The Revolution Trade (Merchant Princes Omnibus 3) (54 page)

‘Our witness claimed to be a member of a group or tribe of illegal aliens with the ability to travel between worlds. The place of origin of these aliens was initially unknown, but
backward. They can will themselves between their own world – or location – and ours, by staring at a special knotwork design. They speak a language not familiar to anyone in the
linguistics department at NSA, but related to Low German. And they use their ability to smuggle narcotics.’

Click.
A slide showing an odd, crude knotwork design.

‘DEA would have written source GREENSLEEVES off as a nut, but they raided one of his suggested locations and hit paydirt – a major transfer location for a cocaine distribution ring
they’d been hunting for two years. At this point they began following up his leads and arrested a number of couriers. One of whom you just saw pulling a vanishing trick in front of a spy
camera in a locked cell.’

Click.
A windowless laboratory, white glove boxes and racks of electronics bulking beside workbenches.

‘The initiative came from DEA but was escalated rapidly with the backing of OSP and NSA, to establish a cross-disciplinary investigative unit. About five months ago our collaborations at
Livermore confirmed that there is indeed a physical mechanism at work here. What we’re looking at is not teleportation, but some sort of quantum tunneling effect between our world and a world
very much like our own – a parallel universe. Other worlds are also believed to exist – many of them.’

Click.
Video from a camera bolted to the rear bulkhead of a helicopter’s flight deck, grainy and washed out from beneath by the low-light-level radiance spilled from the instrument
consoles: a view of darkened ridgelines.

‘Project ARMBAND is now delivering prototype transfer units that can displace aircraft – or limited-scale ground forces – to what we have confirmed is this other world.
There’s virtually no radio traffic or sign of advanced civilization other than stuff that these – the hostiles call themselves the Clan – have stolen from us. Our intelligence
take is that this is a primitive version of our own world, one where the dark ages were very dark. The Clan, as they’re called, people with a biologically mediated ability to tunnel through
into our world and back again – we don’t know where they came from, and neither do the prisoners we’ve been able to question. But they exist within a high medieval civilization
along the east coast of North America, former Viking colonies. They’re not Christian: Christianity and Islam are unknown in their world. They’ve been using their access to us to build
up their own power back home.’

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 e-mail. 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 device used in the Davey Crockett. 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 out-ranked him considerably.

‘Thank you. There was an accident subsequently when GREEN-SLEEVES 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 and should be dealt with
accordingly. We’re talking about narcoterrorists on the same scale as the Medellín Cartel, with turnover in the four-to-six-billion-dollar-per-year range, and a membership in excess of
a thousand individuals. 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 career-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. Our NATO partners have already come through and invoked Clause Six of the North Atlantic treaty, meaning that we can count on any necessary assistance. 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 hand-picked 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 fuck 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 yet, 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:
Something must be done, this is something, ergo this must be done.
Mike drove slowly, listening to the radio. There were police checkpoints on roads in and out of D.C.; the tattered remnants
of Congress and the Supreme Court were gathering at an Undisclosed Location to mourn their dead and witness the somber inauguration of the new president. A presidential address to the nation was
scheduled for the evening against a drum-beat of unreassuring negatives leaking from the Pentagon,
This isn’t al-Qaeda, this isn’t the Iranians, this is something new.
The
pro-forma groundswell rumble of rage and fury at yet another unheralded and unannounced cowardly attack on America was gathering momentum. The nation was on the edge of its nerves, terrified and
angry. Continuity of Government legislation was being overhauled, FEMA managers stumbling bleary-eyed to the realization that the job they’d been hired for was now necessary –

At a pay phone in the back of a 7-Eleven, Mike pulled out a calling card and began to dial, keeping a nervous eye on his wristwatch. He listened briefly, then dialed a PIN. ‘
Hello. You
have no new messages.
’

He hung up. ‘Shit,’ he muttered, trudging back towards the front of the shop, trying hard not to think of the implications, not hurrying, not dawdling, but conserving the energy
he’d need to carry him through the next day. He was already two miles away when the first police cruiser pulled up outside with its lights flashing, ten minutes too late: driving slowly, mind
spinning as he tried to come up with a fallback plan that didn’t end with his death.

If only Miriam’s mother had left a message, or Olga the ice princess, he’d have more options open – but they hadn’t, and without a contact number he was out in the cold.
The only lines he could follow led back into an organization answering to a new president who had been in cahoots with the Clan’s worst elements and wanted the evidence buried, or to a news
editor who hadn’t believed him the first time round – and who knew what Steve would think, now that the White House was a smoking ruin?

I blew it,
he thought bleakly.
Dr. James has likely declared me a rogue asset already.
Which was technically correct – as long as one was unaware that James himself was in it
up to his eyeballs. The temptation to simply drive away, to take his papers and find a new life in a small town and forget he’d ever been Mike Fleming, was intense.
But it wouldn’t
work in the long term,
he realized. The emergency administration would bring in the kind of internal ID checks that people used to point to when they wanted to denounce the Soviets.
They’d have to: It wasn’t as if they could keep world-walkers out by ramping up the immigration service.
What can I do?

His options seemed to be narrowing down.
Work within the organization
had gone out the window with that car bomb.
Talk to Iris Beckstein
– about what?
Talk to the
press
– no, that had seemed like a good idea yesterday: funny how rapidly things changed. He could guess what would happen if he fixed up another meeting with Steve Schroeder any time
soon. Steve would try to verify his source, be coopted, spun some line about Mike being a conspirator, and reel him in willingly; and Mike had no tangible evidence to back up his claims.
Try to
turn a coworker
– look how well that had worked for Pete Garfinkle. Pete had confessed misgivings to Mike; shortly thereafter he’d been put in a situation that killed him. Mike had
confessed misgivings to Colonel Smith; shortly thereafter –
join up the dots
. The whole organization was corrupt, from the top down. For all he knew, the bombs – his knuckles
whitened upon the steering wheel – did the new president have big enough balls to deliberately maneuver the Clan into giving him everything he wanted, on a plate? To have helped them get
their hands on the bombs, and then to have provoked them into attacking the United States? Not a crippling attack, but a beheading one, laying the groundwork for a
coup d’état
?