Charles Stross - The Merchant’s War

"Yul?" he called.

"Hello?" A door opened, somewhere upstairs.

"Why didn't you tell me about the ruins, Yul?"

Hulius appeared at the top of the staircase, wearing a towel around his waist, long blond hair hanging damply: "what ruins?"

"The black stones in the forest. Those ruins."

"What stones-" Yul looked blank for a moment, then his expression cleared. "Oh, those. Are they important?"

"Are they-" Huw lugged at his hair distractedly. "Lightning Child! Do I have to explain everything in words of one syllable? Where's Elena?"

"She's in the-hey, what's up?"

I'm hyperventilating again. Stop it, Huw told himself. Not that it seemed to help much. "There's no radio, it's really cold, and you stumbled across a fucking road! Or what's left of one. Not a dirt track or cobblestones, but asphalt! Do I have to do all the thinking around here?"

"What's so special about asphalt?" Hulius asked, hitching up his towel as he came downstairs.

"What's so special? Well, maybe it means there was a civilization there not so long ago!" Nervous energy had Huw bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. "Think, bro. If there was a civilization there, what else does it mean?"

"There were people there?" Hulius perked up. "Hey, I think that rates at least a bottle of wine..."

"We're going back over, tomorrow," Huw said bluntly. "I'll e-mail a report to the duke tonight. Then we're going to double-check on that road and see where it leads."

The small house hunkered a short way back from the sidewalk, one of a row of houses in an area that wasn't exactly cheap-nowhere in Boston was cheap-but that had once been affordable for ordinary working people. Brilliana knew it quite well. She'd been watching it discreetly for over an hour, and she was pretty sure that nobody was home and, more important, nobody else was watching it. Which suited her just line, because if it was under surveillance what she was about to do would quite possibly get her killed.

Swallowing to clear her over-dry mouth, Brill opened the car door and stepped out into the hot summer sunlight. She slung the oversized leather handbag on her left shoulder, discreetly checking that she could get a hand into it in a hurry, then let the door of the rental car swing shut. The key was in the ignition: the risk of someone stealing the car was, in her view, minor compared to the risk of not being able to get away fast if things went wrong.

The road was clear. She glanced both ways before crossing it, a final check for concealed watchers. I hope Paulie's all right, she fretted. The ominous turn of recent events was bad enough for those who could look after themselves. Paulette wasn't a player, and didn't have the wherewithal to escape if things spun out of control. And Brill owed her. Not that she'd had much time to demonstrate it, lately-the past week had run her ragged, and this was the first free day she'd had to spend in the United States for weeks.

She paused for a moment at the front door, straining for any sign of wrongness, then shrugged. The key slid into the lock and turned smoothly: Brill let herself inside, then closed the door behind her. "Paulie?" She called softly.

No reply. The house felt empty. Brill began to relax. She 's shopping, or at work. Whatever "work" meant these days-Brill couldn't be sure, but the huge mess that Miriam had landed in hail probably cut Paulie loose from her sinecure. She glanced around the living room. The flat-screen TV was new, but the furniture was the same. Yo, big spender! Paulette wasn't stupid about money. She kept a low profile. Hopefully she'd avoided being caught up in the dragnet so far.

Brill put her bag down on the kitchen counter and pulled out a black box. Switching it on, she paced out the ground Boor rooms, front to back, checking corners and walls and especially light fittings. The bug detector stayed stubbornly green-lit. "Good," she said aloud as she stashed it back in the bag. Next, she pulled out another box equipped with a telephone socket and extension cable, and plugged each of the phone handsets into it in order. A twitter of dialing tones, but the speaker on the box stayed silent: nobody had sneaked an infinity bug onto her landline. That left the Internet link, and Brill didn't know enough about that to be sure she could sweep Paulie's computer for spyware; but she was pretty sure that unplugged PCs didn't snoop on conversations.

"Okay..." Brill picked up her bag and scouted the top floor briefly, then returned to the kitchen. The carton of half-and-half in the fridge was fresh, and there was a neat pile of unopened mail on the tabletop, the most recent postmarked the day before. And there was no dust. She checked her watch: ten past four. Might as well wait, she thought, and began to set up the coffee machine.

An hour later, Brill heard footsteps on the front path, and a rattle of keys. She dropped her magazine and stood up silently, standing just inside the living room door as the front door opened. One person, alone. She tensed for a moment, then recognized Paulette. "Hey, Paulie," she called.

"What!" A clatter of dropped bags. Brill stepped into the passageway. "Brill! How did you-"

Brill raised a finger to her lips. Paulette glared at her, then bent down to pick up the spilled grocery bags. "Let me," Brill murmured. "Shut the door." She gathered the bags: Paulette didn't need prompting twice, and locked the front door before turning back to stare at her, hands on hips.

"What do you want?"

Brilliana shrugged apologetically. "To talk to you. Do you have a cellular telephone?"

"Yes." Paulie's hand tightened on her handbag.

"Please switch it off and remove the battery."

"But- " Paulie looked round once, then shook her head. "Like that, is it?" she asked, then reached into her bag and pulled out a phone. "What happens next?" Brilliana waited. After a moment Paulette slid the battery out of the phone. "Is that what you wanted?"

Brill nodded. "Thank you. I'd already swept your house for bugs. Would you like a coffee? I'm afraid I've been here a while, it's probably stale, but I could make some more-"

Paulette managed a brief chuckle of laughter. "You slay me, kid."

"No, never." Brill managed a wan smile. "I apologize for breaking in. But I had to check that you weren't under observation."

"Observation-" Paulette frowned "-why do I get the feeling I'm not going to like this?"

"Because." Brill took a deep breath: "You're not going to like it. Before I say any more-when did you last see Miriam?"

"Shit, kid." For a moment Paillette's face twisted in pain. "She's in trouble, isn't she?"

"When did you last see her?" Brilliana repeated.

"Must be, let me see... about three months ago. We did lunch. Why?" Her expression was guarded.

Brill sighed. "You're right, she's in trouble. The good news is, I've been ordered to get her out of it. The duke thinks it can be papered over, if she cooperates. I can't promise you anything, but if you happen to see her, if you could make sure that's the first thing you tell her...?"

Paulie frowned. "I'm telling you the truth."

"I know that," Brill said quietly. "Not everybody would choose to believe you, though. They'd want to believe you're protecting her. She's missing, Paulie. Nobody's seen her for a week, and we're pretty sure she's on the run. I'm talking to you because I figure if she makes it over here you're one of the first people she'll turn to for help-"

"What do you mean, if?"

"It is a long story." Brill pulled out one of the kitchen chairs and sat down. "I know part of it. I think you know another part of it?" She raised an eyebrow, but Paulette stared at her mulishly and refused to answer. "All right. Three months ago, Miriam did something really foolish. She stole some information about a project she was not supposed to know of, and then she tried to bluff her way into it. It's a Clan operation on this side, that's all I'm allowed to say, and she tampered with the Clan's postal service-that alone is a high crime. To make matters worse, she was caught by the wrong person, a conservative member of the council's security oversight board. What Miriam did, that sort of thing-" she shrugged uncomfortably "-carries the death penalty. I'm not exaggerating. Sneaking into that particular operation-" She stopped. "You know the one I'm talking about?"