by Greg Curtis
“We do an end run around the information. We change the world. If he knows where Diogenes has a repository we move the repository. If his records show that a nephilim has a particular gift and has used it, we change the official records to show that it didn't happen. If he has a name we change the name. If he has the details of a document we change the document. If he has records of Diogenes covering something up we change the official records to show that his records are false. We dance.”
Of course it wouldn't be easy. This was no minor thing he was suggesting. It was a major project that would require all their effort. Which was a pity when it would simply have been so much easier to simply steal the information from him. Truthfully Garrick would have preferred to do that, preferably with a little violence thrown in. But that was the price you had to pay for working with the Choir. Or for being born a nephilim.
Cassie stood there for a while, staring at him but in reality he suspected she was looking right through him. She was thinking. Trying to work out if what he was saying could work. If it could be accepted. He guessed it would be some time before she had an answer. But that was all right. As long as she was thinking about it she hadn't said no. That meant there was some hope. It was a while before she spoke again.
“You would not have called me if there wasn't something you needed.”
“Of course.” Cassie was sharp, but then he'd expected her to be and he'd prepared for her questions. That one in particular. “To do this we're going to need two things. The first is time and I'll provide that. I can keep Benedict running, rob him little by little of his aliases and his escape routes. As long as he's trapped and vulnerable he can't use the information. But I won't harm him in any way and neither will the others. His fate will rest in his hands and the hands of the normals.” Garrick had to agree to that since he was acting as an agent of the Choir. They would never agree otherwise.
“But the other thing we need only you can provide. We need to know exactly what information he has. We need his passwords to his various databases. We need to know what's in his safe deposit boxes. What he's stashed with confidants. We won't change the information – you can check on that – but we need to know what it is. And while some of us have gifts that can help with that, we will still need the Choir's help. Or rather Diogenes will. They will have to be the ones to do most of the heavy lifting.”
It seemed only fair that the Choir should provide it too – at least to Garrick. After all, the reason they couldn't act directly against Benedict was because of the Choir. If not for them everything would have been so much simpler. Besides, all of the information the thief now had was due to the Choir's deal. He still didn't completely understand why they were talking to Diogenes. Why they were teaching them all their secrets. Giving them knowledge that they could never allow Diogenes to pass on. But perhaps that was simply hurt feelings talking? Maybe it was simply that he didn't understand why they weren't sharing that knowledge with their own children when they would with Diogenes. Either way it didn't matter. They needed the Choir's help and it was owed.
“Once we gave you that knowledge what would stop you from simply destroying it?”
That was a question that Garrick had expected. And it was the biggest problem with his plan. Trust. Three groups with three distinct views of right and wrong and three ideas as to what should be done. But there was an answer.
“First for the nephilim, you fairly much control us. We can't really do anything you don't want. You know that. And with Diogenes they do have free will, but they've also had a deal with you for thousands of years, and to date you've been happy with the way they've honoured their side of it. It's time to make another deal with them. They will honour their side of it as long as they see it working out.” Of course he still had to run his idea past them and he doubted they'd like it any more than the Choir. This wasn't a good solution. It was just the only one they had.
“I will speak with the others.” And with that Cassie was gone and Garrick was left sitting there in his sitting room, wondering what else to do. For the moment though there was actually nothing.
He had come up with a plan – a bizarre one and one that would require a lot of work. Unnecessary work in his view. It would be so much easier to simply take the information from the thief and then just hand him over to the authorities for punishment. But he couldn't do that since he had no idea where the information was. Only the Choir had that knowledge. Which left them with their deal. A deal that no one would be happy with. But at least it was something they could do instead of just sitting around waiting for the axe to fall. And at the very least it would limit the damage.
Meanwhile he needed to pack. Though he had come back to his home for the night because he'd felt the need to know the familiar again, he couldn’t stay. Not until Benedict was behind bars. It wasn't just because of the media scrum at his front gate. It was because the thief was going to try and kill him again. And if he was at home, Benedict would know where to find him. Why make it easy for him?
So he had only a few more hours of peace before he had to move. Before Maricia came to collect him and drive him back to Olmstead. There he would have to start arranging the meetings with the leaders of Diogenes, and explain his plan. He only wished he could drive there, but without a working ankle to operate the peddles, his truck would remain firmly stuck in the front driveway.
Until then he decided the best thing he could do was have a shower. Maybe do a little scratching with the knitting needles he'd stolen from Patricia's office. Then he would pack a bag and put the coffee on and wait for his ride. He would have preferred beer, but given that Cassie was probably watching that didn't seem like a wise choice. Cassie wouldn't approve. And the last thing he wanted was to become a teetotaller just then. Besides, she had to be convinced of his plan. If she even suspected there had been alcohol involved in its creation it would count against him.
Garrick headed for the bathroom, being careful to avoid being seen from the outside. Most of the media had vanished, but they'd left a couple of cars behind just in case he returned – which was why he'd snuck in the back way in the middle of the night and then been careful not to turn the lights on. It was just a pity that he couldn’t leave the same way, because he knew the cameras were going to start flashing the instant he stepped out of his front door.
Chapter Nineteen
Maricia sat at her desk and waited for her team to report in as they went about their work. She was a little nervous, but lately that had become a way of life for her. How could it be anything else as day after day her computer people were working away cracking official databases and changing records, and night after night her field agents would be breaking into secure facilities and changing the physical copies of those same records? There were just so many things that could go wrong. Despite all their careful plans and skills anything could happen. And all she could do was sit at her desk with her phone and wait for the news from her team.
Still, Diogenes was prepared for this. In fact they were probably better prepared than any other agency on Earth. In many ways this was no different to their normal activities. They did after all spend a lot of their time covering up the misadventures of the nephilim. That meant that changing records in both computers and cabinets was something they were very experienced at.
The main difference here was that there were so many to change in a very short time. And that far too many of the records they were changing were their own. And they weren't records. They were the treasures they guarded. That last one rankled as the Americans would say. The lack of sleep was one thing, and they could cope with it. But damaging the most precious documents in the world was something else entirely. People were upset.
At least she had some peace during the long days and nights spent underground.
The Spanish repository was quiet again for the most part, but then the majority of the move had been completed. Most of the ancient documents had been moved off site, and the catacombs sealed up. If anyone
searched them, they would find only solid stone where once there had been doorways and stairs, despite what Benedict's record showed. What was left was only the upper level where maybe a dozen archivists were busy modifying the necessary documents to show that Benedict's copies were hoaxes. A few obvious forgeries were also being fabricated to match Benedict's records exactly.
Meanwhile, Maricia felt conflicted. She was happy to be back in Spain. This had been her home for the past decade or so, and since she knew the country she knew what needed to be done and how to do it. And it was also a relief to finally have a way of dodging Benedict's axe. But parts of what they were doing tore at her heart. The repository was a treasure. It contained scrolls that had survived the great fire of Alexandria. This place breathed ancient. More than that, it contained knowledge that had been lost as far as the world knew, but which in reality had been preserved for thousands of years in the hope that one day it would be able to be revealed. To tamper with what was contained within was sacrilege. It was like burning down your family home. Or your church.
The others felt the same. She knew that. And so too did the Choir she hoped. Although possibly they didn't truly understand what Diogenes was sacrificing. Angels didn't have the same attachment to the past that people did. Why would they? For them this wasn't ancient history. Many of them had lived through those times. So for them it was just a part of their lives.
They weren't human. Garrick had said it, quite a few times. Others had too. But she had never really been convinced. There was a temptation to believe that because they looked human the angels were human. At least sort of. That they had human values and emotions. But they weren't human. They weren't even close to human. Perhaps that was the reason that when some of them bedded human women the result was so tragic? The humans got to see a little more of what an angel truly was, and they simply couldn't handle it. She guessed in another week or so when she was back in America she would have to tell Garrick he'd been right to say it. She hated that. Even if she was looking forward to seeing him again.
“You do know this is insane. It's desecration!”
William muttered his annoyance under his breath as he worked on a nearby bench, carefully destroying a document. Well, not actually destroying it, just damaging it sufficiently in the parts that needed to be damaged to obscure the details about the Choir that Benedict's records showed were there. The acid he was using to dab away the critical parts of the parchment had been specifically designed for the task. It was one that would leave the document looking exactly as if this was centuries old damage caused by time and poor storage. Which in turn would mean that Benedict's digital copy of the document would be labelled a forgery.
“It's genius, but verging on madness,” Maricia agreed.
Garrick's plan was an anathema to her. Here they were, setting about damaging priceless artefacts. Ruining some of their most ancient scrolls. And all so that they didn't match the copies of the documents the thief had. It would have been so much better to destroy Benedict's records. So much quicker and easier too. But the Choir would not stand for that and they were the ones in charge of the operation. That was the deal. Nothing could be allowed to interfere with Benedict's free will. If he decided to expose the documents and bring about the possible destruction of the nephilim and Diogenes, then so be it. He had to be permitted. The Choir would not interfere. They would not allow the nephilim to interfere. And now their millennia old agreement with Diogenes was being leveraged to make certain they didn't interfere either.
For the first time in her life Maricia was beginning to understand a little of how the nephilim felt, chafed as they were by the Choir's rules.
“But at least we have full records of what they said. And original copies of most of them.”
That was their only saving grace in this nightmare. Many of the ancient scrolls had been transcribed multiple times, so they had other originals. They only had to damage the single scroll that Armando Benedict had a copy of. And then of course arrange for it to be stored safely in a repository that was already being emptied out.
When the time came that the information was released and the authorities came marching in, everything would be perfect. Instead of a true repository, the authorities would find a specialist archivist's workshop where the altered parchments, scrolls and tablets Benedict had listed were slowly being authenticated and restored. And those ancient records would match exactly what Benedict's records showed – except for the parts that couldn't be revealed to the world. And when those discrepancies were checked out it would be made clear that they had never existed. It would look exactly as though Benedict had been busy altering the records to match his wild tales. Finding documents with holes in them and then filling those holes with whatever imaginative tripe he could think of as he set about his master plan. Because, thanks to their peoples' skills as archivists, they could destroy as convincingly as they could restore. Benedict would end up looking like a con man – which of course he was.
Meanwhile most of what they had was being moved. New repositories were being prepared to hold the artefacts and until they were ready the old ones Benedict hadn't discovered were being filled beyond their normal capacity. It was lucky he hadn't had complete knowledge of their organisation.
As for the databases, another team of specialists were working on them. It was lucky they had so many people gifted with computers. But that was only to be expected. Every member of Diogenes had to study both archival science and information technology. Half their staff had doctorates, and many of them were loaned out to various institutions around the world to work on various historical finds. That was how they made their money after all. Documenting, authenticating and restoring antiquities.
But not presently though. Every member of Diogenes had been recalled to help with the crisis. They had to be. It was a massive undertaking.
Where their agents had acted to cover up an event and Benedict had some record of what they'd done, the official databases were being altered and false records were being put in their place. Ones that proved they couldn't have covered anything up. It was amazing how much work there was to do. Benedict had been very thorough and their security had not been up to the challenge.
The incident her team was currently working on was one that had happened in Madrid in 2004, when a young nephilim with the gift of aura had released his talent in front of witnesses. There had been thirteen witnesses and several officers who had taken their statements, all of which Diogenes had then altered so that it looked like a street performer having a laugh. But Benedict had records of the alterations they had made, reports from their agents, and details. So now they were having to fabricate new records which completely discredited the ones he had. In this case it was mainly providing new and false travel records showing that the agents he claimed had been busy evidence tampering had in fact been in another city at the time. If and when the authorities checked they would find proof that Benedict's evidence was in fact a hoax. Yet another fraud.
By the time they were finished the thief would look like what he was; a fraudster. There was a certain irony in the situation.
“You forget that it is not the written words that matter. It is the message.”
Borien spoke up from where she was silently observing them. That was the other part of the deal that had had to be agreed to: An angel would accompany each record that they borrowed from Benedict's cache, to see that it was returned unaltered, whether it was physical or digital.
It was strange having her there. Maricia was used to having members of the Choir around. They visited often enough and there was actually something uplifting about their presence. But there was a vast difference between having them visit occasionally, and having them there constantly. Watching them. Studying them. Checking up on them. Making sure that they carried out their part of the deal precisely. For Maricia the lack of trust hurt.
“There is a value in the very antiquity of these documents too. Not just in what they say, but in what
they are. The handiwork of the scribes who copied them. The detail of their writing. The manufacture of the parchment or papyrus. These aren't just records, they're works of great craftsmanship. And there are so few of them left. They are precious even for that alone,” Maricia answered her.
“Why?”
Maricia sighed. “It's a human thing.” The angel didn't understand and Maricia knew that she would never be able to explain it to her.
“Any thought as to how much more of this we still have to do?”
That was what really mattered. Maricia had no doubt that given enough time they could do everything they needed to. They could render Benedict's plans completely harmless. But in the end it all came down to time.
“My brothers and sisters say we are half way done.”
“Thank you.”
Maricia was always polite with the Choir. It seemed the right thing to be. But having walked among the nephilim for some weeks and seeing how they chafed under the Choir's restrictions she now understood a little of why they weren't always so respectful.
