The Devil's Opera(118)
“Dead?”
“Probably. If he’s not, he soon will be.”
“So this is the fabled steam engine,” Ciclope drawled, looking at the equipment. “Looks like a big water tank to me.”
“This is the boiler,” Pietro said, opening the door to the brick firebox beneath the metal tank. “It looks like a water tank because it is a water tank. The engine itself is in the crane housing on that deck in front of the wagon.”
“Oh.”
The heat rolled out from the open firebox. Pietro bent down and peered through the open door.
“Okay, hand them to me.”
Ciclope hefted one and passed it to Pietro, who shoved the log into the firebox with the fire iron that had been propped in the corner, then bent down some more to push it around inside the firebox. The process was repeated three more times, after which a few pieces of regular wood were added to the fire as camouflage. Pietro straightened with a smirk on his face.
“That’s that.” He closed the firebox door. “No one would think to look in there for anything. Now come on, let’s get out of here.”
Ciclope wholeheartedly agreed with that last sentiment. He was first out the door.
* * *
“Tell me again why we are here so early even the birds are still yawning?” Baldur groused, following suit with a gaping yawn of his own.
“Because,” Ulrik said around the mouth of his coffee mug, “the emperor’s latest message said he would be here just after first light. That being the case, someone should be here to meet him.”
“And that would be you?” Another prodigious yawn from the Norwegian.
“That would be us and the princess,” Ulrik said with a nod to the car. “Best foot forward, family unity, all that.”
“Umph.” Baldur was not a morning person.
“We wouldn’t want to leave Gustav alone and at the tender mercies of the politicians, now would we?” Ulrik nodded to where the Magdeburg pack stood, headed by Senator Abrabanel and Mayor Gericke.
“Umph.”
“Too much wine last night?”
“Umph.”
Ulrik smiled, but he turned away from his companion and let him suffer the morning in his own way. He looked downriver, and was rewarded with a glimpse of a river barge in the distance, just having rounded the last curve on the other side of the Navy yard. He elbowed Baldur and beckoned to the car. The rear door closest to him flew open and Kristina bounced out. Caroline followed more sedately from the other side.
“Is he here? Is Papa here?”
Kristina clutched at his hand, a sensation that Ulrik noted that he enjoyed.
“Not yet,” he said, “but soon. I think that may be his boat you see coming toward us.”
* * *
“Yuck.”
Gotthilf looked up at Byron’s mutter. His partner was drinking a cup of the stationhouse coffee, and it obviously wasn’t any better than it ever was. In fact, judging from Byron’s expression, it might be worse than usual. He shuddered at the thought.
“Grade four,” Byron announced as he set his empty mug on the tray set out for that purpose. “Definitely grade four.”
“Enlighten me,” Gotthilf said as they headed for the door.
“There’s an old joke that says that coffee comes in four grades,” Byron said. “Coffee, java, joe, and battery acid.” He held up fingers to enumerate the list as he ran down it. “That stuff,” he jerked a thumb over his shoulder, “would eat the enamel off your teeth.”
“Ah,” Gotthilf said. “Grade four. Got it.”
“But it’s still better than my mother’s coffee.”
Gotthilf shuddered again, and changed the subject as they headed down the hall. “There was an interesting theft report from a couple of days ago.”
Byron looked at him and raised one eyebrow in a query.
“Someone stole two pistols and some caps and about five pounds of gunpowder from Farkas’ gun shop.”
“Whoa,” Byron said. “That’s scary. Make sure that gets out to all the patrolmen. We want to find those as soon as possible.”
“I’ll take care of it as soon as we get back.”
“Right,” the up-timer announced as they arrived at the bottom of the steps leading up to the station’s front door. “Parade duty.”
This time Byron shuddered.
* * *
As it turned out, the barge that Ulrik had seen was only the first of three, and it did not contain Emperor Gustav. What it did contain was a large contingent of his bodyguards, and they debarked first. They were Scots for the most part, and looked the type: hard-eyed, hard-bitten, no-nonsense men, each carrying an SRG rifle and with a short sword and at least one pistol hanging from a belt.