The Fuller Memorandum

7. BEER AND TEA

YOU CAN FOCUS ON THINKING YOURSELF INTO THE OTHER guy’s shoes until the cows come home, but it’s not going to do you a whole lot of good if he’s actually wearing sandals. More to the point, what if he’s got an entire shoe rack to choose from, and the pair you need is the one that’s missing? There is a chicken-and-egg problem here, or more accurately a sole-and-bootstrap one, and I’m not going to solve it by sitting in my office. Nor am I going to fix matters by hollering down the speaking tube at the gnomes buried in the stacks, not with just two delivery runs a day.

On the other hand, if you go and actually look at the other guy’s footprints you might just find something new. And so, in a spirit of enquiry, I set out to burgle Angleton’s office.

Now, it just so happens that Angleton has officially been declared missing. And I am his assistant trainee tea-boy. In a more paranoid working environment I might just be under suspicion of having disappeared him myself: perish the thought and pass the ammunition. But Angleton is reckoned to be sufficiently formidable that . . . well, let’s say it’s unlikely. Besides, we don’t generally play politics with the kid gloves off. (There are exceptions, such as the late and unlamented Bridget; but they’re exactly that: exceptions. The hard fact is that all the real players can turn the game board into a smoking hole in the map. Which generally forces them to tread lightly.)

Skulking past Iris’s office window, I tiptoe around the coffee station and duck down the back staircase, through the fire doors, round the bend, down the fire escape stairs, and then pause outside the unmarked green metal door. I do not encounter anyone in the process, but you can never be sure—there are cameras, and there is Internal Security, and if you’re really unlucky there are the caretakers from the night shift. This is a security agency after all. However slipshod and dustily eccentric it might appear at times, you should never take things for granted if you are perpetrating monkey business.

I pull out the NecronomiPod and fire it up. Happy fun icons glow at me: Safari, YouTube, Horned Skull, Settings, Bloody Runes, Messaging, Elder Sign, you know the interface. Bloody Runes gets me into the ward detector, which is showing the usual options. I point the camera at the door and peer into the shiny screen. Sure enough, in addition to Angleton’s trademark Screaming Mind someone has ploddingly inscribed a Langford Death Parrot, with a sympathetic link to a web stats counter so they can monitor how many intruders it’s headcrashed from the comfort of their laptop. Tch, what are standards coming to? I pause as a nasty thought strikes me and I triple-check the door frame, then the ceiling above the entrance, then the other side of the corridor, just in case—but no, nothing. This is strictly amateur hour stuff, so rather than zapping the LDP I pull out my conductive pencil and sketch in a breakpoint and then an exception list with a single item: the signature of my new ward. The Screaming Mind already knows me well. Three minutes later I put the phone away, place my hand on the doorknob, twist and push.

Angleton’s office: here be monsters. Silent and cold, it is home to the ghosts of a war colder by far than the one the ignorant public thought we won in 1989—a room walled in floor-to-ceiling file drawers, a gunmetal desk with organ-pedals and teletype keyboard, dominated by a hooded microfiche reader—the silent heart of an intelligence stilled, no longer beating out the number station signals across the Iron Curtain. I half-expect to see cobwebs in the corners, to smell the stale cigarette ash of a thousand tense nights beneath the arctic skies, waiting for the bombers.

I shake myself. History lies thick as winter snow in this room: I could drown beneath its avalanche weight if I don’t pull myself together. And in any case, Angleton was here—in his office I mean, not in this actual spot—before the cold war. I’ve seen a photograph from 1942, the man himself smiling at the camera, visibly no older (or younger) than he is today. It’s an open question, the extent to which he was involved in the occult affairs of government before the Second World War. Just how far back does he go? Human Resources don’t have a home address on file, which is itself suggestive. I wonder . . .

Before I sit down behind his desk, I scan the walls, floor, and ceiling up and down with the NecronomiPod. Sure enough, certain of the file drawers are booby-trapped with lethal-looking webworks of magic—not drawn in the plodding journeyman hand of the outer door’s vandal, but sketched in Angleton’s spidery scrawl, complex arcs and symbols linking arcane declarations and gruesome probability matrices. I could reverse engineer them in time and maybe worm my way inside, but knowing the boss there’s probably nothing there but nitrogen triiodide on the drawer rails and a jack-in-the-box loaded with tear gas: he was a firm believer in keeping the crown jewels in his head—or its annex, the thing in the green metal desk.

The Memex . . .

You’ve got to understand that although I’ve read about the things, I’ve never actually used one. It’s an important piece of the history of computing, leaked to the public as a think-piece commissioned by the Atlantic Weekly in 1945; most of the readers thought it was a gosh-wow-by-damn good idea, but were unlikely to realize that a number of the things had actually been built, using a slush fund earmarked for the Manhattan Project. The product of electromechanical engineering at its finest, not to mention its most horrendously complex, each Memex cost as much as a B-29 bomber—and contained six times as many moving parts, most of them assembled by watchmakers. It wasn’t until HyperCard showed up on the Apple Mac in 1987 that anything like it reached the general public.

I believe Angleton’s Memex is the only one that is still working, much less in day-to-day use, and to say it takes black magic to keep it running would be no exaggeration. I approach the seat with considerable caution, and not just because I’m absolutely certain he will have taken steps to ensure that anyone who sits in it without his approval and pushes the big red on button will never push another button in their (admittedly short) life; he knows how to use the thing, but if I crash it or break the cylinder head gasket or something and he comes back, the only shoes I’d be safe in would be a pair of NASA-issue moon boots (and maybe not even then).

I drag the wooden chair back from the Memex—the tiny casters squeak like agonized rodents across the worn linoleum floor—and lower myself gingerly into the cracked leather seat. The oak arms are worn smooth beneath my hands, where his palms have pressed upon them over the decades. I grab the solid sides of the desk and ease myself forward until my feet rest lightly on the pedals. There’s an angled glass strip facing me from the far end of the desk, and a light in the leg-well that comes on as my heels touch the kick-plate: it’s a periscope, giving me a view of my toes and the letters at the back of each pedal. I turn the gunmetal turret of the microfiche reader towards me, place the NecronomiPod on the desktop, and push the power button.

There’s a clunk of relays closing, and then a thrumming vibration runs through the machine. It’s easy to forget that though it weighs more than a ton, its average component weighs less than two grams: the gears alone took two months’ entire output from the largest watch factory in America. I stare into the hooded circular screen in something like awe. Machined to submicron precision, yet less powerful than the ancient 68EC000 in my washing machine, these devices were the backbone of the Laundry’s Intelligence Analysis section in the late 1940s. It’s like a steam locomotive or a stone axe: just because it’s obsolete doesn’t make it any less of an achievement, or any less fit for purpose.

The screen lights up—not like an LCD monitor, or even an old cathode ray tube, but more like an antique film projector.

The moment of truth: I cautiously kick-type BOB, then spend a fruitless minute hunting for the return key before I realize there’s a paddle-shaped lever protruding level with my left knee—like the handle on a manual typewriter. I nudge it.

There’s a clunk from inside the desk and the injunction vanishes, to be replaced by a picture of the organization coat of arms. Then more words appear, scrolling in from the bottom of the screen, wobbling slightly:

What the hell? I laboriously type BLOODY BARON, and knee the return paddle. (There’s something weird about the foot-keyboard: then I twig to the fact that its abbreviated supply of characters means it’s probably a Baudot Code system. Which figures. Older than ASCII . . .)

The screen fades to white after a couple of seconds, then a bloody sigil flashes into view. It doesn’t kill me to look at it, but the disquieting sense that the void is inspecting the inside of the back of my skull makes me squirm on my seat. There is an eye-warping loop to one side of it that feels familiar, as if it’s tied to my soul somehow.

Knees knocking, I type Y (RETURN).

If you are reading this message, I am absent. Welcome to the dead man’s boots: hope you don’t find them too tight. You are one of only four people who have access to this machine (and at least two of them are dead or dying of K Syndrome).

You may: read all files not flagged with a Z-prefix, search all files not flagged with a Z-prefix, and print any files flagged with a prefix from A to Q.

You may not: read or search Z-prefix files. Print files flagged with a prefix from S to Z. Dismantle or reverse-engineer this instrument.

This is Angleton. He doesn’t bluff. I make a note of those clearances on my phone, then, hesitantly, I type Y.

I have, in fact, seen worse-designed user interfaces. There are abominations out there that claim to be personal media players that—but I digress. The Memex is a miracle of simplicity and good design, as long as you bear in mind that it’s operated by foot pedals (except for the paper tape punch), the display is a microfilm reader, and it can’t display more than ten menu choices on screen at any time. Unlike early digital computers such as the Manchester Mark One, you don’t need to be Alan Turing and debug raw machine code on the fly by flashing a torch at the naked phosphor memory screen; you just need to be able to type on a Baudot keyboard using both feet (with no delete key and lethal retaliation promised if you make certain typos). There’s nothing here that’s remotely as hostile as VM/CMS to a UNIX hacker. I’ve just got an edgy feeling that the Memex is reading me, and sitting in quietly humming judgment. So I spend half an hour reading the quick start guide, and then . . .

I find the shift pedal, kick the Memex into numerical entry mode, and type:

Shit. I try again.

There is a whirring and a chunking sound from within the desk. Aha! After several sluggish seconds a new menu appears.

More whirring and a brief pause. Then the screen clears, to display everything the Memex knows about the missing file:

THERE COMES A TIME IN EVERY COUNTERESPIONAGE INVESTIgation when you have to grit your teeth, admit that you’re at your wits’ end, admit defeat, and bugger off home for a Chinese takeaway and a night in front of the telly. Then you get a good night’s sleep (except for the nocturnal eructations induced by too much black bean sauce) and awaken, refreshed and revived and in a mood to do battle once more with—

Bollocks.

I have gotten somewhere: I now know that the missing file is called the Fuller Memorandum (which by a huge leap of inductive logic—I hope I’m not getting ahead of myself here—I deduce is a memorandum, by or about F). It was filed in 1941, was absolutely mega-top-secret burn-before-reading stuff sixty-five years ago, and has some bearing on CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN. It’s also missing. Those last three facts would be enough to give me industrial-grade stomach ulcers if it was my fault. Luckily, it’s not my fault. All I have to do is find Angleton and I’m sure he can explain it all, and also explain what the flaming fuck it has got to do with BLOODY BARON.

This much is not time-critical. Getting that Chinese takeaway, with or without black bean sauce, is time-critical, lest I starve to death on the case. Going home and doing sweet, sappy, quality time things with Mo is time-critical too, lest she files for divorce on grounds of neglect. And so is not having a nervous breakdown while waiting for the board of enquiry findings, lest I find myself without a career, in which case they’ll put me in charge of pushing that handcart full of dusty files around the department. So I stand up, stretch, push the off button on the Memex, and leave Angleton’s lair.

I pause briefly in my own rabbit hutch of an office, scan my email, respond to a couple of trivial pestiferations (no, I am no longer in charge of the structured cabling specifications for D Block; yes, I am still attached to the international common insourcing and acquisition standards committee, for my sins in a previous life; no, I do not have a desktop license for Microsoft Office, because my desktop PC is a Microsoft-free zone for security reasons—and would you like fries with that?). The scanner has finished digesting all those dusty letters from Arthur to John; I squirt the PDFs across to the NecronomiPod and then I grab my backpack and umbrella and head for home. Iris isn’t in her office as I pass the window, and Rita on the front desk has pissed off early—then I check my watch and do a double take. It’s six forty. Shit. Mo will kill me, I think as I head down the main staircase at a fast clip and barrel through the staff exit.

This is London. South Bank, south of the center, north of Tooting, and west of Wandsworth (come on, you can alliterate too)—suburban high street UK. It is early evening and the streets are still crowded, but most of the shops are closed. Meanwhile, the pubs are half-full with the sort of hardcore post-work crowd that go drinking on a Monday evening. I turn left, walking towards the nearest tube station: it’s fifteen minutes away but once it gets this late there’s no point waiting for a bus.

This is London. The worst thing that can happen to you is usually a mugging at knifepoint, and I do my best not to look like a promising victim, which is why it takes me a couple of minutes to realize that I’m being tailed. In fact, it takes until the three of them move to box me in: at that point, disbelief is futile. I’ve done the mandatory Escape and Evasion training, not to mention Streetwise 101; I just wasn’t expecting to need it here.

Two of them are strong, silent types in black leather biker jackets worn over white tees and jeans. They’ve got short stubbly blond hair and the sort of muscles you get when you go through a Spetsnaz training course—not bodybuilders: more like triathletes. They come up behind me and march along either side, too damn close. The third of them, who I guess is their boss, is a middle-aged man in a baggy Italian suit, his open shirt collar stating that he’s off the office clock and on his own time. He slides in just ahead and to the left of Thug #1 as I glance sideways. He winks at me. “Please to follow this way,” he says.

I glance to my right. Thug #2 matches my stride, step for step. He stares at me like a police dog that’s had its vocal cords severed. I glimpse his eyes and look away hastily. Shit.

“Who are you?” I ask, my tongue dry and stumbling, as Mr. Baggy Suit pauses in the doorway of the Frog and Tourettes.

“You may wish to call me Panin.” He smiles faintly. “Nikolai Panin. It’s not my real name, but it will serve.” He gestures at the door. “Please allow me to buy you a drink. I assure you, my intentions are honorable.”

My ward is itching; nevertheless I am disinclined to bet my life on it. Panin, whoever he is, is a player: his definition of “honorable” might not encompass allowing me to escape with my life, but he’s unlikely to start something in the middle of a pub with an after-work crowd. “Would you mind leaving the muscle outside?” I ask. “I assume they’re not drinking.”

“Nyet.” He snaps his fingers and says something to the two revenants. They split, taking up positions to either side of the street front of the pub. “After you,” he says, waving me into the entrance.

If I was James Bond, this is the point at which I would draw my concealed pistol, plug both heavies between the eyes, get Panin in an armlock, and pistol-whip some answers out of him. But I am not James Bond, and I don’t want to precipitate a diplomatic incident by assaulting the Second Naval Attaché and a couple of embassy guards or footballers or whatever (not to mention sparking a murder investigation which would result in the Plumbers having to conduct a gigantic and expensive cover-up operation, all of which would come out of my departmental operating budget and drive Iris to distraction). And anyway, everyone knows that you don’t get useful answers by torturing people, you get useful answers by making them trust you.

(Why don’t you talk to them? I’d asked the committee.

(Because we might unintentionally tell them something they don’t already know, said Choudhury, after staring at me for a minute as if I’d grown a second head.

(Fuck that shit, like I said.)

So I let Panin buy me a pint. “By the way, do you mind if I text my wife to tell her I’m going to be late?” I ask.

“If you think it necessary, but I promise I will keep you only half an hour.”

“Thanks.” I smile gratefully and whip out the NecronomiPod and tap out a text: HAVING A BEER WITH UNCLE FESTER’S BOSS, HOME LATE. Panin holds up a purple drinking voucher and it has the desired effect: money and a pair of pint glasses change hands. He carries them over to a small table in the back of the pub and I follow him. Panin’s assistants gave me a nasty turn, but it seems this is to be a friendly chat, albeit for extremely unusual values of friendly. I keep both my hands on the table. Wouldn’t do to give the Spetsnaz goons the wrong idea—I have a feeling it would take more than Harry’s AA-12 shotgun to stop them in their tracks.

“To health, home, and happiness,” he proposes, raising his glass.

“I’ll drink to that.” My ward doesn’t nudge me as I bring the drink to my lips. “So. I guess you wanted to talk?”

“Mm, yes.” Panin, having taken a mouthful, puts his glass down. “Do you have any clues to its whereabouts?”

“Have what?” I ask cautiously.

“The teapot.”

“Tea—” I take another mouthful of ESB. “Pot?” There was something about a teapot in those letters, wasn’t there? Something Choudhury said in the meeting, maybe?

“It’s missing.” Panin sounds impatient. “Your people have lost it, yes?”

I decide to play dumb. “If any teapots have gone missing, I suppose Facilities would be the people who’d deal with that . . . Why do you ask?”

“You English!” For a moment, Panin looks exasperated, then he quickly pulls a lid over it. “The teapot is missing,” he repeats, as if to a very slow pupil. “It has been missing since last week. Everyone is looking for it, us, you, the opposition . . . ! You were its last keepers. Please, I implore you, find it? For all our sakes, find it before the wrong people get their hands on it and make tea.”

Committed to paper, this dialogue might sound comical: but coming from Panin’s mouth, in his soft, clipped diction, it is anything but.

I shiver. “Ungern Sternberg’s teapot didn’t get misplaced by accident,” I hazard.

Panin’s response takes me by surprise: “Idiot!” He leans back in disgust, raises his glass, and takes a deep and disrespectful swig. “You are fishing, now.”

Bother, I’ve been rumbled. “’Fraid so. Let me level with you? I know it’s missing, but that’s all I know. But I’ll tell you what, if you can tell me what happened in Amsterdam last Wednesday and why it followed my wife home on Thursday I would be very grateful.”

“Amster—” Panin shuts his mouth with a click. “Your wife is unhurt, I hope?” he asks, all nervous solicitude.

“Shaken.” But not stirred. “The—intruder—was attributed to your people, did you know that?”

“Not unexpected.” Panin makes a gesture of dismissal with one hand. “They do that, you know. To muddy the waters.”

“Who? The opposition?”

Panin gives me that look again, the look you might give to the friendly but stupid puppy that’s just widdled on the carpet for the third time that day. “Tell me, Mr. Howard, what do you know?”

I sigh. “Not much, it seems. I have been seconded to a committee that’s trying to work out why you folks are currently running up an eBay reputation score like there’s no tomorrow. I am trying to deal with an unpleasant domestic situation, namely work following my wife home. My boss is out of the office, and I’m trying to pick up the pieces. If you thought you could shake me down for useful information, I’m afraid you picked the wrong spy. I could tell you more than you could possibly want to know about the structured cabling requirements for our new headquarter building’s fourth subbasement, but when it comes to missing teapots, nobody put me on the flash priority classified briefing list.”

“I see.” Panin looks gloomy. “Well, Mr. Howard, many would not believe you—but I do. So, here is my card.” He passes me a plain white business card—unprinted on either side, but pressed from a very high grade of linen weave. It makes my fingertips tingle. “Should you have anything to discuss, call me.”

I slide it into my breast pocket. “Thanks.”

“As for the teapot, it was never the same after Ungern Sternberg retrieved it from the Bogd Khan’s altar.”

He’s studying my face. I do my best not to twitch. I’ve heard those names before. “I’ll keep my eyes open for it,” I reassure him.

“I’m sure you will,” he says gravely. “After all, it would be in everyone’s best interests for the teapot to return to its rightful office.” He drains his beer glass. “I will see you around, I am sure,” he says, rising.

“Bye.” I raise my glass to his back as he turns towards the door, shoulders hunched.