“Hello?”
“Someone’s coming, got to clear down now. I’ll call later.”
(Click.)
“Wait—”
(Dial tone.)
END RECORDING
An attorney’s office in Providence was an unlikely setting to look for a government-in-exile, but it suited Iris just fine. The boy’s smart, she decided. Smart and discreet were interchangeable in this context: Nobody would bat an eyelid at an attorney receiving numerous visitors, some of them shady, some at odd times of day. It was the next best thing to a crack house as an interchange for anonymous visitors, with the added advantage of being less likely to attract attention in its own right.
This would be harder than dealing with Dr. Darling.
“I’ll walk,” she told Mhara as her young companion opened the minivan door for her. Bad idea to look weak.
“Yes, milady . . .”
Something about her tone of voice caught Iris’s attention. “Yes?” she said sharply.
“By your pardon, milady, but will you be expecting me to . . . you know?”
Iris sighed. “Absolutely not,” she said, in a more gentle tone of voice. “I’m here to talk, not to clean up loose ends; you don’t need to worry about conflict of interests. You can leave your kit in the trunk if you want.”
“Thank you, milady.” Mhara sounded relieved; but, Iris noticed, she made no move to jettison her shoulder bag. “That won’t be necessary.”
Iris made her way slowly past the unmanned reception desk towards the elevator beyond. Looking up, she noticed the CCTV camera and paused, giving it time for a good look at her. Then she shuffled forward and pressed and held the call button.
“Iris Beckstein,” she said. “His lordship is expecting me.”
The lift doors opened. Iris gave Mhara an ironic little smile. “After you,” she said.
“Thank you milady.” Mhara held the lift open for her—redundantly—looking slightly puzzled. “Why is there no security?” she asked as the doors closed.
“You didn’t notice, did you?” Iris asked. Mhara shook her head. “This used to be a level two safe house, before they let it out for commercial rent ten years ago. They recommissioned it a few months ago, at a guess, after that bastard Matthias went over the wall. If we weren’t expected, the doors wouldn’t have opened. And if we’d tried to force the issue”—she raised her walking stick ironically—“the sprinkler system isn’t for putting out fires.”
“Ugh.” Mhara looked at the ceiling, her eyes widening as she noticed the black Perspex hemispheres in two corners.
Naïve, but give her time . . . Iris waited, trying to prepare herself for the coming confrontation.
The elevator car stopped and the doors slid open. “After you.”
Iris gestured towards the door opposite, then shuffled after Mhara. A moment later, the door opened. “Your ladyship?” The polite young man in a suit that didn’t quite conceal his shoulder holster held the door open. “They’re waiting for you in the boardroom.”
“Really?” Iris smiled tightly. “Mhara, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait outside.”
“Certainly, milady—”
“I can see to her comfort.”
“You will.” Cutting their chatter dead, Iris picked up her pace and hobbled past him, leaning heavily on her stick. It would be the second door on the left, if they’d followed the standard layout. . . .
The boardroom was small, dominated by a huge meeting table surrounded by chairs designed to keep their occupants from falling asleep prematurely. The door’s reinforced frame, and the shuttered box on one wall—a discreet cabinet that might equally hide a projection screen or an expensive plasma TV as anything more exotic—were the only obvious signs to distinguish it from a meeting room in any other law firm’s office. Iris opened the door with some difficulty and slipped through it with a sigh of relief as a very different polite young man held it open, scowling. “You’re late, aunt,” he said.
“Heavy traffic on the interstate.” She gestured at an empty chair. “If you don’t mind, Oliver?” Then she nodded at the room’s other occupants. “Ah, Captain. Or should that be Major? I gather congratulations are in order. Julius, was it your idea?”
“No idea what you’re talking about!” said the turkey-necked oldster at the head of the table. “But it’s good news all the same.”
“Yes, well.” Oliver, Earl Hjorth, pulled a chair out for her. She lowered herself into it gratefully. “I gather our number one problem has been removed from the map by our number two problem. Or is that a slight oversimplification?”
“Very probably.” The possibly newly promoted Earl Riordan put down the document he’d been studying and stared at her, his blue eyes cold as a mountain lake in winter. “If you don’t mind waiting, milady, we are expecting one more participant, in a nonexecutive capacity.”
“Oh?” Iris asked, as the door opened again.
“Hi, everybody! Am I late? Oh! Iris! How are you? . . .”
Olga seemed flustered, but happy to see her—as indeed she should be. Iris suppressed a smile. “No time for social niceties, child! We have a meeting to start.”
“Yes.” Riordan raised an eye at her. “And what delayed you, my dear?”
“A traffic accident.” Olga’s smile vanished. “Fatal. On Route 95.”
“Ah.” Iris glanced sideways as Oliver scribbled something on his notepad.
“Well, we’re all here now,” Iris commented. “Aside from the absentees. So if you’d care to start? I assume you have an agenda in mind?”
“Yes.” Riordan’s cheek twitched. “Let’s see: attending . . . everyone on the list, yes. Apologies, none. Absent due to death: Henryk Wu-Thorold, Peffer Hjorth, Mors Hjalmar, Erik Herzog, Lars Thorold. Scheisse . . . New attendees include Patricia Thorold-Hjorth, Oliver Hjorth replacing Mors Hjalmar, Olga Thorold replacing myself, myself deputizing for Angbard Lofstrom. We are quorate—just barely. The agenda—look under your notepad, it probably got covered up. If you don’t mind, as we’re starting late, I’d like to begin by calling Lady ven Thorold to report on the current medical prognosis of the principal security officer. Then we’ll proceed onto matters arising and work out where we go from there. Olga?”
“Oh. Right.” Olga looked almost comically blank for a moment, then reached into her handbag to remove a day planner bulging with notes. “To recap, the duke has been in the high dependency unit for six days now, and he isn’t dead. He’s even showing some signs of awareness and trying to communicate. That’s the good news. The bad news is, he isn’t getting any better. Let me just go over what Dr. Benford told me. . . .”
She rattled on for almost ten minutes. “He is much the same,” she concluded. “His recovery is slow, and he betrays holes in his memory. He has trouble with names, and his left arm is still very weak.”
She put her day planner down and leaned back in her chair, looking almost bored. Well, she’s had longer to adjust to this than the rest of us, Iris considered. Beneath the blond mop—and Olga could play the blond airhead role for all it was worth when she wanted to—there was a very sharp young mind. She doesn’t think he’s coming back. Iris suppressed a pang of horror. Oh my brother, why did you have to do this to us now, of all times?
“In short, his grace is unlikely to join Sky Father in his halls this month, but he will probably not be issuing orders in the short term. We may hope that he will recover sufficiently to conduct his private affairs, and possibly even to resume the leadership of Security—but this is likely to take months, or years.” She leaned back and crossed her arms, tired and defensive. “All yours, cuz.”
“If I may interrupt?” Julius sat up slightly. Oh, come on—Iris bit back on her response. Julius had always had a sharp mind behind that slightly vague façade; as one of the last of the elder generation of power brokers still standing, he called for a certain wary respect—but he also had a tendency towards unhurried meandering, which had grown worse in recent years.
“You have the floor.” Riordan nodded and made a note on his pad. The cassette recorder at his left hand was turning, red LED steady: Preparing the minutes would be a sensitive job.
“Thank you. As chair of the Council of Families, I would like to note on the record that in view of the current emergency, we cannot allow the seat of principal security officer to remain empty. I therefore propose that until the duke reclaims his throne, or until the council of families votes to replace him, Earl-Major Riordan should continue to execute security policy in his stead. As for the direction of that policy, I believe the best way of ensuring impartiality is to place it in the hands of a committee. Such as this one, assembled as it is to evaluate the situation—I believe all interests are adequately represented? Earl Hjorth?” He turned to Iris. “Your grace?”
Oliver was staring at her, too. Iris nodded slowly, gathering her thoughts. “It could fly. But you’ve missed someone out,” she said after a moment. “And I want to see some limits. . . . Six months, or the death of a member, and it goes to an emergency session of the full council, not just this security subcommittee.”
Oliver was nodding, but Riordan looked irritated. “An emergency session could be difficult to arrange—”
“Nonsense. This is a policy committee, not the executive. You have an emergency? You handle it. But for policy—we have differences.” Oliver stopped nodding. “I won’t lend my name to an office that can outlive my approval.”
“You’re talking coalition,” said Julius.
“Yes, exactly.” She winked at Oliver. “I don’t think any of us want to see a return to the old ways. Let’s not leave ourselves open to temptation.” In the old days, assassination was a not-unheard-of tool for manipulating the collective will.
Riordan cleared his throat. “You said you thought we were missing a member,” he said.
“Yes.” She picked up her water glass and took a sip. “There are two aspects to this job: How we pacify our homeland and how we deal with the American authorities. When it comes to the former, it would appear that my daughter is”—she swallowed again—“holding an extremely useful asset. And I gather the central committee”—she nodded at Julius—“have already considered her potential as a tool of state. But, speaking as one who knows her mind, I must warn you that if you think you can use her purely as a puppet you’re mistaken. She’s a sharp blade; if you don’t want to cut yourself, you’ll need to get her to wield herself. And the best way to do that is to co-opt her. Offer her a seat on this committee and listen to her input.”
“Ah.” Oliver picked up his pen, twirled it between his fingertips in thought. “Who do you propose should step down to vacate a seat for her?”
Iris saw Olga begin to open her mouth and pushed on. “I don’t. You”—she pointed at the earl—“are here to represent your circle. He”—Riordan—“is Clan Security. Julius is our council overseer; she”—she pointed at Olga, whose eyes widened—“happens to have new party sympathies”—as close to a lie as I’ve told all day—“and as for me, I’m here to make sure nobody poisons my half-brother.” Her cheek twitched. “Call me an insurance policy.” She crossed her arms and waited.
“I thought you were in favor of marrying her off? Integrating her as fast as possible,” Oliver accused.
“That was then, this is now.” Iris shrugged. And what you think has very little to do with the truth of the matter. . . . “You don’t still think I’m trying to undercut your inheritance?”
“Ach.” Oliver shook his head. “That’s of secondary importance, compared to the mess we’ve got to clean up! I am prepared to set the matter aside for a period of, say, a year and a day, then submit it to mutually agreed arbitration. In the interests of ensuring that there is a future in which I can peacefully enjoy my inheritance, you understand. If you think her claim can be made to stick—”
“We’ve got some extra help there.”
Riordan spoke up. “The betrothal was witnessed. Not just by our relatives, and it seems there were survivors. No less a notable than the Duke of Niejwein himself, although how he got away—and he kept what he knew to himself when Egon came calling—”
“Ah.” Julius looked relieved. “So we have a friendly witness.”
“Not exactly.” Riordan looked pained. “Lady Olga? . . .”
“We’ve got him in a lockup in this world. I had him brought over here as a security precaution—he’s less likely to escape.”
“Have him witness publicly before his execution,” Iris suggested. “Offer him amnesty for his family and estates if he cooperates.”
“I know Oskar ven Niejwein,” Oliver muttered darkly. His eldest living son, Iris realized. “Better hang ’em all afterwards. It’s the only way you’d be safe from him.”
“No!” Iris’s head whipped round as Riordan spoke. “What does royalty trade in?” he asked, meeting her surprised gaze.
“Royalty trades in power.”
“Huh.” His frown deepened. “I don’t think so. Oliver?”
“It trades in law,” Earl Hjorth said easily, “its ability to rule well.”
“No, that’s wrong, too.” Riordan glanced at Olga. “What do you think?”
“Consistency?” she offered, with a raised eyebrow.
“Close.” Riordan straightened in his chair. “Royalty trades on belief. A king is just one man, but if everybody in the kingdom believes in him, with the blessing of the gods, he reigns. We know this—we have been touched by this Anglischprache world—even if our benighted countrymen remain ignorant. Kings only reign if people believe they are kings. The belief follows the actions, often as not—the exercise of power, the issuing of laws—and is encouraged by consistency in leadership.
“We need Niejwein alive and believing we hold the throne by right of inheritance, not conquest, and reminding anyone who asks. If he’s dead, people will forget his words if it conveniences them to do so. So I second Patricia Thorold-Hjorth’s recommendation that Countess Helge be offered a seat on the security committee. And while we can and must make an example of some of the rebels, Niejwein must live.”
“So do we have a general agreement?” Iris asked. “An ad hoc policy committee to sit for six months until relieved by a full council session, ruling in the name of Helge’s unborn child, with Helge co-opted as a member of the committee and responsibility for Clan security resting with the major?”
Riordan glanced at the agenda in front of him. “There’s a lot more to it than that,” he pointed out.
“Yes. But the rest is small print—these are the big issues. I call for an informal show of hands: Is a solution along the lines I just outlined acceptable in principle to you all?”
She glanced around the table. Riordan nodded. “Votes, please. Non-binding, subject to further negotiation on the details,” he added, heavily. “So we know whether it is worth our while to continue with this meeting.”
Hands began to go up. Iris raised hers; a moment later, Oliver Hjorth grimaced and raised his.
“I see nobody objects.” Riordan nodded. “In that case, let us start on the, ah, small print. I believe you submitted a draft list of actions, my lord Julius? . . .”
Coronation
It had been a busy three weeks for Mike Fleming. An enforced week of idleness at home—idleness that was curiously unrestful, punctuated by cold-sweat fear-awakenings at dead of night when something creaked or rattled in the elderly apartment—was followed by a week of presenteeism in the office, hobbling around with a lightweight cast on his foot and a walking stick in his hand, doing make-work to ease him back into the establishment. Then one morning they’d come for him: two unsmiling internal affairs officers with handcuff eyes, who told him that his security clearance was being revalidated and escorted him to an interview suite on the thirteenth floor of an FTO-rented office building.
The polygraph test itself was almost anticlimactic. It wasn’t the first time that Mike had been through one; and I’ve done nothing to be ashame
d of, he reminded himself as they hooked him up. He focused on the self-righteous truth: Unless the system was so corrupted that sharing honest concerns with his superior officer was now an offense, he was in the clear.
So the questions about his alcohol consumption, political leanings, and TV viewing habits came as something of an anticlimax.
They sent him home afterwards, but early the next day a courier dropped by with a priority letter and a new identity badge, clearing him to return to duty. So Mike hobbled out to his car again and drove to work, arriving late, to find he’d missed a scheduled meeting with Dr. James and that there was a secret memo—one he wouldn’t have been allowed to set eyes on two days earlier—waiting for him to arrive at his desk.
“I’m supposed to give you access to the GREEN SKY files,” Marilyn Shipman said, her lips pursed in prim disapproval. Mike couldn’t tell whether it was him she disapproved of, or merely the general idea of giving someone, anyone, access to the files. “For transcription purposes only. Room 4117 is set up with a stand-alone PC for you to use, and I can bring the files to you there one at a time.”
“Ah, right.” Mike gestured at his desk. “I’ve got a lexicon and some other research materials. Can I bring them along?”
“Only if you don’t mind leaving them there.” Shipman paused. “Paper goes into the room but nothing comes out until it’s been approved by the classification committee. Depending on their classification, I could make an authorized copy and have it added to the room’s permanent inventory. But if they’re another codeword project . . .”
“I don’t think so, but I’ll have to check.” Mike suppressed a momentary smile at her expression of shock. Some of the spooks who’d ended up in FTO were halfway human, but others seemed to take the form of their procedures more seriously than the actual substance. Like Ms. Shipman, who—he had a mental bet going with his evil twin self—would probably be less offended if he exposed himself to her than by his momentary forgetfulness about the classification level of his own notebook.
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