The Merchants’ War

“That you, Hastert?”

The shadow in front of him nodded. “O’Neil’s twenty yards that way. Go to him now.” Bulky night-vision goggles half-covered Hastert’s face, in surreal contrast to his baggy trousers and chain mail vest. He’d acquired a gun from somewhere, some kind of machine pistol with a bulky silencer attached.

“Okay, I’m going, I’m going.” Mike scuttled away, his pulse hammering with the adrenaline aftershock. Hastert and O’Neil were part of the forward support team in Zone Blue, specialists yanked out of Delta Force to handle the sharp end of the Family Trade Organization’s intel operation on the ground in the parallel universe the criminals came from. Dangerous men, but it was their job to get him out of this alive. I could have told her to come with me, he told himself. Could have lied, offered her witness protection. Hell, she asked for it! We could have gotten her out.

But Miriam’s potential value to Colonel Smith lay in her connection to the Clan hierarchy; and everything had gone to pieces. “They’ve got my mom,” she’d said conversationally, right after he’d shot the soldier who was trying to murder her. And the royal they’d been trying to marry her off to against her wishes was dead—what the hell was going on? “O’Neil?” he whispered.

“Over here, sir. Keep down.”

O’Neil was crouched behind a deadfall. “What’s going on?”

“Looks like they’re making whoopee.” His grin was a ghostly crescent in the darkness. “Don’t you worry, we’ll get you out of here.”

A moment of rustling and crunching, and Sergeant Hastert appeared. “Sitrep, Pete.”

“Sam’s on point.” O’Neil gestured farther into the trees, where the ground fell away from the low hill on which the palace had stood. “He’s seen no sign of anybody in the woods. Bad news is, the aggressor faction have got sentries out and they’re covering the approaches from the road. There’s maybe thirty of them and they’ve got riders—we’re cut off.”

“Get him back here, then.”

O’Neil vanished into the darkness. “How bad is it?” asked Mike.

“Could be worse: nobody’s shooting at us.” Hastert turned to look at him. “But we’d better be out of here by dawn. Did you get what you wanted?”

“Yes and no.” Mike hunkered down. “Everything we thought we knew about what was going on here is out of date. I got to talk to my contact, but she’s in deep shit herself—didn’t have much time, they were trying to kill her —”

A noise like a door the size of a mountain slamming shut a hundred meters away rocked Mike back on his heels.

“Down!” Hastert lurched against him, shoving Mike’s face down on a matted bed of branches. Moments later, debris thudded off the branches above their heads, spattering down on the summer-dry soil. “Get moving, we’re too close.”

The next hour passed in a nightmarish crawl through the dark forest, heading always away from the boom and crash of gunfire and the shouts of the combatants. The royal palace, although nominally within the city of Niejwein, was surrounded by a walled garden the size of a large park—large enough that the palace itself was out of easy gunshot range of its neighbors. But in the chaos of the apparent coup, the shooters seemed to be inside the compound. Stray shots periodically came tearing through the treetops, so that Mike needed no urging to keep his head close to the dirt.

After an interminable crawl, Hastert tapped him on he shoulder. “Stop here, wait till I get back.” He vanished into the darkness as silently as a ghost. Mike shivered violently. Trouble? he wondered. There was nothing he could do; on this part of the mission he was baggage, as much as Miriam would have been if he’d tried to extract her from whatever the hell that weird scene back at the palace had been about. I can’t believe I shot that guy without warning.

Mike reran the scene in his mind’s eye; the perp—even now, he couldn’t drop the law enforcement outlook —with the knife, trying to stab the woman in the black gown, the stink of burning wood, snarling fear, taking the time to aim carefully, waiting for a clear shot as the woman shoved back hard against her assailant…then the shock of recognition. It’s her! Despite the longer, intricately coiled hair, the drawn expression, the bruise on her cheek, and the rich Victorian widow’s weeds, it was like nothing had changed since that ambiguous last dinner at Wang’s, just off Kendall Square. The shock of recognition was still with him: the realization that, all along, the world he moved in was smaller than he’d realized, that during the whole fruitless search for the east coast phantom network he’d been dating a woman who could have—if she herself had known what she was— put him right on top of it. If. Getting involved hadn’t been good for her. They’ve got Mom. And something about an arranged marriage. The smell of raw sewage running through the gutters in the middle of the unpaved road—

“Wake up.” A hand touched his shoulder.

“I’m awake.” Mike looked round. Hastert crouched beside him.

“There’s an open area about fifty yards wide before the wall, which is eight feet high. Just the other side of the wall there’s a road. O’Neil’s setting up a distraction. We have”—Hastert glanced at his watch—“six minutes to get to the edge of the apron and wait. Then we have thirty seconds to get over the wall and across the road. Take the second alley on the left, proceed down it for twenty yards then take the right turn, fourth door on the left is transit house gamma. You ready?”

Mike nodded. “Guess so.”

“Then let’s get going.”

Translated Transcript Begins:

“Shit. He didn’t.”

“I’m afraid so.”

(Sigh.) “That means we’re down by what, two? Three? Seats on the council. And the king. This is an absolute disaster. Who else have we lost?”

(Pause.) “Of our party, most of them. The dowager Hildegarde is yammering her head off, but she survived, as did her daughter. James Lee, we rescued. He’s concussed but will live—”

“Small mercies. Damn her for—damn her!”

“It’s not your fault, your grace, or hers, that this had to happen at the worst time.”

(Sigh.) “Continue.”

“We lost Wilem, Maris, Erik, three juniors of Hjorth-Arnesen’s cadet branch, and four others of middling rank. We lost her majesty the queen mother, and the cadet branch of the royal family in the person of Prince Creon. He’s a confirmed kill, by the way. About thirty retainers and outer family members, but that’s by the by. The main losses are the royal family—except for the crown prince—and Henryk, Wilem, Maris, Erik, and others.”

(Long pause.)

“Shit.”

“We’ve taken worse—”

“No, it’s not that. It’s the little shit. The Pervert. What’s he up to?”

“Holed up with Niejwein on the back lawn, scheming about something. Everyone with half a clue is rushing over to offer their firstborn to him.”

“Has he sent up any smoke signals yet?”

“No.”

“Damn. That confirms it, he’s got what he wants and we’re going to get the blame. He’s hated us all along, since he learned about Creon’s latency, and if he’s listening to that snake Niejwein…”

“Your grace?”

(Sigh.) “I know, I’m rambling. What’s your analysis?”

“I think we’re in the shit, sir. I think—” (pause)—he’s going to try to roll us over. All of us. Niejwein and Sudtmann and that crowd have been feeling their oats and they will take this opportunity once and for all to put us in our place. And the Pervert will use us as a lever to consolidate his power over them. He doesn’t trust anyone, sir, and the rumors—”

“I don’t care if he shags goats or rapes virgins, what I care about is us. Sky Father, this is a fifty-year setback!” (Inaudible muttering.) “Yes, yes, I already thought of that. Oliver, I know we see eye to eye over very little—”