The Revolution Trade (Merchant Princes Omnibus 3)

by Charles Stross

  ‘These aliens must belong to us – and us alone. Make it so.’

  *

  The morning after the night before: Mike Fleming jolted abruptly awake to the sensation of the world falling away beneath his back. His eyes flickered open from uneasy, distorted dreams of pursuit, a panicky sense of disorientation tearing at his attention. He glanced sideways beneath half-closed lids; the light filtering in through the thin curtains showed him a floral print hanging on pastel-painted walls, strange furniture, someone else’s decor. The jigsaw pieces of memory began to fill themselves in. Paulie Milan’s spare room. They’d ordered in a Chinese meal, sat up late talking. There ensued an uneasy tap-dance as he – unused to hospitality, living for too long without that kind of life – borrowed towels and bedding, showered, prepared for an uneasy night’s sleep. (Which largely consisted of taking off his shoes and pants, but keeping his pistol close to hand and checking out the yard from an unlit window before lying down atop the comforter.) It felt strange to be consigned to the guest room, like a one-night stand gone weirdly askew down some strange dimension of alienation. Don’t sleep too deep, he’d warned himself, only to close his eyes on darkness and open them in daylight. Well damn, but at least nobody tried to cut my throat in the night –

  He was up and standing with his back to the wall beside the door, pistol in hand, almost before he realized he’d moved. Something was amiss. His nostrils flared as he breathed in, then held his breath, listening: not to the sound of someone moving in the bathroom, or clattering in the kitchen, or voices on the radio, talking. Not. He’d slept through the normal noises of another person’s morning. What he’d noticed was their absence, and it was infinitely more disturbing.

  Voices on the radio? Talking? He could hear voices. Who –

  Mike did a double take and closed his eyes. Tried to visualize the kitchen layout. Was there a –

  Creak of a footstep on the landing. Then a tentative voice: ‘Mike? Are you awake yet?’

  His muscles turned to jelly as he sagged, lowering the pistol. He’d been unaware of the tension in his neck and shoulders, the totality of focus, his heart hammering with a flashback to a cheap motel room in Tijuana that stank of stale cigarette smoke and claustrophobia. He pointed the gun at the floor beside him, letting its weight drag his wrist down. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘We have a visitor. There’s coffee in the kitchen. Do you want me to pour you one?’

  Coffee plus visitor equals – ‘Yes.’ He glanced across the room to the bedside table where he’d left his holster. Coming down from the jittery adrenaline spike, he added, ‘I’ll be down in a couple of minutes. I need to freshen up first.’

  ‘Okay.’ Paulie’s footsteps receded down the stairs.

  Mike let out a breath, quietly shuddering, still winding down. The radio, the sudden silence, whatever had triggered his ambush reflex – it was all right. Moving carefully, he placed the pistol beside the holster, then picked up his pants from where he’d hung them over the back of a chair. A visitor almost certainly meant one of Miriam’s relatives. Paulette had admitted knowing a few of them: the ice princess, another woman called Brill. He dressed hurriedly, then slid the pistol in its holster into his trouser pocket, just in case. Not that he didn’t trust Paulette – he trusted her enough to sleep under her roof – but experience had taught him not to make assumptions when dealing with the Clan.

  He descended the stairs, carefully keeping his left hand on the rail, and glanced sideways through the kitchen doorway. The ice princess, Olga, was sitting at the breakfast bar drinking coffee. She nodded at him coolly. ‘Mr. Fleming.’

  The kitchen radio was babbling headline chatter about someone in the hospital. His jaw tensed as he stepped inside the room. ‘Good morning.’ He noticed Paulette leaning against the kitchen worktop, her eyes worried. ‘Someone mentioned coffee.’ Paulette reached out and flicked off the radio as he glanced from side to side. A big leather shoulder bag gaping open on the table, something dark and angular inside it – she wouldn’t come here unarmed – slatted blinds drawn down across the window onto the backyard –

  ‘It’s right here.’ Paulette gestured at a mug on the breakfast bar. Mike walked over and pulled a stool out, then sat down awkwardly opposite the ice princess.

  ‘How does it feel to be one of the most wanted people in the world?’ he remarked.

  ‘Why ask me? Surely you already know.’ She kept a straight face, but the chill in her voice made his pulse speed.

  ‘I didn’t murder eighteen thousand people.’

  ‘Neither did I,’ said Olga. She took a mouthful of coffee, then put her mug down. ‘The people who did that are dead, Mr. Fleming. My people took them down. Do you have a problem with that?’

  Mike opened his mouth, then closed it again.

  ‘They didn’t stop at detonating bombs in your capital city,’ Olga added. ‘They tried to murder everyone who stood in their way. It was a coup attempt.’ Her minute nod made his stomach shrink. ‘They tried to kill me, and Miriam, and everyone aligned with us. Luckily we had a tip-off. They failed; the last of the plotters was crucified yesterday morning.’

  ‘Crucified?’ Paulette’s expression was rigid.

  ‘Oh yes. After the executioners blinded and castrated them,’ Olga added, and bowed her head. ‘My father was killed in the struggle, Mr. Fleming. I’d thank you not to place your eighteen thousand dead on my shoulders.’

  Mike almost asked which faction her father had belonged to; a vestigial sense of shame stilled his tongue for a few seconds. ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ he said eventually.

  ‘But crucifixion – ’ Paulette stopped.

  ‘It was no better than they deserved. The traditional punishment for such high treason is to spread the wings of the blood eagle, then quarter the parts,’ Olga added. ‘But that hasn’t been practiced since my grandfather’s time.’

  Mike stared at his mug of coffee, and dry-swallowed. This wasn’t what he’d expected to hear. ‘You failed to stop them,’ he accused, knowing it signified nothing.

  ‘You failed too. So we’re even. Failures all round.’ The silence stretched on for half a minute. Finally Olga broke it. ‘Why did you call for help?’

  Mike shuffled on his stool uncomfortably. ‘Did you find your mole?’

  ‘We have more urgent problems right now.’ It was an evasion. Olga looked at Paulette. ‘Thank you for continuing to source provisions for us; it has been more useful than you can know, but there are some new arrangements I need to discuss with you. Things are going to be busy for a while. Mr. Fleming, there have been reports of contrails over the Gruinmarkt. We don’t have much time for idle chatter. Do you know anything about them?’

  ‘They’ve been planning some kind of incursion for at least six months,’ Mike told her. The secret, divulged, left him feeling naked. ‘I saw a spec-ops helicopter. That was before the bombs went off. They know where all the oil is, and you’re a threat to national security. But since the bombs – now – I don’t think they’ll be satisfied with their original plans.’

  ‘Do you believe they’ll use nuclear weapons?’

  ‘Will they?’ It was Mike’s turn to frown. ‘They already did: that castle up near Concord. The question isn’t whether, the question is when and how many.’ Stripped of the bloody shirt of eighteen thousand dead, these events acquired a logic of their own. ‘They’ll kill a lot of people who have nothing to do with your extended family.’

  ‘Yes.’ Olga emptied her coffee mug. ‘And so, we are taking steps to leave, to put ourselves forever beyond contact with the US government. Those of us with any sense, that is. Some refuse to see the writing on the wall, as you would say. The Clan is breaking up, you know; a generation ago the mere suggestion of an open split would have been seen as treason.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ asked Paulette.

  ‘You’ve been there, I seem to recall. On a visit.’ Olga raised an eyebrow. ‘Excuse me for not describing it in front of Mr. Fleming. Wh
en we go – I am allowed to offer you a payoff in money, or asylum if you are afraid of the authorities here: We look after our friends. But it’ll be a one-way trip.’

  ‘They’ll come after you. They’ll hunt you down wherever you run to,’ Mike predicted.

  ‘Let them try.’ Olga shrugged. ‘Mr. Fleming, I didn’t choose to fight the US government; I’m not Osama bin Laden. Your former president, he – well. We have a rule. When we do business with outsiders, we have a rule: no politicians. Mr. Cheney quit politics, in the late eighties: That’s when our West Coast subsidiary approached him – well. Water under the bridge. It was a serious oversight, but one we are in the process of rectifying. My question to you is, what are you going to do now? Paulette tells me your agency has tried to kill you. What do you want? I can give you money – we’ve got more than we know what to do with, we can’t take it where we’re going – or I can offer you asylum – ’

  ‘I want the files,’ said Mike.

  ‘The. What?’

  ‘Your files on the president.’

  ‘Huh?’ Paulette looked confusedly between them.

  ‘Mr. Cheney started this. I wouldn’t be here now if I didn’t know a deliberate provocation when I saw one. This is all happening because he wants to cover up his past complicity with the Clan, and because the existence of the Clan is now a matter of public record. An awful lot of people are going to die to cover up his secret.’ Mike’s frustration sought a way out. ‘People who have nothing to do with your nasty little family trade, or with me, or with the president. Listen, I don’t much care for you. If it was business as usual I’d arrest you right now and put you away on racketeering, money laundering, and drugs charges. Oh, and the illegal firearm.’ He gestured at Olga’s bag and she twitched a hand towards it; he shrugged. ‘But it’s not business as usual – never will be, ever again. The man who you guys have fallen out with is running my country. He’s corrupted my government, built a secret unaccountable agency with the capability to bypass the national nuclear command authority, disappeared people into underground prisons, instituted torture of state enemies; you name it, he’s done it. He’s wiped his ass on the Constitution and it’s all thanks to dirty drugs money: not directly, oh no, but you’re complicit. I don’t care what happens to you people – but I swore an oath to protect the constitution of the United States, and it looks like for the past year I’ve been working for an organization designed from the get-go to undermine it. So I want your files on Mr. Cheney, now they’re no use to you any more if you’re serious about pulling out. I want the dirt. And if you won’t give it to me, you’re worse than I think you are – and my opinion of you is pretty low right now.’

  ‘What are you going to do with the files if we give them to you?’ Olga asked.

  ‘Well, that depends.’ He glanced at Paulette. ‘I take it your work here is mostly done, or you wouldn’t have told me even that much?’ He didn’t wait for a reply. ‘I need someone who knows how the press works. And I need ammunition. Someone’s got to blow the lid on him before he eats the US government from inside – and I don’t see anyone else volunteering.’

  ‘But – ’ Paulette stopped and looked bleakly at Olga.

  ‘What?’ Mike glanced between them.

  ‘Do you want to tell him?’ asked Olga.

  Paulette shook her head wordlessly and reached across to flick on the radio.

  ‘ – Cardiac arrest on the way to Bethesda Naval Hospital. Doctors worked for three hours to try to resuscitate the president but he was declared dead at five-fourteen this morning. The vice president is meeting with advisors but is expected to appear at a press conference to make a statement imminently; we understand that Supreme Court Chief Justice Scalia is on his way to the vice president’s location to administer the oath – ’

  ‘Fuck.’ Mike stared at the radio. All his carefully considered plans crumbled. ‘Fuck.’

  ‘That’s two presidents in a month,’ said Olga. ‘I understand it’s a stressful job.’

  ‘Jesus fuck.’ Paulette looked at Mike reproachfully. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered.

  Olga was imperturbable: ‘Do you think your people will care about the misdeeds of KINGPIN’s predecessor?’

  Mike shook his head. ‘Fuck. Sorry.’ He stared at the radio. The presenter was babbling on about previous presidential emergency successions. ‘He’s dead. Why did the bastard have to die now?’

  ‘What will this new president do?’ Olga leaned toward him.

  ‘KINGPIN? He’ll – ’ Mike chuckled weakly. ‘Oh dear god.’

  ‘Dick Cheney was Mr. Rumsfeld’s assistant, wasn’t he?’ Paulette blinked, her eyes watery. ‘Back in the Ford era, or something. They’re more like partners, were more like partners, the past couple of years. Partners in crime – politics, not the Clan. President Rumsfeld is going to be just like President Cheney, only without the personal history.’

  Mike nodded. ‘You had a handle on Mr. Cheney. Mr. Rumsfeld is the same – only you’ve lost your handle.’

  ‘Oh.’ Olga sat motionless for a few seconds. ‘This fact needs to be reported.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Mike asked.

  ‘I’m going to tell certain people.’ Olga flashed him a bright, brittle smile. ‘I’m going to see if I can get you those papers – if you still want them. Then those of us with even half an ounce of self-preservation are going to run very fast . . .’

  NEVER COMING BACK

  The row of big town houses set back behind their high walls and hedges had seen better days. Every other building showed boarded-up windows to the street, the blank-eyed, gape-doored stare of ruination and downfall. Some of them – some very few – had been squatted, but for the most part the Freedom Riders had kept the dusty workless poor out of the houses of the bourgeoisie, for this was not solely a revolution of the working class.

  The big steamer huffed and bumped across last winter’s potholes, then slowed as Yul wrestled with the wooden steering wheel, swearing at it as he worked the brake handle and tried to lever the beast between stone gateposts. Miriam sat up in the back, trying to see over his shoulders for a first glimpse of the house she’d bought in this city using smuggled Clan bullion, a little over a year ago. ‘Is it – ’ she swallowed her words as the front of the building came into view.

  ‘It seems intact.’ Brilliana, next to her, added, ‘Let us examine it, my lady.’

  The boarded-up windows were still sealed, the front door barred and padlocked as one of her armsmen held the car’s door open for Miriam. ‘By your leave, my lady?’ Alasdair slid round in his jump seat. ‘I should go first.’

  Miriam bit back an instinctive irritated response. ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘Thank you.’ Sir Alasdair unfolded his legs and stood, interposing his not-inconsiderable frame between her and the facade of the building.

  ‘Wait,’ Alasdair rumbled without looking round as he moved forward. ‘Schraeder, left and rear. Yul, you stay with the car. Brunner, with me . . .’ They spread out around the house purposefully, their long coats still closed despite the summer humidity. It looked empty, but appearances could be deceptive and Sir Alasdair was not inclined to take risks with Helge’s life: He’d sworn an oath to protect her, and his people took such things seriously.

  Miriam stared at the front door as Alasdair approached it, slowing on the steps, then bending close to peer at the door handle. Beside her, Brill shifted on the bench seat, one hand going to the earpiece tucked discreetly under her hat. ‘Clear behind,’ she said suddenly. ‘Schraeder’s in.’

  I bought that house, Miriam told herself. Right now it looked as unfamiliar as her father – her adoptive father – had looked in the funeral parlor. Houses took as much of their character from the people who filled them as racks of meat on bone took from their animating personality. It had once been her home; but for the miscarriage she might now be looking to raise a child in it. Now it was just a big neglected building, a cumbersomely inanimate corpse –

  Alasdair
interrupted her morbid stream of consciousness by straightening up. He unlocked the door, opened it slowly, and stepped inside.

  ‘All clear,’ said Brill, tapping Miriam on the shoulder. ‘Let’s go inside.’

  The house was much as Miriam had last seen it, only dusty and boarded-up, the furniture looming beneath dust sheets. ‘Who organized this?’ she asked, pausing at the foot of the stairs.

  ‘I did,’ said Brill. ‘When Baron Henryk assigned the business operation to Morgan I assumed they’d want you back in charge sooner or later. Morgan didn’t like it here, he preferred to spend as much time at home as he could.’

  ‘Right. This way.’ Miriam headed upstairs in the dark, a flashlight guiding her feet. Opposite the top of the stairs was the door to the main bedroom. She pushed it open, saw daylight: The upper windows at least were not boarded up. ‘I need a hand with this.’

  ‘With what – ’

  Miriam was already kneeling near the skirting board beside the bed. Stale dust and a faint smell of mouse piss wrinkled her nose. ‘In here. Here, hold this.’ She passed Brill the loose piece of wood-work. Behind it, the brickwork was visible. ‘Pass me your knife . . .’ It took a little work, but between them they levered the two half-bricks out of their niche. Then Miriam reached inside and grabbed. ‘Got it.’

  The black cloth bag was about the size of a boot, but much heavier. Miriam grunted and lifted it onto the bed.

  ‘How much is it?’ asked Brilliana.

  ‘I’m surprised it’s still here.’ Miriam untied the knotted drawstring then thrust her hand inside. ‘Yep, it’s the real thing.’ The gold brick glinted in the afternoon light; she returned it to the bag hastily. ‘About six kilos of twenty-three-carat. It was worth a hell of a lot a year ago – God only knows what it’s worth right now.’ Stuck in a deflationary cycle and a liquidity crash with a revolution on top, gold – with or without seigniorage – was enormously more valuable than it had been when it was merely what the coin of the realm was made of. The national treasury had been stripped bare to pay for the war: That was what had started the crisis.