The Magdalene Cipher (27 page)

“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
.