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.Large, boxy superstructures had been added fore and aft."That's an odd one.""Can you read its name?""Give me a moment." Huw glanced around quickly, then pulled out a compact monocular."HMS Burke.Yup, it's the navy." He shoved the scope away quickly as the streetcar rounded a street corner and began to slow."Delta Charlie, please copy." Brill had her radio out."I need a ship class identifying.HMS Burke, Bravo Uniform Romeo—" She finished, waited briefly for a reply, then slid the device away, switching it to silent as the streetcar stopped, swaying slightly as passengers boarded and alighted."Was that entirely safe?""No, but it's a calculated risk.We're right next to the harbor and if anyone's RDFing for spies they'll probably raid the ships' radio rooms first; they don't have pocket-sized transmitters around here.I set Sven up with a copy of the shipping register.He says it's a prison ship.Currently operated by the Directorate of Reeducation.That would be prisons." She frowned."You don't know that it's here for us." Huw glanced at the staircase again as the streetcar began to move."Would you like to bet on it?""No.I think we ought to head back." Huw reached out and took her hand, squeezed it gently.She squeezed back, then pulled it away."I think we ought to make sure nobody's following us first.""You think they might try to pick us up.?""Probably not—this sort of action is best conducted at night—but you can never be sure.I think we should be on guard.Let's head back and tell Helge.It's her call—whether we have to withdraw or not, whether Burgeson can come up with a security cordon for us—but I don't like the smell of that ship." Brilliana and Huw had been away from Miriam's house for almost an hour.Miriam herself had left half an hour afterwards.An observer—like the door-to-door salesman who had importuned the scullery maid to buy his brushes, or the ticket inspector stepping repeatedly on and off the streetcars running up and down the main road and curiously not checking any tickets—would have confirmed the presence of residents, and a lack of activity on their part.Which would be an anomaly, worthy of investigation in its own right: A household of that size would require the regular purchase of provisions, meat and milk and other perishables, for the city's electrical supply was prone to brownouts in the summer heat, rendering household food chillers unreliable.An observer other than the ticket inspector and the salesman might have been puzzled when, shortly before noon, they disappeared into the grounds of a large abandoned house, its windows boarded and its gates barred, three blocks up the street and a block over—but there were no other observers, for Sir Alasdair's men were patrolling the overgrown acre of Miriam's house and garden and keeping an external watch only on the approaches to the front and rear."If you go outside you run an increased risk of attracting attention," Miriam had pointed out, days earlier."Your job is to keep intruders out long enough for us to escape into the doppelganger compound, right?" (Which was fenced in with barbed wire and patrolled by two of Alasdair's men at all times, even though it was little more than a clearing in the back woods near the thin white duke's country retreat.)Sir Alasdair's men were especially not patrolling the city around them.And so they were unaware of the assembly of a battalion of Internal Security troops, of the requisition of a barracks and an adjacent bonded warehouse in Saltonstall, or the arrival on railroad flatcars of a squadron of machine-gun carriers and their blackcoat crew.Lady d'Ost's brief radio call-in from the docks was received by Sven, but although he went in search of Sir Alasdair to give him the news, its significance was not appreciated: Shipping in the marcher kingdoms of the Clan's world was primitive and risky, and the significance of prison ships was not something Sir Alasdair had given much thought to.So when four machine-gun-equipped armored steamers pulled up outside each side of the grounds, along with eight trucks—from which poured over a hundred black-clad IS militia equipped with clubs, riot shields, and shotguns—this came as something of a surprise.Similar surprise was being felt by the maintenance crew at the farm near Framingham, as the Internal Security troops rushed the farmyard and threw tear-gas grenades through the kitchen windows; and in a block of dilapidated-looking shops fronting an immigrant rookery in Irongate—perhaps more there than elsewhere, for Uncle Huan had until this morning had every reason to believe that Citizen Reynolds was his protector—and at various other sites.But the commissioner for internal security had his own idea of what constituted protection, and he'd briefed his troops accordingly."It is essential that all the prisoners be handcuffed and hooded during transport," he'd explained in the briefing room the previous evening."Disorientation and surprise are essential components of this operation—they're tricky characters, and if you don't do this, some of them will escape.You will take them to the designated drop-off sites and hand them over to the Reeducation Department staff for transport to the prison ship.I mentioned escape attempts.The element of surprise is essential; in order to prevent the targets from raising the alarm, if any of them try to escape you should shoot them."Reynolds himself left the briefing satisfied that his enthusiastic and professional team of Polls troops would conduct themselves appropriately.Then he retired to the office of the chief of polis, to share a lunch of cold cuts delivered from the commissary (along with a passable bottle of Chablis—which had somehow bypassed the blockade to end in the polis commissioner's private cellar) and discuss what to do next with the doctor.Huw's first inkling that something was wrong came when the streetcar he and Brilliana were returning on turned the corner at the far end of the high street and came to a jolting stop.He braced against the handrail and looked round."Hey," he began."Get down," Brill hissed.Huw ducked below the level of the railing, into the space she'd just departed.She crouched in the aisle, her bag gaping open, her right hand holding a pistol inside it."Not a stop.""Right." Taking a deep breath, Huw reached inside his coat and pulled out his own weapon."What did you see?" "Barricades and—"He missed the rest of the sentence.It was swallowed up in the familiar hammering roar of a SAW, then the harsh, slow thumping of some kind of heavy machine gun."Shit.Let's bail." He raised his voice, but he could barely hear himself; the guns were firing a couple of blocks away, and he flattened himself against the wooden treads of the streetcar floor.Brill looked at him, white-faced, spread-eagled farther back along the aisle.Then she laid her pistol on the floor and reached into her handbag, pulling out the walkie-talkie.Fumbling slightly, she switched channels."Charlie Delta, Charlie Delta, flash all units, attack in progress on Zulu Foxtrot, repeat, attack in progress on Zulu Foxtrot.Over."The radio crackled, then a voice answered, slow and shocky: "Emil here, please repeat? Over.""Shit." Brill keyed the transmit button: "Emil, get Helge out of there right now! Zulu Foxtrot is under attack.Over and out." She looked at Huw: "Come on, we'd better—"Huw was looking past her shoulder, and so he saw the head of the IS militiaman climbing the steps at the rear of the carriage before Brilliana registered that anything was wrong.Huw raised his pistol and sighted.The steps curled round, and the blackcoat wasn't prepared for trouble; as he turned towards Huw his mouth opened and he began to raise one hand towards the long gun slung across his shoulder.Huw pulled the trigger twice in quick succession."Go!" he shouted at Brill [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]