Glenn Cooper - Library of the Dead aka Secret of the Seventh Son

“There’s a library at Area 51.”

He was being forced to drag it out of him, question by question. “Tell me about this library.”

“It was built in the late 1940s by Harry Truman. After World War Two, the British found an underground complex near a monastery on the Isle of Wight, Vectis Abbey. It contained hundreds of thousands of books.”

“What kind of books?”

“Books dating back to the Middle Ages. They contained names, Will, billions-over two hundred billion names.”

“Whose names?”

“Everyone who’s ever lived.”

Will shook his head. He was treading water, feeling like he was about to go under. “I’m sorry, I’m not following you.”

“Since the beginning of time, there’ve been just under one hundred billion people who’ve ever lived on the planet. These books started listing every birth and every death since the eighth century. They chronicle over twelve hundred years of human life and death on earth.”

“How?” Will was angry. Was this guy a sicko after all?

“Anger is a common reaction. Most people get angry when they’re told about the Library because it challenges everything we think we know. Actually, Will, no one has a clue about the how part or the why. There’s been sixty-two years of debate and no one knows. It would have taken hundreds of monks at a time, if that’s what they were, writing continuously for over five hundred years to physically write down all these names, one for each birth, one for each death. They’re listed by date, the earlier ones in the Julian calendar, the later ones in the Gregorian calendar. Each name is written in its native language with a simple notation in Latin-birth or death. That’s all there is. No commentary, no explanation. How did they do it? Religious types say they were channeling God. Maybe they were clairvoyants who saw the future. Maybe they were from outer space. Believe me, no one has any idea! All we know is that it was a monumental task. Think about it: the numbers have been accelerating over the centuries, but just today, August 1, 2009, there are 350,000 people who will be born and 150,000 will die. Each name written with pen and ink. Then tomorrow’s names and the day after, and the day after that. For twelve hundred years! They must have been like machines.”

“You know I can’t believe any of this,” Will said quietly.

“If you give me a day, I can prove it. I can pull up a list of everyone who’s going to die in Los Angeles tomorrow. Or New York, or Miami. Or anywhere.”

“I don’t have a day.” Will got up and started aggressively pacing. “I can’t believe I’m even giving you the right time of day.” He angrily swore and demanded, “Go online and look up the Panama City, Florida, News Herald. Look at today’s obituaries and see if you’ve got them on your goddamned list.”

“The local paper’s outside the door? Wouldn’t that be easier?”

“Maybe you’ve already looked at it!”

“You think this is an elaborate setup?”

“Maybe it is.”

Mark looked troubled. “I can’t go online.”

“Okay, this is bullshit!” Will shouted. “I knew this was bullshit.”

“If I log my computer onto the Web, they’ll locate us in a few minutes. I won’t do it.”

Will looked around the room in frustration and spotted a keyboard in the TV cabinet. “What’s that?” he asked.

Mark smiled. “Hotel Internet access. I didn’t notice that.”

“So, you can do it?”

“I’m a computer scientist. I think I can figure it out.”

“I thought you said you were a librarian.”

Mark ignored him. In a minute he had the newspaper’s website on the TV screen.

“Hometown paper, right?” Mark said.

“You know it is.”

Mark took out his laptop and booted it up.

While he was logging on, Will pounced on an inconsistency. “Wait a minute! You said these books only had names and dates. But then you said you could sort them by city. How?”

“That’s an enormous part of what we do at Area 51. Without geographical correlates, the data is useless. We have access to virtually every digital and analog database in the world, birth records, phone records, bank records, marital records, employment records, utilities, land deeds, taxes, insurance, you name it. There are 6.6 billion people in the world. We have some form of address identifiers, if only the country or province, on ninety-four percent of them. Very nearly a hundred percent in North America and Europe.” He looked up. “I’ve got this encrypted. Just so you know, it needs a password, which I’m not going to give you. I need insurance you’ll protect me.”

“From whom?”

“The same people who’re after you. We call them the watchers. Area 51 security. Okay, I’m on. Take the keyboard.”

“Go into the bedroom,” Will ordered. “I don’t want you seeing the dates.”

“You don’t trust me.”

“You’re right, I don’t.”

Will spent several minutes calling out names of the recently deceased in Panama City. He mixed in names from the archives with people who died the day before. To his astonishment, Mark was shouting back the correct date of death every time. Finally, Will called him back in and complained, “Come on! This is like a Vegas lounge act and you’re like one of those mentalists. How are you doing this?”

“I told you the truth. If you think I’m pulling a fast one, you’ll have to wait till tomorrow. I’ll give you ten people in L.A. who’re going to die today. You check the obits tomorrow.”

Mark then proceeded to dictate ten names, dates, and addresses. Will took them down on a hotel notepad and moodily stuffed the sheet in his pocket. But he immediately pulled it out and said defiantly, “I’m not waiting until tomorrow!” He dug his phone out of his pants and saw it was dead-the battery had gotten dislodged when it fell onto the sidewalk. He reseated it and the phone came alive again. Mark watched with amusement as Will called information to get the phone numbers.

Will swore out loud each time he got voice mail or a no pickup. Someone answered the seventh number on the list. “Hello, this is Larry Jackson returning Ora LeCeille Dunn’s call,” Will said. He was listening and pacing. “Yes, she called me last week. We have a mutual acquaintance.” He was listening again but now he was slumping onto the sofa. “I’m sorry, when was that? This morning? It was unexpected? I’m very sorry to hear the news. My condolences.”

Mark opened his arms expansively. “Do you believe me now?”

Frazier’s headset got noisy again. “Malcolm, Piper’s phone is back on the grid. He’s somewhere in the 9600 block of Sunset.”

Frazier started sprinting back toward the Ops Center on an upward climb of his personal roller coaster.

Will got up and surveyed the bar. There was a fifth of Johnnie Walker Black. He opened it and poured a measure into a whiskey glass. “Want one?”

“It’s too early.”

“Is it?” He pounded back a shot and let it work through his system. “How many people know about this?”

“I don’t know exactly. Between Nevada and Washington, I’d guess a thousand.”

“Who runs it? Who’s in charge?”

“It’s a navy operation. I’m pretty sure the President and some cabinet members are in the know, some Pentagon and Homeland Security people, but the highest-ranking person I’m positive about is the Secretary of the Navy because I’ve seen him copied on memos.”

“Why the navy?” Will asked, bemused.

“I don’t know. It was set up like that from the beginning.”

“This has been under wraps for sixty years? The government’s not that good.”

“They kill leakers,” Mark said bitterly.