The Revolution Trade (Merchant Princes Omnibus 3)

by Charles Stross

  ‘Yeah. Let’s get the hell out of here!’

  Methodical as always, his last action before they caught the elevator back down to the toilet – and thence to the wooden scaffold in a swamp in the Sudtmarkt – was to lock the door, and then empty half a tube of Krazy Glue into the keyhole.

  The dead guard would be discovered, but the body of a junkie was unlikely to trigger a tear-down search of an entire department store. The locked door might be noticed, but if so, would either be ignored or generate a low-priority call to Facilities, who might or might not respond the same day. The rearranged boxes might be noticed, but probably wouldn’t be – nobody cleaned inside that room on a regular basis. And the out-of-place janitor’s cart might irritate someone into trying to move it, but in that case they’d discover its wheels were stuck and its contents were inconveniently heavy. True stealth, intruder number one’s superior had explained, is made of lots of little barriers that are not apparent to the enemy.

  If anyone penetrated the final barrier and actually looked inside the waste bin in a janitor’s cart in a locked room on the top floor of a department store, they would discover a sleeping horror.

  But they’d have to do it fast: The timer would count down to zero in less than eighteen hours.

  *

  ‘What have you not been telling me?’

  Miriam leaned on the back of the visitor’s chair in the wood-paneled office, unwilling to sit down or comply with the usual polite rituals of an office visit. For his part, the office’s owner looked equally unhappy. Miriam’s arrival (accompanied by a squad of personal retainers, including both Brilliana and Sir Alasdair) had clearly disrupted his plans for the day.

  ‘Lots,’ Riordan snapped. Then he paused to visibly gather his wits. ‘Please excuse me, this is not a good time . . .’

  ‘It never is.’ Miriam’s stomach churned. Dyspepsia was a constant companion right now, along with weird aches and odd food cravings. And she’d had to ride piggyback on one of her guards to get here, which indignity didn’t improve her mood. ‘I’m talking about the special weapons. I gather there are complications.’

  Behind her, Brilliana shifted from foot to foot; Riordan leaned back in his chair, steepled his fingers, and stared at her. It was a mannerism blatantly modeled on Angbard’s style, but he didn’t have the gravitas to carry it off. The poor bastard’s as out of his depth as I am, she realized. We’re both aping the absent experts.

  ‘Someone blabbed,’ he said flatly. ‘Tell me. I need to know.’

  ‘It was – ’ Brill stopped abruptly at Miriam’s look.

  ‘You don’t need to answer him,’ Miriam told her. ‘Baron.’ She fixed him with a stare of her own – this one not modeled on anyone, even her mother. ‘Here are the facts as I know them. Some idiot a generation ago sneaked a couple of our people through an Army or Air Force technical school and got them qualified in the care and handling of special weapons. More recently, someone else, also an idiot, decided that having a brace of special weapons to hand was a good idea; just knowing where to steal them in a hurry wasn’t good enough. Angbard trusted Matthias, Matthias had the keys to the kingdom, and when he defected he took at least one of the weapons as a fallback insurance policy. The Family Trade Organization sent it back to us, up near Concord. But it wasn’t the only weapon we’d stolen, and they want the others back. So where are they? You know who’s supposed to be in charge of them. What’s going on?’

  Riordan wilted suddenly. ‘My lady. Please. Have a seat.’

  ‘You’ve lost them, haven’t you?’

  ‘Scheisse,’ murmured Sir Alasdair. ‘Sorry.’

  Riordan glanced at her bodyguard, then back at Miriam. ‘Not . . . exactly. I’m not in charge of them. The Clan Council entrusted them to someone else.’

  ‘Oh.’ Miriam rolled her eyes. ‘You’re going to tell me that after Angbard’s illness and in the absence of a track record showing where you stood they didn’t see fit to entrust you with them. So they gave them to that fuckup Oliver Hjorth to sit on.’

  ‘Oliver’s not a fuckup.’ Riordan’s tone was distinctly defensive. ‘I appreciate that you and he got off to a very bad start, that he’s seen fit to align himself with a faction that you have a predisposition against, and all the rest of it. But he is neither stupid or lazy, much less unreliable. Usually.’

  ‘Usually.’

  It hung in the air for a moment, before Riordan replied. ‘Nobody has seen him for two days.’

  ‘Nobody has – ’ Miriam blinked. ‘You’re kidding. You’re Clan Security. You’re telling me you’ve lost track of the official the Council put in charge of half a dozen atom bombs?’

  ‘Milady – ’ It was Brill.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘He can’t – ’ Her eyes were pleading.

  ‘Nobody can keep track of every member of the inner families,’ rumbled Alasdair. ‘We don’t have the manpower.’ Miriam looked round, to see him watching Riordan. ‘Nevertheless . . . something happened, did it not?’

  ‘I was awaiting a report,’ Riordan admitted reluctantly, ‘before calling a meeting of the Committee of Regents. And the full Council, if necessary. It is not just his lordship who is proving hard to contact.’

  ‘Who’s missing?’

  ‘Oliver, Baron Hjorth. Baron Schwartzwasser. His lordship of Gruen, Baron ven Hjalmar. About half a dozen past and present soldiers of this very office who are absent without leave, two-thirds of the Postal Committee, various others – don’t look so shocked; it’s a goodly cross section of the conservative faction, but not all of them. I happen to know that Baron Julius is sitting on the bench in the royal assizes today, and when I raised the matter he professed ignorance convincingly. My lady, they might be attending a private party, for all I know. Their political views are not a sufficient reason to condemn them, in the absence of any other evidence.’

  ‘But you don’t know where the bombs are.’ Riordan looked pained. Miriam leaned towards him. ‘And there are rumors,’ she hissed. ‘A lot of whispering about revenge and honor. I’m not deaf, I’ve got ears to hear this stuff with. What do you think is going on?’

  Riordan tensed, and she thought for a moment that he was about to reply, but at that moment the door opened. ‘I said we weren’t to be – oh. My lady.’ He rose to his feet as Miriam turned.

  ‘Helge? What are you doing here?’ Olga glanced round tensely as she closed the door. ‘I see.’ She focused on the office’s owner. ‘My lord, we need to talk about Plan Blue, right now. Helge, I beg of you, please excuse us – ’

  ‘It’s too late for that.’ Riordan frowned. ‘Helge was just asking me about – about Plan Blue.’

  ‘Plan Blue?’ Miriam echoed.

  Alasdair cleared his throat. ‘Is that the contingency plan for – ’ He cleared his throat again, and raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Oh scheisse,’ said Brill, despair in her voice.

  ‘The bastards have activated it,’ said Olga, her voice tightly controlled. ‘And I do not recall being invited to a plenary session to approve such action. Do you? It’s unforgivable!’

  ‘Plan Blue?’ Miriam repeated.

  ‘Excuse me.’ Riordan nodded at her. ‘My apologies, my lady, but I must make a call.’ He lifted the telephone handset and began to dial, then paused. ‘That’s funny. There’s no tone.’

  ‘Give that to me.’ Miriam reached for it. The handset was dead, mocking her. ‘Um, you’ve got a dead line. Could you have been cut off by accident, or is that too improbable?’

  ‘Enemy action,’ said Sir Alasdair. ‘My lady, over here.’ He moved swiftly, gesturing Miriam away from the window and moving to stand where she’d been a moment before.

  ‘Otto Schenck admitted it to, to one of my sources,’ Olga added as Riordan poked at his desktop computer, a frown spreading on his face. ‘Boasted, belike, he said they’re going to send the enemy their king’s head on a plate – ’

  ‘It’s not going to work,’ Brill whispered.
/>   ‘What’s not going to work?’ Miriam rounded on her. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Why now? Why are they doing this now?’ Brill looked at Miriam. ‘It’s something to do with your grandmother, my lady. Her visit the other day. That was no coincidence!’

  ‘What do you – ’

  ‘We need to get out of here!’ Brill raised her voice, piercing and urgent. ‘Listen, everybody! This is a setup! We need to leave the building right now!’

  ‘Why – ’ Riordan was standing up.

  ‘She’s right, go, now!’ Olga grabbed his arm.

  ‘My lady. This way.’ Alasdair yanked the door open and pulled Miriam along behind him.

  ‘But where are we – ’ Miriam stopped arguing and concentrated on not stumbling as he powered along the corridor towards a fire door. ‘Alasdair! No!’ Visions of claymore mines flashed through her mind as he stopped dead.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ he assured her with a sharkish grin. ‘I checked this one before you arrived. Besides, I don’t think they want to kill us. Immobilize us and send us a message, perhaps, but they’re not going to risk killing the heir.’ He shoved down on the emergency bar and pushed the door open. In the distance behind them, a tinny siren began to wail. ‘After me, if you please.’

  Sir Alasdair ducked round the door, then pronounced the area clear. They piled down the fire escape to the car park at the back of the small office building, Brill and Olga trailing behind. ‘What exactly is Plan Blue?’ Miriam demanded breathlessly. ‘Where’s Riordan?’

  ‘He’s got other things to do,’ said Olga. ‘My lady Brilliana, please take your mistress somewhere safe.’

  ‘Where – ’

  ‘ – Plan Blue?’

  ‘Plan Blue is the usage case for the Clan deterrent,’ Brill explained as they climbed into Sir Alasdair’s Explorer. ‘A decapitation strike at the enemy.’

  ‘Oh Jesus. Tell me that doesn’t mean what I think it means.’

  ‘I fear I cannot.’

  ‘Olga, what is Riordan doing?’

  ‘He’s going to find a phone.’ She frowned. ‘Oh, there he is now . . .’

  Miriam turned her head to see Riordan round the side of the building, holding a briefcase. He was walking towards them. Olga popped the door.

  ‘Drive,’ he said, climbing in. ‘I’ve got to make a call. Once it connects, they’ll be trying to trace us, so on my word pull into a car park so I can ditch this thing.’

  Brill stared at the case as if it contained a poisonous reptile. ‘Is this safe?’ she asked.

  ‘No. You were right about it, Olga.’

  The truck was already moving as Riordan opened the briefcase. ‘What’s that?’ asked Miriam.

  ‘A special phone.’ Brill looked upset. ‘Not safe.’

  ‘Indeed.’ There was a tray in the case, with a cell phone – in several pieces – nested in separate pockets. One of them contained a small, crude-looking circuit board with a diode soldered to it; another contained a compact handset.

  ‘Why did we leave the office?’ asked Miriam.

  ‘Can’t use this phone while stationary,’ Riordan grunted. ‘And the opposition cut our lines. A nuisance measure, I think, but the timing is worrying; I think they were watching you to see if you would take their bait. And you did.’

  ‘Bait?’ She shook her head, bewildered.

  ‘You came to see me, about Plan Blue. I do not believe that is an accident.’

  ‘Bastards,’ she mumbled under her breath. Louder: ‘It was your man Carl.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Riordan said gravely. ‘All right, I am going to talk to the enemy now.’ He picked up the handset, flicked a switch on the small circuit board, and poked at the exposed keypad of the vivisected phone. ‘Dialing . . .’ The sound of a ringing phone filled the truck’s cab, coming from a speaker in the briefcase.

  ‘Hello?’ The voice answering the phone was cold.

  ‘I was told that you can send a message to the White House,’ said Riordan. ‘Is that correct?’

  Miriam’s skin crawled as she waited for the reply.

  ‘Correct,’ the voice said drily. ‘To whom am I speaking?’

  ‘You can call me the Chief of Security.’

  ‘And you may call me Dr. James. Are you calling to surrender?’

  ‘No, I’m calling to warn you that your meddling has produced an overreaction from our conservative faction. They’ve activated a plan which – fuck.’

  The line had gone dead; simultaneously, the LED on the circuit board had lit up, burning red.

  ‘They did it,’ Brill said, fascinated. ‘The bastards.’ Her actual word, in Hochsprache, was considerably stronger.

  ‘Next drive-through, please,’ Riordan called to Sir Alasdair. ‘I am afraid you are right, milady.’

  ‘What was that?’ Miriam asked, staring at the LED.

  ‘Something one of our artificers put in to replace the ten grams of C-4 wired across the earpiece,’ said Olga. ‘Is it not an ingenious little assassination weapon?’

  ‘But we’ – Miriam stared in horror – ‘we were going to warn them!’

  ‘Maybe they don’t want warning?’ Sir Alasdair asked.

  ‘But we – ’ Miriam stopped. ‘We’ve got to do something! Do you know where the bombs are?’

  ‘No,’ said Olga.

  ‘That’s the whole point of Plan Blue,’ Riordan added. ‘It’s a procedure for deployment. Nobody knows everything about it; for example, I don’t know the precise target locations. It was designed so that it can’t be disrupted if the commanders are captured, or if one of the bomb emplacement teams is captured.’

  ‘But that’s insane! Isn’t there any way of stopping it?’

  ‘Normally, yes, if the chain of command was operating. But someone appears to have decided to cut us out of the loop. I fear we are facing a coup assisted by people inside Security, my lady. I have some calls to make . . .’

  ‘We can warn them,’ said Olga, causing at least three people to ask, ‘how?’ simultaneously.

  ‘Your friend, Mr. Fleming,’ she added, glancing sidelong at Miriam. ‘He is inside their security apparat.’

  ‘So was that, that man. On the phone.’ Miriam stared at Riordan, who was busily unplugging components in the briefcase and fiddling with something that looked alarmingly like a pyrotechnic flare.

  ‘Yes, but Fleming will know how to bypass him,’ Brill said thoughtfully. ‘He will know how to escalate a bomb threat and sound a general alert. His superior may be playing foolish games, but I believe he is still trustworthy.’

  The Explorer turned a corner. ‘Stopping in a minute,’ called Sir Alasdair. ‘Are you ready?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Riordan, depressing a button on the flare and closing the briefcase. He latched it shut, then spun the combination wheels. ‘We have two minutes until we require a fire extinguisher.’

  ‘You won’t need them.’ Alasdair was already slowing, his turn signal flashing. ‘Okay, go.’ The car park outside a 7-Eleven was deserted.

  Riordan popped the door, lowered the briefcase, and then kicked it away from the truck. ‘Go yourself,’ he said. He was already opening another mobile phone, this one reassuringly unmodified. ‘Duty chief? This is the major. I have some orders for you. The day codes are – ’

  Miriam rubbed her temples. ‘Anyone got a cell phone?’ she asked.

  ‘I have,’ said Olga. ‘Why?’

  ‘Unless you can’t live without it, I want to call Mike.’

  ‘But we can – ’

  ‘I said I want to call Mike!’ Miriam snarled. ‘When I’ve spoken to him you can put me back in my padded box to gestate while you get down to finding those fucking bombs and arresting or shooting whoever stole them, but I should be the one who talks to Mike.’

  ‘Why – ’

  ‘Because I’m the only one of us he’s got any reason to trust,’ she said bleakly. ‘And I’m afraid I’m going to burn him.’

  *

&nb
sp; The clinic room could have been a bedroom in a chain hotel, if not for the row of sockets on the wall behind the bed – piping in oxygen, vacuum, and other, less common utilities – and for the cardiac monitor on a stand beside it, spreading leads like creepers to each of the occupant’s withered branchlike limbs. Outside the sealed window unit, the late afternoon sunshine parched the manicured strip of grass that bordered this side of the clinic; beyond it, a thin rind of trees dappled the discreet brick wall with green shadows.

  The man in the bed dozed lightly. He’d been awake earlier in the day, shaking in frustration as the speech therapist tried to coax words out of his larynx, and the effort – followed by an hour with the physiotherapist, working on the muscles in his damaged left arm, and then a light lunch served by a care assistant who carefully spooned each mouthful into his mouth – had tired him out. He’d been in his late sixties even before the stroke, his stamina reduced and his aches more noticeable with every morning. Since the stroke, things had only gotten worse. Afternoon naps, which he’d once disdained as suitable only for kindergartners, had become a regular daily fixture for him.

  Something – a small movement, or an out-of-place noise – brought him to consciousness. Perhaps the shadow of a bird fluttering before the window glass disturbed him, or footsteps in the corridor outside: In any case, his eyelids flickered open, staring at the ceiling overhead. ‘Urrr.’ He closed his mouth, which had fallen open as he slept, and reached for the bed’s motor controller with his left hand. His eyes twitched from side to side, scanning the angles and planes of the space surrounding him, looking for intrusions. His thumb twitched, pushing the headboard motor control, and the bed began to whine, raising him towards a sitting position.

  ‘Good afternoon, old man.’ The visitor closed the clinic room door carefully, then approached the bed, standing where its occupant could see him.

  ‘Urr . . . doc.’ Surprise and doubt sparked in the old man’s eyes. ‘Doc-tor!’

  ‘I wanted to take a last look at you. You know, before the end.’

  ‘You. End?’ The visitor had to lean close to make out the words, for Angbard’s speech was garbled, the muscles of his lips and tongue cut loose by the death of nerves in his brain. ‘Wher’ guards?’