"He didn't. And when the Allies found out, they, um, demilitarised Germany with extreme prejudice. In the occult field, anyway. None of the Ahnenerbe-SS researchers from the Numerical Analysis Division survived; if the SOE death squads didn't get them, it was the OSS or the NKVD. That's what the Helsinki Protocol was about: nobody wanted to see systematic mass murder of civilians adopted as a technique in strategic warfare, especially given some of the more unpleasant and extreme effects the weapon Ahnenerbe-SS were working on could give rise to. Like collapsing the false vacuum or letting vastly superhuman alien intelligences gain access to our universe. This stuff made atom bombs and ballistic missiles look harmless."
"Oh." She pauses. "Which is why what happened to me is impossible, right? I think I begin to see. Curiouser and curiouser…"
"I'm going to Amsterdam next Monday, soon as I've booked a flight," I say slowly. "Want to come along?"
I FEEL LIKE A REAL SHIT. ANDY TOLD ME I would, and Angleton ground the message home; but it doesn't help any as I tell her half the reasons why I'm going to Amsterdam-the half she's cleared for.
"The Rijksmuseum has an interesting basement," I say lightly. "It's off-limits to civ-to people who don't have need-to-know on the Helsinki Protocols. Thing is, Holland is part of the EUINTEL agreement, a treaty group that provides for joint suppression operations directed against paranormal threats. I'm not allowed to visit the USA on business without a specific invitation, but Amsterdam is home territory. As long as it's official and I've established a liaison relationship I can call for backup and expect to get it. And if I want to examine the basement library, well, it's the best collated set of Ahnenerbe-SS memorabilia and records this side of Yad Vashem."
"So if you get a hankering to go look at some old masters and disappear through a side door for a couple of hours-"
"Exactly."
"Bullshit, Bob." She frowns at me, eyebrows furrowing. "You've just been lecturing me about the history of this bunch of Nazi necromancers. You obviously think there's some connection with the Middle Eastern guys in Santa Cruz, the one with the weird eyes and the German accent. Your flatmates have just been telling me how safe this house is, and how all the wards have just been updated. If you're afraid of something, why not just sit tight at home?"
I shrug. "Well, leaving aside that the bastards seem to want you for something-I'm not sure. Look, there's some other stuff I'm not allowed to talk about, but right now Amsterdam looks like the right place to be, if I want to find these idiots before they try and kidnap you again."
I pull the grill tray out and slide my garbage pizza onto a plate. "Slice of pizza?"
"Yes, thank you."
I cut the thing in two pieces and slide one onto another plate, pass it to her. "Look, there's a connection between those goons who kidnapped you in Santa Cruz and something my boss has been keeping an eye on for a couple of years. It turns out that they're connected to the Mukhabarat, the Iraqi secret police; there's a proliferation spin on the whole thing, rogue state trying to get its hands on weapons forbidden by treaty. Right?" She nods, mouth too full to reply. "From that perspective, kidnapping you makes perfect sense. What I don't understand is the sacrifice bit. Or the attempt to kill you. It just doesn't make sense if it's simply a Mukhabarat technology transfer deal. Those guys are vicious but they're not idiots."
I take a deep breath. "No, the trouble you've got is something related to the Ahnenerbe-SS's legacy. Which is deep, dark shit. I wouldn't put it beyond Saddam Hussein to be dealing in such things-the Ba'ath party of Iraq explicitly modelled their security apparatus on the Third Reich, and they've got a real down on Jews-but it puzzles me. I mean, the possessed guy you saw who wasn't in the flat when the Black Chamber SWAT team stormed it-was he something to do with the Mukhabarat or one of their proxies summoning up some psychotic Nazi death magic or something? If so, the question is who they are, and the answer may be buried in the Rijksmuseum basement. Oh, and there's one other thing."
"Oh? What would that be?"
I can't look her in the eye; I just can't. "My boss says he'd value your insight. On an informal basis."
Which is only half the truth. What I really want to say to her is: It's you they're after. As long as you're here in a Laundry safe house they can't get to you. But if we trail you in front of them, in the middle of a city that happens to be the Mukhabarat's headquarters for Western Europe, we might be able to draw them out. Get them to try again, under the guns of a friendly team. Be our tethered goat, Mo? But I'm chicken. I don't have the guts to ask her to bait my hook. I hold my tongue and I feel about six inches tall, and in my imagination I can see Andy and Derek nodding silent approval, and it still doesn't help. "Given enough pairs of eyes, all problems are transparent," I say, falling back to platitudes. "Besides, it's a great city. We could maybe study etchings together, or something."
"You need to work on your pickup lines," Mo observes, yanking a particularly limp segment of pizza base loose and holding it up. "But for the sake of argument, consider me charmed. How much will this trip cost?"
"Ah, now that's the good bit." I drain my mug and push it away from me. "There aren't many perks that come from working for the Laundry, but one of them is that it happens to be possible to get a cheap travel pass. Special arrangement with BA, apparently. All we have to pay is the airport tax and our hotel bill. Know any decent B amp;Bs out there?"
6. THE ATROCITY ARCHIVES
THREE DAYS FLICK BY LIKE MICROFICHE CARDS through the input hopper of Angleton's Memex. Mo has settled into the vacant room on the second floor of our safe house like a long-term resident; as a not very senior academic, her Ph.D. years not long behind her, she probably spent years in flat-shares like this. I focus on my day-to-day work, fixing broken network servers, running a security audit of some service department's kit (two illicit copies of Minesweeper and one MP3 music jukebox to eliminate), and spending the afternoons up in the secure office in the executive suite, learning the bible of field operations by heart. I try not to think about what I'm getting Mo into. In fact, I try not to see her at all, spending long hours into the evening poring over arcane regulations and petty incantations for coordinating joint task-force operations. I feel more than a little bit guilty, even though I'm only obeying orders, and consequently I feel a little bit depressed.
At least Mhari doesn't try to get in touch.
The Sunday before we're due to leave I have to stay home because I need to pack my bags. I'm dithering over a stack of T-shirts and an electric toothbrush when someone knocks on my bedroom door. "Bob?"
I open it. "Mo."
She steps inside, hesitant, eyes scanning. My room often has that effect on people. It's not the usual single male scattering of clothes on every available surface-aggravated by my packing-so much as the groaning, double-stacked bookcase and the stuff on the walls. Not many guys have anatomically correct life-sized plastic skeletons hanging from a wall bracket. Or a desk made out of Lego bricks, with the bits of three half-vivisected computers humming and chattering to each other on top of it.
"Are you packing?" she asks, smiling brightly at me; she's dressed up for a night out with some lucky bastard, and here's me wondering when I last changed my T-shirt and looking forward to a close encounter with a slice of toast and a tin of baked beans. But the embarrassment only lasts for a moment, until her wandering gaze settles in the direction of the bookcase. Then: "Is that a copy of Knuth?" She homes in on the top shelf. "Hang on-volume four? But he only finished the first three volumes in that series! Volume four's been overdue for the past twenty years!"