The Merchants’ War

“Yes, that.” She nodded. “I came as soon as I heard. How long has the watch been running?”

“All week, since before the raid. I can’t be sure, my lady, but I think our activities might be what attracted the interest of the Polis. We were using the house as a staging post, and when he went down to New York…” His shrug was eloquent.

“I see.” Brilliana paused for a moment. It would fit the picture, she considered. If the Polis were already watching the house, and spotted strangers based there keeping watch on a suspect, that would get their attention. And if Burgeson headed for London and the strangers followed him…that would be when they’d bring down the hammer, right enough. “But you lost the trail in Man —New London.”

“He started evading,” Morgan protested. “Like a seasoned agent!”

“He was last seen with a female companion,” Brilliana pointed out coldly. “Which was the whole point of the watch on him.”

“It’s not her,” Morgan dismissed her concern. “Some bint he picked up from a brothel in New London—”

“You sound awfully sure of that. Would you like to place a little wager on it? Either way? The last joint on your left little finger, against mine?”

She grinned as she said it: he turned white. “No, no,” he mumbled. “It’d be just my luck if—look, he was deliberately trying to throw his tail, that’s what Joseph said! And the business with them changing trains? I had Oskar and Georg waiting at the station but Burgeson and his companion weren’t on it when it pulled in.”

“Morgan. Morgan.” Brill smiled again. The way it made Morgan wince was truly wonderful. On the other hand, he probably thought she was reporting direct to the thin white duke. “I already know that you’re undermanned and don’t have enough pairs of boots on the ground. And you’ve lost your forward base, due to enemy action, not negligence.” At least, not active negligence. Nobody could accuse Morgan of spontaneous activity—he might be stupid, but at least he possessed the mitigating quality of bone-deep laziness. His sins were seldom those of commission. “So why are you trying so hard to convince me it’s not your fault? Anyone would think you were trying to hide something! Whereas if it’s just Burgeson giving you the slip…” She shrugged.

“It’s embarrassing, that’s what it is.” He squinted at her suspiciously. “And I know what you think of me.”

You do? Really? The temptation to tell him the truth was hard to resist, but she managed to restrain herself. Later. “The shop. You’ve checked the door alarm, haven’t you?”

“I’ve had it staked out since the train departed.” Morgan looked pleased with himself.

“Right. Team in the street? A wire and transmitter on the door?” He nodded. “You know there’s a secret back way in? And you know about Helge’s experience with trip wires?” His smile slipped. “Here’s what’s going to happen. Oskar and I are going to disguise ourselves then cross over via the backup transfer site. While we are checking the shop out—and I expect our birds have flown the coop, long since—you’ll finish your lunch then send a messenger across to cable the railway ticket office asking if they have any reservations in the name of, let’s see, a Mr. and Mrs. Burgeson would spring to mind? That is the alias they were using at the hotel? And if so, I want to know where they’re going, and where the train stops en route, so I can meet them before they get to the final destination.” Brill had allowed her voice to grow quieter, so that Morgan was unconsciously leaning towards her as she finished the sentence.

“But if they’re on a train—they could be on their way to Buenos Aires, or anywhere!”

“So what? The organization bizjet is on standby for me at Logan.” She stood up. “I’ll be back in two hours, and I expect a detailed report on the surveillance operation and Burgeson’s current location, so I can set up the intercept and work out who to draft in.” She took a deep breath. “We’d better be in time. And you’d better find out where they’re going, because if we lose her again, the duke will be really pissed.”

The council of war took place in a conference room in the Boston Sheraton, just off the Hyatt Center, with air-conditioning and full audio-visual support. All but two of the eighteen attendees were male, and all wore dark, conservatively cut business suits: they were polite but distant in their dealings with the hotel staff. The facilities manager who oversaw their refreshments and lunch buffet got the distinct impression that they were foreign bankers, perhaps a delegation from a very starchy Swiss institution. Or maybe they were a committee of cemetery managers. It hardly mattered, though. They were clearly the best kind of customer—quiet, undemanding, dignified, and utterly unlikely to make a mess or start any fights.

“Helmut. An update on the opposition’s current disposition, if you please,” said the graying, distinguished- looking fellow seated at the head of the table. “Are there any indications of a change in their operational deployments?”

“Yes, your grace.” Helmut—a stocky fellow in his mid-thirties with an odd pudding-bowl haircut, stood up and opened his laptop. His suit jacket flexed around muscled shoulders: he obviously worked out between meetings. “I have prepared a brief presentation to show the geographical distribution of targets…”

The video projector flickered on, showing a map of the eastern seaboard as far inland as the Appalachians, gridded out in uneven regions that bore little resemblance to state boundaries. Odd names dotted the map, vaguely Germanic, as one might expect from a Swiss lending institution. Helmut recited a list of targets and names, clicking the laptop’s track pad periodically to advance through a time series of transactions. It was curiously bloodless, especially once he began discussing the losses.

“At Erkelsfjord, resistance was offered: the enemy burned the house, hanged all those of the outer family and retainers who surrendered—twenty-eight in all—then stripped the peasants and drove them into the woods, firing the village. We lost but one dead and two injured of the inner families. At Isjlmeer, quarter was offered and accepted. The lentgrave accepted and, with his family, left the keep, whereupon he and all but two sons and one daughter were struck down by crossbow fire. The servants were flogged, stripped, and taken into slavery, but the villagers were left unharmed. The next day, a different company of light cavalry struck Nordtsman’s Keep. The baron was present and had raised his levies and, forewarned, had established a defensible perimeter: he took the enemy with enfilading fire from their left flank, forcing a retreat. Total enemy casualties numbered sixty-seven bodies, plus an unknown number who escaped.

“At Giraunt Dire, the eorl emplaced his two light machine guns to either side of the bridge across the river Klee, beating off an attack by two companies of horse led by Baron Escrivain…”

The map flickered with red dots, like smallpox burning up the side of a victim’s face. As the conflict progressed, dotted red arrows appeared, tracking the course of the pestilence. The litany of sharp engagements began to change, as more of the defenders—forewarned and prepared—put up an effective defense. Helmut’s presentation kept a running tally in the bottom right corner of the screen, a profit and loss balance sheet denominated in gallons of blood. Finally he came to an end.

“That’s the total so far. Thirty-one attacks, twenty-two successful and nine beaten off with casualties. In general, we have lost an average of two inner members per successful attack and one per successful defense; our losses of retainers and outer family members are substantially higher. The enemy has lost at least three hundred dead and probably twice that number wounded, although we cannot confirm the latter figure. The four columns appear to be converging near Neuhalle, and it is noteworthy that this one has at no time ventured further than a fifteen-mile march from one of the pretender’s sworn vassals’ keeps.”

The projector switched off: Helmut directed a brief half-bow towards the other end of the table, then sat down.

The silence lay heavy for nearly a minute after he finished speaking, the only sounds in the room the white noise of the air-conditioning and the faint scribble of pens on the note pads of a couple of the attendees. Finally, the chairman directed his gaze towards a bluff, ruddy-faced fellow in early middle age, whose luxuriant handle-bar mustache was twitching so violently that it threatened to take wing. “Carl. You appear to have something on your mind. Would you care to share it with us?”

Carl glanced around the table. “It’s a calculated outrage,” he rumbled. “We’ve got to nail it fast, too, before the decree of outlawry convinces everyone that we’re easy game. While we’re pinned down in our houses and keeps, the pretender can run around at will, taking whichever target is cheapest. It sends entirely the wrong message. Why hasn’t he been assassinated yet?”

“We’ve tried.” The chairman stared at him coldly. “It’s difficult to assassinate a target when the target is