Charles Stross - MP 6 -The Trade of Queens

She unlocked the front door and went inside, switched the front hall light on, and dumped her handbag beside the answering machine. It was a warm enough summer's day that she hadn't bothered with a jacket. She walked through into the kitchen to start a pot of coffee, purposely not thinking about how she was going to fill the evening—a phone call to Mother, perhaps, and a movie on DVD—and that was when the strange man stepped out behind her and held up a badge.

"Paulette Milan, I'm from the DEA and I'd—"

She was lying down, and dizzy. He was staring at her. Everything was gray. His mouth was moving, and so was the world. It was confusing for a moment, but then her head began to clear:

I fainted?

She was looking up at the living room ceiling, she realized. There was something soft under the back of her head.

"Can you hear me?" He looked concerned.

"I'm." She took a couple of breaths. "I'm. Oh God."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you like that—are you all right? Listen, do you have a heart condition—"

No. No.

She must have shaken her head. "Do you know Miriam Beckstein?"

Paulie swallowed. "Shit."

Everything, for an instant, was crystal clear.

I'm from the DEA. Do you know Miriam Beckstein?

The next logical words had to be,

You're under arrest.

"I need to talk to her; her life's in danger."

Paulie blinked.

Does not compute.

"You're from the DEA," she said hesitantly. Pushed against the carpet. "I fainted?"

"Uh, yes, in the kitchen. I never—I carried you in here. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. I wanted to talk, but I was afraid they might be watching."

Watching?

"Who?" she asked.

"The FTO," he said. Who? she wondered. "Or the Clan."

The brittle crystal shell around her world shattered. "Oh, them," she said carelessly, her tongue loosened by shock. "They ring the front doorbell. Like everyone else." Bit by bit, awareness was starting to return. Chagrin—I

can't believe I fainted—was

followed by anxiety—Who is

this guy? How do I know he's DEA? Is he a burglar?—and

then fear:

Alone with a strange man.

The strange man seemed to be going out of his way to be nonthreatening, though. "Do you want a hand up?" he asked. "Figure you might be more comfortable on the sofa—" She waved him away, then pushed herself upright, then nodded. Things went gray again for a moment. "Listen, I'm not, uh, here on official business, exactly. But I need to talk to Miriam—" She rose, took two steps backwards, and collapsed onto the sofa. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"No," she heard herself say, very distinctly. "I'm

not

okay. Who are you, mister, and what are you doing in my house?"

He hunkered down on the balls of his feet so that he was at eye level to her. "Name's Fleming, Mike Fleming. I used to know Miriam. She's in a whole bunch of trouble; if you know what she's been doing this past year, you'd know that—if you know about the Clan, you're in trouble, too. That goes for me, also." He paused. "Want me to go on?"

"You're." She stopped. "Why did you tell me you're DEA?"

"I was, originally—still carry a badge they issued. I'd prefer you not to phone them just yet to verify that. See, I'm willing to put my neck on the line. But I want to get to the truth. You know about the Clan?"

Paulie shook her head. "If I say anything, you know what those people will do?" She was saying too much, she vaguely recognized, but something about this setup smelled wrong.

"Which people? The Clan, or the Family Trade Organization?" Fleming paused. "I'm not in a position to arrest you for anything—I'm not here on official business. I need to talk to Miriam—"

"Wait." Paulette tried to pull herself together. "The

what

organization? You want to talk to her? About what?"

Fleming looked at her quizzically. "The FTO is a cross-agency operation to shut down the Clan. I was part of it until, uh, about a week ago. It was an attempt to get all the agencies whose lines the Clan crossed to sing from the same hymn book. I came in from the DEA side when source GREEN—a Clan defector called Matthias—walked in the door. I've seen Miriam, about three months ago, in a palace in a place called Niejwein want me to go on?"

Oh

Jesus, save me—he's the real thing.

She shook her head numbly. "What do you want?"

"Like I said, I need to talk to Miriam. She's in terrible danger—FTO has been penetrated. The president used to work with the Clan, back in the eighties and early nineties. He's the one behind this mess, he deliberately goaded them into using those nukes, and there's worse to come. He's running FTO. All the oil in Texas—every version of Texas—that's what he's after, that and a state of emergency at home to give him carte blanche to do whatever the hell he likes. I've tried to put out a warning via the press, but my contact didn't believe me until the attacks, and now—"

"You went to the press?" Paulette stared at him as if he'd grown a second head. "What did you have?"

"Nothing!" His frustration was visible.

"But you found me," she pointed out.

"Yeah, after I turfed her house. Which is under police watch

and

booby-trapped; I found an old planner of hers, played back the answering-machine tape—"

"Shit." She tried to stand, failed for a moment, then got her suddenly shaky knees to behave. "There was a tape?"

If

you

found me,

they

could find me.

"Relax. Those agencies you're thinking about don't talk to each other at that level. You're probably safe, for now."

Probably safe

and her cousin

Don't worry

had helped many a girl get pregnant, in Paulie's opinion, and when the canoodling in question might lead to the queue for the execution chamber at Gitmo rather than a hospital delivery room, chancing it was not on her roadmap. "No, forget that: If they catch you they'll backtrack to me. Thanks a million, Mr. Fleming, you just doubled my chances of not getting out of this alive. I didn't ask for this shit! It just landed on my lap!" Her heart was hammering, she could feel her face flushing: Fleming was leaning away from her sudden vehemence. "Fucking goodfellas, I grew up in their backyard, you know what I'm saying? The old generation. You kept your nose out of their business and didn't do nothing and they'd mostly leave you alone, especially if you knew their cousin's wife or walked their sister's dogs or something. But if you crossed them it wouldn't be any fucking horse's head at the end of your bed, no fucking wreath at your funeral; you wouldn't

have

a funeral, there wouldn't be anything to bury. There were rumors about the meat-packing plant, about the cat and dog food. And the cops weren't much better. Shakedown money every Tuesday, free coffee and bagels at the corner, and you better hope they liked your face. And that was the

local

cops, and the old-time

local

hoods, who didn't shit in their backyard 'case someone took exception, you know where I'm coming from?"

Fleming just squatted on his heels and took it, like a giant inflatable target for all her frustration. "Yes, I know where you're from," he said quietly when she ran down. "Keep a low profile and don't rock the boat and you think maybe you can get by without anyone hurting you. But where

I'm

coming from—that's not an option anymore. It's not Miriam's fault that she's descended from them and has their ability, not her fault about those bombs—she tried to warn me. There are back channels between governments: That was before my boss's boss decided to burn me. No; what