For the moment, the tide seemed to be swinging back in their favor-but Owen put aside the seductive thrill of pushing ahead with the attack. The Spanish expected us, knew we were coming. If we get the initiative, we should use it to run. As quickly as possible…
With bits of roofing tiles crumbling down around them, Sherrilyn and Felix dipped down into the room adjacent to Frank’s, separated from it by one thin wall. They had a scant moment to survey the shattered finery before two Spanish soldiers swept around the doorway, firing pistols as they came. Another two stayed back, sheltering behind the doorway and discharging their pieces as well.
It was like some insane video game, Sherrilyn thought as she pounded rounds out of the. 357 magnum and wished she had stuck with the nine-millimeter this time: magazine size was an entry team’s best friend. She saw the first two Spaniards go down, felt a bullet sing past her ear. She fired through the wall at the third Spaniard sheltering behind it; he dropped screaming into the open doorway, clutching a ruined groin. Felix and the last of the defenders traded shots. The Spaniard went backwards, but so did Felix. Sherrilyn grabbed him, kept him on his rope, yelled: “Pull us up! Now! ”
John O’Neill came back out from under the roof of the loggia’s lower tier, his sword drenched red. He saw that Owen had killed no small number of the musketeers on the second level. And that he was forcing the rest to keep their heads down, for the nonce. So now Having heard the expected breaching charge go off on the roof in the midst of his attack, John looked up expectantly at Frank’s window. Just beyond it there was the sound of gunfire-a lot of it-then silence. Ah, so the Wrecking Crew had gotten inside. Excellent. No time to waste. “Fitzgerald,” he shouted, “with me,” and ran over to the foot of the window from which he expected a rope ladder, and then the hostages, to descend. Any second now.
The irate mob in front of the Palazzo Giove hushed suddenly, hearing the fusillade of gunfire just up the street, as well as one or two reports nearly overhead, evidently coming from the belvedere. Juliet frowned; even though she wasn’t seeing the battle with her own eyes, the pace sounded wrong. The firing should have been very much one-sided, and not so much of it, but now The tall doors of the Palazzo Mattei di Giove seemed to emit a metallic bark: the immense lock had been undone. And then the doors themselves seemed to fly inward on their hinges, so quickly that This is planned, Juliet thought, and jumped aside, nimble despite her size.
A split-second later, the doors were fully open, revealing a darkened courtyard…Which suddenly belched out a wall of flame and thunder as a waiting platoon’s musket volley drove straight into the core of the crowd.
For a moment there was no further sound. It was as though, surprised or outraged or both, the world was holding its breath. Then the screaming started: a chorus of agony from shattered bodies lying upon each other, mingled gore spreading across them.
As Juliet moved farther away from the gateway, she heard the sound of hooves, hammering down in a thunder against the courtyard’s flagstones. The riders-armored, swords drawn, pistols ready in fore-saddle braces, crested morions pulled low-swept out of the Palazzo Giove, ignoring the crowd to the south of the doorway, and smashing through the stragglers to their right, to the north.
Six, Juliet counted: no, eight. And behind them, firing occasionally to rout those who did not flee fast enough, were foot soldiers. Who also turned north as one body.
Toward the fountain and the shattered gateway into the embattled courtyard of the Palazzo Giacomo.
They knew we were coming, Juliet realized, knew it all along. And they fooled us; they fooled me.
Suddenly gripped by terror-more because she had been outwitted than in response to the peril at her heels-she turned and ran for her life.
Sherrilyn handed Felix off to Donald as they got back behind the roof peak. Matija, bleeding from a through-and-through gunshot wound in the upper left arm, hooked a thumb at the belvedere. “I think we got one. Their fire has dropped off.”
Donald almost fell when Felix lost all strength in his legs and collapsed. And Sherrilyn could see why: what she had first thought was a belly wound had actually been a little higher than that. The bullet might have clipped the lower periphery of the right lung.
“What now?” Ohde asked as Paul came over to support Felix.
Sherrilyn shook her head. “We’re pulling out.”
Matija was dumbfounded: “We’re-?”
“Look, if we stay on the roof, we’ll still get sniped at. Harry’s got no angle on their shooters in the belvedere, so no help there. The hole Gerd’s package blew in the roof is too small and the Spanish are all over it, so we can’t get in fast enough, even if we wanted to. And it sounds like the courtyard has become a shooting gallery, with the bad guys doing almost half the shooting. So we’ve got only one option left: we run like hell.”
And they did.
John O’Neill, looking up, saw no immediate progress at Frank Stone’s window. His gaze turned to the empty pepperbox revolver in his hand, and he realized the moment of truth had come: reloading. Under pressure. In combat.
However, the weapon had made a fine mess of the Spanish who had been in the loggia. Particularly since the Wild Geese had loaded their first cylinders with double shot. The two Spaniards who survived the subsequent swordplay-the ones closest to the door-had darted through and barred it.
So, staring at the pepperbox as if he might bend it to his will, John O’Neill began the reloading process. He snapped the locking cap into the “off” position, thumbed the hinge release and broke the weapon open. Well, not so bad so far…
Don Vincente reentered the room and nodded to the hall behind. “Ezquerra, I think they have abandoned their attempt to come through the roof. But oversee the guards in the adjacent room. And mind: the up-timer weapons shoot through these walls. With great effect.”
Ezquerra, suddenly neither lethargic nor incompetent, nodded, but paused. “Don Vincente, if I am no longer by your side-”
Vincente held out his hand.
The sergeant gave him a well-oiled leather case of some length.
Vincente nodded his thanks and moved slowly in the direction of the window.
John O’Neill slid a new cylinder out of its pouch and tapped off the wooden band that kept the preseated percussion caps snugly in their places. Then he started sliding the cylinder down the axial arm.
Next to him, Gerald Fitzgerald nodded upward. “Movement overhead, Lord O’Neill. Near the window. But it doesn’t look like-”
A long muzzle flash jetted from between one of the ground floor windows’ shutters. As if side-kicked by the accompanying roar, Fitzgerald fell over with a groan, the shot having punched clean through his buckled cuirass and the buff coat beneath.
John, with the practicality born of long battlefield experience, accepted that Gerald was dead and there was nothing to be done but to reload before the Spanish bastard did.
With the cylinder securely seated on the arm, he snapped it back up into position. Almost ready. And if the first fellow who appeared at the window overhead wasn’t Frank, John would have a nice surprise waiting for him…
Don Vincente had opened the leather case and removed an up-time shotgun.
Frank gaped. “That shotgun. That’s mine. From the bar.”
“Yes.” Vincente cycled the action expertly.
Frank pushed Giovanna away, while squirming back against the wall and holding up his hands. “Hey, now wait a minute-”