Many Words

“There ought to be ten.”

Iseabail rooted around in the crate. “For a pretend monk, you’re na bad.”

The truck shot out into a wide thoroughfare. Tires screeched as cars skidded to avoid it. Cannon braced himself for the crash, but it never came. Masaracchia twisted the wheel, and the truck nearly rolled over before steadying, now headed straight down the road. The engine surged as Masaracchia began to weave through traffic, and Cannon risked a peek through the cab’s rear window and out the windshield.

Perhaps half a mile ahead, just before the road reached the south gate out of the city, three tan-painted trucks parked nose-to-tail, blocking traffic. Tommies surrounded them, walking up the row of stopped cars to the accompaniment of angry shouts and honking horns. Masaracchia hit the brakes, looked over his shoulder, and said, “I don’t think we’re going to make it out through the gates today. Perhaps we can hide you until the danger passes?”

Cannon shook his head. “Not with the Royal Naval Air Service hounding my zep. Mr. Masaracchia, turn us around and head for the waterfront?the breakwater at the north edge of the harbor.” He slid the portable radio set over, set his machine gun down, and took the handset. “Calling Whiskey flight, over.”

In the distance, a British soldier lowered his binoculars and pointed. In a moment’s time, more soldiers swarmed aboard the trucks, clambering aboard, and the trucks jolted into motion. Watching all this, Burr frowned. As the British trucks navigated the tangle of carts and automobiles accumulated in front of the roadblock, the lines in her face deepened. “Captain, we’ve been made.” She tilted her head. “Again.”

Cannon scrambled up to the cab, leaning over the crate, and rapped on the window. “They’ll be coming after us now!”

Masaracchia leaned sideways in the cab, feeling around on the floor. he looked down, and then, before Cannon could shout a warning, glanced up and wrenched the wheel hard over. The truck swerved wildly, barely missing a battered old car coming the other direction, but sideswiping a wooden stall on the other side of the street. The jolt threw Cannon to the floorboards. He regained his knees, looking back to see an angry crowd drawn along in their wake, before spinning toward the cab. “What the—”

The cab’s rear window shattered as Masaracchia swung a short prybar through it. He waved the prybar around until Cannon took it.

“The crate,” Masaracchia said, exasperated. A heartbeat later, he stuck his head out the side window and bellowed something in Arabic. Cannon caught a glimpse of a man pressed against a wall as the truck flew past. From the alley behind him, a camel watched indifferently.

Cannon jammed the prybar under the crate’s lid and put his weight on it. The lid lifted free, and a strong scent of machine oil came from within.

For a moment, nobody could find a word to say. Burr blinked, and eventually di Giacomo managed, “Cousin, what is this?”

“I told you, we aren’t monks.” Masaracchia stomped on the brakes and spun the wheel. The truck slid around a corner. “That should be enough if we’re pursued?”

Cannon lifted a German-made machine pistol from the crate, slid the wire stock all the way out, and put it against his shoulder. “I’ll say.” Eleven more of the compact guns nestled in the crate, along with dozens of loaded magazines. Cannon took one, slapped it into place, and pulled the charging handle. Burr and di Giacomo each grabbed a gun.

Iseabail said, “Tha’s nae a grenade, is it?”

Cannon let out a sigh of relief and keyed the mic again. “Whiskey flight, we’ve got a little Tommy problem developing. Over.” He slung the radio pack over one shoulder and took di Giacomo’s hand up into the bed of one of the newer trucks.

Emma’s voice crackled from the speaker. “What’s that mean, over?”

The truck rocked as Masaracchia shifted into reverse, and Cannon sat heavily on a long crate pushed up against the back of the cab. “Whiskey flight, it means we’ll have to call you back. Get ready to improvise, and if you could come up with a distraction, that would be just swell. Over.”

“Copy that, distraction, over.”

“We’ll be in touch. Over and out.” Cannon returned the handset to its hook, collapsed the antenna, and set the whole unit down. All around the workhouse, a good dozen of Masaracchia’s allies loaded crates into the other two trucks.

Iseabail and Burr heaved the last of the packs into the back of the truck, and di Giacomo helped them in. Cannon rapped on the cab’s rear window, and at Masaracchia’s direction, two of the monks pulled open the door in front of Masaracchia’s truck.

As it rolled out into the street, a soldier pounding on a door fifty yards away shouted, “Oi! Stop!”

“We’ve been made,” said Burr.

The soldier ran after the truck for a few steps, then came to a stop and raised his rifle. Cannon dropped prone as the soldier’s Lee-Enfield flashed. A bullet whizzed past, then Masaracchia spun the wheel. The truck slid around a corner and picked up speed.

Marcel Lecocq checked the gauges in Inconstant‘s other Albatross. With a little luck, he wouldn’t have to worry about getting any holes in this plane. His escorts would go a ways toward guaranteeing that—Joe had sent four Kestrels and a pair of Faucons to distract any British anti-air gunners.

Emma Foster lounged in the radio operator’s chair facing the wall behind Lecocq. The Albatross, with its extra radio set, played command plane for this mission. Emma had one set on the mission-wide frequency, another listening to the frequency the captain would transmit on, and the third available to listen in on the escorts or talk to the zeppelin. Lecocq glanced at her over his shoulder. She had hooked one of her legs over the arm of her chair and put her other foot up on the radio console, and she twirled a pencil through her finger.

“Do you have anything yet?”

Emma looked up indolently. “I’ll tell you when I do.” She yawned. “The skipper knows when we left. He’ll wait until we’re closer.”

Lecocq blinked. Eventually, the Australian twang rearranged itself in his head into comprehensible English. “Well, keep an ear open,” he said.

She nodded, then jumped. The pencil fell from her hand and clicked off the deck. Emma strapped on her throat transducer and said, “Whiskey flight here. I read you about one by two, over.”

Masaracchia looked between them quickly. “I don’t see your point.”

“Well, brother monk,” said Cannon, “we know you’re no monk. Right?”

“Right,” said Burr.

“Nae monk carries hi’self like tha’.”

“Pietro?” Masaracchia’s voice held a pleading note.

di Giacomo shook his head. “Sorry, cousin. I won’t push, but I think the capitano is right.”

“Thanks,” Cannon said. “So what are you?”

Iseabail, Burr, and Cannon watched him. di Giacomo shrugged helplessly.

Seconds passed. “It’s not mine to tell,” Masaracchia protested.

“Ask your boss when we get back,” Cannon suggested. “I’m not too keen on being in the dark about the people I work for.”

“Men of God,” said Masaracchia. “That much is true.”

“I don’t know if I trust them, either.”

Masaracchia shrugged. One of his fellow monks—or whatever they were—deposited a backpack with an antenna sticking up from it next to him. “Where will your plane be landing?”

“South of the city, probably. I don’t know if I want to risk a landing at the airfield.” Cannon shrugged back. “Give it five or ten minutes for the plane to get into radio range, and we’ll give them a call and figure it out.”

One of Masaracchia’s men stood a few steps back from a boarded-up window on the other side of the floor. Masaracchia called out a question.

The man answered, “Britannicum militem sunt.”