The Port of Le Havre was freezing.
A bitter wind whipped off the English Channel, cutting through my fur-lined coat. It didn't matter. I couldn't feel my toes anyway. Circulation in my legs was another casualty of the "Lazarus" suit.
I sat in my wheelchair at the end of the dock.
Around me, two thousand people were screaming. Not in anger. In hope.
"The Fleet! The Fleet is here!"
They waved tricolor flags. They held up empty baskets and starving children. They had walked miles from the city, driven by the rumor that the Administrator had worked a miracle.
On the horizon, six heavy merchant ships broke through the grey mist.
The Grain Fleet.
"We are saved!" a woman next to me sobbed. She clutched my sleeve. "God bless you, Administrator. God bless the Republic."
I forced a smile. My hand tightened on the handle of my cane.
"Wait for the cargo, Citizeness," I whispered.
The lead ship, The Liberté, drifted toward the pier. It sat high in the water.
Too high.
My stomach dropped. I knew physics. I knew displacement. A ship full of American wheat should be heavy. It should plow through the waves.
The Liberté bobbed like a cork.
The gangplank slammed down. The crowd surged forward, cheering. The dock workers ran up to the hold, ready to unload the sacks of flour that would save Paris.
They threw open the hatches.
Silence.
It rippled through the crowd like a shockwave. The cheering died. The flags lowered.
The hold was empty.
No grain. No flour. Just piles of grey ballast stones to keep the ship upright.
"Where is it?" a docker shouted. "Where is the bread?"
The captain walked down the plank. He looked terrified. He approached my wheelchair, wringing his hat in his hands.
"Citizen Administrator," he stammered. "I... I couldn't stop them."
"Pirates?" I asked. My voice was calm, but inside, I was screaming. "The British Navy?"
"No," the captain said. "Bankers."
He pulled a paper from his coat.
"We were intercepted off the Azores. A cutter flying the Dutch flag. Men in suits, not uniforms. They didn't fire a shot. They offered us 300% of the market price for the cargo."
He looked at the angry crowd.
"My crew... they threatened to mutiny if I refused. We sold the grain at sea, Administrator. They redirected it to London."
I closed my eyes.
It wasn't a blockade. It was a buyout.
James Rothschild wasn't fighting us with cannons. He was fighting us with a checkbook that had no limit. He had just bought the breakfast of ten million Frenchmen and shipped it to our enemies.
"Traitor!" someone screamed.
A rock flew from the crowd. It hit the captain in the forehead. Blood sprayed.
The mob surged. The hope turned to hate in a heartbeat. They didn't want bread anymore. They wanted blood.
"Get back!" Napoleon shouted.
He drew his saber. The Grenadiers formed a line around me, bayonets leveled at the starving people.
"Let them go," I ordered. "Back to the carriage. Now!"
Charles spun my wheelchair around. We raced down the pier, leaving the riot behind us.
The sound of the mob followed us. A roar of betrayal.
I looked at the empty horizon.
We had won the war on land. But we were starving to death in a sea of gold.
The War Room at the Tuileries was warm, but it felt like a tomb.
Napoleon paced the length of the map table. He was vibrating with rage. He looked at the map of the English Channel as if he wanted to burn a hole in it with his eyes.
"We invade," Napoleon said. He slammed his fist down on Dover. "We take the fleet. We ferry the Army of the North across tonight. We burn London to the ground and take the grain back."
"With what ships?" I asked. I poured a glass of water. My hand shook, spilling a few drops. "The British Navy still patrols the Channel. And even if we land... the grain won't be in London."
"Where will it be?"
"Frankfurt. Vienna. Amsterdam," I said. "Rothschild moves assets faster than you move battalions. The moment your boot touches English soil, he will wire the capital to a bank in Prussia. You can't catch money with cavalry, Napoleon."
The door opened.
Talleyrand limped in. Our Foreign Minister. The most corrupt man in Europe, and currently, my only link to the outside world.
He looked pale.
"It is worse than we thought," Talleyrand said. He dropped a stack of letters on the table.
"What is this?"
"Rejections," Talleyrand said. "I tried to buy grain from the Americans. From the Danish. Even from the Turks. They all said the same thing."
He picked up a letter.
"'We cannot accept French Letters of Credit. Your gold is no good here.'"
"A Gold Wall," I whispered.
"Rothschild has threatened every major banking house in Europe," Talleyrand explained. "Anyone who accepts a French Franc will be cut off from the London Exchange. We are radioactive, Alex. We have millions in land assets, but zero liquidity. We are a billionaire who can't buy a sandwich."
"So we starve?" Charles asked.
He was sitting in the corner, sharpening a pencil with a small knife. Scritch. Scritch.
"Murat reports the army has four days of rations left," Napoleon said. "If they don't eat by Friday, they will loot Paris. I can't stop 50,000 hungry men with discipline."
"Then we don't need discipline," Charles said. He didn't look up. "We need arithmetic."
He blew the shavings off the pencil.
"The Church owns 20% of the land. The rural peasantry is hoarding grain to drive up prices. We send the cavalry into the countryside. We liquidate the hoarders. We seize the grain by force."
I looked at my son.
The Wolf Cub.
His logic was perfect. It was also the logic of Robespierre. The logic of the Terror.
"That starts a civil war," I said. "The peasants will rise up. The Vendée will revolt again. We will be fighting our own people while Rothschild laughs in London."
"Better a civil war than a starvation," Charles said. "We can win a civil war. We can't win a famine."
"No," I said.
"You are being sentimental," Charles countered. "You want to save everyone. That is inefficient."
"I am being strategic!" I snapped. "If we turn on the people, we lose our legitimacy. The Republic falls. And then the King returns. Do you want your Uncle Provence to sit on that throne?"
Charles went silent. He hated his uncle. That was the only thing stronger than his love for math.
"So what is the alternative?" Napoleon asked. "We can't buy food. We can't steal food. Do we photosynthesize?"
I looked at the map.
I looked at the coastline of France. Thousands of miles of jagged rocks, hidden coves, and secret inlets.
The White Market was closed. The banks had locked the doors.
But there was another market. A market that didn't care about Rothschild or Credit Scores.
"We go underground," I said.
"Smugglers?" Talleyrand scoffed. "Petty criminals running gin and lace? They can't feed a nation."
"Not petty criminals," I said. "Organized ones."
I looked at Fouché. He had been silent in the shadows, as always.
"Who runs the Paris underground?" I asked.
Fouché smiled. A thin, reptilian smile.
"Jean Chouan," Fouché said. " The Ferryman. He controls the docks at Saint-Malo, the warehouses in Bercy, and half the brothels in the Palais-Royal."
"He's a Royalist," Napoleon spat. "He fought against us in the Vendée."
"He's a mercenary," I corrected. "He hates the Republic, but he loves gold."
I spun my wheelchair around.
"Get the carriage," I ordered. "And civilian clothes. We are going out."
"To where?" Charles asked.
"To the Palais-Royal," I said. "If we can't use the front door of the economy, we're going to break in through the sewer."
"I'm coming with you," Napoleon said, reaching for his sword.
"No," I said. "Soldiers make smugglers nervous. And Generals make them trigger-happy."
I looked at Charles.
"You come. Bring your notebook."
"Why?"
"Because you need to learn," I said. "You know how to count money. Now you need to learn how to wash it."
I looked at Fouché.
"Bring a gun. A quiet one."
The carriage ride was silent.
We left the clean, guarded streets of the Tuileries and descended into the belly of the beast.
The Palais-Royal.
Once the palace of the Duke of Orleans, the Revolution had turned it into the capital of vice. It was a city within a city. A labyrinth of gambling dens, brothels, and opium parlors where the police dared not go.
We stopped in a dark alley. The air smelled of stale wine, urine, and cheap perfume.
Fouché helped me into my wheelchair. Charles stood beside me, his eyes scanning the shadows. He didn't look scared. He looked curious.
"This way," Fouché whispered.
We moved through the crowd. Drunk soldiers, painted women, pickpockets. They looked at my wheelchair with predatory eyes, until they saw Fouché's face. Then they looked away. Everyone knew the Minister of Police. And everyone feared him.
We stopped in front of a heavy wooden door guarded by two men with scars instead of noses. Syphilis or knives? It didn't matter.
"The Ferryman is expecting us," Fouché said.
The guards didn't speak. They opened the door.
We rolled into the smoke.
It was a gambling den. Roulette wheels clicked. Dice rattled. The air was thick with tobacco smoke and desperation.
In the back, sitting on a crate of contraband English gin, was a man.
Jean Chouan.
He was huge. A bear of a man with a beard that looked like a bird's nest. He was missing his left ear. He wore a dirty tricolor sash as a mockery, tied around his thigh.
He was cleaning a pistol.
"Well, well," Chouan boomed. His voice was gravel and glass. "The Administrator. The Wolf Cub. And the Snake."
He pointed the pistol at me. He didn't fire. He just aimed.
"You have balls coming here, Miller. There is a price on your head in London. 50,000 Guineas. I could retire tonight."
I didn't flinch. I couldn't run, so there was no point in being afraid.
"Rothschild pays in paper," I said. "I pay in power."
"Power?" Chouan laughed. He spat on the floor. "You control nothing. The banks have castrated you. You are begging for crumbs."
"I am offering a partnership," I said.
I rolled closer. The pistol was aimed at my chest.
"I need a trade route," I said. "I have millions in French wine and silk. I need to move it out. I need American grain moved in. Bypassing the ports. Bypassing the banks."
"Smuggling," Chouan grinned. "My specialty."
"Logistics," I corrected.
"Why should I help you?" Chouan asked. "I hate your Republic. I hate your Constitution."
"Because if the Republic falls," I said, "the King returns. And the King doesn't need smugglers. He has the Navy."
I leaned forward.
"But the Republic... the Republic is chaotic. The Republic needs men like you. Men who can navigate the grey areas."
I pulled a document from my coat.
"A Letter of Marque," I said. "Signed by me. It makes your ships legal Privateers. It makes your warehouses government-sanctioned bonded zones. It turns you from a criminal into an Admiral."
Chouan looked at the paper. Greed flickered in his eyes. Legitimacy. The one thing a criminal can't steal.
"An Admiral," Chouan mused. "Admiral of the Rats."
He lowered the pistol.
"You make an interesting offer, Miller. But there is one problem."
"What?"
Chouan looked over my shoulder. His eyes widened slightly.
"The man behind you."
I turned.
A man was standing up from a roulette table. He looked ordinary. Brown coat. Boring face.
But his hand was moving. Not a gambler's twitch. A professional's blur.
A knife.
"Rothschild sends his regards," the man said.
He threw it.
I couldn't dodge. The wheelchair was too slow.
I saw the blade spinning. A flash of silver in the smoke.
This was it. Not a battle. Not a debate. Just a knife in a basement.
I braced for the impact.