Read The Magdalene Cipher Online
Authors: Jim Hougan
The Magdalene Cipher (25 page)
But, which kind? There was nothing to glean from the name: Mary Magdalene was a prostitute who'd gotten religion. She manifested the idea that even the most serious sinners could be forgiven. But so what? What did
that
have to do with anything?
Maybe everything, maybe nothing. But what was certain was that if the Society was indeed a kind of church, then its adherents might come from every corner of the globe, regardless of political boundariesâeven boundaries between countries at war
.
Which only went to prove that while politics made strange bedfellows, religion made even stranger ones
.
He checked his watch. It was nine fifty-five. Three hours to go. And then he'd turn into a pumpkin (if he was lucky)âor a torso (if he wasn't)
.
There was a soft knock on the door, and Dieter entered, carrying an armload of files. Stacking them on the desk, he gestured inanely and said, “The Dumpy file is not available.”
“You mean
Dun
aphy.”
“Yesâthat one. But . . . as I said, it is not available.”
“Why not?”
“Someone uses it.”
Dunphy tried not to look too disappointedâor too interested. “Do you know who?”
Dieter nodded. “The
Direktor
.
a”
A weak smile from Dunphy. And a shiver. “It's cold in here,” Dunphy complained
.
“You get used to it,” Dieter replied
.
When the big guy had gone, Dunphy returned to the Schidlof file. Having moved to Bern, Dulles saw Jung more often, but wrote to him less frequentlyâperhaps because the war made communications chancy. Even so, there were gems to be found among the few missives written between '42 and '44. “I am particularly grateful,” Dulles wrote after a 1943 visit to Jung in Küsnacht
,
to your Miss Vogelei, who was kind enough to take Mrs. Dulles on a delightful sail to Rapperswill and back. You are very lucky to have a secretary as talented and gracious as she
.
So that's who she is, Dunphy thought, happy to see another loose string tied into a bow. He glanced at his watch. Ten-fifteen
.
The next letter wasn't a letter at all, but a postcard. It had been sent by Dulles on April 12, 1943. On its face was a picture of an exquisite mountain wilderness, where all the trees were flocked with snow. A cutline on the opposite side identified the image as a part of the Swiss National Park (est. 1914) in the canton of Graubünden, near the Italian border
.
“I have been to see our young man,” Dulles wrote
.
He is unhappy, as you know, with his confinement and shows no interest whatsoever in our plans. Nevertheless, he is in reasonable health and gets about as much as his wounds will allow
.
There's “Our young man” again, Dunphy thought. Gomelez
.
The next letter was written
after
the war. Dated May 29, 1945, it had been sent from Rome
.
Dear Carl
,
I have just been to the Disciplinary Training Center in Pisa, where Ezra is being held until the paperwork is completed for his return to the United States
.
As you may imagine, the Center is a rough placeâa holding pen for American soldiers charged with serious crimes (murder and rape, desertion and drug addiction). To find our Helmsman there nearly broke my heart
.
Still, it could be worse. His “capture” was arranged by Major Angleton, who made certain that no interrogation took place. (According to Ez, I was the first American “to spit two words” at him since the arrest.)
Even so, the conditions under which he is being held are predictably appalling. So, also, is the evidence against him: scores, if not hundreds, of radio broadcasts attacking the Jews, the bankers, and all things American, while celebrating the courage and vision of
Il Duce
.
I don't know what to say. I think there is a possibility that he might be hanged
.
A half-dozen communiqués followed over the next six months. Some were long, others short, but all revolved around the same theme: how to save the Helmsman? American sentiment was running strongly toward a lynching, and Dulles thought a trial would be a catastrophe. Accordingly, a strategy was decided upon by which Pound would plead guilty to insanity, but not to treason. And, in this, Jung proved the most valuable of allies. As the founder of analytic psychology, he was an icon of the psychiatric community. It was an easy matter, then, for him to assist Dulles and “young Angleton” in marshaling a tidal wave of expertise in behalf of the otherwise dubious proposition that the politically incorrect Pound was in fact raving mad
.
October 12, 1946
And so we have prevailed
.
Ezra is committed to the federal asylum in Washington, D.C. There, at St. Elizabeth's, he will remain under the care of Dr. Winfred Overholserâwho is one of our own. While I have not yet had the opportunity to visit the great man in his psychiatric haven, I am reliably informed that Ezra has been given a sort of suite in which he holds court for admirers from every corner of the globe
.
Winnie assures me that no privileges have been (or will be) withheld from himâsave the freedom to move about outside the grounds. His dinners are prepared by caterers, and a stream of visitors moves constantly through his roomsâso much so that he has begun to complain that he does not have time to write, so busy is his schedule
.
This much, at least, is well and good. . .Â
.
Two months later, Dulles wished Jung the merriest of Christmases and reported “a fascinating tête-à -tête with Dr. Overholser's patient.”
With Pisa behind him, and the trial, too, he seems to have regained much of the vitality he'd lostâand all of the acuity. Indeed, on the basis of the afternoon that I spent with him, I can assure you that his long incarceration was anything but unproductive. Indeed, it would appear to have focused his attention to an amazing degree
.
From his rooms in the asylum, our Helmsman suggests a strategy that just might work. “What is needed,” he told me, “is for our little band to take a proactive stance toward the
Apocryphon
,
[There's that word again, Dunphy thought.] whose prophecies will be no less fulfilled for having endured a midwife.”
You see the point. Rather than standing passively by, our
Nautonnier
would have us intervene, reifying the portents enumerated in the
Apocryphon
,
while making its prophecies come trueâin effect, acting as midwives to the millennium. In that way, Ez suggests, it may be possible to achieve our ends while our young man is still among the quick
.
Dunphy wasn't entirely sure what Dulles was talking about. For one thing, he didn't know what
reifying
meant, and for another, he'd never heard of the
Apocryphon
.
Even so, he understood the part about making prophecies come trueâthough what that had to do with achieving their ends “while our young man is still among the quick” was a mystery
.
“To accomplish this,” the letter went on, a political and psychological strategy will, of course, be required. And, in particular, a mechanism will be needed to protect the Magdalene Society from the scrutiny of the mob. Happily, such a mechanism is at hand
.
The next letter, dated February 19, 1947, went a long way toward answering that question
.
In our meeting last week, Ezra remarked that the secret services provide an ideal refuge for a brotherhood such as our own. This is so because the day-to-day activities of the intelligence services are, by their very nature, clandestine. It is, indeed, the hallmark of their ordinary business. Accordingly, a secret society within a secret service would be about as visible as a pane of glass at the bottom of the sea. (The metaphor was his.)
As you can imagine, this is an insight from which our Society might easily benefit
.
Unfortunately, the British and French services are essentially unavailable to us at this time. While members of our order have served both organizations at the very highest levels (Vincent Walsingham was for nine years our
Nautonnier
,
after all), we do not currently have the same degree of influence among them as we once did. (I blame Nesta Webster.)
Dunphy got to his feet and stretched. He didn't know who Walsingham was, but Nesta Webster was notorious as an author of books about secret societies
.
He rolled his head in a circle, trying to get the kinks out. It had been a long time since he'd gone for a run, and he missed it. Maybe tomorrow, Dunphy thought, and heard himself reply, If there
is
a tomorrow. And so he sat back down and resumed reading
.
Still, an opportunity has arisen over the past year. In January, President Truman signed the secret charter of a new American intelligence serviceâone that will build upon the work of the OSS. Called the Central Intelligence Group, the new agency has the Red Menace as its brief, with Moscow as its focal point. I think you will not be surprised to learn that I have been given a central role in getting the CIG up and runningâprior to the appointment of the organization's first director
.
In this capacity, it has been a relatively simple matter to create a sort of inner sanctum
within the CIG
,
enabling us to act without fear of scrutiny or unintended consequences. The enterprise to which I refer is the Security Research Staff, a component of the counterintelligence apparatus that will soon be headed by young Angleton. With his help, the Society's activities will be concealed within a sea of muzzy invisibilities, the day-to-day spookery that both press and government must soon take for granted
.
If the metaphor of an inner sanctum seems obscure, think of us instead as the political equivalent of
Dracunculus medinensis
. (I invite you to look it up.)
Dunphy let the letter drop from his hand. Falling back in his chair, he looked at the ceiling and heaved a sigh of weary astonishment. It's like the CIA is just a cover, he thought, for something more important. And the Cold War: an excuse for something else. This Magdalene thing . .Â
.
“Excuse? . . .”
Dunphy looked up. Dieter was standing in the doorway. “What?” Dunphy asked, pronouncing the word as if he were asking a blackjack dealer to hit him
.
“I thoughtâI heard you. I thought you asked . . .” Dieter looked confused, but it was Dunphy who was embarrassed: he'd been talking to himself
.
“I need an encyclopedia,” Dunphy said
.
Dieter blinked. “A
whole
encyclopedia? In English?”
Dunphy shook his head and tried to get a grip. “No,” he said. “Just the
Ds
.
But definitely in English.”
When the door closed, Dunphy glanced at his watch. It was eleven-fifteenâjust after five in the morning in the States. Which meant that he had about an hour and a half before he'd have to leave
.
Time sure flies when you're having fun, he thought, flattening the next letter on the desk in front of him
.
April 23, 1947
Dear Carl
,
I am now back at my desk after eight days in the West, visiting the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California and certain facilities that we have in Nevada. Doctor Bush accompanied me on the last leg of the trip, and I can report that our time was put to especially good purpose
.
The first archetype will be introduced within the next few weeks. The event will take place in the vicinity of Roswell, New Mexico (a small town not far from Sandia Laboratories). Members of the Security Research Staff, on temporary assignment to the 509th Composite Bomb Group, will be responsible for the object's “recovery,” and all subsequent relations with the public and the press
.
As agreed, the existence of the recovered artifact (in actuality, a weather balloon) will be acknowledged and then denied, turning the event into what you have so aptly described as “a symbolic rumor.”
Reinforcement of that rumor will take place from time to time, until such a time as the archetype is found to be self-generating. Toward that end, the CIG is establishing a reinforcement facility under Air Force cover at Wright Field (in Dayton, Ohio). Convenient to U.S. and foreign news media, the facility will legitimize the phenomenon by denying its reality, whatever evidence may be put forward in its behalf
.
A knock at the door interrupted his reading. He looked up. Dieter was standing in the doorway, holding a couple of books. “Here,” he said, crossing the room in a single step. “It's '93, okay?”
Dunphy accepted the books with an impatient nod, then watched his baby-sitter turn on his heel. A moment later, the door closed behind him
.
There were two thick volumes, bound in Moroccan leather. For a moment, Dunphy didn't remember why he'd asked for the encyclopedias. Something in one of Dulles's letters, something Latin, but . . . what? His mind was spinningâand not like a compact disc. It was more like a top at the end of its rotation, leaning to one side and another as it begins to wobble, soon to spin out
.