"Out of
enemy—what
the fuck is going on?"
"Like I said, it's a whole new ballgame. These fuckers can just appear out of thin air, anywhere! Inside your security perimeter! My guess is that the Fifth Bomb Wing is being readied fora counterstrike mission into a, a parallel universe, just as soon as they can load up with B83s, fit the transit machines, and as soon as the U2s deliver accurate target maps. Keeping them overseas in England is a security measure: They can move sideways between worlds, show up inside the perimeter of our bases—but if the bombers aren't home they can't touch them. Watch for the KC-10s moving too. I tell you, they're getting ready for an attack on North America—just not
our
North America."
"Okay, Jack, I've got to hand it to you. You are either taking far more LSD than is good for you, or you have completely spoiled my afternoon, because you are just not imaginative enough to make up a story like that without chemical assistance. I say that as a compliment, by the way—an excessively active imagination is a liability in your line of work. I'm going to have to escalate this, and that's going to make my head hurt because my boss, it's going to make
his
head hurt. So I hope you won't take this the wrong way when I ask, what have you got for me? What concrete evidence have you got to back these claims up?"
(Rustling.) "It's classified, but not top-secret. I mean, this stuff is general dissemination for about a hundred thousand soldiers, as of this morning—it
was
top-secret, but they're realists, there's no way to keep a lid on something like this indefinitely. So I, uh, there's a classified briefing pack that I need to lock back in my office drawer tonight. I assume you've got a camera or something?"
"Of course. Jack, you're a mensch. Listen, I am just about to go to the toilet, I'll be back in a few minutes and your briefing pack can go right back to the office after lunch while I go find some headache pills before I call Tel Aviv. Are you sure this isn't just a prank to make Benny Netenyahu shit himself . . . ? No? Too bad. Because I'd love to be there to see his face when this lands on his desk."
(END RECORDING)
Oliver, Baron Hjorth—formerly Earl Hjorth, but the higher landed titles had been coming vacant with distressing frequency over the past year—had spent a sleepless night in a co-opted tax farmer's mansion in a country estate, near the site of Baltimore in the United States. Two stories up, under the eaves, the rooms were uncomfortably hot in the summer miasma; but they lent a good view of the approaches to the house, and more importantly, good radio reception for a location so far south of the Gruinmarkt.
In his opinion, it was only sensible to take precautions: He had played his part in the operation in good faith, but there was a significant risk that some ne'er-do-well or rakehell anarchist of the progressive creed might seek him out with murder in mind. So the baron sat in a sweltering servants' room, his head bowed beneath the roof beams, while next door his man Schuller poked at the scanner, waiting.
On the other side of the wall of worlds from this mansion there was a modest, suburban family home. In its car port waited a black Lincoln, fully fueled for the dash up 1-95 to Boston. But once he took to the wide American highways he'd be trapped, in a manner of speaking; committed to Niejwein, by hook or by crook. He could be at the palace in a matter of hours, there to take charge of a troop of cavalry such as befitted a gentleman: but while he was on the road he'd be unable to listen in on the upstart Riordan's increasingly desperate messages.
Impatient and irritable with tiredness, Oliver stood—for perhaps the fifth time that morning—and walked to the window casement. Below him, a cleared slope ran downhill to the wood-line: Nobody stirred on the dirt track leading to the house.
Good.
He glanced at the doorway. Schuller was a reliable man, one of the outer family world-walkers Riordan had sacked from Angbard's organization in the wake of the fiasco at the Hjalmar Palace.
Let's see what news . . .
Oliver walked to the doorway and shoved the curtain aside. "How goes it?" he demanded.
Schuller glanced up, then nodded—overfamiliarly, in Oliver's opinion, but fatigue made churls of all men—and shoved one headphone away from an ear. "Nothing for the past fifteen minutes, my lord. Before that, something garbled from Lady Thorold's adjutant. A call for reinforcements from their Millgartfurt station, where they reported word of an attack—cut short. Orders from Major Riordan's command post, demanding that all units hold their station and report by numbers. There were three responses."
"Good."
The baron laced his fingers together tightly. "What word from the Anglischprache?"
"Riordan told the post to keep reporting hourly on the attack; it is by all accounts chaos over there. All air flights are grounded, but the roads are open—outside of the capital, of course. They're clucking like headless chickens." Schuller's expression was stony. "As well they might. Fools."
"Did I pledge you for your opinions?" The baron raised an eyelid: Schuller recoiled slightly.
"No sir!"
"Then kindly keep them to yourself, there's a good chap. I'm trying to think." Oliver dabbed at his forehead, trying to mop away the perspiration.
The limousine is air-conditioned,
he reminded himself. "You have a log, yes? Let me see it." Schuller held up a clipboard. The pages were neatly hand-scribed, a list of times and stations and cryptic notes of their message content. "Careless of them. They're not encrypting."
"They are probably shorthanded, sir." Schuller looked up at the baron as he paged through the sheet. "Their traffic has been tailing off all morning."
"Well then." The baron smiled tightly as he saw the time stamps grow thinner, the broadcasts more desperate. "I think it's time to move headquarters. Tell Stanislaw and Poul we're moving, then hail Andrei and tell him to ready the troops to move this afternoon. Shut up shop and meet me downstairs in ten minutes: I must change first." It wouldn't do to be stopped and searched by the Anglische police while dressed as a Sudtmarkt cousin's guest, but he had a business suit laid out next door.
The plan was simple, as such things went: Baron Hjorth would transfer to the United States, drive north—covering a distance of hundreds of miles in a mere afternoon—and reemerge in the Gruinmarkt, on his own estate, with a bodyguard of cavalrymen in time to ride to the flag of the Postal Lords and her grace the dowager duchess. Who, if things were going to plan—as appeared to be the case—would have coaxed the Idiot's hoyden widow into a suitably well-guarded retreat and arranged for her confinement, in every sense of the word. Having managed the successful delivery of the atomic bombs to their targets (an expensive process, as Kurt and Jurgen could attest), he was, if nothing else, in line for the reward for a job well done.
Probably more of the same,
he thought, as he dressed in American fashion, mildly irritated by the lack of body servants.
The sacrifices we make. . . .
Oliver made his way through the empty servants' quarters, passing the room recently vacated by Schuller, before descending by way of a back staircase and a dressing room to reach the main staircase. His men had dismissed most of the regular servants, banishing them to the village over the hill in the name of security. The great house was almost deserted, sweltering in the noon heat. Air-conditioning and the milder Northern climate beckoned, putting a spring in the baron's step. As he reached the bottom step, one shoe touching the mosaic floor of the central hall, he paused. It was, if anything,