The Revolution Trade (Merchant Princes Omnibus 3) (47 page)

In his private chambers in the Ostrood House, Baron Julius Arnesen was shot dead by Sir Gavaign Thorold.

Lord Mors Hjalmar, his eldest son Euen, and wife Gretyl were blown up by a satchel charge of PETN delivered by a courier who, not being a member of the clique responsible, also died in the blast
– neither the first nor the last collateral casualty.

There were other, less successful assassination attempts. The young soldier detailed to slay Sir Helmut Anders had second thoughts and, rather than carrying out his orders, broke down and
confessed them to his commander. The assault team targeting Earl-Major Riordan arrived at the wrong safe house owing to faulty intelligence, and by the time they located the correct headquarters
building it had already been evacuated. And the poison-pen letter addressed to Lady Patricia Thorold-Hjorth – lightly spritzed in dimethyl mercury, a potent neurotoxin – never left the
postal office, owing to an unusual shortage of world-walkers arriving to discharge their corvée duties that day.

In fact, nearly two-thirds of those targeted for assassination survived, and nearly a third of the would-be assassins were captured, killed, or failed to carry out their missions. As
coup
d’état
attempts went, this one might best be described as a halfhearted clusterfuck. The conservative faction had been under siege since the betrothalnight massacre, many of their
most effective members slain; what remained was the rump of the postal committee (cleaving to the last to the trade that had brought them wealth and power), the scheming grandmothers and their
young cat’s-paws, and a bedraggled handful who had fallen upon hard times or whose status was in some other way threatened by the new order.

Only one element of the conspiracy ran reliably to completion. Unfortunately, it was Plan Blue.

*

In a humid marsh on the banks of a broad river, there stood a scaffold by the grace of the earl of Dankfurt. The scaffold lacked many of the appurtenances of such – no
dangling carrion or cast-iron basket of bones to add to the not inconsiderable stench of the swamp – but it provided a stout and very carefully surveyed platform. Here in the Sudtmarkt most
maps were hand-scribed in ink on vellum, and accurate to the nearest league. But this platform bore stripe-painted measuring sticks at each corner, and had been carefully pinned down by theodolites
borne by world-walkers. Its position and altitude were known to within a foot, making it the most accurately placed location in the entire kingdom.

Five men stood on the scaffold beside a cheap wheelbarrow that held an olive-drab cylinder the size of a beer keg. Two of them wore US army fatigues, in the new desert pattern that had come in
with the Iraq war: outer-family world-walkers both, young and more tenuously attached to the Clan than most. The other three were clad in fashions that had never been a feature of that time line.
‘Are you clear on the schedule?’ demanded one fellow, a thin-haired, thin-faced man whom Miriam had once likened to a ferret.

‘Sir.’ The shorter of the two uniformed men bowed his neck formally.

‘Tell us, please,’ said one of the other fellows, resting his hand on the pommel of his small-sword.

‘At T minus eight minutes, Erik takes his place on the barrow. I then cross over. Emergence is scheduled for level two, visitors’ car park block delta three. There will be cameras
but no internal guard patrols inside the car park – active security is on the perimeter and at the doors.’

The ferret-faced man nodded. ‘Kurt?’

The tall, sandy-haired soldier nodded. ‘I dismount. We have sixty seconds to clear down any witnesses. Then we wheel the barrow to the stairwell. By T minus six the payload is to be
emplaced in the place of the red fire extinguisher, which we will place in the barrow. We are then to proceed back to our arrival point, whereupon Jurgen will take his place in the barrow and I
will bring us home no later than T minus five.’

‘What provisions for failure have you made?’ asked the fellow with the small-sword.

‘Not much,’ the Ferret admitted. ‘Jurgen?’

Jurgen shrugged. ‘We shoot any witnesses, of course.’ He tapped one trouser pocket, which was cut away to reveal the butt of a silenced pistol peeping out of a leg holster. The
uniforms weren’t very authentic – but then, they only had to mislead witnesses for a few seconds. ‘If we can’t cross back because of a surveyor’s error, we turn the
barrow upside down and Kurt stands on it. I ride him. Yes?’

The Ferret nodded to his companion. ‘My lord earl, there we are. Simple, sweet, with minimal room for things to go wrong.’

The earl nodded thoughtfully. His eyes flickered between the two soldiers. Did they suspect that the thumbwheel on the payload’s timer-controller had been modified to detonate six minutes
earlier than the indicated time? Probably not, else they wouldn’t be standing here. ‘If we’d been able to survey inside this, this five-sided structure . . .’

‘Indeed. Unfortunately, my lord Hjorth, it is the most important administrative headquarters of their military, and it was attacked by their enemies only two years ago. The visitors’
car park is as close as we could get. The payload’ – the Ferret patted the stubby metal cylinder – ‘is sufficient to the job.’

‘Well, then.’ Baron Oliver Hjorth managed a strained smile. ‘I salute your bravery. Good men!’

Jurgen nodded. ‘I’m certain that there will be no trouble, my lord.’

‘Everyone in the witch-kingdom expects to see fire extinguishers in stairwells,’ added the Ferret, not bothering to explain that the keg-sized payload looked utterly unlike a fire
extinguisher. ‘And it won’t be there long enough for anyone to tamper with it.’ Strapped to the detonation controller, it weighed nearly ninety kilos; there was a reason for the
carefully surveyed crossing point, the wheelbarrow, and the two strong-backed and incurious couriers.

‘Good,’ the earl said briskly. He pulled out a pocket watch and inspected the dial. ‘Fifty-six minutes, I see. Is that the time? Well, I must be going now.’ He nodded at
the Ferret. ‘I expect to see you in Dankfurt by evening.’

‘And the men, sir,’ prompted the Ferret.

‘Oh yes. And you.’ Hjorth glanced at the uniformed couriers. ‘Yes, we shall find a suitable reward for you. I must be going.’

With that, he turned and clambered down the ladder, followed by his bodyguard. Together, they squelched towards the rowboat that waited at the water’s edge. It would carry them to the
other side, and thence to the carriage waiting to race him away down the post road, so that he would be a couple of leagues distant before the clocks counted down to zero.

Just in case something went wrong at the last moment. You could never be too sure, with these devices.

*

The Explorer rumbled slowly down a narrow road near Andover, thick old-growth trees blocking the view to either side. Harold Parker State Forest wasn’t exactly the back
end of nowhere, but with thousands of acres of hardwood and pine forest, campground and logging roads, and day trippers moving in and out all summer, it was a good place to disappear. Miriam sat
back with her eyes closed, trying to fend off the sickening sense of impending dread. It was happening again: the sense of her life careering out of control, in the hands of –
Stop
that
, she told herself. Half the occupants of the big SUV were sworn to her, bound by oaths of fealty; the rest were –
If I can’t trust them, I can’t trust
anybody. So
here they were, bumping along a logging road towards a secret, undisclosed location where Clan Security maintained a cache of equipment and a doppelgängered transfer house –

The SUV was slowing. Miriam opened her eyes. ‘Nearly there,’ Sir Alasdair grunted.

Riordan was still glued to his cell phone, nodding occasionally between bursts of clipped Hochsprache. Miriam tapped him on the shoulder. He held up a hand. ‘Be right back,’ he told
his absent conversationalist. ‘What is it?’

‘If there’s a mole inside ClanSec, how do you know your Plan Black site hasn’t been rigged?’ she asked. ‘If I was trying to mouse-trap you, I can’t think of a
better way to do it than scaring you into running for a compromised rendezvous.’

Riordan looked thoughtful. Miriam noticed Sir Alasdair’s shoulders tense. Brilliana chirped up from the back row of seats: ‘She’s right, you know.’

‘Yes,’ Riordan said grudgingly. ‘But we need to evacuate – ’

‘It can be booby-trapped here, or in the Gruinmarkt,’ Olga pointed out. ‘If here, we can deal with it. Over there – we shall just have to reconnoiter, no?’

‘Sounds like a plan,’ said Sir Alasdair. ‘Who are we expecting here, my lord?’

‘This site is meant to be held by Sir Helmut’s second lance,’ Riordan said as he stared at the screen of the tablet PC in his lap. ‘Two over here, six over there with two
active and four in recovery or ready for transfer. The site on the other side is a farmhouse: burned out during the campaign, I’m afraid, but defensible.’

‘Can you identify them?’ asked Brilliana.

‘By sight, yes, most probably. Outer-family aspirants, a couple of young bloods – I can show you their personnel files, with photographs. Why?’

‘Because if I see the wrong faces on duty I want to be sure before I shoot them.’

The Explorer was slowing. Now Sir Alasdair took a sharp left onto a dirt trail barely any wider than the SUV. ‘We’re about two hundred yards out,’ he warned. ‘Where do
you want me to stop?’

‘Right here.’ Riordan glanced at Brilliana. ‘Are you ready, my lady?’

Brill nodded, reaching into her shoulder bag to pull out a black, stubby gun with a melted-looking grip just below the muzzle and a box magazine stretching along the upper surface of the barrel.
‘Sir Alasdair – ’

‘I’m coming too,’ rumbled Miriam’s bodyguard. He pulled the parking brake. ‘My lord, would you care to take the wheel? If a quick withdrawal is required –
’

‘I can drive,’ Miriam heard herself saying. ‘You don’t need me for anything else, and I’m sure you need your hands?’

Riordan glanced at her, worried, then nodded. ‘Here’s the contact sheet.’ He passed the tablet PC back to Brill, who peered at it for a few seconds.

‘Okay, I am ready,’ she announced, and opened her door.

For Miriam, the next few minutes passed nightmarishly slowly. As Alasdair and Brill disappeared up the track and into the trees alongside it, she took Sir Alasdair’s place behind the
wheel, adjusting the seat and lap belt to fit. She kept the engine running at a low idle, although what she’d do if it turned out to be an ambush wasn’t obvious – backing up down
a dirt trail while under fire from hostiles didn’t seem likely to have a happy outcome. She sighed, keeping her eyes on the road ahead, waiting.

‘They know what they’re doing,’ Olga said, unexpectedly.

‘Huh?’ Miriam swallowed.

‘She’s right,’ added Riordan. ‘I would not have let them go if I thought them likely to walk into an ambush.’

‘But if they – ’

Someone was jogging down the track, waving. Miriam focused, swallowing bile. It was Brill. She didn’t look happy.

‘Wait here.’ Olga’s door opened; before Miriam could say anything, she was heading towards Brill. After a brief exchange, Brill turned and headed back up the path. Olga
returned to the Explorer. ‘She says it’s safe to proceed to the shack, but there’s a problem.’ Her lips were drawn tight with worry.

‘You’d better go,’ Riordan added. ‘We’re on a timetable here.’

‘We’re – ’
Oh.
Miriam put the SUV in gear and began to crawl forward.
It’s an evacuation plan; they’ve got to figure on hostiles blowing it sooner
or later, so
. . . She’d seen enough of the Clan’s security machinations in action to guess how it went. Wherever they were evacuating through, the safe house – shack? –
would be anything but safe to someone arriving after the cutoff time.

The track curved around a stand of trees, then down an embankment and around another clump to terminate in a clearing. At one side of the clearing stood a windowless shack, its wooden slats
bleached silvery gray by the weather. Brilliana stood in front of the padlocked door, white-faced, her P90 at the ready in clenched hands. ‘Park here,’ said Olga, opening her door
again.

Miriam parked, then climbed down from the cab. ‘Where’s Alasdair?’ she asked, approaching Brill.

Brill shook slightly. ‘Milady, he’s gone across already. Please
don’t go there
– ’ But Miriam had already seen what was round the side of the shack.

‘What happened?’ she demanded. ‘Who are they?’ Riordan had also seen; he knelt by the nearer of the two bodies, examining it. Lying facedown, dressed in hunting
camouflage jacket and trousers, they might have been asleep. Miriam stared at Riordan, then back at Brill. ‘What happened?’ she repeated.

‘They were waiting for us.’ Brill’s voice was robotic, unnaturally controlled. ‘They were not the guards we expected to see. That one’ – Riordan was
straightening up – ‘I recognized him. He worked for Henryk.’

Riordan was holding something at arm’s length. As he came closer, Miriam recognized it. ‘Silenced,’ Riordan told her, his voice over-controlled as he ejected the magazine and
worked the slide to remove the chambered round. ‘An assassin’s weapon.’

Brill nodded, her face frozen; but something in the set of her shoulders unwound, slumping infinitesimally.

‘Oh my god.’ Miriam felt her knees going weak. ‘What’s Sir Alasdair walking into?’

‘I don’t know.’ Brill took a deep breath. ‘I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes. Don’t worry, my lady, he’ll try to save one of them for
questioning.’

Miriam shivered. Her sense of dread intensified: not for herself, but for Alasdair. The man-mountain had already saved her life at least once; deceptively big and slow, he could move like an
avalanche when needs must. ‘What are they doing here?’

‘If I had to guess, I’d say the conservatives think they’re inside our OODA loop.’ Olga looked extremely unhappy. ‘This has to have been planned well in advance. My
lady, I beg your indulgence, but would you mind waiting in the truck? It has been modified – there is some lightweight armor – it would set my mind at ease.’