The Trade of Queens tmp-6

by Charles Stross

  One farmhouse looked much like another to her eye—in the Gruinmarkt they tended to be thick-walled, made from heavy logs or clay bricks depending on the locally available materials—but this one bore clear signs of battle. The roof of one wing was scorched and blackened, and the window shutters on the central building had been wrecked. More to the point—

  “Who—” she began, as Olga raised a hand and waved at the armed man standing guard by the door.

  “My lady!” He went to one knee. “Lord Riordan awaits you in the west wing.”

  “Rise, Thom. Where are Knuth and Thorson?” Olga was all business, despite what had to be a splitting headache.

  “We haven’t seen ear nor tail of them since they crossed over yesterday.” The guard’s eyes widened as he looked at Miriam: “Is this—”

  “Yes, and you don’t need to make a scene over me,” she said hastily. Turning to Olga: “The other two—they’re your missing guards?”

  “Let us discuss that indoors.” Olga nodded at the farmstead’s front door, which stood ajar. Thom followed behind like an overeager dog, happy his mistress was home. “I think Knuth and Thorson are probably dead,” she said quietly. “The two who were waiting for us definitely weren’t them.”

  Miriam nodded, jerkily. “So they were assassins? Just there to kill whoever turned up?”

  “Whoever turned up at the duty staff officer’s primary evacuation point, yes.” The picture was clear enough. The evac point had been guarded by a lance of soldiers, two on the American side and six in the Gruinmarkt. The assassins had murdered the two guards in the state park, then planned on catching Earl Riordan and his colleagues as they arrived, one by one. They hadn’t anticipated a group who, forewarned, arrived expecting skullduggery. “I expect Lady d’Ost will try and find where they hid the bodies before she comes hither to report. Come on inside, my lady.”

  The farmstead was a wreck. The guards had made a gesture towards clearing up, pushing the worst of the trashed furniture and shattered kitchenware up against one wall and sweeping the floor—the pretender’s cavalry had briefly used it as a stable—but the scorch marks of a fire that had failed to take hold still streaked the walls, and there was a persistent, faint aroma of rotting meat. The guards had brought out camp chairs and a folding table, and Riordan had set up his headquarters there, organizing the guards to man a shortwave radio and track unfolding events on a large map. He looked up as Miriam arrived. “Welcome, Your Majesty.”

  “How bad is it?” Miriam asked.

  “We’re getting reports.” He grimaced. “The evac plan is running smoothly and I’ve ordered all stations to check out the other side for unwelcome visitors. Didn’t want to say why—things will be chaotic enough without setting off a panic about a civil war. The trouble is, we’re fifteen miles out of Niejwein—the eye of the storm—half a day’s ride; and I’m not happy about disclosing your location. In the worst case our enemies may have direction-finding equipment, and if they’ve got their hands on Rudy’s ultralight … we’ve got to sit tight as long as possible. I’ve ordered Helmut to bring a couple of lances here as soon as he’s nailed down the Summer Palace and I’ve put orders out for the arrest of the entire postal committee and, I regret to say, your grandmother. We can weed that garden at our leisure once we’ve got it fenced in. Unless you have any other suggestions?”

  “Yes.” Miriam swallowed. “Is there any word of my mother? Or, or Dr. Griben ven Hjalmar? I think they’re in cahoots.…”

  Riordan glanced at one of his men and barked a question in hochsprache too fast for Miriam to follow. The reply was hesitant. “No reports,” he said, turning to Miriam. “I’ll let you know if anything turns up. I assume you’re talking about the duke’s special, ah, medical program?” Miriam nodded. “I’m on it. Now, if you wouldn’t mind—” He looked pointedly at the security guard with the radio headset, who was waving urgently for attention.

  “Go to it.” Miriam shuffled awkwardly aside, towards the doorway into the burned-out wing of the farmhouse. “What do we do now?” she asked Olga.

  Olga grimaced. “We wait, my lady. And we learn. Or you wait, I have orders to send. Please.” She gestured at the bedrolls on the hard-packed floor. “Make yourself comfortable. We may be here some time.”

  * * *

  Twenty years ago, in the rookeries of a town called New Catford, Elder Huan had known a young and dangerous radical—a Leveler and ranter called Stephen Reynolds.

  In those days, Huan had been the public face of the family’s business involvements—a discreet railroad for money and dispatches that the underground made use of from time to time. Reynolds had been Huan Lee’s contact, and for a while things had gone swimmingly. Few organizations had as great a need for secrecy as the Leveler command, and indeed Huan had toyed with the idea of disclosing the family’s secret to him—for the family’s singular talent and the needs of the terrorists and bomb-throwers and other idealists were perfectly aligned, and the pogroms and lynchings of the English, tacitly encouraged by the government (who knew a good target for the mob’s ire when they saw it—and skin of the wrong color had always been one such), did nothing to endear the authorities to him. At least the revolutionaries preached equality and fraternity, an end to the oppression of all races.

  A series of unfortunate events had closed off that avenue before Huan started down it; raids, arrests, and executions of Leveler cells clear across the country. He, himself, had been forced to world-walk in a hurry, one jump ahead of the jackboots of the Polis troopers. And that had been the end of that. The first duty of the family was survival, then profit—martyrdom in the name of revolutionary fraternity wasn’t part of the package. In the wake of the raids he’d thought Stephen Reynolds dead—until he heard the name again, in a broadcast by the revolutionary propaganda ministry. Reynolds had survived and, it seemed, prospered in the council of the Radical Party.

  This didn’t entirely surprise Elder Huan. As he had described it to his brothers, some time later, “The man is a rat—sharp as a wire, personally courageous, and curious. The Polis will have a hard time taking him.” And now the fox was in charge of a hen coop of no small size, having emerged in charge of the Annapolis Freedom Riders, then promoted to organize the Bureau of Internal Security that the party had formed to replace the reactionary and untrustworthy Crown Polis.

  Now Elder Huan—through conduits and contacts both esoteric and obscure—had arranged for a meeting with the man himself. The agenda of the meeting was to be the renewal of an old alliance. And Elder Huan intended to make Reynolds an offer that would secure the safety of the family throughout the current crisis.

  * * *

  For his part, Reynolds—a thickset fellow with brown hair, thinning at the crown, and half-moon pince-nez that gave him an avuncular appearance even when supervising interrogations—was looking forward to the meeting for entirely the wrong reasons.

  “I want you and two squads to be ready outside the front door. Place another squad round the back. Plain clothes, two steamers ready for backup.” He smiled, not warmly. Brentford, his secretary, nodded and scribbled in his notebook. “You should arrest everyone in the building or leaving it after my departure, unless I indicate otherwise by displaying a red kerchief in my breast pocket. Special Regime Blue, with added attention. The charges will be resisting arrest, treason, membership of a proscribed organization, and anything else that occurs to you. Have the Star Tribunal ready to sit on them and I’ll sign off on the execution warrants immediately. Do you have that?”

  Brentford nodded, impassive. These were not unusual orders; Citizen Reynolds took a very robust approach to dealing with subversives. “The, ah, exception, sir? Do you have any other instructions to deal with that case?”

  “No.” Reynolds made a fist, squeezing. “If anything comes up I’ll handle it myself.”

  “The danger, sir—”

  “They’re petty smugglers and racketeers, citizen. I dealt with them before, during the Long
Emergency; it’s almost a certainty that they want to deal themselves a hand at the table, in which case they’re in for a short, sharp surprise. I merely reserve the final judgment in case there’s something more serious at hand.” He stood, behind his desk, and straightened his uniform tunic, flicking invisible dust motes from one black lapel. “Plain clothes, I say again. I’ll see you at eight.”

  Reynolds strode to the door as Brentford saluted. He didn’t look back. Brentford was a reliable party man, a typical functionary of the new organization: He’d do as he was told, and look up to Reynolds as a bluff fellow who led from the front, as long as he occasionally indulged in eccentricities such as periodically going into the field to gather up nests of vipers and traitors with his own hands.

  Reynolds didn’t smile at the thought. There were risks attached to this behavior, and he didn’t hold with taking risks unless there was something he held to be personally important at stake. Maintaining his carefully constructed public image was all very well, but placing himself in front of a desperate fugitive’s knife was … it was undignified. On the other hand, sometimes it was necessary to deal with former Polis informers himself, to insure that they fell downstairs or swallowed their suicide pills. He considered it to be a small mercy—far less unpleasant than what fate held in store for them in the ungentle hands of his enthusiastic staff in Interrogations and Inquiries.

  Citizen-Commissioner Stephen Reynolds was more than willing to go into the field in person and meet past friends—especially if it meant that he could silence them before they could spill their guts to the interrogators in the BIS basements.

  * * *

  The venue Eldest Huan had chosen for the meeting was a tiny front-room bar in a public house in Menzies Gate, a run-down suburb on the edge of what, in another world, would be called Brooklyn. His foot soldiers had paid the owner handsomely to take his wife and six children and two servants and move out for the night: a three-month amnesty from protection money, and a wallet bulging with ration coupons. “I want privacy,” Huan had told One-Eye Cho, “and I want a safe exit. See to it.” The pub, unbeknownst to its owner, was colocated with a trackless forest clearing in the northern Sudtmarkt—one carved out with sweat and axe and saw by Cho’s sons. Eldest had dealt with Reynolds before, and with the Polis, and was under no illusions about the hazards of dining with devils in Secret Security Police uniforms. “Place two reliable bearers in the exit, and two armed guards. Find someone who can pass as white, and put him behind the bar with a shotgun to cover my retreat. He can be the bartender. Put another in the kitchen, who can at least provide cold cuts and soup if our guest is hungry.”

  The pub was a theater: Reynolds and Huan had both prepared scripts for the other’s benefit. The only question remaining was that of whose review would be more favorable.

  * * *

  Eight o’clock; the sky was still bright, but the shops were mostly shuttered, the costermongers and peddlers and rag-and-bone men and beggars had mostly slunk away, and the front windows of the pub were dark. Reynolds surveyed it professionally as he approached along the pavement. He’d swapped his uniform for a suit of clothes as ill-fitting—even moth-nibbled—as any he had worn during the long desperate years on the run. On the far side of the road, a couple of dusty idlers clustered near a corner; he glanced away. Down the street, a steamer sat by the curb, curtains drawn in its passenger compartment. All was as it should be. He nodded, then turned back towards the door and rapped the head of his cane on it twice.

  A spy-slot slid aside. “We’re shut.”

  “Tell your master an old friend calls.” Reynolds kept his voice low. “Remember New Catford to him.”

  The spy-slot closed. A moment later, the door opened. Reynolds slid inside.

  The pub was indeed short on customers, but as the barman shot the bolts and returned to his place, Reynolds was intrigued by the appearance of the couple sitting at the one sound table, each with a glass of beer to hand. The old Chinaman he recognized, after a pause: It was indeed the gangmaster and smuggler from New Catford who had called himself Cheung. But who was the middle-aged white man? Questions, questions. Reynolds smiled broadly as he approached the table and Cheung stood.

  “Ah, Citizen Reynolds!” cried Cheung—Reynolds suppressed a wince—and the other fellow stood, somewhat slowly. “How wonderful to see you prospering so in these harsh times. Please, this is my associate Dr. ven Hjalmar, a physician. Please have a seat. Beer? Spirits? Have you eaten?”

  Reynolds negotiated the social minefield and sat, without glancing at the bartender—whose impassivity told him more than he needed to know about his loyalties. Most professional, he decided: Cheung clearly knew what he was about. Which suggested a simple wrap-up might be difficult—but then, the presence of the doctor implied that this might be rather more complex than the usual pathetic blackmail attempt. “A beer would be welcome. I gather you had a business proposal you wanted to bring to my attention?”

  “Oh yes, indeed.” Cheung smiled happily. “To your very good health!” He raised his glass. Reynolds perforce followed suit and submitted to another five minutes of trivial niceties. “We considered putting some elements of this proposal to you all those years ago, in Catford, but the unfortunate excess of zeal displayed by the Polis impressed upon us the need for discretion. Now, however, anything we choose to confide in you is unlikely to be beaten out of you by the royalist inquisitors. So: another toast, to our future business success!”

  Reynolds blinked as he answered the toast: This was very much not what he’d been expecting. “I’m afraid you have the better of me,” he admitted. “What business do you have in mind?”

  Cheung glanced around before he replied. “You must have realized that I had a most effective way of moving dispatches and contraband between locations, without fear of interception.” Reynolds nodded. “Well, that … mechanism … is still available. And I believe that, given the nature of your current engagement, you might very well find a use for it.” Reynolds nodded again, slightly perturbed. What’s he on about? he wondered. Cheung beckoned at the bartender. “Scott. Please come and stand in front of Citizen Reynolds, then make yourself scarce. Have Ang report to me in five minutes.”

  The bartender—Scott—bowed slightly, then stepped in front of the table. “Observe,” he told Reynolds. He looked away, in the direction of the archway leading to the kitchen. Then he vanished.

  “This is our family secret,” Reynolds heard Cheung saying behind him as he waved his arms through the thin air where Scott had stood: “We can walk between worlds. We have had to hold this to ourselves, in utter confidence, for generations; I’m sure you can imagine the consequences if word were to leak out in public. However, I know you to be a man of utmost probity and integrity, and in your new and elevated rank, I am certain you will recognize the desirability to keep this a secret as close to your chest as any matter of state. I brought the doctor along because he can explain to you the origins, transmission, and limits of our family talent better than I; it is hereditary, and we have never met any people to whom we are not blood kin who can do it.…”

  Reynolds swallowed: His heart was hammering. “Business,” he said hollowly. “What business?” He turned round slowly. Where had Scott gone? Was he behind him? Waiting with an axe—

  “I want to put my family at your service,” said Cheung. His expression was bland. “I am certain you will find our unique talent very valuable indeed. These are dangerous times; the party has many enemies. I hope that you—we—will better be able to defend it if we can come to a working agreement?”

  Reynolds licked suddenly dry lips. “How many of you are there?” he asked.

  “Seventy adults, able to perform at will, and their children. Two hundred other relatives, some of whose offspring may be able to do so. And Dr. ven Hjalmar has a proposal that will, I am sorry to say, strike you as something out of a philosophical romance, but which may revolutionize our capacity in the longer term, ten years or more.�
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  Reynolds glanced round again, just as a young man—half a head shorter than the absent Scott—appeared out of thin air, bowed deeply to him, and moved to take up his station behind the bar. He swallowed again, mind churning like a millrace. “How much do you want?” he asked.

  Cheung smiled. “Perhaps Dr. ven Hjalmar should start by telling you exactly what is on sale. We can discuss the price later…”

  7/16

  On the eighth floor of a department store just off Eighteenth Street NW in Washington, D.C., there was a locked janitor’s closet. Earlier that morning the police had been busy downstairs. A security guard had been found dead in a customer restroom, evidently the victim of an accidental heroin overdose. Nobody, in the ensuing fuss, had felt any need to fetch cleaning supplies from this particular closet, and so, nobody had discovered that the door was not only locked but the lock was jammed, so that the key wouldn’t turn.

  Because nobody had visited the room, nobody had called a locksmith. And because the door remained locked, nobody had noticed the presence of an abandoned janitor’s trolley, its cylindrical plastic trash can weighted down by something heavy. Nor had anyone, in an attempt to move the trolley, discovered that its wheels were jammed as thoroughly as the lock on the door. And nobody had raised the lid on the trash can and, staring inside, recognized the olive-drab cylinder for what it was: a SADM—storable atomic demolition munition—in its field carrier, connected to a live detonation sequencer (its cover similarly glued shut), a very long way indeed from its designated storage cell in a bunker at the Pantex plant in West Texas.

  The janitor’s store was approximately 450 meters—two blocks—away from Lafayette Square and, opposite it, the White House; and it was about ten meters above the roofline of that building.