The Fuller Memorandum l-4

by Charles Stross

  WRITE: DOCUMENT TO RETRIEVE:

  I find the shift pedal, kick the Memex into numerical entry mode, and type:

  FETCH 10.0.792.560

  NOT FOUND.

  WRITE: DOCUMENT TO RETRIEVE:

  Shit. I try again.

  FETCH INDEX.

  There is a whirring and a chunking sound from within the desk. Aha! After several sluggish seconds a new menu appears.

  WRITE: ENTER DOCUMENT CODE NUMBER:

  FETCH 10.0.792.560

  More whirring and a brief pause. Then the screen clears, to display everything the Memex knows about the missing file:

  DOCUMENT INDEX ENTRY:

  NUMBER: 10.0.792.560

  TITLE: THE FULLER MEMORANDUM

  DEPOSIT DATE: 6-DECEMBER-1941

  STORAGE LOCATION: STACK VAULT 10.0.792.560

  COPY STATUS: FORBIDDEN

  CLASSIFICATION: BEYOND TOP SECRET, Z-CLEARANCE

  EXPIRATION: DOES NOT EXPIRE

  CODEWORDS: TEAPOT, WHITE BARON, CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN

  SEE ALSO: Z-ANGLETON, Z-EXECUTION PROTOCOLS, Z-FINAL EXIT

  END OF INDEX ENTRY

  CLASSIFIED: S76/47

  Dear John,

  Once again, greetings from Reval. I hope you can forgive my lack of enthusiasm; it’s godforsaken cold here in January. I thought I knew what winter was (Moscow in winter is enough to teach anyone a grudging respect for Jack Frost) but this is absolutely unspeakable. There are few railways in Estonia, and those which remain after the armistice are under military control, to deter any passing fancy that might occur to Comrade Trotsky in his spare time. (I am sure we shall not be invaded again, at least before he has finished pacifying Siberia, but one can hardly blame Mr. Piip for his caution.)

  I have a most unexpected cause to write to you—a gift horse just presented its head at my transom window! Such a gift horse was this that it would be insane not to look it in the mouth, but I have inspected its back teeth and I assure you that the mare is, although middle-aged, by no means anything other than that which it appears to be: namely, the bereaved mother of the Prodigal we were discussing in our earlier correspondence.

  It seems that my sympathetic questioning made more of an impression on Madame Hoyningen-Huene than I imagined. There was a brief thaw in the bitter cold we have lately been experiencing, and being of a mind to visit the capital for a few weeks she took advantage of it. She is even now ensconced in our parlor, where Evgenia is entertaining her.

  And the Prodigal son’s fossil collection?

  “Take them!” she cried. “Oskar told me how they caught your fancy; perhaps you know of a curator in London who will put them to some better use? Vile things, I don’t want to remember my son by them!” Her man, who was burdened with the heavy box all the way from Rapla to Reval, can only have wholeheartedly agreed. And so they are even now in a shipping trunk, awaiting more clement weather before I dispatch them to you by sea.

  Madame Hoyningen-Huene is a sensitive soul, and her life has been blighted by domestic tragedy, from her first husband’s breakdown and incarceration to the deaths of two baby daughters, and now to the fate that has overtaken her son (however much he might have deserved it). She takes little interest in politics, and is transparently what she is: the daughter of Baron Von Wimpffen of Hesse, wife of Baron Oskar Von Hoyningen-Huene, a devoted family lady. Quite why her life has circled this vortex of unspeakable tragedy eludes her entirely, as does the nature of her privileged upbringing and the precarious status of the Prussian aristocracy in the Baltic states—but she is near to sixty, a child of the previous century, and simply unable to adapt to the chill winds of change sweeping the globe.

  “He wrote to me often of his fears and uncertainties,” she said, showing me a sheaf of letters. I think she needed to share her pain, that of a mother for her son, the last love and succor of any man, however much of a brute he may be. “You see, he was by inclination deeply religious, but unfortunately it brought him much pain. I hold the shamanic eastern mystics responsible—vile orientals! And the Jews.” Her aristocratic nostrils flared. “If they hadn’t fomented this disgraceful revolution he would not have thought to rise up against the government.” (Such sentiments are common among the aristocracy here; they have an unhealthy identification with the late Tsar.)

  “What did he believe?” I asked. “As a matter of curiosity . . .”

  “Ohh—he took it into his head to convert to a vile farrago of oriental superstitions! Nothing as honest and Aryan as Theosophy. He picked these filthy beliefs up in Mongolia, nearly ten years ago, when visiting. He met a witch doctor by all accounts, a man called the Bogd Khan—” She rattled on at some length about this.

  “Would you mind if I read his letters on religion?” I asked her, and to cut a long story short, she acceded. I now have not only Ungern Sternberg’s fossil collection, inherited from his father, but his surviving letters—those he sent to his mother. And they are very interesting indeed.

  I attach my (admittedly imperfect) translation of selected extracts of his letters from 1920; I will forward the originals by separate cover from the fossils. Meanwhile, I strongly recommend that you should motivate your fellows in the Order to start searching for the missing Teapot.

  Your obedient friend,

  Arthur Ransome

  THERE COMES A TIME IN EVERY COUNTERESPIONAGE INVESTIgation when you have to grit your teeth, admit that you’re at your wits’ end, admit defeat, and bugger off home for a Chinese takeaway and a night in front of the telly. Then you get a good night’s sleep (except for the nocturnal eructations induced by too much black bean sauce) and awaken, refreshed and revived and in a mood to do battle once more with—

  Bollocks.

  I have gotten somewhere: I now know that the missing file is called the Fuller Memorandum (which by a huge leap of inductive logic—I hope I’m not getting ahead of myself here—I deduce is a memorandum, by or about F). It was filed in 1941, was absolutely mega-top-secret burn-before-reading stuff sixty-five years ago, and has some bearing on CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN. It’s also missing. Those last three facts would be enough to give me industrial-grade stomach ulcers if it was my fault. Luckily, it’s not my fault. All I have to do is find Angleton and I’m sure he can explain it all, and also explain what the flaming fuck it has got to do with BLOODY BARON.

  This much is not time-critical. Getting that Chinese takeaway, with or without black bean sauce, is time-critical, lest I starve to death on the case. Going home and doing sweet, sappy, quality time things with Mo is time-critical too, lest she files for divorce on grounds of neglect. And so is not having a nervous breakdown while waiting for the board of enquiry findings, lest I find myself without a career, in which case they’ll put me in charge of pushing that handcart full of dusty files around the department. So I stand up, stretch, push the off button on the Memex, and leave Angleton’s lair.

  I pause briefly in my own rabbit hutch of an office, scan my email, respond to a couple of trivial pestiferations (no, I am no longer in charge of the structured cabling specifications for D Block; yes, I am still attached to the international common insourcing and acquisition standards committee, for my sins in a previous life; no, I do not have a desktop license for Microsoft Office, because my desktop PC is a Microsoft-free zone for security reasons—and would you like fries with that?). The scanner has finished digesting all those dusty letters from Arthur to John; I squirt the PDFs across to the NecronomiPod and then I grab my backpack and umbrella and head for home. Iris isn’t in her office as I pass the window, and Rita on the front desk has pissed off early—then I check my watch and do a double take. It’s six forty. Shit. Mo will kill me, I think as I head down the main staircase at a fast clip and barrel through the staff exit.

  This is London. South Bank, south of the center, north of Tooting, and west of Wandsworth (come on, you can alliterate too)—suburban high street UK. It is early evening and the streets are still crowded, but most of the shops are closed. Meanw
hile, the pubs are half-full with the sort of hardcore post-work crowd that go drinking on a Monday evening. I turn left, walking towards the nearest tube station: it’s fifteen minutes away but once it gets this late there’s no point waiting for a bus.

  This is London. The worst thing that can happen to you is usually a mugging at knifepoint, and I do my best not to look like a promising victim, which is why it takes me a couple of minutes to realize that I’m being tailed. In fact, it takes until the three of them move to box me in: at that point, disbelief is futile. I’ve done the mandatory Escape and Evasion training, not to mention Streetwise 101; I just wasn’t expecting to need it here.

  Two of them are strong, silent types in black leather biker jackets worn over white tees and jeans. They’ve got short stubbly blond hair and the sort of muscles you get when you go through a Spetsnaz training course—not bodybuilders: more like triathletes. They come up behind me and march along either side, too damn close. The third of them, who I guess is their boss, is a middle-aged man in a baggy Italian suit, his open shirt collar stating that he’s off the office clock and on his own time. He slides in just ahead and to the left of Thug #1 as I glance sideways. He winks at me. “Please to follow this way,” he says.

  I glance to my right. Thug #2 matches my stride, step for step. He stares at me like a police dog that’s had its vocal cords severed. I glimpse his eyes and look away hastily. Shit.

  “Who are you?” I ask, my tongue dry and stumbling, as Mr. Baggy Suit pauses in the doorway of the Frog and Tourettes.

  “You may wish to call me Panin.” He smiles faintly. “Nikolai Panin. It’s not my real name, but it will serve.” He gestures at the door. “Please allow me to buy you a drink. I assure you, my intentions are honorable.”

  My ward is itching; nevertheless I am disinclined to bet my life on it. Panin, whoever he is, is a player: his definition of “honorable” might not encompass allowing me to escape with my life, but he’s unlikely to start something in the middle of a pub with an after-work crowd. “Would you mind leaving the muscle outside?” I ask. “I assume they’re not drinking.”

  “Nyet.” He snaps his fingers and says something to the two revenants. They split, taking up positions to either side of the street front of the pub. “After you,” he says, waving me into the entrance.

  If I was James Bond, this is the point at which I would draw my concealed pistol, plug both heavies between the eyes, get Panin in an armlock, and pistol-whip some answers out of him. But I am not James Bond, and I don’t want to precipitate a diplomatic incident by assaulting the Second Naval Attaché and a couple of embassy guards or footballers or whatever (not to mention sparking a murder investigation which would result in the Plumbers having to conduct a gigantic and expensive cover-up operation, all of which would come out of my departmental operating budget and drive Iris to distraction). And anyway, everyone knows that you don’t get useful answers by torturing people, you get useful answers by making them trust you.

  (Why don’t you talk to them? I’d asked the committee.

  (Because we might unintentionally tell them something they don’t already know, said Choudhury, after staring at me for a minute as if I’d grown a second head.

  (Fuck that shit, like I said.)

  So I let Panin buy me a pint. “By the way, do you mind if I text my wife to tell her I’m going to be late?” I ask.

  “If you think it necessary, but I promise I will keep you only half an hour.”

  “Thanks.” I smile gratefully and whip out the NecronomiPod and tap out a text: HAVING A BEER WITH UNCLE FESTER’S BOSS, HOME LATE. Panin holds up a purple drinking voucher and it has the desired effect: money and a pair of pint glasses change hands. He carries them over to a small table in the back of the pub and I follow him. Panin’s assistants gave me a nasty turn, but it seems this is to be a friendly chat, albeit for extremely unusual values of friendly. I keep both my hands on the table. Wouldn’t do to give the Spetsnaz goons the wrong idea—I have a feeling it would take more than Harry’s AA-12 shotgun to stop them in their tracks.

  “To health, home, and happiness,” he proposes, raising his glass.

  “I’ll drink to that.” My ward doesn’t nudge me as I bring the drink to my lips. “So. I guess you wanted to talk?”

  “Mm, yes.” Panin, having taken a mouthful, puts his glass down. “Do you have any clues to its whereabouts?”

  “Have what?” I ask cautiously.

  “The teapot.”

  “Tea—” I take another mouthful of ESB. “Pot?” There was something about a teapot in those letters, wasn’t there? Something Choudhury said in the meeting, maybe?

  “It’s missing.” Panin sounds impatient. “Your people have lost it, yes?”

  I decide to play dumb. “If any teapots have gone missing, I suppose Facilities would be the people who’d deal with that . . . Why do you ask?”

  “You English!” For a moment, Panin looks exasperated, then he quickly pulls a lid over it. “The teapot is missing,” he repeats, as if to a very slow pupil. “It has been missing since last week. Everyone is looking for it, us, you, the opposition . . . ! You were its last keepers. Please, I implore you, find it? For all our sakes, find it before the wrong people get their hands on it and make tea.”

  Committed to paper, this dialogue might sound comical: but coming from Panin’s mouth, in his soft, clipped diction, it is anything but.

  I shiver. “Ungern Sternberg’s teapot didn’t get misplaced by accident,” I hazard.

  Panin’s response takes me by surprise: “Idiot!” He leans back in disgust, raises his glass, and takes a deep and disrespectful swig. “You are fishing, now.”

  Bother, I’ve been rumbled. “’Fraid so. Let me level with you? I know it’s missing, but that’s all I know. But I’ll tell you what, if you can tell me what happened in Amsterdam last Wednesday and why it followed my wife home on Thursday I would be very grateful.”

  “Amster—” Panin shuts his mouth with a click. “Your wife is unhurt, I hope?” he asks, all nervous solicitude.

  “Shaken.” But not stirred. “The—intruder—was attributed to your people, did you know that?”

  “Not unexpected.” Panin makes a gesture of dismissal with one hand. “They do that, you know. To muddy the waters.”

  “Who? The opposition?”

  Panin gives me that look again, the look you might give to the friendly but stupid puppy that’s just widdled on the carpet for the third time that day. “Tell me, Mr. Howard, what do you know?”

  I sigh. “Not much, it seems. I have been seconded to a committee that’s trying to work out why you folks are currently running up an eBay reputation score like there’s no tomorrow. I am trying to deal with an unpleasant domestic situation, namely work following my wife home. My boss is out of the office, and I’m trying to pick up the pieces. If you thought you could shake me down for useful information, I’m afraid you picked the wrong spy. I could tell you more than you could possibly want to know about the structured cabling requirements for our new headquarter building’s fourth subbasement, but when it comes to missing teapots, nobody put me on the flash priority classified briefing list.”

  “I see.” Panin looks gloomy. “Well, Mr. Howard, many would not believe you—but I do. So, here is my card.” He passes me a plain white business card—unprinted on either side, but pressed from a very high grade of linen weave. It makes my fingertips tingle. “Should you have anything to discuss, call me.”

  I slide it into my breast pocket. “Thanks.”

  “As for the teapot, it was never the same after Ungern Sternberg retrieved it from the Bogd Khan’s altar.”

  He’s studying my face. I do my best not to twitch. I’ve heard those names before. “I’ll keep my eyes open for it,” I reassure him.

  “I’m sure you will,” he says gravely. “After all, it would be in everyone’s best interests for the teapot to return to its rightful office.” He drains his beer glass. “I will see
you around, I am sure,” he says, rising.

  “Bye.” I raise my glass to his back as he turns towards the door, shoulders hunched.

  CLASSIFIED: S76/47 ANNEX A

  Dear Mother,

  Salutations from Urga! I greet you as Khan Sternberg, Outstanding Prosperous-State Hero of Mongolia, first warlord and general of the Living Buddha and Emperor of Mongolia, His Holiness Bogd Djebtsung Damba Hutuktu! Great events, bloody battle, heroic struggle, and glorious victory have contrived to elevate me to the threshold of my destiny, as inheritor of the empire of Genghis Khan. It is spring in Mongolia, and already I have purged this land of Bolsheviks, terrorists, and subhumans; soon my armies will commence their march on St. Petersburg, to restore the blessed Prince Michael to his rightful throne and to cleanse Mother Russia of the depravity of revolution and the filthy degenerates who have turned their back on the holy Tsar.

  (Once I have restored the Tsar I consider it my duty to retake those lands that have been stolen from the Empire, including our homeland. I trust you will think kindly of me for raising the yoke of anarchist tyranny from the necks of the true aristocracy of Estonia when I come to purify the Baltic lands and restore the just weight of monarchy to the upstart Poles.)

  The conquest of Urga presented me with a considerable challenge, and I shall describe it for you. Urga lies in a valley between hills, along the banks of the Tula river. When I laid siege to it, the river was frozen; but the degenerate Chinese occupiers had constructed trenches, barricades and barbed wire defenses around Upper Maimaichen . . .

  [Lengthy description of the siege of Ulan Bator, 1920.]

  Now here is a curiosity:

  When we stormed the palace of the Bogd Khan to take the Living Buddha from his Chinese captors, the fighting was fierce: after liberating His Holiness my men executed a tactical withdrawal. But once his excellency was safe, when I ordered the main attack on the Chinese host occupying the city, I detailed a reliable man—my ensign Evgenie Burdokovskii, who the men call Teapot—to secure the treasury against looters. It is a sad fact that Reds and wreckers are everywhere and in these degenerate times the swine I have to work with—rejects and deserters of the once-great army—are as likely to turn to banditry and crime as to bend the neck before my righteous authority. Burdokovskii is a stout fellow, a cossack: powerful and broad-chested, with a little curly blond head and a narrow forehead. He always does what I ask of him, which is a blessing, and if there is one man I would trust to stand guard on a treasure-house for me, it is he.