Down in the post office in the basement of Fort Lofstrom, two men waited nervously for their superior to arrive. Both of them were young—one was barely out of his teens—and they dressed like law firm clerks or trainee accountants. “Is this for real?” the younger one kept asking, nervously. “I mean, has it really happened? Why does nobody tell us anything? Shit, this sucks!”

“Shut up and wait,” said the elder, leaning against a wall furnished with industrial shelving racks, holding a range of brightly colored plastic boxes labeled by destination. “Haven’t you learned anything?”

“But the meeting! I mean, what’s going on? Have the old guys finally decided to stop us going over—”

“I said, shut the fuck up.” The older courier glared at the kid with all the world-weary cynicism of his twenty-six years. Spots, tufts of straggly beard hair—Sky Father, why do I get to nurse the babies? “Listen, nothing is going to go wrong.”

He nudged the briefcase at his feet. Inside its very expensive aluminium shell was a layer of plastic foam. Inside the plastic foam nestled a bizarrely insectile-looking H&K submachine gun. The kid didn’t need to know that, though. “When the boss man gets here, we do a straight delivery run then lock down the house. You stay with the boss and do what he says. I get the fun job of telling the postmen to drop everything and yelling at the holiday heads to execute their cover plans. Then we arrest anyone who tries to drop by. Get it? The whole thing will be over in forty-eight hours, it’s just a routine security lockdown.”

“Yes, Martijn.” The kid shook his head, puzzled. “But there hasn’t been an extraordinary meeting in my lifetime! And this is an emergency lockdown, isn’t it? Shutting down everything, telling all our people on the other side to go hide, that sucks. What’s going on?”

The courier looked away. Hurry up and get the nonsense out of your system, he thought. “What do you think they’re doing?” he asked.

“It’s obvious: They envy us, don’t they? The old dudes. Staying over, fitting in. You know I’m going back to college in a couple of weeks, did I tell you about the shit my uncle Stani’s been handing out about that? I’ve got a girlfriend and a Miata and a place of my own and he’s giving me shit because he never had that stuff. What do you need to learn reading for if you’ve got scribes? he told me. And you know what? Some of them, if they could stop us going back—”

The door opened, stemming his tirade in full flood. The older courier straightened up; the young one just flushed, his mouth running down in a frightened stammer. “Uh, yessir, uh, going back, uh—”

“Shut up,” Matthias said coldly.

One more squeak and the kid fell silent. Matthias nodded at Martijn, the older one. “You ready?” he asked.

“Yes, my lord.”

“Very well.” Matthias didn’t smile, but some of the tension went out of his shoulders. He wore a leather flying jacket and jeans, with gloves on his hands and a day pack slung over one arm. “Kid. You are going to carry me across. Ready?”

“Uh.” Gulp. “Yessir. Yes. Sir.”

“Hah.” Matthias glanced at the older one. “Go on, then.” He advanced on the youth. “I’m heavier than any load you’re used to. You will need to have your key ready in one hand. When you are ready, speak, and I’ll climb on your back. Try not to break.”

“Yessir!”                                                                             

A minute later they were in another post room. This one was slightly smaller, its shelves less full, and a row of wheeled suitcases were parked on the opposite wall inside an area painted with yellow stripes. The kid collapsed to his knees, gasping for breath while Matthias looked around for the older courier. “Martijn. You have your orders?”

“Yes. My lord.”

“Execute them.”

Matthias removed a briefcase from the rack on one wall then walked toward the exit from the room. He unlocked it then waved Martijn and the younger courier through. Once they were in me elevator to the upper floors, Matthias shut the door—then turned on his heel and headed for the emergency stairs to the garage.

The silver-blue BMW convertible was waiting for him, just as he’d ordered. Finally, Matthias cracked a smile, thin-lipped and humorless. There was barely room for the briefcase in the trunk, and his day pack went on the passenger seat. He fired up the engine as he hit the “door open” button on the dash, accelerating up the ramp and into the daylight beyond.

“Fifteen minutes,” he whispered to himself as he merged with the traffic on the Cambridge turnpike. “Give me fifteen minutes!”

The time passed rapidly. Waiting at an intersection, Matthias pulled out a cheap anonymous mobile phone and speed-dialed a number. It rang three times before the person at the other end answered.

“Who is this?” they asked.

“This is Judas. Listen, I will say this once. The address you want is …” he rattled through the details of the location he’d just left. “Got that?”

“Yes. Who are you and—”

Matthias casually flipped the phone out of the half-open window then accelerated away. Moments later, an eighteen-wheeler reduced it to plastic shrapnel.

“Fuck you very much,” he muttered, a savage joy in his eyes. “You can’t fire me: I quit!”

It wasn’t until he was nearly at the airport with his wallet full of bearer bonds and a briefcase full of Clan secrets that he began to think about what to do next.

A ghastly silence fell across the grand hall as Miriam stepped out of the doorway. She took a deep breath and smiled as brightly as she could. “Don’t mind me!” she said.

“That’s right,” Iris whispered, “mind me, you back-stabbing faux-aristocratic bastards!”

“Mother!” she hissed, keeping a straight face only with considerable effort.

“Oligarchic parasites. Hah.” Louder: “Steer left, if you please, can’t you tell left from right? That’s better. Now, who do I have to bribe to get a glass of Pinot Noir around here?”

Iris’s chatter seemed to break an invisible curtain of suspense. Conversations started up again around the room, and a pair of anxious liveried servants hurried forward, bearing trays with glasses.

Iris hooked a glass of red wine with a slightly wobbly hand and took a suspicious sniff. “It’ll pass,” she declared. “Help yourself while you’re at it,” she told Miriam. “Don’t just stand there like a rabbit in the headlights.”

“Um. Are you sure it’s wise to drink?”

“I’ve always had difficulty coping with my relatives sober. But yes, I take your point.” Iris took a moderate sip. “I won’t let the side down.”

“Okay, Mom.” Miriam took a glass. She looked up just in time to see Kara across the room, looking frightened, standing beside an unfamiliar man in late middle age. “Hmm. Looks like the rats are deserting or something. Olga?”

Beside her and following her gaze, Olga had tensed. “That’s Peffer Hjorth. What’s she doing talking to him, the minx?”

“Peffer Hjorth?”

“The baron’s uncle. Outer family, not a member.”

Iris whistled tunelessly. “Well, well, well. One of yours?” she asked Miriam.

“I thought so.” Miriam took a sip of wine. Her mouth felt bitter, ashy.

“Lady Helge, what a story! Fascinating! And your mother—why, Patricia? It’s been such a long time!”

She looked around, found Iris craning her neck, too. “Turn me, please, Miriam—” Iris was looking up and down: “Mors Hjalmar! Long time indeed. How are you doing?”

The plumpish man with a neatly trimmed beard and hair just covering his collar—like a middle-aged hippy uncomfortably squeezed into a dark suit for a funeral or court appearance—grinned happily. “I’m doing well, Patricia, well!” His expression sank slightly. “I was doing better before this blew up, I think. They mostly ignore me.” He rubbed his left cheek thoughtfully. “Which is no bad thing.” He looked at Olga, askance. “And who do I have the pleasure of meeting?”