The central switching shed fell into a deep, tense silence. It was broken only by the deliberate, brassy beat of the dark wood swinging weight clock on the wall: tick... Tock... Tick... Tock... Five minutes remained before the sixth global day expired into the seventh.
Twenty paired runner teams in oilskin coats stood in two silent ranks along the rail platform, their lanterns turned low behind sheet-iron screens. In the corner of the shed, Bram Ash stood guard over the heavy oak door of the tool locker where Magistrate Pell was detained.
Inside the tool locker, Halden Pell’s voice rose again, high and shrill with frantic desperation. “Len! Bram! In the name of God, let me out! It’s midnight! The double is coming! I can hear it in the chimney pipes! It knows I signed the emergency warrant!”
Pell thrust his pale, trembling hands through the four-inch iron bars of the check wicket. Between his clutching fingers, he shoved crumpled sheets of parchment—country bank certificates, bearer bonds for the northern coal trade ring, and gold drafts drawn on the central treasury in the capital.
“Look at these!” Pell sobbed, his voice cracking into a high whine as he waved the paper through the bars. “Fifty thousand royal sovereigns! Gold-backed notes from the Grand Duke’s exchequer! They’re negotiable at any bank beyond the mountain! Take them, Bram! Take them, Len! Open this lock and let me run with the couriers to the south gate! I can make you both barons of…
