The Hidden Family

“Hello? Can I help—”

“I’m sure you can.” Miriam smiled sweetly at the man behind the counter—a stranger she’d never seen before in her life. “Is Inspector Smith here?”

“No.” He straightened up. “But I can get him if you want.”

“That won’t be necessary.” Miriam drew her pistol. “Lie down. Hands behind your back.” She stepped forward. “Come on, tie him!” she snapped at Roland.

“If you say so.” The doorbell jangled and he glanced up at her as Olga and the two other guards entered the shop, followed rapidly by Brill and Ivor, and then the rest of the group. With fourteen youngish Clan members inside, it was uncomfortably packed. “What are you going to do with him?” asked Olga.

“Take him with us, stash him in Fort Lofstrom. Got a better idea?”

“You’re making a big mistake,” the man on the floor said quietly.

“You’re a constable,” said Miriam. “Aren’t you? Where’s Burgeson?” He didn’t say anything. “Right,” she said grimly, lifting the counter and walking behind it. I hope he’s alright, she thought distantly. Another spell in His Majesty’s concentration camps will kill him, for sure. “You two, carry this guy along. The rest of you, follow me.”

They trooped down the steep wooden steps in the back of the shop, along an alley hemmed in with pigeonholes filled with sad relics, individually tagged and dated with their owners’ hopes and fears. Miriam looked round. “This will do,” she said. “I’m going to try the crossing. If I succeed and there’s trouble, I’ll come right back. If I’m not back in five minutes, the rest of you come over. Roland, carry Brill. You, carry Olga. Brill, Olga, you carry us over to the far side, to world two: I don’t want anybody making two successive crossings without a rest between. Be ready for trouble.”

She took her coat off. Beneath it she wore her hiking gear and a bulky bulletproof vest from the Clan’s Niejwein armory. It looked out of place here, but might be a lifesaver on the other side. She barely noticed the captive policeman’s eyes go wide as he watched the cellar full of strangers strip down to combat fatigues and body armor. “Are you sure about this?” asked Roland as she picked up her shoulder bag again.

“I’m sure.” Miriam grimaced. “Time to go.”

“You’ll never get away with this,” the secret policeman mumbled as she pulled out her locket and, taking a deep breath, focused on it.

Everything went black and a spike of pain seemed to split her skull. Buried alive! she thought, appalled—then reached out a hand in front of her. No, just in the dark. She took another breath, smelling mildew, and swallowed back bile that threatened to climb her throat. Her heart pounded. The flashlight—

She fumbled for a moment over the compact LED flashlight, then managed to get enough light to see by. She was in a cellar alright, a dusty and ancient wine store with bottle racks to either side. “Phew,” she said aloud. She took a second or two to let her racing heart slow down toward normal, then marched toward the door at the end of the tunnel.

The light switches worked, and the cellar flooded with illumination—bright after a minute of flashlight. “Do I wait?” she asked herself. “Like hell. We’ve got people to rescue.” She turned the handle and cautiously entered the passage that led to the servants’ stairs.

Her head ached furiously. It had been aching for days now, it seemed, and she felt worse than sick. If she stood up fast, or moved suddenly, her vision went dark. I can’t do this again, she thought to herself, leaning against the corridor wall. It’ll kill me.

Two hops in a day—one from Niejwein to New London, then another into Fort Lofstrom’s dingy cellars. If she made a return trip to Boston now, she was sure she’d pop an artery. Cerebral hemorrhage, what a way to go. Half of the others were piggybacking, staying fresh as long as possible. For her sins she’d carried Brill through on the first trip. Now she was paying the price in aching muscles and a borderline migraine.

“Matthias,” she said aloud, with a flash of rage. Bastard thought he could use me, did he? Well, she’d see about that. Once the crisis was under control, and once she’d repossessed Paulie’s stolen CD-ROM. She was certain Matthias had it, and there were only two things to do with it that made sense. Send it to the FBI, or leave it on Angbard’s desk, along with the photos of her and Roland—a potentially lethal embarrassment if Angbard interpreted it as a plot by the lovers to elope and blackmail the Clan into silence. Miriam’s money was on the latter. Once the immediate business was sorted, she fully intended to give Paulie a discreet request and a bunch of cash: enough to hire some private detectives. There were ways and means of finding people who didn’t want to be found, when your resources and patience were unlimited, and she was willing to bet that a spider like Matthias wouldn’t be able to camouflage himself as well as he thought once he left the center of his web. She’d spend whatever it took to find him, and then he’d be sorry.

After a couple of minutes she sighed, then pushed herself upright. She dry-swallowed a painkiller, which stuck uncomfortably in her throat. She was light-headed, but not too light-headed to find her way up to the basement level. Passing the scullery, she ducked inside to grab a glass of water to help the pill go down. Something caught her eye: The door to the cold store lay ajar. She looked inside.

“Oh shit. Oh shit.” She breathed fast as she leaned over the top of the pile—three, maybe four corpses sprawling and stiff, not yet livid—and saw the cruel edges of bullet wounds. “Shit.” She pushed herself upright and looked to the entrance. “Cameras—”

Matthias has a little helper, she realized. How many people did he kill? A great house like this, you couldn’t send all of the servants away—but murdering the skeleton staff bespoke a degree of extreme ruthlessness. Angbard hadn’t been suspicious enough of his own deputy: He’d let Matthias pick and choose staff assignments. Now it looked like she was going to be stuck paying the price.

“Matthias always has a backup plan,” she muttered to herself. “If I was a sick spider sitting at the center of a web, waiting to sting my employer, what would I do?”

She opened the door cautiously. “Roland was afraid of bombs—” She stopped. Where? “The armory is where you store explosives. It’s built to contain a blast. But if Matthias had an accomplice the explosive might be human—”

She panted, taking in shallow breaths. Stop that. Matthias blackmailed people. How many? And what could he make them do—wait for the Clan rescue expedition to show up, then bring the house down on them?

The pantry was empty, a door standing ajar on the kitchen and servants’ stairwell at the end of the hallway. Miriam hit the stairs. It corkscrewed upstairs dizzyingly, halls branching off it toward each wing of the family accommodation. She climbed it carefully, revolver in hand, cautiously scanning the steps ahead for signs of a tripwire. Hoping that the dead servants meant that there’d be no eyes left to watch the video screens. Second floor, east wing, through the security doors on the left, she repeated to herself, hoping that the surveillance, if it existed at all, would prove to be habit-blind.

The east wing corridor was as silent as a crypt, as empty as the passages of a high-class hotel in the small hours of the morning while the guests sleep. Any guests here were liable to be dead in their beds. Miriam came out of the servant’s stairwell and darted down the side of the corridor, crouching instinctively. She paused at the solid wooden doors at one side of the passage and swiped the card-key she’d borrowed from Roland through the scanner at one side. When she heard the latch click, she pushed one door open with a toe and stepped through. This is the security zone? It looked like more rooms, opening off a short corridor—offices, maybe, and Angbard’s outer office door right ahead.

She paused before the door. Her heart was pounding. You. She looked at it. Someone was inside. Whoever killed the servants. A ticking human bomb. Growing anger made her feel dizzy. She carefully moved to one side and raised her gun.

“I really wouldn’t do that,” said a sad voice right behind her left ear.

“Put the gun down and turn around slowly.”

She froze, then dropped the pistol and turned around. “Why?” she asked.

A nondescript man leaned against the wall behind her. He was unshaven, and although he was wearing a suit—standard for a courier—his tie was loose. He looked tired, but also content. “It’s about time,” he said.

His gun, Miriam realized. It was pointed at her stomach. She couldn’t identify it.