Charles Stross - The Fuller Memorandum

“Let’s see. It’ll cycle through the bearers soon enough…”

Dower’s face is melting, morphing into a likeness. Mo’s breath catches in her throat. “Shit.”

“You get around, do you?” Williams sounds amused.

“No, I told you they’re targeting me directly-” She stops, her voice rising. “It would be the best way to get the report out of Dower-send an agent who looks like me-”

“I believe you.” The amusement drops from his voice. “Thousands wouldn’t.”

“Let them.” She takes a deep breath. “Is there anyone else?”

“Wait.” The face is fading, slowly. As it dims, Mo sees a faint shimmer about the eyes: the only sign that it may be a false sending. Whoever is behind the glamour is very good. “Come on, come on…” Dr. Williams murmurs under his breath.

Mo shifts her weight uneasily from one foot to the other, as she does when her feet are complaining about too many hours in smart shoes. She glances sidelong into the darkness, where the shadows are swirling and thickening. A faint spectral scatter of spillage from the violet laser shimmers across the wall. “Any res-”

She is in the process of turning her head back towards Dr. Williams and the workbench as the imago shudders and distorts, twisting into another’s face.

Williams is meticulous, and doesn’t cut corners. This is why he and Mo survive.

There’s a crack like a gunshot, and two near-simultaneous bangs from the power supplies that feed the workbench: high-speed krytron switches short the output to earth. A rattle of broken glass follows, as shards from the diffraction screen and some of the pentaprisms follow. The synthesized voices stop. Seconds later, a thin wisp of smoke begins to curl from the top of the laptop.

“Sitrep,” snaps Williams.

“Contained and uninjured. Yourself?” Mo raises a hand to her cheek. One finger comes away damp with blood: not uninjured. The pain hasn’t reached her yet.

“Keep your goggles on and stay in the grid until I say you’re clear.” The smoke is nauseatingly thick. Williams reaches out with the perspex tongs and flips the light switch. “Thaumometer says we’re grounded. Clear to step out of the grid.” He demonstrates. “Damn, what a mess.”

Mo swallows. “Is there a CCTV track?”

“What did I tell you earlier about images and computers…? No, but we ought to be able to confirm whether it’s your document.” He sounds unhappy. “Did you get a glimpse of, of whatever that was?”

She nods. “Been there, done that.”

“Countermeasures.” Williams makes an obscenity of the word. “Does that tell you anything useful?”

“Yes.” Mo picks up her handbag from the workbench on the opposite wall, hunting for a tissue. “Whoever’s got the report knows what it is-and they’re willing to fight to keep it.” She draws a deep, shuddering breath. “Do you have a secure voice line? I need to make a call.”

CLICK-CLACK. “DON’T MOVE.”

I stand very still. The sound of a shotgun slide being racked at a range of less than three meters is a fairly good indication that your luck has run out-especially if you can’t see where the shooter’s positioned.

“Very good, Mr. Howard.” The speaker is male, standing somewhere behind me. He’s on the embankment, of course. Even the B-Team learn eventually. (Maybe I should have tried to shoot them the other night. And maybe I should cultivate my inner psychopath some more. Oh well.) “Do what I say and I won’t shoot you. If you understand, nod.”

I nod like a Churchill dog, thinking furiously. His accent is odd. Welsh? I can’t place it.

“When I stop speaking I want you to slowly remove your pistol and place it on the ground in front of you. Then I want you to turn around. Do you understand?”

“But I’m not-”

“Did I ask you to speak?” His voice is icy. I shut up fast.

“If you understand, nod,” he repeats. I nod. It’s not my job to disillusion him about my imaginary invisible handgun. Like I said: the B-Team are more dangerous than the A-Team, just like sweating dynamite is more dangerous than Semtex. “Do it,” he says. “Do it very slowly or I’ll shoot you.”

I very slowly lift the right side of my jacket, and mime unhooking a non-existent pistol from a non-existent belt clip. Then I lean over sideways until I nearly topple, and lower my hand towards the roots of a tree. Finally I straighten up-still moving slowly-and turn round, raising my hands.

My first reaction is, A man without a face is pointing a shotgun at me. Then I realize that he’s glammed up, his head masked by a shimmer of random snapshots of other people, like something out of a Philip K. Dick novel. Other than that, he’s wearing jeans and a gray hoodie-just like a million other men in and around this great capital city; the only deviant part of the ensemble is the tactical shotgun.

“Take two steps downhill, until you’re on the path,” he tells me. “Then kneel with your hands on top of your head.”

My heart, barely under control a minute ago, is pounding, but I do what he tells me to do. Arguing with a shotgun isn’t clever. I manage to kneel with my hands on my head-which is harder than you might think, when the ground’s uneven, you’re amped up on adrenaline, and you’re over thirty-and wait.

“Don’t move,” he says. The sun beats down on us as we wait in a frozen diorama for almost a minute. Then I hear footsteps, and a jingling sound, from behind. “Don’t move,” repeats Mr. Faceless, as someone takes hold of my left wrist and clips one ring of a pair of handcuffs around it. “Got him, boss,” says another male voice.

Shit, I think, tensing and ready to make a move if the opportunity presents-but they’re not total idiots and they’ve already got my other wrist.

“Now lie down,” says Mr. Faceless.

What can I do? I take a dive, making a controlled sprawl forward on the dusty cycle path. Thinking: They wouldn’t be doing this if they were going to kill-Mr. Faceless’s companion plants one knee on the small of my back and thrusts a sickly sweet-smelling wad of cotton under my nose-me…

The lights go out.

FROM THE VOICE TRANSCRIPT CALL LOG, NEW ANNEXE:

(Click.) “Angleton.”

“Angleton? O’Brien here.” (Pause.) “What have you done with him?”

(Pause.) “What?”

“Have you checked your email?”

“I don’t believe-excuse me.”

(Pause.) “Well?”

(Dry chuckle.) “He’s a clever boy.”

“And that’s an interesting distribution list on the second message, isn’t it. What have you set him up for this time?”

(Pause.) “A task I would perform myself, were I allowed to, my dear.”

“Bullshit.”

“No, you misunderstand. I am no more permitted to read the Fuller Memorandum than you are permitted to read and revise your own articles of service.”

“But you sent Bob out with a, a fake…”

“Yes. He’s the hare to lure the greyhound-or more accurately the mole-after him. I expect their identity will become clear tomorrow morning, in the course of the BLOODY BARON brown bag session. Which I for one can heartily recommend to you as the cheapest entertainment you’ll see all week-”

“Angleton. Shut up.”

“What?”

“You’ve forgotten something.”

“Hm, yes?”

“Bob’s been suspended on pay.”

(Impatiently.) “Yes?”

“I called Boris.”

“And what has that to do with the price of cheese…?”

“Boris says his firearm was recalled. And he doesn’t have a ward. He left it with me this morning. He’s on the outside and he’s naked. Have you heard from him?”

“No…”

“I tried to phone him a couple of minutes ago. His number is ringing straight through to voice mail.”