“But I’m busy!” I protested, a tad limply-the lack of aircon was getting to me, and I’m not good at standing up to Angleton at the best of times. “I’ve got to respond to the RFP on structured cabling requirements for the new subbasement extension in D Block”-don’t call it a crypt, the government doesn’t do crypts, the Spanish Inquisition does crypts-“and go over Claire’s training budget. Can’t Peter-Fred do it? He’s finished Exorcism 101, it’s about time he had a field trip…”
“Nonsense!” Angleton said crisply. “You can take the paperwork with you, but I specifically want you to go and look at this one.”
There’s a warning gleam in his eyes: I’ve seen it before. “Oh no you don’t,” I replied. “Not so fast!” I raised an eyebrow and waited for the explosion.
Angleton is old school-so old school that I’m pretty sure I’ve seen his face in a departmental photo taken during the war, back when the Laundry was an obscure department of SOE, the Special Operations Executive, tasked with occult intelligence gathering and counter-demonology. He doesn’t look a day older today than he did back then, sixty-five years ago-dress him in a bandage and he could star in a remake of The Mummy. Ice-blue eyes with slightly yellowish scleras, skin like parchment left out for too long in a desert sandstorm, dry as bone and twice as chilly as ice. And I never want to hear his laugh again. But I digress. The thing about Angleton is that, despite (or in addition to) being the honorary departmental monster, he has a sense of humor. It bears about the same relationship to mirth that his cadaverous exterior does to Paris Hilton’s-but it’s there. (He has the heart of a young boy: keeps it in a reliquary under the coffin he sleeps in.) And right then, I figured he was winding me up for the punch line.