occurred, they were repeated -frequently, no more than a few hundred feet above the objects."
6 4What are these?" asked Dietz, pointing at several dark circles.
"Farm silos," replied the major.
"To make certain, we had them examined by the local police."
"And those?" said Karin, her index finger on a series of three photographs depicting long, dark rectangular images with muted lights on one side.
"They look dangerously like missile sites."
"Railroad stations. You're seeing the lamps under the overhang, next to the tracks," answered Gaston.
"And these?" Latham used the pointer and touched a photograph that showed the outlines of two large airplanes on what appeared to be a field off the major runway of a private airport.
"Aircraft purchased by Saudi Arabia, awaiting transport to Riyadh. We checked the Ministry of Export and found everything to be in order."
"They bought French, not American?" said Gerald Anthony.
"Many do, Lieutenant. Our aircraft industry is superb. Our Mirages are considered to be among the finest fighter planes in the world. Also, one saves millions of francs by having them flown from Beauvais instead of, say, Seattle, Washington."
"I'll grant you that Major."
And so it went for the rest of the morning every photograph scrutinized with magnifiers, a hundred questions asked and answered. Everything led to nowhere.
"What is it?" exclaimed Latham.
"What is it they've got that we don't see?"
In the restricted cavernous hall in the bowels of British intelligence, the most experienced analysts and cryptographers of MI-5, MI-6, and Her Majesty's Secret Service pored over the cartons of material from Gunter Jdger's house on the Rhine. Suddenly there was a firm, controlled voice that rose above the hum of nearby machines.
"I've got something," said, a woman in front of one of the endless computers around the huge room.
"I'm not sure what it means, but it was buried in the deep code."
"Explain, please." The MI-6 director in charge rushed to her station, the silent Witkowski at his side.
""Daedalus will fly, nothing can stop him." Those are the decoded words."
"What the devil do they mean?"
"Something about the sky, sir. In Greek mythology, Daedalus escaped from Crete with feathered wings attached to his arms by wax, but his son, Icarus, flew too high and the sun melted his wax.
He fell to his death into the sea."
"What in blazes has that got to do with Water Lightning?"
"Frankly, I don't know, sir, but there are three gradations of codes, A, B, and C, C being the most complex."
"Yes, I'm aware of that, Mrs. Graham."
"Well, this was in the C classification, which is equivalent to our top secret, which means it's the most restricted of the ciphers.
Others in the neo movement might intercept it, but it's doubtful they could break it. The message was meant for very few eyes."
"Any idea where it came from?" asked the American colonel.
"Is there a date, a time?"
"Fortunately, to both questions, yes. It was a fax from here, from London, and the time was forty-two hours ago."
"Well done! Can you trace it?"
"I have. It's one of yours, sir. MI-Six, Euro-Division, German section."
"shit! Sorry, old girl. There are over sixty officers in that section-just a moment! Each has to enter a two-digit marker, the machine won't transmit without it. It has to be there!
"It is, sir. It's Officer Meyer Gold, chief of the section."
"Meyer? That's impossible! He's a Jew, to begin with, and lost both sets of grandparents in the camps. He requested the German section for just that reason."
"Perhaps he's not actually Jewish, sir."
"Then why did we all attend his son's bar mitzvah last year?"
"Then the only other explanation is that someone else used his marker."
"The manual makes clear that each individual keeps his marker to himself."
"I'm afraid I can't help you any further," said the clear
eyed, gray-haired Mrs. Graham, returning to her stack of materials.
"I may-or I may not," said another analyst several stations away, a black West Indian officer, a Rhodes scholar from the Bahamas.
4 CWhat is it, Vernal?" asked the MI-6 director, walking quickly to the Bahamian's table.
"Another Code C entry. The name Daedalus appears, only with no marker, no London, and it was sent thirty seven hours ago from Washington."
"What's the communication?"
"Daedalus in position, countdown begun." And then it ends, and I'll say it in German.
"Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein bibrer jdger." How about that?" "Did you trace the fax?" asked Witkowski.
"Naturally. The American State Department, the office of Jacob Weinstein, undersecretary for Middle Eastern affairs. He's a highly regarded negotiator."
"Good God, they're using well-respected Jewish personnel for their covers."
"That shouldn't surprise us," said the Bahamian.
"The only