“Excellent.” Her mother stroked the nape of her neck lightly. “You and me, kid. Together we’ll make this thing work.”
In the end, the coup came down to simple economics. The emergency government had neglected to pay their employees for three weeks; whereas Sir Adam’s party had, if not put a chicken in every pot, at least put a loaf of bread and tripe in dripping on every table that was spread with yesterday’s copy of The Leveler in lieu of a tablecloth. They didn’t have money but they had plenty of guns, and so they’d sent the party militia to seize control of the dockside warehouses. Wherein they found plenty of bulk grain that had been stockpiled for export, and which they lost no time in distributing to the people. It was a short-term gambit, but it paid off: Nothing buys friends in a famine like a temporarily full belly.
The morning of the coup came three days after the Patriot Club withdrew from the emergency assembly. Patriot gangs had taken to the streets of New London, protesting the Levelers’ presence in the debating chamber with paving stones and pry bars. They’d scoured the army barracks, recruiting the wrong kind of soldiers—angry, unpaid young men, their bellies full of looted beer, looking for someone to blame. “We can’t allow this to continue,” Sir Adam had said, his voice tinny over the crackling electrograph conference call. “They’ll cause chaos, and the people will blame us for losing control of the situation. So they must be stopped. Tomorrow morning, I want to see every man we’ve got turned out and ready for action. The Freedom Riders will patrol the streets around Parliament and the government buildings on Grosvenor Street; those of you in charge of departments will go to your offices with your guards and secure them against intrusion.”
“What about the New Party and the other opposition groups?” asked one of the delegates on the line.
“I don’t think we’re going to waste our time worrying about them,” said Sir Adam. “They’re either broadly for us and our program, in which case we will listen to their input before we act—once the emergency is over—or they’re against us, in which case they are part of the problem. The Freedom Riders will bar access to the Commons while we debate and pass the Enabling Act; let them protest once we’ve saved their necks from the noose. I’m more concerned about the Patriot mob. As soon as they work out what’s going on they’ll attempt to storm the citadel, and I want us to be ready for them.”
Which was why, at four o’clock in the morning, instead of being sound asleep in bed, Erasmus was sitting in the passenger cab of a steamer, facing backwards, knee to knee with two strapping militiamen and nose to nose with Supervisor Philips, as it screamed up the broad boulevard fronting the East River at the head of a column of loudly buzzing motorcycle combinations. They were heading for the Propaganda Ministry offices in Bronckborough, to catch them at the tail end of a quiet graveyard shift. For lack of any other distraction, he scrutinized Philips closely; in his long black coat and forage cap he resembled a hungry crow.
“Soon be over, eh, sir?”
Philips’s eyes swiveled sideways, towards the serg- No, underofficer, Erasmus reminded himself—must keep the new ranks straight—underofficer who had spoken. “One expects so, Wolfe, unless anyone tipped a wink to the traitors.”
“Not me, sir!”
Erasmus suppressed his momentary amusement at the man’s discomfort. Someone might have done so, despite the Party’s control over the Post Office and the central electrograph exchanges, and if that was the case they might be heading straight into a field of beaten fire between heavy machine guns. In which case we’ll pay with our lives. But Philips’s reference to the Patriots as traitors—that was interesting. So easily do our names twist and bite us, Erasmus mused cynically.
The ministry offices stood at the crest of a north-south ridgeline at the intersection of two broad boulevards lined with plane trees; with clear fields of fire in all directions and no windows below the third floor, it was a characteristic example of the governmental architectural style that had arrived in the wake of the Black Fist Freedom Guard’s assassination of King George Frederick’s father. The steps fronting the building were guarded, but the railway sidings and loading docks at the back, through which huge rolls of newsprint arrived every evening to print the next day’s edition of the Parliamentary Gazette were another matter. By the time Burgeson’s car drew up beside a gap-doored loading bay, there wasn’t a red shirt in sight: All the guards on duty wore the black pea coats and helmets of the Freedom Riders.
“Ah, good.” Erasmus unwound to his full height as Philips hurried into the warehouse and conferred with his junior officers. “Underofficer Wolfe.”
“Sir?”
“As soon as it’s safe, I intend to go to the minister’s office. I need guards.”
“Yes, sir. Allow me to petition Supervisor Philips?”
Erasmus’s cheek twitched. “Make it fast.”
The second staff car arrived, disgorging a claque of radical journalists and sub-editors handpicked by Erasmus earlier in the week just as Philips strutted over. “Sir, the building appears to be in our hands for now. There was only a skeleton crew on duty, as the Patriots appear to have been shorting the staff to pay their thugs. I can’t guarantee there isn’t an assassin lurking in the minister’s dining room until my men have searched the place top to bottom, but if you’ll let me assign you a guard you can have the run of it.” He grinned beakishly, as if claiming ownership of a particularly juicy piece of roadkill.
“Good.” Erasmus nodded at his editorial staff. “Jonas, Eric, I want you to go to the speaking-room and see that the pulpit is ready for a morning broadcast. I’ll be addressing the nation on Voice of England as soon as we have a program. Milo, get the emergency broadcast filler ready to run. Stephen, coordinate with Milo on developing a schedule of news announcements to run round the clock. I will be on hand to read proclamations and announce emergency decrees as we receive them from Freedom House through the day. Jack, the print floor is yours. Let’s go to work!”
They stormed through the Ministry building like children in a sweet shop, capering around the huge printing presses and the broadcasting pulpits of the king’s own mouthpiece; marveling at the stentorian voice of the state that fate, audacity, and Sir Adam’s brash plan had put at their disposal. “ ’T’s going ter be glorious, sorr,” Stephen confided in Erasmus as they walked the editor’s gallery overlooking the presses that had until recently spun the Gazette, official mouthpiece of John Frederick’s despotic agenda. His eyes gleamed. “All them years hiding type-trays in us basement, an’ it come to this!”
“Enjoy it while you can, Steve.” Burgeson grinned like a skull. “Seize the front page!” They came to the door leading to the third floor landing, and the stairs up to the soundproofed broadcasting pulpits. “You’ll have to excuse me: I’ve got a speech to record for the nine o’clock news, and then I’ll be in the Minister’s office, working up our schedule for the next week.”
“A speech? What’s in it?”
“Just some announcements Sir Adam charged me with making,” Erasmus said blandly. Then he relaxed slightly: No point in not confiding in his new subordinate, after all! “We’re taking the People’s Palace”—the Houses of Parliament, renamed by raucous consensus earlier in the week—“this morning, to pass an Enabling Act. It’ll give the Executive Council the power to rule by decree during the current emergency, and we’ll use it to round up the Patriots as soon as they raise their heads and start belling for our blood. The sooner we can get the opposition to shut up for a while, the faster we’ll be able to set up a rationing system and get food to the people again. And the faster we do that, the sooner we’ll have their undivided support.