The Revolution Business

'Shit. Never had to do that before.'

'Neither have I. Easier than a hanging, isn't it?'

'Uglier, maybe. Let's get this shit over with.'

Leaving the cubicle and its mute witness behind, the two men removed their masks and gloves and unhooked their holsters, stowing them in the janitor's cart. 'Okay, we've got six minutes before his number two notices that he hasn't finished his round-if we're unlucky. Let's go find the freight elevator and get out of here.'

Intruder number one wheeled the heavy janitor's cart out of the toilet block while his partner stood watch. This was the riskiest part of the procedure: The security guard was a known quantity, and one they'd been prepared for, but if they ran into a real cleaner they'd have to play things by ear. Too many disappearances in one night and someone, in the morning, might think to ask urgent questions. But they didn't run into anyone as they wheeled the cart over to the unmarked door leading to the service passages behind the shop floor, and the battered and scraped freight elevator arrived without undue fuss.

The sales floors-the sections of the store open to the public-occupied the first through fifth floors, but it was an eight-story building. The upper levels housed a restaurant, then administrative offices and storage rooms for stock and old documents. When the elevator stopped on the eighth floor, intruder number one was the first to exit. He glanced both ways along the empty corridor. 'Clear.'

'Alright, let's shift this.'

Together they wheeled the cart along the corridor towards the building's northeast edge. Most of the rooms on this level were offices, prized by the store managers for their view of Penn Avenue; none of these would do. But where there are offices there are also facilities-mail rooms, sluices for the janitors, storerooms. And presently the intruders found what they were looking for: a locked door which, once they opened it using the guard's master key, proved to conceal a small, cluttered closet stacked with anonymous brown cardboard boxes. The odor of neglect hung over them like a mildewed blanket. 'This one's perfect-hasn't been cleaned in weeks.'

'Good, let's get this thing in here…'

Together they manhandled the cart into the room, then busied themselves moving and restacking the boxes, which proved to be full of yellowing paper files. By the time they finished, the cart was nearly invisible from the doorway, concealed behind a stack of archives. 'Okay, setup time. Let's see. Epoxy glue first…'

Intruder number one busied himself applying fat sticks of epoxy putty to the wheels of the cart. By the time he finished, anyone attempting to remove it would find the wheels more than reluctant to budge, another mild deterrent to anyone wondering what an abandoned janitor's cart was doing in the back of a storeroom. Then intruder number two went to work on the contents of the trash can, with a pen-sized flashlight and a checklist with an olive drab cover bearing the words TOP SECRET.

'Power lead one, positive… safety to 'armed.' Countdown, see table three. Yes. Yes, that's right. Power lead three to input four. Armed. Timer self-test-green. PAL code is the default, eight zeroes. Let's see if that works. Okay, that works. Timer master key to 'set.' Here goes…' The intruder carefully twisted a butterfly nut, unscrewing a small cover that concealed a thumbwheel. The detonation controller on the device predated LEDs: no bright lights and digital countdown here, just six plastic dials and a push button to latch the timer into place. Finally, after checking his wristwatch and double-checking his calculation he replaced the cover. 'Okay, switching safety to 'live.'' He winced slightly as he twisted the switch, but the only thing that happened was that a dull red pilot lamp next to the main power switch went out. 'That looks okay. You got the putty?'

'Here.'

He took the tube of epoxy putty, squeezed a strip out, and kneaded it into place over the thumbwheel securing the timer wheels, then under and around the safety switch. Once the putty hardened, it would take a hammer and chisel to free up the controls-and the device itself was tamper-resistant: pulling out wires or cracking the case would trigger it.

Intruder number one looked at him with wide, spooked eyes. 'You realize what we've just done, cuz?'

'Yeah. Let's get the hell out of here!'

Methodical as always, his last action before they caught the elevator back down to the toilet-and thence to the wooden scaffold in a swamp in the Sudtmarkt-was to lock the door, and then empty half a tube of Krazy glue into the keyhole.

The guard would, of course, be discovered, but the body of a junkie was unlikely to trigger a tear-down search throughout an entire department store. The locked door might be noticed, but if so, would either be ignored or generate a low-priority call to Facilities, that might or might not be responded to the same day. The rearranged boxes might be noticed, but probably wouldn't be-nobody cleaned inside that room on a regular basis. And the out- of-place janitor's cart might irritate someone into trying to move it, but in that case they'd discover its wheels were stuck and its contents were inconveniently heavy. True stealth, intruder number one's superior had explained, is made of lots of little barriers that are not apparent to the enemy.

If anyone penetrated the final barrier and actually looked inside the waste bin in a janitor's cart in a locked room on the top floor of a department store, they might discover a sleeping horror.

But they'd have to do it fast: The timer would count down to zero in less than eighteen hours.

'What have you not been telling me?'

Miriam leaned on the back of the visitor's chair in the wood-paneled office, unwilling to sit down or comply with the usual polite rituals of an office visit. For his part, the office's owner looked equally unhappy. Miriam's arrival (accompanied by a squad of personal retainers, including both Brilliana and Sir Alasdair) had clearly disrupted his plans for the day.

'Lots,' Riordan snapped. Then he paused to visibly gather his wits. 'Please excuse me, this is not a good time…

'It never is.' Miriam's stomach churned. Dyspepsia was a constant companion right now, along with weird aches and odd food cravings. And she'd had to ride piggyback on one of her guards to get here, which indignity didn't improve her mood. 'I'm talking about the special weapons. I gather there are complications.'

Behind her, Brilliana shifted from foot to foot; Riordan leaned back in his chair, steepled his fingers, and stared at her. It was a mannerism blatantly modeled on Angbard's style. The poor bastard's as out of his depth as I am, she realized. We're both aping the absent experts.

'Someone blabbed,' he said flatly. 'Tell me. I need to know.'

'It was-' Brill stopped abruptly at Miriam's look.

'You don't need to answer him,' Miriam told her. 'Baron.' She fixed him with a stare of her own-this one not modeled on anyone, even her mother. 'Here are the facts as I know them. Some idiot a generation ago sneaked a couple of our people through an Army or Air Force technical school and got them qualified in the care and handling of special weapons. More recently, someone else, also an idiot, decided that having a brace of special weapons to hand was a good idea; just knowing where to steal them in a hurry wasn't good enough. Angbard trusted Matthias, Matthias had the keys to the kingdom, and when he defected he took at least one of the weapons as a fallback insurance policy. The Family Trade Organization sent it back to us, up near Concord. But it wasn't the only weapon we'd stolen, and they want the others back. So where are they? You know who's supposed to be in charge of them. What's going on?'

Riordan wilted suddenly. 'My lady. Please. Have a seat.'

'You've lost them, haven't you?'

'Scheisse,' murmured Sir Alasdair. 'Sorry.'

Riordan glanced at her bodyguard, then back at Miriam. 'Not… exactly. I'm not in charge of them. The Clan Council entrusted them to someone else.'

'Oh.' Miriam rolled her eyes. 'You're going to tell me that after Angbard's fuck up and in the absence of a track record showing where you stood they didn't see fit to entrust you with them. So they gave them to that fuckup Oliver Hjorth to sit on.'

'Oliver's not a fuckup.' Riordan's tone was distinctly defensive. 'I appreciate that you and he got off to a very bad start, that he's seen fit to align himself with a faction that you have a predisposition against, and all the rest of it. But he is neither stupid or lazy, much less unreliable. Usually.'

'Usually.'