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“Sorry. Very bad manners; I didn’t mean all the cloak-and-dagger stuff. The name’s Tamworth, head field operative at SO-5. Actually,” he added, “that doesn’t mean so much. At present there are just me and two others.”
I shook his outstretched hand.
“Three people in a SpecOps division?” I asked curiously. “Isn’t that kind of mean?”
“I lost some guys yesterday.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Not that way. We just made a bit of headway and that’s not always good news. Some people research well in SO-5 but don’t like the fieldwork. They have kids. I don’t. But I understand.”
I nodded. I understood too.
“Why are you talking to me?” I asked almost casually. “I’m SO-27; as the SpecOps transfer board so kindly keeps telling me, my talents lie either in front of a Litera Tec desk or a kitchen stove.”
Tamworth smiled. He patted the file in front of him.
“I know all about that. SpecOps Central Recruiting don’t really have a good word for ‘No,’ they just fob. It’s what they’re best at. On the contrary, they are fully aware of your potential. I spoke to Boswell just now and he thinks he can just about let you go if you want to help us over at SO-5.”
“If you’re SO-5 he doesn’t have much choice, does he?”
Tamworth laughed.
“That’s true. But you do. I’d never recruit anyone who didn’t want to join me.”
I looked at him. He meant it.
“Is this a transfer?”
“No,” replied Tamworth, “it isn’t. I just need you because you have information that is of use to us. You’ll be an observer; nothing more. Once you understand what we’re up against you’ll be very glad to be just that.”
“So when this is over I just get thrown back here?”
He paused and looked at me for a moment, trying to give the best assurance that he could without lying. I liked him for it.
“I make no guarantees, Miss Next, but anyone who has been on an SO-5 assignment can be pretty confident that they won’t be SO-27 forever.”
“What is it you want me to do?”
Tamworth pulled a form from his case and pushed it across the table to me. It was a standard security clearance and, once signed, gave SpecOps the right to almost everything I possessed and a lot more besides if I so much as breathed a word to someone with a lesser clearance. I signed it dutifully and handed it back. In exchange he gave me a shiny SO-5 badge with my name already in place. Tamworth knew me better than I thought. This done, he lowered his voice and began:
“SO-5 is basically a Search & Containment facility. We are posted with a man to track until found and contained, then we get another. SO-4 is pretty much the same; they are just after a different thing. Person. You know. Anyway, I was down at Gad’s Hill this morning, Thursday—can I call you Thursday?—and I had a good look at the crime scene at first hand. Whoever took the manuscript of Chuzzlewit left no fingerprints, no sign of entry and nothing on any of the cameras.”
“Not a lot to go on, was there?”
“On the contrary. It was just the break I’ve been waiting for.”
“Did you share this with Boswell?” I asked.
“Of course not. We’re not interested in the manuscript; we’re interested in the man who stole it.”
“And who’s that?”
“I can’t tell you his name but I can write it.”
He took out a felt tip and wrote “Acheron Hades” on a notepad and held it up for me to read.
“Look familiar?”
