I MAY NEVER BE ABLE to publish the whole story about the conspiracy. The danger is too great. I am not so worried about myself, but my friends could be hurt and complete disclosure, especially at this time, would probably make it impossible for the key person in the affair to carry out his fight against the intelligence agencies. They already have him in prison. And one misstep by anybody, even by someone indirectly involved like myself, could give them reason to put him away for good.

And so I can only tell part of the story. Specifically, I can tell about that mad half-hour when I learned the real reason for the great snows and saw the aftermath of the "accident" that almost killed a man in Harvard Square.

It happened almost a year ago, and at the time I did not realize that the separate events of that half-hour were related, integrated into the amazing whole. I only thought to raise my camera at the rest.

I had been wandering through East Cambridge with a camera, looking for urban landscapes and trying to feel like an artist. But after a couple of hours I had found nothing that would get me into the Museum of Modern Art and snow clouds were soaking up what was left of the late afternoon light. I decided to head home.

As I waited for the bus that would take me up Cambridge St. to Harvard Square, it began to snow--a sudden burst, the kind that blows fiendishly hard little snow crystals into your face no matter how deeply you hide your head in the hood of your coat.

I stood in the stinging cold for 15 minutes before the bus came. It was crowded, but I managed to find a seat in the back. It was a good seat from which I could easily eavesdrop on four or five different conversations. For a while I listened to an elderly woman complain to the young man beside her about the constant snow. It was the worst winter she could remember, and today she was especially angry because the weather had forced her bridge club to cancel its weekly party.

The man nodded in sympathy as she said, "I wish the rest of the girls had the spirit to fight this crazy stuff. Look, I don't let it stop me. I go out every day." And she hoisted a little bag of groceries as proof.

The man was about to reply when, bam! a well-thrown snowball smashed into the window about six inches from the woman's ear. Bam! Bam! Two more hit the bus further up. Kids on their way home from school had us pinned down at a stoplight.

They were good. It was a well-planned attack, and they were showing no mercy. They were slinging big, juicy iceballs and aiming right for the windows.

By the time the light changed we had taken more than a dozen direct hits, and everyone on board was cringing away from the windows. The old lady peered nervously at the glob of wet snow still sticking to the outside of her own window and clutched her groceries to her breast. She had been lucky this time. The window had saved her.

There was a lull in the conversation for a while after the attack. And it was the lull that enabled me to overhear that first phrase.

"Weather warfare."

I had just been sitting there observing how the snow melted off my shoes and made a little rivulet on the floor of the bus, when those words took hold of me.

"Weather warfare."

And then, "Enhanced storms...."