The emergency messenger route—surveyed and cleared forty-eight hours earlier during the logistics rehearsal—now proved its total worth. It didn’t run across the open, rain-lashed courtyard where a runner could be swept away by wind. It followed the ancient Roman covered arcade that ran beneath the museum’s western foundations.
Tom Carver stepped forward, his oilskin coat buttoned to the chin, his heavy cart driver boots strapped with non-slip leather cleats. In his left hand he held an iron-cased storm lantern. In his right, a sealed zinc dispatch slip that Pella had stamped with the workshop mark.
“I know every flat stone slab in that arcade, Pella,” Tom said, his gruff voice steady and confident. “My grandfather used to wheel salt barrels through that tunnel when the river flooded forty years ago. There’s two inches of washwater on the floor, but the Roman brickwork is solid. I’ll be on Ada’s platform in two minutes.”
“Go, Tom,” Pella ordered, squeezing his leather-clad arm. “Tell Ada the cord is cut by a falling stone. Find out if Sleeve Beta is holding, get her current pressure reading in writing, and bring it straight back to this table. Don’t guess, and don’t let her guess. We need the numbers.” The veteran carter plunged down the arcade stairs, his lantern beam bobbing in the dark as his heavy boots splashed through the drainage.
