Bordeaux, Wang and Titus were on overwatch, tracking us with the UAV. They waited nearby, having gone to ground in defensive positions along bordering rooftops to provide cover fire should we need it. Helena, as always, was situated about three hundred yards away, playing the pivotal role of guardian angel. The past four years had instilled in me an inherent trust, along with a need, to know she was there. The rest of the guys were appreciated reinforcements, but without her doing what she did best, I wouldn’t be so confident.
Finally, Vincent and Madrina were on bail out duty. Madrina had the wagon we’d brought with us from Gaul loaded and ready to go, while Vincent controlled the rest of the team’s horses. Should we need to get the hell out of Caesarea, it would be a quick matter of linking up with them and bugging out.
I lowered my arm and glanced at Santino, just in time to stop myself from bumping into him. He’d stopped at a corner and was peaking around, scanning for potential threats. His hand signal indicated all was clear, and he led the two of us into a small alleyway, dead ending with the halls of the embassy to our right, and other residential homes to the left and in front of us.
Using the shadows for cover, Santino reached into his locally made bag and extracted his grapping hook and rope. After performing a quick inspection of his equipment, an assortment of expletives spewed from his mouth when he discovered the rope had found a way to tangle itself in his poorly designed pack, a problem that wouldn’t have happened had the mission called for our night ops combat fatigues, but tonight, we were going in native.
Madrina was not only a logistical genius, a great cook and a pretty face, but a fine seamstress as well. Being pretty handy with a needle and thread myself, she and I crafted a few sets of clothing that very closely resembled what Agrippina’s Praetorian ninjas wore. The outfits weren’t overly difficult, the material consisting of some kind of ancient denim/corduroy hybrid, and the end result was close enough to fool just about anyone who’d encountered the troublesome foe before.
Santino dropped another expletive when he had to backtrack his untangling and attack the rope from another direction.
“Ever get the feeling we overuse this plot device?” He asked, frustrated.
“You mean the grappling hook?” I asked back. “Nah, grappling hooks are way cool. Every good movie has them.”
“Name one.”
“Uh, ninja and pirate movies?”
I didn’t have much to offer. It had been four years since I’d last seen a movie, and my once extensive vault of pop culture knowledge was quickly fading.
“Good enough for me,” he said, finally deciding on the best route to untangle his mess. “Speaking of movies, put any thought into what you’re going to do first when we get home?”
I actually hadn’t thought much about it. Camp gossip had, as of late, been rife with little else but thoughts of home, but I tried not to allow myself the luxury of a, still as of yet, distant hope.
“Probably take a two hour long shower I guess,” I answered, not really needing to think about it much. “There’s dirt on me that’s been with me ever since our time in the Primigenia’s camp.”
Santino ceased what he was doing completely to look at me. “Will Helena…”
“Shut it.”
“And after that?” He asked, not missing a beat, already back at work on the rope.
I sighed. “I’m not sure. Since we were talking about movies, maybe I’ll watch one. Helena has promised to sit through all the Bond movies with me, maybe we’ll start…”
“Do you two ever stop talking?” Helena asked from three hundred yards away.
“Sorry, mommy,” Santino said, finally getting the rope under control.
I sent him a thumbs up, more for the mom quip than his successful defeat of the stubborn rope, and backed up to give him room to throw it over the wall. Tossing it over, he pulled it taught and ascended into the little piece of Rome away from Rome.
Once upon the stone wall, the compound’s lack of security became immediately apparent. The guard station to our left revealed two snoozing guards, derelict of duty, and in serious need of a few lashes from a centurion’s olive branch. We paid them little mind and moved deeper into the compound, making our way inside the small housing and administrative complex.
Once again, the guards were negligible, as we knew they would be.
Santino and Wang had infiltrated the embassy yesterday, under the guise of rival store vendors hoping to defer to Roman law over a price gauging controversy. The two had spent their time mapping out the interior of both administrative and residential wings of the large building, and had identified the location of the procurator’s room. The two morons even managed to get their fictitious case heard by the procurator, who sided with Wang, stating that the quality of Santino’s goods did not justify his prices.
Crazy bastards.
We moved quickly through the complex, only running into one real problem along the way. Just outside the procurator’s room, a pair of guards who apparently took their jobs more seriously than the rest, stepped into view as we made our way down the hallway that led to our destination. Using the cover of darkness, I hid behind a small column while Santino ducked under a marble bench, and we waited for them to simply pass us by. We waited for another ten minutes before they finally passed by us again.
A ten minute window being more than enough time to make our way into the procurator’s room, we carefully walked to Fadus’ room, opening and closing the heavy wooden doors with a gentle touch. Moving into the room, Santino tapped my shoulder and pointed to the ceiling, indicating the open skylight above us. I tossed him nod, indicating I too saw the designated escape route we had noted the night before. We located two chairs, moved them to the left side of the only bed in the room, plopped ourselves down, and inspected our target.
It was hot outside, muggy, and the night air was stifling. Cuspius Fadus lay bare-chested upon the bed, only a light sheet wrapped haphazardly around his midsection. The only other piece of adornment he wore was a pretty nice piece of arm candy, in the form of a dark skinned naked girl somewhere in her twenties. This girl wasn’t Fadus’ wife, and while I never condoned adultery, I was pretty impressed with his catch of the night.
“Wake up,” I whispered.
Fadus’ eyes shot wide open and he bolted into a sitting position. The young girl awoke much slower, wondering what had alerted her older lover before she too took note of us. After another ten seconds, along with a very revealing show of her nude form, she finally realized her nakedness and went about securing the sheet over herself. She cowered beneath Fadus’ arm for protection and eyed us nervously.
Fadus was in his forties, black hair, a bit of paunch on his stomach, but still in pretty good shape. I assumed he didn’t need his prestigious position to score with lovely young ladies like the one here tonight, but it probably helped. Like most of his fellow procurators, word on the street was that he was avaricious and bloodthirsty, similar qualities possessed by his successors thirty years from now.
He was exactly someone Agrippina would choose and the people hated him for it.
“The Empress sent you, didn’t she?” He asked. “You must be her new lapdogs she has been threatening everyone with.”
I stayed silent, deferring to Santino’s dialect magic, once again in character.
“We are,” he confirmed, his Latin sounding distinctly southern Italian. “My name is Mario, and this is Luigi.”
“What do you want?” Fadus asked, shaking his head in confusion. Whether it was from our presence or the names Santino provided, I didn’t know.