The Leviathan Effect

by James Lilliefors

Chaplin had left both rooms unlocked, the keys beneath the bibles in the drawers of the bedside tables. In Mallory’s room, he had also left a Beretta 9mm handgun under one of the pillows, as requested.

  The rain had turned to a soft drizzle again and there was a fresh-laundry smell of ozone in the afternoon breeze, mixed with the acidic scent of the soil. Mallory carried up a mushroom and green pepper pizza, which Blaine had told him was her favorite, along with a bottle of merlot, sodas, paper plates, plastic silverware, and napkins.

  In Room 321, he flipped open his computer and resumed searches on the seven names. He had begun to think about the case differently, coming at it from a new direction—considering who the perpetrator might be rather than who the victims had been.

  At 5:22, one of his phones vibrated. Pat Hanratty.

  “It was absolutely marvelous to see you again yesterday, dear,” she said.

  “Yes, it was fun.”

  “Although I think we may be in trouble now.”

  “How do you mean?” Her voice isn’t quite right, Mallory thought. Her words sounded slurred.

  “I called in a favor, as I said.” She laughed. “I think I might have something for you.”

  “Okay.” Mallory pushed aside the computer and opened his notebook. “Go ahead.”

  “I talked with my friend,” she said. “And she reminded me of a couple of things I had forgotten. And then, I looked though my files. Some of what you wanted to know, I had right here at home. Are you ready, dear?”

  “Please. Fire away.”

  “For starters, FAST was not a project, it was a private databank for storm information. It’s one of the things Deborah Piper was always on about. That’s what they used for these simulations. And you’re right, dear, Cloudcover did change after 9/11. In the spring of 2002, it expanded. There were two research facilities associated with the project. One in Wyoming, the other in Alaska.”

  Mallory jotted notes in shorthand in his notebook.

  “Buried in Project Cloudcover’s budget was something else, though,” she said. “Which actually became quite a bit larger. It had a separate name.”

  “Okay.”

  “It was called the Leviathan Project. Its objective was to, quote, create a storm and then take it apart. That part was classified.”

  “But we’re talking computer simulations still, right?”

  “No, dear, that’s the thing. Beginning in 2002, it changed. They tried to turn the computer simulations into actual working models, altering elements of existing weather patterns or storms to bring about an intended result. That was Leviathan.”

  “To literally build a storm and take it apart?”

  “Yes. That’s right. That’s what I’m told. Although, you see, it still went under the rubric of ‘research.’ The facilities in Wyoming and Alaska were both designed to manipulate storm systems in the same way the computer models predicted.”

  “Are you sure about this?”

  “I have memos referencing it, dear. Which I’m sending to you.”

  “All right. And this was NOAA? What branch of government—?”

  “A joint project, involving NOAA, the Defense Department, and the CIA. But which relied heavily on private sector contractors, from what I can see.”

  “The Defense Department?”

  “That’s right, dear. I found a document that Deb Piper sent me which includes the names of two of the companies involved. One of them was Raytheon. The other was called EARS, which stands for Energy and Atmospheric Research Systems.”

  Another connection. EARS was tied to two of the names on the list, Mallory recalled.

  “Okay, so what happened to it?”

  “Happened to what, dear?”

  “This project, I mean. Leviathan. What happened to it?”

  “Oh. Well.” He heard the clinking of ice in a glass. “It became inactive in 2005, I’m told. The government’s involvement in the Alaska project unofficially stopped at the end of December 2004. Although it remained funded for a number of months. The other part, in Wyoming, was phased out more gradually. Some of it was purchased and is now part of something called the Weathervane Group.”

  Mallory was scribbling frantically. “Okay. So there were two parts. Do you know what each one did? Specifically?”

  “In general terms? Yes. The Alaska project involved ELFs.”

  “Elves?”

  “Yes.”

  “Like Santa’s helpers?”

  “No. ELFs,” she said, the slur in her voice accentuated by her attempt to be emphatic. “Extremely low frequency radio waves. Ionospheric radio signals. The Wyoming project experimented with lasers.”

  “What kinds of experiments are we talking about?”

  “It’s in the memos, dear.”

  “All right.” Suddenly, the list was making a new kind of sense. “That’s great, Pat. And where did these memos come from?”

  “Deb.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Piper. She sent them to me long ago and I haven’t thought about them in years. But maybe you will find them useful. I’m in trouble, of course, if any of this gets out.”

  “I am, too,” Mallory said. “Don’t worry. Any chance of sending them to me electronically?”

  “I just have, dear. As PDFs. Can you open those?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I’m eternally grateful.”

  “Eternity’s a long time, dear. I’d be willing to settle for a year.” After a pause, she laughed.

  “Okay,” he said. “Deal.”

  Less than two minutes later, Mallory was scrolling through the PDFs. Eleven memos. Three of them from Deborah Piper, vaguely questioning the motives behind the Wyoming Cloudcover facility. Four were from a “project administer” named Rajiv Gupta, full of technical details about satellite laser ranging, providing such insights as: “current measurements of the products of gravitational constants reveal that such measurements do not progress secularly;” and “the concurrent readings confirm an effective separation between altimeter system drift and long-term changes at the sub-cm level.”

  Nine of the memos provided nothing that seemed useful to Charles Mallory. But the other two were pay dirt.

  THIRTY-NINE

  MEMORANDUM FOR: January 11, 2004

  FROM: Frank Johnson, assistant administrator, Leviathan Project

  TO: Roger Grimm, office of Clark Easton, Assistant Secretary of Defense

  SUBJECT: Addendum to Leviathan Project Review

  This reiterates the concerns raised today in our conversation about the objectives of the Leviathan Project. The project administrator’s report makes clear that this operation does in fact consist of two primary processes, both of which are expected to be tested on an experimental basis by the summer of 2005.

  The objective of the first process is to develop the capability to create and then take apart a hurricane-force event in the Pacific Ocean. The foundation for this is more than four years of simulations modeled and compiled through Project Cloudcover.

  The objective of the second process, as stated in the administrator’s review, has only one part. It is to create a finite event that occurs very suddenly. In other words, an event that cannot be mitigated or taken apart because it gives no warning and is over within a few minutes.

  Considering that the original objective of Leviathan was the first process and the first process alone, I would urge that we place an immediate hold on research into the second process until we have more thoroughly evaluated it and how it has been carried out.

  Further, the initial purpose of the facility in Alaska was, according to a May 23, 2002, memo from the Secretary of Defense, to “measure and better understand tectonic plate convection in the Earth’s mantle” and, more generally, to “study Earth’s interior processes.” This original objective related to computer models showing the effects of cooler water being pumped to the ocean surface during a hurricane.

  The work going on there now has clearly strayed from this objective.


  I strongly suggest shutting down the Alaska facility and implementing an internal review and audit of Environmental Atmospheric Research Systems, the contractor that has taken the lead there.

  The feeling here is that not enough data exists regarding the second process and that more evaluation is needed before trials should go forward. I am also questioning exactly when, how, and why this process became part of the Leviathan Project.

  MEMORANDUM FOR January 5, 2005

  FROM: Frank Johnson, assistant administrator, Leviathan Project

  TO: Clark Easton, Assistant Secretary of Defense

  SUBJECT: Reassessment of Leviathan Project

  As you know, the government’s involvement in the Alaska portion of the Leviathan Project was shut down on December 27, 2004, in part because of concerns about the lead contractor, EARS. However, the project continues, and remains funded in large part at least through the current fiscal year by a Defense Department allocation.

  On two prior occasions over the past year, I have expressed concerns to Roger Grimm, in your office, about the lack of oversight on this operation. I was particularly concerned that the project has gone far beyond its stated goal, which was to “measure and better understand tectonic plate convection in the Earth’s mantle” and to study “Earth’s interior processes.” When and how did the “second process” of the Leviathan Project come about?

  My feeling remains that it is in our interests to undertake a complete evaluation of the Alaska facility, its objectives and its project administrator. I do not think the withdrawal of the government’s active participation is alone sufficient. I would be pleased to discuss my concerns with you at greater length.

  Mallory re-read the memos, carefully considering what they told him—and what they didn’t. Then he called up a search engine and entered a name. It took just three minutes to find a rudimentary biography of Frank Johnson. Earlier, they had found detailed information about Frank Johnson, the Canadian physicist who had worked for the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado. Professional and personal data, including the fact that he had died suddenly, in 2010, of a heart attack. Name number six on the list provided by Keri Westlake. Except it had been the wrong Frank Johnson. This Frank Johnson was an optical systems engineer, less well-known. He had worked for Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corporation for several years, then joined NASA. For much of 2003 and 2004, he worked on a government project called Leviathan, as a liaison with EARS. He was found dead in a wooded region of central North Carolina, with a single bullet wound to the head, on February 5, 2005—one month after writing a memo titled “Reassessment of Leviathan Project.” A newspaper account at the time speculated that his death might have been “a hunting-related accident.” The case was never solved.

  Mallory was startled from his thoughts by a rap on the motel room door.

  Three hard knocks.

  He shut down the computer and lifted his Beretta from the table.

  His heart was pounding as he stood to the side of the door, gun raised.

  He listened as the knock come again. Twice this time.

  “Who is it?” he said.

  IN THE CLEVELAND Park section of Washington, Blaine’s chief of staff, Jamie Griffith, got up from the sofa in his boss’s living room to fetch a bottle of iced tea from Blaine’s refrigerator. Then he settled on the sofa again and dove right back into David McCullough’s biography of John Adams.

  FORTY

  CATHERINE BLAINE’S FACE WAS flushed, her blue nylon windbreaker beaded with raindrops. She was standing under the concrete awning. Rain pounded the parking lot behind her.

  “Come in,” Mallory said.

  She hung her jacket in the bathroom. She was wearing a beige tailored suit and a white shirt, a couple of buttons open. Rainwater dripped from her hair.

  She stood near the center of the room and let her nose twitch. “Pizza?”

  Mallory nodded. He pointed to the box on the counter. “You said mushroom and green peppers, right?”

  Blaine smiled. “That’s nice.”

  They sat at the wooden coffee table and pulled slices of pizza onto paper plates.

  “I brought some merlot, too,” he said. He lifted a bottle from the paper bag and examined the label. “Pretty good year, I’m told.”

  “I shouldn’t.”

  “I know. But you’ll join me anyway, for one glass, right? It’ll help fortify us. See, I even brought some fancy wineglasses.”

  He reached into the bag again and produced two plastic stem glasses that he had purchased at Walgreens for $2.29 apiece.

  “Well, half a glass wouldn’t hurt.”

  Mallory poured the wine. They toasted and sipped.

  “So,” he said. “Tell me what happened?”

  “Mm hmm.” Blaine sighed and looked away, then sighed again. “It’s a done deal,” she said.

  “How done?”

  “All the way. The President’s on board. They want him to go on television tomorrow, announcing the consortium, explaining the mitigation.”

  “Not good.”

  “No.”

  As they ate, Blaine told him the rest. The four mitigation procedures. The terms of the deal proposed by Mr. Zorn. The strange acquiescence from the President, Easton and DeVries.

  “Harold DeVries knows something that he’s not telling me,” she said. “I can’t figure out what it is.”

  “How about the others?”

  “I don’t know. I’m really disappointed in all of them, in how easily they’re going along with this. I’m trying to see it from their point of view, but I can’t.”

  She lifted the wineglass and took in the room for a moment. Looked at him and smiled. “Feels kind of funny being in a motel room like this,” she said.

  “Like what?”

  Blaine shrugged. “Nothing. Never mind.” She looked at his opened notepad on the desk. The dark computer monitor. “What are you doing?”

  “Oh.” He reached for another slice. “Figuring something. Two things, really.”

  “Yeah? Tell me about it.”

  “What did you mean about feeling funny being in a motel room?”

  “I don’t know.” She shared a look with him. “I mean. It kind of feels like I’m playing hooky.” She pointed her wine glass at his notebook. “Tell me what you’re figuring.”

  “I’m figuring where this probably started,” he said. “That’s one of the things. Here, I want to show you something.”

  They wiped their hands using the pile of napkins that came with the pizza. Then he turned on the computer, and called up the two memos from Frank Johnson, and passed it to Blaine. He watched her eyes as she scrolled through the memos. Then went back to the top and read them again.

  “Where did you get these?”

  “I have a source, a whistleblower of sorts, who knew Deborah Piper,” he said. “She worked as an intelligence analyst for years. She was often outraged by what she saw and heard. Some people think she’s a crazy old lady, but she’s not. She’s smart as a whip. But so eccentric that people don’t see it.”

  Blaine was carefully re-reading the memos, as if memorizing them, he saw.

  “But there’s still no connection with Volkov here, is there?” she said, at last. “Or Victor Zorn?”

  “No. That’s the second thing.”

  “What second thing?”

  “The part I think I have wrong.”

  “Oh?”

  “What you just told me, about the mitigation, helps explain it.”

  She was still frowning at him.

  Mallory said, “They told you about four procedures for dismantling or mitigating a storm, right? But nothing about the technology to create a storm or a weather event.”

  “No,” she said. “That’s not what they’re selling.” Blaine drank the last of her wine and set the plastic glass down.

  “That’s it, then,” he said. “That’s how they pulled this off.”

  “What do you mean?”
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  “I mean, there are two completely separate components to this consortium. But they’re only talking about one. They’re only selling one. The prominent scientists have signed on to the concept of deconstructing a storm. Using weather technology to make the world a better place. To prevent droughts and heat waves. Slow down hurricanes, prevent tornadoes. I’m speculating here but it must have all been presented in a very attractive way, with lots of capital and plenty of hype behind it.”

  “Okay.”

  “Nothing was said about the offensive capability because those scientists weren’t involved in that part. My guess is that Dr. Clayton doesn’t know that the storm they are attempting to deconstruct may have in fact been artificially constructed.”

  Blaine nodded once, and looked away. “Yes, I thought about that.”

  “Which is why they’re so adamant about keeping this within a very tight circle. They’re doing both things simultaneously. If you hadn’t stepped out of the circle, this may have all worked out on their terms.”

  “It still might.”

  “Yes, it might.”

  “But the ability to create a storm and the ability to mitigate a storm are two different things, right?”

  “Yes,” he said. “That’s what’s starting to worry me. Especially when I try to put myself inside their heads.”

  “Why?”

  “I mean, how did they gain credibility with the President? Obviously, by accurately predicting these events. Showing they have this seemingly godlike power over nature. Therefore, it’s reasonable to assume that, up until now, at least, they have placed a greater value on being able to create these events than on being able to mitigate them.”

  “But if they can’t mitigate them, they can’t do business.”

  “True. But we’re talking percentages. Storm enhancement versus storm mitigation. Somehow, I don’t think the emphasis, for them, has been fifty–fifty. Because, from what you just said, the storms they broke up in the Pacific were nothing on the scale of the event they’re causing right now.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I mean, think about it.”