The Revolution Business

Sir Alasdair ducked round the door, then pronounced the area clear. They piled down the fire escape to the car park at the back of the small office building, Brill and Olga trailing behind. "What exactly is Plan Blue?" Miriam demanded breathlessly. "Where's Riordan?"

"He's got other things to do," said Olga. "My lady Brilliana, please take your mistress somewhere safe."

"Where-"

"-Plan Blue?"

"Plan Blue is the usage case for the Clan deterrent," Brill explained as they climbed into Sir Alasdair's Explorer. "A decapitation strike at the enemy."

"Oh Jesus. Tell me that doesn't mean what I think it means."

"I fear I ca

"Olga, what is Riordan doing?"

"He's going to find a phone." She gri

Miriam turned her head to see Riordan round the side of the building, holding a briefcase. He was walking towards them. Olga popped the door.

"Drive," he said, climbing in. "I've got to make a call. Once it co

Brill stared at the case as if it contained a poisonous reptile. "Is this safe?" she asked.

"No." Riordan didn't smile. "You were right about it, Olga."

The truck was already moving as Riordan opened the briefcase. "What's that?" asked Miriam.

"A special phone." Brill pulled a face. "Not safe."

"Indeed." There was a tray in the case, with a cell phone-in several pieces-nested in separate pockets. One of them contained a small, crude-looking circuit board with a diode soldered to it; another contained a compact handset.

"Why did we leave the office?" asked Miriam.

"Can't use this phone while stationary," Riordan grunted. "And the opposition cut our lines. A nuisance measure, I think, but the timing is worrying; I think they were watching you to see if you would take their bait. And you did."

"Bait?" She shook her head, bewildered.

"You came to see me, about Plan Blue. I do not believe that is an accident."

"Bastards," she mumbled under her breath. Louder: "It was your man Carl."

"Thank you," Riordan said gravely. "Alright, I am going to talk to the enemy now." He picked up the handset, flicked a switch on the small circuit board, and poked at the exposed keypad of the vivisected phone. "Dialing…" The sound of a ringing phone filled the truck's cab, coming from a speaker in the briefcase.

"Hello?" The voice answering the phone was cold.

"I was told that you can send a message to the White House," said Riordan. "Is that correct?"

Miriam's skin crawled as she waited for the reply.

"Correct," the voice said drily. "To whom am I speaking?"

"You can call me the Chief of Security."

"And you may call me Dr. James. Are you calling to surrender?"

"No, I'm calling to warn you that your meddling has produced an overreaction from our conservative faction. They've activated a plan which-fuck."

The line had gone dead; simultaneously, the LED on the circuit board had lit up, burning red.

"They did it," Brill said, fascinated. "The bastards." Her actual word, in hochsprache, was considerably stronger.

"Next drive-through, please," Riordan called to Sir Alasdair. "I am afraid you are right, milady."

"What was that?" Miriam asked, staring at the LED. "Something one of our artificers put in to replace the ten grams of C4 wired across the earpiece," said Olga. "Is it not an ingenious little assassination weapon?"

"But we"-Miriam stared in horror-"we were going to warn them!"

"Maybe they don't want warning?" Sir Alasdair commented.

"But we-" Miriam stopped. "We've got to do something! Do you know where the bombs are?"

"No," said Olga.

"That's the whole point of Plan Blue," Riordan added. "It's a procedure for deployment. Nobody knows everything about it; for example, I don't know the precise target locations. It was designed so that it can't be disrupted if the commanders are captured, or if one of the bomb emplacement teams is captured."

"But that's insane! Isn't there any way of stopping it?"

"Normally, yes, if the chain of command was operating. But someone appears to have decided to cut us out of the loop. I fear we are facing a coup assisted by people inside Security, my lady. I have some calls to make…"

"We can warn them," said Olga, causing at least three people to ask, "how?" simultaneously.

"Your friend, Mr. Fleming," she added, glancing sidelong at Miriam. "He is inside their security apparat."

"So was that, that man. On the phone." Miriam stared at Riordan, who was busily unplugging components in the briefcase and fiddling with something that looked alarmingly like a pyrotechnic flare.

"Yes, but Fleming will know how to bypass him," Brill said thoughtfully. "He will know how to escalate a bomb threat and sound a general alert. His superior may be playing insane games, but I believe he is still trustworthy."

The Explorer turned a corner. "Stopping in a minute," called Sir Alasdair. "Are you ready?"

"Yes," said Riordan, depressing a button on the flare and closing the briefcase. He latched it shut, then spun the combination wheels. "We have two minutes until we require a fire extinguisher."

"You won't need them." Alasdair was already slowing, his turn signal flashing. "Okay, go." The car park outside a 7-Eleven was deserted.

Riordan popped the door, lowered the briefcase, and then kicked it away from the truck. "Go yourself," he said. He was already opening another mobile phone, this one reassuringly unmodified. "Duty chief? This is the major. I have some orders for you. The day codes are-"

Miriam rubbed her temples. "Anyone got a cell phone?" she asked.

"I have," said Olga. "Why?"

"Unless you can't live without it, I want to call Mike."

"But we can-"

"I said I want to call Mike!" Miriam snarled. "When I've spoken to him you can put me back in my padded box to gestate while you get down to finding those fucking bombs and arresting or shooting whoever stole them, but I should be the one who talks to Mike."

"Why-“

"Because I'm the only one of us he's got any reason to trust," she said bleakly, "and I'm afraid I'm going to burn him."

The clinic room could have been a bedroom in a chain hotel, if not for the row of sockets on the wall behind the bed-piping in oxygen, vacuum, and other, less common utilities-and for the cardiac monitor on a stand beside it, spreading leads like creepers to each of the occupant's withered branchlike limbs. Outside the sealed window unit, the late afternoon sunshine parched the manicured strip of grass that bordered this side of the clinic; beyond it, a thin rind of trees dappled the discreet brick wall with green shadows.

The man in the bed dozed lightly. He'd been awake earlier in the day, shaking in frustration as the speech therapist tried to coax words out of his larynx, and the effort-followed by an hour with the physiotherapist, working on the muscles in his damaged left arm, and then a light lunch served by a care assistant who carefully spooned each mouthful into his mouth-had tired him out. He'd been in his late sixties even before the stroke, his stamina reduced and his aches more noticeable with every morning. Since the stroke, things had only gotten worse. Afternoon naps, which he'd once disdained as suitable only for kindergartners, had become a regular daily fixture for him.

Something-a small movement, or an out-of-place noise-brought him to consciousness, though he could not say why. Perhaps the shadow of a bird fluttering before the window glass disturbed him, or footsteps in the corridor outside: In any case, his eyelids flickered open, staring at the ceiling overhead. "Urrr." He closed his mouth, which had fallen open as he slept, and reached for the bed's motor controller with his left hand. His eyes twitched from side to side, sca