Free The Magdalene Cipher by Jim Hougan Page B

atlas, Dunphy saw that the town was about twenty miles outside of Zürich .
    Returning to the file, he scanned the other names on the list. Besides Davis and Curry, the only one that meant anything to him was Ezra Pound. Though he had not read Pound since his days as an undergraduate, Dunphy recalled that the poet had remained in Italy throughout the war, making propaganda broadcasts for Mussolini and the Fascists. When the war ended, he’d been captured and returned to the States, where it was expected that he’d stand trial for treason. But the trial never took place. Influential friends had intervened, psychiatrists were consulted, and the poet was declared insane. Instead of being hanged, he’d been committed, and so spent a good part of the Cold War across the river from where Dunphy now sat, receiving visitors in a private room at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital .
    Dunphy considered the other entries on the list. Sigisbert and Dagobert sounded like historical figures. Gomelez, he didn’t know. That left Optical Magick, Inc., and the 143rd Surgical Air Wing. He’d never heard of either, but Inc . and Air Wing were subjects he could work with .
    All in all, the file was a disappointment—but an interesting one, nevertheless. While its contents, a magazine and some newspaper clippings, were so apparently innocuous that no one could possibly object to their release, Dunphy’s curiosity was piqued by the fact that the Agency had felt it necessary to stash his own personnel jacket in Switzerland, while at the same time placing him within the purview of the slightly mysterious Security Research Staff .
    Dunphy called one of the Drones over, and tapped a forefinger on the five-by-seven card. “What do I do about this?” he asked .
    The Drone glanced at the card and shrugged. “There’s a form you fill out,” he said. “I’ll get you one in a second. But all of that MK-IMAGE crap is a no-brainer. There’s nothing in the files except newspaper clips, so you can copy whatever you want and send it to the requester without redactions. The only thing you hold back is the note card with the cross-references. That’s a B-7-C exemption.”
    Dunphy nodded. “This come up a lot?” he asked .
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œMK-IMAGE.”
    The Drone shook his head, crossed the room, and came back with a form. “I process about three hundred fifty file requests a week, and I haven’t seen one of those cards in a couple of months. So you figure it out.”
    Dunphy looked at the form he’d been handed. There were only a few lines, and he filled them in .
    Subject: Schidlof, Leo
    Requester: Piper, Edward
    IRO: Dunphy, Jack
    Date: February 23, 1999
    COI Liaison: R. White
    Returning the form to the Drone, Dunphy crossed the room to a bank of Xerox machines and began copying. As he stood in the blinding wash of the strobe light, it occurred to him for the first time that what he was doing might be dangerous .

Chapter 12
    The eagles on Murray Fremaux’s uniform lifted when he shrugged his shoulders, leaning forward in the bar at the Sheraton Premiere .
    â€œThere’s no such thing,” he said, “as the 143rd Surgical Air Wing. It doesn’t exist. Never has.”
    Dunphy sipped his beer and sighed .
    â€œOfficially,” the colonel added .
    â€œAhh,” Dunphy said, and leaned forward. “Tell me about it.”
    â€œIt’s a black unit. Used to be headquartered in New Mexico.”
    â€œAnd now?”
    â€œMiddla nowhere.”
    Dunphy frowned. “Sounds kinda relative. I mean, if I was driving a—”
    â€œThe closest city is Vegas—but that’s about two hundred miles to the southwest. We’re talking high desert. Smudge sticks and tumbleweed . Jackalopes . a”
    Dunphy thought about it. “Whatta they do?”
    â€œHoodoo!”
    â€œThe 143rd.”
    Murray laughed. “I wasn’t