The Explorer rumbled slowly down a narrow road near Andover, thick old-growth trees blocking the view to either side. Harold Parker State Forest wasn't exactly the back end of nowhere, but with thousands of acres of hardwood and pine forest, campground and logging roads, and day trippers moving in and out all summer, it was a good place to disappear. Miriam sat back with her eyes closed, trying to fend off the sickening sense of impending dread. It was happening again: the sense of her life careering out of control, in the hands
of—Stop that,
she told herself. Half the occupants of the big SUV were sworn to her, bound by oaths of fealty; the rest were—If
I can't trust them, I can't trust
anybody.
It was turning into a recurring motif. Just as she tried to get a handle on her life and steer a course for herself, someone would try to
look after
her, usually with disastrous consequences. Betrayal, destabilization, chaos, and—as often as not—deaths. She'd thrown a party two days ago, inviting friends and possible allies to sound them out about a new venture—a whole new political program, in fact, not simply a business idea—only to receive heavy-handed hints about matters more properly handled by Clan Security. And today she'd come to talk to Earl-Major Riordan about them, only to learn that her worst suspicions were if anything an understatement of the problem: that the stick-in-the-mud faction, fearful of change, were on the edge of all-out revolt—
—had in fact revolted, that event possibly triggered by the very fact of her absence from the royal court; and other matters out of nightmare were in train, the Clan's stolen atomic weapons lost and possibly deployed. So here they were, bumping along a logging road towards a secret, undisclosed location where Clan Security maintained a cache of equipment and a doppelgangered transfer house—
The SUV was slowing. Miriam opened her eyes. "Nearly there," Sir Alasdair grunted.
Riordan was still glued to his cell phone, nodding occasionally between bursts of clipped hochsprache. Miriam tapped him on the shoulder. He held up a hand. "Be right back," he told his absent conversationalist. "What is it?"
"If there's a mole inside ClanSec, how do you know your Plan Black site hasn't been rigged?" she asked. "If I was trying to mousetrap you, I can't think of a better way to do it than scaring you into running for a compromised rendezvous."
Riordan looked thoughtful. Miriam noticed Sir Alasdair's shoulders tense. Brilliana chirped up from the back row of seats: "She's right, you know."
"Yes," Riordan said grudgingly. "But we need to evacuate—"
"It can be booby-trapped here, or in the Gruinmarkt," Olga pointed out, her voice icy cold. "If here, we can deal with it. Over there—we shall just have to reconnoiter, no?"
"Sounds like a plan," said Sir Alasdair. "Who are we expecting here, my lord?"
"This site is meant to be held by Sir Helmut's second lance."
Riordan sounded thoughtful as he stared at the screen of the tablet PC in his lap. "Two over here, six over there with two active and four in recovery or ready for transfer. The site on the other side is a farmhouse, burned out during the campaign, I'm afraid, but defensible."
"Can you identify them?" asked Brilliana.
"By sight, yes, most probably. Outer-family aspirants, a couple of young bloods—I can show you their personnel files, with photographs. Why?"
"Because if I see the wrong faces on duty I want to be sure before I shoot them."
The Explorer was slowing. Now Sir Alasdair took a sharp left onto a dirt trail barely any wider than the SUV. "We're about two hundred yards out," he warned. "Where do you want me to stop?"
"Right here." Riordan glanced at Brilliana. "Are you ready, my lady?"
Brill nodded, reaching into her shoulder bag to pull out a black, stubby gun with a melted-looking grip just below the muzzle and a box magazine stretching along the upper surface of the barrel. "Sir Alasdair—"
"I'm coming too," rumbled Miriam's head bodyguard. He pulled the parking brake. "My lord, would you care to take the wheel? If a quick withdrawal is required—"
"I can drive," Miriam heard herself saying. "You don't need me for anything else, and I'm sure you need your hands?"
Riordan glanced at her, worried, then nodded. "Here's the contact sheet." He passed the tablet PC back to Brill, who peered at it for a few seconds.
"Okay, I am ready," she announced, and opened her door.
For Miriam, the next few minutes passed nightmarishly slowly. As Alasdair and Brill disappeared up the track and into the trees alongside it, she took Sir Alasdair's place behind the wheel, adjusting the seat and lap belt to fit. She kept the engine running at a low idle, although what she'd do if it turned out to be an ambush wasn't obvious—backing up down a dirt trail while under fire from hostiles didn't seem likely to have a happy outcome. She sighed, keeping her eyes on the road ahead, waiting.
"They know what they're doing," Olga said, unexpectedly. "Huh?" Miriam swallowed an unhappy chuckle.
"She's right," added Riordan. "I would not have let them go if I thought them likely to walk into an ambush."
"But if they—"
Someone was jogging down the track, waving. Miriam focused, swallowing bile. It was Brill. She didn't look happy.
"Wait here." Olga's door opened; before Miriam could say anything, she was heading towards Brill. After a brief exchange, Brill turned and headed back up the path. Olga returned to the
Explorer. "She says it's safe to proceed to the shack, but there's a problem." Her lips were drawn tight with worry.
"You'd better go," Riordan added. "We're on a timetable here."
"We're—" Oh. Miriam put the SUV in gear and began to crawl forward.
It's an evacuation plan; they've got to figure on hostiles blowing it sooner or later, so . . .
She'd seen enough of the Clan's security machinations in action to guess how it went. Wherever they were evacuating through, the safe house—shack?—would be anything but safe to someone arriving after the cutoff time.
The track curved around a stand of trees, then down an embankment and around another clump to terminate in a clearing. At one side of the clearing stood a windowless shack, its wooden slats bleached silvery gray by the weather. Brilliana stood in front of the padlocked door, white-faced, her P90 at the ready in clenched hands. "Park here," said Olga, opening her door again.
Miriam parked, then climbed down from the cab. "Where's Alasdair?" she asked, approaching Brill.
Brill shook slightly. "Milady, he's gone across already. Please
don't go there—"
But Miriam had already seen what was round the side of the shack.
"What happened?" she demanded. "Who are they?" Riordan had also seen; he knelt by the nearer of the two bodies, examining it. Lying facedown, dressed in hunting camouflage jacket and trousers, they might have been asleep. Miriam stared at Riordan, then back at Brill. "What happened?" she repeated.
"They were waiting for us." Brill's voice was robotic, unnaturally controlled. "They were not the guards we expected to see.
That one"—Riordan was straightening up—"I recognized him.
He worked for Henryk."
Riordan was holding something at arm's length. As he came closer, Miriam recognized it. "Silenced," Riordan told her, his voice overcontrolled as he ejected the magazine and worked the slide to remove the chambered round. "An assassin's weapon."
Brill nodded, her face frozen; but something in the set of her shoulders unwound, slumping infinitesimally.
"Oh my god." Miriam felt her knees going weak. "What's Sir Alasdair walking into?"
"I don't know." Brill took a deep breath. "I wouldn't want to be in their shoes. Don't worry, my lady, he'll try to save one of them for questioning."