by Sam Bourne
He didn’t have to think about anything else. If the traffic light showed red, he would stop. If there was a detour, he would follow the yellow signs. But as to the blue box in the hold, he didn’t need to think about that at all.
So it did not cross his mind for a moment even to consider the larger process he was involved in. If someone had asked him, Ben Hudson would have struggled to explain that he was helping store a back-up, digital copy of all the information contained inside one of the most important libraries in America.
All the hard copies – the books and papers themselves – were kept in the building in Charlottesville. But these days the library did not put all its faith in the physical realm. It needed to guard against fire or flood, and so it had made, over a period of several years, high-quality digital scans of those texts and documents that were unique to its own collection.
Those were stored and backed up on computer drives inside the library. They were safe – just so long as there were not, say, a computer worm or virus, despatched from afar and tunnelling its way into those disks, moving from machine to machine, steadily erasing data.
Still, even if that happened, all would not be lost. The data was also stored on back-up tapes, physical objects that could be kept far away in an offsite tape vault, a well-defended warehouse, maintained by a professional data storage company. If catastrophe struck and a library burned down and its computers were wiped, there would be one last line of defence: those back-up tapes, filed and guarded around the clock many miles away.
That’s where Ben Hudson was driving now, back to base with that blue box of magnetic tapes in the back, into which was etched the back-up copies of the data held by the library.
Once he’d arrived at HQ and parked up, there was more scanning – of the pass that was attached to his belt, of the blue box and then of the individual tapes inside the box, as each one was taken off to be stacked in racks in protected vaults. Happily, that was someone else’s job. Ben didn’t even have to think about it.
Which meant that, even if someone faraway had interfered with the ‘work orders’ that were sent as automatic instructions to those handheld devices that he and everyone else used, he wouldn’t know about it. Nor, more importantly, would he be especially bothered. All that mattered was that Ben Hudson had done his bit as ordered, handing the tapes to someone else. That person was now the next link in what the company called its ‘chain of custody’.
So Ben had no interest in where his co-worker actually took the tapes that he’d ferried from the library. His colleague would surely just follow whatever instruction was displayed on their scanner. And if that meant the tapes were now labelled as ‘expired’ – even though the librarians back in Charlottesville had never classified them that way – then they would be taken to the secure shredding area, where machines specially engineered to dispose of electronic material, including magnetic tape, disks and drives, would get to work.
If the work order was in the system, no matter that it was only there thanks to skilled, long-distance hacking, then it would be obeyed – if not by Ben, then by one of his like-minded fellow employees. They would keep doing it too, quietly destroying back-up tapes month after month.
Meanwhile, the curators and librarians back in Charlottesville would assure themselves that they were doing the right thing, cheerily unaware that when they sent those tapes off for supposedly iron-clad safekeeping, they were in fact sending them to oblivion.
They would be similarly unaware of the slow, almost imperceptible corrosion that was underway inside the library’s electronic index system: steadily gnawing away at the database which acted as the indispensable guide to those countless back-up files, explaining what was held where. Should calamity strike, and the collection have to be reassembled from digital copies, the index would be the indispensable starting point. Without an index, such a vast store of knowledge was all but useless. As librarians knew better than anyone.
As it was, no one – not at the library and not at the offsite tape vault – knew that any of this was happening. It was slow and stealthy, a steady drip-drip-drip of damage. And if similar efforts were underway elsewhere, who would notice? Certainly not the loyal, obedient army of Ben Hudsons. They saw nothing.
Beep, green tick.
Tuesday
Chapter Twelve
Charlottesville, Virginia, 12.11am
It felt like the faintest breath on her face, that hint of cooler air. Not the air itself, but the promise of it. Maggie Costello was near that door she’d opened, she was sure of it. She heaved herself forward and upward, certain that, after this, she’d have no energy left.
Her head met the door: it was jammed shut. She lacked the strength to reach upward for the handle; the heat had surely sealed the door closed anyway. Feeling the glass panel that stood between her and the outside, she realized there was only one option left. With her right elbow as her weapon, she focused all her remaining strength on that point – and charged it as hard as she could into the barrier before her. She felt the glass give and, on a second attempt, shatter. Uncertain what shards still remained, jagged and lethal, she threw herself forward all the same, onto the external stairs, tumbling down them in a single move. The momentum carried her a yard or two away from the building, but she was still close enough to feel the glass descend on her like snowfall when, a second later, the fireball crashed through that double-storey window with an almighty roar.
How long did she pass out? For a few seconds? For half an hour? She had no idea. But she remembered a team in uniform – paramedics or firefighters, she wasn’t sure – surrounding her, the texture of their uniforms thick and comforting. She remembered the clamour, the dangle of tubes, the vivid yellow of oxygen tanks and the heat of her skin. She remembered the change in the air as she got further away. She seemed to be floating, certainly not walking or running. It took her a while to understand she was on a stretcher.
And suddenly she was sitting on the kerb, wrapped in a foil blanket like a woman in a front-page photograph. Hesitantly, she looked down at her hands. Scratched and bloody but, to her surprise, they still looked like hands. She touched her cheeks, she checked her hair and then her arms and legs. Her mind was working. She made a sound, to establish beyond doubt that she was alive and not in the hell the nuns had promised her. The sound that came out of her mouth was ‘Liz’.
She looked up to see Uri, walking around as if in a daze, his face drawn, his eyes desperate.
‘Uri,’ she called, surprised by the thinness of her own voice. ‘Uri. Here.’
He turned, saw her and instantly rushed towards her. She tried to get up, but she couldn’t do it. He crouched down and put his arms around her shoulders. ‘Thank God,’ he said. ‘Thank God. I thought you were—’
‘I’m OK,’ she said. As he hugged her, she said, ‘Where were you? What happened?’
‘I don’t know. I was filming from outside the building and I looked around and you’d gone. It was like you’d vanished. I tried all the doors, but they were jammed. I went around the back, but I couldn’t get in.’
‘I couldn’t find you.’
He was holding her tight. Wasn’t that what she had wanted, even yearned for just an hour or so ago, when they had stood a few inches apart in his hotel room? It was. And yet, here – now – she found herself fighting the urge to remove his arms from her, to disentangle herself.
She looked upward. There were lots of people now. TV crews – was that the rigid blonde from yesterday? – spokespeople for the fire and police departments and plenty of officials looking busy, doubtless from the university and City Hall.
But there were also clusters of people just looking stunned. None of them was in a silver blanket like hers, but they seemed equally dazed. They stood in groups of three and four, and most kept their gaze fixed on the building, which was still burning. She could see the flames reflected in their eyes.
Some of the faces were white, but most were African-American. Maggie re
cognized several of them from yesterday’s demo outside the police station, but this time there was no anger or defiance, just shell-shocked grief. One man in his late forties, who she identified without evidence as a pastor, was talking into a news camera. The TV shot would have shown the blaze just behind him.
‘Right now, while we speak, books are burning,’ he said, gesturing over his shoulder. ‘Old books, rare books, books on parchment and books on goat skin. Books as old as this country. Books older than this country. Books of science, books of geography, books of poetry and books of history. Books full of maps and drawings and songs and scripture. And they’re all burning, stack after stack of them. By morning they’ll be gone.’
Even in her state, Maggie couldn’t stop looking at him. His eyes seemed to be brimming with tears.
‘Inside that building are the documents which record what happened to our people. The plantation ledgers, the ships’ manifests, the diaries, the testimonies, the records that show that our ancestors – my ancestors – were held in the Commonwealth of Virginia and in these United States as chattel and property. As slaves. And now—’
But then the TV light that had been trained on him went dark, leaving him lit only by the raging orange of the fire behind him. His interviewer and the rest of the press had rushed over to the fire chief, who was apparently about to give a formal statement.
‘Uri, look. He’s saying something.’
Uri straightened himself up and helped Maggie to her feet. They got closer to the cluster of reporters and to the chief, an African-American man around the same age as the pastor, now himself illuminated by the klieg lights of television.
‘. . . operation is still ongoing. But what is already clear is that the men and women of the Fire Department of Charlottesville have devoted themselves to this mission with their customary dedication and professionalism.’
‘Sir, have there been any casualties?’
‘So far, we don’t believe there have been any fatalities from this incident. But as you can see, this incident is still active.’
‘Any ideas how the fire started, sir?’
‘There will be ample time for investigations in due course, starting at first light.’
‘But initial indications?’
‘This facility is a state-of-the-art building, highly protected against any catastrophic incident. We believe it was well-guarded against any accident or accident scenario.’
‘You mean, a fire couldn’t have started by accident? It was deliberate?’
‘I’m going to let my words speak for themselves. Now, if you’ll excuse me.’
Maggie turned to Uri. His look confirmed they were thinking the same thing.
They moved silently for a while, among the vigil clusters of black activists who were standing, dumbfounded, as close to the library as they could get. Eventually, there was another rustle of movement among the press pack as a two-vehicle convoy of black SUVs pulled up.
Donna Morrison got out of the second car, striding purposefully towards the fire chief whose hand she shook. Soon the mayor joined them, as well as the police chief. There was much pointing at the blaze, some sombre nodding and finally a few words from the governor for the cameras. Boilerplate about ‘every effort’, ‘first responders’ and ‘a dark day for Virginia’.
Eventually, as she was heading back to her car, Donna caught Maggie’s eye and, with the slightest tilt of the head, she motioned for her to follow. Only once the door was closed, the two of them sitting in the deep leather back seats, did the governor speak.
‘What the hell happened to you?’
‘I went in.’
‘You what? What the hell were you thinking? You’re no use to me burnt to a crisp, Maggie. You’re no use to me dead.’
‘I thought I might . . . see something.’
‘And did you?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Jesus Christ, Maggie. Don’t go getting yourself killed on me.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I mean it. This is happening, Maggie. It’s real. Forget that bullshit about investigations “starting at first light”.’
‘You know already?’
‘Of course. It’s arson. No doubt about it.’
‘Right.’
‘It’s exactly what I feared.’ Donna paused to look out of the window, contemplating the raging fire that was devouring her state’s history with each passing minute. Then she turned back, her expression as grave as Maggie had ever seen it.
‘I’m begging you, Maggie. Make this stop.’
Maggie did not need persuading. She shared the governor’s fury and her fear. For she had known within seconds of entering that building that this was no accident. And that this was no ordinary arsonist.
Chapter Thirteen
Swiss Cottage, London, 12.10pm
Judith Beaton took one last look in the mirror in the hallway. She dabbed at her cheek, to ensure the colour was spread evenly. A memory pricked at her, as it always did. She tucked away a stray hair. A word popped into her head from her childhood, a word of her mother’s: fligel. Her mother would say it when brushing her daughter’s hair in the morning, applying it to any stubborn curl that refused to lie flat. Only later did Judith discover its literal meaning. It was the Yiddish word for ‘wing’. But her mother was gone by then.
She was still looking. She straightened the line of her sweater, checked her earrings, touched her brooch. The lines on her face: well, there was nothing she could do about those. You get to her age, you’re going to be wrinkled. But everything else? There’s no excuse.
One last check of the kitchen. The stove off, the lights off. She opened the fridge again and then the cupboard under the sink, noting the dozen cartons of orange juice and equal number of tins of tomato soup. She looked at her watch, then again at the phone her grandson had given her, with its uncanny ability to tell her when the bus was coming. She had to press that button, then that one, then that one . . . Ah, there we are. Eleven minutes.
She would leave now. One more peek at the stove, then out.
As always, she bypassed the lift and took the stairs. Three flights, it wouldn’t kill her.
She took her place at the bus stop, checking her watch and taking a third look inside her handbag. Purse, phone, bread roll wrapped in foil: all present and correct.
When the bus came, she had no struggle to find a seat, though these days people usually gave up theirs if they saw her standing. ‘These days’, who was she kidding? She was eighty-seven years old: people had been standing for her for decades.
Still, she preferred these afternoon visits. True, the children were often restless after lunch, or sleepy. When you got them at nine o’clock in the morning, it was easier. But the rush hour was not for her. She liked to have the morning to prepare, to have a bath, to take her time getting dressed.
But not to think about what she was going to say. She had no need to give that a moment’s thought. She did not have some set spiel that she had learned off by heart, though she knew plenty of the others who did exactly that. She had never even written it out as a text. She simply described what happened, starting at the beginning and getting to the end. As for the questions, she just had to answer whatever they asked. She didn’t need notes for that either. Why would she? She remembered every detail. It was her life, after all.
She took another look in her bag. The bread roll was still there, freshly wrapped this morning. Only rarely did a question faze her. It had happened a few months ago, when a child – maybe sixteen years old – asked whether there was anything that had happened in those years that she could not remember.
She had paused, trying to think. She had scanned her memory, looking for gaps. And then, for the first time – after giving, what, more than nine hundred of these talks? – she found tears coming. She thought about ducking the question. No, my darling, I can recall those events as if they happened yesterday, every detail. She could dab her eye with a tissue and move on to the next q
uestion. No one need notice. But the obligation to be honest – otherwise, what was the point? – had overruled her.
‘Sometimes I cannot remember my brother’s face,’ she had said. ‘He was younger than me, just eight years old, and they took him away as soon as we got to Auschwitz. I never saw him again. And sometimes I cannot see his face. I try and I try, but I cannot picture it.’
She had already told the children, arranged in row after row in front of her, how she had worked as a slave labourer for eighteen months in Auschwitz, and how she had then been despatched to another camp at Nordhausen. ‘There was a group of us and we went by train, travelling for six or seven days without food.’
They survived, she explained, by constructing a box, attaching it to their belts and lowering it outside to scoop up the snow below. Sometimes it would be covered with oil from the train, but if it came up clean they would push the snow into their mouths, sucking out its moisture.
She had told the children, their eyes locked onto hers, about the work they had to do on that journey. ‘We’d have to take off the dead people,’ she’d said. ‘You’d have to pick up the dead people and lay them like you lay herrings, one this way, one that way. I was carrying them. They weighed nothing, they were like skeletons. I carried them under my arm.’
Judith Beaton, once Yehudit Botsky, had explained all this, just as she’d told the children how she had lied about her age to survive, how she’d pretended to look fitter and stronger than she was to survive, how she would sometimes prick her finger, rubbing the blood onto her cheeks to survive, because if you looked too pale, you didn’t work, and if you didn’t work, you didn’t live. On that day a few months earlier she had explained all this with perfect self-control, her voice never wavering. But when she admitted that she could not remember her brother’s face, she could not hold back the tears.
The memory of it had troubled her, nagging at her for weeks afterwards. But on this afternoon visit to a comprehensive school in Brent, nothing like that happened. The teachers were polite, the children were overflowing with questions. Children whose parents were from Nigeria, Somalia or heaven knows where else; along with children whose parents were from Poland or Lithuania or Latvia, whose grandparents had done heaven knows what. Judith preferred not to think about it. But if she did think about it, she liked to see her survival, and the chance to teach this next generation, as a little victory over the murderers.
