“What about the locals?” Hamish’s face resembled a rolling thundercloud. “I won’t tolerate collateral damage. There must be another way.”
“I took precautions,” Percy said. He wasn’tthatirresponsible. “The port authorities were anonymously informed of the possible upcoming violence and additional agents were requested to patrol the docks. With all the grumbling over the recent sand theft on the incoming ships, even the captains are likely to throw in their support.” He’d thought of everything.
Head popping up like a child’s jack-in-the-box toy, Gregori asked, “Did you say sand?”
Percy gritted his teeth at the interruption.Nowthe man wanted to talk business? “I didn’t say steel and timber.”
“As in silica?”
Percy scoffed at the man’s intensity. Only a scientist would get excited about dirt. “Is there any other kind?”
Gregori sent papers flying from his table in his search for a large, leather journal. “How much at a time?”
Percy sighed. There was no use teasing the automaton when he asked questions of measurement. “By the barrels.” The lack of finesse in the next generation’s criminal enterprise was sad. “Apparently, smuggling gunpowder and Scottish whiskey is too high an ask nowadays.”
“This is bad,” Gregori said, referencing his journal.
“I agree,” Percy said. “So much harder to buy bootleg if there isn’t any in stock.”
The man quirked a brow at that. “Silica’s versatility far outshines that of liquor.”
Percy glanced at the other two men in the room. “Is he speaking German again? I could’ve sworn he just said somethingun-English.”
Hamish looked down at where Gregori’s finger held a place halfway down the page. “Are those ship inventories for the harbor?”
Gregori nodded. “I keep a record of a dozen ships, so if we ever ‘borrow’ supplies, we don’t leave an easily led trail back to our operation.”
“Not bad, genius,” Percy said. No wonder the authorities weren’t sticking a monocle up their bums. “I’ll get you more sand, Greg. If that’s what you’re worried about?”
“You don’t understand,” Gregori said, turning the journal so the page was faced right-side up for the rest to see. “Silica is used in everything from glass making to art to weapons, particularly in crude counterweight mechanisms. And it’s not the only supply regularly missing from manifests.”
He’d need to carry a complete set of encyclopedias on his person to keep up with the man. “Get to the point, Gregori.”
“Silica is used to make more than glasses. Add the missing metal and filaments taken in smaller batches and a mechanical picture emerges.”
Maybe to a lunatic genius. “I’m sure those lovely little time turnersareuntapped profits—”
“Bombs,” Gregori said.
“Okay,bombsof missed profits.” Jesus, he’d sic Danny on the genius for all the word games. That was a bloodbath he’d pay to see.
Gregori shook his head. “Silica is used to delay triggers in bombs.”
Percy’s humor evaporated.
Renard choked. “You mean real bombs?” He pantomimed a falling shell and resulting explosion with his hand as if the man wouldn’t understand his question.
Gregori ignored the idiot’s antics and asked Percy, “Is there any way your ex-partner learned about bomb-making?”
Learned? The man had taught their regiment how to make makeshift explosives in the trenches when their guns had kept misfiring. They’d been fourteen.
“Fuck.”
“It’s Nic,” Hamish said, face pale. “At the Leishires’ ball, he aired our commandeering of sand barrels as one of his grievances. I hadn’t thought a second more about it, the idea he was on a homicidal rampage over a bit of dirt.” He ran a shaky hand through his hair. “He’s making fucking bombs!”
His horror was mirrored in the other expressions around the room.
This changed everything.
