The Magdalene Cipher (24 page)
Read The Magdalene Cipher Online
Authors: Jim Hougan
Allen
A postscript followed:
P. S. Clove sends her love (and, thanks to you, is thriving)
.
Allen? Allen who? Dunphy wondered. And then he remembered the cross-references in Schidlof's fileânot the one on the desk in front of him, but the one he'd seen in Langley. Dulles . . . Dunphy . . . Jung. And then what? Dunphy tried to recall. Optical Magick . . . or the 143rd. But Dulles, in any case. John's brother. Allen
.
Dunphy riffled the letters in his hands. This is what Schidlof bought from the Vogelei woman. It had to be. But who was she? he wondered, and immediately the answer came back: an antiquarian, a relativeâsomeone who worked for Jung. It didn't matter, really. The point was: these were the papers that Schidlof had tried to authenticate. These were the papers that had gotten him killed
.
Feeling for the first time that he was beginning to get somewhere, Dunphy unfolded the second letter and continued to read. Like its predecessor, this letter was also on Sullivan & Cromwell stationery. Written almost two years after the first, it pretended to be a thank-you note for the hospitality that Jung had shown to Dulles and his wife the previous summer. Once the thank-you had been fulsomely expressed, however, Dulles got down to a more delicate businessâexpressing his worries about “our new Helmsman.”
His genius is, of course, deeply engraved on the literary record. Few men have written so well, and fewer still have had so profound an influence upon their contemporaries. Surely, the vision and courage that are everywhere apparent in his writing will serve him well as he exercises the terrible responsibilities of his new position
.
And yet, while our Helmsmen have often been artists or men of letters (Bacon, Hugo, Debussyâno roll call could be more illustrious), I fear that we are on the brink of what the Chinese call “interesting times.” And in such times, an order such as our own might best be served by a quiet diplomat, someone capable of navigating safe passage amid the clashing ships of state. My feeling is that Ezra may be too outspokenâindeed, that he may be too flamboyantâto steer our small band safely toward the millennium
.
Allen
Makes you wonder, Dunphy thought. Bacon, Hugo, and Debussy? Ezra? Were they talking about the man he thought they were talking about? There wasn't any doubt, really. How many outspoken and “flamboyant” Ezras were writing in the 1930sâand how many of those were cross-references in the Andromeda file? Just one. E. Pound
.
Which made Pound the Helmsman. But, of what? The Magdalene Society. But what's that? And this business of the New Jerusalem . .Â
.
Arranging the letters in chronological order, Dunphy saw that Dulles wrote to Jung on four or five occasions each year. For the most part, these letters were transparent in meaning, as when Dulles sought advice about his wife's “nervous condition.” But there were mysteries, too, and not the least of them was the identity of someone whom Dulles repeatedly referred to as “our young man.” Of this person, few details could be gleaned beyond his youth and gender. But one such detail concerned a birthmark. In a letter from Biarritz, dated July 9,1936, Dulles wrote of
the great privilege I had in spending the afternoon with our young man. Down from Paris for the weekend, he joined us at our cabana on the beach. There, I saw the mark upon his chestâthe “blazon” that you spoke of. The figure is so precise that Clove mistook it, at first, for a common tattooâmuch to our young man's delight
.
Still other letters showed remarkable prescience on geopolitical matters, as in a missive dated July 12, 1937:
“I suspect it will prove easier, in the end,” Dulles wrote
,
to restore Jerusalem to the Jews than to unite the fractious continent on which our hopes so much depend. And yet, both must be done, and shall beâif not in this century's middle age, then by its end. There will be an Israel soon enough (though I sometimes wonder if any Jews will be left to people it), and a united Europe, too. And have no doubt about my meaning. By “a united Europe,” I mean a Europe that speaks with one voice, spends with one currency, and prays to one king. A continent with no internal borders
.
How these events shall be brought to bear is another issue, and frankly, I fear that our Helmsman may have put his faith in a broken bowl. (What good has ever come from Romeâor from Berlin, for that matter?)
My feeling is that Europe's borders must someday be dissolved by men with pens, rather than by soldiers riding tanks. So, too, with the Holy Land and its restoration to the Jews. But whichever way these ends are reached, rest assured, my friend, we
will
prevail
.
He's right, of course, Dunphy thought. Their “Helmsman” 's faith was indeed misplaced. Embracing Mussolini at the expense of Roosevelt, Pound scored an own-goal against himself
and
the Society he headed
.
Or maybe not. If you looked at it in a different way, you could make the case that, however unintentionally, Hitler's genocidal war had paved the way for both Israel and the Common Marketâsince each was, to some extent, a reaction to the carnage that had gone before
.
Dunphy glanced at the letter a second time and noticed something he'd glossed over on first reading. “Prays to one king . . .” Dunphy frowned. You don't pray to kings. It was a thought that Dunphy felt sure was worth taking up, but the idea was soon forgotten as he came upon the shortest and most cryptic of the letters in the packet. Dated November 22, 1937, it read:
For God's sakeâ
now what
?
Dunphy would have given a lot to know what
that
was all about, but in the absence of Jung's reply, there was no way to make sense of it. The next letter, however, suggested that powerful events had been set in motion
.
My dear Carl
,
Your letter was a great consolation. I knew nothing of the institute in Küsnacht, nor of the donation that he'd made. Thank God it's been preserved! Science may one day find a way to accomplish that which he no longer can
.
And perhaps it was meant to be. After learning of the disaster in Spain, I turned to the
Apocryphon
for solace, and for the first time understood those fateful and mysterious lines:
His kingdom comes and goes
,
Then comes again when
,
wounded to the root
,
He is the last, yet not the last
,
emblazoned and alone
.
These many lands will then be one
and he their king till, past
,
he sires sons down all the days
,
while deathly still and celibate
.
That His kingdom “comes and goes” is a circumstance we have been living with for centuries. That it must come again, when he is “wounded to the root,” is cause for joy. Because, dear Carl, this is precisely what has happened to our young man, whose terrible injuries could not be more aptly described. Nor is this all. Wounded thus, and without siblings, it is as apparent as the blazon on his chest that he must be “the last” of his line
.
But there my scrying ends. That he should be “the last, yet not the last” is a conundrum whose solution may not be known until, perhaps, the day when “these many lands (are) one.”
Nor is this the only conundrum. What are we to make of the promise that “he (shall be) their king till, past, he sires sons down all the days, while deathly still and celibate”? I can only hope that the meaning of this passage may one day be explained by the gift that he has made to the institute in Küsnacht. If so, then Science will prove to be the savior of Salvationâand our young man will indeed have been “the last, yet not the last.”
Reading the
Apocryphon
in this way, as a kind of Christian kabbalah, is a speculative exercise, of course. But if my reading of these lines is correct, then the young man in our care is himself the fulfillment of a prophecy and, as such
,
the last portent
. Accordingly, he is the sine qua non of all our hopes. For that reason, then, no effort or expense should be spared to keep him safe until such a time as every other sign and omen has been manifested and evinced
.
Then, and only then, can our young man, however old, be king. And if his kingdom lasts for but the smallest part of a minute, that will not matter. He will be “past,” as prophesied, and Science willing, father to an eternity of sons
.
Dunphy rubbed his head, but he might as well have scratched it. What's the
Apocryphon
,
he wondered, and what did any of it actually mean? There was no way to know. The correspondence was filled with mysteries large and small, important and not. Reading them was like listening to one end of a telephone conversation. Some things were obvious. Some things were revealed. But everything else was left to surmise:
July 12, 1941
My dear Carl
,
I am delighted to read that you have persuaded Mr. Pound that our young man may not be safe in Paris. None of us can predict what may happen in the next year, but prudence dictates that he, at least, should be placed at a safe remove from all hostilities. He is, after all, our raison d'être, and without him, we have nothingâneither hope nor purpose any longer
.
As you suggest, Switzerland should be quite safeâand not only for our Gomelez. The Society's assets will prove essential to our mission in the postwar environment, whatever else may come, and they, too, must be safeguarded. Given the magnitude of these assets, care needs to be taken that their removal from the combatant countries should not cause unnecessary dislocations or publicity. I would suggest, therefore, that these transfers should be placed in the hands of our contacts at the Bank for International Settlements in Basel. They will know how to liquidate the various equities, which can then be reinvested through Zürich and Vaduz. (I feel our goal should be preservation of capital, rather than growth.)
So “our young man” has a name, Dunphy thought. Gomelez. Who is he? Dunphy wondered, and then turned the thought aside. There was no way of knowing
.
But one thing that
was
becoming clear was that Dulles and Jung were acceding to more and more important responsibilities in the secret society to which they belonged. Viz
.
May 19, 1942
My dear Carl
,
By the time you read this letter, I will have taken up my confidential duties in Bern. I appreciate your offer to act as liaison between our Helmsman and myself, but fear that travel to and from Italy is out of the question for both of us
.
I will, however, embrace your offer of a clandestine démarche to Herr Speer. Am I to understand that he is one of us? I am amazed. How is it that I've never met him?
Speer aside, I have the names of several good fellows whom I think we would do well to have aboard. Neither of these gentlemen will come as a surprise. We've discussed their bona fides on several occasions, and you have met both of them socially. I mean Dr. Vannevar Bush and young Angleton. Please consider this letter a formal submission of their names to membership in our society
.
Dunphy sat back in his chair. It was one of those moments when a cigarette would have been more than a pleasure. Vannevar Bush and “young Angleton.” Could it be? he wondered. How many Angletons would Dulles have known? Probably one: James Jesus Angleton, who in the years after the war, headed the CIA's counterintelligence staff. He was a legendary spook, up to his ears in everything from Israeli politics to the Warren Commission. Where wasâ
what
wasâAngleton in '42? Dunphy thought about it. Just a college kid, albeit a supremely well connected one . . . in, or on his way into, the OSS
.
Dunphy was less familiar with Bush, but as he recalled, he'd been in charge of scientific research and weapons development for the United States throughout the Second World War
.
Useful men to have on your side, Dunphy supposed, especially if you're running a secret society. But . . . Speer?
Albert
Speer? Who was . . . what? Hitler's architect, and . . . Minister of Armaments. A nice contact for someone like Dulles, running intel operations for the Allies out of Switzerland. But . . . was it possible that a Nazi like Speer would have anything in commonâand, in particular, something
secret
in commonâwith the likes of Dulles and Jung?
Dunphy muttered to himself. Why not? In fact, how could he not? The Magdalene Society had its own agenda, clearly, and there was no reason to assume that its agenda was peculiarly Americanâor liberal. On the contrary, the guy who was running the show, or who was supposed to be running the showâthe “Helmsman”âwas a loony, pro-Fascist poet making propaganda broadcasts from Italy and hailing Mussolini as a savior. Dunphy knew that much from History 101. So why
not
Speer? If anything, Speer was probably less eccentric than Pound. Moreover, it was becoming increasingly clear to Dunphy that the Magdalene Society (at least the organization had a name) was a kind of secret church
.