The Fuller Memorandum l-4

by Charles Stross

  Warrant Officer Howe puts his carbine down and glances back at the seven other members of his half-size troop: “We’re ready, sir.” His unspoken question—ready for what?—hangs in the air, but he’s been working with Barnes for long enough that he doesn’t need to say it aloud.

  “Angleton’s coming up,” says the major. “So look sharp.”

  The door opens and Angleton steps inside the truck. He smiles, cadaverous. “Ah, gentlemen. I wish I could say it was good to see you again; we really need to stop meeting like this.” That gets a chuckle from Sergeant Spice. Angleton walks forward towards Major Barnes’s area, his head bowed to avoid the overhead equipment racks. “We’re very close,” he says quietly. “I can smell it.”

  Barnes knows better than to roll his eyes. Dealing with the spooks often involves playing nursemaid—to a particularly paranoid witchfindergeneral, in this case. “If you could just tell the driver where to go, sir?”

  “Certainly.” Angleton squeezes past the back of Barnes’s chair, and slides into the front passenger seat.

  The driver glances at him sidelong. “Sir?”

  “Kill the blues, then pull out. I want you to drive up the high street slowly. I’ll tell you when to pull over.”

  The truck lurches heavily off the curb, bouncing on its suspension as the driver pulls it through a U-turn—just missing being T-boned by an oblivious minivan driver, her mobile glued to her ear. It rumbles back towards the Richmond Road intersection.

  Angleton’s nostrils flare. “Keep going.” He peers through the windscreen, searching. The driver tries to ignore his hands—he’s fiddling with something small that seems to bend the light around it. “Slow down, it’s just ahead. On our right. There—no, keep going. That was it. That building . . . it’s in the library.” He swears under his breath, words of painful power that make the driver wince.

  “You want us to raid a public library?” Major Barnes is incredulous. “What are we looking for, an overdue book?”

  “In a manner of speaking.” Angleton sounds weary. “Gentlemen, I believe we may have been led on a wild-goose chase. I am tracking a missing classified document. I was expecting it to lead us to a nest of cultists, but it seems they’ve learned how to use a photocopier and this”—his over-the-shoulder wave conveys world-weary regret—“is their idea of a joke. Unfortunately the document in question is classified, and we can’t ignore it. We can’t ignore the possibility of an ambush, either, but at least it ought to be easy enough to evacuate. Alan, would you mind contacting the local fire control? I think a snap inspection of the library sprinkler system ought to get our feet under the table.”

  Barnes nods, wordlessly, and starts to call the fire-control room on one of the other handsets. In the back, Warrant Officer Howe nods at his men: “Strip.” The HAZMAT suits come off, to reveal regular Fire Brigade overalls underneath. “Okay, as soon as we get the go-ahead ...”

  Angleton waits tensely in the front passenger seat, fidgeting with something small and dark. Nobody is watching him. But an observer might think, from his behavior, that he’s worried they’re too late.

  WHILE ANGLETON AND THE OCCULUS TEAM ARE GETTING READY to raid a public library in search of a missing document, Mo is midway through her second glass of lemonade in a wine bar with the man who would be Panin, and I am phasing in and out of consciousness, in airless darkness and pain, in the boot of a speeding car.

  Regrets: I have them.

  For instance, I never wrote to my MP to express my displeasure at the widespread deployment of sleeping policemen around the capital. It never occurred to me to do so: Mo and I don’t own a car, and speed bumps are a rarely sighted problem in our world. But right now I am learning to hate the things with a livid passion usually reserved for broken software installers and lying politicians. My abductors appear to be incapable of slowing for obstructions, and every time we bounce over a speed cushion or crunch down off a raised speed table or swerve through a chicane I take the full force of it on my right arm. That goatfucking cannibal cultist arsehole Julian packed me in the boot damaged side down; I don’t have the strength, the room, or the leverage to turn myself over. I swear, when I get out of this thing I’m going to run for mayor, and the first item on my manifesto will be to order the transport planners to scrape the fucking things off every road in London with their tongues. Second item on the agenda: making it legal to shoot any cultists seen in the city after sundown with a bow and arrow. Sort of like that bylaw York has, the one about Welshmen. Or was it Scotsmen? Where was I—

  Oh. I blacked out again. This is bad. My wrist feels damp . . . think I’m bleeding again.

  They got my phone. I don’t have a ward. If I’m lucky Mo or Angleton got my messages and they know I’m in trouble. (If Angleton finds my phone I’ll be in trouble. How much trouble? How much do you think—running classified software on an unauthorized system?) How long will it take them to figure out I’m missing? What time is it, anyway? How long have the Goatfuckers had me? Hey, why am I scrunching up—

  Fuck. I hate roundabouts.

  When I’m mayor of London I’m going to require all cars to have transparent boot lids, on pain of—on pain of pain. So what if you can’t leave your shopping in the car while it’s parked? Fuck ’em, why won’t they think of the kidnap victims? Oof. That was a bad one.

  Where are they . . . where are they taking me?

  To see the mummy. Dust from the mummy’s tomb, ha-ha. A line of bandage-wrapped can-can dancers high-kick in the gallery of dreams. Brotherhood of the Black Pharaoh: how strange . . .

  Whoa. We’ve stopped. Engine running—traffic lights, damn it. Maybe that means we’re on a main road? Pull yourself together, Bob: Observe, Orient, Decide, Act, rinse, spin, repeat . . .

  I’m facing forward, arms handcuffed behind my back. If there’s an emergency child latch in here, it’ll be behind me. Chance of grabbing it: effectively nil, might be a different story if my right arm wasn’t fucked. Inventory of useful shiny occult tools: zero. Inventory of weapons: zero, unless you count my head. Give ’em head-butt . . .

  Ow, fuck. Speed bump, traffic planners, red-hot pincers, you know the drill. It’s stiflingly hot and noisy in here, and it smells bad. They won’t get my blood out of the carpet in a hurry, hah! Forensics’ll have a field day if ... if ...

  Oh. For a moment there I was hanging on that pole, staring out across the gray wasteland towards a distant pyramid. There’s an eye in the pyramid, but it’s sleeping. I’m terrified that it’s going to open and see me . . .

  They’re taking me somewhere specific. When they get there and open the boot of this car, I’ll be in the open for a while. That’s when I’m going to have to make my run. Won’t get a second chance. Observe, Orient, Decide . . .

  Boris sent me on a course on evasion and escape a couple of years back, after the mess on Saint Martin. Said it might come in handy sometime—I thought it was only going to be useful for keeping out of Human Resources’ sights, but you never know. Trouble is, ninety-nine percent of the game lies in not getting caught in the first place. Once the bad guys get their claws into you everything gets a lot harder.

  Harder. How desperate am I to escape? Depends. Because I’m not totally without resources; I’ve still got my head. Yes, but if I start down that road I won’t have it for much longer. I’m an experienced computational demonologist; I can program zombies, plan the perfect Pet Shop Boys album . . . but running code in your head, that’s a one-way ticket to Krantzberg syndrome. It’s like the Queen, and her magical power over Parliament; she can veto any law she likes, but it’s a card she gets to play once. Am I willing to risk a one-way trip to the secure wing at St. Hilda’s?

  Hell, yes—if the alternative is to be the center of attention at a cannibal cultist dinner party.

  Ah. Lost it again. Roundabouts—I feel really sick. The smell in here isn’t helping; need to concentrate on not throwing up. What procedures do I know that are simple enough to iterate in my head and
effective enough to—

  We’re slowing. Too soon. Shit.

  It’s hard to deal the imaginary tarot cards when you’re being thrown about the boot of a car that’s braking hard, then turning. The road noises under me change to a crunching of gravel, which goes on interminably. Then there’s a long stationary pause. Just as I’m about certain that we’ve arrived, the car starts moving again, bouncing slowly across more gravel. It goes on and on—if this is a stately home or a public estate it’s huge. But after a brief eternity, we turn through a tight circle and then stop. The engine dies, and in the quiet I hear the ping of cooling metal. Then footsteps.

  Fresh air blasts across my back as the boot lid swings open. The interior light comes on, showing me gray carpet centimeters from my nose. “Is he—”

  “Yes. Get his legs.”

  I tense, ready to kick, but they’re too fast for me. They slide something—feels like a belt—around my ankles and I can’t pull them apart. Someone else pulls a canvas bag, smelling faintly of decaying vegetables, over my head. Then too many hands grab me and lift, and drop, with predictable consequences.

  When I surface in the sea of pain, I find I’m lying on my left side—a small mercy. I’m not sure what I’m lying on: it feels like a trolley, or possibly a stretcher. It’s cold and smells of disinfectant and it’s rolling over a hard, smooth surface. I can’t see: my arm is a monstrous, distracting wall of ache, I’m still handcuffed, and now they’ve hooded me and pinioned my ankles. So much for making a run for it. They’re obviously taking me somewhere indoors—

  Indoors?

  Something tells me that, yes, we are indoors now. Maybe it’s the lack of fresh air, or the echoes, or the ground beneath this trolley’s wheels. We must be nearly there. I distract myself, trying to recall the transition table for Cantor’s 2,5 Universal Turing Machine—the one with the five chess pieces and the board. I was always crap at chess, never really got into it deeply enough at school, but I understand UTMs, and if I can hold enough moves in my head before the gray stuff turns to Swiss cheese I might be able to code something up. Damn it, Bob, you’re a magician! Think of something! But it all blurs, when you’re in pain. Like most of my ilk I work best in a nice warm office, with a honking great monitor on my desk and a can of Pringles in front of me. I start swearing, under my breath, in Middle Enochian: cursing is the only thing that language is good for. (That, and ordering the walking dead around.)

  We stop, then there’s a scrape of doors opening. I bounce across a threshold—a lift, I think. Then we begin to descend. Shit, a lift. We’re underground. That’s all I need. I’m angry. I’m also terrified, and in pain, and light-headed, and dizzy. My heart’s hammering.

  “Are you awake, Mr. Howard?” chirps Jaunty Jonquil, the demon princess of Sloane Square.

  “Nnnng,” I say. Fuck you, would be more appropriate, but in my current position I’m feeling kind of insecure.

  “Praise Pharaoh!” That’s someone else: a male voice, not Julian. Observe, Orient—okay, you’re tentatively designated Goatfucker #3. “What happened to his arm?”

  “Midnight snack, don’t you know,” Julian replies from somewhere near my feet. “Is All-Highest in residence yet?”

  “Yes,” says #3. “You are expected.”

  “Ooh!” squeals Jonquil. She pokes me in the ribs, harder than necessary: “You’re going to see Mummy now! Isn’t that exciting?”

  I realize that a “no” might offend, and keep my yap shut. I’m trying to string together Words of Command for making the undead repeat a behavioral loop—hey, Mummy? Visions of a can-can line of cadavers in windings bounce through my imagination. Fool, they’re going to kill you. Focus! The part of me that’s on-message and plugged-in to this very unpleasant reality game is panicking at the languid detachment that’s stealing over the rest of me. He makes a bid for my lips: “Where . . . are ... ?” I hear myself croak.

  The lift grinds to a halt and I feel a cool draft as the doors open.

  “Brookwood cemetery. Have you been here before? It’s really marvelous! It’s the biggest necropolis in England, it covers more than eight square kilometers and more than a quarter of a million people are buried here! This is our section—it used to belong to the Ancient and Honourable Order of Wheelwrights, back in the eighteen hundreds—”

  “Quiet,” says #3. “You shouldn’t tell him this thing.”

  “I don’t see why not,” Jonquil says huffily: “It’s not as if he’s going to escape, is it?”

  That’s right, remind me I’m doomed, see if I care. Hey, isn’t Brookwood where the Necropolitan line used to terminate? Oh, that figures. The cultists have built their fucking headquarters right on top of the power source for that ley line they trapped me with. And, let’s face it, it’s a nice neighborhood. There isn’t much of a crime problem here, community policing keeps a low profile, it’s dead quiet—

  They wheel me out into what I’m pretty sure is a sublevel. A lift, in a mausoleum? Doesn’t make sense. So this is probably a mortuary building, abandoned and re-purposed. I try to give no sign of the cold shudders that tingle up and down my spine as they roll me along a short passage, then stop.

  “Greetings, Master,” says Jonquil, an apprehensive quaver in her voice for the first time: “We have brought the desired one?”

  I can feel a fourth presence, chilly and abstracted. I have a curious sense that I am being inspected—

  “Good. The All-Highest will see you now.” The voice is as cold as an unmarked grave.

  I hear a door open, and they wheel me forward in silence. Abruptly, someone leans close to me and pulls the canvas bag up and away from my head. It’s dark down here, the deep twilight of a cellar illuminated only by LED torches, but it’s not so dark that I can’t see the All-Highest.

  And that’s when I realize I’m in much worse trouble than I ever imagined.

  MO LISTENS TO HER PHONE IN DISBELIEF . “THEY WHAT ? ” SHE demands.

  “They left the paper clip attached to a book in Putney Library,” says Angleton, with icy dignity. “A copy of Beasts, Men and Gods by Ferdinand Ossendowski.”

  “Then you’ve lost him.”

  “Unless you have any better ideas.”

  “Let me get back to you on that.” She snaps her phone closed and glances across the table. An idea is taking hold.

  “Who was that?” asks Panin. “If you do not mind ...”

  “It was Angleton. The memorandum is still missing. The enemy identified his tracer and neutralized it.”

  “You have my sympathies.”

  “Hmm. Do you have a car? Because if so, I’d appreciate a lift home. If you don’t mind.”

  Ten minutes later, the black BMW with diplomatic plates is slowly winding its way between traffic-calming measures. Mo leans back, holding her violin case, and closes her eyes. It’s a big car, but it feels small, with the driver and a bodyguard up front, and Panin sitting beside her in the back.

  “Do you have anything in mind?” Panin asks quietly.

  “Yes.” She doesn’t open her eyes. “Angleton drew a blank, trying to trace the missing document. But that’s not the only asset the cultists have got their hands on.”

  “Your husband.” Panin’s nostrils flare. “Do you have a tracer on him, by any chance?”

  “No.” She doesn’t bother to explain that Laundry operatives don’t routinely carry bugs because what one party can track, others may pick up. “However, he has a mobile phone.”

  “They’ll have switched it off, or discarded it.”

  “The former, I hope. If so, I can trace that.” The shiny, beetle-black car double-parks outside a nondescript row of terrace houses. “Please wait. I’ll only be a minute,” she adds as she climbs out.

  Ninety seconds later she’s back, her go-bag weighing slightly more heavily on her shoulder. “Laptop,” she explains.

  “Your superiors let you take classified documents home?” Panin raises an eyebrow.

  “No. It’s hi
s personal one. He paired it with his phone. Which is also a personal device.” She belts herself in, then opens the laptop screen. “All right, let’s see.” She slides a thumb drive into the machine, rubs her thumb over a window in it: “Now this is a secured memory stick, loaded with execute-in-place utilities. Nothing exotic, mind you, strictly functional stuff. Ah, yes. At the end of the road, turn left ...”

  The driver doesn’t speak, but he has no trouble understanding her directions in English. The car heads south, slowly winding its way through the evening streets. Mo busies herself with the laptop, a route finder program, and a small charm on the end of a necklace, which she dangles above the screen: a ward, taken from around her neck. “It’s along here, somewhere,” she says as the car cruises yet another twisting residential street, where large houses are set back behind tall hedges. “Whoa, we’ve gone past it. Okay, pull in here.” She pulls out her phone and speed-dials a number.

  “Yes?” Angleton is alert.

  “I’m in Hazlehurst Road, near Lambeth cemetery, with Nikolai and his driver. Tracking Bob’s personal phone. How soon can you meet me here?”

  “Hold on.” Pause. “We’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Rolling now. Can you wait?”

  Mo glances sidelong at Panin, who shakes his head slowly. “I don’t think so,” she says. “Nikolai has urgent business elsewhere.” She pulls the door latch, and it swings open with the sluggish momentum of concealed armor plate. She extends one foot to touch the pavement: “I’ll be discreet.”

  “Good-bye, Dr. O’Brien. And good luck.”

  Most of the houses on this road are detached, sitting in pricey splendor on plots of their own, a few down-market Siamese-twin semis lowering the millionaire row tone. It’s London, but upmarket enough that the houses have private drives and garages. Mo walks slowly back along the pavement until she comes level with the hedge outside a semi with a built-in garage, probably dating to the mid-1930s. The ward throbs in her hand as she reluctantly fastens the fine silver chain around her neck and tucks it in. This is the place. She’s sure of it.