The Citadel Read Online Free PDF

Majestic."

"What does Majestic have to do with the Citadel, whatever it is, and the Organization?" Vaughn asked. "Are you saying Majestic-12 is the Organization?"

"I think Majestic was either part of the Organization or used by the Organization," Royce said. "Majestic actually had a previous operation several of its members were part of. One that was formed as World War II wound down."

Royce paused and then pulled out a chair and sat down at the table. He stared at the folders from the case. "It's a tenuous thread I'm weaving for you right now, but David wouldn't have made me get all this, then put it together and send it back to me like this, knowing I would get it if he'd been killed, unless there was some validity to it."

"All right," Vaughn allowed. "Weave it for us."

"Operation Paper Clip," Royce said. "A rather innocuous name for a very deceitful operation. As the Second World War was ending, the United States government was already looking ahead. There was a treasure trove of German scientists waiting to be plundered in the ashes of the Third Reich. That most of those scientists were Nazis mattered little to those who invented Paper Clip.

"Paper Clip used OSS operatives along with Intelligence officers from the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency to go after what they wanted. In some cases they were actually snatching Nazi scientists away from Army war crimes units. Both groups were hunting the same men, but with very different goals in mind. This happened despite the fact that President Truman had signed an executive order banning the immigration of Nazis into the United States.

"Paper Clip brought in a lot of German physicists and rocket experts—the V-1 and V-2 men. NASA got its start through them. Also brought in were those most haven't heard about—the biological and chemical warfare specialists. With plenty of human beings to experiment on, the Germans had gone far beyond what the Allies had even begun to fear. While the Americans were still stockpiling mustard gas as their primary chemical weapon, the Germans had three much more efficient and deadly gases by war's end: Tabun, Soman, and sarin—the last of which the American military immediately appropriated for its own use after the war."

"And the Black Eagle Trust?" Tai asked.

Royce nodded. "Paper Clip did more than just gather scientists. They grabbed a lot of loot. Everything the Germans and Japanese had plundered, Paper Clip went after. When Majestic was formed, Paper Clip came under its control."

"Wealth and knowledge," Tai said. "That's what Majestic-12 went after and controlled."

"And they appeared to have been headquartered in Area 51, on the Nellis Air Force range," Royce said.

"The alien place," Vaughn said.

"Good misdirection cover story," Royce said.

"What the hell does that have to do with these guys standing in the snow?" Vaughn held the original photo in his hand.

"Because Majestic sent them there," Royce said simply.

"To do what?" Vaughn asked.

"That's the critical question, isn't it?" Royce asked in turn.

"To find something?" Tai wondered.

Vaughn was still staring at the photo. "Maybe to build something—they were engineers after all."

"That isn't all that was in the packet," Royce said. He pulled out a folder with TOP SECRET stamped in red letters across the cover. "The U.S. military ran another operation in Antarctica from 1955 to 1956. Called Operation Deep Freeze. They went back to the site of the original base camps that supported High Jump and found most had been destroyed by the weather. Once again they established a main base at McMurdo Sound—which has remained to this day the primary research facility in Antarctica. Again, I believe Deep Freeze was a cover for the Organization to go back to the Citadel."

"And do what?" Tai asked.

Royce opened the folder. "I don't know what was put in the Citadel in the forties during High Jump, if anything. But this is some of what was put in it during Deep Freeze." He slid