The Traders' War (Merchant Princes Omnibus 2) (12 page)

‘How do they do it?’ Mike asked.
Humor him, he may have something useful, after all
. Mentally, he was already working out which forms to submit to request the psychiatric
assessment.

‘Suppose a broker in Columbia wants half a ton of heroin to arrive in upstate New York.’ Matthias ground his cigarette out in the ashtray, even though it was only half-finished.
‘He has a choice of distribution channels. He can arrange for an intermediary to buy a fast speedboat, or a light plane, and run the Coast Guard gauntlet in the Caribbean. He can try a false
compartment in a truck. Once in the United States, the cargo can be split into shipments and dispatched via other channels – expendable couriers, usually. There is an approximate risk of
twenty-five percent associated with this technique. That is, the goods will probably reach the wholesaler – but one time in four, they will not.’ His face flickered in a fleeting grin.
‘Alternatively, they can contact the Clan. Who will take a commission of ten percent and
guarantee
delivery – or return the cost in full.’

Huh?
Mike sat up slightly. Matthias’s habit of breaking off and looking at him expectantly was grating, but he couldn’t help responding. Even if this sounded like pure
baloney, there was something compelling about the way Matt clearly believed his story.

‘The Clan is a trading consortium operated by the noble houses,’ Matt explained. ‘Couriers cross over into this world and collect the cargo, in whatever quantity they can lift
– they can only carry whatever they can hold across the gulf between worlds. In the other world, the Clan is invincible. Cargos of heroin or cocaine travel up the coast in wagon trains
guarded by the Clan’s troops. Local rulers are bribed with penicillin and aluminum tableware and spices for the table. Bandits with crossbows and swords are no match for soldiers with
night-vision goggles and automatic weapons. It takes weeks or months, but it’s secure – and sooner or later the cargo arrives in a heavily guarded depot in Boston or New York without
you ever knowing it’s in transit or being able to track it.’

There was a click from across the room. Mike looked round. ‘This is bullshit,’ complained Pete, stripping off his headphones. He glared at Matt in disgust. ‘You’re
wasting our time, do you realize that?’ To Mike, ‘Let’s just charge him with trafficking on the basis of what we’ve already got, then commit him for psych –
’

‘I don’t think so –’ Mike began, just as Matthias said something guttural in a foreign language the DEA agent couldn’t recognize. ‘I’m sorry?’ he
asked.

‘I gave you samples,’ Matt complained. ‘Why not analyze them?’

‘What for?’ Mike’s eyes narrowed. Something about Matthias worried him, and he didn’t like that one little bit. Matt wasn’t your usual garden-variety dealer’s
agent or hit man. There was something else about him, some kind of innate sense of his own superiority, which grated.
And
that weird accent. As if – ‘What should we look
for?’

‘The sample I gave you is of heroin, diacetylmorphine, from poppies grown on an experimental farm established by order of the High Duke Angbard Lofstrom, in the estates of King Henryk of
Auswjein, which would be in North Virginia of your United States. There has never been an atomic explosion in the other world. I am informed that a device called a mass spectroscope will be able to
confirm to you that the sample is depleted of an iso-, um, isotope of carbon that is created by atomic explosions. This is proof that the sample originated in another world, or was prepared at
enormous expense to give such an impression, for the mixture of carbon isotopes in this world is different.’

‘Uh.’ Pete looked as taken aback as Mike felt. ‘What? Why haven’t you been selling your own here, if you can grow it in this other world?’

‘Because it would be obvious where it came from,’ Matt explained with exaggerated patience. ‘The entire policy of the Clan for the past hundred and seventy years has been to
maintain a shroud of secrecy around itself. Its participation in the drug courier business dates back over fifty years. Selling drugs that were clearly harvested on another world would not, ah,
contribute to this policy.’

Mike nodded at Pete. ‘Switch the goddamn recorder on again.’ He turned back to Matthias. ‘Summary. There exists a, a parallel world to our own. This world is not
industrialized? No. There is a bunch of merchant princes, a
clan
, who can travel between there and here. These guys make their money by acting as couriers for high-value assets which can
be transported through the other world without risk of interception because they are not recognized as valuable there. Drugs, in short. Matthias has kindly explained that his last heroin sample
contains a, um, carbon isotope balance that will demonstrate it must have been grown on another planet. Either that, or somebody is playing implausibly expensive pranks. Memo: get a mass
spectroscopy report on the referenced sample. Okay, so that brings me to the next question.’ He leaned toward Matthias. ‘Who are
you
, and how come you know all this?’

Matt extracted another cigarette from the packet and lit it. ‘I am of the outer families – I cannot world-walk, but must be carried wheresoever I should go. I am – was –
private secretary to the head of the Clan’s security, Duke Lofstrom. I am here because’ – he paused for a deep drag on the cigarette – ‘if I was
not
here they
would execute me. For treason. Is that clear enough?’

‘I, uh, think so.’ Pete had walked round behind Matt and was frantically gesturing at Mike, but Mike ignored him. ‘Do you have anything else to add?’

‘Yes, two things. Firstly, you will find a regular Clan courier on the 14:30 Acela service from Boston to New York. I don’t know who they are, so I can’t give you a personal
description, but standard procedure is that the designated courier arrives at the station no more than five minutes prior to departure. He sits in a reserved seat in carriage B, and he travels with
an aluminum Zero Halliburton roll-on case, model ZR-31. He will be conservatively dressed – the idea is to be mistaken for a lawyer or stockbroker, not a gangster – and will be armed
with a Glock 20 pistol. You will know you have arrested a courier if he vanishes when confined in a maximum security cell.’ He barked a humorless laugh. ‘Make sure to videotape
it.’

‘You said two things?’

‘Yes. Here is the second.’ Matt reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, silvery metallic cylinder. Mike blinked: on first sight he almost mistook it for a pistol cartridge,
but it was solid, with no sign of a percussion cap. And from the way Matt dropped it on the table-top it looked dense.

‘May I?’ Mike asked.

Matt waved at it. ‘Of course.’

Mike tried to pick it up – and almost dropped it. The slug was
heavy
. It felt slightly oily and was pleasantly warm to the touch. ‘Jesus! What is it?’

‘Plutonium. From the Duke’s private stockpile.’ Matt’s expression was unreadable as Mike flinched away from the ingot. ‘Do not take my word for it; analyze it, then
come back here to talk to me.’ He crossed his arms. ‘I said they were a government. And they have a nuclear weapons program . . .’

*

A lightning discharge always seeks the shortest path to ground. Two days after she discovered Duke Angbard’s location to be so secret that nobody would even tell her how
to send him a letter, Miriam’s wrath ran to ground through the person of Baron Henryk, her mother’s favorite uncle and the nearest body to Angbard in age, position, and temperament that
she could find.

Later on, it was clear to all concerned that something like this had been bound to happen sooner or later. The dowager Hildegarde was already presumed guilty without benefit of trial, the Queen
Mother was out of reach, and Patricia voh Hjorth d’Wu ab Thorold – her mother – was above question. But the consequences of Miriam’s anger were something else again. And the
trigger that set it off was so seemingly trivial that after the event, nobody could even recall the cause of the quarrel: a torn envelope.

At midmorning Miriam, fresh from yet another fit of obsessive Gantt-chart filing, emerged from her bedroom to find Kara scolding one of the maidservants. The poor girl was almost in tears.
‘What’s going on here?’ Miriam demanded.

‘Milady!’ Kara turned, eyes wide. ‘She’s been deliberately slow, is all. If you’d have Bernaard take a switch to her – ’

‘No. You: go lose yourself for a few minutes. Kara, let’s talk.’

The maid scurried away defensively, eager to be gone before the mistress changed her mind. Kara sniffed, offended, but followed Miriam over toward the chairs positioned in a circle around the
cold fireplace. ‘What troubles you, milady?’ asked Kara.

‘What day is it?’ Miriam leaned casually on the back of a priceless antique.

‘Why, it’s, I’d need to check a calendar. Milady?’

‘It’s the fourteenth.’ Miriam glanced out the window. ‘I’m sick, Kara.’

‘Sick?’ Her eyes widened. ‘Shall I call an apothecary – ’

‘I’m sick, as in
pissed off
, not sick as in ill.’ Miriam’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. ‘I’m being given the runaround. Look.’ She held
up an envelope bearing the crest of the Clan post. Its wax seal was broken. ‘They’re returning my letters. “Addressee unknown”.’

‘Well, maybe they don’t know who – ’

‘Letters to
Duke Angbard
, Kara.’

‘Oh.’ For a moment the teenager looked guilty.

‘Know anything about it?’ Miriam asked.

‘Oh, but nobody writes to the duke! You write to his secretary.’ Kara looked confused for a moment. ‘Then he arranges an appointment,’ she added hesitantly.

‘The duke’s last secretary, in case you’ve forgotten, was Matthias. He isn’t answering his correspondence any more, funnily enough.’

‘Oh.’ A look of profound puzzlement crept over Kara’s face.

‘I can’t get
anywhere
!’ Miriam burst out. ‘Ma – Patricia – holds formal audiences. Olga’s away on urgent business most of the time and on the
firing range the rest. I haven’t even seen Brill since the – the accident. And Angbard won’t answer his mail. What the hell am I meant to do?’

‘Weren’t you supposed to be going riding this afternoon?’ asked the teenager.

‘No. I want to talk to someone. Who, of the Clan council, is in town? Who can I get to?’

‘There’s Baron Henryk, he stays at the Royal Exchange when he’s working, but he – ’

‘He’s my great-uncle, he’ll have to listen to me. Excellent. He’ll do.’

‘But, mistress! You can’t just – ’

Miriam smiled. There was no humor in her expression. ‘It has been three weeks since anyone even deigned to tell me how my company is doing, much less answered my queries about when I can
go back over and resume managing it. I’ve been stuck in this oh-so-efficiently doppelgängered suite – secured against world-walking by a couple of hundred tons of concrete piled on
the other side – for two months, cooling my heels. If Angbard doesn’t want to talk to me, he’ll sure as hell listen to Henryk. Right?’

Kara was clearly agitated, bouncing up and down and flapping her hands like a bird. In her green-and-brown camouflage-pattern minidress – like many of the Clan youngsters, she liked to
wear imported western fashions at home – she resembled a thrush with one foot caught in a snare. ‘But mistress! I can arrange a meeting, if you give me time, but you can’t just go
barging in – ’

‘Want to bet?’ Miriam stood up. ‘Get a carriage sorted, Kara. One hour. We’re going round to the Royal Exchange and I’m not leaving until I’ve spoken to him,
and that’s an end to the matter.’

Kara protested some more, but Miriam wasn’t having it. If Lady Brill had been around she’d have been able to set Miriam straight, but Kara was too young, inexperienced, and unsure of
herself to naysay her mistress. Therefore, an hour later, Miriam – with an apprehensive Kara sucked along in her undertow, not to mention a couple of maids and a gaggle of guards –
boarded a closed carriage for the journey to the exchange buildings. Miriam had changed for the meeting, putting on her black interview suit. She looked like an attorney or a serious business
journalist, sniffing after blood in the corporate watercooler. Kara, ineffectual and lightweight, drifted along passively in the undertow, like the armed guards on the carriage roof.

The Royal Exchange was a forbidding stone pile fronted by Romanesque columns, half a mile up the road from Thorold Palace. Built a century ago to house the lumber exchange (and the tax
inspectors who took the royal cut of every consignment making its way down the coast), it had long since passed into the hands of the government and now housed a number of offices. The Gruinmarkt
was not long on bureaucracy – it was still very much a marcher kingdom, its focus on the wilderness beyond the mountains to the west – but even a small, primitive country had desks for
scores or hundreds of secretaries of this and superintendents of that. Miriam wasn’t entirely clear on why the elderly baron might live there, but she was clear on one thing: he’d talk
to her.

‘Which way?’ Miriam asked briskly as she strode across the polished wooden floor of the main entrance.

‘I think his offices are in the west wing, mistress, but
please
– ’

Miriam found a uniformed footman in her way. ‘You. Which way to Baron Henryk’s office?’ she demanded.

‘Er, ah, your business, milady?’

‘None of yours.’ Miriam stared at him until he wilted. ‘Where do I find the baron?’

‘On the second floor, west wing, Winter Passage, if it pleases you – ’

‘Come on.’ She turned and marched briskly toward the stairs, scattering a gaggle of robed clerks who stared at her in perplexity. ‘Come on, Kara! I haven’t got all
day.’

‘But mistress – ’

The second-floor landing featured wallpaper – an expensive luxury, printed on linen – and portraits of dignitaries to either side. Corridors diverged in the pattern of an H.
‘West wing,’ Miriam muttered. ‘Right.’ One arm of the H featured tapestries depicting a white, snowbound landscape and scenes of industry and revelry. Miriam nearly walked
right into another robed clerk. ‘Baron Henryk’s office. Which way?’ she snapped.