The train picked up a little speed as it emerged from the tunnel. Tano used the train’s internal communication, at the other end of the car, to talk to the engineer.
“The switches are set,” Jago said, cited the time to the half-minute, and Banichi quietly nodded.
Two critical switchpoints, one that shunted them from the Bujavid track to the eastern track, which the Red Train used occasionally; and another, down by the canal, that would shunt them onto the ancient line that ran down to the freight yards and warehouses, and up to the ancient heart of the city.
The Red Train, in Bren’s own memory, had never taken the eastern route, let alone switched onto the central city track, and it was far from inconspicuous. People who saw that train might think that Tabini himself, one of his family, or a very high official, was on the move. They would ask themselves whether they had heard that the aiji would be traveling—and they would think, no, there had been no such advisement on the news; and with the heir’s suddenly-public birthday Festivity imminent, it was hardly likely Tabini himself would be traveling.
A high official, likely.
And what, they might wonder, was the Red Train doing on this track, headed east on a track usually carrying freight? Might it be headed for the old southern route, for the Marid?
Not likely.
Would it take the northern end of the old route, up to the Padi Valley, to the Kadagidi township? There had been trouble up there.
Both those routes were feasible—until they reached the next switchpoint.
If the operation had leaked in advance, the first indication of trouble might come with that switch not sending them onto the old freight depot spur. Bren sat waiting, as aware as the rest of them where they were on the track—and aware of the story they’d handed the Transportation Guild, who, unlike the public, knew where trains were going—or had to be convinced they did.
Tatiseigi’s men and the dowager’s had moved into the Bujavid office of the Transportation Guild with an order from the aiji-dowager. The Red Train was to shunt over to the old mid-city spur for a pickup at the freight yard—artworks for Lord Tatiseigi’s special exhibit in the Bujavid Museum for the Festivity. The fact that there actually were large crates from Lord Tatiseigi’s estate in the system waiting for the regular freight pickup after midnight . . . was useful. The fact that the large crates contained all their spare wardrobe from Tirnamardi, the things they had not had time to pack, was nothing the dowager’s men needed to explain to the operators in the Transportation Guild offices.
Perfectly reasonable that the Red Train should move to bring in crates of priceless artwork. Unusual. But reasonable. That part of the operation was the dowager’s own plan, and one they had readily adopted into their own.
The train had reached a straight stretch of track, and the car rocked and wheels thumped at a fair speed. Bren had studied the map. His own mental math and the straightaway run told him they were beside the old industrial canal, and right along the last-built perimeter of the Old City. They were coming up on their second switchpoint, if the men that were supposed to have gotten there had in fact done their job.
If they didn’t make the switch—if they didn’t, then there was a major deviation in the plan. Then, in fact—the mission changed.
Slow, slow . . . slow again. Tano and Algini quietly got up, went to the intercom at the other end of the car and waited there.
What would they do—if the switch didn’t happen?
Stop the train and deal with the situation?
Nobody had told him that part.
A little jolt and jostle then, and the train gently bumped onto the other track, slowly making a fairly sharp old-fashioned turn due south.
Bren let go a breath.
Likely so did the engineer, the fireman, and the brakeman, the personnel that ran the Red Train—all three on the aiji’s staff, elderly gentlemen, veteran railroaders in what amounted to a mostly retired lifestyle, brave gentlemen, occasional witnesses to history; and once or twice under fire. They had survived the coup—they had simply boarded another train and ridden off to the north coast, unable to rescue their beloved old engine, so it had served that scoundrel Murini for a time. But it, and they, were back where they belonged. The crew might not know the extent of the mission this time, but they had orders that had nothing to do with the freight yard: to take an unaccustomed route, stall the venerable engine at a certain prearranged point in front of the Assassins’ Guild Headquarters, and hold fast no matter what happened . . .
A mechanical breakdown was what they would radio to Transportation Headquarters, which was, ironically, just two streets over from the Assassins’ Guild.
It was a slow progress now. There were no windows in the red car, but they would be passing the very edge of the Old City, the mazy heart of Shejidan, defined by its walled neighborhoods and narrow, cobbled streets. This was the oldest track in the system—and that was another reason the Red Train, while a novelty here, was a logical choice—being of the same vintage as the handful of city engines. The sleek modern transcontinental cars that ran out of the main Shejidan rail station could not navigate the Bujavid tunnels, and while the gauge was the same, the longer cars could not manage the curves of the trans-city route. Older, shorter cars and smaller engines served the Bujavid and plied the city’s warehouse to market runs with the same equipment as they had used a century ago, cycling round and round the loop that encircled the city’s ancient center, like blood pumping from a heart to the body and back again. Older trains served the less populous districts of the continent at the sort of speed that let a provincial lord stop a train for a mail or freight pickup—which was why their incoming crates from Tirnamardi had arrived at the city freight depot. And the vintage city trains picked up mail, they picked up fruit and vegetables, flour and oil and wine, and transported them to warehouses for local pickup, or to the express line for transcontinental shipment. They occasionally stopped and quickly offloaded a stack of crates onto the public sidewalk, for one of the larger shops. They picked up passengers, usually from designated stops, but would now and again let themselves be flagged to allow a random boarding. The system halted, oh, for long enough to get a stalled van off the tracks. It halted to allow a spate of pedestrian traffic to cross up in the hotel district. Or for a large unscheduled mail pickup.
But the whole city rail was about to come to a cold, prolonged halt. The situation would be reported, after a few moments, for safety’s sake, and it would be up to the dowager’s men to guarantee the Transportation office up in the Bujavid did not rush crews to reach the train at fault . . . but that it did stop traffic.
“We are still on time,” Jago said quietly. Banichi sat staring into space, counting, in that process that knew to the second where they were, where Cenedi was, and where their support was. Banichi signaled. Locators went on.
Bren sat still, avoiding any distraction whatsoever: silence was the rule, while his bodyguard thought, watched, counted. He had the all-important briefcase between his feet. He had his vest. He didn’t want to take another hit. The last one he’d taken was enough.
But shooting was not the order of the day. Finesse had to prevent that, as long as possible, and finesse needed that briefcase, and the very heavy seal ring he wore. Needed those things, and steady nerves.
Slower still. Straight. Now he was very sure where they were, on the track that ran right through the middle of the broadest cobbled plaza in Shejidan . . . the old muster ground, which the Guilds had claimed as the last available land in the heart of old Shejidan, back when the aishidi’tat was organizing and the Guilds were becoming the institution they were now.
Slow, slow, slow . . . until the train stopped, exhaled, and sat there.