by Jim Hougan
“And they have files there?”
“They do.”
Clem made an exasperated sound. “Well?”
“Well, what?”
“Did you read any?”
“A couple.”
“And?!”
Dunphy shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “There were letters,” he said. “And some other files that I didn’t get to read—but it doesn’t matter. I know what they’re about.”
“How?”
“Because I interviewed a guy who figures in them.”
“Interviewed? When?”
“A few weeks ago. He lives in Kansas.”
“And what did he say?”
“He said he’d spent his entire military career—twenty years—mutilating cattle.”
Clem gave him a droll look.
“And that was only part of it. It gets stranger. UFOs and crop circles—it’s the craziest shit you ever heard.”
Clementine giggled. Nervously.
“But the thing is, none of that’s important,” Dunphy said. “Not really. All of that’s just . . .”
“What?”
He tried to find the right word. “A light show.”
Her puzzled look told him that she didn’t know what he meant.
“It’s smoke and mirrors,” he explained. “They do it for an effect.”
“Who does?”
“The Magdalene Society.”
“But, I thought you said the man you interviewed—”
“Was in the military. He was. But that was just a cover.”
“And this effect?” she began. “What sort of an effect was it?”
“A psychological one.”
“The cattle—and all that?”
“Yeah.”
She thought about it. “So what you’re saying is, it’s a bit like the Wizard of Oz.”
Dunphy nodded. “Yeah—like him—but working for Ted Bundy.”
Clementine frowned. “I don’t know who he is.”
Dunphy shook his head. “Bad joke. The point is, your pal Simon was right: Schidlof found some letters that were written to Jung. About the Magdalene Society, and the, uhhh, collective unconscious.”
“What about it?” she asked.
“They were planning to rewire it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just what I said. They were planning to rewire the collective unconscious.” When Clementine didn’t say anything, he added, “It’s really quite magnificent when you think about it.”
“That’s just it—I don’t want to think about it,” she said. “It’s crazy.”
“It sounds crazy, but it’s not. It explains a lot.”
“Like what?”
“The fact that people see things in the sky that don’t make sense; and that hundreds of cattle are mutilated every year by someone or something that no one ever sees; and that all these geometric designs are turning up in wheat fields all over the world. Now we know why.”
“No, we don’t,” she said. “Even if you’re right, we don’t know why. We just know who—and how.”
She was right, of course. “Anyway,” Dunphy continued, “the important thing is, the letters I read were the ones that got Schidlof killed. And you’ll never guess who they’re from.”
She gave him a look: Tell me.
“Allen Dulles.”
“Oh!” she said. And then she frowned. “I don’t know who he is, either.”
Dunphy smiled. “He was an American diplomat. And a spy. Back in the forties. Earlier even.”
“So?”
“So he and Jung were major players in this thing. And one of the things they did was set up the CIA so it could be used as a cover.”
“For what?” Clem asked.
“The Magdalene Society. Dulles practically invented the Agency, and it was perfect for what they wanted to do. Because everything the Agency does is secret, it’s like a black hole: anything that comes within its orbit, disappears.”
“But what were they doing?”
“Psy-ops,” Dunphy said. “The light show we were talking about.”
She thought about it for a moment, then asked, “But what’s the point? What are they after?”
Dunphy shook his head as if to say, Who knows? “The letters I saw talked about Jerusalem for the Jews. And a European union.”
“That’s not so bad,” Clem asked. “We already have that!”
“I know we do. And there’s a good chance they had a lot to do with it, too. But that’s not the point. The political stuff is secondary.”
“To what?”
Dunphy shrugged. “I don’t know. But these guys have been around forever. The Inquisition was page one for them. And the War of the Roses. And . . . a lot more that I’ve forgotten.”
“So . . . what are they after?” Clem asked.
“I don’t know,” Dunphy said. “I had to leave in a hurry.”
They arrived at Madrid in the early evening and headed directly for La Venta Quemada, a small hotel or inn on the Plaza Zubeida. Dunphy had stayed there two or three years earlier, when he’d done business with the very crooked manager of a stable of bullfighters. It was a hangout for the death-in-the-afternoon trade and had been so for the better part of the century. It had been a home away from home for both Manolete and Dominguin, and a great many lesser lights, picadors, and aficionados. Dunphy liked the place, and in particular, he liked the guy at the desk—an avowed anarchist who, for a small surcharge, would let rooms without actually registering the guests.
Having checked in, Dunphy and Clem went out almost immediately, taking a cab to the Gran Via. One of the great European boulevards, now down-at-the-heels (but glitzy in a faded way), the street was chockablock with jazz-age theaters, music halls, and the palatial cinemas of another era. Gigantic, hand-painted posters covered the walls of buildings, advertising Stallone’s muscles and Basinger’s lips. In the middle of the street, a performance artist stood stock-still, apparently oblivious to the traffic jam around him, his clothes and skin tinted the color of brushed aluminum. The Tin Man, Dunphy supposed, or maybe just a tin can.
Whatever. Middle-aged shoeshine boys pointed accusingly at Dunphy’s feet. Gypsy kids circled like coyotes. Beautiful, curious, wide-eyed, and paranoid, Clementine clung to his right arm with both hands, as if the chaos around them was trying to tear them apart. Somewhere along the avenue an Art Deco sign flashed Bis in luminous neon letters. Nearby, a lighted menu promised seafood and steak. With a glance at Clem and a shrug, Dunphy led the way up a flight of stairs to a softly lighted, second-story restaurant. With its tuxedoed waiters, white tablecloths, and old oak wainscotting, the place had the feel of a men’s club—and a good one at that. It was early for dinner in Madrid—barely 10 P.M. a—so they wiled away an hour with a mezze of tapas and a bottle of Spanish red.
Seated by themselves beside a bank of huge, double-glazed windows overlooking the Gran Via, Dunphy told her everything else that he knew about the fix they were in. He told her how Dulles and the CIA had protected Ezra Pound—the Society’s “Helmsman”—by arranging for his commitment to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital. He told her about the importance of a mystery man named Gomelez, and how Dulles and Jung had conspired “to stir the pot” by launching new archetypes and revitalizing old ones. When she asked what the hell he was talking about, he told her what Simon had said about Schidlof’s theories on the archetypal field, and about the hoax at Roswell. Then he asked her a question. “What’s reify mean?”
She stabbed a pinchito with a toothpick and smiled as she transferred it to her mouth.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“I had a boyfriend who was a Trot,” she replied.
“A what?”
“A Trotskyite. Long time ago. And reify was practically his favorite word.”
“Jesus Christ! Were you a communist?”
“No. I was sixteen. He was a communist.”
“So what does it mean?”
“What does what mean?”
“Reify!”
“Oh, that,” she said. “It’s when you make something real that’s otherwise just an abstraction.”
“Like what?” Dunphy asked.
Clem thought about it. “Oh, I don’t know . . . time. Time is an abstraction. And clocks ‘reify’ it. But what’s that got to do with anything?”
“In one of the letters Dulles wrote, he talks about ‘reifying portents.’ He tells Jung they have to take—I’m quoting now, okay?—they have to take ‘a proactive stance toward prophecies and portents’ in this book of theirs.”
“Which book?” Clem asked.
“I can’t believe I’m talking about portents,” Dunphy complained, and signaled for the waiter to take their order.
“Which book a?” Clem repeated.
Dunphy sighed. “I forget what it was called. The Apocryphal or something. Some quack-quack piece of—”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“Well, I think you mean the Apocryphon a—and it’s really quite old.”
Dunphy looked at her in surprise. “You astound me.”
“I’ve seen it,” she said, “in Skoob. It’s a paperback. There’s a Dover edition, and it’s not really a book. It’s just a poem, but they call it a booke—with an e at the end. Dover put it out as part of an anthology about the end of the world: I think they called it . . . Millenarian Yearnings. a”
In the morning, they went looking for English-language bookstores and found several, but none of them carried any of Dover’s publications. With a couple of hours to kill before their flight, they took a taxi to the Puerto del Sol, where they found an Internet café that featured
450-MHZ PCS & IMACS
+
LOS CHURROS MEJORES EN MADRID!
It was fifty degrees outside, but it was warm in the café, where the air was fat with the smell of churros baking. Dunphy ordered a plate of the Spanish doughnuts for himself and Clementine, then ruined both their breakfasts when he opened the file he’d stolen from the Special Registry. Bovine Census.
Clem saw one photo and gasped.
“That’s horrid,” she cried. “Why would anyone do such a thing?”
Dunphy thought about it. “According to Schidlof, according to Simon? They’re ‘stirring the pot.’ ‘Revitalizing an archetype.’ ”
“That’s crap,” Clem said, her eyes suddenly wet.
“I’m just telling you what he said. You weren’t there. He said animal sacrifice was as old as the hills—and he was right.”
“Well, I don’t have to look at it,” she replied. “I’m going to get a newspaper.” And with that, she got to her feet.
“There’s a newsagent just up the street,” Dunphy told her. “I saw the racks.”
As she left, Dunphy’s eyes followed her. She had the kind of lacquered walk that you sometimes see in Rio and Milan. Nearby, a bearded young man sat motionless in front of a twenty-one-inch monitor, gazing after her with a look that might have been mistaken for malnutrition.
Moments later, the churros arrived and, with them, two steaming cups of café con leche. a The little doughnuts lay on the plate like a handful of very thick pickup sticks, golden and warm. Dunphy sprinkled a spoonful of sugar on the mound, extracted one from the pile, and dunked it in his coffee. Then he turned to the file in front of him and began reading.
It took only a minute or two to realize that there wasn’t much there. The file had evidentiary value as a way of documenting the mutilations, but Dunphy was already a believer. He didn’t need the details. And realizing that made him nervous. It made him think about the fact that he didn’t really have a plan, or a strategy, for getting out from under. There wasn’t a police force in the world that could stand up to the Magdalene Society. Not that he’d be taken seriously, in any case. Black Virgins and cattle mutilations, secret societies and the CIA? He could imagine sitting down with a homicide detective—or Mike Wallace, for that matter. He’d start to talk, and about the time he got to Snippy the Horse or Our Lady of Einsiedeln, the little red light on the camera would wink out, and Wallace would be looking around for a cab. The “story” was too big, the players too powerful, the conspiracy too grand and bizarre. No matter how much evidence Dunphy might assemble, it wouldn’t really matter. This wasn’t “news you can use.” It was news that could get you killed.
Which meant that there were only a few ways out for Dunphy and Clem. One: they could be carried a out in body bags. (Unacceptable.) Two: they could find a place to hide, and spend the rest of their lives walking back-to-back. (Also unacceptable, and probably ineffective, as well.) Three: they could destroy the Magdalene Society before it destroyed them. (Good idea, Jack, but? . . .) a In the last analysis, going to ground was the only reasonable course of action. It was, after all, a big planet—just as it was a big CIA—and there was at least a chance that they’d survive.
Turning back to the reports, he saw that they were all of a piece. They gave the date of each flight, with the times of departure and return. Crew members’ names were listed, and meteorological conditions noted. Finally, there was a brief account of each mission.
03-03-99 Dep. 0510Z Ret. 1121Z
143rd Surgical Air Wing
J. Nesbitt (pilot)
R. Kerr E. Pagan
P. Guidry T. Conway
J. Sozio J. MacLeod
Dr. S. Amirpashaie (operating)
Temp. 23° Winds SW, 4–10 knots
Visibility 18 kilometers
Baro. press. 30.11 and
Black Angus specimen secured on ranchland belonging to one Jimmy Re, Platte 66, Lot 49, 16.3 kilometers north-northwest of Silverton. Anesthetic administered by Capt. Brown. Extraction of ocular tissue, eyes, tongue, internal and external auditory organs. 6.5-cm. incisions made in lower axillary regions, and digestive organs removed. Anal orifice extracted, cavity suctioned with vacuum gun. Reproductive organs excised. 2.5-cm. perforations made in thorax and chest. Spinal column severed in three places using laser saw. Animal drained, and returned to pasture. No citizen contact.
There were dozens of such reports that, when read alongside the photographs, became an adventure in nausea. When Clem returned with a copy of The Independent, Dunphy closed the file and pushed it aside.
“Happy reading?” she asked.
“No,” Dunphy said. “It’s pretty awful.”
Reaching across the table, she picked up the file and began to page through it, lingering over the photographs. “What are you going to do with it?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Dunphy said. “Probably nothing.”
“In that case . . . may I have it?”
He thought about it. “Why not?” he said.
She smiled and got to her feet. Turning on her heel, she walked over to the counter and told a waiting clerk that she’d like to use one of the computers. He gave her a membership card, which she filled out in the name of Veroushka Bell. Then he collected a fifteen-hundred-peseta fee, and escorted her to one of the computers. Seating herself, she logged on to the Internet and, using the Alta Vista search engine, hunted for an address in London.
It took only a minute to find what she was looking for, and when she had it, she withdrew a packing envelope from her handbag. Slapping what looked like too many stamps on its face, she printed the address she’d found on its cover. Then she returned to the table where Dunphy was sitting, mystified, and put the file inside the envelope. Finally, she sealed the envelope and, with a satisfied smile, said, “Shouldn’t we be going?”
Dunphy looked at what she’d written:
People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals
10 Parkgate House
Broomhill Rd.
London SW 18 4JQ
England
“You sure that’s a good idea?” he asked.
She smiled. “Yup.”
Chapter 24
Europe and Africa dwindled behind them as the p
lane headed out over the open Atlantic, with Dunphy gazing through the window at a blue-on-blue world. There were places you could lose yourself, he thought. It happens all the time. You settled in a place where the people hunting you hadn’t any influence. Places like . . . Kabul. Pyo˘ngyang. Baghdad.
The problem being that places like Kabul tended to be a little short on the kinds of amenities that Dunphy and Clem took for granted. Things like . . . the twentieth century. Honey-roasted peanuts. Decent plumbing. Better, then, to take one’s chances in a venue like Tenerife which, while remote, had honey-roasted peanuts in abundance.
Located about a hundred miles off the southernmost tip of Morocco, Tenerife was the largest island in the Canarian archipelago. Famous for its spectacular and varied scenery (which ranged from sun-pounded beaches to the highest mountain “in Spain”), the island was infamous for its sprawling tourist resorts and decadent nightlife—which tended to get started shortly after breakfast. Having been to the island twice before, Dunphy both loved and hated the place.
They’d been flying over the ocean for almost an hour when the flight attendant arrived at their seats and, reaching past Clem, pulled Dunphy’s tray from its armrest. Covering the tray with a white linen tablecloth, she handed Dunphy a menu and asked if he’d like a glass of champagne. He declined, and she repeated the sequence with Clem—who asked for a Perrier.
“Do you know where we’ll stay?” she asked.
Dunphy shrugged. “We’ll find a place.”
“And then what?”
“Then? Well, then, I guess we’ll just . . . play it as it lays.” When he saw her frown, he elaborated. “After I talk to Tommy, I’ll have a better idea about what to do.”
“Why don’t we just go to the newspapers?” Clem asked.
The idea made him smile. “You mean, like in Three Days of the Condor a?”
“It was just an idea,” she said. “You don’t have to make fun of me.”
“I’m not making fun of you,” he told her. “But the papers wouldn’t do anything.”
“How do you know?”
“Trust me.”
“Then, why not just put it on the Internet?” Clem asked. “No one could stop you, and everyone in the world would be able to read it.”