Charles Stross - The Merchant’s War

"Oh yes, he had security. He was secure in the knowledge that he was the king-emperor, much beloved by the majority of his subjects. Does that surprise you? John Frederick goes nowhere without half a company of guard and a swarm of Polis agents, but his father relied on two loyal constables with pistols. They were injured in the at-tack, incidentally: one of them died later."

He took a deep, shuddering breath, then another sip of the brandy. "The day after the assassination, a state of emergency was declared. Demonstrations ensued. On Black Monday, the seventeenth, a column of demonstrators marching towards the royal complex on Manhattan Island were met by dragoons armed with heavy steam repeaters. More than three hundred were killed, mostly in the stampede. We were... there, but on the outskirts. Annie and I. We had the boys to think of. We obviously didn't think hard enough. The next day, they arrested me. My trial before the tribunal lasted eighteen minutes, by the clock on the courtroom wall. The man before me they sentenced to hang for being caught distributing our news sheet, but I was lucky. All they knew was that I'd been away from my workplace during the massacre, and I'd been limping when I got back. The evidence was merely circumstantial, and so was the sentence they gave me: twelve years in the camps."

He took a gulp of the brandy and swallowed, spluttering for a moment. "Annie wasn't so lucky," he added.

"What? They hanged her?" Miriam leaned toward him, aghast.

"No." He smiled sadly. "They only gave her two years In a women's camp. I don't know if you know what that was like... no? Alright. It was hard enough for the men. Annie died-"he stared into his glass"-in childbed." "I don't understand-"

"Use your imagination," Erasmus snapped. "What do you think the guards were like?"

"Oh god." Miriam swallowed. "I'm so sorry."

The boys went to a state orphanage," Erasmus added. "In Australia."

"Enough." She held up a hand: "I'm sorry I asked!"

The fragile silence stretched out. "I'm not," Erasmus said quietly. "It was just a little bit odd to talk about it. After so long."

"You got out... four years ago?"

"Nine." He drained his glass and replaced it on the Occasional table. "The camps were overfull. They got sloppy. I was moved to internal exile, and there was a- What your history book called an underground railway. Erasmus Burgeson' isn't the name I was known by back then."

"Wow." Miriam stared at him. "You've been living under an assumed identity all this time?"

He nodded, watching her expression. "The movement provides. They needed a dodgy pawnbroker in Boston, you see, and I fitted the bill. A dodgy pawnbroker with a hisstory of a couple of years in the camps, nothing serious, nothing excessively political. The real me they'd hang for sure if they caught him, these days. I hope you don't mind notorious company?"

"I'm- " She shook her head. "It's crazy." You were writing for a newspaper, for crying out loud.' Asking for voting rights and freedom of the press! And those are hanging offenses? "And if what you were campaigning for back then is crazy, so am I." Her eyes narrowed "What's the movement's platform now? Is it still just about the franchise, and freedom of speech? Or have things changed?"

"Oh yes." He was still studying her, she realized. "Eighty-six was a wake-up cry. The very next central council meeting that was held-two years later, in exile- announced that the existence of a hereditary crown was a flaw in the body politic. The council decreed that nothing less than the overthrow of the king-emperor and the replacement of their Lordships and Commons by a republic of free men and women, equal before the law, would suffice. The next day, the Commons passed a bill of attainder against everyone in the movement. A month after that that pope excommunicated us-he declared democracy to be mortal sin. But by that time we already knew we were damned."

Another day, another Boston. Brill walked up the staircase to the front office and glanced around. "Where's Morgan?" she demanded.

"He's in the back room." The courier folded his news heel and laid it carefully on the desk.

"Don't call ahead." She frowned, then headed straight back to the other office, overlooking the back yard colocated with Miriam's house's garden in the other Boston, In New Britain.

The house-Miriam's house, according to the deeds of ownership, not that it mattered much once she'd allowed her commercial submarine to surface in the harbor of the Clan's Council deliberations-was a stately lump of shingle-fronted stonework with a view out over the harbor. But over here the building was distinctly utilitarian, overshadowed by a row of office towers. The architecture in New Britain was stunted by relatively high material and transport costs: planting fifty-thousand-ton lumps of concrete and steel on top of landfill was a relatively recent innovation in New Britain, and hadn't corrupted their skyline yet. But this one was different.

Oskar was waiting outside the door to the rear office. He looked bored. The cut of his jacket failed to conceal his shoulder holster. "How long are you here for?"

"I came to see Morgan." She stared him in the eye. "The I need to cross over, get changed into native garb, and draw funds. I may be some time. It depends."

"Cross over. Right." Oskar twitched. "You know there's a problem."

"Problem?"

"You'd better ask the boss." Oskar backed up, rapped, on the door twice, then opened it for her.

"Who- " Morgan looked up. He had his feel up on the mahogany desk, a half-eaten burger at his right hand, and judging by his expression her appearance was deeply unwelcome.

"Hello there. Don't let me keep you from your food."

"Lady Brilliana!" He swung his feet down hastily, almost knocking his chair over in his hurry to stand up.

"Sit down." She walked around the desk and pulled out the chair on his right, then sat beside him. "Oskar tells me there's a problem. On the other side."

Morgan twitched even more violently than Oskar had. "You're telling me. Have you come to fix it?"

"Tell me about it first."

"You haven't-" He swallowed his words, but the look of dismay was genuine enough in her estimate.

"I need to cross over and run a search in New Britain she said evenly. "If there's a problem with our main safe house in Boston, I need to know it."

"The Polis-the security cops? They raided the house. We barely pulled everybody out in time."

Brilliana swallowed a curse. "When was this?"

"Three days ago. I thought everyone knew-"

"Was it coordinated action?" she demanded.

Morgan shook himself, visibly trying to pull himself together. "I don't think so," he admitted. "The situation over there's been going to the midden, frankly, and the Polis are running around looking for saboteurs and spies under every table. Six weeks ago they turned over the workshop and shut it down: some of the staff were arrested for sedition. We were already lying low-"

"What about Burgeson?" Brill demanded.

"Oh," he said. "That."

"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 hint 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 linger, 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. Utter. "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 lind 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.