Rudi blinked. "Yes, sir, I think so. Uh, that and, we need more gas. Sorry." He shrugged. "I think we've got about five gallons left. Avgas, not regular."
"Damn." Riordan glanced round. "Steward? More coffee." He turned back to the table. "Have Joachim and Stefan reported in yet?"
Vincenze looked thoughtful. "Not unless they've come in since we started in here."
"Go and chase them up, then."
Dismissed, Vincenze rose. He nodded at Rudi. "Good luck, cuz."
Startled, Rudi watched him leave.
"The cornet has no need to know what I'm about to tell you," Riordan said quietly. He paused while the steward placed fresh mugs of coffee in front of them. "That will be all."
"Sir." The steward bowed then left the room.
Rudi waited until the door was shut. "Sir, you obviously have something in mind?"
"Yes." Riordan fell silent. Then: "I sent Joachim and Stefan out to buy some office equipment. Most of a print shop, in fact-a laptop, graphics software, a printer, a scanner, and equipment for making badges."
"Badges?"
"You know of our long lost cousins, I take it?"
Rudi nodded cautiously. "I've never met any of them."
"Hmm." Riordan raised one eyebrow. "You will, soon enough." He picked up his coffee mug and blew on it. "When Joachim gets back he's to run off two hundred laminated color cards with our lost cousin's knotwork seal on it."
"Their-"Rudi stopped. "It's not the same as ours, is it?" he asked.
"No." Riordan put his mug down. "According to the duke, they became lost two centuries ago when-you know the story about how the seventh brother went west, to make a home for himself in the outer kingdom, what the Americans call California? He fell on hard times, and lost his sigil. Later, he tried to recreate it from memory, and got it subtly wrong. That's why neither he nor his descendants could visit the United States; they found themselves in another world, only slightly different at that time. Anyway, we have a copy of the lost family's sigil, and we are going to make enough duplicates of it to equip every world-walker in the Hjalmar Palace. As its doppelganger site in Massachusetts is crawling with federal agents, and we have not accurately surveyed the terrain in the other world, you're going to fly the badges in."
Rudi's thoughts spun. "So I won't need to fly out?…"
"No. The duke's men will help you dismantle your aircraft and carry it with them when they leave. Lady Olga is developing the evacuation plan and will organize your logistics. The larger goal is to present the usurper with a tempting target, and then give him a nasty surprise when he tries to take it. Do you understand?"
"Yes, I think so. But I thought he knew about our talent? And is clearly taking pains to avoid situations where we can use it?"
"Indeed." The earl grinned humorlessly. "I'm counting on it. Egon knows about world-walking, and plans his moves accordingly. Which makes his behavior predictable… and I'm going to use that fact to kill him."
Mike Fleming was trapped in the basement of his apartment, trying to figure out how to get out, when the phone rang.
It was the colonel's fault. "Son, I'm relying on you to stay home and convalesce," he'd said sternly, after handing over a brown paper bag containing an anonymous mobile phone and a semiautomatic pistol. "I want you back in the saddle as soon as you're fit for duty. But you're not going to be any use to me if you overdo it. So relax, take it easy, and try to remember your job is to get well, and maybe see to the other thing." (The other thing being his mission if the Mad Grandmother or the Ice Princess made contact-but Mike had an uneasy feeling that this latter duty was more than slightly deniable.) But there was only so much sitting on his ass that he could do, and after a few days frittered away watching Friends reruns and reading pop-history books about the Middle East, he was ready to climb the walls.
Hence, the basement.
Most apartments don't have basements, but the one Mike rented in a converted brownstone was the exception to the rule: A steep staircase opening off one wall of the kitchen led down into the low-ceilinged cellar. With perfect hindsight, Mike had to admit, deciding to clean house while recovering from a broken leg and a nasty little infection was not one of his most sensible moves. But once he'd gotten down those steps, it turned out that filling garbage sacks and trying to figure out how to dismantle the dead drier that had been stranded down here for years was a whole lot more attractive than trying to figure out how to get back up the stairs. Especially because he wasn't sure he'd be able to make it around the tight bend at the top, and having to phone for help to dig him out of his own cellar would really do his self-image no end of good. (You're a special agent working for a secret government organization and you had to call in help to climb a staircase? What is this, the CIA?)
Hence, the phone ringing while he was stuck in the basement.
Mike swore. The phone rang twice as he disentangled himself from the cable of the defunct drier and hopped around the workbench, trying to find the extension handset behind the pile of rusting paint cans and the overflowing toolbox. "Yes?" He barked, making a one-handed grab for the phone and simultaneously putting too much weight on his bad leg.
"Is that Mr Fleming?" It was a woman's voice, a noisy office providing unwelcome background context. If this is a telesales call… Mike felt a hot flash of anger, echoing the pain in his right ankle. About a week and a half ago he'd trodden on a man-trapa mediaeval antipersonnel mine, as Sergeant Hastert had put it-and with the cracked bone, torn ligaments, and nice little infection he'd picked up, he'd been lucky to keep the leg.
"Who is this?" Mike demanded.
"I'm Letitia, from Family Home Services. Can I speak to Mr. Fleming, please?"
The spark of helpless anger passed rapidly. Mike blinked. "Yeah, that's me." He glanced round instinctively. "Free to talk." No, not a telesales call; the background office noise was a recording and the company name a cover. "It's Tuesday today, isn't it?"
"No, it's Wednesday," said the woman at the other end of the line, who wasn't called Letitia any more than it was any day other than Monday. "You're late for your CAT scan. Dr. James wants to see you as soon as possible, and as it happens we've got a slot free right now-are you free now?"
Mike glanced round at the dusty basement again, his pulse quickening. "I believe I can fit you in."
"Good. An ambulance will collect you in fifteen minutes, if that's convenient?"
"I'll be waiting." The usual pleasantries, and Mike hung up the handset, staring at it in surprise. So the colonel wanted to talk to him? But the colonel knew damn well what shape his leg was in, and the boss-man was in the loop, so what could he want?…
Mike began to smile, for the first time in days.
The ambulance that pulled up outside his front door twenty minutes later resembled any other one, and the two paramedics made short work of wheeling Mike-sitting up, chatting, no need to alarm the neighbors unduly-into the back of their vehicle. The door shut, and there the resemblance stopped: Normal ambulances didn't have door gunners in black fatigues riding behind the one-way glass windows. They didn't roll like a foundering ship beneath the weight of armor, either; and they especially didn't come with passengers like Dr. James, whose specialty was distinctly nonmedical.