The Keepers of the Library

by Glenn Cooper

  “Did you sleep?” Cacia asked.

  “I heard a lot of snoring from the other room,” Will said. “Who else is down here?”

  Cacia ignored the question. “I can get ya more food, Phillip,” she said.

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “And you, Will? Are ya sure you’ll have nothing?”

  Will smiled at her. “In the unlikely event we’re here for supper, I’ll reconsider.”

  “Right then,” she said. “I promised we’d tell you th’ score, so let’s get t’ it. Haven, you can tell ’im why ya contacted Phillip.”

  The girl was far too shy to look Will in the face. Instead, she talked into the floor. “I thought . . .” Her voice trailed off. “No, I knew Phillip was th’ only one who could help me. Not only me. Our teacher had us read his essay, th’ one that won that award. There’s been all sorts of stuff about th’ Horizon. It’s been horrible like around ’ere. There’ve been kids all depressed and such. A girl in Kirkby Stephen one class ahead a me hung herself, and two boys in Kendal did th’ same. On Socco, ever’one’s going barmy about it. They’re all scared what’s going t’ happen next February. I couldn’t just sit ’ere and do nowt about it.”

  The girl was crying now. Will was struck by the emphatic way the girl had said, “I knew.” “How did you think Phillip could help?” he asked.

  “He’s Will Piper’s son, in’ he? You were th’ one who found out everything about th’ Library, weren’t ya? You know what t’ do in these situations.”

  “What kinds of situations are we talking about?” Will asked.

  Cacia said, “It’s time t’ show ya something. If I undo your handcuffs, I need ya t’ promise me you won’t hurt us or try t’ run.”

  “I can promise you I won’t hurt you,” Will answered.

  “Look,” Cacia said sharply. “I can get Kheelan down here t’ mind you with his shotgun, but I’d rather not have ’im with us. It’ll . . .” she paused, “ . . . limit th’ experience. Besides, the men are all outside and you’d be caught straight out.”

  Will nodded. “Okay, you’ve got my word. How about you, Phillip, you in?”

  “I’d rather make love than war. Besides, I want to take the guided tour.”

  Will chuckled and held up his wrist for Cacia’s key.

  Despite his pledge, Will thought about grabbing Phillip and making a run for it. They’d head to the storeroom, dash up the stairs, exit the hangar, and hoof it as fast as they could through the field and to the road, where they’d try to flag down a car. But a lot could go wrong, and with the Lightburns prowling the farm, the odds weren’t good. He’d have tried it if he were on his own but he couldn’t risk Phillip’s getting hurt. Besides, he was curious as hell, so he obediently followed Cacia through the nearest door.

  There was another small room which didn’t seem to have any particular function other than to provide access to three other doors. It was lit by a single hanging bulb.

  Cacia pointed to one of the three closed doors. “Would either of you like t’ use th’ loo?”

  Phillip went first, and when he was done, Will pushed the door open.

  It was closet-sized, carved from the limestone, a smelly dead end. There was a water pipe coming from above, which plunged through a drilled hole and into an old, rust-stained porcelain sink. The toilet flushed, so he figured it emptied into a cistern. As a way out, it was going to be a nonstarter, but one thing was sure: whatever was going on here was a serious, long-term operation.

  Back in the anteroom, Will pointed at one of the two other doors. “This one?” he said.

  “No,” Cacia said. “Later. This one first.”

  Will said to Phillip, “Been through there yet?”

  The boy answered, “Nope. But Haven told me about it.”

  Cacia opened it and sent Haven into the pitch-blackness to switch on lights. Before he could see, Will smelled it. A muscular sweet aroma of leather and mold, a scent of antiquity. In the instant before the lights flashed on, he was certain what it was and then, in the sickly yellow incandescence, his eyes confirmed what he already knew.

  It was a library.

  He simply said, “Jesus,” and took a few steps inside.

  Phillip’s reaction was more prosaic. “Holy shit!”

  The limestone chamber was cavernous and cool, the temperature of a wine cellar. There was a central corridor that carried through, straight as an arrow, as far as he could see. On either side were wooden bookcases standing floor to ceiling, each some five meters tall. The width of the chamber was easier to fathom than the length, about fifty-sixty meters, precisely bifurcated by the corridor.

  The bookcases nearest them were barren, and as father and son silently followed mother and daughter into the chamber, it was clear there were enough empty shelves for thousands upon thousands of books.

  “Room to grow,” Will said.

  Haven didn’t seem surprised that Will understood the situation. “When it’s full, I’ll be long gone,” she said. “So will Cacia. It’ll be someone else’s burden.”

  Phillip sprang ahead like an eager puppy and Cacia caught up with him. He made his way to the first full bookcase. By the time Will arrived, the boy had wriggled one of the books from a shelf.

  It was thick and heavy, bound in fresh leather with the strong smell of a new pair of shoes, not the fusty scent of the ambient air. The spine had a hand-tooled number: 2566.

  “That’s a date, isn’t it?” Phillip asked.

  Haven said, “Aye.”

  Phillip opened the book to a random middle page while Will looked over his shoulder.

  On the page were two columns of names, about a hundred per row. Names handwritten in black ballpoint ink. Will picked out ones in English, Spanish, Chinese, Portuguese. Beside each was the date 24 August 2566 and the word Natus or Mors.

  “Still using Latin,” Will said.

  “We don’t know why,” Cacia said. “There’s lots we don’t know.”

  “You’re not using parchment,” he said wryly.

  “Hardly,” she said. “Copy paper from Asda. But at least we go all out on th’ bindings. Good Yorkshire sheep hide.”

  Will shook his head. “A second Library. A second goddamned Library. There’s no Horizon, is there?”

  “That’s why I had t’ contact Phillip,” Haven said. “The world needed t’ know! Before more people did themselves harm.”

  Cacia sighed. “The world didn’t need t’ know anything, Haven. It wasn’t our duty t’ let ’em know. Our only duty’s t’ th’ Library.”

  “Where are the books for 2027?” Will asked.

  Cacia waved her hand down the corridor. “All the way down that end.”

  “Does it start on February 9, 2027?” Phillip asked.

  “It does.”

  Will shook his head in wonder. “Why here? Why Yorkshire?”

  Phillip slid the book back into the case and started walking toward the rear of the chamber the others following along.

  “There’s nothing written, only what’s been passed down by word of mouth within our family, and who knows what’s true and what isn’t. But it’s said that a girl, a Lightburn she was, was on th’ Isle of Wight, at Vectis Abbey, in th’ late thirteenth century. She was made pregnant and she fled t’ her home ’ere in th’ Dales. It’s said her name was Clarissa but in truth, there’s no way t’ know. It’s said too that ’er baby’s name was Adam. The Lightburns of old recognized their responsibility to serve th’ Library. We recognize that responsibility today, don’t we Haven?”

  The girl muttered “aye” under her breath.

  “So the notation at Vectis—End of Days—meant something else,” Will said.

  “End of the days at Vectis, I suppose. Back then, Clarissa must’ve been a willful girl who brought ruin t’ th’ abbey. I only hope my Haven hasn’t through her willfulness done th’ same t’ us.”

  The girl began to weep, then something made her abruptly stop. Phillip had taken her
hand and was holding it tightly.

  Cacia ignored the boy’s advance at first. “For over seven hundred years, we Lightburns have been librarians. This is what we do. It’s why we’re on this earth. There are many books here, maybe a million, maybe more. We never counted ’em. We don’t read ’em. We keep ’em. These books come from God, and we are God-fearing people. We never knew exactly how we figured into th’ bigger picture until you exposed th’ business at Area 51. It was all we talked about back then. We appreciated knowin’.”

  “Glad I could help,” Will said.

  “Come on, you two,” Cacia called after the boy and girl. “Haven, it’s time t’ show ’em what’s behind th’ other door.”

  Chapter 16

  Yi Biao was in a dark mood. He sat alone in his study at his official residence in Zhongnanhai, close to the Forbidden City. General Secretary Wen’s house was a stone’s throw away within the heavily guarded compound, but it wasn’t as if they were in and out of each other’s places for tea and cakes. Even he had trouble gaining access to the old man these days.

  His study was lined with mostly Chinese books, the collection of a lifetime. Though he had personally led the effort to modernize and ban physical books in schools and universities in favor of e-books, he still enjoyed the pleasure of holding a hefty traditional book, though the new biography of Hu Jintao, the General Secretary whose term had ended some fifteen years earlier, lay unopened on his lap.

  He took a long sip of Southern Comfort and waited for the sweet, numbing sensation to travel from tongue to brain. He’d acquired the taste when he was China’s Ambassador to the United Nations, and now he had it imported by the case. He took another syrupy sip for good measure and let his shoulders go lax in the armchair. His wife was out at a dinner with friends so he had the house to himself. He laughed at the thought. Himself meant him and a live-in staff of six. He called for his aide, an earnest young man, and asked him to instruct the maid to run a hot bath and to summon his masseuse. He aimed to drink, soak, and massage the tension from his body and mind.

  His meeting earlier in the day with Wen had gone poorly. Yi thought he had laid out a compelling case for immediate action, but Wen proved to be an immovable object.

  The old man had listened carefully while puffing on one Red Pagoda Hill cigarette after another. How he escaped lung cancer, Yi would never know. It had always irritated him no end that the CIA knew Wen’s date of death or whether he was BTH, but that information was unknown to him. It was galling beyond belief.

  “Look,” Wen had said when Yi was done with his recommendations, “we’ve made some strong responses already. We’ve recalled our ambassador. We’ve initiated a series of war games near Taiwan. Don’t you think we should wait and see how these actions mature?”

  “General Secretary,” Yi had said, “don’t you believe that sending these warning postcards to our Ambassador and his staff in Washington was the last straw? An intolerable humiliation. It is not only me. Other members of the Politburo see it the same way.”

  “I don’t like the concept of last straws,” Wen had spat. “There is always one more straw to be found. And don’t forget, the Americans are vigorously denying their role in the affair. What proof do we have?”

  “Of course they are hiding behind denials,” Yi had asserted. “General Bo has told me he is 99 percent certain the postcards originated from Groom Lake agents.”

  “Ah, 99 percent,” Wen had said with a sneer, showing his yellowing teeth. I will not take our nation to war based on anything less than 100 percent.”

  “If we attack Taiwan aggressively with surgical strikes to limit civilian casualties, I do not believe that the United States will intervene,” Yi had said evenly. “I believe the island will be reunified within hours, and the only thing America will do will be to shout and impotently stamp its feet at the United Nations.”

  “No!” Wen had shouted. “You must bring me 100-percent proof—documentation that I can see with my own eyes—that the US government intended to threaten us with these stupid letters! You bring me something like that before I will authorize any of the radical suggestions you have made this afternoon. This meeting is over, Vice Chairman. Tread carefully. I had not considered the future leader of China to be so rash.”

  Yi finished his drink. His masseuse had arrived, and he had to change into his robe. In the morning he’d see General Bo again. Hopefully, the crafty fellow had something else up his sleeve.

  We are close to the tipping point, he thought, treading slightly unsteadily on his slippered feet. So close! I need one more provocation to persuade Wen to seize the moment and capture our rightful place in history! I don’t care if it comes from luck or skill, I need one more thing!

  Chapter 17

  Rob Melrose arrived at the Black Bull Hotel in Kirkby Stephen and immediately went to Annie’s room. Brimming with public-schoolboy arrogance he barged in when she opened her door and began dressing her down.

  “There’s a lot of displeasure in London,” he said with a toffy accent that made her clench in irritation. “A lot of displeasure. Will Piper is a bit of a hot potato politically speaking, and you let him give you the slip. Career-limiting move, Annie. Very disappointing. I’ve got two men waiting downstairs. Let’s get a move on, shall we?”

  She was fully dressed but hadn’t yet put on her walking shoes. She purposely kept him waiting by sitting on her bed, slowly lacing and tightening. When she stood up, she said, “Look, Rob, my remit wasn’t to keep Piper on a leash. It was to offer assistance in the location of his son. He chose to run off. I don’t know why. But I am blameless.”

  “I’m quite sure you’ll have an opportunity to assert your blamelessness when you file a report, but for now, my remit is to locate two missing persons: Piper and his son. You know who Piper’s wife is, don’t you?”

  “Yes, Rob, I do,” Annie said wearily.

  “Then you can imagine the shitstorm coming our way via the FBI and the State Department. My job is to find them today, and your job is to assist me in any way I deem appropriate. I suggest we find a quiet spot in the lounge and have you debrief us on all your activities in Kirkby Stephen and the surrounding environs.”

  “Yes, why don’t we,” she said defiantly, grabbing her shoulder bag. He might not have noticed she was mocking him when she said, “I believe we should be especially mindful of the—surrounding environs.”

  Kenney and his men rolled into Kirkby Stephen and parked their car just past the Black Bull. Kenney’s surveillance people back at Groom Lake had gotten a precise bead on Annie Locke’s location from her NetPen signal, and they’d been monitoring all her e-mail and telephone traffic, slicing through the MI5 encryption algorithms like a hot knife through butter. As Kenney liked to say in these situations: “We own her.” His watchers had never met a code they couldn’t break. It was what they did for a living. He was proud as hell of his people and their mission, but the end was nigh, as they say. He didn’t have the slightest idea what he’d do when Area 51 was decommissioned. Sometimes, when he was off duty with a skin of booze in his gut, he secretly hoped that when the Horizon came, he and the rest of humanity were cleanly wiped out. That way he wouldn’t have to settle for an inferior job.

  But now, as he stretched his legs and checked out the geography of Market Street, he was mindful only of the job at hand. He was going to find Will Piper, find out what he and his son were up to, and find out who the hell “the Librarians” were. And when he’d accomplished that, if there was any way he could legitimize his actions, he was going to seriously fuck up Mr. Piper. Sure, Piper was BTH, but he could still be hurt, and besides, putting the hammer down would take care of unfinished business. He owed it to Malcolm Frazier and the honor of the watchers. As he was delivering the beat-down, he’d be sure to let Piper know that each and every blow was coming from Malcolm, fists from the grave.

  Annie sat at a snug table at the rear of the hotel lounge with Melrose and two other MI5 agents. She knew
the men, good enough blokes, she reckoned, who must have shared her opinions of Melrose but were clams in the presence of their boss. The beer mats on the table oozed a nasty yeastiness. She stacked them and tossed them onto an empty table. Melrose had waved off the server, saying they were neither hungry nor thirsty, then remarked at the waiter’s scowl, “I do hate these provincial towns.”

  Annie delivered a crisp rundown of the houses and farms at Pinn that she and Will had visited. She dwelled the longest on the Lightburn Farm because that was their most substantial encounter. Most of their other interviews had been brief and rather unfriendly.

  “The people up here don’t seem to like outsiders,” she said.

  “But that wasn’t the case at Lightburn Farm,” Melrose said nasally. He had a map on his NetPen screen with red pins at each of their interviews. “Pins on Pinn,” he had said, then waited for his toadies to chuckle. “They weren’t unfriendly there, were they? What does that tell us, Annie?”

  “As I concluded in my draft report, Rob, it indicated they were either a friendly lot or they were hiding something,” she said.

  “Well, in either case, it seems we should pay them a visit this afternoon. Let’s see how friendly they are when the heavy mob descends on them.”

  Just then, Kenney, Lopez, and Harper came into the lounge and asked to be seated for lunch. Kenney gave the MI5 table a good hard stare.

  “Who the hell are that lot?” Melrose whispered.

  “Never saw them before,” Annie said. “Americans by the look and sound of them.”

  “Well, the tall one seems to recognize you. Did you see the way he looked at you?”