In the case of the Hjalmar Palace, the weak point in its defenses was the water supply. The water supply had to feed the moat, if attackers tried to dam it off from the river: it also had to keep the defenders in drinking water. Some tactical genius a century or two earlier had dug a trench nearly two hundred meters long, under the curtain wall to the river. He’d lined it with stone, floored it with fired clay pipe, then roofed it over and buried it. It wasn’t just a backup water supply: it was a tactical back door for raiding parties and scouts, a fire escape for the terminally paranoid. The stone blockhouse on the upstream slope of the hill was overgrown with bushes and trees, nearly invisible unless you knew what you were looking for, and when properly maintained—as it was, now—it was guarded by sentries and booby traps. An intruder who didn’t know the word of the day, or the positioning of the trip wires for the mines embedded in the walls of the tunnel, or the different code word for the guards in the waterhouse attached to the walls of the inner keep, would almost certainly die.
Unfortunately for the roughly one hundred guards, stable hands, cooks, smiths, carpenters, dog handlers, lamplighters, servants, and outer family members sheltering behind those walls, Baron Otto ven Neuhalle knew all of these things, and more.
Even more unfortunately for the defenders, one of the unpalatable facts of life is that in close quarters—at ranges of less than three meters—firearms were generally less useful than swords, of which Neuhalle’s troop had many. Nor were they expecting an attacking force armed with machine guns of their own to appear on the walls of the keep itself.
By the time night fell, his troops were still winkling the last few stubborn holdouts out of their stony shells, but the Hjalmar Palace was in his hands.
And now to start building the trap, Otto told himself, as he summoned his hand-men to him and told them exactly what was needed.
The first day at home was the worst. Mike was still getting used to the plastic cocoon on his leg, not to mention being short on clean clothes, tired, and gobbling antibiotics and painkillers by the double handful. But a second night in his own bed put a different complexion on things. He awakened luxuriously late, to find Oscar curled up on the pillow beside him, purring.
The fridge was no more full than it had been the day before, but the grocery bag Smith had dumped in the kitchen turned out to be full of honest-to-god groceries, a considerate touch that startled Mike when he discovered it. He might be a hyperactive hard-ass, but at least he cares about his people, Mike decided. He fixed himself a breakfast of bagels and cream cheese and black coffee, then tried to catch up on the lighter housework, running some clothes through the washing machine and doing battle with the shower again—this time more successfully. I must be getting better, he told himself optimistically.
Around noon, he got out of the house for a couple of hours, driven stir-crazy by the daytime TV. It took him nearly ten minutes to get the car seat adjusted, and an hour of hobbling around Barnes and Noble and a couple of grocery stores left him feeling like he’d run a marathon, but he made it home uneventfully. Then he discovered that he hadn’t figured on carrying the grocery sacks and bag of books and magazines up the front steps. He ended up so exhausted that by the time he got the last bag in and closed the door he was about ready to drop. He hobbled into the lounge clutching the bookbag, and lowered the bag onto the coffee table before he realized the lounger was already occupied.
“So, Mr. Fleming! We meet again.” She giggled, ruining the effect. It was unnecessary, in any case: the pistol in her lap more than made up for her lack of menace.
“Jesus!” He staggered, nearly losing his balance.
“Relax. I do not intend to shoot you. Are you well?”
“I’m—” He bit back his first angry response. What are you doing in my house? That question was the elephant in the living room: but it wasn’t one he felt like asking the Russian princess directly, not while she was holding a gun on him. “No, not very.” He shuffled towards the sofa and lowered himself down into it. “I’m tired. Been shopping,” he added, redundantly. And how did you get past Judith’s watch team? “What brings you here?”
“Patricia sent me to see how you were,” she explained, as if it was the most natural thing in the world for killer grannies from another dimension to send their ice-blonde hit-woman bodyguards to check up on him. “She was concerned that you might be unwell—your leg was hard to keep clean in the carriage.”
“Yeah, right.” Mike snorted. “She’s got nothing but my best interests at heart.”
Olga leaned forward, her eyes wide: “It is the truth, you know! You will be of little use to us if you die of battle fever. Are you well?”
“I’m as well as—” he bit back the words, any man facing an armed home intruder—“can be expected. Spent a couple of days in hospital. Off work for the next several weeks.” He paused. “Getting about. A bit.”
“Good.” Olga sat back, then made the pistol disappear: “Excuse me.” She looked apologetic. “Until I was sure it was you…”
“That’s alright,” Mike assured her gravely. “I quite understand. We’re all paranoids together here.” A thought struck him. “How did you get in?”
She smiled. “Your housekeeper is taking the day off.”
“Ah.” Shit. Mike had a sharp urge to bang his head on the wall. Who’s staking who out? Of course, she’d had time to set everything up while he was in hospital; possibly even before they’d dropped him back in the right universe. The Russian princess and her world-walking friends could have been watching his apartment for days before Herz and her team moved in to set up their own surveillance op. They don’t work like the Mafia, they work like a government, he recalled. A feudal government. “So Pat—what did you call her? Sent you to check up on me. I thought she was going to mail me instead?”
“Your mail is being intercepted,” Olga pointed out. “Consequently, we felt it best to talk to you in person. There is mail, too, and you can respond to it if you wish. Have you reported to your liege yet?”
“Have I?” The sense of grinding gears was back: Mike forced himself to translate. “Uh, yes.” He nodded, stupidly. “I have a cellular phone for you. It’s off the official record. There’s a preprogrammed number in it that goes direct to my boss’s boss. He’s authorized to negotiate, and if necessary he can talk to the top. Office of the Vice President. But it’s all deniable, as I understand things.” He pointed at the paper bag on the side table. “It’s in there.”
Olga didn’t move. “What guarantee have we that as soon as we dial the number, you assassins won’t locate the caller? Or that there isn’t a bomb in the earpiece?”