The Revolution Business

saddle as soon as you're fit for duty. But you're not going to be any use to me if you overdo it. So relax, take it easy, and try to remember your job is to get well, and maybe see to the other thing.' (The other thing being his mission if the Mad Grandmother or the Ice Princess made contact-but Mike had an uneasy feeling that this latter duty was more than slightly deniable.) But there was only so much sitting on his ass that he could do, and after a few days frittered away watching Friends reruns and reading pop- history books about the Middle East, he was ready to climb the walls.

Hence, the basement.

Most apartments don't have basements, but the one Mike rented in a converted brownstone was the exception to the rule: A steep staircase opening off one wall of the kitchen led down into the low-ceilinged cellar. With perfect hindsight, Mike had to admit, deciding to clean house while recovering from a broken leg and a nasty little infection was not one of his most sensible moves. But once he'd gotten down those steps, it turned out that filling garbage sacks and trying to figure out how to dismantle the dead drier that had been stranded down here for years was a whole lot more attractive than trying to figure out how to get back up the stairs. Especially because he wasn't sure he'd be able to make it around the tight bend at the top, and having to phone for help to dig him out of his own cellar would really do his self-image no end of good. (You're a special agent working for a secret government organization and you had to call in help to climb a staircase? What is this, the CIA?)

Hence, the phone ringing while he was stuck in the basement.

Mike swore. The phone rang twice as he disentangled himself from the cable of the defunct drier and hopped around the workbench, trying to find the extension handset behind the pile of rusting paint cans and the overflowing toolbox. 'Yes?' He barked, making a one-handed grab for the phone and simultaneously putting too much weight on his bad leg.

'Is that Mr Fleming?' It was a woman's voice, a noisy office providing unwelcome background context. If this is a telesales call… Mike felt a hot flash of anger, echoing the pain in his right ankle. About a week and a half ago he'd trodden on a man-trapa mediaeval antipersonnel mine, as Sergeant Hastert had put it-and with the cracked bone, torn ligaments, and nice little infection he'd picked up, he'd been lucky to keep the leg.

'Who is this?' Mike demanded.

'I'm Letitia, from Family Home Services. Can I speak to Mr. Fleming, please?'

The spark of helpless anger passed rapidly. Mike blinked. 'Yeah, that's me.' He glanced round instinctively. 'Free to talk.' No, not a telesales call; the background office noise was a recording and the company name a cover. 'It's Tuesday today, isn't it?'

'No, it's Wednesday,' said the woman at the other end of the line, who wasn't called Letitia any more than it was any day other than Monday. 'You're late for your CAT scan. Dr. James wants to see you as soon as possible, and as it happens we've got a slot free right now-are you free now?'

Mike glanced round at the dusty basement again, his pulse quickening. 'I believe I can fit you in.'

'Good. An ambulance will collect you in fifteen minutes, if that's convenient?'

'I'll be waiting.' The usual pleasantries, and Mike hung up the handset, staring at it in surprise. So the colonel wanted to talk to him? But the colonel knew damn well what shape his leg was in, and the boss-man was in the loop, so what could he want?…

Mike began to smile, for the first time in days.

The ambulance that pulled up outside his front door twenty minutes later resembled any other one, and the two paramedics made short work of wheeling Mike-sitting up, chatting, no need to alarm the neighbors unduly-into the back of their vehicle. The door shut, and there the resemblance stopped: Normal ambulances didn't have door gunners in black fatigues riding behind the one-way glass windows. They didn't roll like a foundering ship beneath the weight of armor, either; and they especially didn't come with passengers like Dr. James, whose specialty was distinctly nonmedical.

Dr. Andrew James scared the crap out of Mike Fleming, with his Ph.D. from Harvard and the flag pin that had lately replaced the tiny crucifix on his lapel. Gaunt and skinny and utterly dedicated, James attended to the ills of the body politic with all the care you could expect of an apprentice engineer of human souls; and if an amputation was required, he could get a consent form any time he liked, signed by the office of the vice president. And he didn't waste time. 'How's your leg?' he asked as the ambulance moved off.

'Still bad, but I can get about indoors. Last time I asked they said I'd be able to get the cast off in another five weeks, be back to normal in three or four months.' Why is he asking me this stuff? Mike stared at him sidelong. It's not as if he can't pull my medical records any time he wants…

'Not good enough.' James frowned, his lips forming a bloodless crease. 'There's a change of plan.'

Shit. Mike shivered under the thin thermal blanket the 'paramedics' had draped over him. He could see what was coming next, like a freight locomotive glimpsed in the side window of his crossing- stalled car. He's cutting around the chain of command. Which means I'm in trouble. James was political, and even in the flattened wartime hierarchy of the Family Trade Organization he was several levels above Mike. If he was descending from on high to give Mike orders in person, it meant that either Mike's boss, Colonel Smith, was on the out-or that Mike was being snipped out of the org chart. Spoiled goods, a deniable asset, disposable on demand. 'What do you want me to do?' he asked, keeping his face as still as possible.

The ambulance turned a corner and began to accelerate, swaying from side to side as it shoved across two lanes of traffic. 'We've made a breakthrough in the past week, and it's led us to review our existing programs.' James was looking at him, but not meeting his eyes. 'You speak the bad guys' language, much as anyone does. We need you as an interpreter.'

'But-'Mike shook his head, confused. 'What about the negotiations?' Miriam's crazy mother and her sidekick, the blond sniper who looked like a Russian princess: They were supposed to be making contact, negotiating over the stolen nuke. 'Don't you want-'

'Son, don't be naive.' Dr. James smiled, and this time he looked Mike in the eyes. Mike tried not to shiver; he'd seen a warmer smile on the face of the pet alligator he'd once tripped over in a drug dealer's pad. 'The missing gadget has been retrieved so the negotiations are over. We don't need them anymore. Our job is now to hit these people so hard they won't ever be able to mess with the USA again.' The ambulance bounced hard across a pothole and Mike's stomach lurched as he felt it accelerate down a steep gradient. 'I don't think your contacts will be back, but if they are, it's kill-or-capture time.'

'The phone?…' Colonel Smith had given him an untraceable mobile phone to pass on to the ice princess if the Clan wanted to negotiate.

'It's a Kidon special.' Made by Mossad's-the Israeli secret service's-assassination cell. 'It works fine, but there's ten grams of CS in the earpiece. If one of them tries to call us, that's one less bad guy to worry about.'

'Oh.' For a moment a vision of Olga's blond head flashed through Mike's mind, bloodied and slack-jawed. He bit down on his reaction: That's assassination! Quiet terror made him swallow, queasy. 'If that's the way you're playing it.' (You're a cop, he's a spook. You knew these things happened. So why's he telling you now?) 'You said you want an interpreter, but you're not talking to the Clan. So what's going on?'

'There's been a breakthrough.' Dr. James leaned back against the side of the ambulance, his death's head grin fading. 'Pretty soon we're not going to need the freaks for transport anymore, so we're winding up to restart CLEANSWEEP. This time we've got the logistic support to set up a full-scale branch office on the other side. You'll be going over in about three months as a civilian advisor. But in the meantime, I've got a little extra job for you as soon as you're cleared for duty again. You've already got a clearance; you're going to need a higher one for this job. Unless you think there's something that might disqualify you?…'

Mike swallowed again. 'Uh, what do you mean?'

James gestured irritably: 'I can't tell you what you're needed for until you've been cleared. Additional background checks will be required. So this is your chance to come clean about anything you wouldn't want to disclose during a polygraph interrogation.'

'You're offering me an amnesty?' Mike raised an eyebrow.