V.

"Last year in Venezuela it was not like this. Nowhere in America was it like this, there were no twistings, no elaborate maneuverings. The conflict was simple: we wanted liberty, they didn't want us to have it. Liberty or slavery, my Jesuit friend, two words only. It needed none of your extra phrases, your tracts, none of your moralizing, no essays on political justice. We knew where we stood, and where one day we would stand. And when it came to the fighting we were equally as direct. You think you are being Machiavellian with all these artful tactics. You once heard him speak of the lion and the fox and now your devious brain can see only the fox. What has happened to the strength, the aggressiveness, the natural nobility of the lion? What sort of an age is this where a man becomes one's enemy only when his back is turned?"

Signor Mantissa had regained some of his composure. "It is necessary to have both, of course," he said placatingly. "Which is why I chose you as a collaborator, commendatore. You are the lion, I -" humbly - "a very small fox."

"And he is the pig," the Gaucho roared, clapping Cesare on the shoulder. "Bravo! A fine cadre."

"Pig," said Cesare happily, making a grab for the wine bottle.

"No more," the Gaucho said. "The signor here has taken the trouble to build us all a house of cards. Much as I dislike living in it, I won't permit your totally drunken breath to blow it over in indiscreet talk." He turned back to Signor Mantissa. "No," he continued, "you are not a true Machiavellian. He was an apostle of freedom for all men. Who can read the last chapter of Il Principe and doubt his desire for a republican and united Italy? Right over there -" he gestured toward the left bank, the sunset "he lived, suffered under the Medici. They were the foxes, and he hated them. His final exhortation is for a lion, an embodiment of power, to arise in Italy and run all foxes to earth forever. His morality was as simple and honest as my own and my comrades' in South America. And now, under his banner, you wish to perpetuate the detestable cunning of the Medici, who suppressed freedom in this very city for so long. I am dishonored irrevocably, merely having associated with you."

"If -" again the pained smile - "if the commendatore has perhaps some alternative plan, we should be happy . . ."

"Of course there's another plan," the Gaucho retorted, "the only plan. Here, you have a map?" Eagerly Signor Mantissa produced from an inside pocket a folded diagram, hand-sketched in pencil. The Gaucho peered at it distastefully. "So that is the Uffizi," he said. "I've never been inside the place. I suppose I shall have to, to get the feel of the terrain. And where is the objective?"

Signor Mantissa pointed to the lower left-hand corner. "The Sala di Lorenzo Monaco," he said. "Here, you see. I have already had a key made for the main entrance. Three main corridors: east, west, and a short one on the south connecting them. From the west corridor, number three, we enter a smaller one here, marked 'Ritratti diversi.' At the end, on the right, is a single entrance to the gallery. She hangs on the western wall."

"A single entrance which is also the single exit," the Gaucho said. "Not good. A dead end. And to leave the building itself one must go all the way back up the eastern corridor to the steps leading to Piazza della Signoria."

"There is a lift," said Signor Mantissa, "leading to a passage which lets one out in the Palazzo Vecchio."

"A lift," the Gaucho sneered. "About what I'd expect from you." He leaned forward, baring his teeth. "You already propose to commit an act of supreme idiocy by walking all the way down one corridor, along another, halfway up a third, down one more into a cul-de-sac and then out again the same way you came in. A distance of -" he measured rapidly - "some six hundred meters, with guards ready to jump out at you every time you pass a gallery or turn a corner. But even this isn't confining enough for you. You must take a lift."

"Besides which," Cesare put in, "she's so big."

The Gaucho clenched one fist. "How big."

"175 by 279 centimeters," admitted Signor Mantissa.