The Keepers of the Library (28 page)

Hastings’s aides were making furious hand gestures to go onto mute so they could advise him how to respond. He ignored them, and said icily, “Mr. President, your offer is very kind, but the answer is no. The Library was created on British soil and will stay on British soil. Winston Churchill made a dreadful mistake in 1947 by giving away a national treasure. I shall not make the same one.”

A
cold front blew across the Dales and cleared the sky of mist. The crescent moon became visible, sharply defined against the blackness of the night. The air was fresh and crystalline.

The scene playing out below Kenney’s position was controlled and orderly. Army units were deploying themselves around Lightburn Farm, vastly supplementing and reinforcing the police presence. Ambulances had come and gone. From the incessant foot traffic going in and out of the incident van, Kenney assumed a fierce discussion had taken place over jurisdiction
but when the police fell behind army units in a second-line stance, it was pretty clear the army had dominated.

Kenney grabbed his vibrating communicator. Admiral Sage had been calling regularly for updates but this time the conversation began differently.

“The situation’s gone critical here,” Sage said. “I’ve got a mission for you.”

“Yes, sir,” Kenney said, sensing that saying anything else would not be well received.

“The Pentagon and the White House want you and your men to be the thin end of the wedge. I know there are only three of you but your unit’s the best in our arsenal. That’s what I told them.”

“Thank you, sir,” Kenney replied warily.

“The United States has made a determination that the new Library belongs here in Groom Lake and obviously, I’m highly supportive of this. I’m sure you are too.”

Kenney lobbed in his agreement.

“The Brits don’t seem really keen on this idea, so here’s the plan. If, over the next few hours, diplomatic efforts to resolve the matter break down, you will covertly insert your team inside the farm at 0200 and take control of the assets. Once you have achieved your objective, US Army and Air Force elements based at RAF Mildenhall will arrive to suppress any local opposition by force if necessary and transport the Library to Groom Lake.”

“What about the hostages, sir?”

“We have carte blanche, Captain. I’ve had personal assurances there will be no questions asked. You won’t have to write any after-action reports. Once the mission is initiated, the hostages and any nationals inside the farm need to be neutralized. This operation needs to be leak-proof. Understood?”

“Completely understood, sir. My men and I will prepare a plan and await a go order.”

When he signed off, one thought beat all others to the top of his list.

Will Piper’s going down, and I’m the one who’s going to do it
.

T
he landline at Lightburn Farm rang incessantly but Daniel refused to answer it. The family was keeping low, away from the drawn curtains. The authorities hadn’t cut the electricity but Daniel and Kheelan warned the women and children to expect it. Upstairs, Cacia and her sister, Gail, tried to get the two young girls to bed with a pretended show of normality. Haven participated in the ruse by reading them their favorite bedtime story.

Douglas prowled the underground rooms in case anyone came at them from the storeroom side and while he was down there, he looked in on the hostages and the writers who were engaged in their labors oblivious to the drama.

Kheelan had snuck back to the barn to keep watch on the rear of the property and Daniel manned the house with Andrew, who was biting at his lip and obsessively rubbing the metal parts of his shotgun with an oiled rag.

When the phone began ringing again after the briefest interval of quiet, Cacia called down the stairs for Daniel to pick up and talk to them so the girls could fall asleep.

Daniel swore at her, then crept on his belly, muttering that it wouldn’t surprise him if a sniper was going to open fire in the vicinity of the phone. “What d’ you want now?” Daniel asked into the handset.

“With whom am I speaking?” The voice was starchy and cool.

“This is Daniel Lightburn. Who the hell is this?”

“My name is Colonel Barry Woolford, British Army. I’m in charge of this operation, Mr. Lightburn. I wonder if I might have a chat with you in person.”

“Nae chance, marra.”

“I see. In that case, let’s have the chat now, over the phone. How would that be?”

“Suit yourself,” Daniel said. “But I’ve got nowt t’ say t’ you ‘cepting that you should leave me and my family be and get off me land. Understand?”

“Yes, I hear you loud and clear, but I’m afraid it isn’t so simple. You see, we know exactly what you have, Lightburn, and more to the point, the Chinese know what you have, and they appear to want it very badly. We dealt with their small attempt to get to you but unfortunately, they are massing quite a substantial invasion force and I rather doubt their next attempt will be as easily repelled. I’m concerned for the safety of you and your loved ones, not to mention the hostages you have.”

“They’re my concerns, not yours,” Daniel snapped.

“Yes, once again, I’ve got to disagree. Let me get to the point. Our proposal is to come in peacefully, take control of the hostages, and assess the logistics. You and your loved ones will be taken to safety and given full immunity even with respect to the shooting that occurred earlier. Isn’t that splendid news? But we need for this to occur soon or I’m afraid the generous offer will be withdrawn.”

“And what will ya do if I tell you t’ stuff your generous offer?” Daniel asked mockingly.

“Then we’ll come in quite heavily, and, if you resist, I can assume there will be catastrophic casualties on your side. But we don’t want that to happen, do we?”

“Fuck off.”

“I see,” the colonel said, evenly. “Tell you what, you discuss it among your people and I’ll ring you back in a short while. I do hope we can come to a satisfactory agreement, Mr. Lightburn. This is a critical time for you, your country, and the entire world. There will be a resolution one way or another. The stakes couldn’t be higher.”

W
ill’s mind was racing, working on scenarios
and contingencies but he kept getting interrupted by all the little dramas playing out within their cramped confines.

Whether out of anger or fear or mortification, Greg had regressed to the point where he was refusing to converse with the rest of them. He kept his face glued to the wall although he periodically shouted to their unseen captors that he had to go to the bathroom.

Cacia had chained Nancy to the cot between Phillip and Will, perhaps in a sympathetic effort to keep the family unit together. Nancy, for her part, doted on Phillip, but the boy was in no mood to be mothered in front of an audience.

Nancy wasn’t exactly giving Will the cold shoulder; she did ask with appropriate concern how he was doing and whether his heart was behaving. But she kept glaring ferociously at Annie and at one point whispered to Will, “She’s very pretty.”

Will replied that he hadn’t noticed.

But she persisted, “Why do you think MI5 assigned her to you? You don’t think they know their customer?”

“Jesus, Nancy,” he whispered. “I was here to find Phillip, not fool around.”

“Cacia’s attractive too,” she whispered back. “She’s also giving you the look.”

Will was exasperated. “Don’t you think we’ve got bigger fish to fry?”

Cacia and Haven came in with trays of food and drink. This time, the women weren’t left on their own. Douglas looked on moodily, apparently tasked with watching over his mother and sister.

Greg loudly demanded the bathroom again. Douglas grumbled, and took him off at gunpoint.

Cacia saw an opening and stood over Will’s bed.

“Daniel’s had a call with an army man who says we’ve got t’ give up and turn th’ Library over t’ them. He says if we don’t, they’re going t’ come in shooting and that if we all get killed or wounded, it’ll be on his head not theirs.”

Nancy spoke up before Will could. “I’ve got to get in touch with the FBI. They don’t even know I’m in here. The US needs to intervene with the British. There’s got to be a way to resolve this without bloodshed. Are there any other mobile phones you can bring down here, Mrs. Lightburn?”

“Kheelan smashed all of yours. We’ve only got the wired one upstairs.”

Will shook his head wearily. “I’m sorry, Nancy, but that’s not going to work. It doesn’t matter if it’s the Americans or the Brits or both of them cooperating. They’re going to want the same thing—to control the Library and silence us, one way or another.”

“What about the Chinese?” Nancy asked.

“Who knows,” Will said. “Maybe they’ll be given access to the Library as part of a grand bargain. But they’ll all want the public kept in the dark so governments and militaries can play God with the dates.
You saw their reaction when we shined a light on Area 51. For Christ’s sake, they probably won’t even let the world know the Horizon’s a false date.”

“What’s your plan then?” Nancy asked.

Will looked at her, then looked at Cacia. “I say we join forces with the Lightburns. I say we fight the bastards together. The only thing that’s going to stop them is effective opposition. That’s the only way to bring them to the negotiating table. We’ve got to make them understand they’re only getting the Library if the world is informed about it, we and the Lightburns get safe passage and Cacia gets to decide what happens to the writers.”

While he said this, Cacia was nodding in agreement.

“For the love of God, Cacia,” Will implored, “can you get Daniel and Kheelan to let us help them defend your farm?”

She said she’d try and flew out, leaving Haven behind and telling Douglas she’d be back soon.

Haven stood stiffly among them, seemingly uncomfortable among new faces.

Phillip gave her a little wave with his free hand, and said, “Mom, this is my friend, Haven.”

Nancy’s stern expression melted into a smile. “Hi, Haven,” she said. “All this stuff must be pretty upsetting.”

“I’m okay,” Haven said softly. “I’m worried about the little girls though, me cousins. The gunfire’s making ’em cry.”

“Oh my,” Nancy said. “We’ve got to make all this craziness stop, don’t we?”

Haven nodded.

“You asked Phillip to come to England, I hear.”

“I did. And he did. I’m sorry I got him int’ all this mess though.”

Phillip interjected, “I’m not sorry. I mean it is messed up, but I’m glad I got to meet you.”

Douglas marched Greg back in and rechained him. Nancy asked the young man if she could also go to the bathroom and Will piped up that he’d like to go too. Douglas warned against trying anything, unlocked both of them and ushered them away. When they left, Haven seized the opportunity to sit beside Phillip on his cot.

In the anteroom, Will wrapped his hand around Nancy’s and gave it a little squeeze.

“I wish you weren’t here, but I’m glad you are,” he said. “Does that make sense?”

“Kind of,” she said, squeezing back. “In a Will Piper sort of way.”

“Remember the promise I made to you in the hospital?”

“Which one? About the cheeseburgers or the women?”

He laughed. “The women. I’ve been good. I wanted you to know.”

“I’ll choose to believe you.”

Just then, the door to the writers’ room opened and one of them came out on his way to the lavatory.

“Hang on,” Douglas said to them. “Let ‘im go first.”

Nancy was thunderstruck at the sight of the ginger-haired young man. The writer gave her the most fleeting of looks before shuffling past and reaching for the doorknob.

When the lavatory door closed behind him, Nancy said to Will, “That’s one of them, yes?”

“In the flesh.”

“I kind of pictured them wearing monk’s robes.”

“At least they’ve got sandals.”

“Do they talk?”

“Not that I’ve seen.”

Will said, “Douglas, will you let my wife take a peek into their room?”

The young man raised his gun slightly and said, “Ten seconds. No more.”

With that, he opened the door to the writers’ room a crack, allowed her to peer in, then closed it.

“My God,” she said. “It’s unbelievable.”

The young writer exited the bathroom and shuffled away.

Douglas said to her, “Go on, your turn. I shouldn’t expect he’s put th’ seat down.”

Ten minutes after all of them were recuffed, Cacia came back down, but she wasn’t alone. Daniel and Kheelan were behind her. They ordered Douglas upstairs to take up Daniel’s abandoned position.

Daniel glared at Will and looked like he was going to shout at him, but instead he asked with a forced calm, “Okay then, mister, tell me your proposal.”

Will laid out his plan. He’d hastily pieced it together, and as it spilled out, he was pleased it sounded rational.

“So do you have any fertilizer?” Will asked.

“We do,” Daniel said. “This is a working farm. How do you think we support the writers and all?”

“And do you have any gas, any petrol?”

“Aye. In the barn. For the tractor.”

“And you’ve got shotgun shells obviously.”

“Plenty.”

“And jerry cans. I know you’ve got them.”

“Aye.”

“And a bag of sugar and a roll of cotton string?”

“I have that,” Cacia said.

Will smiled. “Then we’ve got the fixings.”

“Tell me why I should trust you?” Daniel said.

“Because it looks like fate’s put us on the same side. We’re both fighting to save our families.”

Annie was having nothing of it. “Well, I’m certainly not on your side. You’ve killed and wounded MI5 agents and you intend to kill and maim members of the police and military. I’ll play no role in that.”

Will gently said, “Annie, if I were in your shoes I’d agree with you one hundred percent. But here’s the thing. If they get control of the Library, they may or may not let you go back to your normal life. They might consider you a liability, and liabilities sometimes disappear.”

“Nevertheless, I will not help you,” she said defiantly.

“There’ll be a way to use her,” Nancy said. “Keep her locked up until we’re ready. And Greg too. He’s no longer one of us.”

Daniel breathed a heavy sigh and told Cacia to unchain Will, Nancy, and Phillip, and leave Annie and Greg shackled.

“Come on,” Will said, standing up and stretching. “Let’s go cooking.”

T
he scene in the Lightburn kitchen had an air of domesticity. After Kheelan’s defiant outburst against releasing them, he settled down and grudgingly shuttled back and forth to the barn fetching ingredients. Will stirred the chemicals in Cacia’s largest saucepans while Nancy emptied shotgun shells into a mixing bowl, all the while talking about her experience of a lifetime, walking through the vast Library chamber on the way to the farmhouse stairs. Under Will’s tutelage, Phillip and Haven dipped string into
a slurry of sugar water and black powder to make detonation cord. Cacia hovered, providing utensils as needed, and her sister-in-law, Gail, poked her head in from time to time when she wasn’t upstairs with her sleeping girls. Daniel, his sons, and Kheelan kept up the watch through peepholes torn through the curtains.

“How did you say you know how to do this?” Nancy asked.

Will chuckled and put the ladle down. “I used to be in law enforcement. Remember? You think all I know how to do is catch fish.”

“I’m in law enforcement too, and I don’t know how to make a bomb.”

“You got promoted into management too fast.”

The telephone rang incessantly during their production run but they ignored it. When they were finished, there was enough liquid for four jerry cans. Will carefully placed lengths of homemade detonation cord into the mouths of each can and secured them with wads of Cacia’s cut-up tea towels.

“Will they work?” Cacia asked.

Will pointed to Phillip and Haven. “If the kids made a good detcord, they should.”

“If your recipe was good, then it’s good,” Phillip said.

“Then it should make a pretty great fireball,” Will answered. “Let’s just hope we don’t hurt anyone.”

They went back underground, carrying two jerry cans with them and walked back through the Library to the isolation room.

“What’s that?” Annie said, pointing at the cans.

“What’s it look like?” Nancy replied.

“I think you’ve all gone mad,” Annie said. “Completely bonkers. One minute you’re hostages, the next you’re terrorists.”

Will took the handcuff key from Cacia and freed Annie. “It’s time for you to go, Annie. I’m sure the place is crawling with MI5. Go and find your people and tell them they’ll be making a huge mistake if they storm the farm. Tell them we’ve got a dozen bombs and we’ll use them. Go get your leg properly tended to.”

“Come with me,” Cacia said, gesturing in the direction of the Library. “You’re going out this way, through the house.”

Will bent over Greg and undid his cuff. “You’re going too, Greg.”

Greg blinked a few times and stood up.

“I’m scared,” he said.

“I’m sure you are,” Will said.

“What’ll happen to me?”

“I honestly don’t know. The feds don’t know your role yet but I expect it’ll come out soon enough, won’t it, Nancy.”

She nodded. “I’ll have to turn you in when I get the chance,” Nancy said sadly.

“Maybe the Chinese will take you in,” Will said.

Greg teared up. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sure you are,” Will said.

“Will you tell Laura that I love her?”

“You’ll be able to do it yourself,” Will answered.

“You think?”

“Look, Greg, you’re BTH. I looked you up years ago, when I had the database.”

“I’ll bet you looked up Greg Davis, right?”

Will nodded.

“You know I was adopted, Will. You should have searched on Tanner, my birth name.”

Will remembered the day in 2009. He’d only had a few frantic minutes before the police arrived to look up the dates for some of the people who were important to him. He felt sick to his stomach. For his
daughter’s sake, he patted Greg on the back and sent him off with Cacia.

V
ice Chairman Yi was seated in the Foreign Intelligence Command Center at the Ministry of State Security beside General Bo. A concave wall at the front of the room displayed a variety of real-time satellite and thermal images of Pinn.

“See there?” a senior analyst told the men, springing to his feet and pointing to a moving dot on one of the images. “He’s on the move.”

“What would you like us to do?” General Bo asked Yi.

Yi understood that the question was deferential, but he was annoyed the general felt a need to ask. The answer was obvious. “We have discussed the scenario, General, and there is no reason to alter our plan.”

A
nnie waved a white tea towel furiously over her head as she limped out the front door of the farmhouse, then ran the best she could toward the road and a squad of soldiers. Greg came too, head down, holding his own towel limply.

Overhead, a black-and-gray bird of prey the size of an osprey silently swooped from the black sky.

But it wasn’t a bird.

The Chinese microdrone homed onto the signal emanating from Greg’s Rolex.

A missile the size of a fat fountain pen let loose and streaked into his chest, exploding on impact.

The percussion was loud enough that Will heard it underground.

He wasn’t sure, but he had a pretty good idea what it was.