The Traders' War (Merchant Princes Omnibus 2) (84 page)

‘I think you should go first, bro,’ his brother said. ‘You’re the one who understands that stuff.’

‘Yes but –’ He made a snap decision: ‘– follow me at once, both of you. We can recover the camp later if we need to. I may need witnesses to back me up.’

‘I’d kill for a bath!’ Elena ended on a squeak. ‘Let’s go!’

‘Count of three,’ said Huw. He bared his wrist to the chilly air and squinted. ‘One, two – ’

He lurched as the accustomed headache kicked in, then gasped as the humid evening air of home hit him in the face like a wet flannel. The noise of insects was almost deafening after the
melancholy silence of the forest. To his left, Elena blinked into view and winced theatrically. ‘I’m going to the bathroom,’ she announced, unslinging her P90. ‘I may be
some time.’

‘Whatever.’ Huw waited a few seconds before he turned to his brother, who was grinning like an idiot. ‘Is she always like this?’

‘What? Oh, you should see her in polite society, bro.’ He stared after her longingly.

Huw punched him on the arm. ‘Come on inside, I’ve got to report this immediately.’

He headed for the front room, shedding his pack and boots and finally his jacket and outer waterproof trousers as he went. The cell phone was where he’d left it, plugged in and fully
charged. He picked it up and unlocked it, then dialed by hand a number he’d committed to memory. It took almost thirty seconds to connect, but rang only once before it was answered.
‘This is Huw. The word today is “interstitial”. Yes, I’m well, thank you, and yourself, sir. I want to speak to the duke immediately, if you can arrange it.’

Hulius watched him from the doorway, a faintly amused expression on his face. From upstairs, the sound of running water was barely audible.

Huw frowned. ‘Please hold,’ Carlos had said. He was the duke’s man; he would have been told that Huw was working on a project for him, surely?

‘Trouble?’ asked Yul.

‘Too early to say.’ Huw sat down on the bedroll, cradling the phone. ‘I’m on hold – oh. Yes, sir, I am. We’re all there. I have an urgent report – what?
Yes. Um. Um. Can you repeat that, please? Yes. Okay, I guess. Transfer me.’

He clamped his free hand over the mouthpiece and grimaced horribly at Yul. ‘Shit. We’ve been nobbled.’

‘What –’ Yul began, but Huw’s face turned to an attentive mask before he could continue.

‘Yes? My lady? Yes, I remember. What’s going on? It’s about –
oh,
yes, indeed. You want – you want us to meet you
where
? – When? –
Tomorrow? But that’s more than a thousand miles! We could fly – oh. Are you sure?’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Yes, my lady. Um. We’ll have to get moving right away. Okay.
You have my number? We’ll be there.’

He hung up then put the phone down deceptively gently, as if he’d rather have thrown it out the window.

‘What was
that
about?’

Huw looked up at his brother. ‘We’d better roust Elena out of her bath.’ He shook his head.

‘Bro?’

‘That was my lady d’Ost – one of his grace’s agents. I got through to the duke’s office but he’s busy right now. Carlos passed on orders to submit a written
report: meanwhile we’re to get moving
at once
. We’ve got to drive all the way to the west coast and back on some fucking stupid errand. We’re to take our guns, and
we’ve got to be in Las Vegas by noon tomorrow, so we’re going to be moving out
right now
. There’s a private plane waiting for us near Richmond but we’ve got to get
there first and it’s going to take eight hours to get where we’re going once we’re airborne. Some kind of shit has hit the fan and they’ve got
my
name down as one
of the trustees to deal with it!’ He trailed off plaintively. ‘What’s going on?’

Hulius grunted. ‘Two and a half thousand miles, bro. They must really want you there badly.’

‘Yeah. That’s what I’m afraid of. Hmm, Lady d’Ost. I wonder what she does for the duke?’

*

Otto stared at the buzzing gnat in the distance, and swore.

‘Gregor, my compliments to Sir Geraunt and I request the pleasure of his company in the grand hall as a matter of urgency.’

The hand-man dashed off without saluting, catching the edge in his voice. The faint hum of the dot in the sky, receding like a bad dream of witchcraft, put Otto in mind of an angry yellowjacket.
He could barely hear it over the ringing in his ears; the morning smelled of brimstone and gunsmoke.
Too early
, he thought. He’d barely taken the inner keep an hour ago: he’d
counted on having at least a day to arrange things to his advantage. ‘Heidlor,’ he called.

‘Sir?’ Heidlor had been saying something to one of the gunners, who was now hastily swabbing out the barrel of his weapon.

‘Get the fishermen into the grand hall and have them set their nets up between ankle and knee level, leaving areas free as I discussed. Once they’ve done the hall they’re to do
the barracks room, the duke’s chambers, the kitchen, and the residences, in that order. The carpenters are to start on the runways in the grand hall as soon as the fishermen are finished, and
to move on in the same order. This is of the utmost urgency, we can expect visitors at any time. Should any of the craftsmen perform poorly, make an example of them – nail their tools to
their hands or something.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Heidlor paused. ‘Anything else?’

Otto swallowed his first impulse to snap at the man for hanging around: he had a point. ‘Find Anders and Zornhau. Their lances are to go on duty as soon as they are able. Station the men
with the fishers and carpenters, one guard for each craftsman, with drawn steel. In the grand hall, place one man every ten feet, and a pistoleer in each corner. For the cleared spaces, position
two guards atop a chair or table or something. Warn them to expect witches to manifest out of thin air at any moment. Rotate every hour.’ He paused for a moment. ‘That’s
all.’

‘Sir!’ This time Heidlor didn’t dally.

Otto turned on his heel and marched back towards the steps leading down from the battlements. He didn’t need to look to know that his bodyguard – Frantz and four hand-picked
pistoleers, equally good with witch-gun or wheel-lock, and armed with cavalry swords besides – were falling into line behind him. The way the witches fought, by stealth and treachery, his own
life was as much under threat as that of any of his soldiers, if not more so.

The corkscrewing steps (spiraling widdershins, to give the advantage to a swordsman defending the upper floor) ended on the upper gallery of the great hall. Otto looked down on the fishermen and
their guards, as they hastily strung their close-woven net across the floor at ankle height. Spikes, hammered heedlessly into the wooden paneling, provided support for the mesh of ropes. The
carpenters were busy assembling crude runways on trestles above the netting, so that the guards could move between rooms without touching the floor. At the far end, near the western door that
opened onto the grand staircase, there was a carefully planned open area: a killing ground for the witches who would be unable to enter from any other direction.

Sir Geraunt, the royal courier, was standing directly below him, looking around in obvious puzzlement. ‘Sir Geraunt!’ Otto boomed over the balcony: ‘Will you join me up here
directly?’

A pale face turned up towards him in surprise. ‘Sir, I would be delighted to do so, but this cat’s cradle your artisans are weaving is in my way. If you would permit me to cut the
knot – ’

‘No sir, you may not. But if you proceed through the door to your left, you will find the stairway accessible – for now.’

A minute later Sir Geraunt emerged onto the balcony, shaking his head. A couple of weavers also emerged, lugging a roll of netting between them, but Otto sent them a wave of dismissal. ‘We
are in less danger from the witches the higher we go, but the balcony must be netted in due course,’ he explained, for the younger man was still staring at the work in the room below with an
expression of profound bafflement.

‘My lord, I fail to understand what you are doing here. Is it some ritual?’

‘In a way.’ Otto walked to the edge of the balcony, and pointed down. ‘What do you see there?’

‘A mess –’ Sir Geraunt visibly forced himself to focus. ‘Nets strung across the floor, and walkways for your men. The witches appear from the land of shadows, do they
not? Is this some kind of snare?’

‘Yes.’ Otto nodded. It wouldn’t do to let the witches retake the castle too easily – his majesty’s little plan wasn’t the kind of trick you could play twice.
‘Observe the open area, and the position of the guards – who are free to move where they will. I am informed by an unimpeachable source that the witches cannot arrive inside another
object: that is, they may be able to appear within the building, but if the exact spot they desire to occupy is filled by a piece of furniture or a tree or another body, they are blocked. The
netting is close enough to prevent them arriving anywhere on the covered floor. Thus, if they wish to pay us a visit, they must do so on the ground I leave to them. Where, you will note, my
soldiers are awaiting them.’

Sir Geraunt’s eyes widened. ‘Truly, his majesty chose wisely in placing his faith in you!’

‘Perhaps. We’ll see when the foe arrive. That was why I called for you, as a matter of fact: the witches have unforeseen resources. A most peculiar carriage just overflew us,
carrying a man who is now, without a doubt, hastening to their headquarters with word of our presence. I had counted on having an entire day to prepare the defenses here, and the surprise outside.
To make matters worse, my guards fired on the intruder – and missed. His majesty is still a day away. I therefore expect the witches to attack within a matter of hours.’

The knight’s reaction was predictable: ‘I stand before you. What can I do on your behalf?’

Otto managed to produce a thin smile. ‘I expect to kill a fair number of witches, but they have better guns than my men, and probably other surprises beside. So I am moving things forward.
A reinforced company will stay here to take the first attack. The survivors will fall back through the tunnel to the river. Hopefully the resistance will force them to concentrate in the castle,
but our witch-guns on the curtain walls, pointing inwards, will bottle them up for long enough to execute his majesty’s plan . . .’

*

It was shaping up to be a good day, thought Eric, as he twisted his left wrist with increasing effort to get the gyroball up to speed. A good day in a good week. Judith’s
report from the scene under Scollay Square was the second bit of really good news after Mike Fleming’s remarkable reappearance.
Heads we win: Lucius punches in the PAL code and switches
off the bomb. Tails we don’t lose: we get to deal with a fizzle, but we keep Boston.
There were cover stories available to deal with a fizzle, to sweep it under the rug – it would
be messy, but a whole different matter from losing the core of a city. ‘I’m waiting on a definite match when they finish fuming for prints,’ Judith had told him from the scene,
‘but we got some good UV-fluorescence images of latent prints in the dirt around the lock, and it sure looks like GREENSLEEVES was here.’ Eric gave the ball another flick of the wrist.
Which means we can take the kid gloves off now,
he thought, with a warm glow of satisfaction.
Just as soon as we’ve confirmed no other stock is missing
. And he went back to
staring at his desk.

Back when telephone switchboards were simple looms of wires and plug boards, different networks needed different wires. You could judge how important an official was by how many phone handsets
he had on his desk. Life had been a lot simpler in those days. Today, Eric had just the one handset – and it plugged into his computer instead of a hole in the wall. He glanced at the clock
in his taskbar to confirm the call was late, just as the computer rang.

‘Smith here.’ He leaned back.

‘Eric? Mandy in two-zero-two.’

‘Hi Mandy, Jim here. Y’all had a good day so far?’

‘I’ll take roll call.’ Eric grinned humorously. The list of names on the conference call was marching down the side of his screen. ‘Looks like we’re missing Alain
and Sonya. I’d give them another five minutes, but I’ve got places to be and meetings to go to, so if we can get started?’

The field ops conference call was under way. Like any policing or intelligence-gathering operation, the hunt for the extradimensional narcoterrorists called for coordination and intelligence
sharing: and with agents scattered across four time zones it couldn’t be carried out by calling everyone into a briefing room. But unlike a policing job, some aspects of the task were
extraordinarily sensitive and could not be discussed, and unlike a normal intelligence operation, things were too fluid and unstable to leave to the usual bureaucratic channels of written reports
and weekly bulletins. So the daily ops call had become a fixture within FTO, or at least within that part of FTO that was focused on hunting the bad guys within the Continental United States. Each
field office delegated a staff intelligence officer who could be trusted to filter the information stream for useful material and refrain from mentioning in public those projects that not everyone
was cleared for. Or so the post hoc justification went. In practice, they gave Eric a chance to keep a finger on the pulse of his department at ground level without spending all his time bouncing
around the airline map.

In practice, normally all it was usually good for was an hour’s intensive wrist exercise with the gyroball and a frustrating ten minutes writing up a summary for Dr. James. But today, Eric
could smell something different in the air.

‘ . . . Following up the cell phone thing via Walmart, we’ve made some progress over here.’

Eric snapped to full alert, glancing at the screen. It was Mandy, from the team in Stony Brook. ‘How many phones?’ He cut in.

‘I was just getting to that.’ She sounded offended. ‘The suspects bought two hundred and forty-six over the past six months, all the same model, batches of ten at a time, right
up until yesterday. Walmart has been very cooperative, and we’ve been going over their videotapes – they think it’s some kind of fraud ring – and it looks like a Clan
operation for sure. It’s the same two men each week: if they follow the usual pattern –’ the Clan had a rigid approach to buying supplies, always paying cash for small quantities
at regular intervals ‘– we could lift them next week. We’ve also got a list of phone IMEIs and SIM numbers they bought and we’re about to go to Cingular to see if –
’