The Pigeon Project

by Irving Wallace

  “Agreed,” said Kedrov.

  “Now let’s get back to the immediate business at hand.” Colonel Cutrone ran his fingers through his bushy hair, thinking, as he walked slowly back to the map. “Our hunt, to begin with daylight, will be two-pronged. First, we will enlist the population to join us in the search. We will release our cover story to the press, and to be passed around the city by word of mouth. A spy with an Italian secret. It will touch the patriotic fervor of the entire citizenry. We will also release the photograph of Professor MacDonald that Major Kedrov has brought along. We will make several thousand reproductions—for our exit guards to have handy, for merchants, for concierges, for everyone who can help. We will also print posters with MacDonald’s portrait for the populace to see wherever it turns.” He hesitated. “One problem.”

  “Yes? What is it?” Mayor Accardi wanted to know.

  “This MacDonald,” said Colonel Cutrone. “How do we identify him to the public? Do we say the man we want is Professor Davis MacDonald, who used his work as a gerontologist and scientist as a front for his espionage? Or do we give him another name?”

  For some seconds, the questions remained unanswered.

  Major Kedrov was the first to offer answers. “I see no advantage to using his real name. I see disadvantages. Some persons may know of him, of his reputation, and it would cast doubt on our cover story. Further, if the press leaked the story, MacDonald’s friends in high places would deny our cover story.”

  “There need be no press leaks, not with the news blackout,” said Colonel Cutrone. He looked at Kedrov. “So we should give our fugitive another name?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Very well. Another name, similar but different. I once had a foreign friend, a British police officer—dead now—whose name was MacGregor. Shall we call our spy MacGregor—E. MacGregor?”

  The conversion of MacDonald to MacGregor was agreeable to all parties.

  “Of course,” said Superintendent Trevisan, “one or two persons may recognize the face in the posters as MacDonald.”

  “What difference,” said Colonel Cutrone, “if there is a communications blackout? Later, we can say they were mistaken in identifying the foreign spy as MacDonald.”

  “True,” said the police superintendent.

  “So our first offensive against MacDonald today will be to bring the public in as collaborators,” continued Colonel Cutrone. “We have the great majority of our 100,000 population, plus many tourists, ready to report to us if they spot MacDonald anywhere in the city. Our second offensive takes place here—” His finger drew a slow circle around the perimeter of Venice. “A city two miles long, a mere hour and a half walk to cross it leisurely. To our advantage, 177 canals, covering twenty-eight miles, where MacDonald need not be sought intensively. There are relatively few closed boats. On the other hand, there are 3,000 alleys or small streets in this warren, adding up to ninety miles. To our disadvantage is the matter of time—these alleys and streets will have to be searched. The number of private residences to be entered? I cannot tell exactly, except that we have almost 30,000 house numbers in the city. Here you see what we call our busiest thoroughfare, the Grand Canal, which divides our city. It is 10,400 feet in length. Every foot will be patrolled. Gentlemen, we have 150,000 carabinieri in Italy. In the next day or two, as many as we choose to requisition will be in Venice, hunting and seeking our man.”

  He stood back, contemplated the map, and faced the others. “Sir. We will join our carabinieri with Trevisan’s questurini, as well as with outside police who will be transferred here today, and except for those on a shift of guard duty at the exits, we will use our army to move from the outer edges of the city inward toward its center. Our raiding squads will methodically enter and examine personnel in every apartment, shop, café, palazzo, public building. We will continue this hunt-and-search operation every hour, slowly closing in until we have caught Professor MacDonald in our vise.” He looked out the window. “Day is coming. It is time to begin. We will not fail.”

  * * *

  When Tim Jordan awakened, the bedroom was dark, and he thought it was still the middle of the night. Then he picked up his small travel clock off the lamp table beside the bed and saw that it was five minutes after ten in the morning. The bedroom was dark, he realized, because he had drawn the heavy green draperies, after closing the wooden shutters, to keep the sun from disturbing his sleep.

  He remembered, with a start, the events of last night, and that Professor MacDonald had shared his bed. He rolled over and saw that the opposite side of the bed was empty. That meant MacDonald had been up earlier. He hoped MacDonald hadn’t done anything risky.

  Worried, Jordan swung out of bed, bare-chested, bare-footed, wearing only his pajama bottoms. He padded to the door that stood between the bedroom and sitting room, and opened it a crack. He put his ear to it. He could hear first Alison’s voice, then MacDonald’s, and he felt relief.

  “Hey,” he called through the door, “are you both all right?”

  “We’re fine,” Alison called back.

  “Have you had breakfast?”

  “We’re waiting for you,” said Alison.

  ”You can order for me and yourselves,” said Jordan. “Call room service, Alison. Keep the professor away from the phone. In fact, after you order, keep him out of sight. In your bathroom. We don’t want the room-service waiter to see him. Order orange juice, scrambled eggs, hot tea, and rolls for me.”

  “All right,” Alison said. “What do you think is going on out there, since last night, since we—you know what?”

  “I don’t know, but I can guess. Look, put in your order while I shower. Be with you in a minute. Then we’ll organize ourselves.”

  He went to the bedroom draperies, tugged at the cords, pulling them back. Then he unlatched the double windows, reached out, and pushed back the shutters. What was revealed of the Venice morning was an overcast sky, a gloomy day, a choppy lagoon, the moored boats all rising and falling crazily and the water washing up on the street below.

  Presently, standing on the rubber mat in the bathtub, invigorated by the shower, he allowed his mind to stray back to last night. The rescue had been both successful and disappointing—successful in that he had actually pulled it off, freed MacDonald, but disappointing in that MacDonald’s captors had learned about the rescue too soon and blocked any possibility of his getting safely out of Venice. Leaving San Lazzaro under gunfire, Jordan had taken MacDonald and Alison straight to the side boat entrance of the Hotel Danieli. Since they had to traverse only a small corner of the lobby, he had hoped that they would go unnoticed. He had told them to hasten straight upstairs to his suite. Once they had gone, he had backed the motorboat out of the canal and turned it over to Cipolate. When he had rejoined MacDonald and Alison in the suite, he had found the professor unnerved by the experience. Jordan had soothed him with some cognac, diverted him with small talk about Venice while avoiding any discussion of his still-dangerous predicament, and at last got him to go to sleep. After Alison also retired, Jordan had stayed up late, drinking, thinking about his own position of jeopardy and involvement with a man he knew so very little about. After a few drinks, his thoughts had gone to Alison. He had realized how little he knew about her too, and how attracted to her he was in a way he could not define. Eventually, drowsy from the cognac, he had put himself into bed and blacked out instantly.

  And here he was in the morning, in the shower, aware that he would be responsible for getting MacDonald safely out of Venice—and without the faintest idea of how difficult this might be to achieve.

  After drying himself, he dressed, choosing a blue sport shirt, lightweight navy slacks, crepe-soled shoes.

  In the sitting room, he found Alison leaning against the edge of his desk watching the room-service waiter set the breakfast tray on the coffee table. MacDonald was nowhere to be seen. Jordan gave Alison an approving wink. “Be right back,” he said. “I want to pick up the morning pape
r. See if there is anything in the news.”

  He hurried downstairs and approached the concierge’s counter. The head concierge, Fabris, and two of his assistants were huddled over an Italian newspaper.

  “Good morning, Mr. Fabris. Do you have the Herald Tribune?”

  “Good morning, Mr. Jordan. Not yet, I’m afraid. It is delayed again. Even with Communism, we have the strikes.” Fabris indicated the newspaper his assistants were reading. “There is great excitement today. The Italian press is full of it. You have seen Il Gazzettino?”

  “No. I just got out of bed.”

  Fabris reached under the counter and came up with a folded copy of the newspaper. When he set it down, only the top half of the front page was visible. The blaring Italian headline was at least three inches high. Jordan translated it:

  MILITARY SPY HUNTED IN VENICE

  A second bank of headlines read:

  POLICE DECLARE CITYWIDE EMERGENCY

  ALL TRAFFIC HALTED INTO AND OUT OF VENICE

  FOREIGN AGENT WITH DEFENSE SECRETS

  SOUGHT

  Confused by the espionage headlines, relieved that their own caper had not found its way into print, Jordan lifted and opened the paper to the full front page. Hitting him square in the face was a huge half-page photograph, an enlarged portrait of Professor Davis MacDonald. The bold black caption read:

  IF YOU SEE THIS MAN, CALL THE POLICE

  A recent photograph of E. MacGregor, a foreigner who posed as an American scientist to steal blueprints of Italy’s newly invented antimissile rocket. MacGregor has been trapped in Venice and is the target of the greatest manhunt in Italian history.

  Jordan emitted a low whistle. He understood what had happened at once. The authorities had determined to hide MacDonald’s identity, the news of his fantastic discovery, their motive for wanting it, and had deliberately concocted and released this false story.

  “Something, isn’t it?” Fabris said.

  “You mean they’re shutting down the whole goddamn city because of some spy?” asked Jordan.

  “Look on page two. The most drastic emergency measures I have seen in my forty-five years in this community. No one can come into the city. No one can leave. Until they apprehend the criminal. No one can leave? Do you know what will happen to us when our guests—American, English, French, German, Japanese, all the others—when they get word of this? They can’t go on with their vacations. They can’t go home. They are stuck here for who knows how long. They’ll be descending on us by the hundreds, screaming bloody murder. What can we say to them?”

  “I just can’t believe they won’t let anyone out,” Jordan said.

  “Read the whole story,” said the concierge. “They mean it.”

  Jordan folded the newspaper. “I’ll take this along,” he said. “Put it on my bill.”

  He hastened upstairs, his head buzzing at the magnitude of their problem.

  He entered the suite, ignored MacDonald and Alison, who were eating at” the breakfast tray on the glass-topped coffee table, and gave his attention to the white plastic plate inside the door. He flipped up the switch, and immediately a screen on the white plate lit up illuminating the words—

  Non Disturbare

  Don’t Disturb

  Pas Deranger

  Nicht Stören

  “This lights up similar panels outside our front door,” Jordan explained. “We don’t want the maid or valet or anyone else walking in on us.”

  He was aware that Alison had been searching his face. “What’s the matter, Tim?” she asked.

  “This is the matter,” said Jordan, shaking open the newspaper and holding it up in front of him.

  “My picture,” MacDonald gasped. “How did they—But of course. My passport picture. The Russians got a copy when I applied for a visa.”

  “Oh, no!” Alison exclaimed. “It looks like an FBI Most Wanted picture. What do those Italian words say?”

  Jordan sat down in the armchair across from the two, and he slowly read the lead story and haltingly translated it, giving them the essence of each paragraph. When he had finished, he threw the newspaper onto the sofa and met their eyes. For all her cool, Alison appeared frightened. MacDonald was unable to hide his upset state.

  “What does it all mean?” MacDonald asked.

  “It means they’ll go to any length to get you back,” said Jordan grimly.

  “Tim—” It was Alison. “We’ve got to do something. What do we do next?”

  “I don’t know. I-I can’t think on an empty stomach. Give me…”

  Alison handed him his plate of eggs and passed on the rolls and butter.

  Jordan began to eat as he mentally reviewed what he had. just read aloud. He looked up. “Did I say I don’t know? I do know—I know exactly what we should do next. We’ve got to keep Professor MacDonald out of sight. No one, absolutely no one, must know he is here.” Jordan stopped abruptly, staring at the breakfast tray. “Alison, you didn’t order for three people, did you?”

  “For two, Tim. Give me some credit for being smart. I ordered twice as much as I wanted and gave Davis half.”

  “You’re sharp. I won’t underestimate you again.” He turned to MacDonald. “Your only chance is to remain invisible until we find the means of smuggling you out of the city.”

  “I’ll do whatever you say,” said the professor.

  “To begin with, you’ll remain right in this suite while we try to find a way to spring you free. You are never to answer the door, even when you are alone. Now, here’s the normal traffic in the suite. Room service with food and drinks. Whenever the waiter is due, you lock yourself in the bathroom. Laundry. They always return the laundry by depositing it in the bedroom. I’ll put a stop to that. A maid and valet come by daily to make the beds, put in fresh towels, clean up, sweep. I’ll put a stop to that too. Besides leaving on the red light outside—that means no one is to intrude on our privacy—I’ll speak to the head housekeeper, tell her no one is to come into my suite or Alison’s bedroom until we say it’s okay.”

  “Won’t she be suspicious?” asked Alison.

  “I don’t think so. I’ll tell her I’m working on top-secret engineering plans for the Venice Must Live Committee and the plans are all over my rooms and I can’t allow anyone to see them. I’ll tell her to leave towels and bed linens outside the bedroom doors.”

  “How do you explain no one coming into my bedroom?”

  “Easy. You’re a nymphomaniac. When I’m not in bed with you, someone else is.”

  Alison blushed. “Tim, really!”

  “It’s the only happy thought I’ve had today. All right, I’ll tell the housekeeper you’re my assistant, helping me with the plans, and we work in your room too. Now, we all understand that every precaution must be taken so that Professor MacDonald is not seen.”

  MacDonald set down the coffee cup. “You are very kind, Mr. Jordan. You don’t know me, you don’t owe me anything, yet you are taking all this time and chance. You don’t have to do this, but”—he hesitated and threw up his hands—“if you didn’t, I’d be lost. I suppose they’d catch me within a day. I’m grateful for your Good Samaritan streak.”

  Jordan smiled. “I’m not a Good Samaritan. I’m afraid I’m not a good anything. To put your sense of guilt at rest, I’m in this to the end for three good reasons. First, I wanted a commitment to something, to shake me out of my boredom. Second, when I first set eyes on your research associate, I liked her legs. Third, and most important pi all, I think your discovery belongs to all mankind!”

  “Thank you,” said MacDonald. Jordan finished his eggs and took his tea. “One thing, Professor. As long as I’m involved, I’d like to know what I’m fighting for. Despite our talk last night, and the few hints Alison has dropped, I have only the vaguest idea of what you’ve discovered, of why the Russians are after you. I’d like to know just a bit more.”

  “You mean how I came to discover C-98, as the formula is called?” asked MacDonald.
<
br />   “No,” said Jordan. “I’m sure it is too complicated for a poor layman to understand.”

  “Unless you are a scientist, it is extremely complicated.”

  “I really want to know what your formula will do. Also, what are its implications?”

  Professor MacDonald considered the questions. At last, he spoke. “I will do my best to simplify it for you. Injections of C-98 into a human being will eliminate or arrest cancer, heart disease, vascular ailments, pneumonia, and perhaps a hundred or more other afflictions of the flesh. Above all, it will attack the so-called death genes that cause the degeneration of cells and the aging process. I’m convinced it cannot contain the action of these genes forever, but on the basis of my animal experiments, the shots should give a person who might normally live seventy years an assured lifespan of 150 years. Equally important, the shots will be a rejuvenator. Although old age comes at 120, the aged will not be senile, ailing, decrepit. They will reach their later years full of health and vigor. Of course, my shots won’t prevent people from dying in their earlier years as the result of accident, murder, suicide. The shots will prevent people dying from diseases and old age, at least until the ripe age of 150 or thereabouts.”

  Jordan was dazed by the immensity of the discovery. “Absolutely incredible,” he murmured.

  “Isn’t it?” said Alison. “I think it is the greatest discovery in the history of the human race.”

  “The broad implications of a means to prolong life are endless,” said MacDonald. “People will have more time to enjoy life, their mates, their children, their friends. They will have more time to learn, to develop their skills, to explore and learn specialties. They will have more time to help others, to improve the environment, to gain more wisdom that will bring us more inventions. They will have much of a century and a half each to go into outer space. The oldest will not be shunned as lepers, but will have the health and strength to exist equally, compete equally with the young. There is no limit to the revolution in living the prolongation process can bring to the world.” He paused. “The question is—will it ever reach the people of the earth?”