Free An Inch of Ashes by David Wingrove

not expect me in your bed, Prince Yuan. Not tonight. Or any other night.’
    His laughter was harsh; a bitter, broken sound; the antithesis of laughter.
    ‘So be it.’
    He turned and stormed from the room, slamming the door behind him as he went, his departing footsteps echoing, unrelenting, on the marble tiles.
    DeVore was pressed up against the wall, Gesell’s knife at his throat.
    ‘Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you.’
    DeVore stared back at Gesell, a vague, almost lazy sense of distaste in his eyes.
    ‘Because I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
    ‘You lying bastard. You killed those two men. You must have. You were the only one outside the central committee who knew what they were doing. Only you knew how crucial they were to our plans.’
    There was a movement behind Gesell.
    ‘Not the only one...’
    Gesell turned. Mach had come in silently. He stood there, watching them. Ascher went across, confronting him, her anger, if anything, more pronounced than Gesell’s.
    ‘I say we kill him. He’s betrayed us. Spat on us.’
    Mach shook his head. ‘He’s done nothing. Let him go.’
    ‘No!’
Gesell twisted DeVore’s collar tighter. ‘Emily’s right. We can’t trust him after this.’
    Mach pushed past the woman. ‘For the gods’ sakes, let him go, Bent. Don’t you understand?
I
killed them.’
    Gesell laughed uncertainly.
‘You?’
    Mach took the knife from Gesell’s hand and sheathed it, then removed his hand from DeVore’s collar. Only then did he turn and look at DeVore, inclining his head slightly.
    ‘I apologize,
Shih
Turner. You must excuse my brother. He was not to know.’
    ‘Of course,’ DeVore stretched his neck slightly, loosening the muscles there.
    Gesell rounded on Mach. ‘Well? What the hell’s been happening?’
    ‘I’m sorry, Bent. I had no time to warn you. Besides, I wasn’t sure. Not until I’d checked.’
    ‘Sure of what?’
    ‘They were Security. Both of them. They must have been sleepers. Records show they left Security five years back – a year before they joined us.’
    A slight tightening about DeVore’s eyes was the only sign that he was interested, but none of the others in the room noticed it, or the way he rubbed at his wrist, as if relieving an itch there; they were watching Mach, horrified by this new development.
    ‘Security...’ Gesell hissed through his teeth. ‘Gods...’
    ‘There are others, too. Three more. In two separate cells.’
    ‘You made checks?’
    Mach nodded. ‘I’m keeping tags on them. They’ll hear what happened. I want to see what they’ll do. Whether they’ll sit tight or run. If they run I want them. Alive, if possible. I want to find out what they’re up to.’
    Ascher was shaking her head. ‘It doesn’t make sense. If they had their men inside our organization, why didn’t they act over Helmstadt?’
    Mach glanced at DeVore, conscious of how much he was giving away simply by talking in front of him, but he’d had no choice. If Gesell had killed DeVore, they’d have been back to square one. Or worse: they might have found themselves in a tit-for-tat war with DeVore’s lieutenants. It was almost certain that the man had given orders to that effect before he’d come here at Gesell’s summons.
    He turned, facing Ascher. ‘I thought of that. But that’s how it works sometimes. They’re ordered to sit tight until the thing’s big enough and ripe enough to be taken. They obviously thought that Helmstadt was worth sacrificing.’
    ‘Or that you wouldn’t succeed...’ DeVore said.
    Mach looked at him. ‘Maybe...’
    The three men had been an advance squad; trained technicians. Their job had been to locate the communications nerve-centres surrounding Bremen. It was a delicate, sensitive job; one upon which the success or failure of the whole attack depended. The idea was for them to place special devices at these
loci
– devices that the regular maintenance crews would think were innocuous