(Pause.) "Yes. We have worked with them before, it's true, and most of the team they have picked works well to protect our interests. For example, this attorney-general, John Ashcroft, we know him well. He's sound on the right issues, a zealot-but unlikely to become dangerously creative. He knows better than to rock the boat. An arms-length relationship is sufficient for this term, no need to get too close… our friends will keep him in line. But what concerns me is that some of the other positions are occupied by those of a less predictable disposition. These Nixon-era underlings, seeking to prove that they could have-yes, like the vice president, yes, exactly."
"You don't like the current vice president? You think he is unfit?"
"It's not that. You know about the West Coast operation, though-"
"Yes? I thought we terminated it years ago?"
"We did. My point is, WARBUCKS was our partner in that venture."
(Long pause.) "You're joking."
"I'm afraid not. He's one of our inner circle."
"But how-it's against policy! To involve politicians, I mean."
(Sigh.) "At the time, he was out of office. Swore blind he was going to stay out, too-that's when he began developing his business seriously. The complaints of financial opacity in Halliburton that came out during the Dresser Industries takeover-whose interests do you think those accounting arrangements served? And you must understand that from our point of view he looked like the perfect cutout. Respectable businessman, former defense secretary with heavy political and business contacts-who'd suspect him?"
"Crone Mother's tears! This should not have been allowed."
"May I remind you again that nobody saw it coming? That if we had, it wouldn't have happened?"
"What are you going to do about it?"
"What we always do, when they're too big to take down: I'm afraid we're going to have to pay him tribute."
"It's going to be expensive, Angbard. He's their king-in-waiting-indeed, he may actually be their king-emperor in all but name. The idiot child they've placed on the throne does not impress with his acumen. Someone must be issuing the orders in his stead."
"Oh, I wouldn't be so sure, my lady; he's strong-willed and I'm told he's not as stupid as he looks when the glare of the public gaze is shuttered. And I am not certain you're right about the cost of tribute, either. WARBUCKS is as rich as one of our first circle, and from his office in the Old Executive Office Building he has more power than many of our relatives can even conceive of. So we cannot buy him with money or cow him with threats-but there is a currency a man of his type craves, and he knows we can pay in it."
"What-oh. I see."
"He is, it seems, setting up his own private intelligence group-by proxy, through Defense-this Office of Special Plans. He is one of those seekers for power who have a compulsive need for secrecy and hidden knowledge. We know exactly how to handle such men, do we not?"
"As long as you're cautious, Angbard. He knows too much already."
"About us? We won't be feeding him tidbits about us. But the fellow has enemies, and he knows it, and as long as we make ourselves discreetly indispensable we'll be safe from investigation by any agency he can touch. We've never had a vice president before, my lady; I hope to make it a mutually profitable arrangement."
(Pause.) "As long as he doesn't turn on us, your grace. Mark my words. As long as he doesn't turn on us…"
The tape clicked to an end. Mike stared at the poisonous thing, unwilling to rewind it and listen again. It wasn't as if he hadn't had his suspicions, but… this is Art Bell Show material, he told himself. The vice president is in cahoots with the Clan?
Slowly a new and even more unwelcome supposition inserted itself into his mind. No. The vice president was in cahoots with the Clan. Now he's-Mike flashed over on a vision of Dr. James, in a meeting with WARBUCKS himself, giving orders from his shadowy web-now he's set on destroyingthem. When Matthias defected he didn't realize the reports would end on WARBUCKS desk and WARBUCKS would have to kill him and turn on the Clan to destroy the evidence of his collusion-
The thoughts were coming too fast. Mike stood up tiredly, stretched the kinks out of his shoulders, glanced at the clock. It was four in the afternoon: a little early to go home, normally, but…
Shit. The Clan take politics personally-when they figure out what's happened they'll treat it as treachery. And if I even hint that I know this shit, the vice president will try and have me rubbed out. What the hell am I going to do?
Buy time. Sign myself out as sick. And hope something turns up…
12
Miriam cleared her throat. Begin with a cliche: This was the part she was edgy about. "I expect you're all wondering why I asked you here," she said, and smiled. Deathly silence. She studied her audience: forty or so of the most important movers and shakers of the inner families, mostly allies of the progressive faction. They were rapt, waiting for her explanation and uninclined to social chatter. Oh well, moving swiftly on… "It's been a year since I turned up with a plan and a business and asked my uncle to call a meeting of the Clan Council."
Heads nodded. Many of them had been at that particular meeting.
"You probably think I asked you here today because a lot has happened in the past year. In particular, that plan is dead in the water. I'm not going to assign blame or complain about it. Rather, I'd like to describe the situation we face right now, and propose a new plan. It's drastic, because we're in a bad position, but I think we can make it work. It'll mean major changes to the way we live, but if we go through with it"-she shrugged-"we'll be in a better position, going forward." Too much padding, she thought nervously.
She leaned over the laptop-sitting on a lectern borrowed from the shrine to the household deities-and tapped the space bar. PowerPoint was running, but the projector-"Someone check that-"
Huw poked at the projector. "It's on," he confirmed. A moment later the screen beside her (a bleached, lime-washed canvas stretched flat within a monstrously baroque gilt picture frame) flickered to life.
"Okay." Miriam focused on her notes. She'd spent almost twelve hours working on this presentation, far less than the subject deserved but as much as she'd been able to steal between her other duties over the past week. "Here's what we know for sure: Almost ten months ago, Sir Matthias, who had been participating in at least one little conspiracy against his grace the duke, vanished. We've subsequently learned that he handed himself in to the DEA in return for immunity"-shocked muttering from the back of the room told her that not everybody present had known even that much-"and the DEA handed him on to some kind of black intelligence team called the Family Trade Organization. They're the folks behind the series of raids that shut down the east coast network. A number of us have been compromised, including myself and her grace my mother. FTO subsequently captured at least two of our number and coerced them to act as mules, and at least one of their agents was in the grounds of the Summer Palace earlier this year when the pretender made his bid for the succession."
She paused. The muttering hadn't died down. "Can you save it for later?" she called.
"Silence!" This a deep bellow from Sir Alasdair, at the back corner of the room. "Pray continue, milady."
"Thank you… As I was about to say, anything we decide to do now has to take account of the facts that the US government is aware of us; considers us to be a threat; has developed at the very least a minimal capability to send operatives over here; and we can presume that the explosion at the Hjalmar Palace was also their work. And the news doesn't get any better from there. Um."