To Kill The Truth

by Sam Bourne

  ‘Hello,’ she said, her voice thin and dry.

  He moved swiftly to the bedside table, where he poured her a glass of water, which he held just by her lips. It was such a sensual gesture, so intimate, that, unbidden, she felt a stirring of desire that caught her by surprise.

  ‘Where am I?’ she said. He smiled and then they both laughed at the Hollywood absurdity of it.

  ‘You’re in Walter Reed.’

  ‘Walter Reed? That’s for veterans. I’m not a veteran, Uri.’

  ‘So the doctors were right: nothing wrong with your brain.’

  ‘Seriously. Walter Reed?’

  ‘The Deputy Director of the FBI insisted. Along with your friend, the governor. She pulled some strings. She said, “She’s served her country as much as any vet.” You’re getting great care here. Including on that foot.’

  The memories came back to her, a trickle at first and then a torrent. The hotel, the freezer, the library, Herman’s face. The interrogation of Pamela Bentham.

  ‘Though, I have to say, the foot made them a little bit confused. The rest of the injuries are from heat; that one is from cold?’

  ‘It’s a long story.’

  He sat on the bed next to her and took her hand, placing his over it. ‘I know.’

  ‘How come I’m here? What happened?’

  ‘After you were interviewing Bentham, you mean? Apparently, you closed out the interrogation, she left the room and you collapsed in a pile on the floor.’

  ‘In a heap.’

  ‘You don’t normally correct my English: that means you’re definitely sick. They say it’s nervous exhaustion. Which is a fancy way of saying you’re shattered. The good news is, you got lots of flowers.’

  He went over to pick up a bunch of lilies in the corner, reading from the card. ‘ “To Maggie. With eternal gratitude and friendship, Donna.” These are from the Director of the FBI.’ He pointed at some tulips. ‘I think the fruit came from the head of the Library of Congress.’

  ‘The Librarian.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The Librarian. That’s what the head’s called.’

  ‘I’m telling the neurologist: they can cancel the brain scan.’

  Maggie laughed and the effort brought a stinging sensation to her face, the pain you get when you’ve been out in the sun too long.

  ‘The doctors are furious, by the way. They say that . . . what’s her name?’

  ‘Andrea.’

  ‘Andrea had no business keeping you working, doing that interview, in your state. Sure, you got through on adrenalin. But she shouldn’t have let you. All those machines – the heating equipment in the library – apparently they were red-hot when they pulled you out.’ He sat back on the bed, putting his hand on hers. ‘You were very lucky.’

  She liked the touch of his hand, his skin cooling. But a moment later, he sprang back up and was across the room, fussing over his bag.

  ‘You know, Uri,’ she said. ‘I’m really glad about the library. I’m relieved.’ She could hear the thinness of her voice. ‘But I keep thinking about the other eleven. All those precious books. All those archives. All gone. And it’s my fault. I could have saved so many more. I wasted so much time, went down so many dead ends. It’s my fault.’

  He spoke with his back to her, as he pulled out a laptop from his backpack and began looking for cables. ‘That is so typical of you, Maggie, I can’t even begin to tell you.’ He turned around, the computer now open. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘There are a couple of things I thought you’d want to see.’

  As he propped the machine on her lap, he was close enough that she could smell his skin.

  The browser was open to the CBS News website and he clicked on a video that had been posted an hour or so earlier.

  More on that breaking story now, as we cross live to the Detroit suburb of Sherwood Forest where correspondent Philip Jeremy is reporting on an extraordinary reunion. Phil?

  That’s right, Bob. Emotional scenes here as Esther Gratzky, a survivor of the Holocaust who had been missing and presumed dead, was reunited with her family, safe and well. You might remember, Bob, that Mrs Gratzky – well-known in the Detroit area for her talks to schools and community groups, telling the harrowing story of her wartime experience in Poland – disappeared earlier in the week, just as many Holocaust survivors were found dead in mysterious circumstances here in the United States and around the world. When Mrs Gratzky went missing, her son and daughter feared she too had suffered a similar fate.

  But today she emerged in good health following what police say was an abduction. Family members are disputing that choice of word this morning. Here’s what Michael Gratzky, Esther’s son, told local station WDIV. Let’s listen in.

  ‘We’re just so glad to be back with my mom. It’s such a relief, for all of us. Especially the grandchildren and great-grandchildren. We’re just so happy.’

  ‘And can you tell us, Michael, what happened? Was your mother kidnapped?’

  ‘Well, it’s pretty surreal. She was certainly taken from her home last week. And she was prevented from communicating with any of us. But she says she was incredibly well treated and that the people who took her, she says that basically they looked after her. They said they were hiding her in what was kind of a safe house, because they believed her life was in danger. And now that we know that other survivors were getting killed, I believe them. I wish it hadn’t happened this way. I wish we could have known what was going on. But my mother thinks these people saved her life. And my mom has pretty good survival instincts, you know? She . . . she . . . I’m sorry. It’s just that we . . . I’m sorry.’

  ‘That’s OK. You take a moment. Everyone at WDIV is just so happy she’s safe. Can you tell us, the people who looked after your mother, do you know where they are now?’

  ‘We don’t know. They drove my mother back to her house. They dropped her off. And then they just clean disappeared.’

  ‘Could she describe them?’

  ‘She says they were young. And she just keeps saying they were so kind to her.’

  ‘All right, Michael. Thank you and stay safe.’

  So that’s the interview our colleagues over at WDIV here in Detroit ran earlier. Mrs Gratzky now back with her family, in good health – her life apparently saved by some mysterious guardian angels. Bob?

  Maggie looked at Uri, whose cheeks were wet. She took his hand.

  ‘This story, you know?’ he said, his fingers at his eyes. ‘This damn story. I grew up with it, every day hearing about it. Mothers of friends, grandmothers of friends, aunts, uncles. In my country, you cannot escape it.’ He found a tissue and blew his nose. ‘And you tell yourself you’re over it. There’s nothing about the Shoah you don’t already know. And then, you hear something like this.’

  Maggie squeezed Uri’s hand and felt three words make the journey towards her lips. But she didn’t say them. Instead she kept his hand in hers until, eventually, she said, ‘I don’t understand. Who could have taken her?’

  ‘Now look at this. I noticed this just before you woke up.’ He took back the machine and searched for the archive of video testimony of Holocaust survivors, the website the two of them had seen all but melt before their eyes just a few days earlier. It appeared promptly and apparently in full working order. He typed in the name of Esther Gratzky and was greeted by a page complete with a video playback screen, ready to roll.

  ‘It’s working.’

  ‘So are these.’ He opened a new tab for the Yad Vashem archive of the Holocaust. And a new tab each for the libraries of Tehran, Paris and Moscow. Websites that had been destroyed were now back.

  ‘How come?’

  ‘I have no idea. But look what I saw a few minutes ago.’ He went to yet another tab, open to a Reddit forum, dedicated to the nerdy business of the mechanics of the internet itself.

  There were too many words on the screen for Maggie to take in. ‘Tell me what it says.’

  ‘The basic story is,
all of these sites seem to have been cached or mirrored. Somebody was storing back-up versions, keeping them safe.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘No one knows. The only clue is this.’ He took his cursor to a paragraph, which he highlighted.

  The main IP address seems to trace to Melita Island, Montana. Anyone know it?

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Melita Island, Montana, 8.48am

  Jason Ramey had read about champion cyclists and how they taught their bodies to delay exhaustion. They would collapse in a heap one day, they told themselves; but it couldn’t happen just yet. They become masters of delayed gratification and, for the purposes of the task in hand, basic human rest was deemed to be gratification. Sleep would be indulged eventually. But that day had not yet come.

  This, he realized, was how he had approached the strange, endless days in this cluster of Scout cabins on Melita Island. He had pushed himself to the limits of his endurance, and then far beyond those. He had seen his colleagues – his comrades, his brothers and sisters, for that’s how he felt about them at this moment – do the same. His admiration for Jim, his boss, especially was bottomless.

  But now, suddenly, the fatigue was flooding in, as if the levees had broken at last. The cue had been the moment Jim told them the threat was over, that their work was done. Although Jim had not put it so definitively. ‘The threat has receded,’ was his formulation. But they could read the news. They could see the live pictures of the raid on Austin Logica and the arrest of Pamela Bentham.

  Above all, they could see what was happening on their own screens. They could see how, within minutes of the Feds announcing that they had dismantled the apparatus inside Austin Logica HQ, the denial-of-service and other attacks on the world’s digital databases slowed down. To these volunteers’ well-trained eye, the link was obvious and undeniable. As for the caution that made Jim describe the threat as ‘receded’, rather than ‘defeated’, that only made Jason respect him more.

  Now Jim was focused on the de-rig. ‘Folks, we need to be out of here in one hour. Two vessels will be at the jetty in exactly fifty-five minutes, and we will be loading every last piece of equipment into the self-assembly boxes you see arranged before you. If each of you takes care of your own terminal and screens, and then goes to the cabin to pack away your personal items, we can do this. Anyone who finishes early: join me in de-rigging cables and other comms. Clear?’

  That left no time for speeches, a celebratory drink or any form of valediction to Melita Island, their home for this extraordinary, sleepless period. It was not until they were on the boat, crossing the water to Lindisfarne, where they would be picked up in four separate SUVs and driven to the airport, that Jim gave any kind of address.

  ‘Folks, I know we’re all too exhausted to listen to any kind of speeches. I know I am. But I wanted to say two things. The first is that what you have all done is nothing less than a great service to humankind. You have been involved in identifying and then protecting some of the most precious objects in human history. We called it “filing”, which didn’t sound very heroic, but what you did helped protect and guide to safety some of the individuals whose memories are a crucial part of the human story. And you have preserved a digital record that others wanted destroyed. You didn’t do it for money. At least I hope you didn’t.’

  Jason and the others laughed at that.

  ‘And you didn’t do it for glory. Given the means that were necessary for this work, it will probably have to remain secret forever. But you signed a contract that promised you “the greatest possible reward” for your efforts. That reward is the knowledge that you did something important for the sake of your fellow human beings. That you did it for history. And for truth.’

  There was loud applause for that. Jason high-fived the two people next to him. Maya rested her head on his shoulder, in silent affirmation.

  ‘And here’s the second thing. None of you ever knew the person behind this effort. That was how he wanted it. I confess I never met him myself, though I was in contact with him until very recently. I won’t violate his wishes by revealing his name. But it was down to his determination, his insight and his sheer genius that we did what we did. He spotted the threat early. He anticipated each move the enemy would make. And he knew how to guard against it. He recruited me, and he trusted me to recruit you. He even suggested the place we’ve just left behind, a place he knew well. If you had a glass in your hand, I’d ask you to raise it and join me in drinking to a truly great man.’

  The rest of them took their cue and mimed lifting their invisible glasses to make an invisible toast. ‘To a truly great man!’

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda, Maryland, 1.18pm

  Uri’s phone rang. He talked into it and headed out of the room, leaving Maggie alone with the laptop. She was so exhausted, her eyelids seemed to be made of lead. And yet, she couldn’t help herself.

  She pulled the machine towards her, opened up a new tab and typed the words Melita Island.

  Uninhabited, undeveloped and completely surrounded by water, Melita Island is just as it was in the late 1940s when the Scouts first began participating in summer camps there. Its wooded acres . . .

  Maggie stopped reading and closed her eyes. A thought flickered somewhere, several layers deep. She read on.

  The sixty-four-acre island has two and a half miles of shoreline on Flathead Lake. Our Scout camp makes use of powerboats, sailboats, rowboats . . .

  There it was again, like a comet against the sky. A thought, a memory, she couldn’t place.

  She opened her eyes again to look at the page on the Boy Scouts of America website. It showed two boys, from the back, sitting on a jetty and framed by a simple wooden canopy, looking out onto the water. It seemed like an idyllic summer evening, one of those childhood memories anybody would cherish . . .

  Hold on. It came again, like a word on the tip of her tongue. She tried desperately to retrieve it, fighting not just the fatigue but the limits of her own memory. Come on, come on.

  And then it reached her, touching her synapses and forming itself into a visual image. It was Edith Kelly, sitting in her lawn chair at the Shady Lanes retirement village. Recalling her son, Martin.

  ‘Terry, my husband Terence, was convinced Martin would be president one day. I never thought that for one single moment. Never. He was far too shy. And he was a thin-skinned child. Hated being teased. He went on Scout camp in the summer, but I’m not sure he ever fitted in.’

  Maggie turned towards her bedside table, wincing at the pain as she twisted. Her skin felt raw. But there was her phone.

  She turned it on and was relieved to see it still had power. She went through her recent calls, until she saw a number that looked like Shady Lanes. She dialled and, summoning her strength, asked to be put through to Mrs Kelly. There was resistance – ‘This phone has been going non-stop’ – but Maggie said she was part of the investigation into the death of Mrs Kelly’s son. She was calling from Washington, DC, and this was of great importance. It required all her strength not to sound like a woman sitting up in bed. She could hear the call being transferred.

  ‘Mrs Kelly, it’s Maggie. Maggie Costello. I’d understand if you never wanted to speak to me again.’ She paused. The phone had not been hung up. ‘I’m calling to say how sorry I am about what happened. How sorry I am about your son.’ She paused again. ‘But I’m also calling to say there’s something important I need to ask you.’

  A second, another second, another and then a reply. ‘You don’t need to say sorry. What happened is my fault, not yours. Martin made his choices, I made mine – and the Good Lord made his.’ Her voice was steady, but the stoicism was not fooling anyone. Maggie could hear the grief.

  ‘Mrs Kelly, I know that this is painful, but I need to ask you something about Martin.’

  ‘He’s at peace now, my love.’

  ‘I know. But there’s something I need to know
about Martin’s childhood. Something that might . . . help.’

  ‘Help? How could it help?’

  ‘When we met, you said . . .’ Her voice was drying up, it was becoming a croak. ‘You said that Martin went camping, with the Scouts.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Scout camp. Martin went on Scout camp.’

  ‘That’s right. When he was eleven. Or maybe twelve. His father was the one who pushed him. “It’ll make a man of you!” he said.’

  ‘My question is, where was it? Where was the Scout camp Martin went to?’

  ‘I don’t follow. Why would this—’

  ‘Please. Where was it? Do you remember?’

  ‘I do remember. It was a lovely place. It looked fine. Martin sent me a postcard each week. Always the same. A picture of an osprey, flying—’

  ‘Where was it, Mrs Kelly?’

  ‘It was out west. Far away from New York. He had to fly across the country, even at that age. Montana, it was. Melita Island, Montana.’

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda, Maryland, 2.39pm

  For no reason Maggie could discern, Uri was tidying up the hospital room. He was topping up the water in the vases, throwing out discarded envelopes and papers, removing the used water glasses.

  ‘You’re up to something.’

  ‘I’m not. I’m making it nice.’

  ‘But why?’

  He turned around. ‘You need a reason not to throw out a banana peel? You want to keep it?’

  Maggie smiled, the domesticity of this moment warming her. She could hear Liz’s voice in her head. ‘This is your problem, Maggie. The only way you can behave like a halfway normal person is when you’re nearly killed and forced to sit still in one place . . .’

  Liz had been in touch, Maggie sparing her the details of the injuries, the collapse and the fact that she was in hospital. Her sister didn’t need to know. Instead, Maggie said she was catching up on her sleep at home. Liz had replied by sending her a link to an article she’d just come across in a women’s magazine. Her message said: Just read this and tell me it’s not you.