"Huh? What's wrong?"
Andy looks morose. "If I'd known you'd show such a well-developed talent for raking up the mud…"
"Comes of my hacking hobby before I came to the attention of… look. I called the Plumbers because I had reason to be afraid that Mo-Professor O'Brien-was in serious danger. Would you rather I hadn't?"
"No." He sighs. For a moment he looks old. "You did the right thing. It's just that the Plumbing budget is chargeable to departmental accounts. That leaves us open to some rather nasty maneuvering if the usual suspects decide it's an opportunity to extend their little empires. I'm wondering how the hell we're going to spin it past Harriet."
"Why don't you just tell-oh."
"Yes." He nods at me. "You're beginning to catch on. Now run along and get back to work. I'm sure your in-tray is overflowing."
I'M WORKING MY WAY THROUGH THAT OVERCROWDED in-tray late in the afternoon when Harriet stalks in without knocking. (Actually, I'm up to my eyeballs in a clipping from the Santa Cruz County Sentinel. It makes for fascinating reading: TWO DEAD IN MURDER, SUICIDE. Two unidentified males, one believed to be a Saudi Arabian national, found dead in a house out toward Davenport. Police investigating weird occult symbols smeared on the walls in blood. Drugs suspected.) "Ah, Bob," she coos with malevolent solicitude. "Just the person I was looking for!"
Oh shit. "What can I do for you?" I ask.
She leans over my desk. "I understand you called out the Plumbers last night," she says. "I happen to know that you're currently assigned to Angleton as JPS, which is a nonoperational role and therefore doesn't give you release authority for wet-and-dry issues. You are no doubt aware that cleanup funds are allocated on a per-department basis, and require prior authorisation from your head of department, in writing. You didn't obtain authorisation from Bridget, and funnily enough, you didn't approach me for a release either." She smiles with chilly insouciance. "Would you like to explain yourself?"
"I can't," I say.
"I-see." Harriet looms over me, visibly working on her anger. "You realise that last night you cost our working budget more than seven thousand pounds? That's going to have to be justified, Mr. Howard, and you are going to justify it to the Audit Commission when they come round next month. Let's see"-she flips through what looks for all the world like a commercial invoice-"cleaning up Professor O'Brien's front door, sweeping her apartment for listeners and actors, rehousing Professor O'Brien in a secure apartment, armed escort, medical expenses. What on earth have you been up to?"
"I can't tell you," I say.
"You're going to tell me. That's an order, by the way," she says in conversational tones. "You're going to tell me in writing exactly what happened there last night, and explain why I shouldn't take the expenses out of your pay packet-"
"Harriet."
We both look round. Angleton's door is ajar; I wonder how long he's been standing there.
"You don't have clearance," he says. "Let it drop. That's an order."
The door shuts. Harriet stands there for a moment, her jaw working soundlessly as if she's forgotten how to speak. I commit the spectacle to memory for future enjoyment. "Don't think this is the last you'll hear of this," she snaps at me as she leaves, slamming the door.
TWO DEAD IN MURDER, SUICIDE. Hmm. Ahnenerbe. Thule Gesellschaft. Incubi. German accents. Opener of the Ways. Double-hmm. I pull my terminal closer; it's only got access to low-classification and public sources, but it's time to do some serious data mining. I wonder… just what have Yusuf Qaradawi's friends and the Mukhabarat got to do with the last and most secret nightmares of the Third Reich?
THE NEXT DAY I GO INTO THE OFFICE AND FIND Nick waiting for me at my desk like an overexcited trainee schoolmaster. This is an unscheduled intrusion in my plans, which mostly revolve around applying some security patches to the departmental file server and digging out the maintenance schematics to Angleton's antique Memex.
"Come along now! I've got something to show you," he says, in a tone that makes it clear I don't have any choice. He leads me up a staircase carpeted in a thick bottle-green pile that I haven't seen before, then along a corridor with dark, oak-panelled walls like a provincial gentlemen's club from the 1930s, except that gentlemen's clubs don't come with closed circuit TV cameras and combination locks on the doors.
"What is this place?" I ask.
"Used to be the director's manor," he explains. "When we had a director." When we had a director: I don't ask. He stops at a thick oak door and punches some digits into the lock, then opens it. "After you," he says.
There's a conference table and a modern-by Laundry standards-laptop set up at one end of it. A whole shitload of electronics racked up on shelves behind, along with some thick leather-bound books and a bunch of stuff like silver pencils, jars of mouldy dust, and what looks for all the world like a polygraph. As I go in I notice that the doorframe is unusually thick and there are no outside windows. "Is this shielded?" I ask.
Nick nods jerkily. "Well spotted, that man! Now sit down," he suggests.
I sit. The top shelf of the equipment rack is dominated by a glass bell jar with a human skull in it; I grin back at it. " 'Alas, poor Yorick.' "
"Carry on like you have been and maybe your head will fetch up in there one day," Nick says, grinning. "Ah." The door opens. "Andy."
"Why am I here?" I ask. "All this cloak and dagger shit is-"
Andy drops a fat lever-arch file on the table in front of me. "Read and enjoy," he says dryly. "One day you, too, can have the fun of maintaining this manual."
I open the cover to be confronted by a sheet which basically says I can be arrested for so much as thinking about disclosing the contents of the next page. I flip to page two and read a paragraph that essentially says "Abandon hope all ye who enter here," so I turn that one over and get to the title page: FIELD OPERATIONS MANUAL FOR COUNTER-OCCULT OPERATIONS. Below it, in small print: Approved by Departmental Quality Assurance Team and then Complies with BS5750 standard for total quality management. I shudder. "Since when have we been into mummification?" I ask.
"Embalming-" Andy frowns for a moment. "Oh, you mean total quality-" He stops and clears his throat. "One of these days your sense of humour is going to get you into trouble, Bob."
"Thanks for the advance warning." I look at the manual gloomily. "Let me guess. I'm to do as we discussed earlier-by the book. This book, right? Why wasn't I issued it before Santa Cruz?"
Andy pulls out the chair beside me and flops down in it. "Because that wasn't officially an operation," he says in tones of sweet reason. "That was an informal information-gathering exercise involving a nonclassified source. Operations require sign-off at director level. Informal information-gathering exercises don't."
I put the folder down on the table. "Does Bridget have anything to do with this?"
"Tangentially."
Nick sniffs, loudly, from his post by the door. "Arse-covering, boy. That was meant to be a risk-free chat. This is about what you do when you're ordered to stick your head in the lion's mouth. Or up its arse to inspect the hemorrhoids."
I look round at him. "You're planning on sending me on an op?" I ask. "Happy joy. Not."
Andy glances at Nick. "He's beginning to get it," he comments.
"Are you planning on involving Professor O'Brien in this?" I ask. "I mean, it seems to me that she's the one under threat. Isn't she?"