Chapter 14 Drops of Blood #2
Which was why they’d planned this down to the second. If their exfil was the tourist bus, they couldn’t be the first—or the last—tourists on it.
“How you doin’?” Michael asked Liam as they loitered near a topiary.
Josh was sitting nearby, taking pictures and apparently chatting with somebody cheerfully, and Liam was still a disinterested tourist. They hadn’t sat near each other on the bus, but Josh had given him a subtle bump with a rub of his thumb on Liam’s wrist as they’d disembarked, probably to still Liam’s nerves.
It was kindly meant, but God, Liam was still shaken after the night before.
“He’s not doing great,” Liam confessed. He’d promised not to call Danny or Felix. Somehow this entire enterprise had boiled down to “Just let me get on the train to Prague!”
Michael hmmed. “Yeah. He is a bit peaked.”
It was such an old-fashioned word, delivered in Michael’s unapologetic twang. Liam smiled at him, liking the smaller man more with every meeting.
“He just wants to make it onto the train for Prague,” Liam said.
“He’s pretty sure it’s a bout of anemia, but…
.” He didn’t want to talk about the two nosebleeds or the exhaustion.
Didn’t want to talk about Josh’s face going pale in the moonlight, and the way his eyes had unfocused and his body had fallen away from Liam’s, limp and flaccid and unresponsive.
“We worry,” Michael said, and Liam guessed he’d know.
Earlier that year Carl had gotten injured by a lucky knife throw in the middle of an op, and a month after that had broken his wrist. Michael’s boyfriend seemed like a safe bet in the worry department, but Michael apparently knew what it was like to worry about that guy who jumped in and did important things.
“Yeah,” Liam agreed. He let out a little laugh. “I was thinking I’m the one with all the danger on the job, but it turns out this is what it’s like to love somebody who misses jumping out of buildings.”
Michael nodded. “You know, I’ve only known Josh since he got sick. You know the one thing that’s always struck me about him?”
“What?” Because Liam had heard an earful from Josh, from the others, about who Josh wanted to be, who he’d been before he’d been ill, but this… this was how Liam had known him too.
“He’s thoughtful,” Michael said. “Like the other night, when he really wanted to talk about the job, but me, I was just….” He gave a self-conscious smile.
“But he never interrupted me, never once said, ‘Yeah, Michael, I know, I’ve been here before.’ He asked me about my kids.
Whole time he’s been sick, he’s been thinking about other people.
Even you, I’d reckon. I think you’ve got the right of it, you know.
You love the person you got, and if they’re down, you hope for the times when they’re not.
But in the meantime, you… you know, love the person you got. ”
Liam smiled at him, that tingle of being in the presence of good family giving him some confidence for the next few hours.
“Capital advice, mate,” he said, and Michael’s grin was triumphant.
“I even got the accent and the fancy talk and all. You’re good people.”
Liam might have hugged him, but at that moment Josh stood and stretched and, without looking at either of them, ambled toward the castle.
It was time.
Josh was moving by himself, but Liam and Michael stayed close, partly so Liam could give Michael cover while he got into the corner of the room where the alarms were placed.
When the contacts holding the glass case together were broken, a signal would be sent to the alarms to sound.
It was an old system, but a good one, and Michael had a small aerosol can of liquid nitrogen that would freeze the wires and the signal box that enabled the alarm.
Liam’s job was to cover for Michael as he got into place to freeze the wires, and then, while Carl engaged one guard talking about Serpentus, to go engage the other guard while Josh made the drop.
For a moment as Liam entered through the great doors, held open for the daytime tourists, he was distracted by the beauty of the castle itself.
The woodwork—walls, floors, moldings, cornices—all of it hand-carved or lathed, lovingly oiled, and kept dust free, created a vast space of vaulted ceilings, rich tapestries, beveled-window crystals, and art, glorious art, on every wall, on stands and shelves, all of it well-lit and showcased for its full beauty.
Liam made a sound of want. He wanted time to linger here, to read the placards and the histories, to investigate the artists, the donors, the pure history of the place, but he couldn’t. He was on a timeline and—
“We have forty-five minutes before the bus,” Josh murmured, coming up behind him silently as he gawked at the entryway. “Find one thing, one glorious thing, and stare at it and study it until you get lost in it. Then it’s yours when the job is done.”
Liam glanced at him, took in his pixilated smile and the hectic color in his cheeks.
Was he well? No.
But he was having a damned good time.
“Suggestions?” Liam asked.
“Upstairs bedroom,” Josh said promptly. “There’s a stained-glass oriel in the bedroom.
It depicts the swan knight, Lohen… something or other.
” He grimaced. “But there’s swans and knights and the sun coming in, and it’s a place you can sit and gaze out at the world—even though we can’t actually sit there. Anyway, it’s lovely.”
“And you?”
Josh grinned. “In the shelves above the dining room there’s a Fabergé egg also donated by the Rothschilds.”
“You’re not going to…,” Liam inquired delicately.
“No, no,” Josh said. “Besides, Grace already did, when we were in high school. We got almost to the airport before I saw it and made him take it back.” He scowled.
“Stupid Grace. Almost got us busted when we were here without our tour. Anyway, we never steal each other’s targets.
That’s a bad way to maintain a friendship. ”
Liam raised his eyebrows. “Of course it is.”
“I just want to visit it and tell Grace nobody’s pinched it but him.” Josh gave him a devil-may-care grin and waggled his eyebrows, and then Liam and Michael were on their way to see an oriel.
THEY WERE almost late to hit their mark, hurrying down the stairs on cat feet.
“Wow,” Michael said for the umpteenth time.
“I’m at a loss,” Liam said, trying to pull his brains back into his head. “So that’s an oriel.”
It was an odd, pretty word to describe what was basically a reading nook of grandiose, glorious proportions.
The window—shaped by panels into a semicircle—protruded from the side of the castle, giving anybody sitting on the embroidered satin cushions a view of the topiary-strewn garden outside.
The panels were decorated by an ornate frieze of stained glass, culminating in an obelisk at its peak, depicting Lofgran, the Swan Knight, the heraldic coat of arms for the castle itself.
The effect was fairy-tale-esque, because apparently Ludwig II knew his enchantments, and Liam and Michael had spent a great deal of time doing what Josh had advised—taking it in.
“Glass and tape and solder and….” Michael blew out a breath. “I am full of wonder. I am so glad I didn’t miss that this trip—we were all on the first floor last time.”
Liam chuckled weakly and glanced at his wrist unit—and put on a little more speed.
He and Michael had time to slow down and calm their breathing as they entered the first-floor library and saw Carl talking to the security guard.
The security guard’s back was toward them, and Carl, while not acknowledging Liam or Michael in any way, managed a faint flicker of his eyes to his right, and Michael peeled off toward the wall unit while Carl moved subtly to the left.
The security guard never even saw him.
Liam walked behind Josh, who was checking out a tiara with a series of truly resplendent teardrop-cut diamonds suspended along the bottom edge. As he passed, he nudged Josh’s fingertips with his wrist and got a twitch in return.
He was the last in place as he pulled the security guard aside and asked him if there were any more stained-glass oriels in the place, nodding soberly as he got an answer not merely for Neuschwanstein but for several other of the Schlosses around Stuttgart.
Josh turned, and, as Liam’s watch buzzed, began his study of the jewel-encrusted casket, glowing in the sun.
Liam had never had an out-of-body experience before, but as he listened to the nice security guard speak with pride of this castle that he’d guarded for twenty years and expound on the importance of the Swan Knight heraldry to King Ludwig’s family, Liam’s soul seemed to rise up above Liam’s thundering heart and count silently to itself.
Ten for the picking, one for the placing, one for the closing, one for the turning, ten seconds, nine, eight, seven—
Michael appeared from around the corner and sauntered by, indicating he’d frozen the wires for as long as possible and….
Josh was on his way out now, posture as relaxed as Michael’s, and Liam was back with the nice security guard, who was only a little older than he was, and looking, well… oh.
Liam gave him a truly grateful smile and said, “I would love so much to stay and talk more, but my bus is leaving, and I will be flying out tonight.”
The guard seemed satisfyingly crestfallen, and he slipped Liam his card, asking shyly for Liam to call him later.
Liam said he’d try, but he was already turning around and heading out the door, legitimately worried about the bus as he went.
He caught up with Josh right as Josh swore and pulled his T-shirt up to his face.
“Shit,” he mumbled as Liam took his elbow. “Make sure I don’t get any on the rugs—my God, they’re priceless.”
“I’m surprised you have any left,” Liam said bitterly, and to his surprise, plan be damned, Michael took Josh’s other side.