by Glenn Cooper
Will ignored her. “Greg, my man! You made it!”
Before Greg could answer, Will saw someone standing behind him. He tensed. Then he saw her.
Nancy stepped into the clear and ran to him, dropping to her knees and kissing him.
“Who the hell’s there?” Cacia called out angrily. “Tell me! I’m going t’ shoot!”
Caught between a woman with a gun and a wife who’d been far from his mind, Will was momentarily lost for words.
“It’s okay, Cacia. It’s Greg and my wife.”
“Let me through,” Cacia said.
He climbed into the hangar and let Cacia come up behind him.
Nancy looked like she wanted to pounce on Cacia’s weapon but Will talked her down.
“Nancy, take it easy,” he said. “Let’s go see Phillip, all right? We need to have a good talk about things.” Then he addressed Greg. “Jesus, Greg, I told you not to tell Nancy. I mean I’m happy to see you Nancy, but I didn’t want any complications. This is complicated enough.”
“The FBI doesn’t know, Will,” she said. “I’m here on my own. And Greg didn’t tell me. I found out.”
Will was bewildered. He turned to Cacia, staring at her shaking gun hand. “It’s not exactly what I promised you but it doesn’t change anything. Nancy can help. She’ll help us make our case.” He looked out into the black night. “Let’s go back down the stairs quick and get to work before someone see us. Someone launched an assault. Someone’s already trying to take the Library away from you.”
“Who?” Cacia asked. “Who was it? The British government?”
“No,” Nancy said. “The British Army fought them off. It was the Chinese.”
“The Chinese?” Will said, stringing together a bunch of epithets. “How the hell did they get involved?”
“I don’t know,” Nancy said, “but I’m sure a lot of people are scrambling like crazy for the answer.”
Will turned to Cacia and begged her to put the gun away. She shook her head sadly and started down the stairs, saying, “Come on then, but there’ll be hell t’ pay when Daniel finds out. Last one down’s got t’ close th’ hatch.”
As they descended underground and entered the storeroom, Will took Nancy’s hand and squeezed it hard.
“Is Phillip okay?” she whispered.
“He’s fine,” he said. “If I were alone, I’d have risked busting out of here. But with him . . .”
“Thank God you didn’t,” she said. “What is this place?”
“There’s so much to tell you. Let’s just start with Phillip.”
Greg was already taking pictures of the stocked shelves of the storeroom with his NetPen. Cacia saw the flashes and was about to protest when Will said, “He needs to take photos, Cacia. It’s part of the plan, remember?”
She kept quiet and proceeded to the far end of the room.
“Who is she?” Nancy whispered.
“The mother of the girl who persuaded Phillip to come here.”
“She seems to do everything you say,” Nancy said.
Will chose his words carefully. “I’ve gotten her to understand our interests are aligned.”
Nancy smiled at that. “I’m sure you have.”
They entered the dormitory.
Greg seemed to understand the purpose of the cots because he immediately began to shoot pictures of them.
“Good,” Will said. “Get a wide shot of them.”
Nancy understood too. “Christ, Will, you’re not saying this is an active operation, are you?”
“It is. Completely active.”
“Where are they?” Greg asked.
“Close by. You’ll see them soon.”
There was a glow coming from the top of the partitioned room. Nancy seemed to sense her son was there because she ran ahead of Will and despite Cacia’s protests, flung open the door.
Before he got there, Will heard, “Mom!” then he heard Nancy crying with relief and anger at the sight of her son, dirty and chained to a bed.
Will, Greg, and Cacia joined them in the small room.
“Undo his handcuff!” Nancy demanded. She was sitting beside the boy, hugging him. For his part, Phillip seemed embarrassed but happy to see her.
“Was that the FBI doing all the shooting up there?” Phillip asked.
“No, sweetheart,” she said. “I’m here as a civilian.”
Phillip saw Greg behind his parents. “Uncle Greg?”
“Hey, Phillip,” Greg said. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
Nancy repeated her demand that Phillip be unchained and Will gently made the same plea. “We’re beyond that now, Cacia. Undo his cuff.”
As Cacia knelt to unlock the handcuff another voice said, “What about me?”
Annie had been virtually invisible during the reunion but Nancy saw her in the corner bunk and asked, “Who the hell are you?”
“Annie Locke, with the Security Services. I’m very pleased to meet you, Assistant Director. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Nancy looked at her, then Cacia and smirked at both attractive women. “You’ve had a lot of help, haven’t you, Will?”
Will nodded sheepishly. “Annie, if Cacia frees you up, will you promise not to run off or make trouble?”
Annie pointed to her leg wounds. “I don’t think I’ll be sprinting away. I promise.”
Cacia sighed and unlocked her too.
“Thank you, Cacia,” Will said. “Now we’ve got to get Greg into the Library for pictures. You feeling like a journalist again, Greg?” Will asked.
“I’ve always been a journalist,” Greg said.
“Sorry. Didn’t come out right,” Will said. “But this is going to be a helluva story, and it’s going to be yours to tell. And let me promise you something. When it’s time to write a book about this, it’s going to be you writing it, not me.”
Greg looked at the ground avoiding eye contact and nodded.
Just then, they all heard a young man calling out, “Ma? You down here?” and Andrew came into the room. He was brandishing a shotgun. He looked around with a look of high confusion and alarm, turned tail, and ran away with Cacia calling after him to come back.
“Mr. President, I have Prime Minister Hastings on the line.”
Midnight was approaching in Washington. President Dumont was in the White House Situation Room, casually dressed, surrounded by his National Security team. He thanked the operator and when he heard the click of her signing off, threw the call onto the speaker, and said, “Martin, we’ve been monitoring the attack in Yorkshire and your response. What can you tell me?”
The Prime Minister was clearly stressed, his voice a quarter of an octave higher than usual. “I was going to call you in a few minutes, John. Just sorting through all this with my Defense staff. But I can say unequivocally that all the intruders were killed. One of their commandos was given the opportunity of surrendering but he shot himself.”
“My folks are telling me it was the Forty-second GA out of Guangzhou,” the President said. “It’s their best special ops unit, like your SAS and our Seals. Apparently they call themselves the Sharp Sword of Southern China.”
“Well, we have absolutely no idea why China would take this historic and unprecedented step, an act of war aimed at a bloody farm in Cumbria, for God’s sake! I’ve got the Chinese ambassador waiting for me downstairs, and he’d better have an explanation! The area is remote and the immediate environs were cordoned off due to an ongoing police action involving hostages but the media are starting to get wind of it and we don’t think we can keep a ring around it for very long. The British public will demand a harsh response.”
The President shook his head at his staff and rolled his eyes. “Martin, you’re not going to be declaring war on China, for Christ’s sake. We’ve got to pursue this through diplomatic channels.”
“It’s well and good for you to say that, Mr. President,” the Prime Minister said, getting formal, “but if the shoe were on the other foo
t, imagine how the American public would react. Let me repeat, this was an act of war!” One of Hastings’s advisors must have urged him to tone it down because he immediately followed up with, “Look, John. The first thing we need to do is find out what in God’s name their intent was. Then we can calibrate our response.”
The President rocked back on his padded swivel chair. “Well, Martin. We might be able to help you with that. We know exactly what the Chinese want with that farm of yours.”
Daniel and Kheelan barreled into the small room with fire in their eyes, waving their weapons and shouting.
Will raised his hands, and said, “Easy, Daniel. Everything’s all right. This is my son-in-law, Greg, and my wife, Nancy. They’re here to help you. Believe me.”
“Don’t you tell me t’ go easy, mister!” Daniel bellowed. “We’ve got a war going on outside and we’ve got people coming into my home like it was a public way. Are you behind this, Cacia?”
She nodded, but replied steadily, “You’ve got t’ listen t’ Will, Daniel. We can’t survive this on our own. Not now.”
“You women’ll be the death of me!” he shouted. “You and Haven’ve brought ruin upon us.”
“It was meant t’ happen,” she said firmly. “You know that better than anyone. The names of all th’ men who died out there this evening—all of them are written in one of th’ books.”
When Daniel’s face softened with sadness, Kheelan took up the cudgel.
“Let’s not forget that we’re holding th’ good cards, Danny,” he said. “We’ve got hostages, and now we’ve got two more. They’re not gonna fuck with us while we’ve got hostages.”
Will jumped in. “Hostages are meaningless. You’re meaningless. The stakes are too high. We’re all just flies who’re going to be swatted away. I hate saying this in front of my family but unless we take control of this situation we’re either going to be dead—which isn’t something we can change—or we’re going to be locked away in some damn hole so we can’t tell the world what’s been happening here.”
“If hostages were meaningless, the police would’ve knocked our doors down already,” Kheelan spat.
Will shook his head. “The game’s changed, friend. Where’ve you been the last hour? Who do you think attacked the farm?”
“Haven’t a clue,” Kheelan said. “But they were foreigners. I personally sent a couple of them to hell.”
“Yeah, they were foreigners, all right,” Will said. “They were Chinese.”
“You’re joking,” Daniel said. “That’s daft.”
“My husband’s telling you the truth,” Nancy said. “They were Chinese special forces.”
Kheelan let the weight of his shotgun point the barrel toward the floor. “I saw their faces. They were Chinese.”
“I don’t know how they knew you have a Library,” Will said, “but they do. And my guess is they don’t want the British or the Americans to have it. They want it. If they’d gotten in here we all would’ve been killed or wounded. And the same thing’s going to happen if the Americans come or the British. We’re expendable.”
“And my lads?” Cacia asked. “What about them?”
Will could tell she was talking about the writers, not her sons.
“They’ll want them,” he said. “If only to study them like lab rats. You’ve got books going out hundreds of years. I’m not sure they’ll much care about continued production.”
Cacia’s lower lip trembled. “Daniel and Kheelan, listen t’ me good. Will Piper’s a good man. I trust him t’ do the right thing by us. Let ’im tell you ’is plan.”
Kheelan began swearing again but Daniel cut him off. “Let the man talk, Kheelan.”
Will laid it all out. He told them how with Greg’s help back in 2010, he’d defeated the US government’s attempt to destroy him by publicly revealing the existence of the Vectis Library.
“We neutralized them by bringing it out into the light of day. We defanged them, made them harmless. We’ve got to do the same thing with your Library. Let Greg take photos of the Library and the writers. Give him a tour and let him write the story of his life and put it out tonight on one of his NetZines. It’ll spread like wildfire. The whole world will know about it within the hour.”
“Then what?” Daniel asked.
“Then we talk to the police, the army, whoever they put out there to negotiate with us,” Will said. “We give them your demands: You get a seat at the table deciding where the Library’s going to go because it can’t stay here anymore. If you want to look after the writers in the future, you’re going to have to demand it, Cacia. You’re going to want immunity from prosecution.”
Annie couldn’t keep silent. She pointed at Kheelan. “I’m sorry, but this man killed one of our agents in cold blood and seriously wounded another.”
“Kheelan will have to answer for that,” Will said. “There’s no getting around it, Daniel.”
Daniel grunted and avoided looking at his brother. “All right. I’ve heard your proposal. We’re going t’ go off and discuss this as a family, like we always do. We’ll be back with our decision, but until then, we can’t have ya with the run of th’ place. You and you,” he said pointing at Greg and Nancy. “Empty out your pockets. Cacia, fetch more handcuffs and get everyone locked down again.”
His wife started to object, but he pleaded with her, “For th’ love of God, woman, would you please just mind me this one time?”
Nancy went first, presenting her passport, FBI credentials, a government-issue NetPen. Then Kheelan patted her down under Will’s icy stare.
Greg was next. He seemed uneasy and fumbled through his pockets for his gear, slowly producing a NetPen, a wallet, a notepad, and some pens. “That’s it,” he declared.
Kheelan frisked him and was about to step away when he exclaimed, “What’s this?” He thrust his hand into Greg’s right pants pocket and came out with an olive green cylinder, two inches shorter than his NetPen.
“I forgot about that,” Greg said. “It’s my other NetPen, the one I use for work.”
“Is it now?” Daniel asked.
Nancy interrupted the sudden silence. “I don’t think so, Greg. I think we’ve got a problem.”
Will was taken aback. “Nancy, what are you saying?”
“Let me take a look at that,” she said to Kheelan. “I’ve got a feeling I know what it is and I don’t think any of us are going to like it.”
Daniel made Kheelan hand it to her.
She inspected it, and said, “I’ve seen these in training videos. They’re personalized by fingerprint and heavily encrypted. Greg, I want you to push on the button with your thumb.”
He hesitated, but Daniel pointed his gun and forced him to do it.
The polymer screen unfurled and brightly lit up. A man’s face appeared on the screen, wearing a military cap.
He called out Greg’s name and began speaking rapidly in Chinese.
Chapter 27
Greg collapsed onto his haunches like an exhausted fugitive who’d been hounded and finally cornered.
Will’s mouth started to open, forming the first of a litany of questions, while Kheelan grabbed the mobile device from Nancy’s hand, threw it down, and angrily smashed it with the butt of his shotgun. He did the same to Nancy’s NetPen and dispersed the electronic bits with his boot.
“There’s nothing to discuss now, is there, Daniel?” Kheelan said. “We’re not going t’ make ourselves known t’ offcomers. We’re not negotiating with th’ police. We’re going t’ defend our land and our lives. Come on, let’s lock these bastards up and get back t’ our places lest we get overrun without putting up a good fight.”
Two more cots were dragged into the isolation room to accommodate Nancy and Greg. Reshackled, the prisoners were left on their own.
Greg was uncommunicative, sullen, avoiding everyone’s glances. Nancy spoke about him in the third person as if he wasn’t there.
“The postcards came from him, Will.�
�
Will and Phillip both asked, “Why?” simultaneously.
“He’s going to have to tell us,” Nancy said, “but we’ve got CCTV images of him making deposits in the right post office boxes in Manhattan on the right days. He’s one of the few people in the world outside of the Area 51 crowd who’ve had the database pass through his hands. Every federal department, including your favorite guys, Will, the watchers, have been scrubbed for leaks. It’s not coming from inside. It’s him. He’s been a suspect for a couple of days. I kept it to myself, went to his apartment, followed him to the airport. I didn’t want to believe it.”
“He’s got opportunity—maybe,” Will said. “What about motive?”
Nancy stared at him, “Well, Greg?”
They all stared, waiting for him to give an account of himself but he stayed mute, glancing at them furtively then looking away, until Will finally said, “Here’s the deal, Greg. You need to come clean with us. We’re your family. We haven’t always been on the same page and if I’ve been to blame, I apologize, but I’m scared as hell about Phillip and we’ve got to maximize his chances of getting out of this. So I’m appealing to you. What’s your role in this? What do the Chinese want?”
Greg began talking in a monotone, keeping his eyes on the floor. He wasn’t explicit about motivations but Will could easily enough fill in the blanks on that: chronic disappointments, a career overshadowed by his wife’s, financial woes, unfulfilled aspirations. He’d been approached by a man who worked in the Chinese delegation at the United Nations. The guy was friendly, interested in his Web site for Chinese-Americans. He said the Chinese government was keen on positive cultural exchanges and wanted to help improve his circulation and outreach, help with articles about China. He offered money, envelopes of cash, modest amounts at first, saying that discretion was important. That’s how it started. He got friendly with the man—lunches, dinners, clubbing. Will imagined Greg would have been susceptible to expensive food and wine, maybe some escorts thrown into the mix. Finally, the big ask came. The US database from Area 51. Had he managed to retain a copy? If so, the Chinese government might pay him handsomely.
