‘I’ve seen the magnetometer printouts,’ O’Connor agreed, his mind racing at the size of the abyss the experiments out of Gakona might generate.
‘And the sunspot power is still rising dramatically,’ Jackson added, pulling up an image of massive explosions on the surface of the sun. ‘NASA estimates sunspot power will also peak in 2012, at levels we’ve never seen before. Could be the Hopi Indians and the Maya were on to something.’
‘You think there’s something in all that mystic mumbo jumbo?’
‘Perhaps. As a civilisation we think we’re fairly advanced, but back in 850 AD, the Maya predicted that at 11.11 a.m. on Friday 21 December 2012 our planet would line up precisely with the Milky Way’s black hole. Astronomers have now confirmed the Maya were right, down to the last second. If the Maya could make a prediction that accurate, 800 years before Galileo picked up the first telescope, maybe we should be sitting up and taking a lot more notice of their warning.’
23
WASHINGTON
Vice President Walter Montgomery was due to host some senior CIA officers at an evening function on the lawns of his official home, a stately white nineteenth-century mansion overlooking Massachusetts Avenue. He’d asked DDO Wiley to come early for a meeting in the first-floor library.
The vice presidential library was finished in white timber with light-beige wallpaper and matching lounge chairs. It had a certain New England charm about it, in the midst of which both men seemed distinctly out of place.
‘I trust that asshole O’Connor’s enjoying the delights of Gakona,’ the Vice President said, indicating Wiley should take a seat.
‘It’s about as close to Siberia as I could send him, Mr Vice President. He’ll stay there until I work out something more permanent.’
‘Good. Now, have you seen the latest claims by that Weizman bitch?’ Vice President Montgomery flung a copy of the latest edition of The Mayan Archaeologist onto the elegant white coffee table. The cover was dominated by a striking photograph of Dr Aleta Weizman, standing beside the Pyramid of the Lost World in the jungles of Tikal, Guatemala. The headline read:
Weizman Claims CIA Involvement in Guatemalan Genocide
Allegations made against the School of the Americas
Wiley knew the reality behind that headline lay deep in the Guatemalan jungle, and his reasons for ensuring that the truth didn’t surface were far more pressing than those of the Vice President. Should he brief Montgomery on the diaries the CIA’s man in San Pedro, the ex-Nazi commandant of Mauthausen, had kept? Diaries that were now missing —
‘I need hardly remind you, Howard, that we go to the polls shortly,’ Montgomery thundered on, ‘and right now we’re up to our bootstraps in hog shit in Iraq and Afghanistan. The last thing the President or I need is the media spotlight back on Intelligence or secret prisons and water-boarding. Or the fucking Guatemalans, for that matter. Or the Mexicans, Venezuelans or anyone else from that garbage dump down south. Nixon got it right about Central America. Nobody gives a fuck about the place.’
‘I agree, Mr Vice President. It’s a shit box.’
‘I don’t care how you do it, but put some heat on this Weizman woman. Find out who controls archaeologists’ licences and send them a donation from a grateful nation with the proviso she gets blacklisted. Anyone who thinks that someone other than Columbus discovered America doesn’t deserve to have a licence. And put her under surveillance. If she even looks like exposing our operations in Guatemala, Paraguay or anywhere else, get rid of her. Meantime, keep the CIA out of the fucking media.’
‘Leave it to me, Mr Vice President. By the time I’ve finished with Weizman, and O’Connor for that matter, the AP numbers will look even better.’ Wiley and Montgomery had both been greatly encouraged by an Associated Press poll that had claimed twelve per cent of Americans had either never heard of the CIA or couldn’t rate it.
As the DDO left the vice presidential residence later in the evening, a move was already taking shape on Wiley’s sinister chessboard. It was a move that would require the recall of O’Connor from Gakona, but it would eliminate Weizman permanently.
24
CIA HEADQUARTERS, LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
Unlike his predecessor, Howard Wiley always kept his office door closed. O’Connor, ignoring the protestations of Wiley’s secretary, knocked firmly and walked in. The first thing O’Connor noticed was the modern furniture. His previous assignment had involved a Muslim terrorist threat against the Beijing Olympics. Back then the DDO, Tom McNamara, had been an understanding ally, pressing for negotiation with the Iranians and the Syrians, rather than committing the United States to another bloody war they couldn’t win in the Middle East. The cracked and torn brown leather couches McNamara insisted on keeping had been almost welcoming; but they had gone, along with his old boss’s familiar greeting of ‘Come in, buddy. Have a seat.’
‘You took your time getting here, O’Connor. Sit down,’ Wiley ordered without looking up, gesturing to a small straight-backed chair as he continued to read from a crimson dossier that lay open on his polished desk.
O’Connor smiled to himself. Offering someone a small chair and then ignoring their presence was the classic authoritarian bully tactic, designed to make people nervous, and was often employed by individuals who were highly insecure themselves. O’Connor glanced around the refurnished room. The office was lit by a number of tasteful table lamps, and the panelled walls were decorated with oils of the Civil War. Myriad photographs of Wiley with various visiting dignitaries were scattered around the office. Amongst the most prominent was that of Wiley shaking hands with George W. Bush, and one with the Vice President at the School of the Americas, but it was the framed photographs on a side table that caught O’Connor’s eye. The first was a photograph of Wiley and Pope John Paul II, together with an archbishop he couldn’t identify. In time he would come to know Salvatore Felici very well.
Unlike the archbishop, the man with Wiley in the second photograph was instantly recognisable. A very young Wiley was standing outside Washington’s Mayflower Hotel with a smiling J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the FBI. The DDO continued to ignore him, and O’Connor wondered about Wiley’s early relationship with Hoover. Howard Wiley, O’Connor knew, had never married. He’d started his career in the FBI, and his stellar rise had attracted widespread comment in an old-fashioned media not renowned for their criticism of a public hero like Hoover. Within six months, a young, wet-behind-the-ears Wiley, with virtually no field experience, had been appointed to Hoover’s personal staff at FBI headquarters.
‘I’ve got a new assignment for you, O’Connor,’ Wiley said finally.
‘And I was just getting used to Alaska.’
The DDO glared at O’Connor. Howard Wiley was known throughout the intelligence community as ‘the Weasel’. He had a square face, a long thin nose and a high forehead. His reddish, spiky hair was brushed back without a part. Barely five-foot four, Wiley was vertically challenged, and O’Connor wondered whether Wiley’s ruthless arrogance was a product of Napoleon Syndrome, an early close association with J. Edgar Hoover, or just a case of having the DNA of an asshole. Probably a combination of all three, O’Connor thought wryly. ‘Our file on Dr Aleta Weizman,’ Wiley said, pushing the slim file across the desk. ‘She’s an archaeologist working for that tin-pot Guatemalan government we silenced a decade ago. Archaeologists should stick to digging up old bones. This one’s got a very big mouth.’
‘I would have thought that with bin Laden and his Jihadists, not to mention the Taliban, we’ve got more important things on our plate than obscure archaeologists, Howard.’
Wiley’s face turned the colour of his hair. ‘I’ll decide what’s fucking important around here, O’Connor,’ he exploded, clenching his fist and slamming it on the desk. ‘Just find out everything there is to know about this Weizman bitch, then silence her!’
‘That seems excessive. She might be on the front cover, but The Mayan Archaeologist’s probably got a
print run in single figures. Hardly mainstream news.’
The DDO glared at O’Connor again, the veins near his temple clearly visible. ‘You’re skating on fucking thin ice, O’Connor. The Vice President’s pretty pissed over your suggestions about negotiating with terrorists, so I suggest you leave the analysis to me, and do as you’re fucking told!’
Wiley’s words confirmed O’Connor’s suspicions. This was coming right from the top, and the weasel was keeping to the letter of the CIA’s manual of assassination. Never write anything down.
‘Weizman is attending some archaeological circle wank in Vienna next month,’ Wiley continued, his eyes still blazing. ‘And you’re going as someone who has an interest in Mayan archaeology, so I suggest you get busy on the jargon.’ Wiley drew himself up to what he could muster in height, indicating the meeting was at an end. O’Connor suppressed a grin. Wiley looked shorter standing up than he did sitting down.
O’Connor left Wiley’s office deep in thought. A sixth sense, honed by countless hours on assignment in the field, told him there was more to the Weizman case. Wiley was hiding something, but what? O’Connor knew the involvement of the CIA and the White House in Guatemala had been long and bloody. Had Dr Weizman somehow stumbled onto the CIA’s operations in Central America? He headed for the CIA’s archives.
Howard Wiley stared out the window of his office for several minutes, his anger still at boiling point. The Vice President was right: O’Connor had a bad attitude – he could not be trusted. As he opened his usual full inbox of emails, Wiley knew he would need a back-up plan to ensure his orders were carried out. He clicked open an email from Salvatore Felici, now a senior cardinal at the Vatican.
Greetings, my friend, and congratulations on your new appointment – very well deserved!
The Holy Father asked me to pass on his thanks for last week’s briefing on the Middle East. Most informative, and rest assured the Cardinal Secretary of State will do everything he can to support your president’s efforts in this troubled region.
In the meantime, we are increasingly concerned over Central America and the threats this region poses to the Holy Church, and we are dismayed by the groundswell of support for liberation theology. Pope John Paul II was unequivocally opposed to this movement and the policy has not changed under the new pontiff. If anything, our opposition has strengthened.
I have also attached an article by a Guatemalan archaeologist, Dr Weizman. You will recall we had to deal with her father when we were in Guatemala City. The daughter presents an even bigger danger. She is not only critical of both the CIA and the Vatican, but I understand from my own sources that she is now investigating deaths in her family. This is a grassfire for the moment, but must be dealt with before it gets out of control and embarrasses both our interests.
Wiley sucked his teeth in annoyance. Emails between Felici’s office and Wiley’s were encrypted for transmission, but they remained unencrypted at the source and Felici had broken a very explicit rule. The operation they were contemplating should never be written down, he thought, scanning the rest of the correspondence.
It would be most useful to discuss these issues of mutual concern in person. How soon can you come to Rome? The regular briefing from your station staff here could focus on the Central American region, and if time allows, we will organise a private audience with the Holy Father.
I have just received some cases of outstanding wine from friends in Bordeaux, so we can discuss the finer points of these matters over one or two excellent bottles of red.
Yours in Christ,
Salvatore Felici
Howard Wiley swivelled in his chair and stared unseeingly across the grassland towards the trees and the Potomac River beyond. He drummed his fingers on his desk. The mission he had given O’Connor was totally deniable, and if O’Connor were to meet with an unfortunate accident, no one would question it. He needed to tap Felici for contacts in some of the darker back alleys of Rome. Pope Pius XII’s decoration of General ‘Wild Bill’ Donovan with the Grand Cross of the Order of Sylvester had paid dividends, and since World War Two, the bond between the Vatican and the CIA had strengthened even further. In 1978 President Carter’s wife, Rosalynn, had a private audience with Pope John Paul II, during which she delivered a letter from Washington that formalised what had been going on since Donovan’s time. The Carter letter approved regular CIA briefings for the pontiff and his senior cardinals. Now, if they needed to, both the director of the CIA and Wiley could reach His Holiness on his private line, Vatican extension 3101, but Wiley routinely dealt with Cardinal Felici.
Cardinal Felici’s email was timely. The CIA’s station in Rome was only a short distance from the Vatican, and it would be no trouble to organise a special briefing on the growing threat to the Catholic Church in Central America.
25
VIENNA
The Mayan conference was not due to start until 8.30 a.m., but O’Connor was in position by seven, choosing a nearby coffee shop from which he could observe the entrance to Aleta’s apartment in the Stephansdom Quarter.
Three-quarters of an hour later, Dr Weizman emerged from her apartment wearing a tailored black pants-suit and spike-heeled ankle boots. O’Connor followed at a discreet distance, watching her descend the path that led towards the Schwarzenplatz U-Bahn station. Satisfied, he retraced his steps. The entrance to her apartment block was in Sterngasse, not far from Shakespeare and Company, one of Vienna’s best-known British bookshops. The big double wooden doors that opened onto the lower courtyard were heavy, but for a man of O’Connor’s expertise, they were not an obstacle. He checked the narrow street, but there were only three pedestrians and they were all heading away from him. The cast-iron latch flipped back easily under his knife blade. Closing the door behind him, he found himself in a deserted stone courtyard with several entrances, all protected by steel security doors.
Apartment number four was listed under the intercom on the nearest entrance and identified by just the name ‘Weizman’. Like most security doors, O’Connor reflected, they provided more psychological peace of mind than actual protection, and he slipped a small tension wrench into the simple five-pin and tumbler barrel lock and applied pressure on the plug. Using a small diamond-shaped pick, he quickly raked the pins, before again working his way from the rear of the barrel to force up two that were not yet flush with the shear line.
The cam turned easily and O’Connor quietly swung the steel door open. Climbing to the second floor, he was again confronted with a pin-and-tumbler lock. At his first attempt, the lock didn’t open. O’Connor delved into his soft leather briefcase and selected a pick with a finer head. Top student of more than one of the CIA’s training courses, O’Connor fleetingly thought of the old master safecracker who’d been recruited from the dark side to teach CIA officers the art of break and enter. To the south-east of Richmond, Virginia, on Rochambeau Drive, was a place listed as the Camp Peary Naval Reservation. In fact, it was one of several top-secret CIA training bases where O’Connor had spent many hours honing the shadowy crafts of his profession. As he applied just enough pressure to hold the rear pins over the shear line, he carefully felt for the final pin and eased it up over the ledge he’d created with the torsion wrench.
O’Connor closed the solid cedar door quietly behind him. A short hallway led into the lounge room, which overlooked Sterngasse and Judengasse. To the left another corridor led past the spacious kitchen to the bedrooms and the bathroom at the far end. He looked around the lounge room. Soft white wool carpets and gold-and-black velvet drapes complemented the rococo Louis XV furniture. The walls were lined with mahogany bookcases, and O’Connor quickly ran his eye over the contents. Given Weizman’s background, it was not surprising to find whole shelves devoted to archaeology, and in particular to the Maya. There were works by the legendary Alfred Maudslay, who in the late nineteenth century opened up the ancient Mayan civilisation to more modern research; as well as publications by J E S Thompson on Maya Arithmet
ic and The Solar Year of the Mayas. Other shelves were devoted to works by Newton, Einstein, Erwin Schrödinger and Max Planck, the latter three inscribed by the famous authors to Professor Levi Weizman. O’Connor whistled softly as he recalled his earlier years at Trinity College in Dublin, where he’d wrestled with Schrödinger’s equations that described fiendishly difficult issues in quantum mechanics, like the movement of an electron around an atom. Levi Weizman had obviously rubbed shoulders with some of the finest scientists the world had seen.
The spacious apartment had three bedrooms, one of which was again lined from floor to ceiling with books. O’Connor tried the large wall safe, but it was locked. It would take time to crack it, so he left it for the moment and turned his attention to the main bedroom. He carefully went through it, but found nothing to explain Washington’s interest. He picked up a folder entitled Bad Arolsen Records from the bedside table and flicked through it. In 2006 the German government had finally agreed to release the Nazi records on seventeen million people who had been imprisoned, tortured or murdered at the hands of the Third Reich. Two books were also on the bedside table, The Popol Vuh, the sacred book of the ancient Quiché Maya, one of the most powerful Mayan tribes of the Guatemalan highlands, and The Hidden Maya Code by Monsignor Matthias Jennings. O’Connor surmised that Weizman might be attending Jennings’ lecture. He replaced the book exactly where he’d found it and headed for the bathroom.
THE MAYA CODEX Page 15
