The Traders' War (Merchant Princes Omnibus 2) (38 page)

Smith opened a folder with red and yellow stripes along its cover. ‘Pay attention, you don’t get to take this with you. A courier is ready to take you across to Zone Blue. You go
over piggyback. In Zone Blue, we currently have a forward support team of three – Sergeant Hastert, PFC O’Neil, and PFC Icke. They’ll look after you, and also give the courier a
bunch of crap to bring back over to us. You do
exactly
what the sergeant tells you. After you leave Zone Blue, they’ll exfiltrate. Let me emphasize, there won’t be anybody
there. What there
will
be is a buried radio transmitter, like this.’ Smith pulled an egg-shaped device with a stubby aerial out of his pocket. ‘You dig it up, push the button,
and the backup team will be alerted to come check you out for shadows. If you’ve got unwelcome company, they will kill it or take it prisoner – at their discretion – or leave you
the fuck alone. They will not be more than an hour away from you at any time, so if they don’t show up within an hour, someone’s in trouble. Procedure is to revisit the zone at daily
intervals for one week, then back off to once a week for a month. You also need to memorize
this
. Directions to Zone Green, which is your fallback site. There’s no equipment or
personnel there, so if you’re captured and tortured you can’t give anyone away, but if you go there you’ll be observed and contacted.’

Mike studied the sheet of typed directions, feeling a bead of sweat trickle down his forehead.
It’s real
, he realized.
It’s not some kind of elaborate joke. It’s
really going to happen
. Nervous dread made a hollow nest in his stomach. ‘The palace –’ He’d seen maps of that already, a big stone pile near a small town, at one end
of a road lined with slightly smaller stone piles.

‘Over the page.’ A basic sketch map showed Zone Blue in relation to the palace. ‘There are complications to do with the transport protocol for this run.’

‘What do you mean?’ Mike looked up.

‘It’s in the center of town. The courier may try to escape.’ Smith stared at him. ‘You’re going piggyback. Hold out your hand.’

‘What – ’

Smith snapped a bracelet shut around Mike’s wrist. ‘Transmitter.
Very
short range. Here’s the key.’ He handed Mike a key. ‘Turn clockwise to release the
transmitter. Two twists counterclockwise and it will send the detonate command. If Three tries to attack you – ’

‘Okay.’ Mike stared at the thing, repelled and fascinated. ‘What do I do with it?’

Smith shrugged. ‘If it goes according to plan and Team X-ray meets you in, they hold Courier Three while you take the bracelet off and hand it to him. Then you send him back over to us and
we take the necklace off and put him back in his box. If he tries to run, or attacks you, kill him. I’m serious. If he does either of those things, he’ll try to kill
you
.
Wouldn’t you, in his situation?’

In his situation
– Mike tried to get a handle on it, but his mind kept slipping into unwelcome channels, looking into irrelevances. ‘Courier Three – I thought you only
had two?’

‘Need to know.’ Smith shook his head. ‘Look, we’re there.’

*

Manhattan wasn’t just skyscrapers; old brownstones still thrived in the shadow of the tall towers. Smith waited for the other minivans to draw up, then opened the door and
led Mike up the front steps of an ordinary-looking house while half a dozen men and a couple of women in the sort of business attire that yelled ‘cop’ stood discreet guard.

The house looked ordinary enough from inside – but Smith headed straight for an unobtrusive door and into what had probably been a living room before someone ripped out the furniture,
boarded up the windows, installed antiblast paneling and floodlights, then spray-painted a big X in the middle of the floor. Now there was something sinister about it, a cramped, dark terminus that
needed only a trapdoor and a dangling noose to turn it into a place of execution. ‘Wait here.’

Mike waited while Smith and two of his underlings bustled back out again. A minute later they returned, half-supporting and half-dragging a third man between them. He was unshaven and looked
tired, bent forward with his hands cuffed tightly behind his back; his scalp had been shaved and there was a big dressing taped to one temple. As he looked around and saw Mike his eyes widened with
fear. Then another of the anonymous guards stepped forward and swiftly clamped a metal collar around his throat.

‘Shizz . . .’ His knees sagged.

‘Wait,’ Mike said, trying his Hochsprache. ‘You – carry – me. Yes?’ He saw the other man’s eyes. The expression of terror began to fade. ‘Come
– go – back here.’ Mike paused. ‘Does he know what the collar is?’ he asked Smith, lapsing into English.

Smith nodded.

‘They take’ – gesture at throat – ‘undress, off. You run’ – tap at wrist, at the bracelet Smith had put there, then finger across throat.
‘Understand?’

‘Yes,’ said the prisoner. Then a gabble of words jumbled together too fast for Mike to parse.

‘Slower.’

Courier Three fell silent. ‘Not kill.’

‘No. You carry me.’

‘I carry, yes, I carry!’

The courier’s head bobbed as if his neck had been replaced by loose springs. Mike tasted stomach acid, swallowed.
This isn’t right. I’m supposed to capture more people, so
we can use them like
this? Even a prison cell had to be better than being led to a death chamber and having a bomb clamped to your neck.

‘Ready?’ asked Smith.

‘Yeah.’ Mike pointed to the X on the floor. ‘Stand here.’ Courier Three crouched down on the spot, legs and arms braced. Mike looked at him, momentarily perplexed.
‘What do I do now?’ he asked.

‘You sit on him,’ said Smith. He was holding something. ‘Go on.’

‘Okay.’ With some trepidation, Mike lowered himself onto Courier Three’s back. The man grunted. Mike could feel his spine, the warmth of his ribs through the seat of his pants.
This is weird
, he began to think, just as Smith held something under Three’s nose. Then the world changed.

*

Mike blinked at the darkness. Someone tapped him on the back of the head with something hard. ‘Say your name.’

‘Mike Fleming.’ His seat groaned and began to collapse, and he fell over sideways. ‘What the fuck – ’

A thud was followed by a muffled groan. ‘Okay, wiseass, cut that out!’ Light appeared, and Mike rolled over onto his back and tried to sit up.

Someone else was groaning –
Courier Three?
he wondered. ‘What’s going on?’

‘All under control, sir,’ drawled the man with the gun. ‘You just sort yourself out while we keep watch.’

Mike nodded, taking stock of the situation. He was in some kind of room with no windows, a door, a dirt floor, three armed strangers, and a captured Clan courier wearing a bomb around his neck.
The good news was that the desperados were pointing their guns at the courier, the door, and the ground, respectively – which left none for him. Ergo, they were friendly. ‘Which of you
is Sergeant Hastert?’ he asked.

‘I am.’ Hastert was the one covering the ground. He grinned at Mike, an expression he’d have found deeply alarming if it wasn’t for the fact that any other expression
would have been infinitely worse. Courier Three groaned again. Mike realized he was clutching his head. ‘Dennis, keep laughing boy here covered. Mr. Fleming, you’ve got the remote
control. If you’d care to pass it to me, we can take care of the mule until it’s time for him to go home. Meanwhile, you’n I’ve got some talking to do.’

‘Okay.’ Mike unlocked his bracelet with a shudder of relief and passed it to the sergeant, who leaned over Courier Three while one of the others kept his AR-15 pointed at the
prisoner the whole time.

‘Listen, you,’ said Hastert. ‘This here won’t go off now –’ He was speaking English, loudly and slowly.

‘He doesn’t understand,’ said Mike.

‘Huh?’

‘He doesn’t speak English. He thought we were going to kill him, back in New York.’

‘Hmm.’ Hastert stared at him with pale blue eyes. ‘You try, then.’

Mike stared at Courier Three. ‘You go. Soon, now, back over. Not die. Shoot if run? Yes.’

The prisoner nodded slightly. Then went back to groaning quietly and clutching his head.

‘Not much to look at, ain’t he?’ Hastert was genial.

‘Let’s get out of here.’

Hastert opened the door and led Mike through into another bare room with a dirt floor, leaving the two other soldiers with their precious courier. There was a window in here, with wooden
shutters, and Hastert switched off his flashlight. As Mike’s eyes adjusted he got a good look at what the sergeant was wearing: rough woolen trousers and jerkin over another layer that bulged
like a bulletproof jacket. ‘We stay indoors during the day,’ Hastert said, acknowledging his curiosity. ‘But this is a special occasion. Keep your voice low, by the way.
It’s a crowded neighborhood.’

‘You know where the palace is?’

‘Yeah. We’ll get you there. Once laughing boy has gotten over his headache and gone home.’

‘Huh.’ Mike sank down into a crouch against one wall. It was whitewashed, he noticed, but the plaster or bricks underneath it were uneven. ‘This the best hotel you could
get?’

‘You should see how they live hereabouts. This is the Sheraton. Let me fill you in . . .’

Mike tried to listen, but he was too tense. There were noises outside: occasional chatter, oddly slurred and almost comprehensible snatches of Hochsprache. The thud of horses’ hooves
passed the door from time to time, followed by the creak and rattle of carts. After about an hour, the inner door opened and one of the other soldiers came out. He nodded. ‘All
done.’

Mike shifted. ‘What now?’

Hastert checked his watch. ‘One hour to go, then we move out. Jack, go dig out a couple of MREs, and you and Dennis chow down. Sir, do you know what this is?’ He held up a radio
transmitter, like the one Colonel Smith had shown Mike earlier.

‘Yes.’ Mike nodded. ‘Radio transmitter. Right?’

‘Right.’ Hastert looked at him thoughtfully, then reached into a shapeless-looking sack on the floor beside him and pulled out an entrenching tool. ‘We’re going to put it
in right –
here
.’ He buried the gadget under a thin layer of soil and tamped it down, then scattered the residue. ‘Think you can find it?’

Mike mentally measured the distance from the door. ‘Yes, I think so.’

‘Good. Your life depends on it.’ Hastert didn’t smile. ‘Because when you get back here, we won’t be around.’

‘I’ve been briefed.’ Mike tried not to snap. It was warm and stifling in the dirt-floored shack, and the endless waiting was getting to him.

‘Yes, sir, but I didn’t see you being briefed, so if you’ll excuse me we’ll go over it again, shall we?’

‘Okay . . .’ Mike swallowed. ‘Thanks.’

The next hour passed a bit faster, which made it all the more shocking when the inner door opened and the other two men came through. ‘Ready when you are, boss.’ It was the taller
one, O’Neil. Mike blinked.
Hey, all three of them are white
, he realized: a statistical anomaly, or maybe something else.
No sugar trade here means no African slave trade
.
Just another personnel headache that Smith was dealing with behind his back, finding special forces troops who looked like locals.

‘Let’s go.’ Hastert stood up. ‘Far as the garden party, we’re your bodyguard. Once you’re inside, we’ll split. Anything goes wrong, make for the garden
gate opposite the ceremonial parade ground – I’ll point it out to you.’

*

He opened the door. It was late afternoon outside, dusty and bright and hot, but with a breeze blowing off the sea that took the edge off the heat. The shack turned out to be
one of a whole row fronting a narrow dirt track: a similar row faced them. Half the doors and windows were wide open, with chickens and geese wandering in and out freely to peck in the roadside
dirt. There were
people
. Ragged, skinny children, stooped women and men in colorless robes or baggy trousers. People who looked away when Hastert stared at them, hastily finding somewhere
else to go, something else to do. The road was filthy, an open gutter down the middle running with sewage. ‘Come on,’ said O’Neil, behind Mike. ‘You’re blocking the
door.’

Mike stepped forward, trying to project confidence.
I’m a big man
, he told himself.
I’m armed, I’ve got bodyguards, my clothing’s new, and I’m
well-fed
. He glanced up the street. Nothing on this row was straight: whoever built it hadn’t heard of zoning laws, or even a straight line. A cart pulled by a couple of bored oxen,
piled high with sacks, was slowly rattling toward them. Behind it, a mass of sheep bleated plaintively, spilling into doorways in a slow woolly flood. ‘Follow me, and try to look like
you’re leading,’ Hastert muttered.

The walk through the town seemed to take forever, although it was probably more like twenty or thirty minutes. Mike tried not to gape like a fool; sometimes it was hard. Smells and sounds
assailed him. Wood smoke was alarmingly common, given that most of the houses were timbered. It almost covered up the pervasive stench of shit rising from the hot, fetid gutters. In the distance
some kind of street vendor was shouting over and over again – briefly they walked past one edge of a kind of open square, cobblestoned and lined with a dizzying mess of stalls like
open-walled huts. Wicker baskets full of caged chickens, scrawny and sometimes half-bald. A table covered in muddy beetroot. Rats, glimpsed out of the corner of the eye, scurrying under cover.
Is this where she’s been living?
he wondered, momentarily aghast. Remembering Miriam’s attitude to food hygiene and her nearly aseptic kitchen worktop, he suddenly had a moment
of doubt.

Who am I kidding?
Mike wondered, tensed up as if he was about to go through the back door of some perp’s meth lab.
This is crazy! I’ve got barely any grasp of the
language, no way out, I’m in a hostile city in a foreign country and if they get their hands on me
– a sick certainty filled him as they reached a much wider road and turned onto
it –
and I’m supposed to be making contact with an ex-girlfriend who dumped me the last time I called her!
He forced himself to straighten his back and move out into the clear
middle of this road (no open sewers here), then took it in. Big stone walls to either side, imposing gatehouses with solid wooden doors. No windows at ground level. Multistory piles some way behind
the walls, like pocket castles.
That’s what they are
, he suddenly realized.
This place is
primitive.
No police, but heaven help you if the mob catches you stealing. The
rich have their own small armies. Warlords, like Afghanistan
. A moment later his earlier thought overtook the latest one, colliding in a messy train-wreck:
And Miriam’s rich.
She’s one of the people who own these castles. What does
that
mean?