleep.
28.
The Next Morning
The hotel may have bungled his reservation and the recommended restaurant had been little more than gastro-thievery; but there was nothing wrong with the American-style breakfast buffet.
Lang chose a table on the patio with a view of the old town below. With no automotive traffic allowed, the old town was already teeming with pedestrians. The early sunlight gave the chalk white limestone streets a glow from the polishing of centuries of feet. All the roofs were Mediterranean-style red tile. Some were redder than their neighbors, having been replaced after Bosnian artillery fire some two decades hence. Behind the roofs, a wall encircled the town with Middle Age towers and forts. Outside one segment, sheer limestone cliffs rose from a base where wild lavender and Spanish broom daubed the slope gold and purple like random spots from a child’s paintbrush.
The dark of the previous evening had concealed a cable car that, according to his guide book, escalated and descended from a mediaeval fort atop Mount Srd, some four hundred meters. A restaurant had replaced the military installation.
Perhaps a scenic lunch venue.
As he got up from the table, Lang made a mental note to check the prices on the menu in advance.
Standing before the Pile Gate, he noted the thick walls, some 1940 meters surrounding the entire town, walls wide enough in most places to walk four abreast. With half the city facing the sea from a high bluff and the several towers and forts, Dubrovnik would have been a formidable city to attack or besiege.
The gate itself, a semi-circular tower, took its present shape in 1537. A statue of the town’s patron saint, St. Blasius, watched the ingress and egress of tourists from above the entrance.
Once inside, Lang stood still. There was something not quite right. Then it dawned on him like a cartoon light bulb above his head: There were none of the window boxes that adorn every European town he could remember from the English Channel to the Urals. Nor could he see any locals except a few guides leading polyglot groups. There were T-shirt and souvenir shops in abundance. Small doorway businesses sold cold beverages, ice cream, and snacks. On side streets, tables and chairs indicated the presence of the small restaurants, bistros, or trattoria locals might favor. Here, they appeared occupied exclusively by tourists: No old men playing cards or dominos, no one with a coffee cup beside them as they perused the newspaper. Further exploration revealed no outdoor market. Even if this were not a market day, one would think there would be a butcher’s shop, a green grocer, a bakery. A glance at the second and third stories showed no open windows, no laundry drying on a line. There was none of the indicia of population one would expect in a small European town.
Could Dubrovnik’s old town, like Disneyland, lack full-time residents?
Or did its populace make do without the things most humans required?
Somehow the possible lack of occupants detracted from the historical nature of the city. It was, in essence, no longer a town thriving into the twenty-first century but little more than an open air museum. A line of couples in what Lang supposed was native costume, men and women, holding hands as they marched past singing, did little to add an air of authenticity.
More from a sense of duty than anticipation, Lang followed the map in the guidebook. Roland’s column with an image of the legendary knight, although the guide book offered no clue as the relevance of a figure of northern European myth in the history of a southern Adriatic city.
After the Sponza Palace, a bare and not particularly interesting former government building, a cathedral indistinguishable from most of Rome’s minor churches, and the Church of St Ignatius and Jesuit college with its monumental Baroque flight of stairs leading up from one town square to another, Lang slid under an umbrella shading a quartet of plastic chairs grouped around a plastic table. Instantly, a waiter materialized. Lang looked at the menu and orders a Pan Pivo, a local beer sweating in a green bottle.
Not that he was particularly thirsty or needed to sit down. When he had spent an hour or so wandering a foreign city, he made a practice of taking regular time outs, periods where he let the local scenery come to him. The practice had been part of his long-ago Agency training and had proved its usefulness more than once.
And did again today.
As he gazed around the tables filled with what, again, appeared to be largely cruise boat passengers (white sneakers, shorts, sunburns), two Asian men did not fit. Lang had seen one or two Japanese tour groups, distinguishable not only by race but because they were possibly the only people on earth still using cameras instead of cell phones. Lang had noted one of the men at the nearby table inspecting the altar in the cathedral. Now he had been joined by another, possibly last night’s lone diner. Both wore sandals, a version of flip-flops and full-length cotton pants. And windbreakers.
Jackets. On a day when umbrellas were needed to keep the Adriatic sun at bay.
And was it his imagination that they had just diverted their eyes when he noticed them?
Perhaps cold natured Asians; perhaps something more sinister.
Lang sighed. Though Dubrovnik’s old town was relatively small, the odds of the man from the overpriced restaurant and the man from the church reappearing at this specific establishment at this specific moment were something a casino could only dream of. No one had ever died from a dose of paranoia and it had saved his ass more than once.
He motioned the waiter over and asked directions to the rest room, being sure to get him to point. It would be difficult for an observer not to understand what the American was asking.
Leaving about half of his beer against his return, Lang got to his feet and sauntered off in the direction the waiter had indicated. A pity to stiff the place and wait staff but paying up would destroy the illusion he wanted to create.
The single gender toilet was past the bar and through a noisy, busy kitchen smelling largely of old grease and garlic. Past the single door bearing symbols both for male and female, an alley was visible through the streaked glass panes of a door. As Lang stepped over a pile of garbage bags and into the narrow, shadowed passage, he was startled by a sound half human, half animal. A cat leapt from a second stack of garbage bags, the first animal, dog or cat, he had seen.
Another anomaly: the outdoor (and many indoor) eating establishments across Europe were replete with well-mannered dogs. He had no time to ponder the significance of the lack of them here.
Using only the narrow cross streets, Lang made his way to the wall and passed through a nameless gate. It was as if he had stepped out of a time machine. Parked cars crowded each other for space at the curb. Non-descript buildings, both commercial and residential, lined the sidewalks. TV antennae sprouted from roofs. He was back in the twenty-first century.
But where to go? If the two Asians were, in fact, following him, there was a good chance someone was watching the hotel.
The answer lay perhaps a hundred yards uphill. He say a sign that read “cable car”: in English, French, and what Lang supposed was Croatian. In case there was any doubt, the sign included a white outline of a box suspended from a diagonal line against a blue background.
Lang joined the short line buying tickets. So far, his Asian followers had not appeared on the scene. He handed over his credit card, which the attendant slid through a hand-held device, pointing to the sign next to the ticket window in multiple languages. The English version warned, “Your ticket please required for return.”
Somebody was going to parachute onto that hillside just to steal a ride?
The ride was short but spectacular, interrupted only by the passing of the downward bound car sliding on its cable and providing the counterweight to the one in which Lang was riding.
He followed the twenty or so fellow passengers into a modern concrete building that still had the smell of freshly poured cement although, according t
o the guidebook, it had reopened after post-war repairs in 2010. After climbing a flight of stairs, the cable car’s passengers stepped outside to a magnificent view of the harbor and the old town far below. A number stopped to take pictures and then selfies against the background. Others meandered over to the remains of the old fort or took the few steps down to the open-air, umbrella-bedecked restaurant that was filling rapidly. Lang chose a table with a view both of the town below and the exit from the arrival building. A waiter served him with a glass of ice water and a menu.
When dining at unfamiliar restaurants near resorts or other suspect sites, Lang was guided by what he called the “most difficult” theory. He ordered the item that would be hardest to screw up. He would, for instance, chose spaghetti and meat balls rather than, say, ossobuco at one of those quick in and out places around Rome’s more famous piazza or Paris’s St. Germain.
It was harder to render noodles and meat in tomato sauce inedible than a veal shank stuffed with its own bone marrow.
The present candidate was a cheeseburger.
At resort prices, a real bargain at eighty kuna.
How do you screw that up?
The chef managed.
The mouth feel of the cheeseburger reminded Lang of sawdust and the taste was . . . what? Not beef like any he had tasted. What the burger lacked in quality it made up in volume. It could have choked a horse should the animal chosen to participate in a possible act of cannibalism. To top off that epicurean disaster, the bun felt as though it had just exited the refrigerator. The insult to be added to his misery was the automatic fifteen percent gratuity along with a note that the patron was free to add on additional sums for exceptional service.
Lang didn’t mind a tip. After all, the kid serving the meal wasn’t responsible for the quality of it. He did mind having someone else determine the amount.
He had just signed the credit card chit when he looked up. One of the Asians was exiting the building. Lang stood so the umbrella obscured his upper torso and face while he decided what to do.
There wasn’t going to be time for extensive deliberation.
Although the umbrella masked him from one Asian, he couldn’t see the other man.
The only exit from the outdoor restaurant was by the way Lang had come: a short set of steps. It would be impossible to use them without being seen. There was also the bothersome question of where the second Asian was. Most likely positioned to intercept the conventional avenues of escape. Had it not been for the jackets the men wore on such a warm day, jackets Lang was certain concealed shoulder holsters, he would simply have waited for the pair to make whatever move they had in mind. Unarmed, though, his past training and present physical conditioning was no match for firepower.
That left the unconventional.
Circling the restaurant, he used his iPhone to mime taking pictures of the old town below. Halfway around but well before reaching the stairs, he stepped over a low stone wall separating the dining area from the hillside into which it was built. To his surprise, no one seemed to notice. He supposed the cliff, the face of which he now had to traverse, was not the focal point of his fellow diners.
A single glance down had told him an attempt in that direction was likely to be suicidal. Although the limestone was not nearly as sheer as it appeared from below, this view of it revealed a number of concave areas, almost shallow caves, that would have him literally holding onto rock above his head.
He had a better idea.
Using small cavities and handholds along with the occasional shrub, he made his way perhaps a hundred feet or so across the rock until he was directly below the platform from which the cable car would begin its descent. The hum of an electric motor filled his ears but did not block the sudden cries from the direction of the restaurant. Someone had finally noticed Lang clinging to the rock face. He dared not turn his head to see how many people were leaning over the low stone wall, pointing.
Other than free booze and food, few things drew a crowd faster than an imminent fatality.
With an increase in the sound above his head, perhaps imagined, the cable car shifted and began its trip downward.
Lang forced himself to wait. He would have to time this perfectly, for he would have but the single opportunity. He wouldn’t be alive for a second try.
29.
The Hoe
Plymouth, England
July 22, 1588
Early Morning
John Dee Looked down from the chalky cliffs across the now empty harbor. To the west, Cornwall was a hulking mass in the morning’s haze across water now shimmering with the early light. Yesterday, when Dee had arrived, the port below had been a forest of ships’ masts.
It had taken him nearly a week of bad (or non-extant) roads to travel the one hundred thirty miles from London, even with sections of the Saxon salt road and remnants of those of Roman origin stretching to the edge of their empire in Britain. The inns were execrable, their landlords larcenous when he had presented the requisition for billeting bearing the queen’s seal. Small wonder with Good Queen Bess’s notoriously slow payment of such warrants.
Still, he had used all haste once he had received her command to be present here. He was unsure of her rationale but knew it unwise to question her. All he knew was he had been summoned to Windsor, the queen’s most easily defended castle, where feverish efforts were underway to further strengthen fortifications dating back to William the Conqueror.
As was normal, he had been ushered into the queen’s privy quarters, in this case a claustrophobic series of dank rooms with such light as could squeeze its way through openings that resembled archers’ slits more than windows. Even the Flemish tapestries on the stone walls did little to deflect Dee’s impression of more dungeon than bedchamber.
He surmised affairs of state had been on her agenda today, for she had abandoned the simple gowns she favored around her intimates. Instead, a diamond and pearl tiara sat atop a sea of red hair carefully plucked back to make the forehead appear high, an indicia of intelligence. A ruff of Flemish lace topped off a velvet gown of brightly colored satin, well padded at the hips.
As he doffed his cap and bowed, Dee had a rare awareness of the humble nature of the clothing he preferred: He wore an ankle length gown at home. Today, wool shirt and doublet, breeches of the same, well splattered with the mud of travel as were the hip high leather boots into which they were stuffed. His gloves were worn thin at the finger tips and he did not wear the Rapier popular at the time, although as gentry, one who practiced the sciences, he was entitled to do so.
“Majesty.”
The queen indicated a young boy in royal livery standing by the door. “Art thou thirsty from the journey from London? ‘Tis but a trifle to have ale, bread, and cheese brought from the kitchen.”
“My thanks, M’lady, but the ale will’st do. The roads are but dust this time of year.”
With a regal gesture from Elizabeth, the servant disappeared.
Gathering her skirts, Elizabeth sat in a velvet upholstered x-frame chair, motioning Dee to a far-less-comfortable three-legged turned chair of bare oak. “Our agents have brought word Phillip’s armada prepares to sail from Lisbon.”
Dee said nothing, knowing the queen would tell him what she wanted him to know at her own pace.
“Lord Howard of Effingham is at Plymouth with the fleet. Drake is his second. Hawkins is also there.”
“Your majesty has chosen wisely.”
There was a pause when the servant returned, placing a pewter pot on a chest and departed. Dee rose from his chair and took the vessel in both hands before returning to his seat. The ale was strong and flavored with a fruit he did not recognize.
“We wish thee to go to Plymouth.”
“Madam?”
“Thou foretold that Phillip would attempt such an enterprise when we were forced to send our cousin, the Scottish Queen, to the headsman lest she, in our stead, rule England.”
“She was also a Papist,
madam. Rome hath sold indulgences to raise money for the Spanish Fleet in hopes of returning England to the Roman fold.”
But what did the execution of Mary Queen of Scots have to do with Elizabeth’s desire he go to Plymouth?”
“Master Dee, the spirits with whom thou dost commune may do us service in this event. For this reason we wish thee close to the forthcoming conflict.”
At least she had not ordered him aboard the stinking confines of a warship.
“And we also desire you to keep us informed as that conflict progresses.”
“Madam?”
Elizabeth smiled, waving a dismissive hand. “Drake, Hawkins, Frobisher. Even Howard. Brave and loyal subjects, yes. But also braggarts of their own merits. But thou, Master Dee, speaketh the truth of what thou doth observe.”
How very like the queen: send someone to spy on her own commanders, spirits notwithstanding.
So, here Dee was, overlooking an empty harbor. He had arrived yesterday afternoon just in time to watch Drake and two men he did not recognize suffer an interruption to the game of bowls played on the grass where Dee was now standing.
The man wore the uniform of Drake’s men. “Sir Francis!”
Before Drake could acknowledge him, the intruder pointed seaward. “There! The Spanish come!”
Dee strained his eyes to that near indefinable point where sky met sea. Were those clouds or sails?
Drake, a hand shading his eyes, nodded as though in agreement. “Aye, so it is.” He turned to his companions. “But there is time yet to finish our game.”
And he had.
This morning, a crowd of perhaps a hundred or so had gathered on the Hoe, that hill behind Plymouth Harbour. Dee could plainly see the Spanish ships, their white sails like a herd of sheep against a blue meadow. Unlike sheep, though, they had formed a crescent formation, the heavier galleys on the points facing the English. An hour ago, they had fired their cannon before trying to come within boarding range. Dee had counted the time between the ships’ disappearance in clouds of smoke and the moment the sound of the guns reached his ears. The measure would give him some idea of how far out to sea the battle was taking place. He estimated somewhere near the Eddy Stone Rocks