FREE STORIES 2012(71)

“As far as income increase from the aerodrome goes, I don’t think Prum plans to be around long enough to really see that. How long can he realistically hold on to those girls? How long before people start becoming less fearful of the abbey and traveling out there again, or the nuns come back to take possession? My guess is that he’s not planning on being here come Christmas, or even first harvest. So if he can delay us from setting up the aerodrome for just half a year, he’ll have achieved everything he intended to.”

“Which is?”

“What else?” said Thomas, draining the last of his beer. “To bleed your treasury and merchants dry, while also keeping his wealth as portable as possible.”

“And the girls?”

Thomas glanced at Quinn, who had a hard look on his face. “I doubt that Prum has a strong taste for needless killing. On the other hand, I also doubt that he would hesitate to do so if it suited his ends—or was simply more convenient.” Which it almost certainly would be, given the situation.

Schoenfeld was pale. “I hadn’t meant that,” he said. Thomas thought the smaller man might be on the verge of vomiting. “I meant, how did Prum get them in the first place?”

Quinn started thumbing a stream of coins onto the table. “I imagine they used the chaos of the arrival of the Swiss child laborers to cover their actions. Lots of people running around with kids, not all of whom were happy, I’m sure. They probably got Gisela first, because the house was the smallest and had only two servants. A night time grab, probably. It wouldn’t have been hard to plan it out. Prum and his men had plenty of lead time to know who held what positions in the Rat, where everyone lived, how many kids they had, what age, and all the rest. And once they had one child, they probably went to Lay’s house under the guise of reporting on their progress in ‘locating’ Gisela. And when they left his house, they had his daughter. And probably had him in tow as well, to get access to von Pflummern’s house: a frantic knock on the door in the middle of the night, a familiar face—and they went in right behind. And then they had the daughters of both the Catholic and Lutheran Burgermeisters.” Quinn stood. “Let’s go.”

“What? Go where?”

Thomas was making sure that the straps and flaps that secured and hid his various weapons were untangled and ready for fast access. “Wherever Prum’s wagon goes. But much further behind.”

“But won’t we lose them, then?”

“No,” smiled Quinn, “we won’t. Thomas, how many binoculars in your unit?”

“Two, counting my own. But why ask me? You have one of your own. And unless I’m much mistaken, that Ruger bolt-action you’ve tried to conceal from me looks to have a scope.”

Quinn smiled. “No fooling you, is there Thomas?”

“No, there isn’t. As I’ve told you before. Now let’s be after them.”





***





Templeton leaned away from the Ruger’s telescopic sight. “They just turned into the abbey, sir.”

“Patrols?”

“One man in a blind outside the complex. About fifty yards up the road from the main entrance.”

Schoenfeld stared wide-eyed at the scope, at Templeton, and back at the scope. “He can see all that? From a mile and a half away?”

“He most certainly can,” Thomas assured him, before turning to Quinn. “So. Prum is not sending his ill-got gains anywhere else, at least not directly.”

“Nope. And any of his men can be deemed complicit, given the size of their unit and the fact that they all seem to rotate through the privilege of coming to down to pick up the payola.”

Schoenfeld frowned. “I admit their guilt looks certain. But, as a man who makes a living tricking human eyes into believing they have seen something they have not actually seen, I must point out: looks can be deceiving. It is not proven that the daughters are at the abbey, just that there is some kind of underhanded business going on between Prum’s men and Lay.”

Thomas was about to rebut that sometimes things are exactly as they seem, but Quinn nodded. “You have a point, Johann. And there’s one last bit of evidence which will tell us whether or not the girls are in Nuremburg, instead.”

Thomas kept from rolling his eyes. Six months studying under a lawyer and the once-daring and decisive Lawrence Quinn had almost been unmade as an officer and a man.

“What is this evidence? How do we get it?” asked Schoenfeld eagerly.

“Well, actually, Johann, it was you who gave us the answer to that question.”

“I did?”