The Keepers of the Library by Glenn Cooper Read Free Book Online Page A

damn thing.
    Kenney believed in a multipronged approach. He didn’t understand database-security algorithms on a technical level but he believed he had a pretty good understanding of people. He started delving into personnel files looking for personal data and psychological nuggets that might add up to motive. That’s how he became focused on Frank Lim, one of Area 51’s China analysts.
    Lim had his Area 51 twenty-five-year pin. He was a slight, unassuming man who did his job thoroughly, kept largely to himself and didn’t share much of his aboveground life with colleagues. As operations in the Truman Building wound down and head counts were progressively cut, the department that suffered the fewest hits was the China desk. With the collapse in the Russian economy and the hobbling of India in the wake of its nuclear disaster, China was the only country that really mattered to the US. Every geopolitical equation had the China factor on one side and the US factor on the other. So even though there was only one more year of functionality in the Library, the China database was still being milked every day.
    The more Kenney dug into Frank Lim, the more he distrusted him. He was the only Chinese-American analyst. His parents had both been born in Taiwan. A branch of the Lim family was still there. He had a history of wiring money to cousins, ostensibly to help with their children’s education. One of his cousins was a prominent KMT nationalist politician who was a sharp advocate for full Taiwanese independence. Was it a huge stretch to think that Lim was behind some kind of act of political theater designed to intimidate the People’s Republic of China? Werethe Doomsday postcards a veiled threat to the government, as in, “Your days are numbered too”? Besides, Lim was one of the Area 51 personnel with a less-than-pristine lie-detector-test result.
    A week into the crisis, Kenney and Sage, with the backing of the CIA and the Pentagon, agreed to roll up Lim and place him on administrative leave. Subject to the draconian terms of his employment agreement with Groom Lake, the watchers did not need judicial clearance to search his personal computers and phone records. When you entered the murky world of Area 51 you voluntarily gave up due process. The search came up empty but he remained under suspicion, and his house in Henderson was under twenty-four-hour surveillance.
    When Kenney described the mundane details of Lim’s visit of the day before to the supermarket and Home Depot, Sage seemed to perk up.
    “How did he look?” the admiral asked.
    “Look? I don’t know. I wasn’t personally on the surveillance,” Kenney replied testily.
    “You get photos, don’t you?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Well, let’s see them.”
    Kenney pulled out his NetPen and unfurled its retractable screen. A couple of swipes later he had the images from the most-recent reconnaissance. He handed the device to Sage.
    “Look at his face,” Sage said, peering at a close-up. “He looks like he’s hiding something.”
    “That may well be,” Kenney said.
    “Question him again. Do it personally.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    Sage closed his file folder, his way of showing a meeting was over. “On your way out, tell my PA I want to see her.”
    I’ll bet you do, Kenney thought, you damned banana slug.
    Inside the Truman Building Kenney strode into Elevator One and was about to push the –6 button for his office when he was seized by an urge he hadn’t had for years.
    He stepped out before the doors closed and headed for the V Elevator. He summoned it with a special access key and entered the brushed-aluminum interior. There were only two buttons, G and V. He hit V and inserted his security card in the slot below the button. The doors closed, and he began the smooth sixty-foot descent.
    Kenney had personal knowledge that no one except for the environmental monitoring team had visited the Vault for a year or more. In years past, visits had been more