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off than our own rocky west coast, 'tis. Our dear Mister Clives made his fortune by forcin' the Indian seed into the Chinaman's blood and then—if this is not proof of justice in the world!—he lost his own soul to the addiction. Even an Irish bob like me feels sorry for the wretch."
    After years in India running the East India Company, whose main business consisted of trading India's opium for China Black—-the tea preferred by most Englishmen—Robert Clives developed a monstrous addiction to the potent rot himself. Though God knows, Clives wasn't the only one in the upper ranks of the English caste system to suffer an addiction. Opium did not discriminate between classes.
    Despite very vocal protestations from the London press, Seanessy did not see opium addiction as a problem. Clives and his kind were a case in point. Opium addiction was less of a concern than the drunks cluttering the alleyways, especially as long as the opium addict had access to a cheap steady supply. True, there was no more pathetic sight than a mother trading her starving children's bread for a dram of laudanum, but there were probably ten times more gin babes than opium infants. For the poor masses he'd pick opium over alcohol hands down.
    This was not the issue, however. "So what does our dear friend want?"
    "Help, is what," O'Connell said, explaining. "You see, there's, a new Frenchman."
    "A new Frenchman?"
    'They say his name is the Duke de la Armanac." O'Connell pronounced the French with a flawless accent that spoke of his religious training for the priesthood, training that disappeared the day he met a young girl with blue eyes and laughter even quicker than his own--—Corey, his wife.
    "Armanac..." A memory of a conversation with his brother emerged in Sean's mind and he said, "Ram mentioned the man last June when I was in Malay. He owns title to a fair-sized island in the South China Seas, about fifty miles from the Malacca Straits. Ram was having our agents investigate him--".
    "Aye, the man has come from nowhere. Your agents won't find much. No one knows anything about him but that his family fled France during the bloody purges of their revolution. He bought up a fair portion of the poppy fields in Turkey."
    Sean whistled. "No more potent rot in the world."
    "Aye. And the Chinamen prefer it, there's the problem. The man has a fine fleet of ships to move it into his little island out there. They call it the Isle of Blue Caverns. The lads in the know say it's the new Linton Isle."
    Linton Island was the very center of the opium trade into China. Opium was illegal in China, which suited the opium traders, men like Clives, just fine, as it kept prices outrageously high and opium shipments untaxed.
    "Ah bad enough, but word has surfaced that the duke's been buyin' up sizable chucks of opium for five bloody years, that his little isle is stockpiled high to God's own heaven, and that he means to dump it all on the market soon."
    Seanessy and Kyler exchanged awed stares; Kyler swore softly. This would ruin the honorable company like no apocalypse ever could. The price of opium would drop to the bottom, collapsing the company, and with it, a portion of England's economy.
    "Listen to this, lad. The duke keeps a standing army of two thousand there, and I reason Clives wants a favor from you, a favor that has to do with this opium stockpile and you and your boys' well-known reputation for handling fireworks—"
    A knock sounded at the door. Four men withdrew pistols as they backed into cover, but O’Connell just laughed. "That will be for me. Time's up."
    Seanessy ignored O’Connell, and with pistol in hand, he called out from behind the door, "Yes?"
    "Sir." Charles's whisper came from behind the door. "Horses outside. Redcoats all around. I believe the Prime Minister of England has arrived."
    Seanessy threw open the door. For one brief and fleeting moment he met Charles's impassive gaze with the surprise of his recognition. So, Charles worked