Charles Stross - The Family Trade

“And your mobile phone,” she said. “Now, kick it under the table. Gently.” He gave it a half-hearted shove with one foot.

“Put your hands between your knees and lean back slowly,” she ordered.

“Who are you?” he asked, complying.

“First, you’re going to tell me who you’re delivering that case to at the other end,” she said. “Ordinary postal service-or Angbard himself?”

“I can’t-”

She shoved the gun up against him, hard. “You fucking can,” she snarled quietly. “Because if you don’t tell me, you are going to read about the contents of that case on the front page of The New York Times , are you hearing me?”

“It goes to Matthias.”

“Angbard’s secretary, right.” She felt him tense again. “That was the correct answer,” she said quietly. “Now, I want you to do something else for me. I’ve got a message for Angbard, for his ears only, do you understand? It’s not for Matthias, it’s not for Roland, it’s not for any of the other lord-lieutenants he’s got hanging around. Remember, I’ve got your number. If anyone other than Angbard gets this message, I will find out and I will tell him and he will kill you. Got that? Good. What’s going to happen next is: The train’s stopping in a couple of minutes. You will stand up, take your case-not the bag with your phone-and get off the train, because I will be following you. You will then stand beside the train door where I can see you until it’s ready to move off, and you will stay there while it moves off because if you don’t stand that way I will shoot you. If you want to know why I’m so trigger-happy, you can ask Angbard yourself-after you’ve delivered his dispatches.”

“You must be-” his eyes widened.

“Don’t say my name.”

He nodded.

“You’re going to be an hour late into Boston -an hour later than you would have been, anyway. Don’t bother trying to organize a search for me because I won’t be there. Instead, go to the Fort Lofstrom doppelganger house, make your delivery to Matthias as usual, say you missed the train or something, then ask to see the old man and tell him about meeting me here.”

“What?” He looked puzzled. “I thought you had a message.”

“You are the message.” She grinned humourlessly. “And you’ve got to be alive to deliver it. We’re slowing up: Do as I tell you and it’ll all be over soon.”

He shook his head very slowly. “They were right about you,” he said. But when she asked him who he meant, he just stared at her.

There was an old building on Central Avenue, with windows soundproofed against the roar of turbo-fans. Whenever the wind was from the southwest and inbound flights were diverted across the city, the airliners would rattle the panes. But perhaps there were other reasons for the soundproofing.

Two men sat in a second-floor office, Matthias leaning back behind a desk and Roland perched uncomfortably close to the edge of a sofa in front of it.

“Consignment F-12 is on schedule,” said Matthias. “It says so right here on the manifest. Isn’t that right?”

He fixed Roland with a cold stare.

“I inspected it myself,” said Roland. Despite his stiff posture and the superficial appearance of unease, he sounded self-confident. “Contractor Wolfe has the right attitude: businesslike attention to detail. They vet their workers thoroughly.”

“Well.” Matthias leaned across his desk. “It’s a pity the cargo is laid over in Svarlberg while a storm blows itself out, isn’t it?”

“Damn.” Roland looked annoyed. “That’s recent, I take it?”

‘Two days ago. I did a spot inspection myself. Impressed Vincenze to carry me across for the past week. I think you’d better warn Wolfe that F-12 is going to be at least four days late, possibly as much as seven.”

“Damn.” A nod. “Okay, I’ll do that. Usual disclaimers?”

“It’s in the warranty small-print.”

Neither of them cracked a smile. The Clan provided its own underwriting service-one that more than made up for the usurious transport charges it levied. The customer code-named Wolfe would damn well swallow the four- to seven-day delay and smile, because the cargo would arrive, one way or another, which was more than could be said for most of the Clan’s competitors. If it didn’t, the Clan would pay up in full, at face value, no question. “We have a reputation to guard.”

“I’ll get onto it.” Roland pulled out a small notebook and scribbled a cryptic entry in it. He caught Matthias staring. “No names, no pack drill.” He tucked the notebook away carefully.

“It’s good to know you can keep a secret.”

“Huh?”

‘There’s something else I wanted to talk to you about.” He didn’t smile. “Look at this.” Reaching into a desk drawer, Matthias pulled out a slim file binder and slid it across the desk. Roland rose and collected it, sat down, opened it, and tensed, frowning.

“Page one. Our prodigal dresses for dinner. Nice ass, by the way.”

A glare from the sofa. If looks could kill, Matthias would be ashes blowing on the wind.

“Turn over. That’s her, leaving her room, shot from behind. Someone ought to tell her she oughtn’t to leave security camera footage lying around like that, someone might steal it. Turn over.” Reluctantly, he turned over. “That’s her, in the passageway to a room in-” Matthias coughed discreetly into his fist. “And over, and oh dear, there seems to be a camera behind the bathroom mirror, doesn’t there? I wonder how that got there. And now if you turn over, you’ll see that-”

Roland slammed the folder shut with an inarticulate growl, then slapped it down on the desk. “What’s your point?” he demanded, shaking with anger. “What the fuck do you want! Spying on me-”

“Sit down,” snapped Matthias.

Roland sat, shoulders hunched.

“You’ve put me on the spot, did you know that? I could show this to Angbard, you realize. In fact, I should show it to him. I’ve got a duty to show it to him. But I haven’t-yet. I could show it to Lady Olga, too, but I think neither you nor she would care about that unless I embarrassed her publicly. Which would raise too many questions. What in Lightning Child’s name were you thinking of, Roland?”

“Don’t.” Roland hunched forward, eyes narrowed in pain.

“If Angbard sees this, he will rip you a new asshole. To be fair, he might rip her a new asshole too, but she’s better positioned to survive the experience. You-” he shook his head. “I see a long future for you as Clan ambassador to the Iroquois. Or maybe the Apache nation. For as long as any Clan ambassador lasts in one of those posts.”

“You haven’t told him, though.” Roland stared at the floor in front of the desk, trying to hide his suspicions. Surely Matthias wouldn’t be telling him this if he was just going to go straight to the duke?

“Well, no.” His interrogator fell silent for a while. “I’m not a robot, you know. Loyal servant, yes-but I have my own ambitions.”

“ ‘Ambitions’?” Roland looked up, his expression strained.

“The Clan doesn’t offer an ideal career track for such as I.” He shrugged. “I expect you to understand that better than most of them.”

Roland licked his lips. “What do you want?” he asked quietly. “What are you after?”

“I’m after the status quo ante.” He picked up the file and slid it into a desk drawer. “Your little… servant… made waves where she shouldn’t have. I want her out of the picture: I hasten to add, this doesn’t mean dead, it just means invisible.”

“You want her to disappear.” For an instant, an expression of hope flickered across Roland’s face.

“Possibly.” He nodded. “I think you’d like that-if you went with her. Wouldn’t you?”