“Excellent. Now, Matthias, dump the batteries in the river.”

“What? But Captain Simpson, they are priceless-”

“And make sure the jars break on the rocks. Everything else that will sink goes in the water as well. We can’t afford any extra weight and I don’t want them to learn that we had a radio. Did you get a general signal out?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And were the conditions right for it to be heard in both Padua and Chur?”

Matthias shrugged as he sent the battery-jars crashing down among the rocks of the Mera. “It is a good time for a signal…I think.”

Tom led them into a sustainable trot. “You think?”

Matthias shrugged as he jogged. “You can never know for sure, Captain.”

Well, that’s just great, thought Tom as he noted the cardinal already laboring to maintain the pace, and Melissa putting on a pain-proof, but increasingly pale, face.

Just great.

Odo leaned back from the radio, frowning. “No, Ambassador, it is neither a failure, nor meteorological interference. Matthias simply went off the air-like that.” He snapped his fingers sharply.

Sharon tried to keep the frown off her face. “Was there any word, any warning that-?”

Her husband put a fine, but very strong, hand on her shoulder. “Beloved, there was no warning. And nothing you could do that you have not already done.”

“I could have listened to you a week ago, Ruy, when you warned me against setting up this rendezvous. Getting our five people over the Alps is tricky enough with Spanish and Milanese troops watching the alpine approaches from Lake Como to Chiavenna. I should never have agreed to burdening them with the exfiltration of Cardinal Ginetti, as well.”

“My heart, it is most difficult to refuse a pope, particularly when his reasons are so compelling.”