"Have you come up with anything?" Alessandro asked boredly, sitting in the public garden.
"The barracks are covered in cameras. Unless you want to get caught and thrown in jail," Gianluca said impatiently over the phone.
Alessandro rolled his eyes and looked around without interest.
Napoleon had escaped from Elba because he had picked the right moment, knowing the guards would be off visiting their mistresses...
"Should I disguise myself?" Alessandro asked.
"Where are you going to get a uniform?" Gianluca asked.
"I'll figure that out myself. You keep thinking," Alessandro said, then left the park bench.
The last time he had gotten someone else's clothes, he had taken them from a clothesline. Paris was nothing like the streets of Venice, with laundry lines strung everywhere and loaded with clothes. Artists considered the sight art, while everyone else thought it ruined the city's appearance and ought to be cleaned up.
"Where are you staying?" Frank asked Alessandro.
"He's staying with me right now," Gaetano said.
"What languages do you speak besides Italian?" Frank asked.
"English," Alessandro said in English.
Frank paused, then seemed to understand. "Want to go somewhere else?"
"Where?" Alessandro asked.
"If you speak the language spoken in France, you could go to France."
"I can go to France anyway. There must be people in France who speak English," Alessandro said.
"The Italian consulate in France needs an interpreter who speaks English. How about going there?" Frank said.
Alessandro did not answer.
"Too scared?" Elvin asked.
"I heard France is dangerous," Alessandro said. "There are civic movements there all the time."
The two middle-aged men laughed together.
"It's much better now than it used to be," Frank said. "Do you know what it was like before?"
Alessandro remained silent.
"On October 5, 1789, women and workers flooded toward