“Well,” said Chandler, who didn’t want to go too far down that conversational path, “I’m not sure that any of our recruits were what we might call significant. We’re talking a long time ago.”
“Even quite ordinary people could be considered significant,” admitted Lategan. “Although perhaps not through their own actions, but through circumstances, or people they knew, or the simple act of having been recruited by the notorious – can I say notorious? – no, perhaps impressive would be a better choice. The impressive Marines.”
“They earned themselves pensions,” said Chandler, choosing not to help resolve the linguistic dilemma. “And we need to make sure that there aren’t family members left behind who are not on our files but are entitled to compensation. Many of the names we have on the original files are no longer traceable.”
“If they can be found, it will be here that you find them,” said Lategan. “When you have finished your tea I’ll take you through to the Reading Room, where you can do your business.” The way he said business made it sound like a dirty activity. Chandler and I obediently finished our tea, and we all rose to our feet.
“You have impressive security,” said Chandler, “and I believe that there are underground vaults.”
“I’ll give you a quick tour of the facilities if it would interest you,” said Lategan. “The Reading Room is at the other end of the building.”
Chandler said that would interest us very much.
The yellow afternoon sun formed pools like melted butter on the marble floors of the long corridor that led from Lategan’s office to the lift.
“Offices,” said Lategan dismissing the closed doors that faced onto the corridor. “My top girls up here.”
We looked at the closed doors, and Chandler made an impressed sound.
“We are the proud keepers of our nation’s history here at the Gold Archives,” Lategan announced as if he was launching into a prepared speech. “Gold standard, and of course funded by the Gold Mining Conglomerate of South Africa, but who wants to go around saying The Gold Mining Conglomerate of South Africa Archives?” Another pause that seemed to invite a response. I shook my head because I certainly didn’t want to go around saying that.
“Easier to call us the ‘Gold Archives’. And we don’t mind,” he said magnanimously as we entered the lift. He reached past Chandler, who was inconveniently blocking the buttons, and held his finger against a fingerprint reader. It emitted a satisfied beep. “Just show you a paper vault, then I’ll let you get on with it.”
The paper vaults were where all the original paperwork was stored, explained Lategan as the lift dropped. “Of course, most of it we digitise and destroy. You are probably wondering why we even need these rooms.” Another lengthy pause while we showed the extent of our wondering. “Still working our way through it, that’s why. Think how many sheets of paper would be needed to describe the history of your life, multiply that by forty million, and you have one generation. We might be a new country, but we’ve got a good fifteen generations under our belt. Work it out.”
Chandler looked as if he was doing the math but was saved by the ping the lift emitted as it arrived at the subterranean floor. “That’s a lot of paper,” he said because Lategan was looking as if he needed an answer.
“Don’t you know it,” said Lategan as he led the way down a gleaming corridor.
“All your vaults hold paper?” asked Chandler. “Or do you store other goods here?”
Lategan did his toad face. “We hold all manner of goods here, Captain Templeton. All manner.”
Steel rails ran along the wall at waist height as if we might need something to hold on to, and on our left the wall comprised steel sections like over-sized links of a watch strap. Cold blue-white light dripped in pools every few metres, creating perfect circles on the spotless white floor.
“There’s Anna,” said Lategan. “One of my girls,” he added just in case her ownership might come into question. At the far end of the corridor a tall Xhosa woman with long plaited hair was standing at a console set into the wall. I expected her to be wearing a lab coat at the very least, if not a full space suit, but she was wearing casual street clothes, jeans one size too tight and a blouse which didn’t have as many buttons as it could have. “This will interest you,” said Lategan. “In case you thought we had enough space down here to store the paper in bookshelves,” he laughed like an irritated donkey. “Shelves need space for the humans to get in between them, and space is just what we don’t have here. Watch out there!”
He held up a hand to stop us from passing and held us back against the rail. In a moment we saw why. The steel wall to our left was moving, the humming noise was a nearly silent motor that was moving the wall a single panel at a time. A gap appeared between two panels, and with a few desultory clicks the motor whined away to nothing. Anna’s heels clicked along the corridor as she approached us. “All robotic,” said Lategan like a magician showing us that the locks were real. “Now watch this.” Anna flashed us a big-toothed smile as she joined us beside the gap in the steel panels, and she tapped something into another console mounted in the panel. She applied a finger to the reader. A whirring sound came from the gap, and above the console a blurred picture appeared. The whirring slowed, stopped, and the picture showed us a section of a futuristic bookshelf. Anna tapped something, the screen went dark, and a series of hydraulic sounds announced the passage of a file from the shelving to a hatch in the panel which Anna opened. The file itself was buff coloured and looked like the kind of file I kept my unpaid bills in.
Lategan introduced us to Anna once the performance was complete and then invited her to walk before us as we returned down the corridor towards the lift.
“Very impressive,” said Chandler, although I think he was referring to the equipment rather than Anna’s rear end, which seemed to be occupying Lategan’s attention.
“No expense has been spared; we’re state of the art here. Temperature control, humidity, fire protection, insects.”
“You wouldn’t want paper moths moving in.”
“We would not!” exclaimed Lategan, and he laughed like a donkey as we squeezed into the lift with Anna and her file. Anna held her finger on the fingerprint reader in a way that had Lategan licking his lips like an overheated lizard. Then she pressed a button, and we all smiled at each other.
“You have a similar system in the vaults that don’t hold paper?” asked Chandler as the lift dropped another few floors. The doors opened, and Anna stepped out. We were afforded a glimpse of a very different style of corridor. Raw concrete and dim light bulbs hanging from the ceiling. There were no robotic shelves here, but a sliding door of bulletproof glass with a fingerprint reader beside it, and beyond that a worn wooden counter with more bulletproof glass and a microphone to speak into. Anna applied a long finger to the reader.
“Similar, yes,” said Lategan, and he pressed the button several times in an attempt to close the doors. “We shouldn’t be down here,” he said, a little flustered. “These levels are strictly out of bounds.”
“This is where you keep the dangerous secrets,” said Chandler.
“Not dangerous,” said Lategan, and he gave the button another few pokes.
“Higher value, perhaps,” suggested Chandler.
Lategan nodded anxiously, and we stood in silence for a few moments before he realised that he hadn’t satisfied the fingerprint reader. He did so, and the doors closed.
“Let’s take you to the Reading Room,” he said. “Then you can get to work.”
The Reading Room was where the architect had taken the ‘no expense spared’ concept to heart. It was a room that reached up three storeys and had been inspired by the great libraries of the world with an emphasis on Gothic. Bookshelves lined the walls and narrow iron balconies ran around the second and third floors, with twisted railing supports that imitated ivy.
Movable wooden ladders from the private libraries of eccentric billionaires were p
laced haphazardly about. The reading tables had low lights with gleaming brass shades, and green leather desktops, only two of which were occupied.
Lategan moved across the marble floor like a cat, ensuring that his footsteps didn’t make a noise. We reached a central desk built like an island from which the chief librarian could fend off invasions from all sides. She had the look of someone who had just switched screens away from a solitaire game and was trying to appear busy despite the fact that there was nothing on the desktop. She gave a regulation business-only smile when Lategan introduced us. Her earrings, which were gold hoops the size of small dinner plates, bobbed up and down enthusiastically in time with the extra rolls of chin.
Meghan would retrieve files for us if we would be so kind as to provide her with as many details as we could. We indicated that we would. The more information we could provide, the easier it would be for Meghan to deliver the gold standard in service that was their promise to the good people of South Africa. Or the United Kingdom, as the case might be.
Lategan fussed about us as we settled at a table, and Chandler opened his steel-framed case that looked as if it should have been handcuffed to his wrist. He removed a thin sheaf of paper from the case and snapped it shut again with more noise than Lategan seemed to feel was necessary, but he kept his smile in place until Chandler had provided details for our first candidate to Meghan, who wrote them down like a waitress taking our order. Chandler suggested she take the sheet, and she waddled back to her island and started frowning at the computer like she was trying to remember what all the icons meant.
“Most advanced search algorithm in the world,” declared Lategan. “Based on Google’s original engine, but developed far beyond that of course.”
Beyond Meghan was a large gilt-framed portrait of a familiar man in hunting gear with a pack of dogs at his heels.
“That’s Riaan Breytenbach, isn’t it?” asked Chandler.
“It most certainly is,” said Lategan. “Our benefactor and founder. Mr Breytenbach is the chairman of the Gold Mining Conglomerate of South Africa, and we have him to thank for all of this.” Lategan looked up at the portrait like a supplicant witnessing the second coming. It portrayed Breytenbach as a handsome man, a firm jaw, piercing blue eyes and black hair with some peppering about the temples. He was taller and more impressive than in the flesh. What the portrait did best was to express the way in which he was imbued with power. He looked as if he was about to leap out of the frame. And it wasn’t just a physical energy. It was a power derived from the confidence that settles upon people who have access to unlimited amounts of money. A confidence that comes in part from knowing that there is nothing he cannot have.
“Yes,” said Chandler, “I’ve had the pleasure of meeting him.” I’m sure that he hadn’t meant to sound sarcastic, but I couldn’t help glancing at him. He was not looking at the painting but at me. Deadpan expression.
“Did some work for him on one of his mines,” said Chandler, then put his hand up to his face as if to adopt a thinking pose, but I knew he regretted bringing up Breytenbach and the gesture was an effort to keep his mouth closed. Always say the truth, had been what the Welsh captain had said in the training sessions, always the truth, but don’t make it a truth that is so specific it can be traced.
But Lategan didn’t seem to have heard. “Still takes a keen interest,” he said. “Comes in every few weeks, spends a few days in his office. Floor above mine. This is not just an investment project for him. Oh, no. It’s something that means a lot to him.” Lategan turned to Chandler. “A lot,” he repeated and did his toad face again until Meghan arrived back at our table.
“I’ve got something on this one. It’ll just take a few minutes,” she said, and fluttered our page at us, on which she had pencilled several long strings of numbers.
“I don’t suppose that you have anything on the history of this building?” Chandler asked Meghan. “Your boss has been kind enough to give us a tour. It must have a fascinating history.”
Meghan shuffled her weight from one leg to the other. She glanced at Lategan.
“The building?” asked Lategan.
“I have a dilettante’s interest in architecture,” said Chandler.
“We’d have the plans,” said Meghan. “Nothing else really.”
“Fascinating,” said Chandler. “For an enthusiast like me, even the dull lines of an architectural plan tell a story. Thank you, Meghan, I would be so grateful.”
Meghan blushed and padded softly over to the lift.
“Well,” said Lategan, who looked as if he had a few reservations about sharing architectural plans but struggled to find a way of expressing them. “I’ll leave you to it then.” He held out a fleshy hand which we took turns at shaking, then he crept silently back to the lift.
The first six names went really well. Meghan seemed to be getting the hang of all those icons and we settled into an efficient rhythm of pretending to write important things while she searched for the next lucky pension winner, then with a flutter of her pencilled notes would leave us to it, as Lategan would have said, and she descended to the paper vaults to retrieve the file.
She also managed to find extensive architectural plans which delighted Captain Templeton, and his enthusiasm pushed her to greater efforts. She produced cross-sections, isometric views and even wiring diagrams, which particularly pleased Captain Templeton.
When she was gone we kept our heads down and I doodled a bit on a pad of paper, while Chandler pretended that he was not taking photographs of the details of the building plans. We had both seen the security cameras mounted high in the ceiling like little bubble eyes and I wondered whether Lategan was keeping an eye out while he enjoyed his afternoon doughnut, or whether he left it all to a team in an underground room where no expense had been spared on technical gadgetry.
“Impressive place,” said Chandler as if he’d been reading my mind. He looked up at me. “A lot of security. For archives.”
“Protectors of the country’s proud history,” I said and Chandler forced himself not to smile at my imitation of Lategan’s precise English.
It was on the seventh name that things went wrong. Meghan spent a good deal longer gazing into the depths of her iMac, and she even muttered to herself when she started encountering the red flags, or blank screens or whatever the clever people who had advanced Google’s algorithms had dreamed up to indicate no-go areas. Chandler and I didn’t look up. Meghan’s rubber-soled shoes made little squeaks on the marble as she came over to us.
“This one doesn’t seem right,” she said. I looked up, but Chandler finished writing something down before allowing himself to be distracted.
“Could we have the ID number wrong?” I suggested.
“No, I’ve found her. We have severals files for her. But that’s the thing, it’s a woman. Wouldn’t your recruits be men?”
“Not necessarily,” said Chandler. “We have women in our ranks. Have done for years.”
“Well …” Meghan fanned herself a little with the page as if this was causing her to overheat. “There must be a mistake. Do you want to check the details?”
“But of course,” said Chandler in his soothe-the-anxious-children voice. He took the paper back from Meghan and opened his steel case to consult a bunch of typed pages he’d collected from a copy shop’s paper recycling bin on our way over. He started paging through them nonchalantly.
“We’ve been lucky with the weather today,” I said to distract Meghan, who was staring intensely at the pile of pages and would not take long to realise they had nothing to do with the British Marines. She looked at me as if I’d tried to communicate in a language unknown to her. Meghan was not really a weather person. “The rain seems to have held off,” I said, “although I guess that doesn’t bother you, parking underground.”
“Oh no, I park in the street. Only some upper floor girls get the parking,” said Meghan. “There’s only one floor of parking, the rest are all high security st
orage.” She turned back to Chandler as he returned the papers to his case and snapped the locks closed again. He gave her a broad smile and handed back the page that caused the trouble.
“All correct,” he said regretfully. “Why don’t we come back to it? The next is the last one anyway.”
Meghan’s large rear end bounced back to the island, the page fanning her growing discontent. Number eight gave no problems and Chandler was folding up the blueprints when Lategan appeared again. By now Meghan had taken to staring blankly at her screens and shaking her head in confusion. Lategan padded over to her and they held a whispered conversation. Lategan then glided over to us. He placed the offending piece of paper on the table and opened his hands as if inviting us to join him in prayer.
“Still a few cracks,” he said and shook his head sadly. “Some people fall into them, and there’s nothing we can we do. This …” he picked up the paper and scowled at it, “… L. Dlomo has no records that we can find.”
“Ah well,” said Chandler, and he smiled. I said nothing, manfully resisting the temptation to suggest that Lategan should have checked with Meghan before coming up with his own version of the story. “Such a shame,” said Chandler, “because that one is a substantial pension amount. You’re not able to find anything at all?”
“We are not,” said Lategan, who had used up all his excuses and didn’t feel like talking about it anymore.
“She fell through the cracks?” I asked.
Lategan smiled and got half a laugh out. “Her records, not her.” He finished the laugh without conviction. “The files we get from the state archives have many of these gaps. We work hard to fill them. But,” he added as if suddenly spotting the silver lining, “Meghan tells me she was able to help with all the others.”
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