He sidled over to it like it was alive and ready to bite him. The possibility existed that it was just sugar—normal, precious sugar, in demand and in short supply all over Europe.

Possible. But it would have been the most remarkable of coincidences.

He checked the number on the crates against the one scrawled on the packing slip to seal it in his mind. “Of course it’s a match,” he muttered to himself.

So then. He checked his watch. Twenty minutes before the train would approach the switch he needed. His pulse kicked up at the thought of this part of the mission. It wasn’t risky so much as tricky. But he could do it. He had to do it.

He passed the next fifteen minutes in the dark of the carriage, praying more than thinking. Then he thought of his mother, who had said each and every day, “Do not neglect your prayers, Drake. Neglect your chores, neglect your ablutions, neglect your mother”—here she would tweak his nose—“but never neglect your prayers. They are what root you to the Lord.”

Thoughts of Mama led to a few of Father. Then to Dot . . . and from there it was an easy slide to Margot De Wilde.

But he shook away the image of her dark eyes and climbed back up to the trapdoor in the roof. Out, onto the top of the carriage, into the wind. He lowered himself to a seat on the edge. Waited. Watched the side of the tracks for the signal Charles the Bold had promised would be there. A blue flag, he’d said. That was when he had to uncouple the carriages.

He spotted it a minute later, in the distance. And spotted something else in the same glance—a man, climbing up onto the first of the freight carriages.

“Blast!” Not wasting time on any other words, he shimmied down the ladder, praying with everything in him that Jaeger—because it had to be Jaeger—hadn’t spotted him.

Knowing very well he had.

Come on, Elton. Don’t think about it, just do it. He had a few minutes before the bloke could possibly get to him. A few minutes to do what needed done. He wasn’t in any danger, not yet.