1633

The cardinal's intendant cut him off with a peremptory gesture. "I told you they were dangerous. You laughed, as I recall, and only wanted to talk about the women." Servien shrugged. "Give me a full report, at least. I'll pay for that."

After the pirate captain had finished, Servien pulled out a heavy purse. Then, spilled a few coins onto the table. The casualness of the gesture-the apparent lack of concern for the danger of any lurking footpads who might be watching-indicated more than anything else the cardinal's subtle power. Not even a pirate-harbor footpad was crazy enough to try to rob one of Richelieu's special agents.

Sourly, the pirate captain swept the coins off the table and into his own purse. "Won't even cover the rigging, much less the spars."

Servien gave him a cold, reptilian stare. "You failed. Be glad I gave you that much."

With no further words, Servien rose from the table and stalked out of the tavern. After he'd taken three steps onto the muddy street beyond, he was joined by two other men. Both of them were considerably larger than the intendant who walked between them, and obviously soldiers. Officers, in fact, from the casual arrogance of their stride and the fine workmanship of the swords they carried.

"You will recognize him?" asked Servien. "And his ship?"

One of the officers grunted. The other murmured sarcastically, "If you can call that thing a 'ship' to begin with."

Servien nodded. "By tomorrow morning, at the latest, I want the captain dead. He'll be drunk within two hours and you should manage it easily. You can keep the money he carries." The intendant glanced toward the harbor. "Then rejoin your vessel and tell Captain de Hautforte to maintain a watch on this harbor. The next time that ship leaves, see to it that it is destroyed. And all the crew executed."

"Pirates," grunted the first officer.

"Under sentence of death whenever captured," added the other.

***

Servien said nothing further, plodding on grimly through the mud. He hadn't really expected this ploy to work, truth to tell. The cardinal, he'd found, still tended to underestimate the damnable new American technology. The problem was that it wasn't necessarily big. That made it hard to gauge what havoc might be contained in a few innocuous-looking trunks and valises.

Even worse was the fact that the Americans didn't seem prone to making the standard mistakes of foreign conquistadores. Instead of sneering at the "natives" and ignoring their advice, they seemed to have a positive genius for winning them over. The Jewess who headed the diplomatic mission was shrewd, for all her youth. And Servien had caught enough glimpses of the German mercenary who headed her military escort to recognize the type. Men like that, steeled in years of the warfare which had swept the continent since 1618, were as ruthless as any of the cardinal's agents.

Servien sighed. The sound was as heavy as his mud-laden feet. Then, there was the damn German woman. Servien had no doubt at all that, upon his return to Paris, he would be spending a fair amount of his time trying to ferret out the treasonous little cells of students and artisans she would have left behind her.

"Merde, alors!" he suddenly exclaimed.

One of the officers grunted again. The other glanced at his boots and grimaced. "Yes, that too. It'll take my servant an hour to clean them properly."

Chapter 11

"Clear!"

Joseph "Jesse" Wood looked to the left and right, crossed the fingers of his throttle hand, and turned the screwdriver. Stuck in the salvaged ignition switch, replacing a long-lost key, the screwdriver completed the connection and the VW engine turned over, caught, and roared to life. The propeller whirled in front of him.

He grinned involuntarily and looked to the left where Kathy stood, shading her eyes against the early sun. She saw his glance and waved. He gave her a smile and a gloved thumbs-up. Then he looked at Hans Richter, waiting at the wingtip, and gave him the signal for chocks out. Hans grinned, ducked under the wing, and returned into view, holding the wooden chocks. Jesse turned his attention back inside the cockpit.

Not that there was much to look at. The tach indicated idle RPMs, oil pressure was good, battery the same. The airspeed indicator, altimeter, and vertical velocity indicator motionless, while the bubble in the homemade turn and slip vibrated slightly. The whiskey compass shook when he tapped it. The four inches of string attached by a screw in front of the windscreen flapped wildly at him. He wound the small clock, noting the time.

Cockpit check done. A 747 it was not.