The Magdalene Cipher (7 page)

Chapter 8

Dunphy's new assignment came down a few weeks after he'd moved in with Roscoe White, and it did not make him happy. While it was probably impossible for him to return to London, there was no obvious reason why the same operation couldn't be run from another city, and just as successfully. Geneva, for instance, or—better yet—Paris. He'd borrowed a typewriter and written memo after memo on the subject, but there was never any response. Finally, he received a terse directive ordering him to report to a three-day training course for information review officers, or IROs
.

One look around, and Dunphy knew that his future was dim. With the exception of himself, all of the IROs were in their sixties and working part-time. They were “pensioned annuitants,” retired case officers who welcomed the chance to supplement their monthly checks by putting in a couple of hours a day at headquarters. It didn't matter that the work was meaningless. It was, as they said (over and over again), “
great
to be back in the saddle.”

For his part, Dunphy was ready to dismount. The only thing that kept him from doing so was the mystery of his own misfortune. For whatever reason, the Agency was trying to make him quit, and he didn't have a clue as to why. All he could be sure of was that, if he left the Agency now, he'd never know the truth
.

And so he gritted his teeth, and stayed, and listened to the overweight IRO instructor explain the workings of the Freedom of Information Act as it applied to the CIA. The law was “a pain in the ass,” the instructor said, because it gave the average guy in the street—“loyal or not”—the right to request government files on any subject that interested him. In practice, this meant that when a request was received (and the Agency got more than a dozen a day), a liaison officer (such as Roscoe White) would assign it to one of the IROs. The IRO would search the Central Registry in B building to locate the relevant files. These files would then be copied, and the IRO would begin to read them, using a felt-tipped pen to censor data that were statutorily exempted from release: information, for example, that might compromise intelligence sources or methods. Finally, the redacted copies would be sent to the Coordinator of Information's office, where a reference analyst would make a final review. Only then would anything be released to the requester
.

Not that the Agency was interested in releasing much. As the instructor said, “What you have to remember is that this is the Central
Intelligence
Agency—and not the Central
Information
Agency.” And, indeed, the distinction was manifest in the way FOIA requests were handled. While the law required the Agency to respond to each request within ten days of its receipt, there was no way to legislate how long it might take to locate, review, and release so much as a single file
.
That
would depend upon how many resources the CIA allocated to its FOIA staff
.

And here the instructor grinned. “Unfortunately,” he said, “we don't
have
a lot of resources—so I guess you could say we're permanently swamped.”

“How big is the backlog?” Dunphy asked
.

“The last time I looked,” the instructor said, “we had about twenty-four thousand requests on hold.”

“So a new request—”

“—would begin to generate material in about nine years. As I said, it's the Central
Intelligence
a Agency.”

Chapter 9

It was Roscoe who gave him the idea
.

They were sitting at the bar in O'Toole's, a grungy Irish dive in the McLean Shopping Center not far from the CIA's headquarters (and therefore a gathering place for spooks), when Roscoe asked him—with a sly grin—about the FOIA request that he'd assigned to Dunphy that same afternoon
.

“Which one?” Dunphy asked, not really paying attention. He was scrutinizing a photograph that hung on the wall with other memorabilia, all of it in need of a good dusting. There was a faded banner of the IRA's, a dartboard with Saddam Hussein's picture on it, some postcards from Havana (signed
Frank & Ruth
a), and a Japanese ceremonial sword with what looked like dried blood on it. Some yellowing newspaper headlines (
JFK SENDS ADVISERS TO VIETNAM
a) had been glued to the wall beside signed and framed photographs of George Bush, William Colby, and Richard Helms
.

But the picture that held Dunphy's interest was a snapshot of three men standing in a jungle clearing, laughing. On the ground in front of them was the head of an Asian man who looked as if he'd been decapitated. In fact, he'd been buried standing, and though his eyes were glazed, you could see that he was still alive. A typed caption was stapled to the picture:
MAC/SOG
,
it read
.
12-25-66—Laos. Merry Xmas!

“The one about root canals,” Roscoe said
.

Dunphy shook his head, still staring at the photo
.

“You don't remember?” Roscoe asked
.

Hearing his friend's incredulity, Dunphy turned to him. “What?”

“I was asking you about the FOIA request I sent—about the root-canal procedures on Naval cadets at Annapolis, 1979 to the present.”

“Oh, yeah,” Dunphy replied. “I got that this afternoon. Now, why the fuck would the Agency have anything like that?” he asked. “I mean, what's on this guy's mind?”

Roscoe shrugged. “Actually . . . I can probably tell you exactly what's on his mind. He's one of our most frequent requesters.”

“Okay,” Dunphy said. “So hit me with it.”

“Mind control. Mr. McWillie is obsessed with it. A lot of people are.”

Dunphy cocked his head to the left and raised his eyebrows, “Maybe I missed something, but—I thought we were talking about dentistry.”

“Well, yes—in a sense, we are. The guy's asking for dental records, but he doesn't have to tell us why. He doesn't have to tell us what he
suspects
.
But after a while, when you've processed as many requests as I have, you get to know where people are coming from. And judging from the kinds of things that Mr. McWillie has asked for in the past, I'd say that he thinks that we're installing miniaturized radio receivers—”

Dunphy almost spewed his beer. “In people's molars?!”

“Yeah.” Roscoe nodded
.

“
Why
,
fahchrissake?”

“I don't know. Subliminal messages. Stuff like that. Who
knows
what Lewis McWillie suspects? I mean, he's obviously a schizophrenic. Did you happen to catch the return address on his letter?”

“No,” Dunphy said. “I didn't really look at it.”

“Well, unless he's moved, the address is '86 Impala, Lot A, Fort Ward Park, Alexandria.”

Dunphy rolled his eyes. “I gotta get out of this job. This is the stupidest fucking job I've ever had.”

“Maybe,” Roscoe said. “Then again, maybe not.”

“Trust me. I'm pretty clear about this.” He paused. “You know why I joined the Agency?”

Roscoe nodded. “Patriotism.”

Dunphy chuckled. “No, Roscoe. It wasn't patriotism. ‘Patriotism' didn't have anything to do with it.”

“Then . . . what?”

“I joined the Agency because, until then, I'd wanted to be an historian. And what I found out was—what I learned in college was—it's no longer possible to
be
an historian.”

Roscoe gave him a puzzled look. “Why do you say that?”

“Because historians collect facts and read documents. They do empirical research and analyze the information they've collected. Then they publish their findings. They call it the scientific method, and it's something you can't do in a university anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Because the structuralists—or the
post
astructuralists—or the post
colonialists
a—or whatever they're calling themselves this week—take the position that reality is inaccessible, facts are fungible, and knowledge is impossible. Which reduces history to fiction and textual analysis. Which leaves us with . . .”

“What?” Roscoe asked
.

“Gender studies. Cultural studies. What I think of as
the fuzzies
.
a”

Roscoe caught the bartender's eye and, with his forefinger, drew a circle in the air above their glasses. “So . . . you joined the CIA because you thought gender studies are
fuzzy?
That's what you're telling me?”

“Well, that was a big part of it. I realized I'd never get a job teaching, not at a good university anyway—the poststructuralists are running the show just about everywhere. And the other thing was—I was a modern-military-history guy—I went to grad school at Wisconsin—and one of the things that became apparent was the fact that a lot of the stuff that should have been available . . . wasn't.”

“What are you talking about?” Roscoe asked
.

“Information. The data weren't available.”

“Why not?”

“Because they were classified. And as a baby historian, I didn't have a need to know. None of us did. And that pissed me off because . . . well, it's like we're living in a cryptocracy instead of a democracy.”

Roscoe looked impressed. “Cryptocracy,” he repeated. “That's good. I like that.”

Dunphy laughed
.

“So that's why you joined the Agency,” Roscoe asked. “Poststructuralism and cryptocracy drove you to it.”

“Right,” Dunphy said. “And there was another reason, too.”

Roscoe eyed him skeptically. “What?”

“A determination to live
large
.
a”

Roscoe chuckled as the bartender brought them another round
.

“This guy you mentioned,” Dunphy said. “What's-his-face—”

“McWillie.”

“Right. We were talking about McWillie and the implants. Which sounds like a rock group, when you think about it. Nutball and the Molars. But my point is, no matter how you slice it, I'm this guy's research assistant. That's what it amounts to. When you come right down to it, I'm like a P.A. for any schizophrenic—”

“What's a P.A.?”

“Personal assistant. I'm like a personal assistant for any schizophrenic who's got the money to buy a stamp. And you know what? It's no accident. Someone's fuckin' with me. Someone wants me out.”

Roscoe nodded, and sipped his beer. “Probably one of the poststructuralists.”

Dunphy frowned. “I'm serious.”

Roscoe chuckled. “I know you are.”

“And that reminds me,” Dunphy added. “How'd I
get
that request, anyway?”

“What do you mean? You got it from me. That's what I do.”

“I know that, but—”

“I'm the liaison officer. Assigning FOIA requests to IROs like you is my mission in life.”

“That's not what I mean. What I'm wondering is, how come you processed it so quickly? I thought there was a nine-year wait. You got McWillie's letter on Tuesday and sent it down to me the same day. How come?”

Roscoe grunted. “Mr. McWillie always puts a line in his letters, asking to have his requests expedited. If the request is stupid enough, like the one you got today, I'm happy to expedite it, because it makes our stats look better when we can close out something that quickly.”

“You can do that?”

“What?”

“Expedite requests.”

“Sure, if I'm asked to, and if I think there's a good reason to approve it.”

Dunphy sipped his beer thoughtfully. After a long while, a smile dawned, and he turned back to Roscoe. “Do me a favor,” he said
.

“What?”

“You get an FOIA request from a guy named . . . I dunno—what?—Eddie Piper! Any requests you get from someone named Eddie Piper, I want you to expedite them, okay?”

Roscoe thought about it. “Okay.”

“And send them over to me. Anything Eddie Piper asks for, I wanta handle it.”

Roscoe nodded, then cast a wary glance in Dunphy's direction. “Who's Eddie Piper?” he asked
.

Dunphy shook his head. “I dunno,” he said. “I just made him up. The point is, will you do it?”

“Yeah. Why not? It's not like I've got a whole lot left to lose, is it?”

Chapter 10

Renting a mail-drop under a phony name was more difficult than Dunphy had expected, but it was essential to his scheme. Though he did not intend to release so much as a single document, correspondence between the Agency and Edward Piper could not be avoided. Every FOIA request had to be acknowledged in writing, and every denial required an explanation or a recitation of exemptions. These letters would have to be mailed. And if they were then to be returned with the notation
Addressee Unknown
,
the Office of Privacy and Information would become curious. And they would begin to ask questions
.

The difficulty with obtaining a mail drop, however, was that the post office insisted on a passport or a driver's license before it would rent a P.O. box to anyone. Even the commercial companies wanted some form of identification “to protect ourselves”—though against what was never said. It occurred to Dunphy that the requirements for establishing a Panamanian corporation or a bank account on the Isle of Man were fewer
.

Still, it was hardly an unmanageable problem. He typed a phony address label in the name of Edward A. Piper and affixed it to the front of a used envelope, covering his own name and address. He then set off for Kinko's Copies in Georgetown, cruising down the G. W. Parkway toward the Key Bridge
.

It was one of those rare, sparkling days in Washington, when the air blows in from the north, and a brisk wind kicks at the Potomac. The spires of Georgetown University rose at the edge of what he knew was a sea of louche boutiques, while eight-man crews rowed upriver in a regatta
.

The sculls reminded Dunphy of his college days, rowing on Lake Mendota, and before he knew it, he was humming the maudlin “Varsity”—
Yooo raah raah WisCONNNsin
a—and wondering where his letter jacket had gone. At Kinko's, he paid forty-five dollars for a set of five hundred business cards, picking an italicized Times Roman font for

With the phony envelope and one of the business cards in hand, he drove back the way he'd come and, stopping at the Fairfax County Library, used the envelope to obtain a third piece of identification in the form of a library card
.

By late afternoon, the fictitious Eddie Piper had a mail drop in Great Falls, a “suite” that (Dunphy knew) measured four inches by four inches by one foot
.

Writing the actual FOIA request was even easier. Dunphy could by now recite from memory the boilerplate with which all such requests were girded. And while it would obviously not be prudent to request his own 201 file, there was nothing to stop him from seeking details about the late Professor Schidlof. In that way, he might find a clue to the situation in which he found himself. Accordingly, he wrote and mailed his first request that same afternoon. Three days later, it arrived on his own desk, routed there by his new roommate, the accommodating R. White in the Office of Privacy and Information
.

Having managed in this way to assign himself to an investigation of what amounted to his own downward mobility, Dunphy was elated for the first time in months. With E. Piper's letter in hand, he took the elevator down to Central Registry. Though he neither whistled nor skipped, there was a smart-ass smile on his face that wouldn't go away
.

Arriving at the registry, he signed the visitors log with a flourish and sat down at a computer terminal to obtain the necessary file-reference numbers. Though much of the Agency's day-to-day business relied upon data-processing equipment, most of the operational files continued to be stored on paper, as they had always been. While powerful arguments had been made to computerize all of the data in the Agency's system, the Office of Security vetoed the idea. The difficulty was that, while the Agency's computers could not be hacked from the
outside
,
it simply wasn't possible to ensure their inviolability from
internal
attacks. And since the need-to-know doctrine was considered paramount, the operational files remained as and where they were: locked away in filing cabinets in kraft-colored folders of greater or lesser thickness, accordion style or not, in better or worse condition. Retrieving a file required that he obtain the relevant reference number from the computer, which he would then give to a data retrieval officer, or Drone, whose job was to locate files for IROs such as Dunphy. Though both positions were well removed from the fast track, IROs and Drones were virtually the only employees in the CIA with direct access to Central Registry computers and operational files in the Agency's underground vault
.

As an information review officer, Dunphy's need to know was potentially boundless, with the result that his clearances were among the highest in the national security establishment. It was an irony of his situation that even as his career was crashing, his access to information was soaring. With the clearances he had, he could virtually
browse
through the Agency's files (once he'd obtained them from a Drone)
.

Seated in front of the terminal, Dunphy pressed his right thumb to the monitor's screen, initializing the program while, at the same time, the computer searched for his thumbprint in the Office of Security's data banks. A few seconds passed, and then the words:

WELCOME, JOHN DUNPHY, TO AEGIS. PRESS SEND TO CONTINUE
.

Dunphy hit the send key, and a menu shimmered onto the screen
.

SUBJECT?

He thought about it. Whatever other mysteries might be involved, one thing was certain: his own world had begun to fall apart when Leo Schidlof had been murdered. That this was no coincidence was clear. Curry had screamed at him and sent him packing. So the solution to his problems, or at least an explanation for them, was somehow a function of a single question:
Who killed Schidlof, and why
a?

Next to
Subject
,
Dunphy typed:

/SCHIDLOF, LEO/+ALL X-REFS/

And the cursor began to blink
.