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  I go into my outer office, pull out the file server's administration console, log on, and join the departmental Xtank tournament. Fifteen minutes later Angleton's bell dings; I put my game avatar on autopilot and look in on him.

  Angleton positively glowers at me over his spectacles. "Check these files back into storage, sign off, then come back here," he says. "We need to talk."

  I take the tomes and back out of his office. Gulp: he's noticed me! Whatever next?

  The elevator down to the stacks is about to depart when I stick my foot in the door, holding it. Someone with a whole document trolley has got her back to me. "Thanks," I say, turning to punch in my floor as the door closes and we begin our creaky descent into the chalk foundations of London.

  "No bother." I look round and see Dominique with the doctorate from Miskatonic: Mo, whom I last saw stranded in America, phoning me for help on a dark night. She looks surprised to see me. "Hey! What are you doing here?"

  "It's a long story, but to cut it short I was shipped home after you phoned me. Seems those goons who were watching you picked me up. What about you? I thought you were having trouble getting an exit visa?"

  "Are you kidding?" She laughs, but doesn't sound very amused. "I was kidnapped, and when they rescued me I was deported! And when I got back here–" Her eyes narrow.

  The lift doors open on subbasement two. "You were conscripted," I say, sticking my heel in the path of one door. "Right?"

  "If you had anything to do with it–"

  I shake my head. "I'm in more or less the same boat, believe it or not; it's how about two-thirds of us end up here. Look, my Obergruppenfuhrer will send his SS hellhounds after me if I'm not back in his office in ten minutes, but if you've got a free lunchtime or evening I could fill you in?"

  Her eyes narrow some more. "I'll bet you'd like that." Ouch! "Have some good excuses ready, Bob," she says, rolling her file cart toward me. I notice absently that it's full of Proceedings of the Scottish Society of Esoteric Antiquaries from the nineteenth century as I dodge out of the lift.

  "No excuses," I promise, "only the truth."

  "Hah." Her smile is unexpected and enigmatic; then the lift doors slide shut, taking her down farther into the bowels of the Stacks.

  The Stacks are in what used to be a tube station, built during World War Two as an emergency bunker and never hooked up to the underground railway network. There are six levels rather than the usual three, each level built into the upper or lower half of a cylindrical tube eight metres in diameter and nearly a third of a kilometre long. That makes for about two kilometres of tunnels and about fifty kilometres of shelf space. To make matters worse, lots of the material is stored in the form of microfiche–three by five film cards each holding the equivalent of a hundred pages of text–and some of the more recent stuff is stored on gold CDs (of which the Stacks hold, at a rough guess, some tens of thousands). That all adds up to a lot of information.

  We don't use the Dewey Decimal Catalogue to locate volumes in here; our requirements are sufficiently specialised that we have to use the system devised by Professor Angell of Brown University and subsequently known as the Codex Mathemagica. I've spent the past few weeks getting my head around the more arcane aspects of a cataloguing system that uses surreal number theory and can cope with the N-dimensional library spaces of Borges. You might think this a deadly boring occupation, but the ever-present danger of getting lost in the stacks keeps you on your toes. Besides which, there are rumours of ape-men living down here; I don't know how the rumours got started, but this place is more than somewhat creepy when you're on your own late at night. There's something weird about the people who work in the stacks, and you get the feeling it could be infectious–in fact, I'm really hoping to be assigned some other duty as soon as possible.

  I locate the stack where the Wilberforce Tangent and Opal Orange files came from and wind the aisles of shelving apart to make way; they are both dead agent files from many years ago, musty with the stench of bureaucratic history. I slide them in, then pause: next to Opal Orange there's another file, one with a freshly printed binding titled Ogre Reality. The name tickles my silly gland, and in a gross violation of procedure I flip it out of the shelves and check the contents page. It's all paper, at this stage, and as soon as I see the MOST SECRET stamp I move to flip it shut–then pause, my eyeballs registering the words "Santa Cruz" midway down the first page. I begin speed-reading.

  Five minutes later, the small of my back soaked in a cold sweat, I replace the file on the shelf, wind them back together, and head for the lift as fast as my feet will carry me. I don't want Angleton to think I'm late–especially after reading that file. It seems I'm lucky enough to be alive as it is . . .

  * * * *

  "Pay attention to this, Mr. Howard. You are in a privileged position; you have access to information that other people would literally kill for. Because you stumbled into the Laundry through a second-floor window, so to speak, your technical clearance is several levels above that which would be assigned to you if you were a generic entrant. In one respect, that is useful; all organisations need junior personnel who have high clearances for certain types of data. On another level, it's a major obstacle." Angleton points his bony middle finger at me. "Because you have no respect."

  He's obviously seen The Godfather one time too many. I find myself waiting for a goon to step out of the shadows and stick a gun in my ear. Maybe he just doesn't like my T-shirt, a picture of a riot cop brandishing a truncheon beneath the caption "Do not question authority." I swallow, wondering what's coming up next.

  Angleton sighs deeply, then stares at the dark greenish oil painting that hangs on his office wall behind the visitor's hot seat. "You can fool Andrew Newstrom but you can't fool me," he says quietly.

  "You know Andy?"

  "I trained him when he was your age. He has a commitment that is in short supply these days. I know just how devoted to this organisation you are. Draftees back in my day used to understand what they'd got themselves into, but you young ones . . ."

  'Ask not what you can do for your country, but what your country has ever done for you?' I raise an eyebrow at him.

  He snorts. "I see you understand your deficiencies."

  I shake my head. "Not me–that's not my problem. I decided I want to make a career here. I know I don't have to–I know what the Laundry's for–but if I just sat around under the cameras waiting for my pension I'd get bored."

  Those eyes are back on me, trying to drill right through to the back of my head. "We know that, Howard. If you were simply serving your time you'd be back downstairs, counting hairs on a caterpillar or something until retirement. I've seen your record and I am aware that you are intelligent, ingenious, resourceful, technically adept, and no less brave than average. But that doesn't alter what I've said one bit: you are routinely, grossly insubordinate. You think you have a right to know things that people would–and do–kill for. You take shortcuts. You aren't an organisation man and you never will be. If it was up to me you'd be on the outside, and never allowed anywhere near us."

  "But I'm not," I say. "Nobody even noticed me until I'd worked out the geometry curve iteration method for invoking Nyarlathotep and nearly wiped out Birmingham by accident. Then they came and offered me a post as Senior Scientific Officer and made it clear that 'no' wasn't on the list of acceptable answers. Turns out that nuking Birmingham overrides the positive vetting requirement, so they issued a reliability waiver and you're stuck with me. Shouldn't you be pleased that I've decided to make the best of things and try to be useful?"

  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 ha
ir, 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.

  "Yes? Oh, it's you."

  "It's ten to six," I say diffidently. "Another ten minutes and an orangoutang in a blue suit will come round and lock you in for the night. I know some people enjoy that sort of thing, but you didn't strike me as the type. So I was thinking, could you do with a glass of wine and that explanation we were talking about?"

  She looks at me deadpan. "Sounds better than facing the urban gorillas. I've got to get home for nine but I guess I can spare an hour. Do you have anywhere in mind?"

  We end up at an earning-facilitated nerd nirvana called Wagamama, just off New Oxford Street

  : you can't miss it, just look for the queue of fashion victims halfway around the block. Some of them have been waiting so long that the cobwebs have fossilised. My impressions are of a huge stainless steel kitchen and Australian expat waiters on rollerblades beaming infrared orders and wide-eyed smiles at each other from handheld computers as they skate a
round the refectory tables, where earnest young things in tiny rectangular spectacles discuss Derrida's influence on alcopop marketing via the next big dot-sad IPO, or whatever it is the "in" herd is obsessing about these days over their gyoza and organic buckwheat ramen. Mo is crammed opposite me at one end of a barrack-room table of bleached pine that looks as if they polish it every night with a microtome blade; our neighbours are giggling over some TV studio deal, and she's looking at me with an analytical expression borrowed from the laboratory razor's owner.

  "The food's very good," I offer defensively.

  "It's not that"–she gazes past my shoulder–"it's the culture. It's very Californian. I wasn't expecting the rot to have reached London yet."

  "We are Bay Aryans from Berkeley: prepare to be reengineered in an attractive range of colour schemes for your safety and comfort!"

  "Something like that." A waitron whizzes past and smart-bombs us both with cans of Kirin that feel as if they've been soaked in liquid nitrogen. Mo picks hers up and winces at me as it bites her fingertips. "Why do they call it the Laundry?"

  "Uh . . ." I think for a moment. "Back in the Second World War, they were based in a requisitioned Chinese laundry in Soho, I think. They got Dansey House when the Dustbin's new skyscraper was commissioned." I pick up my beer carefully, using a mitten improvised from my sleeve, and tip the can into a glass. "Claude Dansey, he was stuck in charge of SOE. Former SIS dude, didn't get on well with the top nobs–it was all politics; SOE was the cowboy arm of British secret ops during the war. Churchill charged SOE with setting Europe ablaze behind German lines, and that's exactly what they tried to do. Until December 1945, when SIS got their revenge, of course."