by Matt Eaton
Donald Menzel opted for coffee because he wanted a clear head to lay out his plan. He needed to move quickly because consensus among these men was never assured. Several faces were missing. Many of those who were present looked to have aged significantly since their last meeting. Hoyt Vandenberg was with them, despite having retired from the Air Force earlier in the week. It was abundantly clear he was terribly unwell.
Wally ‘Beetle’ Smith was here too, although his usefulness to the group had come under question since President Eisenhower had seen fit to replace him with Allen Dulles as CIA director. That said, it had been Beetle who first alerted Menzel to the fate of Russian security czar Lavrentiy Beria, courtesy of an impromptu phone call from Dulles, who had been seeking Smith’s counsel on what to do about it.
The alcohol had contributed to a general lack of urgency in the room, no doubt as a result of it being the Independence Day public holiday, but Menzel found their festive mood irksome. He felt MJ-12 had lacked a firm hand since Harry Truman had left office. They had unanimously voted to proceed in a different capacity under the new President, who had inexplicably acceded to their request to hold meetings without him, on the proviso they report back on a quarterly basis.
In effect, this meant they were making decisions without governmental oversight.
“Gentlemen, I really think we should get started,” Menzel declared. Having gained their attention, he didn’t bother to wait for them to sit down. “One or two of you will no doubt be aware of the turmoil in Moscow right now. The head of the Russian secret police, Lavrentiy Beria, has been placed under arrest.”
There were various murmurs of assent and surprise around the table. Menzel handed out a briefing paper prepared by Verus researchers in close consultation with the CIA:
USSR SITUATION REPORT
TOP SECRET — MAJESTIC
Soviet leader Joseph Stalin died on March 5, four days after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage. He was kept alive by Kremlin doctors alarmed by the prospect of the consequences from not being seen to do all they could to save him. Nine of their colleagues —all Jewish — had already been imprisoned in the name of a fictitious ‘Doctors Plot’ supposedly waged against the Soviet leadership. This was no more than an antisemitic purge that, in any event, was quickly called off in the days after Stalin’s death.
Stalin suffering regular dizzy spells in the final weeks of his life. His personal physician, Professor V.N. Vinogradov, had advised him to stand down as the head of government for the good of his health. It was advice the Soviet leader ignored. Professor Vinogradov was himself arrested shortly thereafter and accused of involvement in the Doctor’s Plot.
Neither Vinogradov, nor any other medical expert, could have done much to prevent the Soviet leader’s death. He spent more than 12 hours lying paralyzed on the floor of his suite before he was found. His own security officers had been loath to check on him, having previously been ordered by Stalin not to enter unless summoned.
It took the senior members of the Communist Party Presidium four days to announce Stalin’s downfall to the Russian people. They didn’t dare do so until they were certain his death was inevitable. The delayed announcement had much to do with the members of the Presidium jostling for positions of power as they sought to decide who would take on ultimate authority. In the end, three names arose and a form of collective leadership emerged. The man many assumed to be Stalin’s successor, Georgii Malenkov, was appointed chairman of the Council of Ministers.
The second member of the triumvirate was Lavrentiy Beria, who had been Malenkov’s close ally up to this point. He quickly began to scramble for power as if Stalin’s demise meant nobody would dare stand in his way. Beria had been in charge of the MGB’s secret police, the MVD. On March 5, Beria was appointed First Deputy Premier and, with the support of the Council of Ministers, immediately removed Semyon Ignatyev from the post of Minister of the MGB. The MGB was absorbed into Beria’s MVD. This put him in control of both the secret and the regular police as well as a small private army of infantry divisions.
The third member of the power trio was Nikita Khrushchev, secretary of the Moscow party organization. Khrushchev was appointed the top secretary of the Central Committee. Initially, he was very much the outsider in this group. While opposed to the alliance between Beria and Malenkov, Khrushchev could do nothing to come between them.
That changed on June 16, when an uprising against the East German communists arose in East Berlin. In the wake of the uprising, it quickly became clear Beria had little regard for East Germany as a genuine Soviet satellite state. He said it was only held in place by the force of Russian ground troops, and strongly indicated he would be willing to permit German reunification in return for a large injection of American aid money, given the cost of World War II remained a heavy burden on the Russian economy.
Within days, Khrushchev persuaded Malenkov and other party leaders that Beria’s policies were dangerous and destabilizing.
On June 26, Lavrentiy Beria was arrested and accused of treason and spying for British intelligence. His arrest was kept quiet while Beria’s lieutenants were likewise gathered up to prevent any move by loyal MVD officers to rescue him.
Krushchev had taken care to enlist the support of popular Russian war hero and Marshall of the Soviet Union, General Georgy Zhukov, who was among the soldiers who personally placed Beria under arrest before smuggling him to a bunker in the headquarters of the Moscow Military District. He is being held in detention and his execution is inevitable.
Gordon Gray was the first man around the table to look up from the briefing paper. “How exactly is this a problem for us?” he asked Menzel.
“I believe it offers us a brief window to carry out an extraction in Rome,” said Menzel. “As you’re all aware, the ‘man’ we call Paolo Favaloro remains a guest of the Vatican as per the agreement General Donovan reached with Stalin himself.”
There were murmurs both of surprise and support for Menzel’s intentions. Some of them would need more convincing.
Favaloro was a giant — a little over 11 feet tall — but he was also, at best, half a man. The other half was not human at all, his father being a member of the interplanetary race known as the Ryl. Thousands of years ago, the Ryl lived openly on Earth as kings and gods in the city-states of ancient Mesopotamia. Favaloro, then known as Utnapishtim, incurred their wrath by stealing a Ryl spacecraft for his own purposes. Rather than kill him, the Ryl condemned him to an eternity locked inside a sarcophagus in a state of frozen animation — until he agreed to relinquish the stolen saucer. But he was convinced the Ryl would kill him if he did. Trapped for millennia, he might have quickly gone insane if not for his ability to detach from his body and roam the world as a living ghost, taking vicarious pleasure as a Watcher of humanity.
Thousands of years later, the sarcophagus that kept him trapped was unearthed by an archaeologist and later found its way into the hands of British Cardinal Arthur Hinsley. As Hitler began his assault on Great Britain, Hinsley delivered the relic to Bill Donovan for safekeeping on US soil.
Within weeks of the war ending, a priest named Clarence Paulson stole the sarcophagus from Donovan’s New York storehouse at the behest of Pope Pius XII. Donovan, a devout Catholic, was at first incensed but ultimately forgiving of the crime. Years later, when Donovan offered Favaloro the prospect of release from his state of captivity, Favaloro revealed the location of the spacecraft — still fully functional and hidden deep inside a stone monument in the Lebanese town of Baalbek. Donovan beat the Russians to the saucer by a matter of hours. Thus, the craft was stolen again, this time under heavy Russian fire.
The Baalbek incident might have sparked open nuclear conflict between the two superpowers if Donovan hadn’t moved quickly to secure a deal with Stalin himself, giving his personal assurance that America would never use the craft for its own strategic advantage. Nobody believed it, least of all Stalin. For more than two years, Majestic had been partnered with Lockheed’s Skunkworks in a res
earch program dubbed FS-1 seeking to unlock the spacecraft’s mysteries. The Russians, suspecting FS-1 would go nowhere without Favaloro, struck a deal with the Americans. Paolo Favaloro would remain in Rome, a ‘guest’ of the Pope. The US would allow Russian agents could visit him in his Roman cloister. It was the sort of deal that would blow up in everyone’s face if it ever went public, so church and states had happily kept their dirty little secret. Donovan considered the risk worth taking to avoid another world war.
“I would argue that deal became null and void the day of Stalin’s death,” Menzel now told the men of MJ-12. “But more to the point, instability in the Soviet leadership and an uprising in East Germany now has their attention focused elsewhere.”
“We want to get Favaloro out of Rome and bring him here,” Vannevar Bush added. He and Menzel had discussed the situation ahead of the meeting. Bush had initially been frustratingly non-committal, pointing out espionage and counter-intelligence operations were not within his field of expertise. But he did, at least, agree it was probably a risk worth taking.
“Do we know what we’re dealing with?” asked Admiral Hillenkoetter.
Wally Smith nodded. “According to our most recent intelligence, two female Russian agents visit Paolo on a weekly basis. They trade sexual favors in the hope he will offer them information about his flying saucer.”
“We’re concerned it’s only a matter of time before Mr Favaloro does let something valuable slip,” said Menzel. “Furthermore, we believe once we get him here, we can persuade him to be of greater assistance with FS-1.”
“Which he has refused to do up to now,” Vandenberg pointed out, his voice thin and drawn.
“Paolo knows the arrangement we have with the Russians,” said Menzel. “Once we show him that deal is dead, I think we’ll be able to talk him around.”
“You’re talking about an extraction operation,” said Smith. “That’s CIA territory.”
Menzel shook his head. “We can’t do that without the backing of Allen Dulles, and he’s not in the loop. There’s no time to bring him in. We need to move quickly. I want to get someone over there within the next seven days.”
Looks of surprise and apprehension flickered across several faces. But Menzel wasn’t about to let these old men slow him down. “I believe I’m right in saying it’s now or never, gentlemen. What resources are we able to bring to bear?”
“Donovan’s your man,” said General Nathan Twining, who had just taken over from Hoyt Vandenberg as Air Force Chief of Staff.
Again, Menzel shook his head. “He’s just accepted the post of Ambassador to Thailand. I’m afraid Donald is done. Hoyt — your thoughts?”
Vandenberg offered a wan smile. “I’d offer to go myself, but I’m afraid those days are behind me. In fact, this will be my last meeting with Majestic. It’s my health, y’see. I’ve got cancer.”
The news came as a great shock to everyone at the table. It was a cruel blow to a man who, at 55, had spent years in the service of his country and deserved better.
“How bad?” Vannevar Bush asked him.
“The doctors say it’s gonna get me before too long. I need to spend the time I have left at home.”
“Of course you do,” Menzel agreed. But his heart was sinking. He’d hoped Hoyt would lead the Rome operation.
“Beetle, you must still have agents at your disposal,” said Vandenberg.
“Donald’s right. That’s not an option without going to Dulles first. Not without presidential sanction.”
“Again,” said Menzel, “time is against us.”
Menzel was starting to see there was only one option open to him.
NINE
Saturday July 4, 1953
All across Washington, bars and restaurants were festooned with American flags and the city’s hard-working residents were making the second straight day of Independence Day celebrations, given the day itself had fallen on a Saturday.
Edna was silently ruminating upon being forced to remain indoors at Verus HQ instead of making a day of it touring all the U Street jazz joints, something she’d been looking forward to for weeks. She was invariably one of the few white faces in the crowd at Crystal Caverns and Republic Gardens, but she’d become well known in the area and always felt safe there when she ventured out alone.
“I’ve ordered pizza from Famous Luigi’s,” Menzel told her.
That put a smile on her face. “I hope you remembered the anchovies.”
“Of course,” he said, pouring two whiskeys.
Menzel was playing nice, and she couldn’t help wondering why. Relations between them had been strained for months in the wake of her encounters with Tavon, even though Menzel had eventually been forced to admit that she had made a critical step forward in contact with the Grar.
The door to Menzel’s study opened and Clarence Paulson entered the room, most likely drawn by the sound of the ice hitting the crystal tumblers. “One of those for me?”
Menzel nodded, handing them their drinks.
“Not joining us, Donald?” Paulson asked.
“Maybe in a minute.”
“Oh dear, it’s like that is it?” said Edna, not at all sure she was ready for where the conversation was headed.
Menzel gave them a summary of his discussion with Majestic and the fall of Beria.
“The MVD is in disarray right now. Beria’s man in East Berlin, Colonel Danilov, is responsible for Russian activities in Rome, but Danilov will have enough on his plate trying to dampen anti-communist sentiment in Germany. He won’t be paying close attention to events inside the Vatican.”
Paulson knew at once what Menzel was intending. “You’re sending me to Rome.”
Menzel nodded. “You and Edna.”
Paulson sighed. “I might be sending them lots of money, but I’m still not exactly high on the Curia’s Christmas card list.”
In recent months, Father Paulson had shown himself to be a remarkably insightful buyer and seller of gold. Funds left in his care by the Vatican had been increased tenfold. At the same time, he had been able to spin off from this a profitable investment fund for Verus. But he had not shown his face in Rome for nigh on two years. The last time he’d been there, moves had been afoot to have him declared insane and committed to a mental asylum. “And you want me to walk in there with a woman who doesn’t speak the language and who uses the word catholic to describe her taste in men.”
“I’ve been to Rome,” Edna pointed out. “During the war. Though it’s true I didn’t spend a whole lot of time with men in frocks. I prefer them in Fiats or Ferraris.”
“Stop it, Edna,” Menzel chided. “Look, the new Russian leadership is making overtures to the West. Khrushchev has indicated they’re ready to pull back from the most hardline policies of the Stalin era. It was only after Stalin’s death the Kremlin showed a willingness to enter negotiations to end the Korean war. Thanks to them, an armistice agreement is in place. For the next few weeks, the Russians will have their eyes on Seoul.
“This will be quick. You go in, grab Favaloro and get out. With any luck, you’ll be gone before the Russians even know you’re there.”
Menzel looked confident. Edna wasn’t so sure. “What’s my role in all of this?”
“Good question,” said Paulson.
“Favaloro responds well to women,” said Menzel. “Your job will be to talk him out of the Vatican archives and into a waiting car. That’s all. Simple.”
“It can’t be as simple as that,” she said.
“The best operations are always simple,” said Menzel. “Ask Bill Donovan. He’s assured me you’re up to it, by the way.”
“Oh, well, in that case it’s fine by me,” she said facetiously.
“In Bill’s words, you’re a woman and an atheist — you won’t let religious sensitivities hold you back.”
“Donald, can I just point out that I’m not one of Wild Bill’s former agents or saboteurs. I’m basically a reporter with some wartime nursin
g experience.”
“Gordon Gray agrees with Donovan,” Menzel told her. “He thinks you’ll do fine.”
Menzel could see the feedback from Gray hit home. Edna respected Gordon’s opinion. Menzel was almost certain she’d fallen in love with Gray the previous year. Gray had broken off all contact with her shortly after the Washington saucer flap, not wanting the relationship to develop further. More recently he’d been consumed by his wife’s critical illness.
“That’s all very well,” she said, “but are you seriously telling me there is no-one else for you to call on? I mean, you guys are from the military and the goddamn CIA. There must be any number of people who are better trained to do this.”
“She’s not wrong, Donald,” Paulson agreed.
Menzel sighed. “There is nobody else we can confidently trust in the time available.”
“What if I talk to the President?” she said.
“No,” Menzel said angrily, “you do not do that.” He took a deep breath and tried harder to keep his temper in check. “I’m afraid it’s down to you two. Look, I’m not going to send you in blind. We have some good contacts inside the Curia and the Swiss Guard, courtesy of General Donovan. And he’s agreed to spend a few days with you next week to help you prepare.”
She rolled her eyes. Bill Donovan might be renowned as the great wartime spymaster, but the last time they were in each other’s lives it hadn’t ended well.
TEN
Monday July 6, 1953
Edna knew the moment the maid answered the door she was several steps removed from the world she knew. She and Clarence Paulson were silently ushered inside the Georgetown mansion and led along a burgundy-carpeted hallway replete with massive Georgian oil portraits to the door of Bill Donovan’s luxuriously appointed office.
It occurred to her she felt more at home among Tavon’s Outherians than she did in close quarters with certain members of the human race, and that Donovan indeed topped the list of people she’d happily spend the rest of her life avoiding.