“The agency called me up this afternoon.” Cassie is defensive, her pulse speeding. “Something about one of their regulars being off sick? Vomiting bug? Who are you?”
The woman studies her for a moment, scanning and categorizing. “Bernadette McGuigan of GP Security Systems. I’m in charge of personnel here. You’re serving for Lisa Geissler, is that correct? What’s your name?” Cassie notices that she wears a discreet undecorated cross on a plain silver chain around her neck; the symbolism seems oddly out of keeping with the rest of this party. A reek of occult power hangs about Bernadette, unsettling and sweetly rotten, but Cassie doesn’t dare to open her mind and look: if this woman is a practitioner, she’ll spot the intrusion.
“Lisa—I don’t know her family name?” Cassie ducks her head again. “I’m Cassie Daniels, ma’am. Is everything all right?”
McGuigan’s expression is unreadable. “I don’t like surprises,” she says evenly. “You are not on my checklist. Wait here. Do not move.” She produces a drab-looking phone from her evening clutch and speed-dials a number. “McGuigan. Temporary manifest, I want you to verify a name, Cassie Daniels. Yes, please. Full workup.” Cassie shivers: McGuigan is the one with the bare shoulders but Cassie feels unaccountably naked before her gaze. There is mana here, and a powerful coiled intellect, something unnatural and alien that reminds her of something she’s seen before, and recently—“Oh, good. That will be all.” Ms. McGuigan ends the call and returns the phone to her bag. She frowns at Cassie. “Your collar is wrinkled. Fix it before you carry on,” she says offhand, then picks up her skirts and marches away to find other members of staff to terrorize.
As Cassie watches her back recede she finally opens her inner eye, then closes it hastily and breathes a sigh of relief. “Yikes,” she subvocalizes, “that was much too close, YesYes!” McGuigan turns the corner of the balcony, taking her aura of unclean power with her. Cassie pats at her forehead, then runs a finger around the inside of her collar. “The brain-worms are here and they’re hungry.” Then she picks up her tray and continues around the balcony, looking out for conversations that might be worth planting an ear on.
*
Now not many people know this, but: Q-Division SOE has—or had—a Board of Directors.
I, personally, am not acquainted with the directors. Most of us aren’t—they keep a low profile, even by the standards of Mahogany Row, where it’s not unusual for certain senior personnel to keep such a low profile that only the payroll computers in HR can remember their names. It’s not as if the organization doesn’t have a well-understood charter and protocols for day-to-day and month-to-month operations: it’s self-governing, most of the time.
As I implied, I don’t deal with the board myself. But I know for a fact that Dr. Armstrong, as the seniormost Auditor, reports directly to the Board on occasion, as do the heads of other major departments: Human Resources, R&D, IT, Countermeasures, and Demonology, among others.
But sometimes conditions arise that demand active governance, with new policy directives and regulations a priority. Under such circumstances, we rely on the Board of Directors to do their thing. And if one situation is guaranteed to call for executive action, it’s the sudden appearance of an order in council calling for the agency to be dissolved.
Unfortunately there are certain emergent problems with the Laundry’s BOD.
The Board gave up trying to appoint external directors a long time ago. For one thing, the security clearance process is protracted and most candidates are rejected for one reason or another. For another, experience teaches us that when they are first apprised of the purpose and structure of the organization, a majority of external candidates assume they’re the butt of an elaborate practical joke. And for a third, even when they find someone sufficiently open-minded enough to take it in but not so open-minded that they pick up every memetic infection that drifts past—well, it takes a long time to come up to speed.
So what we end up with is effectively an emeritus board of very senior members of Mahogany Row, trained up in management or oversight roles once their utility as practitioners goes into decline due to impending K syndrome, who are now semiretired but still have enough experience and cognitive function remaining to be useful. They fill a variety of roles, acting as high-level emissaries to external agencies we liaise with, reviewing the big picture and our responses thereto, keeping us on track to deliver our mission objectives … and occasionally going to bat for us with Head Office, viz. the government of the day.
This is why that evening (although I don’t know it at the time) a distinguished former professor of mathematics called Jack Berry—to which we can append: MA(Cantab), DPhil, PhD, FRS, OBE, KCMG, and prefix “Lord,” for he has indeed been appointed to the House of Lords—is sitting in the anteroom to the Prime Minister’s private office at Number Ten, waiting to be invited in for a laptop-side chat with that august presence. Lord Berry is one of those academics who has aged well, despite his white hair and male pattern baldness: his eyes still twinkle and he exudes a keen interest in his surroundings, despite a dismaying ataxia that could be taken for the early stages of Parkinson’s disease. He joined Q-Division in the late 1960s, an internal Civil Service transfer from GCHQ where he’d worked with James Ellis on what was then called nonsecret encryption. After a distinguished career he officially retired in 2008, but took a part-time appointment to the Board. It’s in that capacity that he’s now here to see the PM. “Not that it’ll make any difference,” Mr. Redmayne reassures him sympathetically, “I’m afraid his mind is made up. But at least you can say you made your case, eh?”
Professor Berry’s expression is foreboding. “Of course. But I really must say, in my experience inflexibility and excessive speed on these matters makes for poor policy. One wouldn’t want to have to reverse oneself after a couple of years, what?”
Redmayne nods, but his smile is on hold. “Of course. But my advice would be to pick your fights carefully. I’m afraid you won’t be knocking on an open door. And as for the Treasury report…”
The inner door opens, and Andrew Jennings, the PM’s spad, high-steps out. He’s dressed for the squash court and waving his racket alarmingly close to the paintings adorning the walls of the outer office. “Oh hi, Ade. His Graciousness is ready for his next appointment right now; see you back here in an hour?” Jennings is bald, intense, and wears spectacles with such thick black rims that they appear shatterproof. He’s also in his late twenties and almost offensively bumptious. “Boss man says he doesn’t need me for witch-doctor duty,” he adds, with a dismissive nod in Berry’s direction. “You can go in now.”