Agency

74 Old Klept

Fearing had placed her pistol, and the candelabra, on the square, glass-topped, thoroughly non-period-correct table at which the three of them now sat.

Netherton had seen her younger self shoot someone dead, with a gun like this, in the county. Possibly, he supposed, this very gun. Not that he’d been physically present, of course, hence in no danger, but he knew what these things could do. And was himself, now, physically present. She’d placed it, he noted, so that its muzzle pointed at none of them.

“I gather,” said Lowbeer, whose top hat was also on the table, “that your greeting us with a handgun is indicative of some concern.”

“Making sure it was you. Anybody can look like anybody. Not that I don’t enjoy imagining overreacting, if it happened not to be you.”

“Does this one have the switch for full automatic?” Netherton asked, having learned this one distinction about firearms in the county.

“Double taps or nothing,” said Fearing, dismissively. “Sequential doubles, if you got the customers for them.”

“So this sanguinary mood of yours, Clovis, is the result of your having made those inquiries for me?”

“Sure is,” Fearing said.

None of which encouraged Netherton, as the inquiries he’d hoped Fearing had been making would have been about whatever project had created Eunice, and thus safely in the past.

He looked up at the wall of crates behind her, many of them apparently of wood. This room, or rather space, was at the far end of the passage she’d directed them down, and built of similar containers. He’d never given any thought to what private interiors might be like, in Cheapside. To judge by this one, rigorous period accuracy wasn’t an issue. While some of the crates were wooden, others were of tin, aluminum, and various kinds of plastic. The ceiling was lost to darkness, though light from the uneven pulsing of the candelabra suggested there might be a central plaster rosette overhead.

“It isn’t Lev’s great-uncle,” Fearing said.

“What isn’t?” Netherton asked.

“The source,” said Lowbeer, “the irritant. Do you have an idea who that might be, Clovis?”

“Have you considered Yunevich?” Fearing asked, briefly exposing a narrow radius of her extremely white teeth, the name meaning nothing at all to Netherton.

Without the top hat, Lowbeer looked more herself, which was to say dangerous. “I thought it possible,” she said. “Are you certain?”

“Essentially, yes. Which is why you’ve Wilf along, to hear the name. He’ll need to ask Zubov in person, in a secure situation.”

“He has a troupe of dancing girls,” Netherton said. “Bots, I mean. Lev does. Zero connectivity, no onboard memory.”

“We weren’t able to penetrate them when I observed Wilf’s meeting with Lev at the Denisovan Embassy,” said Lowbeer.

“Where’d Lev find them?” Fearing asked.

“They’re his father’s,” Netherton said.

“His father’s old klept,” said Fearing, “his father’s uncle’s older klept still. They assume their opsec is gold standard, which in practice tends to mean it’s not. They mainly spy on each other.”

“Why wouldn’t Lev simply have told me who it was, if they know?” Netherton asked.

“He doesn’t, yet,” said Lowbeer. “Neither does the father. This is all a bit of klept protocol. They bring us word of a conspiracy. We determine that one exists. Only then do we ask them if those we suspect of conspiring are those they intended to alert us to. The key conspirator’s name will have been passed along to Lev, just prior to meeting with you, enabling him to answer when you speak it to him.”

“Yune—” Netherton began, but Lowbeer kicked his shin before he could finish, beneath the glass table, causing him to almost drop the walking stick, which he’d been holding across his thighs.

“Do not voice the name,” said Lowbeer, “until you’re alone with Lev.”

“We aren’t secure, here?” Netherton asked, wincing.

“Until the situation’s resolved,” Lowbeer said, “observe that extra degree of discipline. It isn’t that you’re particularly open, quite the contrary, but you also have a tendency to forget yourself when excited.”

“Very well,” Netherton said, resisting the urge to rub his aching shin, “what exactly do you need me to do?”

“Contact Lev,” said Lowbeer, “meet him, with his troupe deployed. Ask him if said individual is in fact involved. I’ll debrief you afterward, in the car.”

“Tonight? I’m quite short on sleep.”

“Lev himself is currently asleep,” said Lowbeer, as if it were perfectly normal for her to know this, as Netherton in fact assumed it might well be. “Phone him in the morning.”