Charles Stross - The Atrocity Archives

Angleton leans forward across the polished top of his Memex desk. With a visible effort he slews the microfiche reader hood around so that I can see the screen, then taps one bony finger on a mechanical keypress. "Watch and learn."

The desk whirs and clunks; cams and gears buried deep in it shuffle hypertext links and bring up a new microfilm card. A man's face shows up on the screen. Moustache, sunglasses, cropped hair, forty-something and jowly with it. "Tariq Nassir al-Tikriti. Remember that last bit. He works for a man who grew up in his home town around the same time, who goes by the name of Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti. Mr. Nassir's job entails arranging for funds to be transferred from the Mukhabarat-Saddam's private Gestapo-to friendly parties for purposes of inconveniencing enemies of the Ba'ath party of Iraq. Friendlies such as Mohammed Kadass, who used to live in Afghanistan before he fell foul of the Taliban."

"Nice to know they're not all religious fundamentalists," I say, as the Memex flicks to a shot of a bearded guy wearing a turbanlike something on his head. (He's scowling at the camera as if he suspects it of holding Western sympathies.)

"They deported him for excessive zeal," Angelton says heavily. "Turns out he was marshalling resources for Yusuf Qaradawi's school. Do I need to draw you a diagram?"

"Guess not. What does Qaradawi teach?"

"Originally management studies and economics, but lately he's added suicide bombing, the necessity for armed struggle preceded by Da'wa and military preparation in order to repel the greater Kufr , and gauge metrics for raster-driven generative sepiroth on vector processors. Summoning the lesser shoggothim in other words."

"Nng," is all I can say to that. "What's this got to do with the price of coffee?"

Another photograph clicks up on the screen: this time a gorgeous redhead wearing an academic gown over a posh frock. It takes me a moment to recognise Mo. She looks about ten years younger, and the guy in a tux whose arm she's draped over looks-well, lawyerly seems to fit what she told me about her ex. "Dr. Dominique O'Brien. I believe you've met?"

I glance up and Angleton is staring at me.

"Do I have your complete attention now, Mr. Howard?" he rasps.

"Yeah," I concede. "Do you mean the kidnappers in Santa Cruz-"

"Shut up and listen and you may learn something." He waits for me to shut up, then continues. "I'm telling you this because you're in it already, you've met the prime candidate. Now, when you were sent over there we didn't know what you were dealing with, what Dr. O'Brien was sitting on. The Yanks did, which was why they weren't letting her go, but they seem to have changed their minds in view of the security threat. She's not a US citizen and they've got her research findings; interesting, but nothing fundamentally revolutionary. Furthermore, with enough information about her out in the public domain to attract nuisances like the Izzadin al-Qassem hangers-on who tried to snatch her in Santa Cruz, they don't much want her around anymore. Which is why she's over here, in the Laundry and under wraps. They didn't simply deport her, they asked us to take care of her."

"If it's not fundamentally revolutionary research, why are we interested in her?" I ask.

Angleton looks at me oddly. "I'll be the judge of that." It all clicks into place, suddenly. Suppose you worked out how to build a Teller-Ullam configuration fusion device-a hydrogen bomb. That wouldn't qualify as revolutionary these days, either, but that doesn't mean it's unimportant, does it? I must give some sign of understanding what Angleton's getting at because he nods to himself and continues: "The Laundry is in the nonproliferation business and Dr. O'Brien has independently rediscovered something rather more fundamental than a technique for landscaping Wolverhampton without first obtaining planning permission. In the States, the Black Chamber took an interest in her-don't ask about where they fit in the American occult intelligence complex, you really don't want to know-but verified that it wasn't anything new. We may not have a bilateral cooperation treaty with them, but once they worked out that all she'd come up with was a variation on the Logic of Thoth there was really no reason to keep her except to prevent her falling into the hands of undesirable persons like our friend Tariq Nassir. It's their damned munitions export regulations again; the contents of her head are classified up there with nerve gas and other things that go bump in the dark. Anyway, once the mess was cleared up"-he glares at me as he hisses the word mess -"they really had no reason not to let her come home. After all, we're the ones who gave them the Logic in the first place, back in the late fifties."

"Right… so that's all there is to it? I heard those guys, they were going to open a major gateway and drag her through it-"

Angleton abruptly switches off the Memex and stands up, leaning over the desk at me. "Official word is that nothing at all like that happened," he snaps. "There were no witnesses, no evidence, and nothing happened. Because if anything did happen there, that would tend to indicate that the Yanks either fucked up by releasing her, or threw us a live hand grenade, and we know they never fuck up, because our glorious prime minister has his lips firmly wrapped around the presidential cigar in the hope of a renewal of the bilateral trade agreement they're talking about in Washington next month. Do you understand me?"

"Yeah, but-" I stop. "Ah… yes. Official report by Bridget, no?"

For the first time ever Angleton turns an expression on me that might, in a bright light, if you squinted at him, be interpreted as a faint smile. "I couldn't possibly comment."

I spin my wheels for a moment. "Nothing happened," I say robotically. "There were no witnesses. If anything happened it would mean we'd been passed a booby prize. It would mean some bunch of terrorists came arbitrarily close to getting their hands on a paranormal H-bomb designer, and someone at ONI figured they could count coup by passing the designer to us for safe keeping, meaning they expect us to fuck up to their political advantage. And that couldn't possibly happen, right?"

"She's in the Library, on secondment to Pure Research for the duration," Angleton says quite casually. "You might want to invite the young lady out for dinner. I'd be quite interested in hearing about her research at second hand, from someone who obviously understands so much about predicate calculus. Hmm, five-thirty already. You might want to go now."

Taking my cue I stand up and head for the door. My hand is outstretched when Angleton adds, tonelessly: "How many made it back from the raid on Wadi al-Qebir, Mr. Howard?"

I freeze. Shit. "Two," I hear myself saying, unable to control my traitor larynx: it's another of those auditor compulsion fields. Bastard's got his office wired like an interrogation suite!

"Very good, Mr. Howard. They were the ones who didn't try to second-guess their commanding officer. Can I suggest that in future you take a leaf from their book and refrain from poking your nose into things you have been told do not concern you? Or at least learn not to be so predictable about it."

"Ah-"

"Go away before I mock you," he says, sounding distantly amused.

I flee, simultaneously embarrassed and relieved.

I FIND MO BY THE SIMPLE EXPEDIENT OF REMEMBERING that my palmtop is still attuned to her aura; I bounce around the basement levels in the lift, doing a binary search until I zero in on her in one of the reading rooms of the library. She's poring over a fragile illuminated manuscript, inscribed with colours that glow brilliantly beneath the hooded spotlight she uses. She seems to be engrossed, so I knock loudly on the door frame and wait.