Charles Stross - MP 6 -The Trade of Queens

Click.

Aerial photographs of a small city. Forests loom in an untamed blanket beyond the edge of town. Only a couple of narrow roads wind between the trees. Smoke rises from chimneys. There are walls, meandering along the hilltops around the center. Some way outside them, there is a small harbor.

"This is the capital city of the local power where the Clan holds most authority, a small state called Niejwein, located roughly where downtown Boston is. Four months ago we were able to use our captured prisoners to transport a SPECOPS forward recon team into position. We've confirmed this story six ways: I'd like to emphasize this, we have an intelligence briefing on the enemy culture and you'll find it in your in-tray when you check your email. What we're dealing with is a hostile power considerably more primitive and less well organized than Afghanistan, but sitting physically right on our doorstep—collocated with us geographically, but accessible only by means of ARMBAND devices or at will to the Clan's members."

Click.

An olive-drab cylinder approximately the size of a beer keg, with a green box strapped to it and connected by fat wires.

"This is an FADM, field atomic demolition munition. Third-generation descendant of the W53 tactical weapon. Twelve of them were supposed to be in storage in Pantex. Source GREENSLEEVES claimed to have stolen and emplaced one in downtown Boston as insurance when he walked in and asked for witness protection—" Smith paused. "May I continue?" He leaned close to the mike but kept his tone mild: Most of the audience outranked him considerably.

"Thank you. There was an accident subsequently when GREENSLEEVES panicked and tried to escape custody, and GREENSLEEVES was killed; and there was some question over whether he was in fact lying. A routine inventory check reported that all the FADMs were present and accounted for. However, a month ago FTO personnel located and subsequently disarmed a device in downtown Boston, confirming that the FADM audit report was faulty. This triggered a PINNACLE EMPTY QUIVER and a full-up inspection, in the course of which it became apparent that no less than six FADMs had been stolen from Pantex at some time in the preceding three years. FADMs are on the inactive inventory and the plant was following standard asset risk management procedures for the weapon storage areas, with layered security, patrols and sensors, and secure vaults. Unfortunately our existing ARM failed to take into account the possibility that extradimensional narcoterrorists might appear inside the storage vaults, remove the weapon assemblies from their carriers, and replace them with dummies."

Smith paused. There was no point continuing right now—not with the muttering wave of disbelief and outrage—and besides, his throat was becoming sore. He raised his water bottle, then tapped the mike again.

"If I may continue? Thank you. Those of you tasked with nuclear weapons security know more about the consequences of that particular event than I do; to those who aren't, we're in the process of upgrading our risk management model and temporarily escalated security is already in place for those parts of the inventory which suffer from compromised ARM. We're not going to lose any more nukes, period.

"Meanwhile, the background to this particular empty quiver event is that DEA's initial approach to the Clan was that they were a major narcotics ring—narcoterrorists on the same scale as the Medellin Cartel, with an additional twist. Estimates of their turnover are in the four-to-six-billion-dollar-per-year range, and a membership in excess of a thousand individuals—and should be dealt with accordingly. What became apparent only later was that the scope of the threat, intrusions from another world, a parallel universe, is unprecedented and carries with it many unknown unknowns, if I may steal a phrase from the top. What we failed to appreciate at first was that the Clan were effectively a parallel government within their own nation, but not

the

government—an analogy with al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan is apposite—and that the local authorities wanted rid of them. The situation was highly unstable. I am informed that negotiations with the Clan for return of the stolen weapons were conducted, but internal factional disputes resulted in the, the consequences we've all witnessed this week."

Which was flat-out half-truths and lies, but the real story wasn't something it was safe to talk about even behind locked doors in Crypto City: Smith's boss, Dr. James, had anticipated a response, but not on this scale. Calculations had been botched, as badly as the decision in early 2001 to ignore the festering hatred in the hills around Kabul. "We need to get the hard-liners to talk to us, not the liberals," Dr. James had explained. Nobody had anticipated that the hard-liners' idea of a gambit would be a full-dress onslaught—or if they had, they were burying the evidence so deep that even thinking that thing was a life expectancy-limiting move.

"I can't discuss the political response to the current situation," Smith continued, speaking into a hair-raising silence, "but I've been told I can mention the legal dimension. Other FTO officials are briefing their respective departments today. As of now, FTO and the existence of the extradimensional threat are no longer super-black, although the content of this briefing remains classified. The briefing process is intended to bring everyone up to speed before the orders start coming down. I've been told to alert you that a military response is inevitable—the president is meeting with the survivors of the House of Representatives and there is a briefing going on behind closed doors right now—and the War Powers Act has been invoked. White House counsel and the attorney general's office agree that the usual treaty obligations requiring a UN mandate for a declaration of war do not apply to territory physically located within our own national borders, and

posse comitatus

does not apply to parallel universes—this remains to be confirmed by the Supreme Court, but we anticipate a favorable outcome."

As three of the four Justices who died in the attack were from the liberal side of the bench—by sheer bad luck, they'd been attending an event at GWU that morning—this was an extreme understatement: The new Supreme Court, when it could be sworn in, would be handpicked to make Chief Justice Scalia happy.

Smith took a deep breath. "So, to summarize: We have been attacked by a new kind of enemy, using our own stolen weapons. But we've been studying them covertly, and we've got the tools to reach out and touch them. And we're going to show them

exactly

what happens when you mess with the United States." He stared straight at one of the generals in the front row, who had been visibly containing himself for several minutes. "Thank you for your patience. Now are there any questions?"

The floodgates opened.

The day after his failed attempt to leak all over Steve Schroeder's news desk, Mike Fleming deliberately set out to tickle the dragon's tail. He did so in the full, cold foreknowledge that he was taking a huge personal risk, but he was running short on alternatives.

Driving from motel to strip mall and around and about by way of just about any second-rate road he could find that wasn't an interstate or turnpike, Mike watched the news unfold. The sky was blue and empty, contrail-free except for the occasional track of a patrolling F-15; as on 9/11, they'd shut down all civilian aviation. The fire this time had not come from above, but few people knew that so far and as gestures went, grounding the airliners was a trivially easy way to signal that something was being done to protect the nation. It was the old security syllogism: