‘What was CAIP intended to achieve?’
Westwood shook his head in frustration. ‘I’ve no idea,’ he admitted. ‘The file was sealed just under a year later, and was then classified “Ultra”. And this is where it starts to get interesting. I’ve been through the Registry and the Archives and there’s no hard copy of anything relating to CAIP to be found anywhere: no files, not even any record of the destruction of a file. It’s as if CAIP never happened, so somebody – I’m guessing the same person who killed Hawkins and Richards – did a very thorough job of expunging all traces of that operation. The only thing he couldn’t achieve was to eliminate the basic file details from the computer system, simply because of the way the database itself is set up. But he did the best he could: he protected the file from random searches. The only way you can get to see what little information there is, is if you type in “CAIP” and nothing else. Wildcard searches don’t work. You do see what this means, Walter?’
Hicks nodded. ‘Whoever offed these two former Company agents probably still works right here at Langley. That’s very disturbing, John.’
‘Tell me about it. Oddly enough, I think I now know why our Mr X killed Hawkins and Richards. There are no details of anything to do with CAIP on the computer apart from what I’ve told you, but there was one other piece of information. CAIP is cross-referenced to a file called “N17677”. I checked that file as well, and guess what? It was started in June nineteen seventy-two, classified “Ultra” and sealed on exactly the same date as CAIP – the second of July seventy-two.’
‘And N17677 is what, precisely?’
‘It’s the registration number of an aircraft – a Learjet 23 to be exact – which went missing over the eastern Mediterranean in June that year. The file itself was sealed long before the search for the aircraft’s wreckage was abandoned.’
‘So what’s the link to CAIP?’
‘I don’t know, but I’m guessing that CAIP, whatever the hell it represented, was a covert op somewhere in the eastern Mediterranean and the crashed Learjet was bringing out some of the agents involved. The only problem with that hypothesis,’ Westwood anticipated Hicks’s obvious question, ‘is that there’s no record of any Company personnel dying during that period, anywhere in the world. But if this joker can sanitize our records the way he did with CAIP, losing a few personnel files wouldn’t prove that difficult a trick.’
‘OK,’ Hicks said, ‘let’s do this the easy way. Get those files unsealed and see what the hell CAIP is all about. Who authorized the sealing anyway?’
Westwood smiled and shook his head. ‘I’ve already checked that, Walter, and we’re going nowhere with it. The authorization was POTUS.’
For a moment Hicks just stared. ‘POTUS?’ he echoed.
Westwood nodded. ‘POTUS – as in President Of The United States. That file was sealed by the authority of the White House. And before you ask, Walter, I checked the Learjet file as well – that was sealed by the same authority.’
‘Jesus,’ Hicks muttered. ‘This is serious stuff, John. There’s no way that we’re going to be able to get the White House to unseal these files. I’ve never even heard of any President authorizing the sealing of a Company file, but there obviously had to be a real good reason.’
‘And unsealing would be a waste of time anyway, Walter,’ Westwood said. ‘Another thing I did was check the file sizes. The CAIP and N17677 files are both around fifteen kilobytes in size, which means they’re effectively empty. Whoever did the actual sealing made absolutely certain that nobody would ever be able to discover anything, even if they did get them unsealed. They deleted everything in each file, then sealed them both. The IT guys tell me fifteen kilobytes means the file will contain a title and pretty much nothing else. Almost no text at all, certainly nothing usable.’
For a few moments Hicks said nothing, just puffed on his cigar and gazed out of the window with unfocused eyes. ‘OK, John,’ he said, ‘what you’ve told me makes sense, despite the lack of any hard data. But I’m worried about how those files were sealed – the authority, I mean. The White House getting involved kicks this whole matter to a much higher, and much more dangerous, level. I’m also concerned that whoever orchestrated these recent killings might still be working here at Langley. So tread carefully, John.’
Hicks stubbed out the remains of his cigar and drained the last of his coffee. ‘I’ve a couple of other questions, though. First, why did your Mr X wait until now before he decided on killing Hawkins and Richards? And what about the various other agents involved?’
‘Let me answer your second question first. As soon as I found the CAIP reference, I checked the personnel files of the other four senior agents listed as part of the operation. Cassells and Stanford died of perfectly natural causes and William Penn got killed a few years ago in a car accident in Ohio.
‘The last man listed is Henry Butcher, who’s lying in a coma in a hospital in Baltimore. He’s apparently dying of a rare cancer that attacks the central nervous system. I’ve even been over to see him, and talked to the doctor looking after him. I’m told he’s got a few months, maybe only a few weeks, to live, and the chances are he won’t recover consciousness. Even if he does, the doctor thinks any kind of questioning would almost certainly be a waste of time. So I’m afraid that’s another dead end.
‘Now the reason our Mr X started his killing spree is something else. This information came from a public domain source posted on Walnut. Some time last week a Greek diver named Spiros Aristides, living on the island of Crete, found the wreckage of a small jet aircraft on the seabed. It was down deep, around one hundred feet, and it apparently took him several expeditions to locate the remains of the cabin. He noted part of the registration number, and was overheard in a local bar talking about his find.
‘Then things start to get weird. Twelve hours later, both the diver and his nephew were found dead, because of some kind of real fast-acting pathogen. The local papers picked up the story, and one of our assets there sent it to Langley. Now, three things puzzled me. First, the newspaper reported the wreckage as being found close to Crete. That meant that the crash occurred a long way from the area originally searched back in seventy- two, so the aircraft itself had either drifted well off-route or was on a covert flight when it went down. Second, according to the diver, the wreckage showed signs of battle damage, suggesting it had been deliberately shot down. Third, we suspect that the same Greek found something in the wreckage containing a virus or chemical that subsequently killed himself and his nephew.’
Hicks nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I can see where you’re going with this. The reason Mr X killed Hawkins and Richards is because the aircraft wreckage had finally been found. There must have been something in the wreck that would blow the lid clean off operation CAIP, and he wasn’t prepared to chance any surviving Company men being questioned about it.’ He paused. ‘But what I still don’t buy is the timescale. The file on CAIP was closed over thirty years ago, and the world has changed a hell of a lot since then. Why is it so important to eliminate the only people who knew about it?’ Hicks paused again, then added, ‘Five gets you ten that this guy has already got a team en route to Crete to take care of that wreckage.’
Stein screeched to a halt by the roadside a mile or so outside Chania and leapt out of the car. He ran round to the passenger door, wrenched it open and virtually dragged Krywald out.
‘Jesus, Roger,’ he grumbled, as Krywald vomited onto the edge of the tarmac. ‘What the hell’s the matter with you?’
‘I dunno,’ Krywald replied weakly. It was the third time Stein had had to stop the car since they’d left Chora Sfakia. Each time Krywald had thrown up, his vomit laced with blood. Quite apart from that, he looked awful.
‘I’ve got to get you to a hospital,’ Stein muttered. He’d said the same thing twice before, but each time Krywald had dismissed the suggestion. This time he just nodded faintly and slumped back into the passenger seat.
Stein sat down behind the wheel, pulled out a map and glanced at it quickly, then started the engine and accelerated away. ‘The closest hospital is at Chania,’ he explained, ‘and that’s where I’m gonna take you, right now.’
Again all Krywald did was nod, and Stein realized just how sick his companion must be feeling. ‘Did you eat something – shellfish or something that I didn’t have?’ But even as he asked, Stein knew what the answer would be.
The three men had eaten dinner together the previous evening and shared only a light breakfast that morning, and on each occasion the food had been nothing other than bland. He and Krywald were seasoned
