1635: The Papal Stakes by Eric Flint & Charles E. Gannon

Author:Eric Flint & Charles E. Gannon [Flint, Eric & Gannon, Charles E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 9781451638394
Publisher: Baen Books
Published: 2012-10-01T16:35:34+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Estuban Miro peered into the dark. By the light of the half moon, he could make out the fishing ketch that the embassy Marines had boarded only minutes earlier. According to the morse code message sent by their Aldis-rigged bull’s-eye lantern, the boat’s single enemy operative had surrendered without a struggle.

Miro sighed; it was unfortunate that they had been compelled to remove the observer that Borja’s local spymaster had sent to watch the island of San Francesco del Deserto. In intelligence operations, the only thing better than knowing oneself to be unobserved (a rare, and usually unprovable, circumstance) was to know where the enemy observers were. Such had been the case with this particular fisherman. Ever since Harry Lefferts’ rescue team had departed for Rome several weeks ago, this wiry fellow had been casting his nets in the vicinity of the island’s Franciscan monastery: sometimes to the east, sometimes to the west; sometimes closer, sometimes farther. But always close enough to keep an eye on any comings and goings. Which, since the rescue team’s last meeting there, had been entirely routine.

Miro’s response to this observer had been merely to observe in return. Using a well-concealed spyglass, the friars gladly complied with his request that they watch the ketch’s positions and maneuverings and keep meticulous record of them. Meanwhile, a few distant friends of the Cavrianis started taking intermittent strolls past the pier where the fisherman tied up and off-loaded his day-end catch; they discovered that he was pulling in scarcely enough to feed his own family, these days. However, he did not seem disposed to try fishing in a new spot, nor did he seem particularly worried about his presumably diminished income. Rather, in just the last two weeks, he had paid for a new stepsail and other useful bits of small-craft chandlery. Taken together, these indicators were almost all the proof Miro needed to confirm that the fisherman was indeed an enemy pawn. However, just to be sure, and in an attempt to detect if the fisherman himself was being watched by Borja’s Venetian spymaster, Miro had his own growing network of agents keep track of the seemingly trivial exchanges and activities of the fellow’s day. They observed where he got his breakfast loaf, who came to check his day-end catch, which boats (if any) he approached during the course of his profitless net castings. Ten days of constant, but distant, watching had produced no leads; if the fisherman was exchanging information with his handler, there was no obvious sign of it. Which presented Miro with two possibilities: either communication did not occur unless the fisherman had something to report, or that the communication was conducted more subtly than could be detected by the maximally discreet methods of observation employed by his agents.

Miro would now have the answer to that mystery within a few hours. From the look of him, the wiry Venetian was not going to be resolute enough to resist the sustained interrogation that he would experience in a safe-house near the embassy.

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