The Hidden Family: Book Two of Merchant Princes

by Charles Stross

  “I don’t know.” Miriam frowned darkly, arms crossed defensively.

  “Give me the car keys, I’m going for a drive. Back late.”

  Being behind the wheel of a car cleared Miriam’s head marvelously. The simple routine of driving, merging with traffic and keeping the wheels on the icy road, distracted her from the ulcer of worry gnawing away at her guts. At Home Depot she shoved a cart around with brutal energy, slowing only when a couple of five-gallon cans of kerosene turned it into a lumbering behemoth. Afterwards she left quickly and headed for the interstate.

  She was almost a hundred and thirty miles south of Boston, driving fast, haunted by evil thoughts, when her phone rang. She held it to her ear as she drove.

  “Yes?”

  “Miriam?” Her throat caught.

  “Roland? Where are you?”

  “I’m in the hotel suite right now. Listen, I’m so sorry.”

  You will be, if I find you’re responsible, she thought. “I’ll be over in about an hour, hour and twenty,” she said. “You’re alone?”

  “Yes. I haven’t told anyone else about this room.”

  “Good, neither have I.” They’d rented the room in New York for privacy, for a safe house where they could discuss their mutual plans and fears—and for other purposes. Now all she could think of was the man in her mother’s Dumpster, eyes frozen and staring. “Do you know if Angbard got my message?”

  “What message?” He sounded puzzled. “The courier—”

  “The message about my mother.”

  “I think so,” he said uncertainly. “You sure you can’t be here any faster?”

  She chuckled humorlessly. “I’m on the interstate.”

  “Uh, okay. I can’t stay too long—got to go back over. But if you can be here in an hour we’ll have an hour together.”

  “Maybe,” she said guardedly. “I’ll see you.”

  She killed the phone and sped up.

  It took her only an hour and ten minutes to make the last sixty miles, cross town, and find somewhere to park near the hotel. As she got out of the car she paused, first to pat her jacket pocket and then to do a double take. This is crazy, she thought, I’m going everywhere with a gun! And no license, much less a concealed-carry permit. Better not get stopped, then. Having to cross over in a hurry would be painful, not to say potentially dangerous; the temporary tattoos on her wrists seemed to itch as she pushed through the doors and into the lobby of the hotel.

  The elevator took forever to crawl up to the twenty-second floor, then she was standing in the thickly carpeted silence of the hallway outside the room. She knocked, twice. The door opened to reveal Roland, wearing an immaculate business suit, looking worried. He looked great, better than great. She wanted to tear his clothes off and lick him all over—not an urge she had any intention of giving in to.

  His face lit up when he saw her. “Miriam! You’re looking well.” He waved her into the room.

  “I’m not looking good,” she said automatically, shoulders hunched.

  “I’m a mess.” She glanced around. The room was anonymous as usual, untouched except for the big aluminium briefcase on the dressing table. She walked over to the row of big sealed windows overlooking the city. “I’ve been living out of a suitcase for days on end. Why did you call me yesterday?” She steeled herself for the inevitable, ensuring that his next words came as a surprise.

  “It’s—” He looked drawn. “It’s about Olga. She’s been shot. She’s stable, but—”

  “Was it a shotgun?” Miriam interrupted, startled out of her scripted confrontation.

  “A shotgun?” He frowned. “No, it was a pistol, at close range. After you disappeared, ran or whatever, she started acting very strangely. Refused to let anyone anywhere near her chambers then moved into your apartment at House Hjorth, deeply disconcerting Baron Oliver—she did it deliberately to snub him, I think.” He shook his head. “Then someone shot her. The servants were in the antechamber to her room, heard a scuffle and shots—she defended herself. When they went in, there was blood, but no assassin to be seen.”

  Miriam leaned against the wall wearily, overcome by a sense that events were spinning out of control. “After I ran. Anything about a corpse in the orangery? Or a couple more in Olga’s rooms? We sure left enough bullet holes in the walls—”

  “What?” Roland stood up, agitated. “I didn’t hear anything about this! I got the message about you running, but not—”

  “There were two assassination attempts.” Miriam tugged at the curtains, pulling them shut. You can never be sure, she thought, chilled: even though a high building was implicitly doppelgängered, inaccessible from the other worlds, a Clan sniper in a neighboring office block could shoot and then make a clean escape as soon as they reached ground level. “The first guy wanted me in the garden. Unfortunately for their plans, Olga’s chaperone Margit turned up instead. I went back to tell Olga and ran into two guys with machine pistols.”

  “But.” Roland shut his mouth, visibly biting his tongue, as Miriam stared at him.

  “I don’t think they were working together,” Miriam added after a brief pause. “That’s why I…left.”

  “I ought to get you to a safe house right now,” said Roland. “It’s what Angbard will expect. We can’t have random strangers trying to murder Clan heiresses. That they should have shot Olga is bad enough, but this goes far beyond anything I’d known about.” He glanced at her sharply. “It’s as if I’m being kept out of the loop deliberately.”

  “Tell me about Olga?” Miriam asked. Well, we know just how reliable Angbard thinks you are. “How is she being looked after? What sort of treatment is she receiving?”

  “Whoa! Slowly. Baron Oliver couldn’t afford to look as if he was ignoring an attack under his own roof—he personally got her across to an emergency room in New York, and notified the Duke while they stabilized her. Angbard had her moved to Boston Medical Center by helicopter once she was ready: She’s in a private room, under guard.” Roland looked mildly satisfied at her expression of surprise. “She’s got round-the-clock bodyguards and hot and cold running nurses. Angbard isn’t taking any chances with her safety. We could provide bodyguards for you, too, if you want—”

  “Not an issue. But I want to visit Olga.” Miriam put her shoulder bag down on the bed. “Tonight.”

  “You can’t. She’s stable, but that doesn’t mean she’s taking visitors. She’s on a drip and pain killers with a hole in one arm and a head injury. Shock and blood loss—it took us nearly two hours to get her to the emergency room. Maybe in a couple of days, when she’s feeling better, you can see her.”

  “You said she had a head injury?”

  “Yeah. The bad guy used a small-caliber popgun, that’s why she’s still alive.” He looked at her. “You carry—”

  Miriam pulled out her pistol. “Like this?” she asked dryly. “Fuck it, Roland, if I was going to kill Olga, I wouldn’t mess around. You know damn well they were hoping to nail me instead.”

  “I know, I know.” He looked irritated and gloomy. “It wasn’t you. Nobody with half a wit says it was you, and the fools that do don’t have any pull at court. But your departure set more tongues flapping than anything else that’s happened in years; a real scandal, say the idiots. Eloping with a lady-in-waiting, according to the more lurid imaginations. It doesn’t look good to them, the shooting coming so soon after.”

  “Well, I don’t give a shit whether I look good or bad to the Clan.” Miriam stared at him through narrowed eyes. “What about my mother?” she asked.

  “Your mother? Isn’t she alright?” He looked surprised. “Is she—”

  “I went over there this morning. She phoned last night while I was away. Something about going on a long journey. Today there is a new back door in her kitchen, and a dead man’s body in the Dumpster behind her house, and not a sign of her to be found. I told Angbard that if anything happened to her, heads would roll, and I meant it.”

 
; Roland sat down heavily in the room’s armchair. “Your mother?” His face was pale. “This is the first I’ve heard of it.”

  Miriam pursed her lips. “Would Angbard tell you if he was going to order her abducted?”

  “Abducted—” Roland began to look worried. “Someone was shot on her doorstep?”

  “You’re catching on. Someone was shot with a sawed-off shotgun. And she sure as hell didn’t stuff him into a Dumpster and repair the kitchen door before leaving, or mop up the blood stains. In case you didn’t know, she’s got multiple sclerosis. She’s in a wheelchair right now, and even when the disease is in remission she walks with crutches.”

  Miriam watched him go through the stages of surprise, denial, anger, and alarm with gloomy satisfaction. “That doesn’t make sense!” he insisted. “Angbard put her under a protective watch! If someone had gotten through to her I would know about it!”

  “Don’t be so sure of yourself.”

  “But it can’t be!” He was vehement.

  “Listen, I know a shotgun wound when I see one, Roland. I stuck my finger in it and waggled it about. You know something? It was sawed-off, either that or he was shot from at least fifty feet away, and I figure that would have attracted some attention. It makes a hell of a mess. Which ward is Olga in? I have got to go and see her. What the hell is Angbard playing at?”

  “I don’t know,” he said slowly. “He’s not exactly been confiding in me lately.” Roland’s frown deepened.

  Miriam took a deep breath. “I went over to my house,” she said quietly.

  “Oh?” Roland looked slightly stunned, but it wasn’t the expression of a would-be murderer confronted by a surprisingly animated victim: He looked much the way she felt.

  “Someone searched it efficiently. They left an, uh, surprise. Behind the front door. I’m not sure what kind except that it’s probably explosive and it’s wired to the handle. Only reason I’m here is I forgot my keys and had to use the back way in.”

  “Oh shit—” He stood up, his hand going to his pocket instinctively.

  “You’re alright?”

  “Not for want of somebody trying,” she said dryly. “Seems to me that we have a pattern. First, someone tries to kill me or mess with Olga. They then try harder to kill me and succeed in killing Olga’s chaperone. I shoot one killer and leave, taking Brill with me. Olga moves into my room at the palace and someone shoots her. Meanwhile, people who should know where I’ve gone don’t, and my mother vanishes, and everywhere I’m likely to go on this side starts sprouting bombs. Can you tell me what kind of fucking pattern I am seeing here, Roland? Can you?”

  “Someone is out to get you,” he said through gritted teeth. “More than one conspiracy, by the sound of it. And they’re getting Olga by mistake. Repeatedly. For some reason. And they’re lying to me, too. And Angbard is treating me as a potential security leak, keeping me in the dark and feeding me shit.”

  “Right.” She nodded jerkily. “So what are we going to do about it?” She watched him like a hawk.

  “I think—” He came to some decision, because he took a step toward her. “I think you’d better come with me. I’m going to take you to Angbard in person and we’ll sort out this out in person—he’s over here now, taking personal control. We can accommodate you at Fort Lofstrom, a fully doppelgängered apartment, round-the-clock guards—”

  She pushed his hand away. “I don’t think so.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t think so?” He looked surprised.

  “I can look after myself, thank you,” she said coolly. “I’m making arrangements. I’ll get this sorted out by Beltaigne. One last question. Do you have any idea who might be trying to kill me?”

  “Lots of suspects with motives, but no evidence.” Puzzlement and worry mingled in his expression. For a moment he looked as if he was about to say something more, then he shook his head.

  “Well then, that means I win because I do know roughly who’s trying to kill me,” she said, gloomily triumphant. “And I’m going to flush them from cover. Your clue is this: They’re not part of the Clan, and a doppelgängered house on the other side is no defense—but they can’t get at me while I’m here.”

  “Miriam,” he rolled his eyes. “You’re being paranoid. I’ll get your mother’s house checked out immediately, but you’ll be a lot safer if we put a dozen armed bodyguards around you—”

  “Safer from what? Safe from some blood feud that was ancient before I was born? Or safe from the idiots who think they’re going to inherit my mother’s estate if I can be declared incompetent next May, in front of a Clan council? Get real, Roland, the Clan is nearly as big a threat to my freedom as the world-walking assholes who shot Olga and booby-trapped the warehouse!”

  “Booby-trapped—” his eyes widened.

  “Yeah, a claymore mine on a tripwire in the doorway. And nobody cleared up the night watchman’s body. Do you begin to get it?” She began to back away toward the door. “Someone set up the bomb, someone inside Angbard’s security operation! And,” she continued in a low voice, “you were in the right places at the right times.”

  Roland looked angry. “Miriam, you can’t mean that!” He paced across the room restlessly. “Come on, look, let me sort everything out and it’ll be okay, won’t it? I’ll vet your guards—”

  “Roland.” She shook her head, angry with him, angry with herself for wanting to give in and take him up on an offer that meant far more and went far further than words could express: “I’m gone. If you know where I’m going, the bad guys will find out—if you aren’t one of them.” She kept her hand in her pocket, just in case, but the idea of shooting him filled her with a numinous sense of horror.

  He looked appalled. “Can’t we just…?”

  “Just what?” she cried. “Kiss and make up? Jesus, Roland, don’t be naive!”

  “Shit.” He stared at her. “You really mean it.”

  “I am going to walk out the door in a minute,” she said tensely, hating herself for her own determination, “and we are not going to see each other again until next May, probably. At least, not in the next few days or weeks. We both need time out. I need to get my head together and see if I can flush the bastards who’re trying to kill me. You need to think about who you are and who I am and where we’re going before we take this any further—and you need to find whoever’s wormed their way into Angbard’s confidence and whoever shot Olga.”

  “I don’t care about Olga! I care about you!” he snapped.

  “That is part of the problem I’ve got with you right now,” she said coldly, and headed for the door.

  A thought occurred to her as she pulled the door open. “Roland?”

  “Yes?” He sounded coldly angry.

  “Tomorrow I’m going to get lost again, probably until Beltaigne. Keep checking your voice mail—there’s no need to hold this room any longer.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t do this,” he said quietly. She shut the door behind her and departed, her heart infinitely heavier than it had been when she arrived.

  Ring ring. There was a breeze blowing, and the park was bitterly cold: Miriam sat hunched at one end of a bench.

  “Hello? Lofstrom Associates, how may I help you?”

  “This is Miriam. I want to talk to Angbard.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Lofstrom is unavailable right now—”

  “I said I’m Miriam. If you don’t know the name, check with someone who does. You have five minutes to get Angbard on the line before the shit hits the fan.”

  “I’ll see what I can do. Please hold—”

  beep beep beep

  “Hello?” A different voice, not Angbard’s, came on the line.

  “To whom am I speaking?” Miriam asked calmly.

  “Matthias. And you are?”

  “Miriam Beckstein. I want to talk to Angbard. Right now. This call has been logged by the front desk.”

  “I’m sorry, but he’s in a meeting. If—”

  “I
f I don’t get him on the line right now I’ll make sure the Boston Globe receives a package that will blow your East Coast courier line wide open. You have sixty seconds.” Her fingers tensed on the handset.

  “One moment.”

  Click.

  “Angbard here. What’s this?”

  “It’s me,” said Miriam. “Sorry I had to strong-arm my way past your mandarins, but it’s urgent.”

  “Urgent?” She could almost hear the eyebrows rising. “I’ve never seen Matthias so disturbed since—well. Unpleasant events. What did you tell him?”

  “Oh, nothing much.” Miriam leaned back, felt the cold bench bite through her coat, sat up straight again. “Listen. I told you something about my mother. That if anything happened to her I would be really pissed off.”

  “Yes?” Polite interest colored Angbard’s voice.

  “I’m really pissed off. Really, really pissed off.”

  “What happened?” he demanded.

  “She’s gone. There’s a dead man in the Dumpster behind her house, killed with a shotgun. She had time to phone me to say she was going on a journey—I don’t know if anyone was holding a gun to her head. Roland didn’t know this. Apparently it happened at the same time that Olga was shot. And my house has been burgled and stuff taken, and somebody booby-trapped the front door.”

  “Come here immediately. Or if you tell me where you are I’ll send a carload of guards—”

  “No, Angbard, that won’t work.” She swallowed. “Listen. I am about to vanish more deeply than last time. Don’t worry about Brilliana, she’s safe. What I want you to do…look for my mother. By all means. Raise heaven and earth. I am going to visit Olga tomorrow and I do not expect to be stopped. If I don’t leave that meeting and reach a certain point, unhindered, later tomorrow, unpleasant letters will go in the mail. I am serious about this, I am pissed off, and I am establishing my own power base because I believe that civil war you told me about is not over and the faction who started it is trying to fire it up again, through me.”