The Merchant’s War полностью

"You sound awfully sure of that. Would you like to place a little wager on it? Either way? The last joint on your left little linger, against mine?"

She grinned as she said it: he turned white. "No, no," he mumbled. "It'd be just my luck if-look, he was deliberately trying to throw his tail, that's what Joseph said! And the business with them changing trains? I had Oskar and Georg waiting at the station but Burgeson and his companion weren't on it when it pulled in."

"Morgan. Morgan." Brill smiled again. The way it made Morgan wince was truly wonderful. On the other hand, he probably thought she was reporting direct to the thin white duke. "I already know that you're undermanned and don't have enough pairs of boots on the ground. And you've lost your forward base, due to enemy action, not negligence." At least, not active negligence. Nobody could accuse Morgan of spontaneous activity- he might be stupid, but at least he possessed the mitigating quality of bone-deep laziness. His sins were seldom those of commission. "So why are you trying so hard to convince me it's not your fault? Anyone would think you were trying to hide something! Whereas if it's just Burgeson giving you the slip..." She shrugged.

"It's embarrassing, that's what it is." He squinted at her suspiciously. "And I know what you think of me."

You do? Really? The temptation to tell him the truth was hard to resist, but she managed to restrain herself. Utter. "The shop. You've checked the door alarm, haven't you?"

"I've had it staked out since the train departed." Morgan looked pleased with himself.

"Right. Team in the street? A wire and transmitter on the door?" He nodded. "You know there's a secret back way in? And you know about Helge's experience with trip wires?" His smile slipped. "Here's what's going to happen. Oskar and I are going to disguise ourselves then cross over via the backup transfer site. While we are checking the shop out-and I expect our birds have flown the coop, long since-you'll finish your lunch then send a messenger across to cable the railway ticket office asking if they have any reservations in the name of, let's see, a Mr. and Mrs. Burgeson would spring to mind? That is the alias they were using at the hotel? And if so, I want to know where they're going, and where the train stops en route, so I can meet them before they get to the final destination." Brill had allowed her voice to grow quieter, so that Morgan was unconsciously leaning towards her as she finished the sentence.

"But if they're on a train-they could be on their way to Buenos Aires, or anywhere!"

"So what? The organization bizjet is on standby for me at Logan." She stood up. "I'll be back in two hours, and I expect a detailed report on the surveillance operation and Burgeson's current location, so I can set up the intercept and work out who to draft in." She took a deep breath. "We'd better be in time. And you'd better lind out where they're going, because if we lose her again, the duke will be really pissed."

The council of war took place in a conference room in the Boston Sheraton, just off the Hyatt Center, with air-conditioning and full audio-visual support. All but two of the eighteen attendees were male, and all wore dark, conservatively cut business suits: they were polite but distant in their dealings with the hotel staff. The facilities manager who oversaw their refreshments and lunch buffet got the distinct impression that they were foreign bankers, perhaps a delegation from a very starchy Swiss institution. Or maybe they were a committee of cemetery managers. It hardly mattered, though. They were clearly the best kind of customer-quiet, undemanding, dignified, and utterly unlikely to make a mess or start any fights.

"Helmut. An update on the opposition's current disposition, if you please," said the graying, distinguished-looking fellow seated at the head of the table. "Are there any indications of a change in their operational deployments?"

"Yes, your grace." Helmut-a stocky fellow in his mid-thirties with an odd pudding-bowl haircut, stood up and opened his laptop. His suit jacket flexed around muscled shoulders: he obviously worked out between meetings. "I have prepared a brief presentation to show the geographical distribution of targets..."

The video projector flickered on, showing a map of the eastern seaboard as far inland as the Appalachians, gridded out in uneven regions that bore little resemblance to state boundaries. Odd names dotted the map, vaguely Germanic, as one might expect from a Swiss lending institution. Helmut recited a list of targets and names, clicking the laptop's track pad periodically to advance through a time series of transactions. It was curiously bloodless, especially once he began discussing the losses.