They entered their hideaway and Preston took off his fanny pack, turned and dropped sideways across the hammock. Angie removed her pack and took his from the floor, moving to the desk to open them.
“Darlin’, I really love sleeping on this thing but it narrows our choices for other activities.” He turned his head back around and grinned at her.
She leaned over and put her finger on his lips, shushing him. Then she replaced her finger with her own lips, kissing him upside down. “We have work before pleasure. Come help me catalog these images.”
The cell signal was poor that evening, so nothing got shipped. They planned to carry the laptop down to see if the city offered enough wifi signal for the necessary traffic. Preston was quite sure there would be something in the dropbox, since they had nothing to indicate any schedule of events for the confab starting the day after next.
The next morning bright and early they walked down into the village, then followed the small road straight east toward Dinant. It was just over ninety minutes of brisk hiking to where the road began seriously descending down over the lip of the Meuse Valley. There were a couple of hairpin turns, bringing them right in front of the boarding school that Francophones referred to as “collége” before it offered a turn back down toward the main bridge. Preston decided to follow a hunch and chased the road farther south to the N936. He turned sharply left back down the hill a bit, then right at the overpass for the railroad tracks. Where the road sloped up toward the lip of the valley, about halfway to the converted monastery that was now a hotel, he stopped.
Preston pointed out they had direct line of sight across the river, down the narrow lane to the front of the Hall of Justice. That building was built tightly against the gray stone bluff. He checked it through the newer camera and zoomed in for a good, clear view of the entrance. He looked up behind him and noticed it was possible to climb up on the rocky embankment that had been cut for the road. Farther up near the hotel the slope was easy enough to clamber up. From there it was a simple matter of walking back along the higher point of view to the same line of sight. It was a beautiful shot, and Angie took a turn looking at it through the camera.
They went back down the road into town and crossed the bridge. This placed them back in the open square next to the cathedral, and at the foot of the stairs up to the citadel. A couple of the cafes were offering a decent breakfast, and they decided it would give Preston a chance to begin scanning some of the hotels and other places likely to offer wifi. His hand held wifi channel receiver hadn’t offered much so far.
One cafe not yet open had a signal too weak from that distance. After breakfast, they wandered south along the river. Most of the signals were encrypted, but up near the Ibis Hotel it got strong. The casino next door had a great open signal. Sitting on the walkway along the river was possible, but there was terrace cafe service there for coffee, so Preston felt it was only fair. Besides, the coffee smelled too good.
Once connected to the Net, they managed to exchange the images and videos taken so far. And sure enough, the dropbox contained a PDF with the itinerary for the three-day conference. There was also an appendix:
Don’t worry about the chateau where they are staying. We have a couple of friends there. Try to catch the limousines where they park and who hangs around them, and be sure to catch the river ride.
They noticed the schedule started with meeting the first day in the Hall of Justice, then a private hotel conference room on the outskirts of the city. The second day was a deluxe barge ride upriver and back, projected to run until mid-afternoon. In his mind, Preston saw lots of police and paparazzi boats escorting them.
Angie asked him, “Are we going to use that spot on the hillside to watch them unload the limos?”
“That would be cool only if we need to catch the big shots with telephoto, but I’d rather be in place to see where the limos go from there. Can’t be that many places to park a bunch of big cars all in one spot.”
They studied a detailed city map they found and noticed the streets were almost all one-way in that part of town. Preston noted, “If we can bank on the cops sticking with the simplest plan, that would mean pulling up in front of the Hall of Justice up that narrow street, unloading, and then turning left toward the cathedral. So when they start arriving, we’ll post ourselves on the plaza and see where the first one goes and take it from there. I rather doubt they’ll all come at once, for security reasons. If they are staggered out enough, we’ll have some time to get an idea where to start looking. I’ll bet they don’t go far.”
For the next few hours, they referred to the agenda and walked around, trying to estimate where the paparazzi and other onlookers would cluster. They found out the citadel would still be open, and expected a few to use that high angle view. Preston doubted there would be any helicopters or other aircraft, though. He joked about camera drones with the private and police ones crashing into each other or dog fighting.
As they stood on the bridge, leaning on the railing and gazing upriver, Angie asked seriously, “What if someone figures out what we are doing and takes exception. Could we be arrested?”
Preston thought for a moment. Turning his head, he met her eyes. “Somehow, I doubt it. We’ll be two out of hundreds of people using cameras. Even if someone gets upset at our behavior, they would have a hard time convincing the police to come after us. It’s more likely they’ll try to come after us themselves.”
She wrinkled up her mouth, twisting one side up without amusement. “I was afraid you would say that.”
