The Clan Corporate (ARC)

by Charles Stross

  "Okay, let's take it from the top." Mike smiled experimentally at the thin, hatchet-faced guy on the sofa while Pete hunched over the desk, fiddling with the interview recorder. Hatchet-face-Matt-nodded back, his expression serious. As well it should be, in his situation. Matt was an odd one; mid-thirties in age, with curly black hair and a face speckled with what looked like the remnants of bad acne, but built like a tank. He wore the same leather jacket and jeans he'd had on when he walked through the DEA office door.

  "We're going to start the formal debriefing now you're here. When we've got the basics of your testimony down on tape, we'll escalate it to OCDTF and get them to sign off on your WSP participation and then set up a joint liaison team with the usual-us, the FBI, possibly FINCEN, and any other organizations whose turf is directly affected by your testimony. We can't offer you a blanket amnesty for any crimes you've committed, but along the way we'll evaluate your security requirements, and when we've got the prosecutions in train we'll be able to discuss an appropriate plea bargain for you, one that takes your time in secure accommodation here into account as time served. So you should be free to leave with a new identity and a clean record as soon as everything's wrapped up." He took a breath. "If there's anything you don't understand, say so. Okay?"

  Matt just sat on the sofa, shoulders set tensely, for about thirty seconds, until Mike began to wonder if there was something wrong with him. Then: "You don't understand," he said, quietly but urgently. "If you treat this as a criminal investigation we will both die. They have agents everywhere and you have no idea what they are capable of." He had an odd foreign accent, slightly German, but with markedly softened sibilants.

  "We've dealt with Mafia families." Mike smiled encouragingly.

  "They are not your Mafia." Matt stared at him. "You are at war. They are a government. They will not respond as criminals, but as soldiers and politicians. I am here to defect, but if you are going to insist that they are ordinary criminals, you will lose."

  "Can you point to them on a map?" Mike asked, rhetorically. The informer shook his head. He looked faintly-disappointed? Amused? Annoyed? Mike felt a stab of hot anger. Stop playing head games with me, he thought, or you'll be sorry.

  Pete looked up. "Are we talking terrorists here? Like Al-Qaida?" he asked.

  Matt stared at him. "I said they are a government. If you do not understand what that means we are both in very deep trouble." He picked up the cigarette packet on the table and unwrapped it carefully. His fingers were long, but his nails were very short. One was cracked, Mike noticed, and his right index finger bore an odd callus: not a shooter's finger, but something similar.

  "There is more than one world," Matt said carefully as he opened the packet and removed a king-size. "This world, the world you are familiar with. The world of the United States, and of Al-Qaida. The world of automobiles and airliners and computers and guns and antibiotics. But there is another world, and you know nothing of it."

  He paused for a moment to pick up the table lighter, then puffed once on the cigarette and laid it carefully on the ashtray.

  "The other world is superficially like this one. There is a river not far from here, for example, roughly where the Charles River flows. But there is no city. Most of Boston lies under the open sea. Cambridge is heavily forested.

  "There are people in the other world. They do not speak your language, this English tongue. They do not worship your tree-slain god. They don't have automobiles or airliners or computers or guns or antibiotics. They don't have a United States. Instead, there are countries up and down this coast, ruled by kings."

  Matt picked up the cigarette and took a deep lungful of smoke. Mike glanced over at Pete to make sure he was recording, and caught a raised eyebrow. When he looked back at Matt, careful to keep his expression blank, he realized that the informant's hands were shaking slightly.

  "It's a nice story," he commented. "What has it got to do with the price of cocaine?"

  "Everything!" Matthias snapped.

  Taken aback, Mike jerked away. Matt stared at him: he stared right back, nonplussed. "What do you mean?"

  After several seconds, Matthias's tension unwound. "I'm sorry. I will get to the point," he said. "The kingdom of Gruinmarkt is dominated by a consortium of six noble houses. Their names are-no, later. The point is, some members of the noble bloodline can walk between the worlds. They can cross over to this world, and cross back again, carrying . . . goods."

  He paused, expectantly.

  "Well?" Mike prodded, his heart sinking. Jesus, just what I need. The hottest lead this year turns out to be a card-carrying tinfoil hat job.

  Matthias sighed. "Kings and nobles." He took another drag at his cigarette, and Mike forced himself to stifle a cough. "Noble houses rise and fall on the basis of their wealth. These six, they are not old. They date their fortunes to the reign of-no, to the, ah, eighteen-fifties. Before then, they were unremarkable merchants-tinkers, really. Traders. Today they are the high merchant families, rich beyond comprehension, a law unto themselves. Because they trade. They come to this world bearing dispatches and gems and valuables, and ensure that they arrive back in the empire of the Outer Kingdom-in what you would call California, Mexico, and Oregon-the next day. Without risk of disaster, without delay, without theft by the bands of savages who populate the wilderness. And the trade runs on the other side, too."

  "How do they do it?" Mike asked. Humor him, he may have something useful, after all. Mentally, he was already working out which forms to submit to request the psychiatric assessment.

  "Suppose a broker in Columbia wants half a ton of heroin to arrive in upstate New York." Matthias ground his cigarette out in the ashtray, even though it was only half-finished. "He has a choice of distribution channels. He can arrange for an intermediary to buy a fast speedboat, or a light plane, and run the Coast Guard gauntlet in the Caribbean. He can try a false compartment in a truck. Once in the United States, the cargo can be split into shipments and dispatched via other channels-expendable couriers, usually. There is an approximate risk of twenty-five percent associated with this technique. That is, the goods will probably reach the wholesaler-but one time in four, they will not." His face flickered in a fleeting grin. "Alternatively, they can contact the Clan. Who will take a commission of ten percent and guarantee delivery-or return the cost in full."

  Huh? Mike sat up slightly. Matthias's habit of breaking off and looking at him expectantly was grating, but he couldn't help responding. Even if this sounded like pure bullshit, there was something compelling about the way Matt clearly believed his story.

  "The Clan is a trading consortium operated by the noble houses," Matt explained. "Couriers cross over into this world and collect the cargo, in whatever quantity they can lift-they can only carry whatever they can hold across the gulf between worlds. In the other world, the Clan is invincible. Cargos of heroin or cocaine travel up the coast in wagon trains guarded by the Clan's troops. Local rulers are bribed with penicillin and aluminum tableware and spices for the table. Bandits who can muster no better than crossbows and swords are no match for soldiers with night-vision goggles and automatic weapons. It takes weeks or months, but it's secure-and sooner or later the cargo arrives in a heavily guarded depot in Boston or New York without you ever knowing it's in transit or being able to track it."

  There was a click from across the room. Mike looked round. "This is bullshit," complained Pete, stripping off his headphones. He glared at Matt in disgust. "You're wasting our time, do you realize that?" To Mike, "Let's just charge him with trafficking on the basis of what we've already got, then commit him for psych-"

  "I don't think so-" Mike began, just as Matthias said something guttural in a foreign language the DEA agent couldn't recognize. "I'm sorry?" he asked.

  "I gave you samples," Matt complained. "Why not analyze them?"

  "What for?" Mike's eyes narrowed. Something about Matthias scared him, and he didn't like that one little bit. Matt wasn't your usu
al garden-variety dealer's agent or hit man. There was something else about him, some kind of innate sense of his own superiority, which grated. And that weird accent. As if-"What should we look for?"

  "The sample I gave you is of heroin, diacetyl morphine, from poppies grown on an experimental farm established by order of the high Duke Angbard Lofstrom, in the estates of King Henryk of Auswjein, which would be in North Virginia of your United States. There has never been an atomic explosion in the other world. I am informed that a device called a mass spectroscope will be able to confirm to you that the sample is depleted of an iso-, um, isotope of carbon that is created by atomic explosions. This is proof that the sample originated in another world, or was prepared at exceedingly enormous expense to give such an impression, for the mixture of carbon isotopes in this world is different."

  "Uh." Pete looked as taken aback as Mike felt. "What? Why haven't you been selling your own here, if you can grow it in this other world?"

  "Because it would be obvious where it came from," Matt explained with exaggerated patience. "The entire policy of the Clan for the past hundred and seventy years has been to maintain a shroud of secrecy around itself. Selling drugs that were clearly harvested on another world would not, ah, contribute to this policy."

  Mike nodded at Pete. "Switch the goddamn recorder on again." He turned back to Matthias. "Summary. There exists a, a parallel world to our own. This world is not industrialized? No. There is a bunch of merchant princes, a clan, who can travel between there and here. These guys make their money by acting as couriers for high-value assets which can be transported through the other world without risk of interception because they are not recognized as valuable there. Drugs, in short. Matthias has kindly explained that his last heroin sample contains an, um, carbon isotope balance that will demonstrate it must have been grown on another planet. Either that, or somebody is playing implausibly expensive pranks. Memo: get a mass spectroscopy report on the referenced sample. Okay, so that brings me to the next question." He leaned toward Matthias. "Who are you, and how come you know all this?"

  Matt extracted another cigarette from the packet and lit it. "I am of the outer families-I cannot world-walk, but must be carried whensoever I should go. I am-was-private secretary to the head of the Clan's security, Duke Lofstrom. I am here because"-he paused for a deep drag on the cigarette-"if I was not here they would execute me. For treason. Is that clear enough?"

  "I, uh, think so." Pete had walked round behind Matt and was frantically gesturing at Mike, but Mike ignored him. "Do you have anything else to add?"

  "Yes, two things. Firstly, you will find a regular Clan courier on the 14:30 Acela service from Boston to New York. I don't know who they are, so I can't give you a personal description, but standard procedure is that the designated courier arrives at the station no more than five minutes prior to departure. He sits in a reserved seat in carriage B, and he travels with an aluminum Zero-Halliburton roll-on case, model ZR-31. He will be conservatively dressed-the idea is to be mistaken for a lawyer or stockbroker, not a gangster-and will be armed with a Glock G20 pistol. You will know you have arrested a courier if he vanishes when confined in a maximum security cell." He barked a humorless laugh. "Make sure to videotape it."

  "You said two things?"

  "Yes. Here is the second." Matt reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, silvery metallic cylinder. Mike blinked: on first sight he almost mistook it for a pistol cartridge, but it was solid, with no sign of a percussion cap. And from the way Matt dropped it on the tabletop it looked dense.

  "May I?" Mike asked.

  Matt waved at it. "Of course."

  Mike tried to pick it up-and almost dropped it. The slug was heavy. It felt slightly oily and was pleasantly warm to the touch. "Jesus! What is it?"

  "Plutonium. From the Duke's private stockpile." Matt's expression was unreadable as Mike flinched away from the ingot. "Do not take my word for it; analyze it, then come back here to talk to me." He crossed his arms. "I said they were a government. And I can tell you everything you need to know about their nuclear weapons program . . ."

  A lightning discharge always seeks the shortest path to ground. Two days after she discovered Duke Angbard's location to be so secret that nobody would even tell her how to send him a letter, Miriam's wrath ran to ground through the person of Baron Henryk, her mother's favorite uncle and the nearest body to Angbard in age, position, and temperament that she could find.

  Later on, it was clear to all concerned that something like this had been bound to happen sooner or later. The dowager Hildegarde was already presumed guilty without benefit of trial, the Queen Mother was out of reach, and Patricia voh Hjorth d'Wu ab Thorold-her mother-was above question. But the consequences of Miriam's anger were something else again. And the trigger that set it off was so seemingly trivial that after the event, nobody could even recall the cause of the quarrel: a torn envelope.

  At mid-morning Miriam, fresh from yet another fit of obsessive GANTT-chart filing, emerged from her bedroom to find Kara scolding one of the maidservants. The poor girl was almost in tears. "What's going on here?" Miriam demanded.

  "Milady!" Kara turned, eyes wide. "She's been deliberately slow, is all. If you'd have Bernaard take a switch to her-"

  "No." Miriam was blunt. "You: go lose yourself for a few minutes. Kara, let's talk."

  The maid scurried away defensively, eager to be gone before the mistress changed her mind. Kara sniffed, offended, but followed Miriam over toward the chairs positioned in a circle around the cold fireplace. "What troubles you, milady?" asked Kara, apprehensively.

  "What day is it?" Miriam leaned casually on the back of a priceless antique.

  "Why, it's, I'd need to check a calendar. Milady?"

  "It's the fourteenth." Miriam glanced out the window. "I'm sick, Kara."

  "Sick?" Her eyes widened. "Shall I call an apothecary-"

  "I'm sick, as in pissed off, not sick as in ill." Miriam's smile didn't reach her eyes. "I'm being given the runaround. Look." She held up an envelope bearing the crest of the Clan post. Its wax seal was broken. "They're returning my letters. 'Addressee unknown.'-"

  "Well, maybe they don't know who-"

  "Letters to Duke Angbard, Kara."

  "Oh." For a moment the teenager looked guilty.

  "Know anything about it?" Miriam asked sweetly.

  "Oh, but nobody writes to the duke! You write to his secretary." Kara looked confused for a moment. "Then he arranges an appointment," she added hesitantly.

  "The duke's last secretary, in case you've forgotten, was Matthias. He isn't answering his correspondence any more, funnily enough."

  "Oh." A look of profound puzzlement crept over Kara's face.

  "I can't get anywhere!" Miriam burst out. "Ma-Patricia-holds formal audiences. Olga's away on urgent business most of the time and on the firing range the rest. I haven't even seen Brill since the-the accident. And Angbard won't answer his mail. What the hell am I meant to do?"

  Kara looked faintly guilty. "Weren't you supposed to be going riding this afternoon?" she asked.

  "I want to talk to someone," Miriam said grimly. "Who, of the Clan council, is in town? Who can I get to?"

  "There's Baron Henryk, he stays at the Royal Exchange when he's working, but he-"

  "He's my great-uncle, he'll have to listen to me. Excellent. He'll do."

  "But, mistress! You can't just-"

  Miriam smiled. There was no humor in her expression. "It has been three weeks since anyone even deigned to tell me how my company is doing, much less answered my queries about when I can go back over and resume managing it. I've been stuck in this oh-so-efficiently doppelgangered suite-secured against world-walking by a couple of hundred tons of concrete piled on the other side-for two months, cooling my heels. If Angbard doesn't want to talk to me, he'll sure as hell listen to Henryk. Right?"

  Kara was clearly agitated, bouncing up and down and flapping her hands like a bird. In her green-and-bro
wn camouflage-pattern minidress-like many of the Clan youngsters, she liked to wear imported western fashions at home-she resembled a thrush with one foot caught in a snare. "But mistress! I can arrange a meeting, if you give me time, but you can't just go barging in-"

  "Want to bet?" Miriam stood up. "Get a carriage sorted, Kara. One hour. We're going round to the Royal Exchange and I'm not leaving until I've spoken to him, and that's an end to the matter."

  Kara protested some more, but Miriam wasn't having it. If Lady Brill had been around she'd have been able to set Miriam straight, but Kara was too young, inexperienced, and unsure of herself to naysay her mistress. Therefore, an hour later, Miriam-with an apprehensive Kara sucked along in her undertow, not to mention a couple of maids and a gaggle of guards-boarded a closed carriage for the journey to the exchange buildings. Miriam had changed for the meeting, putting on her black interview suit and a cream blouse. She looked like an attorney or a serious business journalist, sniffing after blood in the corporate watercooler. Kara, ineffectual and lightweight, drifted along passively in the undertow, like the armed guards on the carriage roof.

  The Royal Exchange was a forbidding stone pile fronted by Romanesque columns, half a mile up the road from Thorold Palace. Built a century ago to house the lumber exchange (and the tax inspectors who took the royal cut of every consignment making its way down the coast), it had long since passed into the hands of the government and now housed a number of offices. The Gruinmarkt was not long on bureaucracy-it was still very much a marcher kingdom, its focus on the wilderness beyond the mountains to the west-but even a small, primitive country had desks for scores or hundreds of secretaries of this and superintendents of that. Miriam wasn't entirely clear on why the elderly baron might live there, but she was clear on one thing: he'd talk to her.

  "Which way?" Miriam asked briskly as she strode across the polished wooden floor of the main entrance.