The Revolution Trade (Merchant Princes Omnibus 3) (70 page)

‘But – ’ Paulette stopped and looked bleakly at Olga.

‘What?’ Mike glanced between them.

‘Do you want to tell him?’ asked Olga.

Paulette shook her head wordlessly and reached across to flick on the radio.

‘ – Cardiac arrest on the way to Bethesda Naval Hospital. Doctors worked for three hours to try to resuscitate the president but he was declared dead at five-fourteen this morning.
The vice president is meeting with advisors but is expected to appear at a press conference to make a statement imminently; we understand that Supreme Court Chief Justice Scalia is on his way to
the vice president’s location to administer the oath – ’

‘Fuck.’ Mike stared at the radio. All his carefully considered plans crumbled.
‘Fuck.’

‘That’s two presidents in a month,’ said Olga. ‘I understand it’s a stressful job.’

‘Jesus fuck.’
Paulette looked at Mike reproachfully. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered.

Olga was imperturbable: ‘Do you think your people will care about the misdeeds of KINGPIN’s predecessor?’

Mike shook his head. ‘Fuck. Sorry.’ He stared at the radio. The presenter was babbling on about previous presidential emergency successions. ‘He’s dead. Why did the
bastard have to die
now
?’

‘What will this new president do?’ Olga leaned toward him.

‘KINGPIN? He’ll – ’ Mike chuckled weakly. ‘Oh dear god.’

‘Dick Cheney was Mr. Rumsfeld’s assistant, wasn’t he?’ Paulette blinked, her eyes watery. ‘Back in the Ford era, or something. They’re more like partners,
were more like partners, the past couple of years. Partners in crime – politics, not the Clan. President Rumsfeld is going to be just like President Cheney, only without the personal
history.’

Mike nodded. ‘You had a handle on Mr. Cheney. Mr. Rumsfeld is the same – only you’ve lost your handle.’

‘Oh.’ Olga sat motionless for a few seconds. ‘This fact needs to be reported.’

‘What are you going to do?’ Mike asked.

‘I’m going to tell certain people.’ Olga flashed him a bright, brittle smile. ‘I’m going to see if I can get you those papers – if you still want them. Then
those of us with even half an ounce of self-preservation are going to run very fast . . .’

The row of big town houses set back behind their high walls and hedges had seen better days. Every other building showed boarded-up windows to the street, the blank-eyed,
gape-doored stare of ruination and downfall. Some of them – some very few – had been squatted, but for the most part the Freedom Riders had kept the dusty workless poor out of the
houses of the bourgeoisie, for this was not solely a revolution of the working class.

The big steamer huffed and bumped across last winter’s potholes, then slowed as Yul wrestled with the wooden steering wheel, swearing at it as he worked the brake handle and tried to lever
the beast between stone gateposts. Miriam sat up in the back, trying to see over his shoulders for a first glimpse of the house she’d bought in this city using smuggled Clan bullion, a little
over a year ago. ‘Is it – ’ she swallowed her words as the front of the building came into view.

‘It seems intact.’ Brilliana, next to her, added, ‘Let us examine it, my lady.’

The boarded-up windows were still sealed, the front door barred and padlocked as one of her armsmen held the car’s door open for Miriam. ‘By your leave, my lady?’ Alasdair slid
round in his jump seat. ‘I should go first.’

Miriam bit back an instinctive irritated response. ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘Thank you.’ Sir Alasdair unfolded his legs and stood, interposing his not-inconsiderable frame
between her and the facade of the building.

‘Wait,’ Alasdair rumbled without looking round as he moved forward. ‘Schraeder, left and rear. Yul, you stay with the car. Brunner, with me . . .’ They spread out around
the house purposefully, their long coats still closed despite the summer humidity. It looked empty, but appearances could be deceptive and Sir Alasdair was not inclined to take risks with
Helge’s life: He’d sworn an oath to protect her, and his people took such things seriously.

Miriam stared at the front door as Alasdair approached it, slowing on the steps, then bending close to peer at the door handle. Beside her, Brill shifted on the bench seat, one hand going to the
earpiece tucked discreetly under her hat. ‘Clear behind,’ she said suddenly. ‘Schraeder’s in.’

I bought that house,
Miriam told herself. Right now it looked as unfamiliar as her father – her adoptive father – had looked in the funeral parlor. Houses took as much of
their character from the people who filled them as racks of meat on bone took from their animating personality. It had once been her home; but for the miscarriage she might now be looking to raise
a child in it. Now it was just a big neglected building, a cumbersomely inanimate corpse –

Alasdair interrupted her morbid stream of consciousness by straightening up. He unlocked the door, opened it slowly, and stepped inside.

‘All clear,’ said Brill, tapping Miriam on the shoulder. ‘Let’s go inside.’

The house was much as Miriam had last seen it, only dusty and boarded-up, the furniture looming beneath dust sheets. ‘Who organized this?’ she asked, pausing at the foot of the
stairs.

‘I did,’ said Brill. ‘When Baron Henryk assigned the business operation to Morgan I assumed they’d want you back in charge sooner or later. Morgan didn’t like it
here, he preferred to spend as much time at home as he could.’

‘Right. This way.’ Miriam headed upstairs in the dark, a flashlight guiding her feet. Opposite the top of the stairs was the door to the main bedroom. She pushed it open, saw
daylight: The upper windows at least were not boarded up. ‘I need a hand with this.’

‘With what – ’

Miriam was already kneeling near the skirting board beside the bed. Stale dust and a faint smell of mouse piss wrinkled her nose. ‘In here. Here, hold this.’ She passed Brill the
loose piece of wood-work. Behind it, the brickwork was visible. ‘Pass me your knife . . .’ It took a little work, but between them they levered the two half-bricks out of their niche.
Then Miriam reached inside and grabbed. ‘Got it.’

The black cloth bag was about the size of a boot, but much heavier. Miriam grunted and lifted it onto the bed.

‘How much is it?’ asked Brilliana.

‘I’m surprised it’s still here.’ Miriam untied the knotted drawstring then thrust her hand inside. ‘Yep, it’s the real thing.’ The gold brick glinted in
the afternoon light; she returned it to the bag hastily. ‘About six kilos of twenty-three-carat. It was worth a hell of a lot a year ago – God only knows what it’s worth right
now.’ Stuck in a deflationary cycle and a liquidity crash with a revolution on top, gold – with or without seigniorage – was enormously more valuable than it had been when it was
merely what the coin of the realm was made of. The national treasury had been stripped bare to pay for the war: That was what had started the crisis.

She straightened up and dusted herself down. ‘Job number one for Alasdair is to get someone who knows what they’re doing to hide this
properly
. We lucked out once, but sooner
or later one of Erasmus’s rivals will probably try and shake us down to see where the leverage is coming from. They won’t believe the truth, and if they find this here we’ll be
for the chop. Revolutionary governments hate hoarders; it’s a law of nature.’

‘I’ll see to it, my lady – ’

‘That’s another thing.’ Miriam glanced at the windows. ‘It’s not “my lady” anymore – I mean it. Drop the honorific, and tell everyone else:
It’s Miriam, or ma’am, but not “my lady”.’

Brill’s dismay was palpable. ‘But you
are
my lady! You are my liege, and I owe you an acknowledgment of that fact! This isn’t the United States, this is –
’

‘This is a continent
in the grip of revolution
.’ Miriam walked towards the wardrobe and lifted one corner of its dusty shroud. ‘What do you know about revolutionary
governments?’

‘Not much; we hang rebels, my lady.’ Brill lifted back the top of the dust sheet from the bed, wrinkling her nose.

‘Well, I’ve been doing some reading this week. Remember the books?’ Miriam had given Brill a list of titles to order from Amazon. ‘There’s a general pattern. First
there’s a crisis – usually fiscal, often military. The old government is discredited and a coalition of interests move in and toss the bums out. Then they start trying to govern as a
coalition, and it goes to hell quickly because just changing the government doesn’t solve the underlying crisis unless it was a crisis of legitimacy.’ Brill looked perturbed, as Miriam
continued: ‘This means that the new government has to try and fix the crisis at its height while they’re at their weakest, under conditions where it’s very easy to replace them.
Most post-revolutionary regimes are overthrown by their own hard-line radicals, the ones with the most blinkered ideological outlook – precisely because they’re also the ones most
willing to murder anyone who stands between them and a solution to the crisis. It happened during the French revolution, the Russian revolution, it happened in Iran . . . that’s how
revolutions roll.’

She tugged the dust sheet down from the wardrobe and stepped aside.

‘The revolution here was against the autocratic monarchy, but there’s also a fiscal crisis and a war. That’s the trifecta – crisis of currency, conflict, and legitimacy
in one go. The aristocracy, such as it is, gets its legitimacy from the Crown – for centuries, John Frederick and his family have sold titles as a way of raising revenue – so anyone
with a noble title is going to be automatically suspect to the hard-liners in the new government. And unless Sir Adam can end the war with France and fix the economy in, oh, about six months, the
hard-liners are going to get restive.’ She turned worried eyes on Brilliana. ‘That’s why I want everyone to stop using titles of nobility and similar honorifics
immediately
. If I’m wrong, they’ll get over it. But if I’m right . . .’

‘I understand,’ Brill said tiredly. ‘There’s no need to repeat yourself. Miriam. Ma’am.’ She peeled back the blankets and sheets that had stayed on the bed,
exposing them to air for the first time in months. ‘What else is going to happen here?’

‘I don’t know. It depends on whether they successfully tackle the economy, the war, or the constitutional problems – any or all of them.’ She opened the wardrobe,
sniffed. ‘I think something died in here. Where’s the flashlight?’

‘Here.’ Brill waited while Miriam shoved aside the dresses on the rail and shone the beam around the interior of the wardrobe. ‘What do you think?’

‘I think they’ll have to execute the king, and a lot of his supporters, or the French would use him as an excuse to make mischief. And they won’t rest with a revolutionary
superpower on the other side of the world – Sir Adam Burroughs’s Leveler ideology is an existential threat to any absolute monarchy, much like the Soviet Union was to the United
States’ capitalist system. Which leaves the economy.’ Miriam straightened up. ‘Lots of radical ministries jockeying for preeminence, a permanent emergency in foreign affairs, a
big war effort. Central planning, maybe, lots of nationalization. At the worst, they might degenerate into outright fascism. They’re going to have to industrialize properly if they’re
going to dig their way out of this mess. War spending is always a good way to boost an economy. And land reform, let’s not forget the land reform – they’ll probably expropriate
the big slave plantations in South America, the duchies of the Midwest.’ ‘My – Miriam, you can’t sleep here: The bedding’s mildewed.’ ‘Wha – oh?
Damn. There should be spare sheets in the laundry – ’ Miriam wound down. ‘Oh. No servants.’

‘I could hire bodies easily enough, if you think it necessary?’ ‘No.’ Miriam frowned. ‘Flashing around cash would be really dangerous right now. Huh. Need to know
if the electricity’s working . . . listen, let’s go see if the office is intact and the power still works. If so, we ought to go look at the factory. Then I can electrograph Erasmus and
tell him we’re ready to start work whenever he comes up with those passes he was talking about.’

*

In an office near the northern end of Manhattan, with a window overlooking the royal navy dockyard, Stephen Reynolds set aside the stack of death warrants at his left hand and
stood, smiling warmly, as commissioners Jennings and Fowler walked in.

‘Good morning, citizens.’ He gestured at the seats beside his desk as he walked around it, placing himself on the same side of the table as his visitors: ‘Nice to see you. Are
you both well? Edward, is your wife – ’

‘She’s fine,’ Jennings said, a trifle brusquely, then cleared his throat. ‘Nothing to worry about, and the would-be assassin is already in custody.’ As the citizen
inquisitor supervising the Justice Directorate, Jennings (not to mention his family) had become accustomed to being the principal target of the regime’s enemies (not to mention their
surviving relatives). ‘I gather your people have identified his conspirators already.’

‘Ah, excellent.’ Fowler cleared his throat. ‘Time is short, I’m afraid: Got a meeting of the Construction Subcommittee to chair in an hour. You have something that calls
for extreme measures?’

‘Yes.’ Reynolds smiled again, concealing his minor irritation at being so preempted. ‘Alas, we have a minor problem. That fine fellow Mr. Burgeson is apparently trespassing on
our turf. I’ve had a tip-off from certain sources’ –
not
mentioning Elder Cheung and his magical powers, or his strange associate, the Dutch doctor – ‘that
Erasmus is, not to put too fine a point on it, dealing with
persons of interest
. There’s some question as to what he is doing; I haven’t been able to get an informer into his
organization. But the secrecy with which he is conducting his affairs is suggestive. Certainly it’s not any activity that falls within the portfolio of the commissioner for state truth. I
believe he is in league with wreckers and subversives, and I would appreciate the cooperation of your departments in, ah, distinguishing the sheep from the goats.’