"The bastards have activated it," said Olga, her voice tightly controlled. "And I do not recall being invited to a plenary session to approve such action. Do you? It's unforgivable!"
"Plan Blue?" Miriam repeated.
"Excuse me." Riordan nodded at her. "My apologies, my lady, but I must make a call." He lifted the telephone handset and began to dial, then paused. "That's funny. There's no tone."
"Give that to me." Miriam reached for it. The handset was dead, mocking her. "Urn, you've got a dead line. Could you have been cut off by accident, or is that too improbable?"
"Enemy action," said Sir Alasdair. "My lady, over here." He moved swiftly, gesturing Miriam away from the window and moving to stand where she'd been a moment before.
"Otto Schenck admitted it to, to one of my sources," Olga added as Riordan poked at his desktop computer, a frown spreading on his face. "Boasted, belike, he said they're going to send the enemy their king's head on a plate-"
"It's not going to work," Brill whispered.
"What's not going to work?" Miriam rounded on her tensely. "What are you talking about?"
"Why now?" Brill frowned. "Why are they doing this now?" She looked at Miriam. "It's something to do with your grandmother, my lady. Her visit the other day. That was no coincidence!"
"What do you-"
"We need to get out of here!" Brill raised her voice, piercing and urgent. "Listen, everybody! This is a setup! We need to leave the building right now!"
"Why-" Riordan was standing up.
"She's right, go, now!" Olga grabbed his arm.
"My lady. This way." Alasdair yanked the door open and pulled Miriam along behind him.
"But where are we-" Miriam stopped arguing and concentrated on not stumbling as he powered along the corridor to-wards a fire door. "Alasdair! No!" Visions of claymore mines flashed through her mind as he stopped dead.
"Oh, I don't think so," he assured her with a sharkish grin. "I checked this one before you arrived. Besides, I don't think they want to kill us. Immobilize us and send us a message, perhaps, but they're not going to risk killing the heir." He shoved down on the emergency bar and pushed the door open. In the distance behind them, a tinny siren began to wail. "After me, if you please."
Sir Alasdair ducked round the door, then pronounced the area clear. They piled down the fire escape to the car park at the back of the small office building, Brill and Olga trailing behind. "What exactly is Plan Blue?" Miriam demanded breathlessly. "Where's Riordan?"
"He's got other things to do," said Olga. "My lady Brilliana, please take your mistress somewhere safe."
"Where-"
"-Plan Blue?"
"Plan Blue is the usage case for the Clan deterrent," Brill explained as they climbed into Sir Alasdair's Explorer. "A decapitation strike at the enemy."
"Oh Jesus. Tell me that doesn't mean what I think it means."
"I fear I cannot."
"Olga, what is Riordan doing?"
"He's going to find a phone." She grinned, humorlessly. "Oh, there he is now…"
Miriam turned her head to see Riordan round the side of the building, holding a briefcase. He was walking towards them. Olga popped the door.
"Drive," he said, climbing in. "I've got to make a call. Once it connects, they'll be trying to trace us, so on my word pull into a car park so I can ditch this thing."
Brill stared at the case as if it contained a poisonous reptile. "Is this safe?" she asked.
"No." Riordan didn't smile. "You were right about it, Olga."
The truck was already moving as Riordan opened the briefcase. "What's that?" asked Miriam.
"A special phone." Brill pulled a face. "Not safe."
"Indeed." There was a tray in the case, with a cell phone-in several pieces-nested in separate pockets. One of them contained a small, crude-looking circuit board with a diode soldered to it; another contained a compact handset.
"Why did we leave the office?" asked Miriam.
"Can't use this phone while stationary," Riordan grunted. "And the opposition cut our lines. A nuisance measure, I think, but the timing is worrying; I think they were watching you to see if you would take their bait. And you did."
"Bait?" She shook her head, bewildered.
"You came to see me, about Plan Blue. I do not believe that is an accident."
"Bastards," she mumbled under her breath. Louder: "It was your man Carl."
"Thank you," Riordan said gravely. "Alright, I am going to talk to the enemy now." He picked up the handset, flicked a switch on the small circuit board, and poked at the exposed keypad of the vivisected phone. "Dialing…" The sound of a ringing phone filled the truck's cab, coming from a speaker in the briefcase.
"Hello?" The voice answering the phone was cold.
"I was told that you can send a message to the White House," said Riordan. "Is that correct?"
Miriam's skin crawled as she waited for the reply.
"Correct," the voice said drily. "To whom am I speaking?"
"You can call me the Chief of Security."
"And you may call me Dr. James. Are you calling to surrender?"
"No, I'm calling to warn you that your meddling has produced an overreaction from our conservative faction. They've activated a plan which-fuck."
The line had gone dead; simultaneously, the LED on the circuit board had lit up, burning red.
"They did it," Brill said, fascinated. "The bastards." Her actual word, in hochsprache, was considerably stronger.
"Next drive-through, please," Riordan called to Sir Alasdair. "I am afraid you are right, milady."
"What was that?" Miriam asked, staring at the LED. "Something one of our artificers put in to replace the ten grams of C4 wired across the earpiece," said Olga. "Is it not an ingenious little assassination weapon?"
"But we"-Miriam stared in horror-"we were going to warn them!"
"Maybe they don't want warning?" Sir Alasdair commented.
"But we-" Miriam stopped. "We've got to do something! Do you know where the bombs are?"
"No," said Olga.
"That's the whole point of Plan Blue," Riordan added. "It's a procedure for deployment. Nobody knows everything about it; for example, I don't know the precise target locations. It was designed so that it can't be disrupted if the commanders are captured, or if one of the bomb emplacement teams is captured."
"But that's insane! Isn't there any way of stopping it?"
"Normally, yes, if the chain of command was operating. But someone appears to have decided to cut us out of the loop. I fear we are facing a coup assisted by people inside Security, my lady. I have some calls to make…"
"We can warn them," said Olga, causing at least three people to ask, "how?" simultaneously.
"Your friend, Mr. Fleming," she added, glancing sidelong at Miriam. "He is inside their security apparat."
"So was that, that man. On the phone." Miriam stared at Riordan, who was busily unplugging components in the briefcase and fiddling with something that looked alarmingly like a pyrotechnic flare.
"Yes, but Fleming will know how to bypass him," Brill said thoughtfully. "He will know how to escalate a bomb threat and sound a general alert. His superior may be playing insane games, but I believe he is still trustworthy."
The Explorer turned a corner. "Stopping in a minute," called Sir Alasdair. "Are you ready?"
"Yes," said Riordan, depressing a button on the flare and closing the briefcase. He latched it shut, then spun the combination wheels. "We have two minutes until we require a fire extinguisher."