The Fuller Memorandum (22 page)
Read The Fuller Memorandum Online
Authors: Charles Stross
“I’ve waited here for three consecutive nights. What delayed you?”
I close my mouth. Then I open it and close it again a couple of times, just for practice. Finally, when I trust myself to speak, I say one word: “Cultists.”
“
Three days
, boy. Suppose you tell me what you’ve learned?”
Three days
, boy. Suppose you tell me what you’ve learned?”
“One moment.” My paranoia is growing. I take out my phone and peer at him through its camera. TRUESEER tells me that I am, indeed, looking at my boss, who is looking increasingly irritated. I make the shiny vanish. “Okay. From the top: the Fuller Memorandum is missing, the Russians have gotten all upset, cultists are throwing their toys out of the pram, and everyone wants to know about the Teapot. Oh, and someone in Research and Development says that CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN isn’t going to wait a couple of years, but is due to kick off in a few weeks or months at the most. What am I missing?”
Angleton stares at me coldly. “You’re missing the
spy
, boy.”
spy
, boy.”
“The”—I nearly swallow my tongue—“spy?”
“Yes: Helen Langhorn. Aged seventy-four, widow of Flight Lieutenant Adrian Langhorn, long-term resident of Cosford, working part-time at the museum as a volunteer. Met her husband while she was in the WRAAF back in 1963. Which is a pretty interesting occupation for her to have been in, considering that she was also a captain in the Russian Army and a GRU Illegal who was inserted into the UK in 1959, when she was barely out of her teens.”
I make an inarticulate gurgling noise. “But she—the
hangar
—she wasn’t—she can’t have—”
hangar
—she wasn’t—she can’t have—”
Angleton waits for me to wind down. “The many-angled ones are not the only enemy this country has ever faced, boy. Some of us remember.” (It’s okay for
him
to say that—I was about ten when the cold war ended!)
him
to say that—I was about ten when the cold war ended!)
“Helen Langhorn’s primary assignment did not come to an end just because the Soviet Union collapsed. To outward appearances her utility had been in decline for many years, after her husband failed to achieve advancement, costing her access to people and bases; once she hit sixty with no long-term prospects they wrote her off. That is one of the risks one runs with long-term Illegals—their entire life may be marginalized by one or two unfortunate and unpredictable errors. There are probably fifty others like her in the UK—retired bank managers and failed politicians’ wives pruning their privet hedges and daydreaming of the revolution that failed them. Or perhaps they accept it gladly, happy to no longer be a pawn on the chessboard. But in any case, Helen’s career appears to have undergone a brief second flowering in the last few years.”
“But she”—I flap my jaws inarticulately—“she was halfway to dementia!”
“Was she?” Angleton raises a skeptical eyebrow. “She was on the front desk of a museum gallery barely two hundred meters from Hangar 12B, where Airframe 004 is being cannibalized for spare parts to keep the other three white elephants airworthy. You may think
that
no more than a coincidence, but I don’t.”
that
no more than a coincidence, but I don’t.”
“You never told me what that stuff about the white elephants was about—”
“I expected you to
find out for yourself
, boy.” Then Angleton does something I absolutely never expected to see: he sighs unhappily.
find out for yourself
, boy.” Then Angleton does something I absolutely never expected to see: he sighs unhappily.
“Boss?”
Angleton leans back in his chair. “Tell me about Chevaline,” he asks.
“Chevaline?” I frown. “Wasn’t that some sort of nuclear missile program from the sixties or seventies, something like that?”
“Chevaline.” He pauses. “Back in the 1960s, when Harold Wilson cut a deal with Richard Nixon to buy Polaris missiles for the Royal Navy, the tacit assumption was that a British nuclear deterrent need merely be sufficient to pound on Moscow until the rubble bounced. During the 1970s, the Soviets began to construct an anti-ballistic-missile shield around Moscow. It was crude by modern standards: anti-missile rockets with nuclear warheads—but it would have rendered the British Polaris force obsolete. So during the 1970s, a succession of Conservative and Labour governments pushed through a warhead upgrade scheme that replaced the original MRV warheads with far more sophisticated MIRV buses, equipped with decoys and able to engage two targets rather than one. The project was called Chevaline; it cost a billion pounds back in the day—when a billion pounds was
real
money—and they didn’t even tell the Cabinet.”
real
money—and they didn’t even tell the Cabinet.”
“A billion pounds? With no oversight?” I blink rapidly.
We’re
subject to spot audits on office stationery, all the way down to paper clips.
We’re
subject to spot audits on office stationery, all the way down to paper clips.
“Yes.” Angleton smiles sepulchrally. “We helped ensure security, so that it was relatively easy for them to spend an extra two hundred million pounds in 1977 to keep the Concorde production lines at Filton and Bristol open for long enough to produce four extra airframes for the RAF,” Angleton says blandly. “The Plumbers ensured that nobody remembered a thing afterwards.”
“RAF 666 Squadron fly
Concordes
?”
Concordes
?”
“Flew them,” Angleton corrects me. “The long-range occult reconnaissance model, not the nuclear-armed model the RAF originally asked for in 1968. You may not be aware of this, but Prototype 002 was built with attachment points for a bomb bay before the project was abandoned; Bomber Command wanted to replace V-force with a fleet of supersonic bombers that could carry Blue Steel nuclear stand-off bombs to Moscow, but the Navy won the toss. Instead, the RAF got the recon version, with supercargo space for the six demonologists and the optics bench to open the gate they needed to fly through.”
My jaw is beginning to ache from all the speechless opening-and-closing cycles. “You’re shitting me.”
Angleton shakes his head. “The Squadron was based in Filton and Heathrow, flying in British Airways livery—the aircraft movements were described as charter flights, and they wore the hull numbers of BA airframes that were currently undergoing maintenance. They flew one mission a week, departing west over the Atlantic. They refueled from a VC-10 tanker, then the supercargo would open a gate and they’d make a high-speed run across the dead plateau before reopening the gate home and landing at Filton for decontamination and exorcism. It’s all in CODICIL BLACK SKULL. Which you are cleared to read, incidentally.”
I shake myself and take a deep breath. “Let me get this straight. You’re telling me that the RAF has a squadron of black Concordes which they currently keep in a hangar at RAF Cosford? Helen Langhorn was a former Soviet spy who, by a happy accident—for her employers—was in a position to poke around them? Which she did, with results that . . .” I shudder, remembering again: a purple flash, face shrinking and crumpling in on itself around the harsh lines of her skull. “And now the Thirteenth Directorate are sniffing round?”
“Very good! We’ll make a professional paranoid out of you one of these days.” Angleton nods, grudging approval.
“Concorde.”
I do a double take. “But they’ve been retired, right?”
I do a double take. “But they’ve been retired, right?”
“That put a crimp on the cover story, certainly. These days they fly only at night, described as American B-1Bs if anyone asks. A big bomber with four engines and afterburners is a much flimsier cover, and the plane spotters and conspiracy theorists keep the Plumbers busy, but we cannot neglect the watch on the dead plateau. If the thing in the pyramid should stir—” He makes an abrupt cutting gesture with the edge of one hand.
“Dead plateau? Thing in the pyramid?” I’ve got no idea what he’s referring to, but it sounds ominous.
“You’ve been through a gate to
elsewhere
.” I remember a world in the grip of
fimbulwinter
, where the rivers of liquid air ran down through valleys of ice beneath a moon carved with the likeness of Hitler’s face. “There are other, more permanent,
elsewheres
. Some of them we must monitor continuously.
That
world . . . pray you never see it, boy, and pray that the sleeping god in the pyramid never awakens.”
elsewhere
.” I remember a world in the grip of
fimbulwinter
, where the rivers of liquid air ran down through valleys of ice beneath a moon carved with the likeness of Hitler’s face. “There are other, more permanent,
elsewheres
. Some of them we must monitor continuously.
That
world . . . pray you never see it, boy, and pray that the sleeping god in the pyramid never awakens.”
I tilt my head from side to side, trying to spill the invisible goop that’s clogging up my mind. Thinking in here is difficult, as if the air, hazy with the congealed fumes of state secrets, is impeding my ability to reason—
“Boss. Why are you
here
? Everyone thinks you’ve gone missing, AWOL with no forwarding address.”
here
? Everyone thinks you’ve gone missing, AWOL with no forwarding address.”
Angleton grins skeletally. “
Good
. Let’s keep it that way.”
Good
. Let’s keep it that way.”
My eyes are feeling hot and gritty from too much stress and too little sleep, but I manage to roll them anyway. “Big problem: you just tipped me off. Can you give me a reason not to out you to the BLOODY BARON team—other than ‘because I said so’?”
“Of course.” He looks increasingly, alarmingly, amused.
What have I gotten myself into this time?
“You’ll keep it to yourself because while the cat’s away the mice may play, and one of this particular bunch of mice appears to be a security leak, and I’m setting a trap for them. You’re the bait, by the way.”
What have I gotten myself into this time?
“You’ll keep it to yourself because while the cat’s away the mice may play, and one of this particular bunch of mice appears to be a security leak, and I’m setting a trap for them. You’re the bait, by the way.”
“I’m the—”
“And to sex you up so they come after you, I’ve got a little job for you to do.”
“Right, that’s
it
, I’m through with—”
it
, I’m through with—”
“Assuming you want to nail the scum responsible for the CLUB ZERO incident in Amsterdam.”
“—fucking cultists—
really
?”
really
?”
“Yes, Bob.” He has the good grace not to look too smug. “Now shut up and
listen
, there’s a good boy.”
listen
, there’s a good boy.”
He deposits a slim memo on my desk, then places a small plastic baggie on top of it. I squint at it: it’s empty except for a paper clip.
“Here’s what I want you to do . . .”
CLASSIFIED: TEAPOT BARON TYBURN
FROM: Fuller, Laundry
TO: 17F, Naval Intelligence Division
Dear Ian,
Hope all’s well (and my best regards to your mother, long may she keep her nose out of operational matters).
You enquired about Teapot.
Subsequent to the death of Burdokovskii in 1921, Q Division determined that the
preta
referenced in the Sternberg Fragment had returned to the six paths, and if it could be recalled and bound into a suitable host it might be compelled to the service of the state. Given the magnitude of the powers possessed by this particular entity, this was considered a desirable objective; however, its reincarnation required that we provide the hungry ghost with a new host. Obviously, this presented them with a headache; so some bright spark finally came up with the idea of asking the Home Office. A request was accordingly submitted in 1923.
preta
referenced in the Sternberg Fragment had returned to the six paths, and if it could be recalled and bound into a suitable host it might be compelled to the service of the state. Given the magnitude of the powers possessed by this particular entity, this was considered a desirable objective; however, its reincarnation required that we provide the hungry ghost with a new host. Obviously, this presented them with a headache; so some bright spark finally came up with the idea of asking the Home Office. A request was accordingly submitted in 1923.
Due to the 1924 election and subsequent upheavals and crises, the request was not actually considered at ministerial level until 1928, in which year the Prime Minister and Home Secretary agreed, not without considerable argument, to sanction the use of the ritual as an alternative method of capital punishment on one occasion only. I am not at liberty to disclose the identity of the murderer in question—he has in any case paid the ultimate price—but after his hanging was announced, he was relocated to a secret location. No less a surgeon than Mr. Gillies, working under an oath of strict secrecy, was employed to remodel the features of the sacrificial vessel lest any former acquaintance recognize him. Then the Hungry Ghost Ritual was performed, in a ceremony so harrowing that I would not relish being called upon to perform it again.
I shall not burden you with the tiresome sequence of obstacles that fate threw before us after we summoned the Teapot. Teaching it to speak, and to walk, and to make use of a human body once more was tedious in the extreme; for example we had to straitjacket and gag it for the first six months, lest it eat its fingers and lips. For almost a year it seemed likely that we had made a horrible mistake, and had merely driven a condemned murderer into the arms of insanity. However, in early 1930 Teapot began to communicate, and then to retrieve portions of the deceased memories—speaking in Russian as well as English, a language with which the vessel was unfamiliar. Shortly thereafter, it began also to evince a marked skill in the more esoteric areas of mathematics, and to show signs of the monstrous, cold intellect that so disturbed Baron Von Ungern Sternberg.
When the Teapot committee received permission to reincarnate the
preta
it was immediately realized that we would need to bind it to our service. Ungern Sternberg was able to placate it with a steady supply of victims, but His Majesty’s Government in time of peace was not so well placed. (If we had received the go-ahead to deal with the Socialists, things would have been different; but it’s no use crying over spilt milk.) Consequently, from 1928 to 1930 we worked tirelessly on a new model
geas
or binding—one that can restrain not only a human soul, but an eater of same. I shall spare you the grisly details, but in April 1930 we performed the binding rite for the first time, and Teapot was demonstrated to be under our full authority. It did not submit willingly, and I regret to inform you that the death of Dr. Somerfeld in that year—attributed to an apoplectic fit in his obituary in the
Times
—was only one part of the heavy price we paid.
preta
it was immediately realized that we would need to bind it to our service. Ungern Sternberg was able to placate it with a steady supply of victims, but His Majesty’s Government in time of peace was not so well placed. (If we had received the go-ahead to deal with the Socialists, things would have been different; but it’s no use crying over spilt milk.) Consequently, from 1928 to 1930 we worked tirelessly on a new model
geas
or binding—one that can restrain not only a human soul, but an eater of same. I shall spare you the grisly details, but in April 1930 we performed the binding rite for the first time, and Teapot was demonstrated to be under our full authority. It did not submit willingly, and I regret to inform you that the death of Dr. Somerfeld in that year—attributed to an apoplectic fit in his obituary in the
Times
—was only one part of the heavy price we paid.
Having bound the
Angra Mainyu
it was now necessary to indoctrinate it and train it to pass for a true Englishman. To this end, we obtained a place for it as Maths tutor at Sherborne, where it was enrolled in Lyon House as a master. Every public school in England is crawling with masters who are not entirely right in the head as a result of their experiences on the Front, and it was our consensus opinion that Teapot’s more minor eccentricities would not attract excessive notice, while the major ones (such as the regrettable tendency to eat souls) could be kept under control by our
geas
.
Angra Mainyu
it was now necessary to indoctrinate it and train it to pass for a true Englishman. To this end, we obtained a place for it as Maths tutor at Sherborne, where it was enrolled in Lyon House as a master. Every public school in England is crawling with masters who are not entirely right in the head as a result of their experiences on the Front, and it was our consensus opinion that Teapot’s more minor eccentricities would not attract excessive notice, while the major ones (such as the regrettable tendency to eat souls) could be kept under control by our
geas
.
I retired from the Teapot committee with my official retirement from service in 1933. I did not encounter Teapot again until 1940 and my reactivation in this highly irregular role.
Today, Teapot is almost unrecognizable. When we set out to turn the monster into an Englishman we succeeded too well. He is urbane, witty, possessed of a wicked but well-concealed sense of humor, and utterly lacking in the conscienceless brutality of the hungry ghost that possessed Ensign Evgenie Burdokovskii in Ulan Bator all those years ago. Sherborne did its usual job—that of turning savages into servants of empire—and did it to our carefully constructed house master just as thoroughly as to any Hottentot from the home counties.
I am afraid that our initial objective—to chain a hungry ghost to the service of the state—has only been a qualified success: qualified because we succeeded
too well
. Teapot sincerely believes in
playing the game
, in honor and service and all the other ideals we cynically dismiss at our peril. Unfortunately this renders him less than useful for the task in hand. We have (I hesitate to say this) reformed a demon in our own image, or rather, in the image we were trained to revere. We would be fools to undo this work now: this
preta
knows us too well. We captured it once, but next time we might not be so lucky.
too well
. Teapot sincerely believes in
playing the game
, in honor and service and all the other ideals we cynically dismiss at our peril. Unfortunately this renders him less than useful for the task in hand. We have (I hesitate to say this) reformed a demon in our own image, or rather, in the image we were trained to revere. We would be fools to undo this work now: this
preta
knows us too well. We captured it once, but next time we might not be so lucky.
Despite being useless to us as an Eater of Souls, Teapot is not without worth. I have drafted it into this new organization, where I believe we can put it to good use while maintaining a discreet watch. We can always use a hungry ghost, possessed of a disturbing brilliance in the dark arts, hidden within the urbane skin of an Englishman. It understands what makes us tick, shares—thanks to years of compulsion and indoctrination—our goals, and it has an eerie judgement of character, too—I believe it may be of significant use to the Doublecross committee in rooting out enemy spies. But if you’re thinking of using it as a weapon, I would advise you to think again: I’m not sure the
geas
, or Teapot’s indoctrination, would hold together if it is allowed to unleash its full power. Teapot is the sort of gun you fire only once—then it explodes in your hand.
geas
, or Teapot’s indoctrination, would hold together if it is allowed to unleash its full power. Teapot is the sort of gun you fire only once—then it explodes in your hand.
Signed: J. F. C. Fuller
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