"Charles Stross - Merchant princes 02 - The Hidden Family" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stross Charles)

start a land war in Asia. Yes, I know. The problem is, trouble came looking for
me. Say, isn't there a coffee shop in the food court, around the corner from the
gift shop?"

"I think I could be persuadedтАФif you tell me what's going on."

Miriam followed her mother's wheelchair along the echoing corridor, dodging the
odd family group. It took them a few minutes, but finally Miriam got them both
sorted out with drinks and a seat at a table well away from anyone else. "It was
the shoe box," Miriam confessed. Iris had given her a shoe box full of items
relating to her enigmatic birth-mother, found stabbed in a park nearly a third
of a century ago. After all those years gathering dust in the attic the locket
still worked, dumping Miriam into a world drastically

unlike her own. "If you hadn't given it to me, they wouldn't be staking out your
house."

"Who do you think they are?"

Miriam swallowed. "They call themselves the Clan. There are six families in the
Clan, and they're like this." She knotted her fingers together, tugged
experimentally. "Turns out I'm, uh, well, how to put this? I'm not a Jewish
princess. I'm aтАФ"

"She was important," Iris interrupted. "Some kind of blue blood, right? Miriam,
what does the Clan do that's so secret you can't talk but so important they need
you alive?"
"They'reтАФ" Miriam stopped. "If I told you, they might kill you."

Iris raised an eyebrow. "I think you know better than that," she said quietly.

"ButтАФ"

"Stop trying to overprotect me!" Iris waved her attempted justification away.
"You always hated it when I patronized you. So what is this, return-the-favor
week? You're still alive, so you have something on them, if I know you. So it
follows that you can look after your old mother, right? Doesn't it?"

"It's not that simple." Miriam looked at her mother and sighed. "If I knew you'd
be safe ..."

"Shut up and listen, girl." Miriam shut up abruptly and stared at her. Iris was
watching her with a peculiar intensity. "You are by damn going to tell me
everything. Especially who's after you, so that I know who to watch for. Because
anyone who tries to get at you through me is going to get a very nasty surprise
indeed, love." For a moment, Iris's eyes were icy-cold, as harsh as the assassin
in the orangery at midnight, two days before. Then they softened. "You're all
I've got left," she said quietly. "Humor your old ma, please? It's been a long
time since anything interesting happened to meтАФ interesting in the sense of the
Chinese proverb, anyway."