The sub-basement is smaller than you imagined. He has been sleeping here, you realise — there is a camp bed in the corner, a thermos, a pile of paperback novels. He is a man who expected to be found.
"I want one thing," you tell him. "My name, removed from every file that connects me to the translation. Every copy, every archive, every database. I want to be invisible."
He considers this for a long time.
"I can arrange that," he says finally. "I still have relationships." He pauses. "And in return?"
"The coordinates stay with me. The document stays with me. You retire. Everyone walks away."
He nods slowly. He is seventy-three and he has been carrying this for fifty years and he is ready to put it down.
"One condition," he says. "The cache must be neutralised. Not recovered — neutralised. I will not have it moved and resold by someone else."
You think about this.
"Agreed," you say.
What happens next?
1 The arrangement holds — you disappear from the record