"Hah. You'll continue to face them, girl, as long as you keep playing your fancy games. You ignore the old ways at your peril; others cleave to them, and your fingers can be burned just as easily by the fire you didn't light. Although you do seem to have a fine talent for getting others to rescue you from situations of your own devising. But on another matter, have you seen your dam? I must have words with her. We need to clear the air."
Her grandmother's offhanded condescension didn't surprise Miriam; but the suggestion that the air needed clearing was something else. "What's there to talk about? I thought you'd disowned her!"
"Well." Hildegarde's cheek twitched into something that might have been a grimace. "That was then; this is politics, after all."
"On the contrary, this is my party, and I'm shocked, absolutely shocked, that anybody might want to discuss matters of politics here." Miriam glared at her grandmother. "Or haven't you worked it out yet?"
Hildegarde looked her up and down. "Oh, Patricia raised you well," she breathed. "And I could ask exactly the same of you, but you wouldn't listen. Best save my breath. You'll understand eventually." Then, before Miriam could think of a suitable response, she turned and shuffled aside.
"What was that about?" asked Brill, materializing at her elbow: "I could have sworn-"
"I wish I knew." Miriam stared after the dowager, perturbed. "I have the strangest feeling that she was trying to send me some sort of message I'm meant to understand. Only somebody forgot to tell me how to mind read."
"She is"-Brill stared at the broad shoulders of the dowager's arms-men-"a most powerful and dangerous lady."
"And what makes it worse is the fact that she thinks I ought to be on her side." Miriam curled her lower lip.
"Really?" Brill glanced sidelong at her. "I was going to say, I believe she thinks she is looking out for your best interests. Being your grandam, after all."
Miriam shrugged uncomfortably. "Save me from people acting in my best interests. Without asking first," she added.
"I wouldn't-" Brill paused and cupped a hand to her left ear. Like Sir Alasdair, she was wearing a wire. "Ah, Baron Isserlis is soon to arrive, my lady. I must leave you for a while. Where should I tell him you want to meet, again?"
"With the others: in the red room, upstairs, at six o'clock. That's where I told Laurens to put the projection screen and laptop, anyway."
"If that goes for all of them?…"
"It does. Except for the obvious exceptions."
"The B-list."
"Wine 'em, dine 'em, and keep 'em out of my hair while I'm making the pitch." Miriam fanned herself. "Can you do that?"
Brill smiled. "Watch me," she said. "It's your job to relax and enjoy yourself. Then give a good presentation!"
In a mosquito-infested marsh on the banks of a sluggish river, a draft of peasants from the estates of the Earl of Dankfurt had assembled a scaffold. The scaffold, of stout timber with a surface of planking, bore a winch and some additional contrivances, and despite its crude appearance it had been positioned very carefully indeed. Blood and sweat had gone into its location, and the use of imported surveying tools to measure very precisely indeed its distance and altitude relative to the four reference points where Clan couriers had established accurate GPS locations before crossing over from Washington D.C.
(Accurately locating anything in the Sudtmarkt was problematic, but where there was a need-and urgency-there was a way: and with four reference points, theodolites, and standardized lengths of chain, positioning to within a couple of inches at a distance of up to a mile was perfectly achievable. Besides, Gunnar had insisted on three-inch accuracy with the icy certainty of punishment from above to back him up. And so it was done.)
"This is the entry point?" asked the visitor.
"Yes, my lord." Gunnar turned and gestured towards a nearby copse of trees, climbing the gentle slope. "And right over-there, past the tree line-you should just be able to see the tower for the department store on Pennsylvania Avenue. Site three is, I'm afraid, not visible from here, being on the other side of the river, but construction is complete. We carried out our intrusion tests yesterday shortly after closing time and everything worked perfectly."
"Intrusion tests?"
"A courier, outfitted with cover as a tourist, to make sure our proposed sites were workable. They crossed over ten minutes after the museum closed, to ensure there were no human witnesses, then made their way out when the alarm system went off. Their story was that they'd been in the rest room and hadn't noticed the time. Along the way, they check for motion detectors in the rest rooms, that sort of thing, to ensure a witness-free transit point."
"Excellent. And the others?"
"Shops are a little bit harder to probe, so I checked the store in reverse, myself-I crossed over from the other side. Found we were three inches too low on this side, so I raised the platform accordingly. We will have to risk their store security noticing that they lost a shopper, but they are most likely to assume that I was simply an artful thief."
One of the visiting lord's companions was making notes in a planner; another of them held a large parasol above his lordship's head. His lordship looked thoughtful for a few seconds. "And how do you probe the third site?"
"Ah, well." Gunnar froze for a few seconds. "That one we can't send a world-walker into. We can fool store security guards who are looking for shoplifters, but soldiers with machine guns are another matter. We will just have to do it blind and get it right first time. On the other hand, I managed to get a verified GPS reading and a distance estimate to the facade from the car park by pretending to be lost tourists, and the outer dimensions of the building itself are well-known. I am certain-I place my honor on it-that site three is within four or five feet of the geometric center of the complex, at ground level."
"What about the subway station?"
"It's been closed since 9/11, unfortunately, otherwise that would be ideal. Damned amateurs with their box-cutters…"
"Leave me. Not you, Gunnar."
Gunnar stared at his visitor. "My lord?"
The parasol- and planner-bearers and the bodyguards were also staring at his lordship. "All of you, go and wait with the carriage a while. I must talk with Sir Gunnar in confidence."
Heads ducked; without further ado, the servants and guards backed away then turned and filed towards the edge of the clearing. His lordship watched with ill-concealed impatience until the last of them was out of easy earshot, before turning to Gunnar.
"You must tell me the truth, sir. I'm informed that our superiors have a definite goal in mind, for which they require certain assurances. Both our necks-and those of others-are at risk should this scheme fail. If, in your estimate, it is doomed, please say so now. There will be censure, certainly, but it will be nothing compared to the punishment that will fall on both of us should we make the attempt and fail."
Gunnar nodded thoughtfully. "Your staff, how many of them?…"
"At least two spies, for opposing factions."
"Ah, well that makes it clear, then." Gunnar took a deep breath. "This is a huge risk we're taking. And you just revealed your internal security coverage. You know that, don't you?"
"The spies in question will have a boating accident involving alligators around sunset this evening." His lordship smiled humorlessly. "We-my superiors-have chewed the plan to pieces. Our other choices are no better. The pretender saw to that with his betrothal-day massacre and the radicals have been happy to complete his work. But. My question. Can you make it work?"