Chapter 14

Zorro had never seen the Alcalde's office so heavily guarded as it was that night. He crouched in the shadows as he debated his course of action. Creating a diversion might draw them away, but if he were even so much as seen in the pueblo tonight, it might alert the Alcalde to the substitution he had planned. After a few minutes, he made his way toward the stables, taking even more care than usual to move silently and stay in deep shadows.

But it was soon evident that, tonight, there was no way of getting inside the Alcalde's office, or indeed, the quartel itself, unless he wanted to dispose of some guards first. Sometime after midnight, Zorro was on his way back to the hacienda, foiled, for once, by the preparations of the Alcalde.

Felipe picked up on his dark mood the moment he and Tornado entered the cave. He rushed up to take the reins and begin to rub down the horse as Zorro jumped down and began pulling off his mask. It was plain. Zorro was very irritated.

"The lancers were everywhere! I couldn't even get close!" He slung the cape and mask over the clothes rack and stood there with his head bowed for several minutes before turning around to look at Felipe. "De Soto knows very well what he's got locked up in there. He means to keep his evidence."

Felipe signed a quick question. "What am I going to do? I am not sure." He pulled off his gloves and threw them onto the table in front of him. Anger still flowed in his veins. "I must think. But there's no way I can just break in there the usual way, disposing of guards as I go."

He turned to watch as Felipe's hands moved rapidly. "Ether? I've already thought of that. But there's so many of them out there tonight. I am not sure even I can put them to sleep one by one quickly enough to avoid an alarm being raised. Hmmm. But what about that experiment I was…"

His eyes lit up and he crossed over to the large table. "Yes, here it is." He held up a huge glass bottle of a greenish tinged liquid. "Now where are those canisters I was going to try with this?" Diego began rambling for the items underneath the table. "Ahh! Now! If we devise some special "bombs" containing this, it may just be possible to put a whole roomful of lancers to sleep at one time.

As he usually did, he kept talking while Felipe worked taking care of Tornado. It never hurt to reinforce his instruction in the sciences to the boy when there was actual hands-on work to be done. "The acetylation should have accomplished the desired effect. If we hadn't wasted so much time on the methylation process before, we'd have found this so much sooner. But that's the meaning of experimentation. Knowing what doesn't work is as important as learning what does work. And we know this works. Tonight, we'll find out if our delivery system works as well!"

Once Felipe had finished up with Tornado, he joined Diego. He could see his friend's mood was settling down at last and began smiling as if at some secret amusement. It didn't take Diego too long to notice. "Want to tell me what is so funny?"

Felipe signed his answer.

"Oh, you think I couldn't get into the quartel because I was distracted by Victoria?" Diego sighed. "I will admit she has been filling my thoughts right now. Life is about to change for me. For her. For all of us. That makes it more important than ever that I not be found out."

He shoved several barrel-shaped metal canisters into Felipe's hands. "So get to work! Fill those for me." Felipe laughed as he grabbed for the large bottle of Diego's new formula from the table as Diego cautioned, "Carefully! You know what it can do. And I—"

The bottle crashed and broke on the stone floor, its contents splashing all over Diego's black pants. He was quick to try to calm the boy. "It is all right! No harm done. Just try not to breath in the—"

But Felipe was already slumping to the floor, overcome by the heavy fumes.

Diego moved quickly to the clothes rack and snatched the mask that he had just placed there. He held it over his nose even as he tried to hold his breath. He managed to drag Felipe only a few feet from the spilled liquid on the floor before his bursting lungs forced him to breathe. Drawing in a long, deep breath, despite not wanting to, he immediately felt the effects of the unseen gas in the room. It was useless. His own clothes were saturated with the stuff. In one last attempt, he moved toward the steps and the library. The thick air weighed his steps down and he stumbled. In a slow, leaden motion, his body collapsed to the floor as the heavy gas-laden air cloaked around his body.