“Doesn’t signify,” said Brill. “We can’t afford to leave a compromised agent behind in the United States, not with seventeen years of accumulated bread crumbs pointing to her front door. It would tell them altogether too much about our interests and progress. But it would set a really bad precedent—a terrible one—if we liq—no, if we kill—a loyal agent for no fault of her own other than being at risk of apprehension by the adversary. ‘Trust is a two-way street’ and all that.” Hulius recognized the words: she was quoting the Minister, Miriam.
“We can lay the groundwork for an extraction,” Colonel Jackson said warily. “But I’ll need a written order.”
“You’ll get it tomorrow.”
“Is that all?”
“No, it isn’t.” Brill leaned back in her chair. “Feel free to correct me if I am laboring under a misapprehension, but Hulius isn’t due to visit Ms. Milan again for another twenty-seven days. Am I correct? And he’s going to have to be reassigned anyway, now that he’s apparently on their face recognition database?”
“That’s right.”
“Well then. Can you spare him for the next six months, Colonel?”
“What?” Jackson sat bolt upright. “You’ve got to be joking—”
“Let me rephrase that, Colonel. I’m in need of Major Hulius Hjorth’s unique combination of abilities, so I’m going to requisition him. You can have him back temporarily if it’s essential to pull Paulie out, but I need him on an ongoing basis for an operation vital to national security. I’m afraid this comes from the top: resistance, as they say, is futile.”
“I’m sure you can make it stick,” Jackson grumped. “But you realize that Hulius runs nineteen other US-based agents? Not all of whom live in the middle of a camera hot spot. We’ve been hit hard by this damned flu pandemic—”
“Your sleepers have a protocol to follow in the event of a no-show,” Brill pointed out. “This is going to cause temporary disruption, yes. But I really need Yul.”
“May I ask why?”
“Because we need him for a little trip to Europe in time line two. And he has—or used to have—a private pilot’s license…”
PALACE OF NEW LONDON, MANHATTAN ISLAND, TIME LINE THREE, SPRING 2018
Three days after the abortive assassination attempt—only the second in the past two years: the Minister was unsure whether to be relieved or offended that she was held in so little esteem by the enemy—Miriam found herself back in her office in the capital, chairing yet another meeting. Revolutions (she’d long since learned) ran on committees just like any other government, once you got past the screaming-and-shooting stage. The price of leading a faction among the winners in the postcoup dog pile was an office in a government ministry and, by and by, a daily briefing that, in digest form alone, was several inches thick. However, an assassination attempt still merited a meeting with her head of security.
“On the subject of your assailant, my lady,” said Olga Thorold. Her aristocratic youth in the Gruinmarkt time line still colored the style of her private speech, even though it might have been seen as counterrevolutionary backsliding: only her position enabled her to get away with it, unquestioned. “I have a report from Internal Security on the background of the would-be assassin.” She reached into a side pocket of her wheelchair with one shaky hand and pulled out a slim document file, its edge striped in the yellow and red indicating its security classification level. She slid it carefully across Miriam’s blotter. “I find it disturbing by implication.”
“Summarize for me, please?” Miriam slid her reading glasses down, then pinched the bridge of her nose tiredly. “Eyestrain again,” she muttered apologetically.
“Think nothing of it: at least my eyes still work.”
Miriam winced. When she’d first met her, Olga had been a willowy eighteen-year-old, to all appearances a naive noble lady of the Clan. Her role in life was apparently to make a good marriage and provide the linked families of world-walking merchant princes with a fresh brood of aristocratic couriers. But it had been a creative lie. Working as an agent of the Clan’s internal security organization, Olga’s real role was far from passive. Subsequently she’d acted as Miriam’s head of intelligence during and after the escape to the revolution-racked new home in time line three. But the multiple sclerosis that ran in the Clan’s bloodlines and had taken Miriam’s mother now had its claws into her.
“Just the talking points will do, Olga.”
“Certainly. Your shooter was a Mr. Michael Buerke, age nineteen, born and raised in Boston. By employment, a postal sorter. Unmarried, no children, second youngest of six siblings, father deceased. No criminal record to speak of.” Olga shook her head. “We had no warnings about him, which is disturbing. He left his previous job as an assistant railway signalman nine months ago and his whereabouts were unknown for two months afterward, before he sought work with the post office.”
“Hell.” Miriam closed her eyes. “Any leads?”
“Hard to say. Mr. Buerke was not an associate of any known royalist clubs or debating societies. I cannot swear to his reading habits at the library, but he certainly did not subscribe to any questionable periodicals, and none such were found in his room when SCEP raided it. And they’re cooperating with my people about as well as you can expect.”
Miriam winced again. The Special Counter-Espionage Police were not her favorite people.
“I can’t help thinking this sort of trawl would be easier if we had hot and cold running Internets, cameras on every street corner, and carte blanche to wage a war on terror.” Miriam paused: “Probably just as well we don’t, come to think of it. If the previous regime had such tools we wouldn’t be here, would we?”
“You might think that; I couldn’t possibly comment.” Olga’s frown was eloquent. But then her expression brightened: “I had enough leverage to learn that the Specials found a ticket stub in his room,” Olga continued. “The return half of an open railway return from Philadelphia. The issue dates match when he was missing.”
“What are they—”
“SCEP are proceeding on the assumption they’re hunting for a sleeper cell. There’s a certain stench to this that suggests careful organization, not a lone wolf. They said they’ll let me know if they uncover anything, and for once I’m inclined to believe them.” An attempt on the life of a Minister was too serious to sweep under the rug, and SCEP would risk serious blowback if they didn’t keep Miriam’s own security team updated on the threat. “I have a contact there; for now, that will be sufficient. But it looks as if the royal court may finally have worked out who their real enemies are.”