1636_The Vatican Sanction

by Eric Flint

  Olivares was delighted by this strategy of using what the up-timers called a “cut-out,” so that the person gathering the information was wholly misled as to why they were being tasked to do so. He approved the operation and then promptly forgot about it.

  Several months after it had been running, Dolor added a further dimension to it, explaining to the source in Grantville that several of the firms in the consortium had come to feel that it would be advantageous to monitor the tastes and interests of one hundred of Grantville’s leading citizens. It stood to reason, after all, that as Europe continued to explore all things up-time, there would be an increasing interest in the pastimes and preferences of the community’s leading figures. Fashion always followed the famous, after all. So it would be very worthwhile if the data gatherer could perhaps contact a friend or acquaintance in Grantville’s library to learn the reading lists of the town’s leading personalities—for a reasonable fee, of course.

  Within three weeks, Dolor’s enterprising and highly motivated data-gatherer had located a willing library worker. The level of illegality involved was insignificant compared to most down-time crimes, and the reward was evidently made sweeter by the thrill of imagining oneself involved in trend setting.

  From there, it was a simple step to determine all the books that had been bought, loaned, or leased to copy, either from the reprint publishers, the library, or private collections. Tastes and trends among both buyers and borrowers were self-evident, particularly among those who were devotees of some particular topic.

  Dolor was quite certain that Sharon had been just such a devotee; he remembered her spending considerable sums to collect the reprints of a certain category of book. But he could not recall precisely what that category was. But ultimately, he found the footnote he was searching for on the last page of her dossier.

  Sharon Nichols, having been a visitor to Grantville, had only the scant possessions she was carrying in her luggage when the town made its fateful transition backward in time. Consequently, while she and her father set about acquiring the necessities of life in their new community, they resorted to withdrawing books from the library for their entertainment. And Sharon’s loan record, along with her subsequent reprint purchases, combined to reveal a secret passion:

  Forensics. She had taken out every mystery novel that focused on what the up-timers called a medical examiner, as well as several nonfiction books on the topic. She had apparently devoured the five available books in what was called the “Kay Scarpetta” series as soon as the library’s services normalized. She then read similar novels, all of which featured titles comprised of contorted, even tortured, metaphors and idioms, such as Déjà Dead. To their discredit, even factual books followed this trend toward unintentional self-parody, one of the more memorable being Unnatural Death: Confessions of a Medical Examiner. It never failed to strike Dolor how, although the up-time world had been a place of extraordinary plenty, it had become wretchedly impoverished in matters of refinement and taste.

  Dolor put down the dossier and spoke loud enough for Rombaldo to hear. “The ambassador is not merely a doctor. She has studied what the up-timers call forensics.”

  “What is that?”

  “The study of how best to examine bodies and crime scenes to find evidence that reveals the identities of murderers.”

  Rombaldo sat down across from Dolor. “That sounds worrisome.”

  “It would be disastrous if she had access to even ten percent of the technology used in their up-time investigations. Happily, she does not.”

  “Still, you seem concerned.”

  “I am. Even without that technology, she has imbibed a method of investigation which could prove dangerous to us. In addition to examining bodies to determine how and when crimes were performed, she is accustomed to looking for patterns in events. So you may be sure that she is quite aware that Lamy was not killed in the street in the middle of the night. You may also be sure that she shall quickly attempt to reconstruct how he spent the hours of his last day and where he might have been when he died.”

  Rombaldo swallowed. “She will visit all his properties.”

  Dolor nodded. “Among the other routine stops he might make. However, most murders are committed by a person who knows the victim; her method will compel her to start there. Then, it is largely a matter of chance how she prioritizes the list of sites at which he may have been killed. A landlord contracts many services, and Lamy owned three widely separated properties. Nichols, or rather, those persons she can recruit as investigators, will not be able to visit them all this day. But they certainly will have by the end of tomorrow.”

  “Then what are we to do? Accept Borja’s men as already dead?” Rombaldo sounded as though that alternative pleased him.

  Dolor shook his head. “We cannot. We haven’t the numbers to be certain of assassinating the pope on our own. We need Borja’s men to drive him into our trap. So we must preserve them.”

  “If we are lucky, that is.”

  “No: if we are smart. Here is what must be done. Laurin must go to the butcher’s and get several pints of beef blood—”

  “What? Just like that?”

  Dolor stared at Rombaldo, who looked away quickly. “Your tone wants correction. Laurin will get the blood for making blutwurst. He will take it to whichever of Lamy’s properties is furthest from the one occupied by Borja’s men. He is to spatter drops on the stairs, leave a large stain on the path out to the privy, then smear it as though something was dragged through it.”

  Rombaldo nodded. “To keep them busy.”

  “Yes. I suspect that they will not be distracted by that lure for long. But once seen and reported to the investigators, it will fix activity on that site, at least until the ambassadora sees it personally. By that time, it should be dark.”

  “But what good is that? They’ll continue looking.” Rombaldo saw Dolor’s look. “No?”

  “No. Firstly, if they go around this city knocking on doors and conducting searches throughout the night, that will both annoy and frighten the tenants at every one of Lamy’s properties. That kind of disturbance could create a panic at the very moment when Urban and his allies most want calm and confidence.

  “Secondly, I do not believe Sanchez and O’Neill would agree to dedicate their own security forces to this search. They are spread thin enough as it is, and if they are active all through the night, they will not be effective come daylight. So it is likely that Bernhard’s soldiers, or even the watch, will be given this duty. And they will not be eager or effective in carrying out this task in daylight, even less so in the dark. If they have not found Borja’s men by dusk today, I believe they will not resume the search until tomorrow morning.”

  Rombaldo shrugged. “And that is very fine, but then what? If, as you seem to suspect, Borja’s men killed their landlord in their own flat—the morons—then they will be found some time tomorrow, will no doubt panic, and ultimately be slain. Of course, they might drop a message for the fop tonight, who might then update his master immediately, but that could have the same effect, in the long run. Who knows what outrageous orders Borja may give them?”

  Dolor rose. “All true. And so our focus must be on what we need to accomplish next, not on what we fear could occur. And we have two distinct objectives. Firstly, we must relocate Borja’s men. This requires ensuring that there are other lodgings that they may flee to, and then making them aware of that fact.”

  “Easier said than done. There’s not a room to be had for miles.”

  Dolor ignored Rombaldo’s remark. “Secondly, we must ensure that they are not given orders which will cause them to reveal themselves or strike before the time is right.”

  Rombaldo considered that for a long second. “I don’t see how that is something we could gain control over.”

  “Happily, Borja himself has provided us with an answer to that quandary, as well as a solution to the problem of relocating his men.”

  Rombaldo simply shoo
k his head. “Because you say so, I’ll believe it. But I cannot foresee how it could be done.” He rubbed his hands together. “There is potentially a more—direct approach.”

  “Which is?”

  “Recruit some locals and assassinate Urban ourselves. We could find half a dozen among the riverboat smugglers, at least.”

  “And how would you secure their loyalty? And how would you craft a plan that would not obviously use them as cannon fodder—a job which no amount of pay will entice a man to take? But even those are not the most urgent reasons against such a scheme. There is the matter of accountability.” He leaned forward. “We need to kill the pope, yes, but the bloody dagger must be directly and unequivocally traceable to Borja’s own hand. If his assassins are neutralized before they may strike, how are we to achieve that?”

  Rombaldo shrugged. “I never have liked that part of this job. It’s hard enough to kill a pope; it’s damn near impossible to make sure that someone else takes the blame.”

  “It is difficult, but not impossible.” But while on the topic of who shall take the blame…“You have observed Borja’s men more than any of us. Do you recall if any of them are left-handed?”

  Rombaldo started at the sudden change in topic. “No, not to my knowledge.”

  Then, for the time being, I shall be. Every once in a while, ambidexterity proved to be an advantage in Dolor’s line of work.

  “Why is it important if any of them are left-handed?” Rombaldo asked.

  “Tactical considerations.” Dolor lied. “No detail is too small to consider. As you say, this is a very difficult job, made more so by the two prior attempts that have failed. Each time, our opponents learned from the mistakes that almost cost Urban his life. Each time, therefore, we were the whetstone upon which they have sharpened their abilities. Today, I watched them walk what I presume to be multiple escape routes.”

  “Then we have them, if they try that.”

  “Do we? They have marksmen with repeating rifles in all the bell towers. And they will never move Urban in such a way that he can be immediately be picked out: there will be decoys, or shrouded conveyances such as the sedan chairs. Our hope lies in surprising them again and again so that all their fine planning breaks down. Then, and only then, will we have a clear opportunity to complete our mission.”

  Dolor reached into his traveling chest, pulled out a long dark cloak that was not entirely dissimilar from the kind worn by lesser officers of the watch, and laid it across the bed.

  Rombaldo stared at it. “You are leaving?”

  “Yes, to capitalize upon the solution Borja has put before us. Which requires that I must be in the Battant and back again before the bridge closes for the night.”

  Chapter 23

  Pedro Dolor had visited L’Auberge de Boucle d’Argent before, careful to do so when Javier de Requesens y Ercilla was out on one of his drop-gathering constitutionals. So he had had ample prior opportunity to examine the latches and locks on those doors that had them. De Requesens’ suite of rooms on the top floor had a better lock than most, but it was easily bypassed. Dolor wondered why a throw-bolt had not been installed; de Requesens had certainly paid a high enough rate, and for long enough, to exert that kind of leverage over the owner. But the Spanish dandy had not done so, probably telling himself that doing so would only attract undue attention. Such were the mistakes of amateurs.

  Dolor eased the door open a crack. Requesens was sitting near the window, angled so that he could take in the view. More amateurism. A professional stayed away from windows and would at least have hung a bell on the door when engaged in any activity that was significantly distracting. Instead, the young Spaniard was finishing his meal while reading what was either a book or a code manual: Dolor could not tell from the distance.

  He waited until Requesens lifted another forkful of food to his mouth and started chewing, then slipped in sideways, moving swiftly to put himself more directly behind the dandy. As the fellow continued to eat and read, Dolor shifted more attention to his peripheral vision: no weapon near the oblivious Spaniard’s hand, nor anywhere else in the room. The radio was also located near the window, and a wire ran from it to the opposite wall, up to a rafter, and out under the eaves: an aerial. There was a strongbox against the far wall, which probably held the records of prior communications and a variety of codebooks. The room was relatively tidy, and not just because a menial came in to clean every day. Requesens’ books and clothes were arranged with angular care: the longest plane of every object was either parallel or perpendicular to all the others.

  When it became evident that the young “intelligencer” was not going to scan his surroundings or otherwise detect Dolor’s presence, Pedro cleared his throat softly.

  Requesens paused in his thorough chewing, looked up, tilted his head as if listening more carefully—and then tucked into his meal again.

  Dolor suppressed a sigh; he cleared his throat more loudly.

  Javier started, glanced left, then right, then turned—and, seeing Dolor at last, uttered a gasp that rapidly turned into a throaty cough. A half-masticated chunk of pheasant flew out of his mouth and hit the floor with a wet splat. “Who are you? How did you get in?”

  Dolor nodded a greeting. “A gentleman in the service of Spain should take greater care to remain watchful. I would recommend you take your meals facing but not in line with the door, and with a weapon at hand. It would also be better to do so away from the window.”

  Requesens sputtered out what sounded like the beginning of a question, then another, then just swallowed. He stepped back, fetched up against the edge of the table. That seemed to restart his paralyzed brain. “What do you mean, ‘a gentleman in the service of Spain?’ I am Spanish, yes, but am merely a commercial factor, providing market and other information for various clients.”

  Dolor shook his head. “You are Javier de Requesens y Ercilla and you are kept here by Count-Duke Olivares. Although you do have other clients, that is true.”

  De Requesens swallowed again, this time audibly. He scanned Dolor’s cloak carefully. “You are not from the watch.”

  “I am not. I am sent by a common friend. One with whom you have just recently established contact, here in the Buckle.”

  It took Javier a moment to parse out the exact meaning of Dolor’s carefully oblique statement. “You—you are from the other contact, the other handler.”

  Dolor nodded. “I am. But you should have made me work harder before you uttered the words yourself. I could have been from the other side, a counter intelligence agent, making an educated guess, seeing if I could get you to implicate yourself. As you just did. You must be more careful.”

  De Requesens regained some of his composure, and with that, his wits. “And who are you, that you should know all this and lecture me at my craft?”

  Your craft? Dolor ignored the question, afraid derision might creep into his tone. Instead, he walked around the room and peered into the others beyond. Outwardly, he affected an appreciative demeanor; in actuality, he was busy cataloging everything he saw. “Olivares is a generous taskmaster, I see.”

  “See here: I will know your business with me.”

  “I bear a word from your master.”

  “And how do you speak to Spain, sirrah?”

  “You are not the only man with a radio in this town. And I am not speaking of your master in Spain. I am speaking of the other one.”

  That rattled the dandy. “But—how are you here? I was assured by Rome I had sole knowledge of both groups—”

  “Yes, well, you will appreciate that we are in a business where lies and misdirection are the stock in trade. We know of you; you know of us. Gasquet’s men know the Swiss and vice versa. However, Gasquet only knows how to contact you; the Swiss only know how to contact us.” The last claim was conjecture, but it was typical of multicell operations and de Requesens accepted it without reaction. “If any group is compromised, it would show in their communications with the others.
And so Rome would know and take appropriate steps.”

  “Yes, but you should not be aware of my identity or where I am located. That, too, is crucial the security of the operation.”

  Dolor nodded sadly. “Normally, yes. But we caught wind of a developing situation. It seems that Gasquet’s group has taken a misstep.”

  De Requesens wiped a thin sheen of sweat from his brow line. “A misstep? What? When?”

  “We don’t know much about it, but the word is that one of his group killed their landlord.”

  “What? And they did not report it?”

  “You will have to take that up with them. However, Urban’s security has taken an interest in the murder and is following all possible leads. That will lead them, ultimately, to visit all the landlord’s properties. We had no way to communicate with you, but we were able to alert Rome. They gave us the information needed to contact you.”

  De Requesens sat heavily. “This is a disaster.” Then he frowned. “Why did Rome not contact me?”