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 on the carriage. 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 swaying box, 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.