Andy Mcdermott - Temple of the Gods

‘My God,’ she said, genuinely awed. ‘How big is this place? There must be miles of shelves!’

‘Something like three hundred miles, if they were all laid end to end,’ said Kern as the platform stopped. ‘But Dr Ogleby can give you the exact details. I just work here.’ He opened another gate so they could exit the elevator, then led them to one of several cabins nearby. It was marked with a sign: Reading Rooms 01–08 . Kern entered, Eddie and Nina exchanging ‘what the hell have we got into?’ glances behind him. Another man in Security Forces uniform sat by the door, looking utterly bored. He stood and saluted them, then returned to his blank-eyed torpor. Kern called out, ‘Dr Ogleby! Are you here?’

A bald man popped up like a groundhog to peer at them over a cubicle wall. ‘Oh, it’s you, Kern,’ he said, annoyed at being disturbed. He padded out to meet the new arrivals. Unlike the other base personnel he was a civilian, wearing a threadbare suit and a garish yellow bow tie.

Kern started to make introductions. ‘This is Dr Nina Wilde from the International Heritage Agency, and Captain Tyler—’

‘Yes, I know, I know,’ said Ogleby dismissively. ‘I read the email.’ Beady eyes scrutinised Nina. ‘Waste of time and money your coming here in person. The material you want may be Eyes Only, but we could still have couriered it to you in New York.’

‘Really? We were told we could only view it here,’ said Nina, concealing her sudden nervousness. Dalton had been very specific that they would have to travel to Silent Peak to see the file.

‘Not for something of that classification. You were obviously misinformed.’ He turned his grouchy gaze to Kern. ‘Something else I can help you with, Colonel?’

Kern was evidently well used to Ogleby’s attitude. ‘Apparently not. Well, Dr Wilde, Captain, when you’re finished here I’ll arrange for someone to bring you back to the surface.’

‘Thank you,’ said Nina. Kern exited, leaving her and Eddie alone with the sour-faced librarian. ‘So, Dr Ogleby, this is a remarkable archive you have here.’

He didn’t even respond well to a compliment. ‘It would be if they gave me the staff and money to run it properly. Right, let’s see your papers, then.’

The pair produced their documents. Ogleby read them, then went to a computer to double-check their details. ‘No need for you to come here at all,’ he muttered as he pecked at the keyboard with one finger, logging the new arrivals into the system.

‘I’m curious about that myself,’ said Nina. ‘I mean, what we’re here to see is of historical importance, but it’s hardly a national security matter. Why keep it so highly classified?’

‘It’s not the material itself, it’s where it came from,’ Ogleby replied, still tapping away at the computer. ‘In this case, the Nazis.’

‘Nazis?’ said Eddie, in his surprise using his normal accent before hurriedly correcting himself. ‘Uh, I mean, Nat-zees.’

Fortunately, Ogleby didn’t pick up on it. ‘It was part of a scientific archive seized by US forces at the end of the war, some of which had been stolen from Greece during the German occupation there. A lot of the other material concerned what you might call “ethically questionable” Nazi experiments —’ he gave them a decidedly ghoulish smile — ‘so the whole collection was classified, including the material you want to see.’

‘Why?’ Nina asked. ‘It couldn’t possibly be connected to anything the Nazis did.’

‘It was connected just by association,’ said Ogleby in a patronising tone. ‘The Nazis were very good at filing. You release one file, people want to know where the others are, and what’s in them. It’s simpler just to classify everything so only people with a need to know can see it. That way, we still have the information without bleeding hearts bleating about our benefiting from “immoral knowledge”. There’s no such thing.’ He finished typing. ‘We can’t put the genie back in the bottle, but at least we can stop people from whining that someone removed the cork.’

Nina agreed with him in principle that knowledge itself could not be immoral — as far as she was concerned, the cliché that ‘there are some things man was not meant to know’ was an anti-intellectual crock — but that hadn’t stopped her from quickly developing a dislike for the librarian. ‘Well, we’re in the need-to-know club now, so if we could see it?’ she said spikily.

Ogleby’s nod was distinctly disapproving, but he signalled impatiently towards one of the cubicles. ‘Go on, in there. You can get a good view of the system at work.’

As well as a well-lit reading desk, the cubicle contained something that reminded Nina of a smaller-scale version of an airport’s baggage carousel. A large flap set into the cabin’s outer wall opened on to a set of steel rollers that would channel anything coming down it into a flat collection area; another set of rollers at the opposite end led back through a second flap. A window looked out into the hangar and its miles of shelves. ‘Your material is on its way,’ said Ogleby. ‘The shuttle should be here in a minute.’

Eddie and Nina moved closer to the window. The tracks criss-crossed the vast space between the stacks, points at alternate intersections allowing the shuttles to follow the most efficient course through the grid. As they watched, one of the towering machines trundled past, carrying a large container resembling a bank’s safety deposit box. Sparks crackled from its dodgem-like overhead power grid. It clattered through a set of points and turned down an aisle, disappearing from view. Other shuttles were at work further away.

‘The place looks busy,’ said Nina.

‘It always is,’ Ogleby replied. ‘We send out at least three hundred retrieval requests per day — and new material arrives all the time, of course. The Pentagon, CIA, NSA, even the White House — everybody has files down here. And we keep track of every single one.’ Pride briefly overcame grumpiness. ‘Nothing’s ever been leaked or stolen from Silent Peak. Not so much as a Post-it.’ His abrasive attitude returned. ‘How long will you need?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said with a shrug.

The gesture irritated their host even more. ‘Well, this isn’t a social club, so don’t waste time chatting about it. As soon as you’ve got what you need, put everything back in the box and push it down the belt, then you can leave. In the meantime, I have work to do, so if you need anything, ask the zombie over there.’ He cast a disdainful look towards the mind-numbed man by the entrance, then stalked out of the cubicle.

‘Thank fuck he’s gone,’ said Eddie.

‘I know. What a jerk!’

‘No, I meant I can finally talk again.’

‘With you, silence is golden,’ Nina told him. ‘Especially with that god-awful accent you were using. Seriously, what the hell was it? You’re married to an American — how can you not know what we sound like?’

‘Oh, I know what you sound like. Sort of shrill, and annoying — ay up.’ Their discussion was interrupted as another shuttle stopped outside the window. A hydraulic whine as it raised its cargo to the drop-off point, then the flap opened with a bang and a metal container skittered down the rollers to stop in the collection area before them.

Nina examined the delivery. It was somewhat larger than a standard box file, a barcode laser-etched on the brushed steel. Beneath it was a large label bearing an identification number, along with the cryptic line ‘SCI(G3)/NOFORN’. The more readily understandable ‘Eyes Only’ was printed beneath it in red. ‘What does that mean?’ she asked, tapping the jumble of letters.