The Revolution Trade (Merchant Princes Omnibus 3) (35 page)

‘Huh. My tutor told me their king-emperor is elected, that the people choose him. Is this not so?’

‘It looks like that, yes, but it’s not so simple. The little people are presented with two contenders, but the ruling elite would never tolerate the candidacy of an outsider.
Sometimes a contender tries to
look
like an outsider, but it’s purely a rabble-rousing pretense. This current king-emperor doesn’t even go that far; his father was king-emperor
before last.’

‘Huh. Again, how stupid! Sir Gunnar, I think we should move now, before Anders disgraces himself. If it pleases you?’

Gunnar lowered the camcorder and switched it to standby. The tour guide was still droning on in a nasal voice, mangled by the loud-speakers behind the windshield at the front of the open upper
deck of the bus. ‘Yes, let us do so.’ The bus swayed as it moved forward then turned in towards the curb. ‘Follow me.’

The sky was clear and blue, the sun beating down on the sidewalk as Beatrice stepped off the bus with Anders, waiting while Gunnar – determinedly staying in character – collected the
pushchair. As he unfolded it, Anders sent up a sleepy moan: Beatrice bounced him, shushing. ‘Please let us get him indoors.’

‘In a moment.’ Gunnar glanced round. The bus had stopped close by a huge concrete and stone facade – back home, it would have been the stronghold of a noble family, but here it
was most likely a museum of some sort. ‘Ah yes. We’ll try there.’
Holocaust Memorial Museum?
Gunnar had a vague recollection that it might be connected with some historic
massacre in these Anglischprache folks’ history, but that didn’t matter to him; it was a museum, so obviously it would have toilets and baby-changing facilities. ‘Record a
waypoint. And another one in the baby-changing room, if the machine functions adequately indoors.’

The museum had security guards and one of those annoying contraptions that let them peer into visitors’ possessions next to a metal detecting arch. Gunnar was sufficiently familiar with
such precautions to have left his weapons back at the hotel, but they still irritated him, reminding him that he was not free to comport himself as a gentleman in this place. If the business of
governance was to maintain a monopoly on lethal force, as his baron had once asserted, then the Anglischprache clearly understood this message. Still, discreet signs pointed to the toilets beyond
the obstruction, and the little one’s needs must be attended to.

Gunnar cooled his heels in the atrium for a few minutes while his sister-in-law dealt with the child. It was a peculiar museum, he decided, very strange – more like a mausoleum. This
holocaust was clearly a most unsavory affair, but why dwell on it? It was confusing: It didn’t even seem to have happened to the Anglischprache themselves, but to some other people. So why
bother commemorating it with a museum?
But it’s in the right place
, he reminded himself.
And it’ll be easier to get onto the roof than any of the government offices. If
it’s high enough
. . .

Beatrice finally emerged from the rest room, carrying a quieter Anders. Gunnar smiled, trying to look relieved. ‘I think I would like to go upstairs here,’ he told her quietly.
‘Let’s go find the elevator and ride it to the top. Did you get a waypoint?’

‘I’m sorry, cousin; the machine balked. I think the walls are too thick.’

‘Then you will try again on the highest floor. And I shall look for access doors to the roof. If there’s a window, I will film landmarks through it, to estimate the
elevation.’

‘You have plans for this place?’

‘Oh yes, indeed.’ Gunnar nodded. ‘We’re well into Sudtmarkt territory here, but for what I think we shall be doing, that should be no obstacle.’

‘You want to doppelgänger a
museum
?’

‘It’s a possibility – I want to look at some shops, too. As long as the land is accessible, it will fit my needs. And I don’t recall any cities in the middle of swamps
down there. The Sudtmarkt can be bullied, bought, or bribed, and along with elevation that’s all that matters.’

*

A month had passed since the disastrous mission into Niejwein; Mike had been back in the office for two weeks, alternating between interdepartmental meetings and frustrating
sessions in room 4117 when he got an e-mail from the colonel: ‘Tomorrow we’re taking a day trip to the Otis Air National Guard Base on Cape Cod. I’ve got a meeting there, and
there are some folks I want to introduce you to.’

The aircraft hangar was dim and cavernous after the bright daylight outside. Mike blinked, slightly dazzled, at the thing squatting on the stained concrete in front of him. It seemed misshapen
and malformed, like a fairy-tale dragon sleeping in its cave. Sure enough it was green and scaly and spiky – a huge refueling probe jutting lance-like from the chin beneath its cockpit
windows, and infrared sensors bulging like enormous warts from the deformed forehead beneath the hunched shoulders of its engine cowls.

Dragons, however, did not traditionally have high-visibility warning tags dangling from their rotor blade tips, or an array of maintenance trolleys and tractors parked around them. And dragons
most especially didn’t have a bunch of Air Force officers chattering next to the huge external fuel tank slung from their port winglet.

Mike had hobbled halfway to the chopper before anyone noticed him. An arm waved: ‘Mike. Over here, I want you to meet these folks.’ He picked up his pace as much as he dared.
‘Gentlemen, this is Mike Fleming. Mike is a special agent on assignment to our organization from DEA. His specialty is getting under enemy skin. He’s our HUMINT guy, in other words, and
he picked up that broken leg in the same line of work as you guys – only on foot. Mike, this is Lieutenant John Goddard, and Captain Simon MacDonald. They’re in charge of flight
operations for this little test project – staff and execution both, they sit up front in the cockpit.’ More faces and more introductions followed, warrant officer this and tech
specialist that, the guys in charge of making the big helicopter work. Mike tried to commit them all to memory, then gave up. The half dozen guys and one or two women in fatigues standing around
here were the crew chiefs and flight crew – it took a lot of people to keep a Pave Low helicopter flying.

‘Pleased to meet you.’ Mike shook hands all round. He caught Eric’s eye. ‘I’m impressed.’ Which statement, when fully unpacked, meant
How the
hell
have you been keeping this under wraps?
The implications weren’t exactly subtle:
So this is Dr. James’s breakthrough. What happens next?

‘Good,’ said Smith, nodding. Quietly: ‘I told them you’re not up to serious exertion, they’ll make allowances. Just try to take it all in.’ He paused for a
moment. ‘Simon, why don’t you give Mike here the dog and pony show. I’ll go over the load-out requirements with John and Susan in the meantime. When Mike’s up to speed, we
can meet up in the office, uh, that’s room R-127, and share notes.’

‘Yes, I’ll do that, sir.’ MacDonald turned to Mike and waved a hand at a door some way back along the flank of the green monster. ‘Ever seen one of these before?’
he asked breezily.

‘Don’t think so. On the news, maybe?’ Mike followed the captain across the stained concrete floor towards the door, going as fast as he could with his cast. The chopper was the
size of a small airliner. Blades big enough to bridge a freeway curved overhead in the dimness. The fuel tanks under the stubby wings proved, on closer acquaintance, to be nearly as tall as he was,
and as long as a pickup truck. ‘I don’t know much about helicopters,’ he admitted.

‘Okay, we’ll fix that.’ MacDonald flashed a smile. ‘This is a modified MH-53, descended from the Jolly Green Giant. Back about twenty years ago it was our biggest cargo
helicopter. This one’s been rebuilt as an MH-53J, part of the Pave Low III program. It’s still a transport chopper, but it’s been tailored for one particular job –
low-level, long-range undetected penetration of enemy airspace, at night or in bad weather, in support of special forces. So we’ve got a load of extra toys on this ship that you don’t
normally see all in one place.’

The side door was open. MacDonald pulled himself up and stood, then reached down to help Mike into the cavernous belly of the beast. ‘This is a General Electric GAU-2/A, what the army call
an M134 minigun. We’ve got three of them, one in each side door and one on the ramp at the back.’ He walked forward, towards the open cockpit door. ‘Night, bad weather, and enemy
territory. That’s a crappy combination and it means flying low in crappy visibility conditions. So we’ve got terrain-following radar, infrared night vision gear, GPS, inertial
navigation, an IDAS/MATT terminal for tactical datalink – ’ He stopped. ‘Which isn’t going to be much use where we’re going, I guess. Neither is the GPS or the missile
warning transponders or a whole load of stuff. So I’ll not go over that, right? What you need to know is, it’s a big chopper that can fly low and fast, at night, while carrying three
infantry squads or two squads and a dozen prisoners or six stretcher cases. We can put them down fast, night or day, and provide covering suppressive fire against light forces. Or we can carry an
outside load the size of a Humvee. So. Have you got any questions?’ He seemed amused.

‘Yeah.’ Mike glanced around. ‘You’ve crossed over before, as I understand it. How’d it go?’

MacDonald’s face clouded. ‘It went okay.’ He gestured at a boxy framework aft of one of the flight engineer’s positions. ‘I’d studied all the backgrounders
– but still, it wasn’t like anything I’d expected.’ He shook his head. ‘One thing to bear in mind is that it would be a really bad idea to do that kind of transition
too close to the ground. The air pressure, wind direction, weather – it can all vary. You could be in a world of hurt if you go from wet weather and low pressure to a sudden heat wave without
enough airspace under your belly.’ He registered Mike’s expression. ‘You get less lift in high temperatures,’ he explained. ‘Affects rotary-winged ships as well as
fixed-wing, and we tend to fly low and heavy. With all the graceful flight characteristics of a grand piano, if we lose engine power or exceed our load limit.’ He sat down in the
pilot’s chair. ‘Go on, take a seat, she won’t bite as long as you keep your hands to yourself.’

‘I don’t think I’d fit. Not ’til I get this thing off my leg.’ Mike leaned across the back of the copilot’s seat, staring at the controls. ‘Last time I
saw this many screens was when I had to arrest a share trader – it’s like a flying dealer desk!’

‘Yeah, that’s about right. Of course, if any of it goes wrong it adds a whole new meaning to the phrase, “my computer crashed.”’ MacDonald grinned. ‘Look, out
there. And down. Get a feel for the visibility. What do you think our main problem is going to be?’

‘What do I – oh.’ Mike frowned. ‘Okay, there’s no GPS where we’re going. The Clan don’t have heavy weapons, at least nothing heavier than machine guns
– as far as we know. Unless they’ve somehow bought some missiles, and they’re pretty much limited to whatever they can carry by hand from one side to the other. So – ’
He glanced up at the rotor blade arching overhead and followed it out into the middle distance. ‘Hmm. Where we’re going there are a lot of trees. And the places we want to get inside of
are walled. Is that going to be a problem?’

‘You ever seen
Black Hawk Down
?’ It was a rhetorical question. ‘We’ve got ways of dealing with trees. What we really don’t like – our second worst
nightmare – is buildings with armed hostiles overlooking the LZ. Just don’t go there. The ground pounders can secure the target,
then
we can land and pick them up. The
alternative is to risk us taking one on the rotor head, in which case we all get to walk home.’

‘What’s your worst nightmare?’

‘MANPADs,’ he said bluntly. ‘Man-portable air defense missiles, that is. Not your basic SAM-7, which is fundamentally obsolete, but late-model Stingers or an SA-16 Igla –
that’s Russian-made and as deadly as a Stinger – can really ruin your day. From what I’ve been reading, your bad guys could carry them across, they only weigh about fifty pounds.
We’ve got countermeasures and flare dispensers, of course, but if they’ve bothered to get hold of a bunch of MANPADs and learn how to use them properly, we could be in a world of
hurt.’

Mike nodded. ‘That wouldn’t be good.’

‘Well.’ MacDonald slapped the top of the instrument console affectionately. ‘It’s not as bad as it sounds. Because they won’t be expecting anyone to come calling by
chopper. It’s never happened to them before, right? So they’ve got no reason to expect it now. Plus, we have God
and
firepower on our side. As long as the ARMBAND supply holds up
we can ship over spec-ops teams and their logistics until the cows come home. You do not want to get between a Delta Forces specialist and his ticket home, if you follow my drift, it doesn’t
improve your life expectancy. So it’s all down to the guys with the black boxes.’

‘I don’t know anything about that side of things.’ Mike shrugged. ‘For that, you need to talk to the colonel. But I would guess that we’ve got a bunch of GPS
coordinates you can feed into your magic steering box of tricks; sites the Clan used as safe houses in this world, so they’re almost certainly collocated with their installations in the other
place. We don’t know what they look like over there, but that’s beside the point if we know where to find them.’

‘Well, it also helps to know what we’re meant to do when we get there. Although that oughta be obvious – otherwise they’d have sent someone else. So what
do
you
know that you can tell me?’

‘I don’t. Know, that is. What you’re cleared for, for example.’ Mike paused. ‘I’m just the monkey – Colonel Smith, he’s the organ-grinder.
You’ve been over to the other world, you’ve got the basics, right? This is new to me. Until this morning, I hadn’t had more than a hint that you guys even existed.’

‘There are too many Chinese walls in this business. Not our fault.’

‘Yeah, well, you know this didn’t come out of nowhere, did it?’ Mike decided to take a calculated risk. ‘The folks who live over there found us first. And they’re
not friendly.’