The Traders' War (Merchant Princes Omnibus 2) (60 page)

‘I’m touching down around half past midnight. If you get any pushback between now and then, call me and I’ll come in. If it goes smoothly, I might as well get some sleep before
I debrief him.’ A thought struck him. ‘Another thing. I want the guard with him at all times to have a voice recorder to hand in case he says anything. And I don’t want random
doctors or nurses eavesdropping.’

‘Already taken care of.’ Herz’s laconic response made him want to kick himself. Of course it was taken care of: Herz was terrifyingly efficient when it came to police work like
handling witnesses.

‘Good. Good work, I mean, really good. Well, I won’t keep you any longer. If you need backup, call me. Bye.’

The seatbelt light was off, the plane boring a hole in the sky towards the darkening eastern horizon. Eric unfastened his belt and stood up, then went forward to the desk where Dr. James was
poring over a pile of printouts.

‘What is it?’ No polite small talk from James: he was almost robotic in his focus.

‘It’s CLEANSWEEP. I just got confirmation that we’ve had a positive outcome.’

It was Dr. James’s turn to do a double take – or punch the air, if so inclined – and Eric was curious to see how he’d jump. Dr. James was not, it seemed, one for
demonstrative gestures: he simply put his papers down, removed his spectacles, and said, mildly, ‘Explain.’

‘Agent Fleming is back. He’s alive, but has serious injuries. His condition is stable and I’ve ordered him transferred to a secure facility pending debriefing. The preliminary
report is that the specops team walked into a red-on-red crossfire of some sort, but Fleming was returned to us by someone who presumably wants to talk. There appears to be a factional split in
fairyland. I’ll know more tomorrow, when I’ve begun his debriefing: for now, I gather his injuries required operating theater time so we won’t get much out of him just
yet.’

James began to polish his bifocals with a scrap of tissue. ‘
Good
.’ His fingertips moved in tiny circles, pinching the lens like a crab worrying at a fragment of decaying
flesh. ‘You’ll debrief him without witnesses. Record onto a sealed medium and type up the report yourself. Use a typewriter, not a word processor.’ He looked up at Eric with
dead-fish eyes: ‘The fewer witnesses the better.’

Eric cleared his throat. ‘You know that’s in direct contravention of our operational doctrine?’

James nodded. ‘Sit down.’ Eric sat opposite him. James glanced round, to make sure there were no open ears nearby, then carefully balanced the bifocals on the bridge of his nose.
‘Off the record.’

‘Yes?’ Eric did his best to conceal the sinking feeling those words gave him.

‘You’re a professional, and you’re used to playing by the rules. That’s well and good. The reason that rule book exists is to prevent loose cannons from rolling around
the deck, knocking things over and making a mess. We designed the policy on debriefing to ensure that no asshole can piss in the coffeepot and embarrass the owners. However, right now, you’re
working directly
for
the owners. Standard policy wasn’t designed for this type of war and therefore we have to make a new rule book up as we go along – as and where it’s
necessary. Your job is to build up a HUMINT resource, taking us back into a kind of operational model we haven’t ever been really good at, and that we gave up on almost completely in the
seventies. But the flip side of HUMINT is COINTEL, and if we can spy on them, they can spy on us. So the zeroth rule of this operation is, minimize the eyeballs – minimize the risk of leaks.
Clear?’

Eric nodded. Then a late-acting bureaucratic reflex prompted him to protest: ‘I agree with your reasoning, but it doesn’t help me out if they come after me with an audit.’

James stared at him coldly. ‘Where’s your loyalty, boy?’

‘You’re asking me to commit a federal felony, on your word. If you want to run HUMINT assets on the ground,
their
rule number one is that they’ve got to be able to
trust their controllers. You’re
my
controller.’ He crossed his arms, hoping his anger wasn’t immediately obvious to the other man.

James stared at him a moment longer, then nodded minutely. ‘So that’s the way it is.’

‘It’s the way it’s got to be. It’s not just me who’s got to trust you, it’s the whole chain of command, all the way down.’
Which right now consists
of one guy in a hospital bed, but let’s not remind him of that.
‘History says that the smart money is on this coming out, if not now, then in twenty years’ time. This
administration will be fodder for the history books by then – hell, with his heart condition, VPOTUS will probably be sleeping with the fishes – but I’m a career officer, and so
are the folks in my outfit. If you don’t give us a fig leaf, you’re asking us to suck up time in Leavenworth. And we don’t get to go on to a juicy research contract with the
Heritage Institute, or a part-time boardroom post with some defense contractor when this is over.’

‘What do you want?’ James’s intonation was precise and his voice even, but Eric didn’t let it fool him.

‘Something vague, but in writing. The vaguer the better. Something like, “In the interests of operational security and in view of the threat of enemy intelligence-gathering attempts
aimed at compromising our integrity, all investigations are to be restricted to those with a need to know, and normal committee oversight will be suspended until such time as the immediate threat
recedes.” Just keep it vague. Then if I have to take the stand, I’ve simply misunderstood your intent. I’m obeying an order by a superior, you didn’t intend your orders to
breach the law. Nobody needs to get burned.’

James snorted abruptly, startling Eric. ‘Is that all?’

Eric shrugged. ‘That’s how it’s done. That’s what kept the shit in check during Iran–Contra. Or did you expect me to fall on my sword when all I need is a note
signed by teacher to say I’m an over-achiever?’

‘Bah.’ James glanced away, but not before Eric noticed a twinkle of crocodilian amusement in his eye. ‘I thought you were an Air Force officer, not a politician.’

‘You don’t get above captain if you’re politically blind, sir. With all due respect, it makes life easier for me if I can advise you – where appropriate – of steps
I can take to do my job better. That’s one of them. Off the record, of course.’

‘I’ll get you your fig leaf, then. Signed on the Oval Office blotter, if that makes you feel better. Now, talk to me.’ James leaned back, making a steeple of his
fingertips.

Eric relaxed infinitesimally. ‘Someone sent Mike back to us. He didn’t come by himself; his leg’s busted up. That tells us something about what sort of operation we’re
fighting.’

‘Go on . . .’

‘I haven’t debriefed him yet. But at a guess, what we’ve already done has hurt their operations on the east coast, and sending agents through after them is going to scare the
shit out of them. They’re going to have to negotiate or escalate. Leaving aside the business with GREENSLEEVES and the nuke, we’re going to have to negotiate or escalate, too. Now,
it’s not for me to advise on policy, but I suspect we’re going to find that Mike was sent back by someone who stands to gain from negotiating with us. Call them faction “A”.
The red-on-red action suggests there’s a rival faction, call them “B”. So we
really
need to keep a lid on this, because if the “B” faction figures that the
“A” faction want to negotiate, they may try to torpedo things by preemptively escalating. And if GREENSLEEVES wasn’t bluffing about the nuke, we could be in a world of
hurt.’

Dr. James nodded minutely. ‘What would your advice be?’

‘We have to find that nuke, or rule it out. And we have to keep them talking while JAUNT BLUE get their shit together. Right now, we’re fumbling around in the dark – but so are
they. All they know is, we’ve whacked a bunch of their operations and figured out how to get an agent across. And if they’re in trouble internally, presumably they’d love to get
us off their backs while they clean up their own mess. They probably think we don’t know about the nukes, and we can be pretty sure that they don’t know about JAUNT BLUE. Everything we
know about them suggests they just don’t think in those terms, otherwise they’d be crawling all over us.’

‘So. You propose that we debrief Agent Fleming, then use him to establish a back channel to the leadership of Group “A”, with the goal of stalling them with the promise of
negotiations while we clean up the missing nuke and get some results from JAUNT BLUE. Is that a fair summary?’

Eric blinked, then rubbed his forehead. ‘You put it better than I did,’ he said ruefully. ‘It’s been a long day.’

‘Going to be longer,’ James said laconically. He leaned back and stared at the ceiling air vents for a while, until Eric began to think he was planning on taking a nap; but just as
he was about to stand up and leave, James sat up abruptly and looked at him. ‘Your analysis is valid, but incomplete because there are some facts you are unaware of.’

Uh?
‘Obviously,’ Eric said cautiously. ‘Should I be?’

‘I think so.’ James stared at him, his expression deceptively mild. ‘Same rules as the Fleming debriefing. This goes nowhere near a computer or a telephone. You
follow?’

Eric nodded.

‘Number one. Obviously, I do not want – nobody wants – to see a terrorist nuke detonated in an American city. Even if it’s in the People’s Republic of
Massachusetts, that would be very bad. But you need to understand this: if the worst happens, if that bomb goes off, a use will be found for it. The bloody shirt will be waved. Do you
understand?’

Eric tensed. ‘Who’s the fall guy?’

‘The President’s got a hard-on for Mr. Hussein, and PNAC will fall in line, but –’ Dr. James shook his head. ‘I’m not sure who, Colonel. All I can tell you
is, it will be someone who we can hammer for it. The hammer is ready, and if the United States doesn’t wield it from time to time the other players may begin to wonder if we’re still
willing. So if JAUNT BLUE is ready, the target might be the Clan. And if JAUNT BLUE isn’t ready, we’ll hit someone else, someone we can reach and need to nail flat. North Korea, Iraq,
Iran, whoever. But. Whatever else happens, if there’s a hard outcome, it will be used to strengthen our hand. We’ll have carte blanche.’ He stared at Eric. ‘The code name
for this plan – and I stress, it’s a contingency plan, a political spin to put on a disaster – is MARINUS BERLIN.’

‘Jesus.’ Eric looked away. ‘That’s disgusting.’

‘Yes. I know. But what else can we do?’

‘Find the bomb.’

‘Exactly!’ James’s frustration boiled over in Eric’s face: ‘If you’ve got some kind of magic superpowers that let you stare through concrete walls and
pinpoint missing nukes, then I’d like to hear about them, Colonel. Failing that, if you have any better ideas, I’m sure this administration would like to know what else to fricking do
if terrorists nuke one of our cities?’

‘I’m sorry. Like I said, we’re looking. I’ll see if I can scare up some backup when we get back.’

‘You’d better. Because falling on our swords is not on the agenda for this administration, son. We’re not going to hand the country to the liberal surrender monkeys on the
other team just because some assholes from another dimension fuck with us, any more than we did when bin Laden got uppity and bit the feeding hand.’ James paused. ‘I shouldn’t
have blown up then. Forget I said anything, I’m not mad at you. There’s a lot at stake here that you aren’t in on: the big picture is really scary. All the oil in fairyland, for
starters.’

‘All the
what
?’

Dr. James looked as if he’d bitten a lemon while expecting an orange. ‘Oil, son. Makes the world go round. You know what the business with al-Qaeda is about? Oil. We’re in
Saudi Arabia because of the oil: bin Laden wants us out of Saudi because of the oil. We’re going to go into Iraq because of the oil. Oil is leverage. Oil lets us put the Chinese and Europeans
in their place. And we’re running short of it, in case you hadn’t noticed, there’s this thing called peak oil coming and we’ve got analysts scratching their heads to figure
out how we’re going to field it. We’re not going to run out, but demand is going to exceed supply and the price is going to start climbing in a few years. Our planetary preeminence
relies on us having cheap oil for our industries, while everyone else pays through the nose for it. But we can’t guarantee low prices if we’re having to send our boys out to sit in the
desert and keep the wells pumping. So it was looking bad until six months ago, but now there’s a new factor in the equation . . .’

He took a deep breath. ‘The Clan. A bunch of medieval jerks, squatting on our territory – or a good cognate of it. What’s going down in Texas, Colonel Smith? Their version of
Texas, not our Texas: what are they
doing
there? I’ll tell you what they’re doing: they’re sitting on twice as much oil as Saddam Hussein, and that’s what’s
got Mr Cheney’s attention. Because, you see, if JAUNT BLUE delivers, eventually all that good black stuff is going to be ours . . .’

*

‘Are we nearly there yet?’

Huw glanced in the driver’s mirror, taking his eyes off the interstate for a couple of seconds. Elena sprawled across one half of the back seat of the Hummer H2 truck, managing to look
louche and bored simultaneously. Petulant, that was the word. A twenty-one-year-old Clan princess – no, merely a contessa in waiting, should she inherit – fresh from her Swiss finishing
school and her first semester at college: out in the big bad world for the first time, with two brave knights to look after her. File off the serial numbers and you could mistake her for a spoiled
preppy kitten. Of course, the jocks who’d be clustering around the latter type didn’t usually carry swords. Nor did normal preppies know how to handle the FN P90 in the gun case in the
trunk. Still, Huw let his eyes linger on her tight jeans and embroidered babydoll tee for a second longer than was strictly necessary, before he glanced back at the road and the GPS navigation
screen. ‘About twenty miles to go. Eighteen minutes. We turn off in ten.’ ‘Boring.’ She faked a yawn at him, slim hand covering pink lip gloss.