Page 26 of The Number of Love
It only took a few minutes to get the worst of the mess from the floor. The seat was a bit more difficult, but between towel and water, it too was soon clean.
“Mama!” This cry came from one of her other children, a boy who couldn’t be more than three. “My belly hurts too!”
The mother looked caught between exasperation and sympathy, with a dose of plea thrown in.
“Probably the smell.” Drake nodded toward the water she still held. “See if he’ll drink—perhaps that will settle his stomach. I don’t need it.” He needed her to turn away for a minute now. Just a minute. With a grin, he pulled out his secret weapon—the cologne he’d grabbed out of his bag too. “I’ll just see to the smell, shall I?”
“You are an angel.” The woman turned to her children, leaving Drake to spritz the cologne onto the seat.
And to reach underneath it. He didn’t have much time now, he knew—Jaeger would be returning from the little lavatory at any moment, unless he decided to go to the dining carriage to give the clean-up time to be finished. Drake couldn’t imagine him leaving his satchel unattended for that long though. He was no doubt cursing himself even now for doing so, unless there was nothing important in it.
Doubtful, given the intelligence Drake had found.
Relying on his back to block the view of his hands, he slid the satchel out, silently opened it, and let his eyes scour the contents. There—a small partitioned tray, rubber sealing its glass lid in place. He slid it out, along with the paper shoved in with it. A packing slip. He closed the satchel again and tucked the two items under his jacket as he slid the bag back under the seat.
Standing, he tossed a smile over his shoulder for the mother and her children. “There we go, clean and fragrant. Can I do anything else for you, señora?”
The little boy had settled against her side with a whimper. The other children were reading or looking out the window. Their mother smiled. “No, gracias. You have helped so much already, señor. I am in your debt.”
“Nonsense.” He folded the noisome towel up into a ball and held it up by way of explanation. “I’ll just go and dispose of this. That way.” He nodded toward the rear of the train, knowing she would understand his desire to avoid Jaeger.
She chuckled. “Sí.”
No one got in his way or questioned him as he exited the back of the train carriage. Once on the little platform connecting it to the next, however, he tossed the towel away into the countryside and went empty-handed into the next carriage. Through it, to the next, and the next, until he’d run out of passenger carriages and there were no more platforms connecting them to the following one.
Perfect. Closing the door behind him, he drew the paper from his inner pocket and, shielding it from the wind, checked the number. Second carriage from the last. The last would have been better, but this would do. Pocketing the slip again, he stretched to the metal ladder going up the side of the freight carriage and gripped it. Swung over. Climbed up.
The wind whipped at him and tore his hat off his head—he made a snatch for it, missed, and indulged in a mutter. That had been his favorite hat, commissioned in Madrid. Blasted wind. It threatened to dislodge his makeshift mustache, too, and in that effort he helped it along, his skin thanking him. That thing had been getting itchy. He strode along the top of the freight carriage, debated jumping versus climbing down and back up between carriages, and decided to jump—it wasn’t far, and the tops were flat. He made the leap without incident, and the next, and the next.
Then he landed onthecarriage. Second to last. He drew in a breath of the warm air swirling around him and then moved to the trapdoor in its roof—easier to access from here than the doors on the side.
A minute’s maneuvering and he was in the dark of the swayingbox, fishing around in his pocket for his electric torch. Once it was on, he began the search. Crate after crate took up the space in here, along with barrels and bags as big as he was. But after a few minutes of shining his light along each one, he found the stamp that made him pause.Azúcar.Sugar.
He sidled over to it like it was alive and ready to bite him. The possibility existed that it was just sugar—normal, precious sugar, in demand and in short supply all over Europe.
Possible. But it would have been the most remarkable of coincidences.
He checked the number on the crates against the one scrawled on the packing slip to seal it in his mind. “Of course it’s a match,” he muttered to himself.
So then. He checked his watch. Twenty minutes before the train would approach the switch he needed. His pulse kicked up at the thought of this part of the mission. It wasn’t risky so much as tricky. But he could do it. Hehadto do it.
He passed the next fifteen minutes in the dark of the carriage, praying more than thinking. Then he thought of his mother, who had said each and every day,“Do not neglect your prayers, Drake. Neglectyour chores, neglect your ablutions, neglect your mother”—here she would tweak his nose—“but never neglect your prayers. They are what root you to the Lord.”
Thoughts of Mama led to a few of Father. Then to Dot ... and from there it was an easy slide to Margot De Wilde.
But he shook away the image of her dark eyes and climbed back up to the trapdoor in the roof. Out, onto the top of the carriage, into the wind. He lowered himself to a seat on the edge. Waited. Watched the side of the tracks for the signal Charles the Bold had promised would be there. A blue flag, he’d said. That was when he had to uncouple the carriages.
He spotted it a minute later, in the distance. And spotted something else in the same glance—a man, climbing up onto the first of the freight carriages.
“Blast!” Not wasting time on any other words, he shimmied downthe ladder, praying with everything in him that Jaeger—because it had to be Jaeger—hadn’t spotted him.
Knowing very well he had.
Come on, Elton. Don’t think about it, just do it.He had a few minutes before the bloke could possibly get to him. A few minutes to do what needed done. He wasn’t in any danger, not yet.
But he couldn’t uncouple the carriages too early. If he did that, they’d coast to a halt here on this track, and he’d have a major problem on his hands. He had to do it the moment this carriage reached the blue flag—that would leave just enough time and distance for the main part of the train to continue on its track, for this carriage to slow. Not all the way, but enough to allow for another of Thoroton’s men to switch the track before Drake reached it. But it needed enough momentum left to then coast to a halt along the siding, where British agents could unload the tainted sugar. Timing was crucial.
But better a bit early and risk drifting to a halt too soon than miss his mark and get there too late—or not at all. And if he had to engage Jaeger, it could well be not at all.
