Earl Riordan stared at him for a few seconds, then shook his head. “No such luck,” he grunted. “Damn their eyes.” The CO wasn’t swearing about him, for which Rudi was grateful.
“So what are you good for?” demanded Vincenze, loudly.
Rudi shrugged. The cornet had maybe had a drop too much rum in his coffee. Not terribly clever when you’d been summoned into the CO’s office for a quiet chat, but then again nobody ever accused Vince of being long on brains: That wasn’t much of an asset in a cavalryman.
“Fair-weather observation. Dropping small packets, accurate to within a hundred feet or so. If you can find me somewhere to land that isn’t under the usurper’s guns I can carry a single passenger in and out, or up to a hundred and fifty pounds of luggage.”
“A single passenger.” Hmm. The earl looked distracted. “Hold that thought. Out of curiosity, is it possible to parachute from the passenger seat?”
“Maybe, but it’d be very dangerous.” Rudi didn’t need to search for words anymore: they were coming naturally. “It’s a pusher prop so you couldn’t use a static line. It’d have to be free fall, which would mean close to maximum altitude—I can only reach five thousand feet with a passenger—and if their primary chute didn’t open they wouldn’t have time to try a secondary, and I’d have fun keeping control, too.”
“So scratch that idea.” Riordan raised his mug and took a mouthful of coffee. “Okay. Suppose you need to land somewhere, pick up a passenger, and fly out. What do you need?”
“A runway.” Rudi glanced into his own coffee mug: It was still empty, dammit. “With a passenger, depends on the weather, but a minimum thousand feet to be safe. I can probably get airborne in significantly less than that, but if anything goes wrong you need the extra room to slow down again. Ideally it needs to be clear-cut for the same again, past the end of the runway—most engine problems show up once you’re just airborne.”
“A thousand feet?” Vincenze looked surprised. “But you took off from the courtyard!”
“That was me, without a passenger,” Rudi pointed out. “At two-thirds maximum takeoff weight you get in the air faster and you can stop a lot faster, too, if something goes wrong. If you want to take off with less than five hundred feet of runway, you really need an ultralight helicopter or preferably a gyrocopter—ultralight choppers are dangerous. Oh, and a pilot who knows how to fly them. It was on my to-do list.”
“Noted.” Riordan jotted a note on his pad. “Assume bad people with guns are shooting at you when you take off. How vulnerable would you be?”
Rudi shivered. He’d been shot at before, in his previous flight. “Very. The Saber-16 can only climb at about six hundred feet per minute. Takeoff is about thirty miles per hour. Handguns or musketry I could risk, but if they’ve got rifles? Or M60s? I’m toast. I’d be in range for minutes.”
“So we won’t ask you to do that, then,” Riordan muttered to himself. Louder: “Right. So, if we asked you to deliver a cargo weighing about a hundred and fifty pounds into the Hjalmar Palace you could land in the courtyard—as long as we’ve got the usurper’s men out of that gatehouse—you could probably fly out of it on your own, but if you had a problem on takeoff you’d hit the wall, and again, the usurper’s men would have you in rifle range for a minute or two. You can’t fly at night, and you can’t fly low enough to drop anything useful on the enemy without them riddling you with bullets. Am I missing anything? Is that a fair summary of your limitations?”
Rudi blinked. “Yes, sir, I think so. Uh, that and, we need more gas. Sorry.” He shrugged. “I think we’ve got about five gallons left. Avgas, not regular.”
“Damn.” Riordan glanced round. “Steward? More coffee.” He turned back to the table. “Have Joachim and Stefan reported in yet?”
Vincenze looked thoughtful. “Not unless they’ve come in since we started in here.”
“Go and chase them up, then.”
Dismissed, Vincenze rose. He nodded at Rudi. “Good luck, cuz.”
Startled, Rudi watched him leave.
“The cornet has no need to know what I’m about to tell you,” Riordan said quietly. He paused while the steward placed fresh mugs of coffee in front of them. “That will be all.”
“Sir.” The steward bowed then left the room.
Rudi waited until the door was shut. “Sir, you obviously have something in mind?”
“Yes.” Riordan fell silent. Then: “I sent Joachim and Stefan out to buy some office equipment. Most of a print shop, in fact—a laptop, graphics software, a printer, a scanner, and equipment for making badges.”
“Badges?”
“You know of our long lost cousins, I take it?”
Rudi nodded cautiously. “I’ve never met any of them.”
“Hmm.” Riordan raised one eyebrow. “You will, soon enough.” He picked up his coffee mug and blew on it. “When Joachim gets back he’s to run off two hundred laminated color cards with our lost cousin’s knotwork seal on it.”
“Their—”Rudi stopped. “It’s not the same as ours, is it?” he asked.
“No.” Riordan put his mug down. “According to the duke, they became lost two centuries ago when—you know the story about how the seventh brother went west, to make a home for himself in the outer kingdom, what the Americans call California? He fell on hard times, and lost his sigil. Later, he tried to recreate it from memory, and got it subtly wrong. That’s why neither he nor his descendants could visit the United States; they found themselves in another world, only slightly different at that time. Anyway, we have a copy of the lost family’s sigil, and we are going to make enough duplicates of it to equip every world-walker in the Hjalmar Palace. As its doppelganger site in Massachusetts is crawling with federal agents, and we have not accurately surveyed the terrain in the other world, you’re going to fly the badges in.”
Rudi’s thoughts spun. “So I won’t need to fly out? . . .”
“No. The duke’s men will help you dismantle your aircraft and carry it with them when they leave. Lady Olga is developing the evacuation plan and will organize your logistics. The larger goal is to present the usurper with a tempting target, and then give him a nasty surprise when he tries to take it. Do you understand?”
“Yes, I think so. But I thought he knew about our talent? And is clearly taking pains to avoid situations where we can use it?”
“Indeed.” The earl grinned humorlessly. “I’m counting on it. Egon knows about world-walking, and plans his moves accordingly. Which makes his behavior predictable . . . and I’m going to use that fact to kill him.”
Mike Fleming was trapped in the basement of his apartment, trying to figure out how to get out, when the phone rang.
It was the colonel’s fault. “Son, I’m relying on you to stay home and convalesce,” he’d said sternly, after handing over a brown paper bag containing an anonymous mobile phone and a semiautomatic pistol. “I want you back in the saddle as soon as you’re fit for duty. But you’re not going to be any use to me if you overdo it. So relax, take it easy, and try to remember your job is to get well, and maybe see to the other thing.” (The other thing being his mission if the Mad Grandmother or the Ice Princess made contact—but Mike had an uneasy feeling that this latter duty was more than slightly deniable.) But there was only so much sitting on his ass that he could do, and after a few days frittered away watching Friends reruns and reading pop-history books about the Middle East, he was ready to climb the walls.
Hence, the basement.
Most apartments don’t have basements, but the one Mike rented in a converted brownstone was the exception to the rule: A steep staircase opening off one wall of the kitchen led down into the low-ceilinged cellar. With perfect hindsight, Mike had to admit, deciding to clean house while recovering from a broken leg and a nasty little infection was not one of his most sensible moves. But once he’d gotten down those steps, it turned out that filling garbage sacks and trying to figure out how to dismantle the dead drier that had
been stranded down here for years was a whole lot more attractive than trying to figure out how to get back up the stairs. Especially because he wasn’t sure he’d be able to make it around the tight bend at the top, and having to phone for help to dig him out of his own cellar would really do his self-image no end of good. (You’re a special agent working for a secret government organization and you had to call in help to climb a staircase? What is this, the CIA?)
Hence, the phone ringing while he was stuck in the basement.
Mike swore. The phone rang twice as he disentangled himself from the cable of the defunct drier and hopped around the workbench, trying to find the extension handset behind the pile of rusting paint cans and the overflowing toolbox. “Yes?” He barked, making a one-handed grab for the phone and simultaneously putting too much weight on his bad leg.
“Is that Mr Fleming?” It was a woman’s voice, a noisy office providing unwelcome background context. If this is a telesales call . . . Mike felt a hot flash of anger, echoing the pain in his right ankle. About a week and a half ago he’d trodden on a man-trap—a mediaeval antipersonnel mine, as Sergeant Hastert had put it—and with the cracked bone, torn ligaments, and nice little infection he’d picked up, he’d been lucky to keep the leg.
“Who is this?” Mike demanded.
“I’m Letitia, from Family Home Services. Can I speak to Mr. Fleming, please?”
The spark of helpless anger passed rapidly. Mike blinked. “Yeah, that’s me.” He glanced round instinctively. “Free to talk.” No, not a telesales call; the background office noise was a recording and the company name a cover. “It’s Tuesday today, isn’t it?”
“No, it’s Wednesday,” said the woman at the other end of the line, who wasn’t called Letitia any more than it was any day other than Monday. “You’re late for your CAT scan. Dr. James wants to see you as soon as possible, and as it happens we’ve got a slot free right now—are you free now?”
Mike glanced round at the dusty basement again, his pulse quickening. “I believe I can fit you in.”
“Good. An ambulance will collect you in fifteen minutes, if that’s convenient?”
“I’ll be waiting.” The usual pleasantries, and Mike hung up the handset, staring at it in surprise. So the colonel wanted to talk to him? But the colonel knew damn well what shape his leg was in, and the boss-man was in the loop, so what could he want? . . .
Mike began to smile, for the first time in days.
The ambulance that pulled up outside his front door twenty minutes later resembled any other one, and the two paramedics made short work of wheeling Mike—sitting up, chatting, no need to alarm the neighbors unduly—into the back of their vehicle. The door shut, and there the resemblance stopped: Normal ambulances didn’t have door gunners in black fatigues riding behind the one-way glass windows. They didn’t roll like a foundering ship beneath the weight of armor, either; and they especially didn’t come with passengers like Dr. James, whose specialty was distinctly nonmedical.
Dr. Andrew James scared the crap out of Mike Fleming, with his Ph.D. from Harvard and the flag pin that had lately replaced the tiny crucifix on his lapel. Gaunt and skinny and utterly dedicated, James attended to the ills of the body politic with all the care you could expect of an apprentice engineer of human souls; and if an amputation was required, he could get a consent form any time he liked, signed by the office of the vice president. And he didn’t waste time. “How’s your leg?” he asked as the ambulance moved off.
“Still bad, but I can get about indoors. Last time I asked they said I’d be able to get the cast off in another five weeks, be back to normal in three or four months.” Why is he asking me this stuff? Mike stared at him sidelong. It’s not as if he can’t pull my medical records any time he wants. . . .
“Not good enough.” James frowned, his lips forming a bloodless crease. “There’s a change of plan.”
Shit. Mike shivered under the thin thermal blanket the “paramedics” had draped over him. He could see what was coming next, like a freight locomotive glimpsed in the side window of his crossing-stalled car. He’s cutting around the chain of command. Which means I’m in trouble. James was political, and even in the flattened wartime hierarchy of the Family Trade Organization he was several levels above Mike. If he was descending from on high to give Mike orders in person, it meant that either Mike’s boss, Colonel Smith, was on the out—or that Mike was being snipped out of the org chart. Spoiled goods, a deniable asset, disposable on demand. “What do you want me to do?” he asked, keeping his face as still as possible.
The ambulance turned a corner and began to accelerate, swaying from side to side as it shoved across two lanes of traffic. “We’ve made a breakthrough in the past week, and it’s led us to review our existing programs.” James was looking at him, but not meeting his eyes. “You speak the bad guys’ language, much as anyone does. We need you as an interpreter.”
“But—”Mike shook his head, confused. “What about the negotiations?” Miriam’s crazy mother and her sidekick, the blond sniper who looked like a Russian princess: They were supposed to be making contact, negotiating over the stolen nuke. “Don’t you want—”
“Son, don’t be naïve.” Dr. James smiled, and this time he looked Mike in the eyes. Mike tried not to shiver; he’d seen a warmer smile on the face of the pet alligator he’d once tripped over in a drug dealer’s pad. “The missing gadget has been retrieved so the negotiations are over. We don’t need them anymore. Our job is now to hit these people so hard they won’t ever be able to mess with the USA again.” The ambulance bounced hard across a pothole and Mike’s stomach lurched as he felt it accelerate down a steep gradient. “I don’t think your contacts will be back, but if they are, it’s kill-or-capture time.”
“The phone? . . .” Colonel Smith had given him an untraceable mobile phone to pass on to the ice princess if the Clan wanted to negotiate.
“It’s a Kidon special.” Made by Mossad’s—the Israeli secret service’s—assassination cell. “It works fine, but there’s ten grams of C5 in the earpiece. If one of them tries to call us, that’s one less bad guy to worry about.”
“Oh.” For a moment a vision of Olga’s blond head flashed through Mike’s mind, bloodied and slack-jawed. He bit down on his reaction: That’s assassination! Quiet terror made him swallow, queasy. “If that’s the way you’re playing it.” (You’re a cop, he’s a spook. You knew these things happened. So why’s he telling you now?) “You said you want an interpreter, but you’re not talking to the Clan. So what’s going on?”
“There’s been a breakthrough.” Dr. James leaned back against the side of the ambulance, his death’s head grin fading. “Pretty soon we’re not going to need the freaks for transport anymore, so we’re winding up to restart CLEANSWEEP. This time we’ve got the logistic support to set up a full-scale branch office on the other side. You’ll be going over in about three months as a civilian advisor. But in the meantime, I’ve got a little extra job for you as soon as you’re cleared for duty again. You’ve already got a clearance; you’re going to need a higher one for this job. Unless you think there’s something that might disqualify you? . . .”
Mike swallowed again. “Uh, what do you mean?”
James gestured irritably: “I can’t tell you what you’re needed for until you’ve been cleared. Additional background checks will be required. So this is your chance to come clean about anything you wouldn’t want to disclose during a polygraph interrogation.”
“You’re offering me an amnesty?” Mike raised an eyebrow.
“Son, I don’t care if you’re f—sleeping with the Russian ambassador’s grandson; all I care is that you’re not keeping secrets from me, you’re not going to embarrass me in front of an internal affairs polygraph, and you’re up to, to listening in a bunch of conversations in gook-speak and translating them into English for me. And keeping a lid on it. So. Is there anything you really don’t want to be quizzed about during your clearance interview?
”
“I—” the penny dropped. “It’s not CLEANSWEEP that’s so damn secret, is it?” he said without thinking. “It’s the content, isn’t it? You’ve got some kind of source—”
“Mr. Fleming.” Dr. James’s stare was leaden. “What do we pay you for?”
Mike winced. “Sorry. Forget I asked.” He took a deep breath. “As for your question, I’m not blackmailable. Nothing to hide here.” He tapped his chest. “So. When do I begin?”
“Soon as you go back to the office, son. You’ll be scheduled for a full security re-cert within a couple of days, then I’ll have some extra work for you. Which will go on your worksheet as routine admin, incidentally.” James nodded to himself. “That should keep you busy right up until the invasion.”
“Invasion?” Mike echoed incredulously. “You’re going to invade the Gruinmarkt?”
“We’re going to have to sooner or later. Unless you’ve got any better ideas for how we ought to handle the existence of such a major security threat to American soil? . . .”
“But how?”
James cast Mike a knowing look. “Ask me again when you’re cleared.”
Reception Committee
Baron Otto Neuhalle was afraid of very few things; the wrath of gods, the scorn of women, and the guns of his enemies were not among them. He was, however, utterly terrified of one man—Egon the First, former crown prince and now self-proclaimed monarch of Gruinmarkt. Egon was a handsome-faced, graceful, hale, and charismatic young man who had all the pity of a rattlesnake for those who failed him. Even if Otto hadn’t failed yet, failure nevertheless looked disturbingly possible in light of the witch-clan’s continuing occupation of the Hjalmar Palace. And the cloud of dust he could see from his vantage point near the brow of the hill was almost certainly the vanguard of Egon’s army.
“Another hour, sir,” said Anders, who had materialized at his elbow while he peered through the witch-bought “binoculars.”
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