The Trade of Queens

Refugees

The walkie-talkie in Miriam’s bag squawked for attention.

“What’s that?” Burgeson, startled, let go of her arm as she turned to the table.

“Bad news, I think.” She pulled the radio out. “Mike Bravo, Mike Bravo, sitrep please, over.”

A buzz of static, squelched rapidly: “Boss? Emil here. I just got a call from Delta Charlie. Zulu Foxtrot is under attack, repeat, the house is under attack. We’re bringing the truck round, you need to get out now, over.”

Miriam stared at Erasmus. “My house is under attack. Do you know anything about it?” She knew the answer before the words were finished: The widening of his eyes and the paleness of his face told her all she needed. “Damn. It’s got to be Reynolds, hasn’t it?”

“I need to get to the railway station.” Erasmus stood up, unfolding sticklike limbs as he glanced at the window. “If he’s doing this now, he means to be back in New London by nightfall, which means this is the start of something bigger. There’s a Council of People’s Commissioners—cabinet—meeting tomorrow morning. He’ll either present the arrests as a fait accompli, and impeach me for treason and conspiracy on the spot, or go a step further and arrest the entire Mutual wing of the Council in the name of the Peace and Justice Committee. It’ll be a coup in all but name: Either way, he takes me out and weakens Sir Adam enormously.”

“What are you going to do?” Miriam positioned herself between Erasmus and the doorway. “Do you have a plan?”

“Yes, if I can get to the station.” He smiled. “You should go into hiding, in your other world—they can’t reach you there—”

“The hell I will.” She picked up her bag and slung it over her shoulder, then the walkie-talkie. “Emil, Mike Bravo here. I’m coming out with a passenger. We need a ride. Over.” She pushed the door open. “What’s at the station?”

“I have a train to catch. Once I’m on it, Reynolds can’t touch me and can’t stop me from telling the truth.”

“A train—”

“My train.” His smile widened, sharkishly. “Steve has no idea what I’m capable of doing with it.”

“You’ll have to tell me on the way.” She paused, by the door. “Reynolds knows you’re here, right?”

“Yes. But Josh and Mark are waiting down in the shop and his men won’t get past them silently—”

“Reynolds has the Lee family working for him: or some of them.” She held up a hand, then stood still, listening.

“What are you—”

She walked across to the window casement and looked out along the alley, keeping her body in the shadows. “Do you hear a steamer?” she asked quietly.

“No. Why?”

“Because we should be hearing one by now.” She grimaced. “Emil and Klaus were just round the corner. Do you have some way of calling your bodyguards?”

“The shop bell-pull in the hall—it works both ways. What are you thinking?” He pitched his voice low.

“That we’re very isolated right now. I may be jumping at shadows, but if Reynolds is raiding my house, why isn’t he here?”

“Oh dear.” Erasmus returned to the sideboard. “In that case, we’d better go.” A muffled click, and he turned around, holding a small pepperpot pistol. A barely glimpsed gesture made it vanish into a sleeve or a pocket. “For once, I’m not going to let you go first.”

“I don’t think”—they collided in front of the doorway—“so?”

“My apologies.” Looking her in the eye, Erasmus added, “It would be best if my bodyguards saw me first.”

“Maybe.” Miriam stepped aside reluctantly. He crossed the hall and turned the key, then pulled the front door open as she followed him.

“Stop or I shoot!” Erasmus froze in the doorway. The teenager on the landing kept his pistol in Burgeson’s face, but went wide-eyed as he looked past the older man and saw Miriam. “What are you doing here?”

Heart in mouth, she looked the youth in the eye: “Point the gun at someone else, Lin, or I will be very angry with you.”

“I’m not supposed to do that.” His voice was shaky. “I’m supposed to kill everyone in this apartment.”

“Who told you to do that?” Miriam asked quietly.

“The man Elder Huan told me to obey without question.” Erasmus stood stock-still as Lin stepped back a pace and lowered his pistol to waist level. “I didn’t know you’d be here,” he added, almost petulantly.

Pulse hammering, Miriam took a step forward and placed a hand on Erasmus’s shoulder. “Everything is going to be all right,” she said quietly. “Lin, I want you to meet Mr. Burgeson. He’s a, a friend of mine.” She could feel his shoulder through the cloth of his jacket, solid and real and seeming to her as delicate as a fine bone-china teacup caught in midfall; she felt faint, this was so close to Roland’s end. “I will never forgive you if you kill him.”

Lin nodded. “I am dishonored either way. But I won’t shoot him. For your sake.” His elders had once sent Lin to kill Miriam. She, capturing him, had not only spared him, she’d sent him back to them with a truce offer.

“Did the man who sent you here wear a black coat, by any chance? A party commissioner called Reynolds?”

Lin shook his head. “Oh no,” he said earnestly. “The doctor sent me.” His nostrils flared with evident disdain: “Dr. ven Hjalmar.”

“Would someone,” Erasmus said quietly but forcefully, “explain to me what exactly is happening?”

“I think I can put it together,” said Miriam. “Lin, Dr. ven Hjalmar is working with Commissioner Reynolds, isn’t he? No need to confirm or deny anything—your brother and I had a conversation.”

Lin nodded. “I was sent to remove a, a party radical who was opposed to our ends, in the doctor’s words.” He stared at Erasmus. “What will you do now?”

“Have you met Stephen Reynolds?” Erasmus asked quietly. “He isn’t one for whom loyalty is a two-way street.”

“I’ve discussed this with James,” said Miriam. “Lin, I’ve been negotiating a, a deal with Mr. Burgeson here. It’s similar to the arrangement your elders came to with the security commissioner.”

“The difference is, I don’t send death squads to murder my rivals,” Erasmus added.

Miriam looked straight at Lin: “That’s why I’ve been dealing with him. The arrangement can be extended to include your relatives. But not if you shoot him, or hand us over to the Internal Security directorate. Or Dr. ven Hjalmar.”

Lin looked straight back at her. “You say this man is a friend of yours,” he said. “Do you mean that? Are you claiming privilege of kinship? Or is it just a business arrangement to which no honor attaches?”

Miriam blinked. She tightened her grip on Erasmus’s shoulder as she felt him breathe in, preparing to say something potentially disastrous—“Erasmus is a personal friend of mine, Lin. This isn’t just business.” Which was true, she realized as she said it; not that they had gotten up to anything, not that there was substance to the cover story Burgeson’s bodyguards and enemies believed, but she could conceive of it, at some future time. “So yes, I claim privilege of kinship, and if you touch one hair on his head I’ll claim blood feud on you and yours. Is that what you want?”

Lin looked away, then shook his head.

“Good. We understand each other, I hope? Do you and yours claim Dr. ven Hjalmar?”

Lin’s eyes widened. “Not yet. Nan was talking about finding him a wife, but—”

“Then you have no claim if I declare him outlaw and anathema and deal with him accordingly?”

He began to smile. “If your arrangement for the security of your clan can stretch to some more bodies—none whatsoever. What do you have in mind?”

“First, I think we need to deliver Mr. Burgeson safely to South Station, where a train is waiting for him.” She felt Erasmus preparing to speak again. “And then I, and my sworn retainers, have an appointment with Dr. ven Hjalmar, and possibly with Commissioner Reynolds. Would you like to come along?”

“It will be my pleasure,” Lin said gravely. He looked directly at Erasmus. “If you’d both care to come downstairs, my cousins and I have a wagon waiting on the other side of the wall of worlds. We were to use it to dispose of the evidence, but I think it will work just as well with living passengers.” He returned his pistol to a pocket holster, then raised an eyebrow. “Which platform do you want?”

* * *

The miracles of modern communication technology: With two-way radios, the survivors of Reynolds’s simultaneous raids called in and made contact within an hour. Miriam, her head pounding, hugged Erasmus briefly. “Try to take care,” she murmured in his ear.

“My dear, I have every intention of doing so.” He grinned lopsidedly.

“What are you going to do?”

“Get to my train on time, with the help of these fine fellows.” Behind her, Lin was filling two of his fellows in on the turn events had taken. “Then I shall first signal Sir Adam. Stephen’s gone too far this time—setting up a parallel arrangement with these cousins of yours and trying to frame me for subversion. I have my own supporters within the Freedom Guard; if necessary we can take it to the street.” He looked worried. “But that has its own price. What do you intend?”

“I’m going to find my people,” she told him. “And then we’re going to take out the trash. Stay away from the old Polis headquarters building for a couple of hours, Erasmus. You might want to turn up later—around six, maybe—to take charge of the cleanup operation and to assemble a cover story.” She bit her lip. “It’s not going to be pretty. Reynolds is a problem, but the doctor is a worse one: a sociopath with the background and intellect to raise his own version of the Clan, given half a chance.”

“You think your doctor is more important than Reynolds?”

“I know it.” She looked him in the eye. “You and your boss can deal with Reynolds; he’s an attack dog, but if you put a chain on his collar you can keep him under control. But ven Hjalmar doesn’t wear a collar in the first place.”

“Then you should take care,” he said gravely. “I should be going. But … take care. I would very much like to see you again.”

“You too.” She leaned forward and, trying not to think too hard about her intentions, kissed him. She was aiming for his cheek, but he turned, and for a moment their lips touched. “Oh. Go on.”

“Until this evening,” he said, coloring slightly as he took a step backwards, turning towards the cart, his temporary chauffeurs, and the somnolent mule between the traces.

Miriam waited until he looked away, then walked over to Lin’s side. “Let’s do it,” she said. “My people first; then the Polis building.”

* * *

Three o’clock in the afternoon, and for Commissioner Reynolds the day was not going terribly well.

In the communications room downstairs the telautographs were buzzing and clattering like deranged locusts; telespeakers clutching their earpieces hammered away on their keyboards, transcribing incoming messages from the snatch squads and the delivery teams charged with ferrying the detainees to the Burke. Periodically one of the supervisors or overofficers would collate a list of the most important updates and hurry them upstairs, where Reynolds would receive them in stony silence.

“Ninety-six subjects isolated at Irongate and consigned for detention. Thirty-one confirmed as received by the Burke, the others still being in transit. Slow, too slow. Site B in Boston, heavy gunfire—damn you, man, what do you mean, heavy gunfire returned? That group has gun carriers! What’s going on out there?”

The doctor, placidly munching on a dessert platter, paused to dab at his lips with a napkin. “I told you to expect organized resistance from that crowd,” he reminded Reynolds.

“What is Site B putting up against our people?” Reynolds demanded.

The overstaffofficer paled: “Sir, there is word of machine-gun fire from inside the grounds. Casualties are three dead and eight injured so far; the supervisor-lieutenant on site has cordoned off the area and our men are exchanging fire with the defenders. One of the gun carriers was damaged by some sort of artillery piece when it tried to force the front gates.”

“Damaged, by god?” Reynolds glared at him. “This was how long ago? Why haven’t you called on the navy?”

“Sir, I can’t order a shore bombardment of one of our own cities! If you want to request one it has to go up to the Joint Command Council for authorization—”

Reynolds cut him off with a chopping gesture. “Later. They’re pinned down for now, yes? What about Site C?”

“Site C was overrun on schedule, sir. One casualty, apparently self-inflicted—negligent discharge. Six prisoners consigned for detention and received by the Burke. Two dead, killed resisting arrest or attempting to flee.”

“Good.” Reynolds nodded jerkily. “Site S?”

“I don’t have a report for Site S, sir.” The overstaffofficer riffled through his message sheets, increasingly concerned. “Sir, by your leave—”

“Go. Find out what happened. Report back. Dismissed.” Reynolds turned to ven Hjalmar as his adjutant made himself scarce. “Damn it, you’d almost think—”

“They have radio—telautograph, I think you call it? Between sites. Between people.” Ven Hjalmar was clearly irritated. “I told you that timing was essential.”

“But how can they have notified the—my men cut all the wires! The transmission wires are vulnerable, yes?”

“Transmission wires?” Ven Hjalmar squinted. “What, you mean for transmitting the wireless signal? They don’t use wires for that—just a stub antenna, so big.” He spread the fingers of one hand. “I think we may have found a regrettable source of confusion: Their radios—the telautograph sets—are pocket-sized. They’ll all be carrying them, at least one per group when they’re off base—”

“Nonsense.” Reynolds stared at him. “Pocket telautographs? That’s ridiculous.”

“Really?” Ven Hjalmar pushed his chair back from the table. “I was under the impression that the Lee family had taught you that when visitors from other universes come calling it’s a good idea to keep an open mind.” He stood up. “Sitting around up here and trying to convey the appearance of being in charge of the situation is all very well, but perhaps it would be a good idea to take a more hands-on approach before the enemy get inside your decision loop—”

A deep thudding sound vibrated through the walls and floor, rattling the crockery and shaking a puff of plaster dust from the ceiling.

“Damn.” Reynolds flipped open the lid of his holster and headed towards the door. “We appear to have visitors,” he said dryly. He glanced back at ven Hjalmar. “Come along, now.”

The doctor nodded and bent to pick up his medical bag, which he tucked beneath one arm, keeping a grip on the handle with his other hand. “As you wish.”

The lights flickered as Reynolds marched out into the corridor. The two guards snapped to attention. “Follow me,” he told them. “This fellow is with us.” He strode towards the staircase leading down to the operations and communications offices below, just as a burst of rapid gunfire reverberated up the stairwell. “Huh.” Reynolds drew his gun.

“We need to get to ground level as fast as possible,” ven Hjalmar said urgently. “If we’re at ground level I can get you out of here, but if we’re—”

“The enemy are at ground level,” Reynolds cut him off. “They appear to be—” He listened. More gunfire, irregular and percussive, rattled the walls like an out-of-control drummer. “We can stop them ascending, however.” He gestured his guards forward, to take up positions to either side of the stairs. “We wait here until the communications staff have organized a barricade—”

“But we’ve got to get down!” Ven Hjalmar was agitated now. “If we aren’t at ground level I can’t world-walk, which means—”

But Commissioner Reynolds was never to hear the end of ven Hjalmar’s sentence.

Sir Alasdair and his men—just two had stayed behind at Site B to keep the security militia engaged—had exfiltrated to the backwoods landscape of the Gruinmarkt. The vicinity of Boston was well-mapped, crisscrossed by tracks and occasional roads and villages: maps, theodolites, and sensitive inertial platforms had built up a good picture of the key landmarks over the months since Miriam had pioneered a business start-up a couple of miles from Erasmus Burgeson’s pawnbroker shop (and Leveler quartermaster’s cellar). The Polis headquarters building, not far from Faneuil Hall, was a site of interest to Clan Security; with confirmation from Lin Lee that Reynolds and ven Hjalmar were present, it took Sir Alasdair less than an hour to arrange a counterattack.

Griben ven Hjalmar was not a soldier; he had no more (and no less) knowledge of the defensive techniques evolved by the Clan’s men of arms over half a century of bloody internicine feuding than any other civilian. Stephen Reynolds was not a civilian, but had only an outsider’s insight into the world-walkers. Both of them knew, in principle, of the importance of doppelgangering their safe houses—of protecting them against infiltration by enemy attackers capable of bypassing doors and walls by entering from the world next door.

However, both of them had independently made different—and fatal—risk calculations. Reynolds had assumed that because Elder Huan’s “Eastern cousins” came from a supposedly primitive world, and had demonstrated no particular talent for mayhem within his ambit, the most serious risk they presented was the piecemeal violence of the gun and the knife. And ven Hjalmar had assumed that the presence of armed guards downstairs (some of them briefed and alert to the risk of attackers appearing out of nowhere in their midst) would be sufficient.

What neither of them had anticipated was a systematic assault on the lobby of the headquarters building, conducted by a lance of Clan Security troops under the command of Sir Alasdair ven Hjorth-Wasser—who had been known as Sergeant Al “Tiny” Schroder, at the end of his five years in the USMC—troops in body armor, with grenades and automatic weapons, who had spent long years honing their expertise in storming defended buildings in other worlds. Nor had they anticipated Sir Alasdair’s objective: to suppress the defenders for long enough to deliver a wheelbarrow load of ANNM charges, emplace them around the load-bearing walls, and world-walk back to safety. Two hundred kilograms of ammonium nitrate/nitromethane explosives, inside the six-story brick and stone structure, would be more than enough to blow out the load-bearing walls and drop the upper floors; building codes and construction technologies in New Britain lagged behind the United States by almost a century.

It was an anonymous and brutal counterattack, and left Sir Alasdair (and Commissioner Burgeson) with acid indigestion and disrupted sleep for some days, until the last of the bodies pulled from the rubble could finally be identified. If either ven Hjalmar or Reynolds had realized in time that their location had been betrayed, the operation might have failed, as would the cover story: a despicable Royalist cell’s attack on the Peace and Justice Subcommittee’s leading light, the heroic death of Commissioner Reynolds as he led the blackcoats in a spirited defense of the People’s Revolution, and the destruction of the dastardly terrorists by their own bombs. But it was a success. And as the cover-up operation proceeded—starting with the delivery of the captives held on board the Burke to a rather different holding area ashore, under the control of guards outside the chain of command of the Directorate of Internal Security—the parties to the fragile conspiracy were able to breathe their respective sighs of relief.

The worst was over; but now the long haul was just beginning.

* * *

It was a humid morning near Boston; with a blustery breeze blowing, and cloud cover lowering across the sky, fat drops of rain spattered across the sidewalk and speckled the gray wooden wall of the compound.

The wall around the compound had sprung up almost overnight, enclosing a chunk of land on the green outskirts of Wellesley—land which included a former Royal Ordnance artillery works, and a wedge of rickety brick row houses trapped between the works and the railroad line. One day, a detachment of Freedom Guards had showed up and gone door to door, telling the inhabitants that they were being moved west with their factory, moving inland towards the heart of the empire, away from threat of coastal invasion. There had been no work, and no money to pay the workers, for five months; the managers had bartered steel fabrications and stockpiled gun barrels for food to keep their men from starvation. Word that the revolutionary government did indeed want them to resume production, and had prepared a new home for them and would in due course feed and pay them, overcame much resistance. Within two days the district’s life had drained away on flatbeds and boxcars, rolling west towards a questionable future. The last laborers to leave had pegged out the line of the perimeter; the first to arrive unloaded timber from the sidings by the arsenal and began to build the wall and watchtowers. They did so under the guns of their camp guards, for these men were prisoners, captured royalist soldiers taken by the provisional government.

After they’d built the walls of the prison they’d occupy, and the watchtowers and guardhouses for their captors, the prisoners were set to work building their own cabins on the empty ground between two converging railroad tracks. These, too, they built walls around. They built lots of walls; and while they labored, they speculated quietly among themselves about who would get the vacant row houses.

They did not have long to wait to find out.

Family groups of oddly dressed folk, who spoke haltingly or with a strong Germanic accent, began to arrive one morning. The guards were not obsequious towards them, exactly, but it was clear that their position was one of relative privilege. They had the haunted expressions of refugees, uprooted from home and hearth forever. Some of them seemed resentful and slightly angry about their quarters, which was inexplicable: The houses were not the mansions of rich merchants or professionals, but they were habitable, and had sound roofs and foundations. Where had they come from? Nobody seemed to know, and speculation was severely discouraged. After a couple of prisoners disappeared—one of them evidently an informer, the other just plain unlucky—the others learned to keep their mouths shut.

The prisoners were kept busy. After a few more carriageloads of displaced persons arrived, some of the inmates were assigned to new building work, this time large, well-lit drafting offices illuminated by overhead skylights. Another gang found themselves unloading wagonloads of machine tools, lightweight precision-engineering equipment to stand beside the forges and heavy presses left behind by the artillery works. Something important was coming, that much was clear. But what?

* * *

“What is this—hovel?” demanded the tall woman with the babe in arms, pausing on the threshold. She spoke hochsprache, with an aristocratic Northern accent; the politicals in their striped shirts, burdened beneath her trunk, didn’t understand her.

Heyne shrugged, then turned to the convicts. “Leave it here and report back to barracks,” he told them, speaking English. He watched as they deposited the trunk, none too softly, and shuffled away with downturned faces. Then he gestured back into the open doorway. “It’s where you’re going to live for a while,” he told her bluntly. “Be thankful; this nation’s in the grip of revolt, but you’ve got a roof over your head and food on the table, and guards to keep you safe.”

“But I—” Helena voh Wu stepped inside and looked around. Raw brick faced with patches of crumbling plaster stared back at her; bare boards creaked underfoot.

The other woman was more practical. “Help me move this inside?” she said, looking up at him as she bent over one end of the trunk. The boy, free of her hand, dashed inside and thundered up the stairs, shouting excitedly.

“Certainly, my lady.” Heyne picked up the other end of the trunk and helped her maneuver it past the other woman. It gave them both a polite excuse to ignore her hand-wringing dismay.

“Is there any bedding? Or furniture?” she asked quietly.

“Probably not.” They finished shoving the trunk against the inner wall of the front room, and Heyne straightened up. “The previous tenants shipped out a week since, and stripped their houses of anything worth taking. The matter’s in hand, though. We’ve got plenty of labor from the politicals in the workshop. Tell me the basics you need and I’ll put in an order for it.” He looked around. “Hmm. They really stripped this one.” Walking through into the kitchen, he tutted. “Complete kitchen set, table and chairs, pots, a stove if we can find one. Beds”—he glanced over his shoulder—“for three of you.” Walking to the back, he stared through the grimy window into the yard. “Chamber pots. Let’s check the outhouse.”

Outside in the sunlight, Kara spoke quietly. “I know we’re refugees, dependent on the generosity of strangers. But Helena can’t be the first like this…?”

Heyne glanced back at the terraced house and shook his head. “No, she isn’t. Most people go through something like it, sooner or later; but they get over it eventually.” He looked back at the outhouse. “Good, they left the toilet seat. My lady, I know this accommodation is not up to your normal standards, but the fact is, we’re beginning again from scratch, with barely any resources. We’re lucky enough that Her Majesty negotiated a settlement with the revolutionaries that gives us this compound, and resources to … well, I’m not sure I can talk about that. But we’re welcome here for now, anyway, and we’re not going to starve.” He turned and headed back through the kitchen door, glanced through into the front room—where Helena was sitting on the trunk, rocking slowly from side to side—and then climbed the creaking staircase to the top floor and the two cramped bedrooms below the attic.

The young boy was still crawling around the empty south-facing bedroom, jumping up and down and making-believe in some exciting adventure. Heyne tested the windows. “The glass is all here and the windows open. Good.”

“How long will we be here?” Kara asked bluntly.

“As long as they want to keep us.” He shrugged. “You don’t want to go back home, my lady.” His eyes lingered a moment too long on her stomach. “Not now, maybe not ever.”

“But my husband—”

“He’ll make it out here.” Heyne’s tone brooked no argument, even though his words were spoken with the voice of optimism rather than out of any genuine certainty. “Don’t doubt it.”

“But if we can’t go back”—she frowned—“what use are we to them?”

Heyne shook his head. “Nobody’s told me yet. But you can be sure Her Majesty has something in mind.”

* * *

Stumbling through workdays like nothing he’d ever seen before, walking in a numb haze of dread, Steve Schroeder had spent the weeks since 7/16 waiting for the other shoe to fall.

There was the horror of the day’s events, of course, and then the following momentous changes. Agent Judt sitting in one corner of the office for the first week, a personal and very pointed reminder that he’d accidentally turned down the kind of scoop that came along once in a lifetime—a chance to interview Osama bin Laden on September the twelfth—and then the consequences as the scale of the atrocity grew clearer. Then the surreal speech by the new president, preposterous claims that had no place in a real-world briefing; he’d thought WARBUCKS was mad for half an hour, until the chairman of the Joint Chiefs came on-screen on CNN, gloomily confirming that the rabbit hole the new president had jumped down was in fact not a rabbit hole at all, but a giant looming cypher like an alien black monolith suddenly arrived in the middle of the national landscape—

And then the India-Pakistan war, and its attendant horrors, and the other lesser reality excursions—the Israeli nuclear strike on Bushehr, the riots and massacres in Iraq, China’s ballistic nuclear submarine putting to sea with warheads loaded and the tense standoff in the Formosa Strait—and then the looking-glass world had shattered, breaking out of its frame: the PAPUA Act, arrests of radicals and cells of suspected parallel-universe sympathizers, slower initiatives to bring forward a national biometric identity database, frightening rumors about the military tribunals at Guantánamo that had so abruptly dropped out of the headlines—

One day, after a couple of apocalyptic weeks, Agent Judt wasn’t there anymore. And when a couple of days later the president had his third and fatal heart attack and there was a new president, one who spoke of known unknowns and unknown unknowns and seemed to think Dr. Strangelove was an aspirational role model, there was a new reality on the ground. The country had gone mad, Steve thought, traumatized and whiplashed by meaningless attacks: 9/11 and strange religious fanatics in the Middle East had been bad enough, but what was coming next? Flying saucers on the White House lawn? Not that there was any White House lawn for them to land on, anymore. (WARBUCKS had promised to rebuild, once the radiation died down, but that would take months or years.)

Two weeks after the attack, Steve went to see his HMO and came away with a prescription for Seroxat. It helped, a bit; which was why, on his way home from a day shift one evening, he was alert enough to realize he was being followed.

Downtown Boston was no place to commute on wheels. Like most locals, Steve relied on the T to get him in and out, leaving his truck in a car park beside a station. He didn’t usually pay much attention to his fellow passengers—no more than enough to spot a seat and keep a weather eye open for rare-to-nonexistent muggers—but as he got off a Green Line streetcar at Kenmore to change lines something drew his attention to a man stepping off the carriage behind him. Something familiar about the figure, glimpsed briefly through the crowd of bodies, triggered a rush of unease. Steve shivered despite the muggy heat and hurried across the tracks behind the streetcar, heading for his own platform. It can’t be him, he told himself. He spooked and ran. He looked around behind him, but the half-recognized man wasn’t there anymore.

What to do? Steve shook his head and hunkered down, waiting for the C Line train to North Station.

He knew something was wrong about five seconds after his train began to squeal and shudder away from the platform; knew it from the hairs on the back of his neck and the slight dip of his seat as the man behind him leaned forward, putting his weight on the seat back. “Hello, Steve.”

He tensed. “What do you want?” It was hot in the streetcar, but the skin in the small of his back felt icy cold.

“I’m getting off at the next stop; don’t try to follow me. I think you might like to have a look at these files. There’s an email address; mail me when you want to talk again.” A cheap plastic folder bulging with papers thrust over the seat back beside him like an accusing affidavit. He caught it before it spilled to the floor.

“What if I don’t want to talk to you?” he asked thinly.

The man behind him laughed quietly. “Give it to your FBI handler. He’ll shit a brick.”

The streetcar slowed; Steve, too frightened to look round as the man behind him stood up, clutched the folio to his chest. Jesus, I can’t just let him get away—

Too late: The doors opened with a hiss of compressed air. Steve began to turn, caution chiding him—He might be armed—but he was too late. Mike Fleming, Beckstein’s friend, had disappeared again. Steve subsided with another shudder. Fleming knows too damn much, he thought. He’d known about 7/16 before it happened. What if he was telling the truth? What if it’s an inside job? The prospect was unutterably terrifying. The looking-glass world news nightmare that had engulfed everything around him a month ago was bad enough; the idea that there really was a conspiracy behind it, and his own government shared responsibility for it, left Steve feeling sick. This was a job for Woodward and Bernstein, not him. But Bob Woodward was dead—one of the casualties of 7/16—and as for the rest of it, there was no one else to do whatever needed doing. I could phone Agent Judt, he told himself. I could.

A week or two ago, before the latest wave of chaos, he’d probably have done so immediately. But the end-times chaos of the past month had unhinged his reflexive loyalty to authority just as surely as it had reinforced that of millions of others. He unzipped the folio and glanced inside quickly. There was a cover sheet, laser-printed; he began reading.