Darryl was at another window, by now, and he recognized the face almost as quickly as she did.
"That son-of-a-bitch!" he snarled. Then, almost shouting through the heavy panes of the window: "I hope they draw and quarter you, you stinking-"
Melissa spun away from her own window. "I've had quite enough from you, young man!"
That was the True Voice. The schoolmarm in full fury. Darryl fell silent as instantly as he had in years gone by. He even cringed a bit.
She glared at him. Then, looking at Tom, pointed a stiff finger at McCarthy. "You will maintain discipline with your subordinate. You will see to it that the lout-the cretin-the wet-behind-the-ears-"
Tom grinned. "Not to worry, ma'am." Then, flexed his shoulders. Even Darryl, clearly enough, found that intimidating. He cringed still further.
Melissa smiled thinly. "Excellent." She bestowed a look upon McCarthy which did not bode any better for his future than that same look, in times past, had boded for his grades and chances for advancement.
"I will save the history lesson for another time, young man. But for the moment, we have business to deal with. And you will obey me."
Darryl almost gulped. He did nod hastily.
"Splendid." She turned now to Friedrich and Nelly. Like everyone in the party, the Bruchs were now standing at one of the windows which overlooked the street. "You'll be able to move around more easily than any of us, and you don't have Gayle's odd accent. So you'll be our spies."
She glanced out the window. The man being marched under guard was now being taken through a doorway farther down. The kind of doorway which practically shrieked: This way to the dungeons!
"Will you be able to recognize him again?" The Bruchs nodded.
"Try to find out exactly where they've taken him and, if you can, what they plan to do with him."
Nelly opened her mouth to say something, but Melissa was driving on. "Tom-you too, Darryl-we need to start planning an escape. Nothing immediate, and I hope it won't come to that. But we need to be ready, if necessary."
That statement immediately brought back Darryl's usual insouciance. As Tom started scrutinizing the rooms, calculating the possibilities, Darryl was opening one of the great trunks they'd brought with them. It didn't take him more than a few seconds to work his way under the mass of clothing and start retrieving the items secreted there. Over Melissa's objections, Mike Stearns had insisted they bring those items. Just in case, as he'd put it.
"I can't believe they were dumb enough not to search us," Darryl said gaily. Thump, thump. Two automatic pistols materialized on the low table next to him. Thump. A box of ammunition.
"That would have been most undiplomatic," said Melissa. "I was almost certain they wouldn't."
Thump, thump, thump. Three sticks of dynamite. Clink. Melissa recognized some blasting caps.
Thrump. She was pretty sure that was what they called "primacord." Not positive, of course-she knew very little about explosives, beyond the primitive incendiary bombs an anarchist boyfriend of hers had once fiddled with in his attic, in the long ago and heady days of the 60s. But she hadn't stayed with him very long. Even in her radical youth, Melissa had frowned on violence.
THUMP. A battery, that was. She could imagine its purpose.
She sighed, remembering those innocent days.
"Besides," she added, "people in this day and age think of firearms as big and clumsy things, which take forever to reload."
"Yup," said Darryl cheerfully. "Betcha we can find plenty of places to hide these little-bitty eeny-weeny itsy-bitsy Smith and Wessons." He glanced up at one of the heavy shelves along a wall. "And the dynamite's a gimme. Just smear a little dust on 'em and hide them up there with all the rest of the candles. Just like Harry and me once-"
He broke off, glancing guiltily at Melissa, and busied himself with something heavier at the bottom of the trunk. Then, heaving:
WHUMP.
"Jesus, Darryl!" chuckled Rita. "We're not going to be climbing a mountain."
Darryl shook his head firmly. "You can't ever have too much rope. And this is nylon, too. We've got enough-ha! I remember that time Harry and me almost got caught, because-"
Again, his eyes avoided Melissa's, and he went back to his rummaging. "Well, never mind. Dammit, where's the smoke bombs?"
Melissa didn't know whether to laugh or scream. Well, at least this time the rascal is on my side. I hope.
Nelly came up to her.
"Oh, sorry, I think I interrupted you earlier. You were going to ask me something?"
Nelly nodded; then, transferred the nod toward the distant doorway where the prisoner had been taken.
"What's his name?"
Before Melissa could answer, Darryl did it for her. "Oliver Cromwell. The rotten bastard, may he burn in eternal hellfire." But he said it quietly, and kept his eyes away from Melissa while he continued his rummaging. Not, of course, without adding: "The butcher of Ireland. The tyrant-" The rest trailed off into a murmur.
Melissa tighten her lips. "On some other occasion, Darryl McCarthy, I will explain-attempt, I should say-the complexities of the matter. But, for the moment…"
Her eyes swept the room, taking in everyone.
"For the moment, here is what matters. In this day and age, that man is simply country gentry. A man in his mid-thirties; a relatively unknown member of Parliament. In his own district, however-in East Anglia, near Cambridge-he's rather famous."
She gave Darryl's back a sharp look. " 'The Lord of the Fens,' they call him. That's because, for a few years now, he's been the leader of the poor farmers in East Anglia trying to resist the encroachment upon their lands of their rich neighbors."
Darryl's shoulders twitched and his head popped up. He gave Melissa a puzzled look. "I didn't know that."
Melissa almost laughed. Whatever his Irish-American attitudes on other subjects, Darryl was also a fervent union man. Like all members of the United Mine Workers of America, he tended to divide the world into simple class categories: hard-working stiff, good; rich gouger, bad. And now he found himself caught in one of history's multitude of contradictions.
"There are a great many things you don't know, young man," snapped Melissa. "As I recall saying to you-quite often-in times past."
Tom finished the history lesson for the day. "I didn't know that, either. But I do know what he became later." He seemed to have little, if any, of Darryl's ambivalence. Even though, as the scion of a family which traced its own roots back to English nobility, the name of Oliver Cromwell could hardly have been passed on with favor.
" 'Old Ironsides' himself," said Tom, seeming to relish the words. "In the flesh, by God. The man who created the New Model Army which overthrew the English crown. Except for Gustav Adolf, and maybe that young Turenne fellow who's just getting started in France, the best general of the era. Lord Protector of England, eventually."
He grinned down at McCarthy. "Of course, that came a bit later. After he separated King Charles from his head. Which, from what I hear, was no great loss."
Darryl stared up at him. Outside of Irish history, what Darryl knew of any other could easily be inscribed on the head of a pin. "I didn't know that."
"Yup," said Tom cheerfully. The edge of a huge hand slammed into the palm of another. "Chop. Cut the sucker right off. Oliver Cromwell. One serious hard-ass, even by hillbilly standards."