The Dreeson Incident(47)

Gustavus Adolphus, very busy but always alert to a good PR opportunity, announced that Princess Kristina would travel to Barracktown bei Fulda and present the medal in person.



Christian IV announced that he and his future daughter-in-law would fly to Fulda together and present the medals simultaneously.



Derek Utt and Wes Jenkins, after contemplating the topography of the immediate region, sent off a brief radio message that said, in essence, "not unless they intend to parachute out of the damned plane, they won't." To the distress of the politicians, the pilots agreed with their assessment.



Erfurt, then. Christian IV and Kristina would fly to Erfurt and proceed the rest of the way in a motorized vehicle.



That was where things stood at the moment the latest of the papers had gone to press. The reporter's breathless prose ended with: "Stand by for further announcements."



Ron Stone nodded his head. "Ain't radio communication grand?"





Chapter 17





Frankfurt am Main


Guillaume Locquifier pinched the candle out and lay on his pallet, thinking.



They should have taken out the Stone brothers when they had the chance. Lackeys or not. Everything that had gone wrong in Rome had been the fault of those . . . He couldn't think of a suitable epithet. The sons of Tom Stone were in a category beyond epithets, whatever Michel said regarding their insignificance.



The woman Veronica. The security surrounding her in Frankfurt had not been tight, except during the march itself. That had only been an artifact of the security surrounding the important civic officials.



In one way, though, Antoine was perfectly correct. She was only important because of her relatives. There was no reason on earth for Richelieu to order her assassination. No reason for anyone to order her assassination.



Except, perhaps, her own family. If the reports that Gui and Fortunat had given about her general temperament, as they had observed it on the barge from Mainz to Frankfurt, were correct, then it would seem quite possible that almost any near relative might wish to see the end of her. But that would be personal, not political.



Symbolism. Antoine wanted symbolism. When Antoine wanted it, Michel ordered it.



Richelieu, once, had sent the Croats against Grantville.



An assassination in Grantville itself? Everyone would blame that on Richelieu at once. Which would be . . . very satisfactory.



Symbolism.



Piazza perhaps? He was their president. The same office that Stearns had previously held, which would be a clear symbolic link.



Or a down-timer? Ableidinger when he was in Grantville. He came, occasionally, to consult with Piazza.



Or . . .



He fell asleep.





"It is clear to me now."



The other four men looked at Locquifier.



"It came to me in a dream a few days ago. The riot against the Jews. The riot here in Frankfurt that did not happen. That is something we can do."



"Here in Frankfurt?" Deneau looked puzzled.



"We have a guest." Locquifier opened the door and beckoned to de Ron, who showed another man in. "I would like to introduce Vincenz Weitz. He has a proposal for us."



Brillard knew the man. By reputation, at least. Weitz was a teamster. He spent most of his time going back and forth from Frankfurt into the little jigsaw puzzle that Nils Brahe had turned into the Province of the Upper Rhine the previous summer, hauling wine. He and a half-dozen or so like-minded friends had been prominent among the anti-Semitic mutterers after the explosion at the Sachsenhausen redoubt. Not from Frankfurt, most of them—other haulers of heavy freight. A useful occupation. They were men who were regularly on the move from place to place. It did not attract any special attention from city authorities when the came or when they left.



At Locquifier's invitation, Weitz began talking. He was arguing that it would be a major propaganda coup if they could destroy the synagogue in Grantville, thus demonstrating that the up-timers were either unable (too weak) or unwilling (thus hypocritical) to maintain in practice, right in the center of their power, the religious freedom that they advocated putting into the proposed constitution for the entire United States of Europe.



"This will destabilize Richelieu how?" Brillard asked.



Locquifier smiled. "By angering Stearns so much that he drops his opposition to the more punitive aspects of the treaty that Gustavus Adolphus intends to impose on the French."



Brillard blinked. That was . . . really quite good.



Ancelin nodded. "Such an attack would enable us to take propaganda advantage of the entire controversy going on between the Fourth of July Party and the Crown Loyalists on the topic of the level of religious toleration and the issue of a state church."