“Power lead one, positive . . . safety to ‘armed.’ Countdown, see table three. Yes. Yes, that’s right. Power lead three to input four. Armed. Timer self-test—green. PAL code is the default, eight zeroes. Let’s see if that works. Okay, that works. Timer master key to ‘set.’ Here goes . . .” The intruder carefully twisted a butterfly nut, unscrewing a small cover that concealed a thumbwheel. The detonation controller on the device predated LEDs: no bright lights and digital countdown here, just six plastic dials and a push button to latch the timer into place. Finally, after checking his wristwatch and double-checking his calculation he replaced the cover. “Okay, switching safety to ‘live.’ ” He winced slightly as he twisted the switch, but the only thing that happened was that a dull red pilot lamp next to the main power switch went out. “That looks okay. You got the putty?”
“Here.”
He took the tube of epoxy putty, squeezed a strip out, and kneaded it into place over the thumbwheel securing the timer wheels, then under and around the safety switch. Once the putty hardened, it would take a hammer and chisel to free up the controls—and the device itself was tamper-resistant: pulling out wires or cracking the case would trigger it.
Intruder number one looked at him with wide, spooked eyes. “You realize what we’ve just done, cuz?”
“Yeah. Let’s get the hell out of here!”
Methodical as always, his last action before they caught the elevator back down to the toilet—and thence to the wooden scaffold in a swamp in the Sudtmarkt—was to lock the door, and then empty half a tube of Krazy glue into the keyhole.
The guard would, of course, be discovered, but the body of a junkie was unlikely to trigger a tear-down search throughout an entire department store. The locked door might be noticed, but if so, would either be ignored or generate a low-priority call to Facilities, that might or might not be responded to the same day. The rearranged boxes might be noticed, but probably wouldn’t be—nobody cleaned inside that room on a regular basis. And the out-of-place janitor’s cart might irritate someone into trying to move it, but in that case they’d discover its wheels were stuck and its contents were inconveniently heavy. True stealth, intruder number one’s superior had explained, is made of lots of little barriers that are not apparent to the enemy.
If anyone penetrated the final barrier and actually looked inside the waste bin in a janitor’s cart in a locked room on the top floor of a department store, they might discover a sleeping horror.
But they’d have to do it fast: The timer would count down to zero in less than eighteen hours.
“What have you not been telling me?”
Miriam leaned on the back of the visitor’s chair in the wood-paneled office, unwilling to sit down or comply with the usual polite rituals of an office visit. For his part, the office’s owner looked equally unhappy. Miriam’s arrival (accompanied by a squad of personal retainers, including both Brilliana and Sir Alasdair) had clearly disrupted his plans for the day.
“Lots,” Riordan snapped. Then he paused to visibly gather his wits. “Please excuse me, this is not a good time. . . .”
“It never is.” Miriam’s stomach churned. Dyspepsia was a constant companion right now, along with weird aches and odd food cravings. And she’d had to ride piggyback on one of her guards to get here, which indignity didn’t improve her mood. “I’m talking about the special weapons. I gather there are complications.”
Behind her, Brilliana shifted from foot to foot; Riordan leaned back in his chair, steepled his fingers, and stared at her. It was a mannerism blatantly modeled on Angbard’s style. The poor bastard’s as out of his depth as I am, she realized. We’re both aping the absent experts.
“Someone blabbed,” he said flatly. “Tell me. I need to know.”
“It was—” Brill stopped abruptly at Miriam’s look.
“You don’t need to answer him,” Miriam told her. “Baron.” She fixed him with a stare of her own—this one not modeled on anyone, even her mother. “Here are the facts as I know them. Some idiot a generation ago sneaked a couple of our people through an Army or Air Force technical school and got them qualified in the care and handling of special weapons. More recently, someone else, also an idiot, decided that having a brace of special weapons to hand was a good idea; just knowing where to steal them in a hurry wasn’t good enough. Angbard trusted Matthias, Matthias had the keys to the kingdom, and when he defected he took at least one of the weapons as a fallback insurance policy. The Family Trade Organization sent it back to us, up near Concord. But it wasn’t the only weapon we’d stolen, and they want the others back. So where are they? You know who’s supposed to be in charge of them. What’s going on?”
Riordan wilted suddenly. “My lady. Please. Have a seat.”
“You’ve lost them, haven’t you?”
“Scheisse,” murmured Sir Alasdair. “Sorry.”
Riordan glanced at her bodyguard, then back at Miriam. “Not . . . exactly. I’m not in charge of them. The Clan Council entrusted them to someone else.”
“Oh.” Miriam rolled her eyes. “You’re going to tell me that after Angbard’s fuck up and in the absence of a track record showing where you stood they didn’t see fit to entrust you with them. So they gave them to that fuckup Oliver Hjorth to sit on.”
“Oliver’s not a fuckup.” Riordan’s tone was distinctly defensive. “I appreciate that you and he got off to a very bad start, that he’s seen fit to align himself with a faction that you have a predisposition against, and all the rest of it. But he is neither stupid or lazy, much less unreliable. Usually.”
“Usually.”
It hung in the air for a moment, before Riordan replied. “Nobody has seen him for two days.”
“Nobody has—” Miriam blinked. “You’re kidding. You’re Clan Security. You’re telling me you’ve lost track of the official the Council put in charge of half a dozen atom bombs?”
“Milady—” It was Brill.
“What is it?”
“He can’t—” Her eyes were pleading.
“Nobody can keep track of every member of the inner families,” rumbled Alasdair. “We don’t have the manpower.” Miriam looked round, to see him watching Riordan. “Nevertheless . . . something happened, did it not?”
“I was awaiting a report,” Riordan said reluctantly, “before calling a meeting of the Committee of Regents. And the full Council, if necessary. It is not just his lordship who is proving hard to contact.”
“Who’s missing?”
“Oliver, Earl Hjorth. Baron Schwartzwasser. His lordship of Gruen, Baron ven Hjalmar. About half a dozen past and present soldiers of this very office who are absent without leave, two-thirds of the Postal Committee, various others—don’t look so shocked; it’s a goodly cross section of the conservative faction, but not all of them. I happen to know that Baron Julius is sitting on the bench in the royal assizes today, and when I raised the matter he professed ignorance convincingly. My lady, they might be attending a private party, for all I know. Their political views are not a sufficient reason to condemn them, in the absence of any other evidence.”
“But you don’t know where the bombs are.” Riordan looked pained. Miriam leaned towards him. “And there are rumors,” she hissed. “A lot of whispering about revenge and honor. I’m not deaf, I’ve got ears to hear this stuff with. What do you think is going on?”