Empire Games Series, Book 1(111)

Olga cleared her throat.

“Oh yes.” Mrs. Burgeson was weaving the shreds of her dignity into a cloak of confidence, collecting herself visibly from second to second. “Of course this has to happen at the worst possible time. Rita, the other thing your bosses need to know is that the First Man, Adam Burroughs, has terminal cancer.”

“So there’s going to be an election soon?” Rita asked. “Or does he have a vice president?”

The evil queen shook her head. “It doesn’t work that way; the Commonwealth is only seventeen years old. They had a revolution, and before that, it was an absolute monarchy—think North Korea, not Disney. The Commonwealth’s constitution is only fifteen years old and it has never been tested by a peaceful transfer of leadership. Adam has been the First Man since the very beginning. In theory, we know what’s supposed to happen and how to do it. In practice…”

“Nobody knows,” Olga said darkly. “Most likely there will be a peaceful transfer of power to the new First Man, or perhaps even a First Woman. But that’s far from certain.”

Mrs. Burgeson picked up the narrative: “The point is, we have weeks—not months—to sort out an agreement that cools everything down. If we don’t get there while the First Man is well enough to sign off on it, everything goes back to square one—only in the middle of a succession crisis. Which is really risky, because war planners love to take advantage of succession crises, never mind the fact that one possible outcome is that our own hard-liners could end up running the show.”

She met Rita’s eyes, and Rita froze. She felt as if the evil queen could see right through her: and for a sickening moment she wondered if she’d fallen into the wrong fairy tale by mistake. “But we’re out of time now—you’d better be going before the Specials arrive with an arrest warrant. If you change your mind, if you want answers—I’ll be here for you.

“Goodbye, Rita.”

PHOENIX, TIME LINE TWO, AUGUST 2020

Another morning.

Kurt Douglas yawned as he shuffled around the kitchen. His feet, back, knees, and hips ached. The kettle on the stovetop was beginning to steam as he added coffee grounds to a filter cone, measuring them carefully. Two and a half precisely heaped spoonfuls was his habit. He had a rigid idea of how best to greet a new day: he would brew his coffee, then he would retreat to the downstairs bathroom to take his morning medication, shave, and read the news on his tablet while he threw off the early morning lassitude.

He’d had a disturbed night’s sleep, as was increasingly normal for him these years. And he rattled around this huge, two-thirds-empty house like a dried pea in a toothless mouth. The sheer distance from bed to bathroom was a nuisance, forcing him to fully awaken when he had to rise in the small hours to deal with his old man’s bladder. If Greta had been around she could have helped him fill the house. But as things stood, he almost resented its size. Franz expected him to keep the place proudly, like a janitor in a palace that his grandchildren would inherit in due course.

Collecting his coffee, he retreated into the comfort of his morning routine. Everything was much the same as any other day, until he came to his e-mail. A letter from Rita! He read it with increasing engagement, looking for the little signs between the written words. So: she had run into a special friend? Or a friend, anyway? One of the girls from back when they’d lived on the East Coast. His brow wrinkled unconsciously. Interesting. Of course Rita knew better than to use e-mail for anything important … What was the girl trying to tell him—oh. Of course.

Kurt did not hurry his routine. But when, half an hour later, he dressed in sweatpants and shirt and sport sandals and walked slowly across to his son’s mailbox, he was unsurprised to find a letter within, addressed by hand to “K. Douglas,” laboriously and in unpracticed capitals. Someone unused to writing longhand; someone young. (Or at least young by Kurt’s standards.)

His pulse quickened, but he refrained from deviating from his routine in any way. He carried the post into Franz and Emily’s house, sorting the other items into two neat piles and placing them on the breakfast bar. Only after the normal delay did he go home, with the envelope concealed under his shirt.

Once inside, Kurt locked the door and shuffled upstairs to the spare bedroom he sometimes used as a study. He drew the curtains, then turned on a portable camping lantern for illumination. He placed it on the small desk beside the letter and a battered paperback and some writing materials. He pulled on a pair of disposable latex gloves, careful not to touch their exterior. Then he sat down and pulled a blanket over his head, forming a tent above desk, lamp, and letter. It was no guarantee that he was free from observation, but unless the observers in question had glued a webcam to his forehead while he slept (one small enough that he had missed it in the bathroom mirror while shaving), it was fairly certain that they had no direct knowledge of the letter’s contents. (Unless it had been opened and scanned and resealed in transit, even though it had been addressed to another—but that way lay madness.)

It was a letter, an old-fashioned handwritten missive directed to him by name. “Dear Mr. Douglas, your granddaughter Rita said I should write to you. I’ve been reading the book you gave her, and I have some questions you might help me with for my comprehension class…”

Kurt suppressed the impulse to nod approvingly. The code words were in place, falling in their assigned word order like pins between a key’s serrated teeth, ready to unlock hidden wisdom. One of the youngsters, a little cub nosing up to the pack leader for advice. He turned to his copy of the book and began to draw the grid for the one-time pad. The questions were a neat block, written painstakingly in a crabbed hand that bespoke focus and paranoia: