Ruby did not believe the other man could still be alive, but she did not want to let her target off so easily either. After all, she had never missed before. So, after emptying every round in her pistol, she hurriedly stripped all the grenades from her belt, pulled their pins, and hurled them down in one go.
The explosions were quickly swallowed by the roar of the waves. Ruby dearly wanted to jump down and see for herself, but reason stopped her.
The cliff stood at least a dozen meters above the sea, and there might even be reefs below. Forget someone who had taken four bullets—even an acrobat would have only the slimmest chance of surviving.
Ruby had always mocked those secret police and special forces for their substandard interrogation skills, for failing to pry out all the useful intelligence.
But she had been careless too. If she had called everyone in from the start, if she had not entertained the thought of a cat toying with a mouse, if those two shots at his legs had not missed, perhaps everything would have been different.
Ace and the others accompanying her in the carriage some distance away noticed nothing. After all, Ruby's fondness for tormenting enemies was no secret within the Church.
Besides, even without those shots, it would have been perfectly reasonable to conclude that the man had fallen off the cliff and died. At the very least, if the person involved had not insisted otherwise, that was certainly how the report would have been written.
Before long, Franz received news that a man suspected of being Mazzini had fallen to his death from a cliff, along with news that an Italian separatist propaganda den had been smashed.
Franz was not surprised by the efficiency, but he