"I don't intend to." Rich tried to look as unthreatening as possible. "I just need to talk to someone in Operations Control. We're not going to be any trouble."
He could feel Chavez's eyes drilling a hole in his back. He glanced round. "You want to make this one?"
"No, you go first." Chavez grinned humorlessly. "I'll just watch your back."
"Shit." Rich picked up the handset and dialed a four-digit number. "Ops? This is a call for SERENE AMBLER. Yeah, that's SERENE AMBLER. They're expecting you to connect me immediately… good. Colonel? Rich here."
The voice at the other end of the line sounded alert. "What's the news?"
"Our FADM inventory is fucked, and it's worse than we feared. We're out by another five, in addition to the one we found in Boston. That one was on forward deployment when it went walkies, but the ones we're missing here were supposed to be in secure storage. Turns out they've been tampered with in the meantime-someone has gotten inside the storage cells. I slipped out while they were declaring an official Pinnacle Empty Quiver so I could warn you; the missing items are all from the covert resource allocated to SECDEF and VPOTUS back in 2001, so somebody needs to brief WOLFMAN and WARBUCKS urgently to head it off at the pass before the shitstorm hits the National Command Authority and confuses the president."
"I see." The colonel fell uncharacteristically silent for a few seconds. "And what does the scene look like to you, right now?"
Rich paused, glancing at the guard, who was pointedly not listening-too pointedly, he thought. "The area's secured against normal threats, so your guess is as good as mine as to how they got in." Which was to say, not a guess at all-they both knew perfectly well how these particular bad guys might sneak into a secure area. "The building's surrounded by a-the usual kind of security you'd expect-but it's AGL. The guards seem alert enough to"-yes, the guard was very pointedly not listening-"intruders. I'm not making any guesses how they managed to make the substitution, but the H-912 cases were full of ballast. Which suggests whoever took them knows exactly what they're doing with the contents."
Another pause. "Can you confirm six missing, and no more?"
That was an easy one to answer: "No, sir. I can confirm six empty quivers and six full ones, but I cannot rule out the possibility that there are more missing." He licked his dry lips. "I would be astonished if the site authority doesn't order a full lockdown immediately and commence an audit within the next hour or two, in anticipation of NCA's likely orders. Meanwhile, it looks like we'll be stuck here for a few hours, if not days. What do you want us to do?"
Silence. "Leave it to the NNSA," the colonel finally said. "I'll escalate it for WARBUCKS's attention immediately. Meanwhile, I want you back in Boston as soon as you can disengage. There's a problem with COLDPLAY…"
1
Iam not hearing this, Miriam Beckstein told herself. The temptation to giggle, to laugh it all off as a bizarre joke, was enormous. Pretend it isn't happening; yeah, right. Story of my life. She tightened her grip on the valise holding her notebook PC and its precious CD-ROMs. Except that for the past six months, the mad stuff had made a habit of punching her in the guts whenever she least expected it. "Run that by me again," she said.
"It's quite simple," said the hard-eyed young debutante with the machine pistol. "Your mother wants to use you to consolidate power." She kept her eyes focused on Miriam as she twisted the magazine free of the gun, worked a slide to eject a cartridge, and swapped another magazine into place. "The duke agrees with her. And we"-the eloquent roll of her shoulder took in their companions, a cohort of young and alarmingly heavily armed Clan world-walkers-"intend to make sure you're not just there for show."
They look like students, thought Miriam. Students outfitted by North Face for a weekend hike; accessories by Fabrique Nationale and Heckler amp; Koch. Of course they were nothing of the kind. Young aristocrats of the Clan nobility-born in the curious quasi-mediaeval kingdom of Gruinmarkt, and able to travel to other worlds at will-they might look like ordinary American undergrads, but the mind-set behind those fresh young faces was very different.
"Oh, really?" she managed. The idea of her mother-and the duke-plotting to put her on the throne of the Gruinmarkt was pretty preposterous, on the face of it-but then, so were so many of the other intrigues the Clan seemed to generate. Then another thought struck her: You said "we," didn't you? So Brill had an agenda of her own, over and above her loyalty to the duke-or Miriam, for that matter? Time to probe…
"Was this"-she pointed at her belly, quiet anger in her voice-"part of their plan?"
"Milady" Brill-Lady Brilliana d'Ost, a mere twentysomething-furrowed her brow. "With all due respect, if you think that, you're paranoid. Do you really think the duke-or your mother-know you so poorly as to think you a suitable mother for the heir to the throne? Much less, under such durance? Henryk and your-his backer-were fools for thinking they could manipulate you that way, and now they are dead fools. The rest of us are just trying to make the best of a bad deal. And if you want to talk politics, would you mind leaving it until later? I've got a splitting headache and it's about to get worse."
Miriam winced. World-walking took it out of a member of the Clan's inner families, those with the ability: Doing it more than once in a day risked migrainelike symptoms and a blood pressure spike. There were other symptoms, too: pregnancy, she'd learned the hard way, made world-walking under your own power impossible. But they'd come here from New Britain, escaping after the abortive ambush at a provincial railway station in that world's version of California, immediately after picking her up.
One of the young men pacing the perimeter of the clearing raised a hand, twirled it in a warning circle. "One hour to go."
"Yah." Brill glanced round again. The forest clearing was peaceful, unoccupied but for Miriam, Brill, and her three young bloods, but she never stopped scanning.
"Are we in any immediate danger?" Miriam asked, shifting her balance on the fallen tree trunk.
"Probably not right now." Brill paused to continue her inspection. "The Kao's patrols don't usually sweep this far northeast. Better not linger, though. We'll be ready to move in another hour."
"The Kao?"
"The Favored of Heaven's border troops. Most of the local tribes give them a wide berth. We should, too." A warning look in her eyes gave Miriam a cold shiver; if Brill was scared of them, that was enough for her.
"What are you planning on doing once we cross over?"
"We've got a hotel suite in San Jose. I plan to get us over there, then make contact with the duke and ask for further instructions. I imagine he'll want us back on the east coast stat-we've got a biz-jet standing by. Otherwise, we'll do what Security tells us to do. Unless you have other plans?" Brill raised a carefully shaped eyebrow. Even though she'd started the day with a brisk firefight, then a forced crossing into wilderness, she'd taken pains with her makeup.
Miriam shrugged. "I thought I did." Her hands were restless; trying to keep them still, she thrust them deep in the pockets of her overly heavy coat. "The political situation in New Britain is going to hell in a handbasket. Erasmus was on his way to meet a big wheel in the, uh, resistance." In point of fact, the biggest wheel in the underground, returning from exile after a generation-to whom he had once been a personal assistant. "It's too hot for comfort. I was only going along because I couldn't think of anything else to do; when I fetched up in London all I had was the clothes on my back."