The Magdalene Cipher

by Jim Hougan

  Dunphy hung up and dialed the 800 number for Marriott. He took a room for the weekend at the hotel near Tysons Corner and then called Hertz. That done, he got the international operator and gave her the number for Clementine’s flat in Bolton Gardens.

  “Kerry?”

  He was tongue-tied.

  “Kerry? Where are you?”

  “Hey, Clem! I’m . . .”

  “Where are you?”

  “Traveling. Something came up. A last-minute sort of thing.”

  “Oh, well . . . in that case, where are you?”

  This was a highly focused girl. “I’m in the States. New York. JFK. The Ambassadors Club. Booth Two.”

  “Testy, aren’t we?”

  “Yeah, well, it’s been a long day.”

  “Then . . . when will you be back?”

  “That’s just it. I don’t know. It could be . . . a while.”

  “Ohhh, noooo!”

  “Yeah, but—listen, I can’t stay on the phone—I have a connection to make. What I need to know is, did anyone come by the flat this morning?”

  “Not when I was there. Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, of course I am. Why?”

  “You don’t sound right.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, for one thing,” she said, laughing, “you’ve acquired an American accent.”

  Dunphy rolled his eyes and slid back into a well-practiced brogue. “I can’t help it, darlin’. I’m a natural mime. But this is the important part, now, and you must do what I ask, and I’ll explain everything later.”

  “Fuck!”

  Dunphy was taken aback. “Why ‘fuck’? I haven’t said anything yet.”

  “Because ‘explain everything later’ always means there’s trouble.”

  “Yes, well, what I’d like you to do is, uh, just . . . stay away from the flat.”

  “What?!”

  “Stay away from the flat until I can see you.”

  “Why?!”

  “Just stay away, Clem. It’s important.”

  “But I have things there! Why can’t I go there? My makeup is there! Is there someone else, then?”

  “Don’t be stupid.”

  “Then why do I have to stay away?”

  “Well—for one thing—because I a won’t be there. And, for another . . .”

  “Yeah? What, then?”

  “Because it’s dangerous.”

  “It’s ‘dangerous’?”

  “Clem . . . trust me.”

  When Dunphy hung up, he reentered the club room, found a chair, and sat back to count his losses and brood. He watched the planes take off. And other planes land. And when the waitress came by, he ordered the second of what became too many Irish whiskeys.

  No one had ever walked out on Clementine before. He was pretty sure of that. You’d have to be nuts.

  Chapter 5

  Dunphy swung the T-bird into a right turn off the G. W. Parkway at the Chain Bridge, looping around the exit ramp onto Dolley Madison Boulevard. He pointed the ’Bird west and drove on for a mile, then turned right into a long arcade of trees leading to the gatehouse at the edge of the CIA compound. A huge black security guard emerged from the guardhouse with a clipboard and a smile. “Mawnin’,” he said. “You have an appointment?”

  “John Dunphy. I’m running a little bit late.”

  The guard checked the clipboard, walked to the back of the car, noted the license-plate number, and came back to the driver’s window. “I’ll need to see your rental papers,” he said, nodding at the Hertz sticker on the windshield. Dunphy gave him the papers and watched as the guard began, with meticulous and painstaking strokes, to copy the information onto his pad. It was as if he was drawing the letters, rather than writing them.

  Not that Dunphy was in a hurry. The air was clear and cold and bracing—just what he needed. All in all, he liked being at headquarters. It had the feel of a small college in upstate New York. A complex of architecturally indifferent, more-or-less-modern buildings, it had been set down, invisible from the road, among a hundred acres of grass and trees, hidden cameras and dipole antennas.

  “Thanks,” the guard said, returning the papers. “You know where to go?”

  “No problem.”

  “You can park ’most anywhere today.”

  “Great,” Dunphy said, putting the car in gear.

  “Hardly anyone here on Sundays.”

  Dunphy nodded, pretending interest.

  “Makes you wonder,” the guard added.

  Then the gate lifted, and Dunphy let the T-bird roll forward.

  Driving through the parking lot, he marveled, as he always did, at the high percentage of Corvettes and the weird mix of bumper stickers.

  REAGAN IN ’84 GREENPEACE FREE O.J.! BUSH IN ’85 SAVE THE BALES!

  He drove past the Nathan Hale statue, parked his car in the space marked director, and got out in front of the headquarters building.

  Entering the lobby, he found a fragile blonde waiting in the atrium astride the CIA seal, an eagle embossed on the marble under her feet.

  “Mr. Dunphy?”

  He winced, provoking a quizzical look.

  “Jack Dunphy?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Sometimes.”

  “Just clip this to your lapel,” she said, handing him a laminated yellow tag, “and I’ll escort you.”

  Dunphy did as he was asked, but he wasn’t happy about it. Everyone at headquarters, from the janitors to the inspector general, was required to wear an identification tag, conspicuously displayed. The tags were color-coded, as were the halls in each of the buildings: a colored stripe ran down the middle of every corridor so that security officers could tell at a glance if someone was where he wasn’t supposed to be.

  You could go virtually anywhere with a blue tag, but a red tag restricted you to the A building, and a green tag was even more confining. It meant that you could enter only those corridors in the A building whose floors were marked with a green line. A yellow tag was the most restrictive of all, because it meant that you had to be escorted everywhere. It was reserved for visitors and the press—people who didn’t belong—and wearing it was like dragging a bell. People looked away, as if you were the scene of an accident.

  But the blonde’s presence made up for the insult implied by the yellow tag. As she walked, her ponytail swung like a metronome in perfect counterpoint to the roll of her buttocks. It occurred to Dunphy, who gave considerable thought to the matter, that her ass would be most aptly compared to a valentine sprayed with tweed. It was a wonderful thing to behold, and clearly, it was no accident that she’d been assigned to escort-duty. If she’d wanted, Dunphy would have followed her to hell and back, and never have complained.

  Which was saying a lot, given the way he felt. In Olympic terms, he supposed the judges would rate his hangover a 5.6, and not much more. But, still, he did not feel well. He was wearing the same sweatshirt and gym socks that he’d worn in London on the day before. The stores wouldn’t open until ten, and the suitcase that he’d been given was stuffed with GWAR T-shirts, a pair of worn-out Doc Martens, and blue jeans with holes in the knees. It just wasn’t him. Not now, not then, not ever. In any case, it wasn’t just clothes that made the man: there was a faint blush in Dunphy’s eyes, he needed a shave, and the back of his head seemed to weigh more than the front. Call it a 5.9.

  Dunphy’s escort led him through a maze of pale blue corridors in the B annex until, finally, they reached a small reception desk. A young security guard in a black uniform, epaulets bright with braid, got to his feet, gesturing to a cloth-bound register on the desk. “If you’ll sign in . . . your friends got here a while ago.”

  Dunphy bent over the register and did as he’d been asked. The names above his were Sam Esterhazy and Mike Rhine-gold: 7:50 and ".

  The guard turned his back to them and tapped the keypad on the door’s cipher lock. There was a soft click, and the door sprung open on silent hinges.

  T
he moment it closed behind him, Dunphy felt worse. He was in an anechoic chamber, or “dead room”—a windowless, fluorescently lighted cube that rested on unseen, but enormous, springs. Impossible to bug, it amounted to a thickly carpeted vault of conical foam baffles deployed in such a way that they absorbed and neutralized every disturbance of the air. Not a signal, resonance, or echo left the area, whether its origins were human, mechanical, or electronic.

  Because the room was entirely without resonance, everything that was said within it sounded empty, hollow, and false. Flat. It was a place in which even Mother Teresa would have come off as a phony. Dunphy had never been in a room like this before, but he had heard about them. Most embassies had one, and Moscow had three. He’d been told that it was impossible to play music in such a room. The Juilliard String Quartet had tried in a test at the Bureau of Standards; within seconds, the musicians had fallen, laughing, into dissonance.

  But Dunphy didn’t feel like laughing. In fact, a wave of nausea surged through him as he stood in the room, looking at his interrogators.

  Seated at a long conference table, they were curiously, unpleasantly alike. Improbably tall, and equally gaunt, they shared the same unhealthy gray complexion, as if they’d been camping in a mine shaft. They combed their hair into low pompadours, short on the sides, and were dressed in shiny black suits, white polyester shirts, black wing tips, and string ties with turquoise bolos. Each of them carried a large catalog case packed with kraft-colored file folders. They seemed to Dunphy like a malignant version of the Blues Brothers. His stomach heaved, and he felt light-headed.

  “Mr. Dunphy,” said one.

  “Mr. Thornley,” said the other.

  Fuck all, Dunphy thought. I’ve had it.

  Esterhazy and Rhinegold removed various items from their briefcases, arranging them with care on the table: two legal pads, two ballpoint pens, a package of Virginia Slims, and a Bic lighter. Each.

  Despite the way he felt, Dunphy chuckled at the choreography. “You guys have a lot in common, y’know that?”

  They looked at him, blankly.

  “Excuse me?” said the older man.

  “How do you mean?” asked the younger guy. They seemed perplexed, as if the idea had never occurred to them.

  Dunphy began to explain, but their humorless expressions made him change his mind. “Never mind,” he said. He was irritated that they didn’t introduce themselves—though he could tell by the monogram on the younger guy’s cuff links that he was Rhinegold.

  He assumed that they knew everything, but everything, about him: who he was, who he’d pretended to be, and more. That was what all the files were about, or so Dunphy supposed. They had a need to know. And he didn’t. Those were the rules.

  Esterhazy removed his wristwatch and placed it on the table so that it would be in sight throughout the interview. This done, he and his partner lighted cigarettes, exhaled thoughtfully, and looked at Dunphy with a sense of expectation.

  Dunphy sighed. I am, he reflected, in the presence of

  Two.

  Major.

  Geeks.

  “Let’s start with your alias, Mr. Dunphy.”

  “Which one?”

  “The Irish cover. Can you tell us to what extent Mr. Thornley’s identity was backstopped?”

  Dunphy began to talk, and as he did, he listened to himself, and to the sound of his words in the peculiar room. It seemed to him that his voice originated from a point just outside his body, the words forming an inch or two in front of his lips. From the other side of the table, questions floated toward him, curiously empty of inflection, and impossible to read.

  It was a strange, informational waltz, and Dunphy tired of it very quickly.

  “So,” Tweedledum said, “your principal responsibility was to establish commercial covers—”

  “And banking facilities—”

  “—abroad.”

  “Right.”

  “And how did you do that?” Tweedledee asked.

  “Well,” Dunphy said, “every situation is different, but basically, I’d pick a venue, depending on the client’s needs, and then—”

  “What do you mean, pick a venue?”

  “The place where the incorporation would take place. There are a lot of possibilities, and they’re all different. Some are more respectable, and more expensive, than others.”

  “For example?”

  “Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Switzerland.”

  “They’re more respectable?”

  “Yeah, compared to Panama, Belize, and Vanuatu, they’re a lot more respectable. Panama’s funky. You see Panama on a letterhead, and the first word that comes into your mind is cartel. a”

  “And then? . . .”

  “I’d fill in the forms to create a new company, or if the client was in a hurry, or didn’t care about the name, I’d just take one off the shelf.” Before they could ask him the obvious question, he explained. “I spent half my time drawing up corporations, so I always had a couple of dozen of them, waiting to go. That way, if a client walked in off the street and needed something right away, I could give it to him—there and then—wherever he wanted it.”

  “And what would he get—actually?”

  Dunphy sighed. “Well, physically, he’d get a large envelope. And in it, he’d have two copies of the Company’s Memorandum and Articles of Association. Plus the undated resignations of the founding directors and secretary—”

  “Who were? . . .”

  “Locals. Liberians, Manx, whatever. They were people who made their names available for a small fee. They didn’t have any real connection to the firms. They were just names. And let’s see . . . what else? There’d be some blank stock transfers, a certificate of nontrading—and, of course, all of it was embossed with stamps and seals and tied together with red ribbons. Once the incorporation fees were paid, the company was live.”

  “And then what?”

  “Then they’d need a bank account.”

  “And how was that set up?”

  “They’d give me a deposit. And I’d open an account in the company’s name. Mostly, I used the Midland Bank in St. Helier—Channel Islands.”

  “So you controlled all the accounts.”

  Dunphy laughed. “Only for a few days. Once I sent the paperwork to the client, they’d take my name off the account. Not that it mattered. Most of the time, I opened these accounts with less than a hundred pounds. It wasn’t like I was tempted or anything.”

  “Most of the time.”

  “Yeah. There were exceptions. I had a couple of clients that I’d done a lot of work for, and sometimes they gave me some fairly substantial checks to deposit. But those were exceptions—and they knew where I lived. So to speak.”

  “Like who?”

  “Like us.” Rhinegold and Esterhazy looked puzzled. “I set up half a dozen companies for the Agency, and each time, there were substantial deposits up front. So what? I’m gonna skip out?”

  “But you did the same thing for individuals. And private firms.”

  “Of course. That was my cover. That’s what Anglo-Erin Business Services did. Publicly.”

  “And this was entirely confidential.”

  “It was supposed to be,” Dunphy said.

  “But . . . ,” Esterhazy prodded.

  “I was tasked—indirectly, of course—by half a dozen agencies.”

  “Such as?”

  “DEA, IRS, Customs—” Dunphy paused for breath and continued. “—ISA—”

  Esterhazy waved him off. “And how did that work?”

  “I kept my eyes open. If something hot came in, I was supposed to keep the station apprised. Jesse—the station chief—would pass it along to the appropriate agency. Or not. It was up to him.”

  “When you say ‘hot’—what would be hot?”

  Dunphy mused. “Well, for example, it would be hot if Alan Greenspan walked in off the street to set up a company on Jersey with Saddam Hussein, using the Moscow Narodny Bank
as the registered agent.”

  Rhinegold’s eyes dilated.

  “That would be very hot,” Dunphy added.

  “That happened?” Rhinegold was on the verge of levitation.

  Dunphy shook his head. “No. That was just an example. A hypothetical example. I never had anything that obvious.”

  “Who did you report to at the Embassy?” Esterhazy asked. “Who did the tasking?”

  “Jesse Curry.”

  “And these other agencies were privy to your cover?”

  “They didn’t know me at all, or if they did, they thought I was a foreign asset: Merry Kerry—that sorta thing. In practical terms, all they really knew was that, every so often, the Agency came up with something interesting from Anglo-Erin. And passed it along.”

  “Was it profitable?” Rhinegold asked.

  “In what sense?”

  “Did Anglo-Erin make a financial profit?”

  “It was starting to when I was pulled out.”

  Dunphy wished that he had a cup of coffee. And a pair of goggles: the room was thick with cigarette smoke, and totally unventilated. His head felt as if it were encased within the nucleus of a positive ion. A large, beige one.

  “—and you would set up these corporations for? . . .”

  “Whoever paid the freight. I had American clients. Some Mexicans, a few Italians. Coupla Turks, a Franco-Lebanese. One guy from Buenos Aires set up thirty-five entities in eight jurisdictions. God knows what he was up to. Guns, coke, or emeralds. All three, probably.”

  “And you’d provide the Agency—and, through it, other agencies—with copies of the incorporating documents?”

  “That, and the bank data, and anything interesting that I might pick up over lunch or a pint of bitter. And if a company was owned by bearer shares—which it usually was—and if I knew who held them—which I usually didn’t—I’d put that in the pouch, too.”

  “Clients came to you—out of the blue?”

  “Sort of. Some of it was word-of-mouth—my fees were unbelievably reasonable. And I advertised.”

  “Where?”

  “Herald Tribune. Economist. Sunday Times. A lot of places. The receipts are at the office.”

  “Well,” Esterhazy said, “I’m afraid the contents of that office are no longer available to us. We’re told they’re in custody of the Metropolitan Police. And, I suspect, MI5.”