The Maya Codex (27 page)

O’Connor flicked back into his encrypted log-in and dialled up Wiley’s access code. While he and Kate Braithwaite had been working on the Beijing assignment, O’Connor had befriended and learnt from a brilliant young hacker whom the CIA had wisely put on the payroll at Langley. In his short life, Corey Barrino had worked under the pseudonym of ‘Byte Blaster’, hacking into the Pentagon’s and NASA’s classified networks. Byte Blaster had once hacked into the very bowels of Langley itself and left a little message for the Agency’s director. The dent in the wall from the director’s paperweight was still there.

Wiley must have changed his access codes, O’Connor thought, momentarily frustrated as
Access Denied
flashed on the screen. He knew that Wiley would have added a ‘salt’ to the DES, the Data Encryption Standard Algorithm. Corey’s tutelage on Hacking 101 had taught O’Connor that two characters added to either end of a password – characters that could be chosen from upper- and lower-case letters of the alphabet, or the numbers zero to nine or a full stop or a forward slash – gave a choice of sixty-four different characters at either end of a password. That, in turn, provided a possible 4096 different salts. Even though Barrino had provided O’Connor with access to Langley’s supercomputers, it might still take some time to crack Wiley’s sophisticated encryption. The way this assignment was shaping up, time might not be on Aleta Weizman’s side, O’Connor thought grimly.

Acting on a hunch, but one born of countless operations in the field, O’Connor dialled up one of Barrino’s simpler but nevertheless devastatingly effective programs. The hacker had based it on a program which phishers used to acquire hundreds of thousands of email addresses. Criminal gangs used a similar system to dupe people into releasing bank account numbers by posing as Technical Services from Bank of America, Citibank or any of a hundred other financial institutions in order that ‘a problem with the records might be fixed’. Unwary Americans lost more than $3 billion a year to email scams, and for someone like Corey Barrino, it would have been child’s play to secure the cardinal’s personal email address. Using standard Vatican email addresses, O’Connor typed in five possible email combinations for Felici and set the program to ‘run’.

Corey’s program would have seized most networks, but the Cray supercomputers in the basements at Langley were capable of 400 000 million calculations a second. It took less than ten seconds to confirm the email address and Felici’s password. [email protected]; password: ‘pectoralcrossmauthausen’. The password was unusual, O’Connor thought, as
Welcome Eminence
appeared on the screen. He scanned Felici’s inbox without finding any emails from the CIA. Quickly he flicked to the sent box. The Cardinal had obviously not given much thought to anyone getting into his system. O’Connor opened an email to Wiley’s personal address that revealed a whole thread of previous emails, including one that Felici had sent to Wiley a month earlier.

O’Connor read through the correspondence, quietly cursing himself that he had even contemplated carrying out the DDO’s orders. But the CIA instilled and demanded loyalty, and that loyalty had but one direction: upwards. O’Connor read Cardinal Felici’s initial email with a rising sense of anger. Clearly Wiley and the then Archbishop Felici had both been involved in the disappearance of Weizman’s family, but it was the last part of Wiley’s response that rocked O’Connor to the core.

I plan to be in Rome on the 24th, and I’d be delighted to brief you personally on the situation in Central America, and perhaps we can discuss this missing Maya Codex that Weizman has raised in her article. For reasons I will explain, the codex poses a threat. If Weizman is searching for it, it will be important to get to it before she does. The Weizman issue is in hand, but I need a back-up plan. I understand that Sodano is back in Rome. If you can get me his contact details it might help me with an internal problem as well as the Weizman case.

O’Connor took another deep breath. Suddenly his mission had become personal. He had no doubt who the ‘internal problem’ was, and any lingering loyalty evaporated, replaced by a gut-wrenching realisation that he no longer had a future in the Firm. Worse still, as long as Wiley held the appointment of DDO, the mostly decent men and women who every day put their lives on the line for the CIA and the country were now at risk. Abraham Lincoln had abolished slavery. Thomas Jefferson had authored the Declaration of Independence and championed a separation of church and state. Theodore Roosevelt had been the first to recognise the need to conserve natural resources. But now, the debacle in Iraq had damaged the reputation of the US around the world and the country was losing its way. With the Vice President protecting him, Wiley was a loose cannon. O’Connor knew it was time to act, even if that meant being on the run until he could find a way to bring Wiley to justice.

O’Connor quickly made a copy of the correspondence and locked his laptop away in the safe. He took the lift to the lobby and then walked purposefully but calmly towards the nearest U-Bahn. The hacking operation had taken longer than he’d planned and there was no time for a leisurely tram ride tonight. Wiley had broken his own rules and those of the Agency, O’Connor thought, as he leapt aboard the train for
Schwedenplatz
.

Out of habit, O’Connor scanned the half-full carriage then returned to his thoughts, recalling the DDO’s explosive burst of anger when he’d advised him against going ahead with the Weizman assassination. Wiley’s email had been sent not long after that interview, which might explain his lapse in revealing Sodano’s name. It was now very clear that Wiley had given Sodano the same mission as O’Connor, breaking another of the cardinal rules. Aleta Weizman had stumbled onto something far bigger than the ruthless murder of her family. What had Wiley and Cardinal Felici been up to in Guatemala that was so damaging, Wiley was prepared to have an archaeologist murdered? And what was in this mysterious Maya Codex that had caught the attention of both the Vatican and the CIA? Would it perhaps enable O’Connor to expose Wiley and Felici? He resolved to find out. Weizman undoubtedly held the key to discovering it, and if he was to get to the codex before Wiley or Felici … suddenly it became very important Aleta be kept alive. O’Connor looked at his watch. Ten p.m.

He had a sinking feeling he might already be too late.

31

THE VATICAN, ROME

C
ardinal Salvatore Felici was known to keep one of the finest cellars in Rome. Invitations to his private dining room in the
Palazzo della Sacra Inquisizione
were much sought after, but rarely issued – unless the visitor possessed information or was in a position to influence a particular course of events to Felici’s satisfaction. Howard Wiley was in a position to do both, and the two men took their seats at the oak dining table. Felici nodded to the attractive young nun who was hovering near the heavy Louis XIV sideboard. Sister Bridgette’s appointment to Felici’s personal staff had raised more than one eyebrow in the Vatican.

‘Château Latour 1961, Howard,’ Felici remarked as he poured from the crystal decanter. Felici’s command of the English language was impressive, a hint of Oxford contrasting with Wiley’s southern drawl. ‘I’ve heard it said that the 1961 Bordeaux vintage in Pauillac was comparable to the great wines of 1928 and ’29.’ Cardinal Felici held the fine Waterford crystal glass aloft towards the chandelier, allowing a ray of light to stream through the deep pomegranate hue of the
grand vin
claret.

‘Yes, although it’s surprising that Pauillac has so few
châteaux
at the Premiers Crus end of the spectrum,’ Wiley replied. ‘From memory, the only other two are Château Lafite-Rothschild and Château-Mouton Rothschild.’ Wiley sniffed the Latour’s bouquet. ‘Spicy. A hint of liquorice and leather.’ Howard Wiley appreciated the finer things in life, and like his mentor, J. Edgar Hoover, the DDO was adept at using the public purse to attain them. Wiley’s cellar, although not quite up to Felici’s standards, was extensive.

‘I read the file on the Weizman woman, Howard. She’s becoming more than a nuisance. If she keeps digging into the demise of her family … ’ Felici’s voice trailed off while he waited for Sister Bridgette to serve the first course of scallops and garlic sauce, lightly grilled in their shells. ‘It could get awkward for both of us,’ he concluded, after she had withdrawn.

‘I agree, Salvatore. I have the matter in hand. Perhaps people like Weizman shouldn’t be surprised when unfortunate accidents befall them. That said, it doesn’t hurt to have a back-up plan. The contact you gave me has already been briefed.’ Wiley always operated on the need-to-know principle that was the cornerstone of intelligence agencies around the world, and he had briefed Sodano personally. Neither his chief of station in Vienna nor Felici were aware that Sodano had also been tasked with eliminating the troublesome O’Connor. O’Connor’s demise in Vienna would be passed off as an unfortunate accident.

‘Glad to be of help, Howard.’ Felici replenished both wine glasses. ‘Weizman has been very foolish, but there must be no mistakes.’ Felici also worked on a need-to-know basis. He kept his real fears over what Weizman might be investigating to himself. Links between the Vatican and the CIA and the Guatemalan death squads could always be denied, but if Weizman dug too deeply into what had happened at Mauthausen, Felici’s family connections to the Nazis would be exposed. He was determined that would never be allowed to happen.

‘What’s your take on Weizman’s assertions on this Maya Codex?’ Wiley asked.

‘Why would the CIA be interested in an ancient codex, Howard?’ Felici probed, his thin lips parting in a humourless smile. They were like two Olympic fencers, each
en garde,
each ready to parry, each ready with a riposte.

‘A couple of reasons. Firstly, if such a codex were to be discovered by someone like Weizman, her profile would immediately rival that of Howard Carter when he discovered of the tomb of Tutankhamen, which would serve neither of our interests, Salvatore. It would be far better if it were found by one of our own.’

‘All the more reason there must be no mistakes in dealing with her.’ ‘That’s understood,’ Wiley said, controlling his irritation. ‘But if what is rumoured to be in the codex turns out to be true, it might be difficult to control public panic. Scientific data showing movement in the poles and a change in the earth’s magnetic field are already available, but fortunately the media isn’t taking much notice. The view in Washington is that the codex is just mystical nonsense, but if someone like Weizman were to find it and line up the scientific data with ancient Mayan predictions of a catastrophic pole shift, uncontrolled media headlines could blow this way out of proportion. Any suggestion that the financial centres of the world might finish up a thousand metres under water would cause investors to panic and seek safety in gold. There’d be a run on the banks and another stockmarket crash – one far worse than the 2008 panic. Worse even than the crash of 1929.’

Felici nodded, deep in thought, his mind more focused on the dangers the codex posed for the Holy Church.

‘The President thinks any alignment with the current scientific data and what might be in this codex is sheer coincidence, but he agrees the public should be shielded from it.’

‘I think your president is right. The Maya were uneducated savages who worshipped any number of pagan gods, and it’s a pity that all of their codices were not destroyed, but I agree: fear breeds fear. When it comes to the financial markets, investor panic is an uncontrollable phenomenon that defies logic.’

‘If this codex thing is not handled sensibly, Salvatore – and by that I mean if it gets into the wrong hands – it could threaten the entire financial system.’

‘If this Maya Codex exists, it will need to be kept from public view, at least until after 2012 … and perhaps beyond,’ Felici said, still more mindful of the threat the codex might pose to Catholic doctrine than the stockmarket. Cardinal Felici paused, reflecting on a more recent warning that had been delivered to the faithful by the blessed Virgin Mary when she had appeared at Fátima. Was her warning coming to fruition? Could the third warning and the Maya Codex be connected? Pope John Paul II had released a ‘translation’ of the third warning in June 2000, but Felici knew that the real warning was still buried in the Vatican’s archives. ‘We should maintain close cooperation on this, Howard,’ he concluded.

‘There is one other issue,’ Wiley said carefully. ‘When you and I were in Guatemala, one of our assets was based in San Pedro.’

‘Ah, yes. Father Hernandez.’

‘He kept detailed diaries … ’

Felici felt a chill run down his spine, but in a habit born of long years of practice, he gave nothing away. ‘Really? I thought Hernandez retired years ago. He must be in his late eighties by now?’

‘Early nineties actually, but still very sprightly for his age, or he was the last time he was seen around Lake Atitlán. He and his diaries disappeared three years ago, we think possibly to Peru. He apparently received a tip-off that certain enemies were on to him.’

‘Do we know what the diaries cover?’

‘Not exactly. But I’m led to believe he recorded a considerable amount of information on this missing codex.’

‘So if we find the diaries, they may lead us to the codex?’

‘They may. But more importantly the diaries may also contain details of our operations in Guatemala, and Hernandez’ escape from Nazi Germany. The CIA is not the only one looking for Hernandez – Mossad is more than a little interested as well.’

The blood drained from Felici’s face. ‘It would be extremely unfortunate if these diaries were to fall into the hands of the Israelis or anyone else, Howard. I will ask our papal nuncio in Guatemala City to keep his ear to the ground. Our papal nuncio in Lima can also be trusted, so I will make some enquiries on the possible Peruvian connection.’

Like two grand masters of the epee and the foil, Wiley and Felici watched each other’s every move, revealing neither their fears nor their plans for the diaries and the missing codex.