Len Deighton - Spy Hook

So I tried again. I entered the company for which Prettyman worked in Washington. TRANSFER LOAD then PERIMETER SECURITY GUARANTEE TRUST.

The machine purred contentedly and then the screen filled. Here it all was: the address of the headquarters, computed world assets, stock market price and names of president and vice presidents of the PSGT. This wasn't what I wanted so I entered PRETTYMAN into the PSGT queries space. Hiccups. Then I got REFER FILE FO FX MI 123/456.

I went back to REGISTRY ONE and entered that file number. On the screen came the same message as before: ACCESS DENIED ENTER ARCTIC NUMBER. It was a merry-go-round. Had I not been seeking specific information it would not have seemed sinister. Had I not chosen those particular subjects it would not have produced the coincidence.

Now I tried another angle. The data bank held details of departmental employees past and present. I entered the name of my wife SAMSON, FIONA and entered the UPDATE command for the final part of her file.

No surprise now. Up came that damned bogus number that couldn't possibly have come from the normal filing system; REFER FILE FO FX MI 123/456. And of course the subsequent keying was answered by the inevitable request for the ARCTIC NUMBER. So whatever the Arctic number was, it would give an enquirer answers about Jim Prettyman, his US employers – almost certainly a front for some sort of illicit business – and whatever my wife Fiona was doing during those final weeks before her defection.

I went and walked around for a few minutes. Level Three was especially depressing. On one wall the long open room had dark metal shelving packed with spools and huge 12-platter disk packs, and other examples of sophisticated computer software. Another long wall was occupied with the work stations and on the third wall there was a series of desks and soft chairs that were allocated to senior staff. The last wall was of glass, and behind it the toilers came hauling trolleys piled with paper which the machines consumed with terrible appetites.

I stretched my legs and racked my brains. I even drank some of the concoction that the 'beverage dispenser' classified as coffee. I went to the toilet. For many months the question 'Is there intelligent life in the Data Centre?' had been posed in neat handwriting on the wall there. Now someone had scrawled 'Yes but I'm only visiting' below it. The graffito was the only sign of real human life displayed anywhere, for the staff assigned here soon became as robotic as the machines they operated and serviced. I went back to my work station.

I continued for another hour but it was no use. The damned machine always defeated me. In the old days everything was in Registry, and no matter that the flies were grimy, and you had to take your own soap and towel down there, at least if you couldn't find what you wanted there was always someone to show you the bottom shelf where the missing file was put because it was too heavy, or the top shelf where it was put because it was never asked for, or the door it was put against because someone had stolen the wedge that kept the door open. I preferred Registry.

'Where did you have lunch today?' Gloria asked me in that cheerful casual voice that she assumes when suspicion warps her soul. She wasn't visiting her parents this evening: they were at a dentist's convention in Madrid.

'The Submarine,' I said. We were at home and about to have dinner. I was sitting watching the seven o'clock Channel Four news. Gale-force winds were 'lashing the coastline' and bringing 'chaos' and 'havoc' in the way that the weather is apt to do when camera crews have no real news to record. As if to bring the news home to me the window panes rattled and the wind howled loudly through the little trees in the garden. Gloria on her way to the dining room put two glasses of chilled white wine on to the side-table. She was trying to wean me off the hard liquor.

'In the Submarine?' she said with a slight smile and a voice brimming with that malicious one-sided delight for which the Germans coined the word Schadenfreude. 'How perfectly awful!' She laughed.

'Rubber sandwiches from the Dinky Deli,' I added just to complete her pleasure.

'But you weren't back until nearly four,' she called. I could see her in the dining room. She was setting the table for dinner. She did it with the same careful attention she gave to everything. Knives, forks and spoons were aligned with the plastic place-mats; serving spoons guarded the mustard, salt and pepper-mill. The napkins were folded and put into position with mathematical accuracy. Satisfied with the table she came back to where I was sitting, perched herself on the arm of the sofa and took a small sip of her wine.

'I had a meeting at four… with Dicky.' I switched off the TV. It was just a regurgitation of ancient happenings. I suppose the news has to be expanded to fit into its allotted time slot.

'The whole afternoon down there? Whatever were you doing?'

'I stayed on tinkering with the files. I do sometimes.'

'Jim Prettyman?'

She knew me too well. 'That sort of thing,' I admitted.

'Any luck?'

'The same all the time. Have you ever heard of an Arctic coding?'

'No, but there have been a dozen new coding levels in the past year. And there are new top-level data-bank names coming in every month these days.'

'I kept getting the same Access Denied signal from everything I tried.'

'You were trying different ways to get the same data?'

'I spent well over an hour at it.'

'I wish you'd told me, darling,' she said, her voice changing to one of concern.

'Why?'

'I know those machines. I spent a month down there until you rescued me. Remember?'

'I was working those machines…' I almost said before she was born, but the difference in our ages was not something I wanted to keep reminding myself about. '… years ago,' I finished lamely.

'Then you should know about "sneaky-peak",' she said.

'Who, or what in hell is sneaky-peak?'

'If you'd taken proper training, instead of just tapping away and hoping for the best, you'd not do silly things.'

'What are you talking about?' I said.

'When you get any sort of Access Denied signal the machine flags it and records your name and number.'

'Does it?' I asked as she went into the hall and called upstairs to where Billy and Sally were supposed to be doing their homework under the supervision of Doris.

'Dinner, children! Are you ready, Doris?'

She came back into the room and added, 'And that's not all. It lists every file you fail to access. When the Data Security Clerks run their analysis program they can see exactly what it is you were trying to get that is beyond your security clearance.'

'I didn't know that.'

'Obviously, darling.' A kitchen timer sounded and she uttered a muffled Hungarian curse that I'd learned to recognize, and went to the kitchen to get our dinner.

I got up and followed her and watched her getting bright new pots from the oven and loading them on to the trolley. 'You don't know how often they run their security program, do you?'

'Make yourself useful,' she said, and left me with the trolley. I pushed it into the dining room. 'You can't erase it, darling. If that's what you're hoping for, forget it.'

Sally and Billy came in carrying their school books. Billy was fourteen and had suddenly grown tall. He had wire bracing on his teeth. It must have been uncomfortable but he never complained. He was a stoic. Sally was a couple of years younger, still very much a child, and still suffering from the loss of her mother. The truth was that both children missed their mother. They never said so, they kept their grief hidden deep inside and I could find no way of even beginning to console them.

Gloria had made it a routine to check their homework after dinner each evening. She was wonderful to them. Sometimes they seemed to learn more from her in their half an hour of cheerful instruction than they learned all day at school. And Gloria had gained the children's confidence by means of these lessons and that was no less important to all of us. And yet I sometimes wondered if the children didn't resent the happiness I'd found with Gloria. I suspected that they wanted me to bear my rightful share of their sorrow.