The Revolution Trade (Merchant Princes Omnibus 3) (53 page)

No way of knowing if Schroeder had taken him seriously. He’d felt the argument slipping away, Schroeder’s impatience visibly growing as he tried to explain about the Clan, and about
the FTO project to wrap them up and then to infiltrate and attack their home bases. He hadn’t even gotten as far as his contact with Miriam’s mother, Olga the ice princess, the business
about negotiation. He could see Schroeder’s attention drifting. And if he couldn’t convince one man who’d known Miriam and wondered where she’d gotten to, what hope was
there?

Maybe if I hadn’t asked the colonel, weeks ago,
he speculated. Colonel Smith was Air Force, on secondment to FTO by way of a posting with the NSA. He understood chains of command
and accountability and what to do about illegal orders. Not like that shadowy spook-fucker, Dr. James.
But they blew up my car
. They’d
expected
him to run somewhere. Smith might
already be dead.
If I’d smuggled some of the tapes out
– tapes of conversations in Hochsprache, recorded by someone with access to the Clan’s innermost counsels – but
that was nuts, too. The whole setup in that office was designed to prevent classified materials from going AWOL.

Where do I go, now?

Tired and sweaty and stressed and just a little bit numb from the bourbon, Mike sank back against the headboard and stared at the TV screen. Two diagonal columns of smoke, one of them almost
forming the classic mushroom, the other bent and twisted out of recognizable shape. Again and again, the Washington Monument’s base blasted sideways out from under it, the peak falling.
Helicopter footage of the rubble, now, eight- and nine-story office blocks stomped flat as if by a giant’s foot. Preliminary estimates of the death toll already saying it was worse than 9/11,
much worse. Anchormen and women looking shocked and almost human under their makeup, idiotically repeating questions and answers, hunting for meaning in the meaningless. Interviews with a survivor
on a gurney, bandaged around one side of their head, medevac’d to a hospital in Baltimore.

What’s left that I can do?

The vice president, somber in a black suit – someone had found a mourning armband for him somewhere – mounting a stage and standing behind a lectern. Balding, jowly, face like
thunder as he answered questions in a near-constant waterfall of flashbulb flickering. Promising to find the culprits and punish them. Make them pay. This man whom the Clan’s consigliere had
named as their West Coast connection. A whey-faced Justice Scalia stepping forward to administer the oath of office. President Cheney. Dire warnings about the Middle East. Appeals for national
unity in the face of this terrorist threat. Promises of further legislation to secure the border. State of emergency. State of complicity.

Where can I run?

Mike lifted his glass and took another mouthful. Knowing too much about the Family Trade Organization was bad enough; knowing too much about the new president’s darker secrets was a
one-way ticket to an unmarked roadside grave, for sure. And the hell of it was, there was probably no price he could pay that would buy his way back in, even if he
wanted
in on what looked
like the most monstrously cynical false-flag job since Hitler faked a Polish army attack on his own troops in order to justify the kickoff for the Second World War.
I need to be out of this
game,
he realized blearily. Preferably in some way that would defuse the whole thing, reduce the risk of escalation.
Stop them killing each other, somehow.
It seemed absurdly, impossibly
utopian, as far beyond his grasp as a mission to Mars. So he took another sip of bourbon. He had a lot of driving to do tomorrow, and he needed a good night’s sleep beforehand, and after what
he’d seen today . . . it was almost enough to make him wish he smoked marijuana.

*

Even revolutions need administration: And so the cabinet meeting rooms in the Brunswick Palace in New London played host to a very different committee from the nest of
landowning aristocrats and deadwood who’d cluttered John Frederick’s court just three months earlier. They’d replaced the long, polished mahogany table in the Green Receiving Room
with a circular one, the better to disguise any irregularities of status, and they’d done away with the ornate seat with the royal coat of arms; but it was still a committee, and Sir Adam
Burroughs presided in his role as First Citizen and Pastor of the Revolution.

Erasmus arrived late, nearly stepping on the heels of Jean-Paul Dax, the maritime and fisheries commissioner. ‘My apologies,’ he wheezed. ‘Is there a holdup?’

‘Not really.’ Dax stepped aside, giving him a sharp glance. ‘I see your place has moved.’

‘Hmm.’ Burgeson had headed towards his place at the right of Sir Adam’s hand, but now that he noticed, the engraved nameplates on the table had been shuffled, moving him three
seats farther to the right. ‘A mere protocol lapse, nothing important.’ He shook his head, stepping over towards his new neighbors: Maurits Blanc, commissioner of forestry, and David
McLellan, first industrial whip. ‘Hello, David, and good day to you.’

‘Not such a good day . . .’ McLellan seemed slightly subdued as Erasmus sat down. He directed his gaze at the opposite side of the round table, and Erasmus followed:
Not much
chivalry on display there,
he noticed. A tight clump of uniforms sat to the left of Sir Adam: Reynolds, along with Jennings from the Justice Directorate, Fowler from Prisons and Reeducation,
and a thin-faced fellow he didn’t recognize – who, from his attitude, looked to be a crony of Reynolds. A murder of crows, seated shoulder-to-shoulder: What kind of message was
that
?

‘Is Stephen feeling his oats?’ Erasmus murmured, for McLellan’s ears only.

‘I have no idea.’ Burgeson glanced at him sharply: McLellan’s expression was fixed, almost ghostly. Erasmus would have said more, but at that precise moment Sir Adam cleared
his throat.

‘Good morning, and welcome. I declare this session open. I would like to note apologies for absence from the following commissioners: John Wilson, Electricity, Daniel Graves, Munitions
– ’ The list went on. Erasmus glanced around the table. There were, indeed, fewer seats than usual – a surprise, but not necessarily an unwelcome one: the cumbersome size of the
revolutionary cabinet had sometimes driven him to despair.

‘Now, to the agenda. First, a report on the rationing program. Citizen Brooks – ’

Erasmus was barely listening – making notes, verging on doodles, on his pad – as the discussion wandered, seemingly at random, from department to department. He knew it was
intentional, that Sir Adam’s goal was to ensure that everyone had some degree of insight into everyone else’s business –
transparency
, he called it – but sometimes
the minutiae of government were deathly boring; he had newspapers and widecasters to run, a nagging itch to get out in front and cultivate his own garden. Nevertheless he sat at ease, cultivating
stillness, and trying to keep at least the bare minimum of attention on the reports. Tone was as important as content, he felt: You could often tell fairly rapidly if someone was trying to pull the
wool over your eyes simply by the way they spun out their words.

It was halfway through Fowler’s report that Erasmus began to feel the first stirrings of disquiet. ‘Construction of new reeducation centers is proceeding apace’ – Fowler
droned portentously, like a well-fed vicar delivering a slow afternoon sermon – ‘on course to meet the goal of one center per township with a population in excess of ten thousand. And I
confidently expect my department to be able to meet our labor obligation to the Forestry Commission and the Departments of Mines and Transport – ’

Did I just hear that?
Burgeson blinked, staring at Fowler and his neighbors.
Did I just hear the minister for prisons boast that he was supplying labor quotas to mines and
road-building units?
The skin on the back of his neck crawled. Yes, there were a lot of soldiers in the royalist camp, and many prisoners of war – and yes, there was a depression-spawned
crime wave – but handing a profit motive to the screws stuck in his throat. He glanced around the table. At least a third of the commissioners he recognized had done hard time in the royal
labor camps. Yet they just sat there while Fowler regurgitated his self-congratulatory litany of manacles refastened and windows barred.
That can’t be what’s going on,
he
decided.
I must have misheard.

Next on the agenda was Citizen Commissioner Reynolds’s report – and for this, Erasmus regained his focus and listened attentively. Reynolds wasn’t exactly a rabble-rousing
firebrand, but unlike Fowler he had some idea about pacing and delivery and the need to keep his audience’s attention. ‘Thank you, citizens. The struggle for hearts and minds
continues’ – he nodded at Erasmus, guilelessly collegiate – ‘and I would like to congratulate our colleagues in propaganda and education for their sterling work in bringing
enlightenment to the public. However, there remains a hard core of wreckers and traitors – I’d place it at between two and eight percent – who cleave to the discredited doctrine
of the divine right of kingship, and who work tirelessly and in secret to undermine our good works. The vast majority of these enemies work outside our ranks, in open opposition – but as the
party has grown a hundredfold in the past three months, inevitably some of them have slipped in among us, stealthy maggots crawling within to undermine and discredit us.

‘A week ago, Citizens Fowler, Petersen, and I convened an extraordinary meeting of the Peace and Justice Subcommittee. We agreed that it was essential to identify the disloyal minority and
restrain them before they do any more damage. To that end, we have begun a veterinarian process within our own departments. Security is particularly vulnerable to infiltration by saboteurs and
former revenants of the Crown Polis, as you know, and I am pleased to say that we have identified and arrested no fewer than one hundred and fifty-six royalist traitors in the past three days.
These individuals are now being processed by tribunals of people’s legates appointed by the Department of Law. I hope to report at the next cabinet meeting that the trials have been concluded
and my department purged of traitors; when I can make such an announcement, it will be time to start looking for opportunities to carry the fight to the enemy in other departments.’ Reynolds
smiled warmly, nodding and making eye contact around the table; there was a brief rumble of agreement from all sides.

Erasmus bobbed his head: but unlike his neighbors, he was aghast. Among the books Miriam Beckstein had lent him the year before, he had been quite taken aback by one in particular: a history of
revolution in the East, not in the French Empire-in-being in the Russias, but in a strange, rustic nation ruled by descendants of Peter the Great. The picture it painted, of purges and show trials
followed by a lowering veil of terror, was one of utmost horror; he’d taken some comfort from the realization that it couldn’t happen here, that the bizarre ideology of the Leninists
was nothing like the egalitarian and democratic creed of the Levelers.
Was I wrong?
he wondered, watching Citizen Commissioner Reynolds smiling and acknowledging the congratulations of his
fellow commissioners with a sense of sickness growing in his belly:
Is corruption and purgation a natural product of revolutions? Or is there something else going on here?

His eyes narrowing, Erasmus Burgeson resolved to order some discreet research.

*

It wasn’t a regular briefing room: They’d had to commandeer the biggest lecture theater in the complex and it was still packed, shoulder-to-shoulder with blue and
brown uniforms. Security was tight, from the Bradleys and twitchy-fingered National Guard units out on the freeway to the military police patrols on the way in. Everyone knew about the lucky escape
the Pentagon had had, if only via the grapevine. The word on the floor was that the bad guys were aiming for a trifecta, but missed one – well, they
mostly
missed: Half a dozen guards
and unlucky commuters were awaiting burial in a concrete vault with discreet radiation trefoils once Arlington got back to normal. But nobody in the lecture theater was inclined to cut the bad guys
any slack. The mood, Colonel Smith reflected, was hungry. He tried to put it out of his mind as he walked to the podium and tapped the mike.

‘Good morning, everyone. I’m Lieutenant Colonel Eric Smith, lately of the air force, seconded to NSA/CSS Office of Unconventional Programs, and from there to an organization you
haven’t heard of until now. I’ve been instructed to bring you up to speed on our existence, mission, and progress to date. I’ll be happy to take your questions at the end, but
I’d be grateful if you could hold on to them for the time being. Just so you know where we’re going, this is about the attack yesterday, and what we – all of us – are going
to be dealing with over the next months and years.’

He hit the remote button to bring up the first slide. The silence was broken by a cough from the audience; otherwise, it was total.

‘For the past year I’ve been seconded to a black ops group called the Family Trade Organization, FTO. FTO is unlisted and draws on assets from Air Force, NSA, FBI, CIA, DEA, NRO, and
the national laboratories. We’re tasked with responding to a threat which was only identified thirteen months ago. That’s when this man walked into a DEA office in Boston and asked for
witness protection.’

Click.
A new slide, showing a polyethylene-wrapped brick of white powder, and a small metal ingot, side by side on a worktop. ‘He was carrying a kilogram of China White and a
hundred-gram lump of plutonium 239, which we subsequently confirmed had been produced in one of our own breeders. This got our attention, but his story was so crazy that DEA nearly wrote him off as
a kook – they didn’t take the plutonium brick seriously at first. However, it checked out.’

Click.
Surveillance video, grainy black-and-white, showing a view of a jail cell. A prisoner is sitting on the edge of a plastic bench, alone. He glances around. Then, after a few
seconds, he rolls back his left sleeve to reveal some kind of tattoo on his wrist. He raises it in front of his face. Abruptly, the cell is empty.