Clan Corporate by Charles Stross Read Free Book Online Page A

back of the buildings that presented such a fine stone front to the highway.
    Rudolf picked his way past a rusting fire escape and leaned on a wooden doorway next to a patch of wall streaked with dank slime from a leaky down-pipe. The door opened silently. He ducked inside, then closed and bolted it. The darkness in the cellar was broken only by a faint skylight. Now moving faster, Rudolf crossed over to another door and rapped on it thrice. A second later the inner door opened. “Ah, it’s you.”
    “It’s me,” Rudolf agreed. The sullen-faced man put away his pistol, looking relieved. “Coat,” Rudolf snapped, shedding his outer garment. “Hat.” The new garments were of much better cut than those that he’d removed, suitable for an operagoer of modest means-a ministry clerk, perhaps, or a legal secretary-and as he pulled them on “Rudolf” forced himself to straighten up, put a spring in his step and a spark in his eye. “Time to be off, I think. See you later.”
    He left by way of a staircase and a dim hallway, an electrical night-light guiding his footsteps. Finally, “Rudolf” let himself out through the front door, which was itself unlocked. The coat and hat he’d arrived in would be vanishing into the belly of the furnace that heated the law firm’s offices by day. In a few minutes there’d be nothing to connect him to the man from the royal household other than a tenuous chain of hearsay-not that it would stop the Homeland Security Bureau’s hounds, but with every broken link the chain would become harder to follow.
    The main road out front was brightly lit by fizzing gas stands; cabs rumbled up and down it, boilers hissing as their drivers trawled for trade among the late-night crowds who dotted the sidewalk outside cafes and fashionable eating houses. The music hall along the street was emptying out, and knots of men and women stood around chattering raucously or singing the latest ditties from memory-with varying degrees of success, for the bars were awash with genever and scrumpy, and the entertainment was not noted for genteel restraint.
    Overhead, the neon lights blinked like the promise of a new century, bright blandishments of commerce and a ticker of news running around the outside of the theater’s awning. “Rudolf” stepped off the curb, avoided a cab, and made his way across to the far side of the street. The rumble of an airship’s engines echoed off the roadstone paving from overhead, a reminder of the royal presence a few miles away. “Rudolf” forced himself to focus as he walked purposefully along the sidewalk, avoiding the merrymakers and occasional vagrant. Dear friends, he thought; the faces of multitudes. He glanced around, a frisson of fear running up his spine. I hope we’re in time.
    Passing a penny to a red-cheeked lad yelling the lead from tomorrow’s early edition, “Rudolf” took a copy of The Times and scanned the headlines as he walked. Nader Reasserts Afghan Claim. Nothing good could ever come from that part of the world, he reflected; especially Shah Nader’s thirst for black gold he could sell to the king’s navy via the oiling base at Jask. Saboteurs Apprehended in Breasil. All part and parcel of the big picture. Crown Prince James Visits Santa Cruz made it sound like a grand tour of the nation rather than a desperate hope that the Pacific warmth would do something to ease the child’s ailment. “Rudolf” turned a corner into a narrower street. Prussian Ambassador Slights French Envoy at Gala Opening: now that didn’t sound very clever, did it? As the joke put it, when the French diplomat said “Frog” the Germanys all croaked in chorus. Murdock Suit: Malcolm Denies Slur. All the best barristers arguing the big libel case on a pro bono basis-a faint smile came to the thin man’s face as he read the leading paragraph, squinting under the thin glare of the lamps. Then he folded the paper beneath his arm, palming something between the pages, and