Revolution Business by Charles Stross Read Free Book Online

They didn't roll like a foundering ship beneath the weight of armor, either; and they especially didn't come with passengers like Dr. James, whose specialty was distinctly nonmedical.
    Dr. Andrew James scared the crap out of Mike Fleming, with his Ph.D. from Harvard and the flag pin that had lately replaced the tiny crucifix on his lapel. Gaunt and skinny and utterly dedicated, James attended to the ills of the body politic with all the care you could expect of an apprentice engineer of human souls; and if an amputation was required, he could get a consent form any time he liked, signed by the office of the vice president. And he didn't waste time. "How's your leg?" he asked as the ambulance moved off.
    "Still bad, but I can get about indoors. Last time I asked they said I'd be able to get the cast off in another five weeks, be back to normal in three or four months." Why is he asking me this stuff? Mike stared at him sidelong. It's not as if he can't pull my medical records any time he wants…
    "Not good enough." James frowned, his lips forming a bloodless crease. "There's a change of plan."
    Shit. Mike shivered under the thin thermal blanket the "paramedics" had draped over him. He could see what was coming next, like a freight locomotive glimpsed in the side window of his crossing-stalled car. He's cutting around the chain of command. Which means I'm in trouble. James was political, and even in the flattened wartime hierarchy of the Family Trade Organization he was several levels above Mike. If he was descending from on high to give Mike orders in person, it meant that either Mike's boss, Colonel Smith, was on the out-or that Mike was being snipped out of the org chart. Spoiled goods, a deniable asset, disposable on demand. "What do you want me to do?" he asked, keeping his face as still as possible.
    The ambulance turned a corner and began to accelerate, swaying from side to side as it shoved across two lanes of traffic. "We've made a breakthrough in the past week, and it's led us to review our existing programs." James was looking at him, but not meeting his eyes. "You speak the bad guys' language, much as anyone does. We need you as an interpreter."
    "But-"Mike shook his head, confused. "What about the negotiations?" Miriam's crazy mother and her sidekick, the blond sniper who looked like a Russian princess: They were supposed to be making contact, negotiating over the stolen nuke. "Don't you want-"
    "Son, don't be naïve." Dr. James smiled, and this time he looked Mike in the eyes. Mike tried not to shiver; he'd seen a warmer smile on the face of the pet alligator he'd once tripped over in a drug dealer's pad. "The missing gadget has been retrieved so the negotiations are over. We don't need them anymore. Our job is now to hit these people so hard they won't ever be able to mess with the USA again." The ambulance bounced hard across a pothole and Mike's stomach lurched as he felt it accelerate down a steep gradient. "I don't think your contacts will be back, but if they are, it's kill-or-capture time."
    "The phone?…" Colonel Smith had given him an untraceable mobile phone to pass on to the ice princess if the Clan wanted to negotiate.
    "It's a Kidon special." Made by Mossad's-the Israeli secret service's-assassination cell. "It works fine, but there's ten grams of CS in the earpiece. If one of them tries to call us, that's one less bad guy to worry about."
    "Oh." For a moment a vision of Olga's blond head flashed through Mike's mind, bloodied and slack-jawed. He bit down on his reaction: That's assassination! Quiet terror made him swallow, queasy. "If that's the way you're playing it." (You're a cop, he's a spook. You knew these things happened. So why's he telling you now?) "You said you want an interpreter, but you're not talking to the Clan. So what's going on?"
    "There's been a breakthrough." Dr. James leaned back against the side of the ambulance, his death's head grin fading. "Pretty soon we're not going to