‘And our own research?’
‘Our research on this goes back to the Vietnam War. Project Popeye was aimed at changing the weather over North Vietnam by seeding clouds with silver iodide and dry ice. We had mixed success back then, sometimes churning the Ho Chi Minh trail into mud, but the Russians have been at this even longer. In 1962 we discovered they were beaming electromagnetic radiation signals at our embassy in Moscow, and, more specifically, directly at the office of our ambassador. In the ’70s we discovered an extension of this experiment: the Russian Woodpecker. It was a series of electromagnetic signals in the three to thirty megahertz bands.’
‘Woodpecker?’
‘The Russians pulsed the signal at a rate of ten or twelve to the second – ham radio operators around the world christened it the Russian Woodpecker – but the signal is so powerful it is capable of disrupting communications here in the United States. We have reason to believe, Mr President, that Woodpecker was the forerunner to the Russians’ version of HAARP.’
‘And HAARP can change the weather? I thought there was a UN treaty banning those experiments?’
‘Resolution 3172, passed by the United Nations in December 1976.’ Wiley smiled condescendingly. He had anticipated the question. ‘It bans experiments aimed at manipulating the weather as a form of warfare; but, of course, that doesn’t prevent us from carrying out experiments for peaceful purposes, Mr President.’
Wiley returned to his office, satisfied that the President of the United States was none the wiser for his questions on weather wars, and that he was unaware of Operation Aether. Presidents came and presidents went, but the real power was here in the Agency, and Wiley was determined it would stay that way. His satisfaction was more short-lived than usual, though. A message had come in from the Vienna chief of station, marked for his immediate attention: O’Connor observed having breakfast with target in Cafe Schwarzenberg. Unsure whether this is part of plan to eliminate her. O’Connor departed to Imperial Hotel but has not re-emerged, although cell phone is being tracked and is inexplicably moving slowly away from the Imperial. Endeavouring to get another asset to Cafe Schwarzenberg and will attempt to regain surveillance on Weizman. Sodano’s cell phone last tracked in vicinity of Bratislava, following the Danube towards Budapest. Request further instructions.
‘Fuck!’ Wiley slammed his fist on his desk. What the hell was Sodano doing in Bratislava and why was he headed for Budapest? Wiley had been in no position to haggle over the €100 000 Sodano had demanded up front, but if the little shit had done a runner, it would be his last. For now, there were too many unanswered questions. Wiley angrily punched in a response: For chief of station Vienna: ‘Endeavouring’ not good enough. Surveillance to be re-established at all costs, including airport, train stations and border crossing. O’Connor and Weizman assigned code names Tutankhamen and Nefertiti, respectively. Berlin station on full alert and able to assist. Advise re- establishment of contact SOONEST.
Wiley had chosen the codenames deliberately. Tutankhamen and Nefertiti had both met early deaths, and neither death had ever been explained. Wiley had every intention that history would repeat itself. He buzzed Larry Davis, his chief of staff.
‘We have a situation. I want the ops room brought up to speed,’ he ordered, ‘and include the background to this Maya Codex. I’ll be down there in three minutes.’
36
C urtis O’Connor scanned the lower floor of Vienna’s cavernous international railway terminal. The station was busy and the announcements in German and English echoed off the marble walls. Seeing nothing untoward, he and Aleta joined the queue in front of one of the ticket windows.
‘Zwei Karten zu Bad Arolsen, Business-Class, bitte.’
‘ Single oder zuruck?’
‘ Single, bitte.’
‘ Das wird €480 bitte.’
‘ Danke schon.’
‘There’s a coffee shop upstairs,’ O’Connor said after he’d paid cash for the tickets.
‘The train goes in twenty minutes. Is there time?’
O’Connor smiled. ‘Always assume you’re being tailed. The train leaves from Platform 6, but we’ll get on at the last minute. That way it’s harder for someone to organise a ticket – although the Austrians are so efficient you can buy them on board these days,’ he added, his smile fading. ‘And stick this in your bag,’ he said, handing Aleta a new cell phone. ‘From now on, I want you to assume everything you say on your cell phone is being monitored, and that includes texts.’
‘Won’t they be tracking yours?’
‘They will. But as we speak, it’s bound in bubble wrap and making its way out of the Imperial’s toilets into Vienna’s main sewer. Hopefully it will confuse them and buy us a little more time.’
They rode the escalator to the departure floor. Below them, the tall, thin man in the black overcoat entered the lower floor of the station.
The train sped quietly and smoothly westwards towards Linz, the capital of Oberosterreich, the city where Hitler attended high school with the great philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein; a city from which the Mauthausen concentration camp was less than twenty-five kilometres away. The fields and distant forests were blanketed in a fresh covering of snow and the sun struggled to penetrate the low clouds scudding across the border from Italy.
‘‘You don’t slum it, do you?’ Aleta sank back into one of just four leather seats in their business-class compartment. They had the compartment to themselves.
‘Not if the CIA’s paying. In about three hours we’ll cross the German border near Passau. From there it’s another three hours to Wurzburg, where we’ll change trains for Kassel-Wilhelmshohe. Once there, we’ll change again for Bad Arolsen.’
Aleta shivered at the thought of what she might find.
‘How well do you know Monsignor Jennings?’ O’Connor asked, picking up on her distress and changing the subject.
‘Well enough, unfortunately, although I’ve never worked with him. It’s always been a mystery to me why he’s held in such high esteem in archaeological circles.’
‘Overrated?’
‘A self-opinionated, arrogant twit. He’s very close to the Vatican, and they seem to have an unhealthy influence on him.’
O’Connor grinned. ‘He speaks very highly of you, too.’
Aleta made a face. ‘He’s also rumoured to be fond of little boys.’
O’Connor’s grin evaporated.
‘‘That’s the problem with the Vatican – most of them are hypocrites,’ Aleta continued. ‘Pius XII didn’t lift a finger to help my grandfather or any of the millions of other Jews slaughtered at the hands of the Nazis, and nothing’s changed. Now Benedict’s given his blessing to a bishop who’s denied the gas chambers even existed! What was his name -’
‘Williamson,’ O’Connor said simply.
‘Richard Williamson! How could I forget? And Benedict, who in his time as Cardinal Inquisitor amassed detailed dossiers on everyone from Hans Kung to Teilhard de Chardin, now claims it was all a simple misunderstanding? That he should have consulted the internet? Give me a break!’ Still angry at the injustice of being targeted by powerful institutions and finding herself on the run, Aleta was not about to cut O’Connor any slack. ‘As for you Americans, you’re the most powerful country in the world, and you throw your weight around so everyone knows it. You say you stand for freedom, yet when it suits your purpose, you think nothing of shipping people off to secret torture prisons around the world – prisons that you bastards in the CIA run – and most of these people just disappear. And as for that last idiot you elected to the White House, I doubt he’s ever even read the Geneva Conventions. He picks a White House legal counsel who thinks water-boarding and leaving people out in the
