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new office blocks behind the administrative complex, by night the Nest was mostly empty. Farnsworth slipped past the bar and stood next to a booth at the back with his coat collar turned up against the chill from the sea and his hat pulled down close to his ears. “You won’t fool nay-one like that,” said a familiar voice. “You look like you’re trying to hide and they’ll pay attendance on ye when the police come asking. And now what time have you?”
    Farnsworth shook himself. “I’m sorry, but my pocket oyster’s broken,” he said in a robotic tone of voice.
    “Then ye’ll just have to tell me what time it says?”
    He hauled out his watch and flipped it open. “Ten to nine.”
    “Jolly good.” With a sigh and a rustle his welcomer moved aside to let him into the cubicle. Farnsworth sat down gratefully. “I’ve taken the liberty of ordering your pint already.” He was a plump, slightly shabby man whom Farnsworth knew only as Jack. Farnsworth had studiously suppressed any instinct to dig deeper. Jack wore a dark suit, shiny at the elbows, and a red silk cravat that although clean was clearly in need of ironing. Beside him sat another fellow, unknown to Farnsworth: a long-faced man in early middle age, but with a consumptive pallor about him and a face that seemed to chronicle more insults than any one life should bear. Farnsworth removed his hat and scarf and placed them fastidiously on one of the hooks screwed to the upper rail of the booth. “Have you anything to report?”
    “For whose ears?” Farnsworth picked up his glass. A full one sat untouched before Mr. Long-Face, which seemed an unconscionable waste of a good pint of porter to him. “No offense.”
    “This is, um, Rudolf,” said Jack. “He’s from Head Office. You remember what we spoke about earlier.”
    “Ah, yes.” Farnsworth shuffled uneasily in his seat. Head Office covered a multitude of sins, most of them capital offenses in the eyes of the Homeland Security Bureau. Far more subversive than any bomb-throwing wild-eyed democrat or fly-by-night unlicensed desktop publisher spreading lies and slanders about her royal highness’s enthusiasm for tight-breeched household cavalry officers
    … but the exchange of passwords had gone smoothly. Jack hadn’t used the bail out challenge. Which meant this was official.
    “Nothing new. His majesty is trying to keep a placid face but is mightily exercised over the continental despotism. They’ve exploded a corpuscular weapon months ahead of what our spies said was possible. Sir Roderick is dusting under chairs and tables in search of a mouse hole, as if his head depends upon it-and indeed it might, if Douglass is of a mind to hold him responsible. There is the usual ongoing crisis over precedence in the royal bedchamber, and My Lady Frazier is vexed to speak of creating a new post of-well, perhaps this is of no interest? In any case, Douglass is exercised, too. He seems much gloomier than normal, and muttered something about fearing war was making virtue of necessity, and we must ensure the French use of the new weapons-corpses, he calls them, a vile contraction-is subjected to prior restraint by a mutual terror of annihilation.” With this, Farnsworth reached into an inner pocket of his jacket and produced a small envelope. He slid it across the table. “Usual drill.”
    Jack passed it to the stranger. It vanished immediately, and at once Farnsworth felt a load off his shoulders. He sighed and drained half his pint.
    Jack smiled sardonically. “Pass the noose is what we called this game in Camp Frederick.”
    The stranger, Rudolf, blinked his rheumy eyes, expressionless. “We require more detailed economic information,” he said, in an unexpectedly educated accent. “The V1 and V2 treasury indicators, any information you can obtain about the prevalence of adulterants in the royal mint’s stock, confiscations of bullion, the rate of default of debt secured against closed bodies