"What have you not been telling me?"

Miriam leaned on the back of the visitor's chair in the wood-paneled office, unwilling to sit down or comply with the usual polite rituals of an office visit. For his part, the office's owner looked equally unhappy. Miriam's arrival (accompanied by a squad of personal retainers, including both Brilliana and Sir Alasdair) had clearly disrupted his plans for the day.

"Lots," Riordan snapped. Then he paused to visibly gather his wits. "Please excuse me, this is not a good time…

"It never is." Miriam's stomach churned. Dyspepsia was a constant companion right now, along with weird aches and odd food cravings. And she'd had to ride piggyback on one of her guards to get here, which indignity didn't improve her mood. "I'm talking about the special weapons. I gather there are complications."

Behind her, Brilliana shifted from foot to foot; Riordan leaned back in his chair, steepled his fingers, and stared at her. It was a mannerism blatantly modeled on Angbard's style. The poor bastard's as out of his depth as I am, she realized. We're both aping the absent experts.

"Someone blabbed," he said flatly. "Tell me. I need to know."

"It was-" Brill stopped abruptly at Miriam's look.

"You don't need to answer him," Miriam told her. "Baron." She fixed him with a stare of her own-this one not modeled on anyone, even her mother. "Here are the facts as I know them. Some idiot a generation ago sneaked a couple of our people through an Army or Air Force technical school and got them qualified in the care and handling of special weapons. More recently, someone else, also an idiot, decided that having a brace of special weapons to hand was a good idea; just knowing where to steal them in a hurry wasn't good enough. Angbard trusted Matthias, Matthias had the keys to the kingdom, and when he defected he took at least one of the weapons as a fallback insurance policy. The Family Trade Organization sent it back to us, up near Concord. But it wasn't the only weapon we'd stolen, and they want the others back. So where are they? You know who's supposed to be in charge of them. What's going on?"

Riordan wilted suddenly. "My lady. Please. Have a seat."

"You've lost them, haven't you?"

"Scheisse," murmured Sir Alasdair. "Sorry."

Riordan glanced at her bodyguard, then back at Miriam. "Not… exactly. I'm not in charge of them. The Clan Council entrusted them to someone else."

"Oh." Miriam rolled her eyes. "You're going to tell me that after Angbard's fuck up and in the absence of a track record showing where you stood they didn't see fit to entrust you with them. So they gave them to that fuckup Oliver Hjorth to sit on."

"Oliver's not a fuckup." Riordan's tone was distinctly defensive. "I appreciate that you and he got off to a very bad start, that he's seen fit to align himself with a faction that you have a predisposition against, and all the rest of it. But he is neither stupid or lazy, much less unreliable. Usually."

"Usually."

It hung in the air for a moment, before Riordan replied. "Nobody has seen him for two days."

"Nobody has-" Miriam blinked. "You're kidding. You're Clan Security. You're telling me you've lost track of the official the Council put in charge of half a dozen atom bombs?"

"Milady-" It was Brill.

"What is it?"

"He can't-" Her eyes were pleading.

"Nobody can keep track of every member of the inner families," rumbled Alasdair. "We don't have the manpower." Miriam looked round, to see him watching Riordan. "Nevertheless… something happened, did it not?"

"I was awaiting a report," Riordan said reluctantly, "before calling a meeting of the Committee of Regents. And the full Council, if necessary. It is not just his lordship who is proving hard to contact."

"Who's missing?"

"Oliver, Earl Hjorth. Baron Schwartzwasser. His lordship of Gruen, Baron yen Hjalmar. About half a dozen past and present soldiers of this very office who are absent without leave, two-thirds of the Postal Committee, various others-don't look so shocked; it's a goodly cross section of the conservative faction, but not all of them. I happen to know that Baron Julius is sitting on the bench in the royal assizes today, and when I raised the matter he professed ignorance convincingly. My lady, they might be attending a private party, for all I know. Their political views are not a sufficient reason to condemn them, in the absence of any other evidence."

"But you don't know where the bombs are." Riordan looked pained. Miriam leaned towards him. "And there are rumors," she hissed. "A lot of whispering about revenge and honor. I'm not deaf, I've got ears to hear this stuff with. What do you think is going on?"

Riordan tensed, and she thought for a moment that he was about to reply, but at that moment the door opened. "I said we weren't to be-oh. My lady." He rose to his feet as Miriam turned.

"Helge? What are you doing here?" Olga glanced round angrily as she closed the door. "I see." She focused on the office's owner. "My lord, we need to talk about Plan Blue, right now. Helge, I beg of you, please excuse us-"

"It's too late for that." Riordan frowned. "Helge was just asking me about-about Plan Blue."

"Plan Blue?" Miriam echoed.

Alasdair cleared his throat. "Is that the contingency plan for-" He cleared his throat again, and raised an eyebrow.

"Oh scheisse," said Brill, despair in her voice.

"The bastards have activated it," said Olga, her voice tightly controlled. "And I do not recall being invited to a plenary session to approve such action. Do you? It's unforgivable!"

"Plan Blue?" Miriam repeated.

"Excuse me." Riordan nodded at her. "My apologies, my lady, but I must make a call." He lifted the telephone handset and began to dial, then paused. "That's funny. There's no tone."

"Give that to me." Miriam reached for it. The handset was dead, mocking her. "Urn, you've got a dead line. Could you have been cut off by accident, or is that too improbable?"

"Enemy action," said Sir Alasdair. "My lady, over here." He moved swiftly, gesturing Miriam away from the window and moving to stand where she'd been a moment before.

"Otto Schenck admitted it to, to one of my sources," Olga added as Riordan poked at his desktop computer, a frown spreading on his face. "Boasted, belike, he said they're going to send the enemy their king's head on a plate-"

"It's not going to work," Brill whispered.

"What's not going to work?" Miriam rounded on her tensely. "What are you talking about?"

"Why now?" Brill frowned. "Why are they doing this now?" She looked at Miriam. "It's something to do with your grandmother, my lady. Her visit the other day. That was no coincidence!"

"What do you-"

"We need to get out of here!" Brill raised her voice, piercing and urgent. "Listen, everybody! This is a setup! We need to leave the building right now!"

"Why-" Riordan was standing up.

"She's right, go, now!" Olga grabbed his arm.

"My lady. This way." Alasdair yanked the door open and pulled Miriam along behind him.

"But where are we-" Miriam stopped arguing and concentrated on not stumbling as he powered along the corridor to-wards a fire door. "Alasdair! No!" Visions of claymore mines flashed through her mind as he stopped dead.

"Oh, I don't think so," he assured her with a sharkish grin. "I checked this one before you arrived. Besides, I don't think they want to kill us. Immobilize us and send us a message, perhaps, but they're not going to risk killing the heir." He shoved down on the emergency bar and pushed the door open. In the distance behind them, a tinny siren began to wail. "After me, if you please."