The Clan Corporate

INCORRECT ASSUMPTIONS

Twelve weeks ago (continued):

Mike Fleming leaned back in his chair and tried desperately to stifle a yawn. This is crazy, he told himself. How can you be tired at a time like this?

The air conditioner in the conference room wheezed, losing the battle to keep the heat of the summer evening at bay. He desperately needed another coffee. Despite the couple of hours’ nap he’d caught back home before the spooks from NSA sucked him in, his eyes kept half-closing, threatening him with a sleep-deprivation shutdown.

“Agent Fleming?”

“Oh. Yeah? Sorry, what was the question?”

“How long have you been awake?” It was Smith, his expression unreadable.

Mike shook himself. “About fifty hours. Got about an hour’s sleep before your guys picked me up.”

“Ah—right.” Out of the corner of one eye Mike barely registered Herz from the FBI office looking sympathetic. “Okay, I’ll try not to keep you,” said Smith. “We need you awake and alert for tomorrow. Meanwhile, can you give us a brief run-through on the background to Greensleeves? I’ve read Tony’s write-up of your report, but everyone else here needs to be put in the frame, and it’s probably better if they get it from the horse’s mouth first before they get the folder. How do you take your coffee?”

Mike yawned. “Milk, no sugar.” He stood up. “Shall I?”

“Be my guest.” Smith waved him toward the podium.

“Okay.” Mike forced himself to breathe deeply, suppressing another yawn, as Colonel Smith quietly picked up a white phone and ordered a round of coffees for the meeting. “Sorry, folks, but it’s been a long couple of days.” Appreciative muttering. “Source Greensleeves. Don’t ask me who dreams up these stupid names. A couple of weeks ago Greensleeves, whoever he was, casually dropped the hammer on a ring operating out of Cambridge. At this time it was purely a standard narcotics investigation. A low-level wholesaler, name of Ivan Pavlovsk, was handling the supply line for a neighborhood street gang who were shifting maybe a kilo of heroin every month. Greensleeves left a code word and said he’d be back in touch later. I thought at first it was the usual caped-crusader bullshit but it turned out to be solid and the DA up there is nailing down a plea bargain that should put our Ukrainian friend behind bars for the next decade.” He leaned against the podium and glanced at Smith. “Are you sure you want the whole list?”

“Give us the highlights.” Smith’s eyebrows wrinkled. “Up until yesterday. What you told Tony Vecchio.” Tony was Mike and Pete’s boss in the investigation branch.

“Okay. We had two more leads from Greensleeves, at one-week intervals. Both were for intermediate wholesale links supplying cocaine in single-digit kilogram amounts to retail operations. There was no lead on Greensleeves himself. Each time, he used a paid-for-cash or stolen mobile phone, called from somewhere populous—a restroom in the Prudential, the concourse of the Back Bay station—and spent between thirty seconds and three minutes fifteen seconds on the phone before ringing off. He came straight through to my desk extension and left voice mail each time—the third time we had a tap and trace in place but couldn’t get any units there in time. He used the same password with each call, and gave no indication as to why he was trying to shop these guys to us. Until yesterday Pete here was betting it was an internal turf war. My money was on an insider wanting to cash out and make a WSP run, but either way the guy was clearly a professional.” Mike paused.

“If anyone wants a recap, we’re having copies of the case notes prepared for you,” Smith added. “Can I ask you all not to make any written notes of this briefing,” he added pointedly in the direction of Frank the surveyor. “We’d only have to incinerate them afterward.”

Like that, is it? Mike wondered. “Shall I continue?”

“When you’re ready.”

“Okay. We got a tip-off from Greensleeves five weeks ago, about Case Phantom’s main distribution center for Boston and Cambridge. Case Phantom is Pete’s specialty, a really major pipeline we’ve been trying to crack for months. Greensleeves used the same code word, this time in an envelope along with a sample of merchandise and—this is significant—a saliva sample, not to mention the other thing that I presume is why we’re all here. Greensleeves wanted to turn himself in, which struck us as noteworthy: but what set the alarm bells going was Greensleeves wanting to turn himself in and enlist in the Witness Protection Scheme in return for knocking over Case Phantom. And helping us get it right, this time.”

Pete sighed noisily.

“Yeah,” said Mike. “Operation Phoenix was part of Case Phantom, too. Back before Greensleeves decided to come aboard. It was a really big bust—the wrong kind.”

Now he saw Agent Herz wince. They’d taken up the tip-off and gone in like gangbusters, half the special agents posted at the Boston DEA office with heavy support from the police. But they’d hit a wall—literally. The modern-looking office building had turned out to be a fortress, doors and windows backed by steel barriers and surveillance cameras like a foreign embassy.

Worse, the defenders hadn’t been the usual half-assed Goodfellas wannabes. Someone with a Russian army-surplus sniper’s rifle had taken down two of the backup SWAT team before Lieutenant Smale had pulled them back and called up reinforcements for a siege. Then, four hours into the siege—just as they’d been getting ready to look for alternative ways in—the building had collapsed. Someone had mined its foundations with demolition charges and brought it right down on top of the cellars, which were built like a cold war nuclear bunker. The SOCOs and civil engineers were still sieving the wreckage, but Mike didn’t expect them to find anything.

“In retrospect, Phoenix should have been a signal that something really weird was happening,” Mike continued. “It took us a long time to dig our way into the rubble and what we found was disturbing. Bomb shelters, cold stores, closed-circuit air-conditioning . . . and fifty kilograms of pharmaceutical-grade cocaine in a vault. Plus an arsenal like a National Guard depot. But there were no bodies . . .” He trailed off introspectively. Too tired for this, he thought dizzily.

“Okay, now fast-forward. You’ve had a series of tip-offs from source Greensleeves, leading up to Greensleeves turning himself in three days ago,” Colonel Smith stated. “What about the saliva sample? It’s definitely him?”

Mike shrugged. “PCR says so. Matthias is definitely source Greensleeves. He got us an armored fortress in downtown Cambridge with fifty kilos of pharmaceutical-grade cocaine and a Twilight Zone episode to explain, plus a series of crack warehouses and meth labs up and down the coast. Biggest serial bust in maybe a decade. He’s—” Mike shook his head. “I’ve spent a couple of hours talking to him and it’s funny, he doesn’t sound crazy, and after watching that video—well. Matt—Greensleeves—doesn’t sound sane at first, he sounds like a nut. Except that he’s right about everything I checked. And the guy vanishing in front of the camera is just icing on the cake. He predicted it.” Mike shook his head again. “Like I said, he sounds crazy—but I’m beginning to believe him.”

“Right.” Colonel Smith broke in just as a buzzer sounded, and a marine guard opened the outer door for a steward, who wheeled in a trolley laden with coffee cups and flasks. “We’ll pause right here for a moment,” Smith said. “No shop talk until after coffee. Then you and Pete can tell us the rest.”

The debriefing room wasn’t a cell. It resembled nothing so much as someone’s living room, tricked out in cheap sofas, a couple of recliners, a coffee table, and a sideboard stocked with soft drinks. The holding suite where they’d stashed Greensleeves for the duration didn’t look much like a jail cell, either. It had all the facilities of a rather boring hotel room—beds, desk, compact ensuite bathroom—if the federal government had been in the business of providing motel accommodation for peripatetic bureaucrats.

But the complex had two things in common with every jail ever built. First, the door to the outside world was locked on the outside. And second, the windows didn’t open. In fact, if you looked at them for long enough you’d realize that they weren’t really windows at all. Both the debriefing room and the holding suite were buried in a second-story basement, and to get in you’d have to either prove your identity and sign in through two checkpoints and a pat-down search, or shoot your way past the guards.

Mike and Pete had taken the friendly approach at first, when they’d first started the full debriefing protocol. After all, he was cooperating fully and voluntarily. Why risk pissing him off and making him clam up?

“Okay, let’s take it from the top.” Mike smiled experimentally at the thin, hatchet-faced guy on the sofa while Pete hunched over the desk, fiddling with the interview recorder. Hatchet-face—Matt—nodded back, his expression serious. As well it should be, in his situation. Matt was an odd one; mid-thirties in age, with curly black hair and a face speckled with what looked like the remnants of bad acne, but built like a tank. He wore the same leather jacket and jeans he’d had on when he walked through the DEA office door.

“We’re going to start the formal debriefing now you’re here. When we’ve got the basics of your testimony down on tape, we’ll escalate it to OCDTF and get them to sign off on your WSP participation and then set up a joint liaison team with the usual—us, the FBI, possibly FINCEN, and any other organizations whose turf is directly affected by your testimony. We can’t offer you a blanket amnesty for any crimes you’ve committed, but along the way we’ll evaluate your security requirements, and when we’ve got the prosecutions in train we’ll be able to discuss an appropriate plea bargain for you, one that takes your time in secure accommodation here into account as time served. So you should be free to leave with a new identity and a clean record as soon as everything’s wrapped up.” He took a breath. “If there’s anything you don’t understand, say so. Okay?”

Matt just sat on the sofa, shoulders set tensely, for about thirty seconds, until Mike began to wonder if there was something wrong with him. Then: “You don’t understand,” he said, quietly but urgently. “If you treat this as a criminal investigation we will both die. They have agents everywhere and you have no idea what they are capable of.” He had an odd foreign accent, slightly German, but with markedly softened sibilants.

“We’ve dealt with Mafia families.” Mike smiled encouragingly.

“They are not your Mafia.” Matt stared at him. “You are at war. They are a government. They will not respond as criminals, but as soldiers and politicians. I am here to defect, but if you are going to insist that they are ordinary criminals, you will lose.”

“Can you point to them on a map?” Mike asked, rhetorically. The informer shook his head. He looked faintly—disappointed? Amused? Annoyed? Mike felt a stab of hot anger. Stop playing head games with me, he thought, or you’ll be sorry.

Pete looked up. “Are we talking terrorists here? Like AlQaida?” he asked.

Matt stared at him. “I said they are a government. If you do not understand what that means we are both in very deep trouble.” He picked up the cigarette packet on the table and unwrapped it carefully. His fingers were long, but his nails were very short. One was cracked, Mike noticed, and his right index finger bore an odd callus: not a shooter’s finger, but something similar.

“There is more than one world,” Matt said carefully as he opened the packet and removed a king-size. “This world, the world you are familiar with. The world of the United States, and of Al-Qaida. The world of automobiles and airliners and computers and guns and antibiotics. But there is another world, and you know nothing of it.”

He paused for a moment to pick up the table lighter, then puffed once on the cigarette and laid it carefully on the ashtray.

“The other world is superficially like this one. There is a river not far from here, for example, roughly where the Charles River flows. But there is no city. Most of Boston lies under the open sea. Cambridge is heavily forested.

“There are people in the other world. They do not speak your language, this English tongue. They do not worship your tree-slain god. They don’t have automobiles or airliners or computers or guns or antibiotics. They don’t have a United States. Instead, there are countries up and down this coast, ruled by kings.”

Matt picked up the cigarette and took a deep lungful of smoke. Mike glanced over at Pete to make sure he was recording, and caught a raised eyebrow. When he looked back at Matt, careful to keep his expression blank, he realized that the informant’s hands were shaking slightly.

“It’s a nice story,” he commented. “What has it got to do with the price of cocaine?”

“Everything!” Matthias snapped.

Taken aback, Mike jerked away. Matt stared at him: he stared right back, nonplussed. “What do you mean?”

After several seconds, Matthias’s tension unwound. “I’m sorry. I will get to the point,” he said. “The kingdom of Gruinmarkt is dominated by a consortium of six noble houses. Their names are—no, later. The point is, some members of the noble bloodline can walk between the worlds. They can cross over to this world, and cross back again, carrying . . . goods.”

He paused, expectantly.

“Well?” Mike prodded, his heart sinking. Jesus, just what I need. The hottest lead this year turns out to be a card-carrying tinfoil hat job.

Matthias sighed. “Kings and nobles.” He took another drag at his cigarette, and Mike forced himself to stifle a cough. “Noble houses rise and fall on the basis of their wealth. These six, they are not old. They date their fortunes to the reign of—no, to the, ah, eighteen-fifties. Before then, they were unremarkable merchants—tinkers, really. Traders. Today they are the high merchant families, rich beyond comprehension, a law unto themselves. Because they trade. They come to this world bearing dispatches and gems and valuables, and ensure that they arrive back in the empire of the Outer Kingdom—in what you would call California, Mexico, and Oregon—the next day. Without risk of disaster, without delay, without theft by the bands of savages who populate the wilderness. And the trade runs on the other side, too.”

“How do they do it?” Mike asked. Humor him, he may have something useful, after all. Mentally, he was already working out which forms to submit to request the psychiatric assessment.

“Suppose a broker in Columbia wants half a ton of heroin to arrive in upstate New York.” Matthias ground his cigarette out in the ashtray, even though it was only half-finished. “He has a choice of distribution channels. He can arrange for an intermediary to buy a fast speedboat, or a light plane, and run the Coast Guard gauntlet in the Caribbean. He can try a false compartment in a truck. Once in the United States, the cargo can be split into shipments and dispatched via other channels—expendable couriers, usually. There is an approximate risk of twenty-five percent associated with this technique. That is, the goods will probably reach the wholesaler—but one time in four, they will not.” His face flickered in a fleeting grin. “Alternatively, they can contact the Clan. Who will take a commission of ten percent and guarantee delivery—or return the cost in full.”

Huh? Mike sat up slightly. Matthias’s habit of breaking off and looking at him expectantly was grating, but he couldn’t help responding. Even if this sounded like pure bullshit, there was something compelling about the way Matt clearly believed his story.

“The Clan is a trading consortium operated by the noble houses,” Matt explained. “Couriers cross over into this world and collect the cargo, in whatever quantity they can lift—they can only carry whatever they can hold across the gulf between worlds. In the other world, the Clan is invincible. Cargos of heroin or cocaine travel up the coast in wagon trains guarded by the Clan’s troops. Local rulers are bribed with penicillin and aluminum tableware and spices for the table. Bandits who can muster no better than crossbows and swords are no match for soldiers with night-vision goggles and automatic weapons. It takes weeks or months, but it’s secure—and sooner or later the cargo arrives in a heavily guarded depot in Boston or New York without you ever knowing it’s in transit or being able to track it.”

There was a click from across the room. Mike looked round. “This is bullshit,” complained Pete, stripping off his headphones. He glared at Matt in disgust. “You’re wasting our time, do you realize that?” To Mike, “Let’s just charge him with trafficking on the basis of what we’ve already got, then commit him for psych—”

“I don’t think so—” Mike began, just as Matthias said something guttural in a foreign language the DEA agent couldn’t recognize. “I’m sorry?” he asked.

“I gave you samples,” Matt complained. “Why not analyze them?”

“What for?” Mike’s eyes narrowed. Something about Matthias scared him, and he didn’t like that one little bit. Matt wasn’t your usual garden-variety dealer’s agent or hit man. There was something else about him, some kind of innate sense of his own superiority, which grated. And that weird accent. As if—“What should we look for?”

“The sample I gave you is of heroin, diacetyl morphine, from poppies grown on an experimental farm established by order of the high Duke Angbard Lofstrom, in the estates of King Henryk of Auswjein, which would be in North Virginia of your United States. There has never been an atomic explosion in the other world. I am informed that a device called a mass spectroscope will be able to confirm to you that the sample is depleted of an iso-, um, isotope of carbon that is created by atomic explosions. This is proof that the sample originated in another world, or was prepared at exceedingly enormous expense to give such an impression, for the mixture of carbon isotopes in this world is different.”

“Uh.” Pete looked as taken aback as Mike felt. “What? Why haven’t you been selling your own here, if you can grow it in this other world?”

“Because it would be obvious where it came from,” Matt explained with exaggerated patience. “The entire policy of the Clan for the past hundred and seventy years has been to maintain a shroud of secrecy around itself. Selling drugs that were clearly harvested on another world would not, ah, contribute to this policy.”

Mike nodded at Pete. “Switch the goddamn recorder on again.” He turned back to Matthias. “Summary. There exists a, a parallel world to our own. This world is not industrialized? No. There is a bunch of merchant princes, a clan, who can travel between there and here. These guys make their money by acting as couriers for high-value assets which can be transported through the other world without risk of interception because they are not recognized as valuable there. Drugs, in short. Matthias has kindly explained that his last heroin sample contains an, um, carbon isotope balance that will demonstrate it must have been grown on another planet. Either that, or somebody is playing implausibly expensive pranks. Memo: get a mass spectroscopy report on the referenced sample. Okay, so that brings me to the next question.” He leaned toward Matthias. “Who are you, and how come you know all this?”

Matt extracted another cigarette from the packet and lit it. “I am of the outer families—I cannot world-walk, but must be carried whensoever I should go. I am—was—private secretary to the head of the Clan’s security, Duke Lofstrom. I am here because”—he paused for a deep drag on the cigarette—“if I was not here they would execute me. For treason. Is that clear enough?”

“I, uh, think so.” Pete had walked round behind Matt and was frantically gesturing at Mike, but Mike ignored him. “Do you have anything else to add?”

“Yes, two things. Firstly, you will find a regular Clan courier on the 14:30 Acela service from Boston to New York. I don’t know who they are, so I can’t give you a personal description, but standard procedure is that the designated courier arrives at the station no more than five minutes prior to departure. He sits in a reserved seat in carriage B, and he travels with an aluminum Zero-Halliburton roll-on case, model ZR-31. He will be conservatively dressed—the idea is to be mistaken for a lawyer or stockbroker, not a gangster—and will be armed with a Glock G20 pistol. You will know you have arrested a courier if he vanishes when confined in a maximum security cell.” He barked a humorless laugh. “Make sure to videotape it.”

“You said two things?”

“Yes. Here is the second.” Matt reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, silvery metallic cylinder. Mike blinked: on first sight he almost mistook it for a pistol cartridge, but it was solid, with no sign of a percussion cap. And from the way Matt dropped it on the tabletop it looked dense.

“May I?” Mike asked.

Matt waved at it. “Of course.”

Mike tried to pick it up—and almost dropped it. The slug was heavy. It felt slightly oily and was pleasantly warm to the touch. “Jesus! What is it?”

“Plutonium. From the Duke’s private stockpile.” Matt’s expression was unreadable as Mike flinched away from the ingot. “Do not take my word for it; analyze it, then come back here to talk to me.” He crossed his arms. “I said they were a government. And I can tell you everything you need to know about their nuclear weapons program . . .”

A lightning discharge always seeks the shortest path to ground. Two days after she discovered Duke Angbard’s location to be so secret that nobody would even tell her how to send him a letter, Miriam’s wrath ran to ground through the person of Baron Henryk, her mother’s favorite uncle and the nearest body to Angbard in age, position, and temperament that she could find.

Later on, it was clear to all concerned that something like this had been bound to happen sooner or later. The dowager Hildegarde was already presumed guilty without benefit of trial, the Queen Mother was out of reach, and Patricia voh Hjorth d’Wu ab Thorold—her mother—was above question. But the consequences of Miriam’s anger were something else again. And the trigger that set it off was so seemingly trivial that after the event, nobody could even recall the cause of the quarrel: a torn envelope.

At mid-morning Miriam, fresh from yet another fit of obsessive GANTT-chart filing, emerged from her bedroom to find Kara scolding one of the maidservants. The poor girl was almost in tears. “What’s going on here?” Miriam demanded.

“Milady!” Kara turned, eyes wide. “She’s been deliberately slow, is all. If you’d have Bernaard take a switch to her—”

“No.” Miriam was blunt. “You: go lose yourself for a few minutes. Kara, let’s talk.”

The maid scurried away defensively, eager to be gone before the mistress changed her mind. Kara sniffed, offended, but followed Miriam over toward the chairs positioned in a circle around the cold fireplace. “What troubles you, milady?” asked Kara, apprehensively.

“What day is it?” Miriam leaned casually on the back of a priceless antique.

“Why, it’s, I’d need to check a calendar. Milady?”

“It’s the fourteenth.” Miriam glanced out the window. “I’m sick, Kara.”

“Sick?” Her eyes widened. “Shall I call an apothecary—”

“I’m sick, as in pissed off, not sick as in ill.” Miriam’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. “I’m being given the runaround. Look.” She held up an envelope bearing the crest of the Clan post. Its wax seal was broken. “They’re returning my letters. ‘Addressee unknown.’ ”

“Well, maybe they don’t know who—”

“Letters to Duke Angbard, Kara.”

“Oh.” For a moment the teenager looked guilty.

“Know anything about it?” Miriam asked sweetly.

“Oh, but nobody writes to the duke! You write to his secretary.” Kara looked confused for a moment. “Then he arranges an appointment,” she added hesitantly.

“The duke’s last secretary, in case you’ve forgotten, was Matthias. He isn’t answering his correspondence any more, funnily enough.”

“Oh.” A look of profound puzzlement crept over Kara’s face.

“I can’t get anywhere!” Miriam burst out. “Ma—Patricia—holds formal audiences. Olga’s away on urgent business most of the time and on the firing range the rest. I haven’t even seen Brill since the—the accident. And Angbard won’t answer his mail. What the hell am I meant to do?”

Kara looked faintly guilty. “Weren’t you supposed to be going riding this afternoon?” she asked.

“I want to talk to someone,” Miriam said grimly. “Who, of the Clan council, is in town? Who can I get to?”

“There’s Baron Henryk, he stays at the Royal Exchange when he’s working, but he—”

“He’s my great-uncle, he’ll have to listen to me. Excellent. He’ll do.”

“But, mistress! You can’t just—”

Miriam smiled. There was no humor in her expression. “It has been three weeks since anyone even deigned to tell me how my company is doing, much less answered my queries about when I can go back over and resume managing it. I’ve been stuck in this oh-so-efficiently doppelgangered suite—secured against world-walking by a couple of hundred tons of concrete piled on the other side—for two months, cooling my heels. If Angbard doesn’t want to talk to me, he’ll sure as hell listen to Henryk. Right?”

Kara was clearly agitated, bouncing up and down and flapping her hands like a bird. In her green-and-brown camouflage-pattern minidress—like many of the Clan youngsters, she liked to wear imported western fashions at home—she resembled a thrush with one foot caught in a snare. “But mistress! I can arrange a meeting, if you give me time, but you can’t just go barging in—”

“Want to bet?” Miriam stood up. “Get a carriage sorted, Kara. One hour. We’re going round to the Royal Exchange and I’m not leaving until I’ve spoken to him, and that’s an end to the matter.”

Kara protested some more, but Miriam wasn’t having it. If Lady Brill had been around she’d have been able to set Miriam straight, but Kara was too young, inexperienced, and unsure of herself to naysay her mistress. Therefore, an hour later, Miriam—with an apprehensive Kara sucked along in her undertow, not to mention a couple of maids and a gaggle of guards—boarded a closed carriage for the journey to the exchange buildings. Miriam had changed for the meeting, putting on her black interview suit and a cream blouse. She looked like an attorney or a serious business journalist, sniffing after blood in the corporate watercooler. Kara, ineffectual and lightweight, drifted along passively in the undertow, like the armed guards on the carriage roof.

The Royal Exchange was a forbidding stone pile fronted by Romanesque columns, half a mile up the road from Thorold Palace. Built a century ago to house the lumber exchange (and the tax inspectors who took the royal cut of every consignment making its way down the coast), it had long since passed into the hands of the government and now housed a number of offices. The Gruinmarkt was not long on bureaucracy—it was still very much a marcher kingdom, its focus on the wilderness beyond the mountains to the west—but even a small, primitive country had desks for scores or hundreds of secretaries of this and superintendents of that. Miriam wasn’t entirely clear on why the elderly baron might live there, but she was clear on one thing: he’d talk to her.

“Which way?” Miriam asked briskly as she strode across the polished wooden floor of the main entrance.

“I think his offices are in the west wing, mistress, but please—”

Miriam found a uniformed footman in her way. “You. Which way to Baron Henryk’s office?” she demanded.

“Er, ah, your business, milady?”

“None of yours.” Miriam stared at him until he wilted. “Where do I find the baron?”

“On the second floor, west wing, Winter Passage, if it pleases you—”

“Come on.” She turned and marched briskly toward the stairs, scattering a gaggle of robed clerks who stared at her in perplexity. “Come on, Kara! I haven’t got all day.”

“But mistress—”

The second-floor landing featured wallpaper—an expensive luxury, printed on linen—and portraits of dignitaries to either side. Corridors diverged in the pattern of an H. “West wing,” Miriam muttered. “Right.” One arm of the H featured tapestries depicting a white, snowbound landscape and scenes of industry and revelry. Miriam nearly walked right into another robed clerk. “Baron Henryk’s office. Which way?” she snapped.

The frightened clerk pointed one ink-blackened fingertip. “Yonder,” he quavered, then ducked and ran for cover.

Kara hurried to catch up. “Mistress, if you go shoving in you will upset the order of things.”

“Then it’s about time someone upset them,” Miriam retorted, pausing outside a substantial door. “They’ve been giving me the runaround, I’m going to give them the bull in a china shop. This the place?”

“What’s a Chinese shop?” Kara was even more confused than usual.

“Never mind. He’s in here, isn’t he?” Not waiting for a reply, Miriam rapped hard on the door.

A twenty-something fellow in knee breeches and an elaborate shirt opened it. “Yes?”

“I’m here to see Baron Henryk, at his earliest convenience,” Miriam said firmly. “I assume he’s in?”

“Do you have an appointment?”

The youngster didn’t get it. Miriam took a deep breath. “I have, now. At his earliest convenience, do you hear?”

“Ah-ahem. Whom should I say . . . ?”

“His great-niece Helge.” Miriam resisted for a moment the urge to tap her toe impatiently, then gave in.

The lad vanished into a large and hideously overdecorated room, and she heard a mutter of conversation. Then: “Show her in! Show her in by all means, Walther, then make yourself scarce.”

The door opened wider. “Please come in, the baron will be with you momentarily.” The young secretary stood aside as Miriam walked in, Kara tiptoeing at her heels, then vanished into the corridor. The door closed behind him, and for the first moment Miriam began to wonder if she’d made a mistake.

The room was built to the same vast proportions as most imperial dwellings hereabouts, so that the enormous desk in the middle of it looked dwarfishly short, like a gilded black-topped coffee table covered in red leather boxes. Bookcases lined one wall, filled with dusty ledgers, while the other walls—paneled in oak—were occupied by age-blackened oil paintings or a high window casement looking out over the high street. The plasterwork hanging from the ceiling resembled a cubist grotto, cluttered with gilded cherubim and inedible fruit. Baron Henryk hunched behind the desk, his head bent slightly to one side. His long white hair glowed in the early afternoon light from the window and his face was in shadow; he wore local court dress, hand-embroidered with gold thread, but his fingertips were dark with ink from the array of pens that fronted his desk in carved stone inkwells. “Ah, great-niece Helge! How charming to see you at such short notice.” He rose slowly and gestured toward a seat. “This would be your lady-in-waiting, Lady . . . ?”

“Kara,” Miriam supplied.

Kara cringed slightly and smiled ingratiatingly at the baron. “I tried to explain—”

“Hush, it’s perfectly all right, child.” The baron smiled at her. “Why don’t you join Walther outside? Keep the servants out, why don’t you. Perhaps you should take tea together in the long hall, I gather that’s the custom these days among the young people.”

“But I—” Kara swallowed, dipped a quick curtsey, and fled.

Henryk waited until the door closed behind her, then turned to Miriam with a faint smile on his face. “Well, well, well. To what emergency do I owe the honor of your presence?”

Miriam pulled the envelope out of her shoulder bag. “This. Addressee unknown. I was hoping you might be able to explain what’s going on.” She took a deep breath. “I am being given the runaround—nobody’s talking to me! I’m sorry I had to barge in on you like this, at short notice. But it’s reached the point where any attempt I make to go through channels and find out what’s going on is being thrown back in my face.”

“I see.” Henryk gestured vaguely at a chair. “Please, have a seat. White or red?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Wine?” He walked over to a sideboard that Miriam had barely noticed, beside one of the bookcases. “An early-afternoon digestif, perhaps.”

“White, if you don’t mind. Just a little.” It was one of the things that had taken Miriam by surprise when she first stumbled into the Clan’s affairs, the way people hereabouts drank like fishes. Not just the hard liquor, but wine and beer—tea and coffee were expensive imports, she supposed, and the water sanitation was straight out of the dark ages. Diluting it with alcohol killed most parasites.

Henryk fiddled with a decanter, then carried two lead crystal glasses over to his desk. “Here. Make free with the bottle, you are my guest.”

Miriam raised her glass. “Your health.”

“Ah.” Henryk sat back down with a sigh. “Now, where were we?”

“I was trying to reach people.”

“Yes, I can see that,” Henryk nodded to himself. “Not having much luck,” he suggested.

“Right. Angbard isn’t answering his mail. In fact, I can’t even get a letter through to him. Same goes for everyone I know in his security operation. Which isn’t to say that stuff doesn’t come in the other direction, but . . . I’ve got a company to run, in New Britain, haven’t I? They pulled me out two months ago, saying it wasn’t safe, and I’ve been cooling my heels ever since. When is it going to be safe? They don’t seem to realize business doesn’t stop just because they’re worried about Matthias having left some surprises behind, or the Lees are still thinking about signing the papers. I could be going bankrupt over there!”

“Absolutely true.” Henryk took a sip of wine. “It’s incontrovertible. Yes, I think I see what the problem is. You were absolutely right to come to me.” He put his glass down. “Although next time I would appreciate a little bit more notice.”

“Um, I’m sorry about that.” For the first time Miriam noticed that the top of the desk wasn’t leather, it was a black velvet cloth, hastily laid over whatever papers Henryk didn’t want her intruding upon. “I’d exhausted all the regular channels.”

“Yes, well, I’ll be having words with Walther.” A brief flicker of smile: “He needs to learn to be firmer.”

“But you were free to see me at short notice.”

“Not completely free, as you can see.” His languid wave took in the cluttered desk. “Never mind. If in future you need to see me, have your secretary make an appointment and flag it for my eyes—it will make everything run much more smoothly. In particular, if you attach an agenda it will be dealt with before things reach this state. Your secretary should—”

“You keep saying, have your secretary do this. I don’t have a secretary, uncle!”

Henryk raised an eyebrow. “Then who was the young lady who came with you?”

“That’s Kara, she’s—oh. You mean she’s supposed to be able to handle appointments?” Miriam covered her mouth.

Baron Henryk frowned. “No, not her. You were supposed to be assigned an assistant. Who was, ahem, ah—oh yes.” He jerked his chin in an abrupt nod. “That would be the Lady Brilliana, would it not? And I presume you haven’t seen her for some weeks?”

“She’s meant to be a secretary?” Miriam boggled at the thought. “Well, yes, but . . .” Brill probably would make a decent administrative assistant, now that she thought about it. Anyone who didn’t take her bullet points seriously would find themselves facing real ones, sure enough. Brill was mature, competent, sensible—in the way that Kara was not—and missing, unlike Kara. “I haven’t seen her since I arrived here.”

“That will almost certainly be because of the security flap,” Henryk agreed. “I’ll try to do something about that. Lady Brilliana is your right hand, Helge. Perhaps her earlier duties—yes, you need her watching your back while you’re here more than Angbard needs another sergeant at arms.”

“Another what—oh. Okay.” Miriam nodded. That Angbard had planted Brill in her household as a spy (and bodyguard) wasn’t exactly a secret anymore, but it hadn’t occurred to her that it was meant to be permanent, or that Brilliana had other duties, as Henryk put it. Sergeant at arms! Well. “That would help.”

“She knows what strings to pull,” Henryk said. “She can teach you what to do when she’s not there to pull them for you. But as a matter of general guidance, it’s usually best to tug gently. You never know what might be on the other end,” he added.

Miriam’s ears flushed. “I didn’t mean to kick the anthill over,” she said defensively, “but my business wasn’t designed to run on autopilot. I’ve been given the cold shoulder so comprehensively that it feels like I’m being cut out of things deliberately.”

“How do you know you aren’t?” asked Henryk.

“But, if I’m—” She stopped. “Okay, back to basics. Why would anyone cut me out of running the New Britain operation, when it won’t run without me? I’m not doing any good here, I mean, apart from learning to ride a horse and not look a complete idiot on a dance floor. And basic grammar. All I’m asking for is an occasional update. Why is nobody answering?”

“Because they don’t trust you,” Henryk replied. He put his glass down and stared at her. “Why do you think they should let you out where they can’t keep an eye on you?”

“I—” Miriam stopped dead. “They don’t trust me?” she asked, and even to herself she sounded slightly stupid. “Well, no shit. They’ve got my mother as a hostage, there’s no way I can go back home until we know if Matt’s blown my original identity, Angbard knows just where I live on the New Britain side—what do they think I’m going to do? Walk into a Royal Constabulary office and say, ‘Look, there’s a conspiracy of subversives from another world trying to invade you’ or something? Ask the DEA to stick me in a witness protection program?” She realized she was getting agitated and tried to control her gestures. “I’m on side, Henryk! I had this argument with Angbard last year. I chewed it over with, with Roland. Think we didn’t discuss the possibility of quietly disappearing on you? Guess what: we didn’t! Because in the final analysis, you’re family. And I’ve got no reason good enough to make me run away. It’s not like the old days when Patricia had to put up with an abusive husband for the good of the Clan, is it? So yes, they should be able to trust me. About the only way they can expect me to be untrustworthy is if they treat me like this.”

She ran down, breathing heavily. Somewhere in the middle of things, she realized, she’d spilled a couple of drops of wine on the polished walnut top of Henryk’s desk. She leaned forward and blotted them up with the cuff of her jacket.

“You make a persuasive case,” Henryk said thoughtfully.

Yes, but do you buy it? Miriam froze inside. What have I put my foot in here?

“Personally, I believe you. But I hope you can see, I have met you. I can see that you are a lady of considerable personal integrity and completely honorable in all your dealings. But the Clan is at this moment battling for its very survival, and the people who make such decisions—not Angbard, he directs, his perch is very high up the tree indeed—don’t know you from, from your lady-in-waiting out there. All they see is a dossier that says ‘feral infant, raised by runaway on other side, tendency toward erratic entrepreneurial behavior, feminist, unproven reliability.’ They know you came back to the fold once, of your own accord, and that is marked down in your favor already, isn’t it? You’re living in the lap of luxury, taking in the social season and pursuing the remedial studies you need in order to learn how to live among us. Expecting anything more, in the middle of a crisis, is pushing things a little hard.”

“You’re telling me I’m a prisoner,” Miriam said evenly.

“No!” Henryk looked shocked. “You’re not a prisoner! You’re—” He paused. “A probationer. Promising but unproven. If you keep to your studies, cultivate the right people, go through channels, and show the right signs of trustworthiness, then sooner rather than later you’ll get exactly what you want. All you need to do is convince the security adjutants charged with your safety that you are loyal and moderately predictable—that you will at least notify them before you engage in potentially dangerous endeavors—and they will bow down before you.” He frowned, then sniffed. “Your glass is empty, my dear. A refill, perhaps?”

“Yes, please.” Miriam sat very still while Henryk paced over to the sideboard and refilled both glasses, her mind whirling. They see me as a probationer. Right. It wasn’t a nice idea, but it explained a lot of things that had been happening lately. “If I’m on probation, then what about my mother? What about Patricia?”

“Oh, she’s in terrible trouble,” Henryk said reassuringly. “Absolutely terrible! Ghastly beyond belief!” He said it with relish as he passed her the glass. “Go on, ask me why, you know you’re dying to.”

“Um. Is it relevant?”

“Absolutely.” Henryk nodded. “You know how we normally deal with defectors around here.”

“I—” Miriam stopped. Defection was one of the unforgivable crimes. The Clan’s ability to function as an organization devoted to trade between worlds scaled as a function of the number of couriers it could mobilize. Leaving, running away, didn’t merely remove the defector from the Clan’s control; it reduced the ability of the Clan as a whole to function. Below a certain size, networks of world-walkers were vulnerable and weak, as the Lee family (stranded unknowingly in New Britain two centuries ago) had discovered. “Go on.”

“Your mother has unusual extenuating circumstances to thank for her predicament,” Henryk stated coolly. “If not for which, she would probably be dead. Angbard swears blind that her disappearance was planned, intended, to draw the faction of murderers out, and that she remained in contact with him at all times. A sleeper agent, in other words.” Henryk’s cheek twitched. “Nobody is going to tell the duke that he’s lying to his face. Besides which, if Patricia hadn’t disappeared when she did, the killing would have continued. When she returned to the fold”—a minute shrug—“she brought you with her. A life for a life, if you like. Even her mother can see the value of not asking too many pointed questions at this time, of letting sleeping secrets lie. And besides, the story might even be true. Stranger things happened during the war.”

Henryk paused for a sip of wine. “But as you can see, your background does not inspire trust.”

“Oh.” Miriam frowned. “But that’s not my fault!”

“Of course not.” Henryk put his glass down. “But you can’t escape it. We’re a young aristocracy, Helge, rough-cut and un-civilized. This is a marcher kingdom, second sons hunting their fortune on the edges of the great forest. The entire population of this kingdom is perhaps five million, did you know that? You could drop the entire population of Niejwein into Boston and lose them. The Boston you grew up in, that is. Without us, without the Clan, Gruinmarkt culture and high society would make England in the fifteenth century look cosmopolitan and sophisticated. It’s true that there are enormous riches on display in the palaces and castles of the aristocracy, but it’s superficial—what you see on display is everything there is. Not like America, where wealth is so overwhelming that the truly rich store their assets in enormous bank vaults and amuse themselves by aping the dress and manners of the poor. You’re a fish out of water, and you’re understandably disoriented. The more so because you had no inkling of your place in the great chain of existence until perhaps six months ago. But you must realize, people here do not labor under your misconceptions. They know you for a child of your parents, your thuggish dead father and your unreliable tearaway mother, and they don’t expect any better of you because they know that blood will out.”

Miriam stared at her white-haired, hollow-cheeked great-uncle. “That’s all I am, is it?” she asked in a thin voice. “An ornament on the family tree? And an untrustworthy one, at that?”

“By no means.” Henryk leaned back in his chair. “But behavior like this, this display of indecorous—” He paused. “It doesn’t help your case,” he said tensely. “I understand. Others would not. It’s them you have to convince. But you’ve chosen the middle of a crisis to do it in—not the best of timing! Some would consider it evidence of guile, to make a bid for independence when all hands are at the breach. I don’t for a minute believe you would act in such a manner, but again: it is not me who you must convince. You need to learn to act within the constraints of your position, not against them. Then you’ll have something to work with.”

“Um. I should be going, then.” She rubbed the palm of one hand nervously on her thigh. “I guess I should apologize to you for taking up your time.” She paused for a moment and forced herself to swallow her pride. “Do you have any specific advice for me, about how to proceed?”

“Hmm.” Baron Henryk stood and slowly walked over to the window casement. “That’s an interesting question.” He turned, so that his face was shadowed against the bright daylight outside. “What do you want to achieve?”

“What do I—” Miriam’s mouth snapped shut. Her eyes narrowed against the glare. “I think I made myself clear enough at the extraordinary meeting three months ago,” she said slowly.

“That’s not what I asked.” It was hard to tell, but Henryk seemed to be smiling. “Why don’t you go and think about that question? When you have a better idea, we should talk again. If you’d like to join me for dinner, in a couple of weeks? Have your confidante write to my secretary to arrange things. Meanwhile, I’ll try to find out what has happened to your assistant, and I’ll ask someone in the security directorate to look into your affairs in New Britain so that you can go back to them as soon as possible. But if you’ll excuse me, I have other matters to deal with right now.”

Miriam rose. “Thank you for finding some time for me,” she said stiffly. Halfway to the door she paused. “By the way, what is it you do exactly?”

Henryk stood. “Oh, this and that,” he said lightly. “Remember to write.”

Outside in the corridor, Miriam found a nervous Kara shifting from foot to foot impatiently. “Oh, milady! Can we go now?”

“Sure.” Miriam walked toward the staircase, her expression pensive. “Kara, do you know what Baron Henryk does here?”

“Milady!” Kara stared at Miriam, her eyes wide. “I thought you knew!”

“Knew? Knew what?” Miriam shook her head.

Kara scurried closer before whispering loudly. “The baron is his majesty’s master of spies! He collects intelligence for the crown, from countries far and wide, even from across the eastern ocean! I thought you knew . . .”

Miriam stopped dead, halfway down the first flight of stairs. I just barged in on the Director of Central Intelligence, she thought sickly. And he told me I’m under house arrest. Then: “Hang on, you mean he’s the king’s spymaster? Not the Clan’s?”

“Well, yes! He’s a sworn baron, milady, sworn to his majesty, or hadn’t you noticed?” Kara’s attempt at sarcasm fell flat, undermined by her frightened expression. “We’re all his majesty’s loyal subjects, here, aren’t we? Aren’t we?”

TRANSLATED TRANSCRIPT BEGINS

(Click.)

“Ah, your lordship, how good to see you!”

“On the contrary, the honor is mine, your grace.” (Wheezing.) “Here. Walther, a chair for his grace, damnit. And a port for each of us, then make yourself scarce. Yes, the special reserve. I’m sure you’ve been even busier than I, your grace, this being a tedious little backwater most of the time, but if there’s anything I can do for you—”

“Nonsense, Henryk, you never sleep! The boot is on the other foot and the prisoner shrieking his plea as you heat it. You won’t get me with that nonsense—ah, thank you Walther.”

“That will be all.”

(Sound of door closing.)

“Sky Father’s eye! That’s good stuff. Please tell me it’s not the last bottle?”

“Indeed not, your grace, and I have it on good authority that there is at least a case left in the Thorold Palace cellars.” (Pause.) “Six?” (Pause.) “Five? Damn your eyes, four and that’s my lowest!”

“I’ll have them sent over forthwith. Now, what brings you round here in a screaming hurry, nephew, when I’m sure there are plenty of other fires for you to be pissing on? Would I be right in thinking it’s something to do with woman trouble? And if so, which one?”

(Clink of glassware.)

“You know perfectly well which one could get me out of the office, pills or no pills. It’s the old bitches, Henryk, they are meddling in that of which they know not, and they are going to blow the entire powder keg sky-high if I don’t find a way to stop them. And I can’t just bang them up in a garret like the young pullet—”

“The shrew?”

“She’s not a shrew, she’s just overenthusiastic. A New Woman. They’ve got lots of them on the other side, I hear. But the old one, her manners may be good but her poison is of a fine vintage and she is getting much too close to our corporate insurance policy. Even if she doesn’t know it yet.”

“Your sister—”

“Crone’s pawn, uncle, Crone’s pawn. Do you think it was coincidence that it was Helge who came calling on you, and not Patricia? Patricia is in a cleft stick and dare not even hiss or rattle her tail, lest the old bitches lop it off. If we could move her back to the other side things would be different, but it’s all I can do to keep the situation over there from coming apart on us completely—we’ve lost more couriers in the past month than in the preceding decade, and if I can’t stop the leakage I fear we will have to shut the network down completely. Sending Patricia back simply isn’t an option, and now that she’s here she’s less effective than we expected. It’s that blasted wasting disease. The old bitches and their quackery have her mewed up like a kitten in a sack. Meanwhile, Helge isn’t much use to us here, either. I’ve sent her Lady B to take her in hand, which might begin to repair the damage to her high esteem among her relatives, in a year or three—or at least stop her from dancing blind in the minefield—but you can see how isolated she is. A real disappointment. I had such high hopes that those two might tackle the bitches, but the cultural barrier is just too high.”

“Come now, Angbard, there’s no need to be so pessimistic! The best-laid plans, et cetera. So what do you think the old she-devil is up to?”

“Well, I can’t be certain, but she’s certainly done something to shut Patricia up. And I find it somewhat fascinating to see Helge outmaneuvered so thoroughly without even knowing who she’s up against.”

“Do you think Patricia hasn’t told her?”

“Do I—” (Pause.) “Henryk, you sly fellow! And here I was thinking I was asking you for information!”

“The rack cares not who sleeps on it, and—”

“Indeed, yes, all very well and apposite and all that. Henryk, the old bitches are turbulent and the she-devil-in-chief is plotting something, I feel it in my bowels. I have more important things to worry about right now. I do not have time to be looking over my shoulder for daggers. I do not have time to dance the reel to the old bitch’s hurdy-gurdy, when I can’t sleep at night for fear of conspirators. What do I need to know?”

“I say—steady on, your grace! Here, let me remedy your glass . . . my agents at court opine that the she-devil has carried off a coup. Her stroking of the royal ego has come to something, it seems, and sparked a passing fancy with the revenant.”

“The—what? What’s she got to do with anything?”

“The royal succession—Oh dear! Here, use my kerchief.”

(Bell rings.)

“Walther! Walther, I say!”

(Sound of door opening.)

“A towel for his grace! Your grace, if you would care to make use of my wardrobe—”

“No need, thank you uncle, I am sure a little wine stain will hurt only my dignity.”

“Yes, but—”

(Sound of door closing.)

“That’s better.” (Pause.) “The royal succession! Curse me for an imbecile, which one is it, the Pervert or the Idiot? Don’t tell me, it’s the Idiot. More tractable, and the Pervert’s already promised to the Nordmarkt.”

“That, and the Pervert’s bad habits are becoming increasingly difficult to cover for. Royal privilege is all very well, but if Egon were anyone other than his father’s eldest son he’d be learning wisdom from the Tree Father by now. A nastier piece of work hasn’t graced the royal court in my memory. If his father is forced to notice his habits . . . remember our ruling dynasty’s turbulent origins? Nobody wants to see another civil war, not with Petermann feeling his oats just across our northern border and the backwoods peers staring daggers at our Clan families’ new earned wealth. I believe the old bitches think that the Pervert will go too far one of these days, in which case owning the Idiot would throttle two rabbits with one snare, nailing down Helge and securing the royal bloodline. They’re not stupid, they probably think Helge is smart enough to see the advantages, to take what’s being offered her, and to play along. One more generation and we—they—would be able to splice the monarchy into the Clan for good. Helge’s a bit old, but it wouldn’t be a first pregnancy—don’t look so shocked, we’ve got her medical records—and she’s in good health. Pray for an accident for the Pervert, a single pregnancy, and her payoff is, well, you know how they work.”

“They’re crazy!”

“What? You think she’d refuse?”

“Think? Blue mother, Henryk, did you listen to her at all? She is, to all intents and purposes, a modern American woman. They do not marry for duty. It was all I could do to stop her eloping with that waste of money, brains, and time, Roland! The old bitches had better hope they’ve got their claws into her deep, or she will kick back so hard—”

“Patricia.”

“Oh. What? That? Hmm, I suppose you’re right. She’s rather fond of her mother, that’s true. But I’m not sure it’ll be enough to hold her down in the long run. It raises an interesting question of priorities, doesn’t it?”

“You mean, the insurance policy versus the throne? Or . . . ?”

“Yes. I think—hmm. Helge, wearing her Miriam head, would understand the insurance policy. But not the old bitches. Whereas Patricia, for all her modernity and skeptical ways, probably wouldn’t buy it. She was raised by the she-devil, after all. And, ah, Miriam is very creatively unreliable. Yes. What do you think?”

“You’re hatching one of your plans, your grace, but you forget that I am not a mind reader.”

“Oh, I apologize. Given: we do not want the old bitches to get their hands on the levers of temporal power, are we agreed? They’ve got too much already. They seem to have decided—well, it’s a bit early to be sure, but marrying Helge to the Idiot would simultaneously tie her down and put a spoke in the wheel the reformers are trying to spin, while also tying down Patricia. That debating society . . . Luckily for us, Helge is unreliable in exactly the right sort of way. Right now they’ve tied her up like a turkey and she hasn’t even realized what’s going on. That’s not very useful to us, is it? I say we should give her enough rope—no reason to tie the noose so tightly she can’t escape it, what—and then a little push, and see which way she runs. Yes? Do you think that could work?”

“Angbard—your grace—that verges on criminal irresponsibility! If she does hang herself—”

“She’ll have only herself to blame. And she’ll not be a dagger for her grandmother to hold to our throat.”

“She hates her grandmother! With a passion.”

“I believe you overestimate her vindictiveness; at present it is merely disdain on both sides. The dowager is more than happy to use any weapon that comes to hand without worrying about hurting its feelings. Helge doesn’t know enough to turn in her hand, yet. Perhaps if Helge has real reason to hate her grandmother . . .”

“Tell me you wouldn’t harm your own sister.”

“Mm, no. I wouldn’t need to go that far, Henryk. Dowager Hildegarde is quite capable of making Helge hate her without any help from me, although admittedly a few choice whispers might fan the flames of misunderstanding. What I need from you, uncle, is nothing more than that you play the bad cop to my good, and perhaps the use of your ears at court. We’re all loyal subjects of the Crown after all, yes? And it would hardly be in the Crown’s best interests to fall into the hands of the old bitches. Or the Pervert, for that matter.”

“I shall pretend I did not hear that last, as a loyal servant of the Crown. Although, come to think of it, perhaps it would be in everyone’s best interests if nobody looked too hard for plots against Prince Egon, who is clearly loved by all. The resources can be better used looking for real threats, if you follow my drift. What kind of push do you intend to give Helge?”

(Glassware on tabletop.)

“Oh, a perfectly appropriate one, Henryk! A solution of poetic, even beautiful, proportions suggests itself to me. One that meshes perfectly with Helge’s background and upbringing, a bait she’ll be unable to resist.”

“Bait? What kind of bait?”

“Put your glass down, I don’t want you to lose such a fine vintage.”

(Pause.)

“I’m going to let her discover the insurance policy.”

TRANSCRIPT ENDS