The Magdalene Cipher by Jim Hougan

took a small black case from inside his jacket and flipped it open. Brading glanced at the laminated eagle, squinted at the name, and, apparently satisfied, gestured for his visitor to come into the living room .
    â€œYou want some lemonade?” he asked, rolling toward the kitchen .
    â€œSure,” Dunphy said, glancing around the room. “Lemonade would be nice.” His eyes fell on a gold-framed postcard that hung on the wall beside a small bookshelf. It was a picture of a religious statue, a golden-robed Madonna standing in a black marble chapel, gazing out at the camera. Surrounded by lightning bolts and clouds, and with armloads of carnations at her feet, the Madonna herself was inexplicably black. Coal black. And at her feet was a printed inscription:
    La Vierge Noire
Protectrice de la ville
    A handwritten note on white matting read Einsiedeln, Switz., June 1987 .
    Weird, Dunphy thought. But that was as far as it went. The postcard meant nothing to him, really, and so he let his eyes wander along the wall. There was a Keane painting of the usual doe-eyed waif, replete with a single tear, and farther along, something stranger: a square, black cloth hung like a curtain from the wall, concealing something that Dunphy very much wanted to see .
    â€œI make it myself,” Brading said, rolling into the room with a glass of lemonade. “All natural ingredients.”
    â€œNo kidding.” Dunphy took the glass and sipped. He paused for a second, savoring the taste. “Now that’s what I call delicious.”
    â€œMe and some buddies,” Brading said, nodding at a faded snapshot in a plain gold frame. The picture was of four men in black jumpsuits, standing together in a field of wheat. Their arms were around each other’s shoulders, and they were smiling at the camera. Dunphy saw that one of the men was Brading, and another was Rhinegold. The photo was inscribed:
    Men in Black!
Ha Ha Ha!!!
    Brading gazed at the picture with a grin. “In-joke,” he said .
    Dunphy nodded, pretending to understand. “I see you and Mike were working together.”
    Brading chuckled, pleasantly surprised. “Yeah! You know Mike, huh?”
    â€œEveryone knows Mike.”
    â€œI’ll bet they do. Whatta guy!”
    Dunphy and Brading gazed at the picture, grinning inanely, saying nothing. Finally, Brading broke the silence. “So what can I do for ya?”
    â€œWell,” Dunphy said, taking out a notebook and settling into a wing chair. “You can tell me about the 143rd.”
    Brading furrowed his brow. “Well, I guess . . . I mean, since you and Mike go back a ways . . .” Then he shook his head. “But . . . you don’t mind me asking—just how high are you cleared, anyway?”
    Dunphy coughed. “The usual. I’ve got Q-clearances through Cosmic—”
    â€œA Q-clearance isn’t gonna cut it. We’re talking about some very heavy insulation.”
    â€œAnd, beyond that, I go up through Andromeda.”
    Brading grunted, suddenly satisfied. “Oh, well— Andromeda . I figured that. I mean, being with the SRS and all, you’d have to be. But, well—I had to ask. I’m sure you understand.”
    Dunphy nodded. “Of course.”
    â€œAnyway,” Brading went on, “I was with the 143rd for, I don’t know, maybe twenty-four years. Started out in Roswell—only then, it wasn’t the 143rd. It was one of them no-name units that were part of the 509th.”
    â€œWhat’s that?”
    Brading frowned. “The 509th Composite Bomb Group. Ain’t you read your history?”
    â€œOf course,” Dunphy said, placating the old guy with a smile .
    â€œThey dropped the A-bomb on the Japs,” Brading explained, then added with a wink, “among other things.”
    A knowing smile seemed to be required, and Dunphy provided it. “Oh . . . right,” he said,