"Of course not." James nodded. "And if I thought for a second that one of your leaders was so stricken, I would of course offer them the hospitality of our house-at least, for as long as they lingered." He raised an eyebrow quizzically.
Olga sighed. "You know we travel to another world, not like New Britain." Well, of course he did. "Their doctors can work miracles, often-at least, they are better than anything I've ever seen here, or anything available back home. It does not reflect on your honor that I must decline your offer of hospitality; it is merely the fact that the casualty might survive if we can get him into the hospital that is waiting for him, but he will probably die if we linger here." She looked James Lee in the eye. "And if he dies without a designated successor, all hell will break loose."
James swallowed. The violent amber flare of the floodlights made it hard to be sure, but it seemed to her that he looked paler than normal. "If it's the duke-" He began to turn towards the truck, and Olga grabbed him by one elbow.
"Don't!" she said urgently. "Don't get involved. Forget your speculation. It's not the duke; the duke cannot possibly be allowed to be less than hale, lest a struggle to inherit his seat break out in the middle of a civil war with the Pervert's faction. Let Ang- Let our sick officer pass, and if he recovers he will remember; and if he dies, you can remind his successors that you acted in good faith. But if you delay us and he dies… you wouldn't want that to happen."
She felt him tense under her hand, and clenched her teeth. James was taller than she, and significantly stronger: If he chose not to be restrained, if he insisted on looking in the truck-
He relaxed infinitesimally, and nodded. "You'd better go, my lady." Shadows flickered behind them-another lance of Wu's soldiers coming through. "Right now. Your men Leonhard or Morgan, one of them can guide you. Take this truck; I will arrange a replacement for your comrades." Olga released his elbow. He rubbed it with his other hand. "I hope you are right about your dream-world's doctors. Losing the thin white duke at this point would indeed not be in our interests."
"I'm pleased you agree." Olga glanced round, spotted Leonhard walking towards the driver's cabin. "I'd better go."
"One thing," James said hastily. "Is there any news of the lady Helge?"
"Helge?" Olga looked back at him. "She passed through New London a week ago. One of my peers is following her."
"Oh," James said quietly. "Well, good luck to her." He turned and walked back towards the gate.
Olga watched him speculatively for a few seconds. Now what was that about? she wondered. But there was no time to be lost, not with the duke stricken and semiconscious on the back. She climbed into the cab of the truck behind Leonhard and a close-lipped driver. "Let's go," she told them. "There's no time to lose."
5
Governments run on order and process. There was probably a protocol for everything, thought agent Judith Herz-formerly of the FBI, now attached semipermanently to the Family Trade Organization-short of launching a nuclear attack on your own territory. Unfortunately that was exactly what she'd been tasked with doing, and probably nobody since the more psychotic members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff tasked with planning Operation Northwood during the 1960s had even imagined it. And even though a checklist had come down from on high and the colonel and Major Alvarez had confirmed it looked good, just thinking about it gave her a headache.
(1) Secure the package at all times. She glanced up from her clipboard, across the muddy field, at the white armored truck with the rectangular box body. The floodlights they'd hastily rigged that afternoon showed that it was having some difficulty reversing towards the big top; the rear axle would periodically spin, the engine roaring like an angry tiger as the driver grappled with its overweight carcass. Maybe we ought to have just used a minivan, she thought. With a suitable escort, it would have been less conspicuous… On the other hand, the armed guards in the back, watching each other as well as the physics package, would probably disagree.
(2) Do not deploy the package until arrival of ARMBAND. Armband, whatever it was-some kind of magic box that did whatever it was the world-walking freaks from fairyland did in their heads-had landed at MacArthur Airport; she'd sent Rich Hall and Amanda Cruz to pick it up. Check.
(3) PAL codes-call WARBUCKS for release authorization. That was the bit that brought her out in a cold sweat, because along with the half-dozen unsmiling federal agents from the NNSA, call sign WARBUCKS meant that this was the real deal, that the permissive action lock code to activate the nuclear device would be issued by the vice president himself, as explained in the signed Presidential Order she'd been allowed to read-but not to hold-by the corpse-faced bastard from the West Wing who Colonel Smith answered to. Since when does the President give WARBUCKS backpack nukes to play with, anyway? she asked herself; but it looked official enough, and the folder full of top secret code words that had landed on her desk with a palpable thud yesterday suggested that this might be a cowboy operation, but if so, it was being led by the number one rancher himself. At least, that was what the signatures of half the National Command Authority and a couple of Supreme Court justices implied.
(4) FADM/ARMBAND final assembly and PAL programming to be carried out on launch scaffold. The thing in the tent gave her the creeps; Smith called it a transdimensional siege tower, but it looked too close to a field-expedient gallows for her liking. She was going to go up there with Dr. Rand and a posse of inspectors from NNSA and a couple of army officers and when they came down from the platform some person or persons unknown would be dead. Not that she was anti-death-penalty or anything, but she'd started out as an FBI agent: The anonymous military way of killing felt profoundly wrong, like a gap in a row of teeth, or a death in the family.
(5) ARMBAND failure contingency plan. That was the worst bit of all, because if ARMBAND failed to work as advertised, she and Lucius Rand and everyone else would be standing on a scaffold with a ticking bomb on a sixty-second countdown, and they'd get precisely two chances to enter the eight-digit abort code.
It was a good thing that she'd taken the time for holy communion and attended confession that morning, she thought, as she walked towards the tent. It had been a long day, and she had a feeling that the night was going to be even longer.
Her earbud crackled: "Herz, speak to me." It was the colonel.
"Stage one is in hand, I'm waiting on news of ARMBAND." Out of one corner of her eye she saw moving headlights, another of the undercover patrol cars circling the block slowly, looking for rubberneckers. "Everything seems to be on track so far."
"Please hold." She walked on, briefly looking round to check on the armored car. (It was reversing again, pulling free of the patch of soft ground that had stymied it.) "Okay, that's good. Update me if there are any developments."
So the colonel is jittery? Good. A uniform over near the support truck from the NNSA was waving to her; local cops drafted in for crowd control and vehicle marshaling. She changed course towards him. So he should be. "What's up?" she demanded.
"Uh, agent-" He was nervous; not used to dealing with FBI.
"Herz." She nodded. "You have something."
"Yeah, there's a car at the north quadrant entrance, driver says it's for you. Name of Hall."
"Oh."-what's Rich doing up there?-"If that's Rich Hall and Amanda Cruz, we're expecting them." She kicked herself mentally: Should have told them which gate to use. "Let them in. They've got a package we're expecting."