THE DOOMSDAY BAG
Ed Noon Mystery #20
Michael Avallone
STORY MERCHANT BOOKS
BEVERLY HILLS
2014
Copyright © 2014 by Susan Avallone and David Avallone. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author. http://mouseauditorium.tumblr.com/
Story Merchant Books
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For
Chester Vincent Zisk,
the tall American boy,
because he is one of the good guys
Author's Note
The nature of security being what it is, all code names, titular designations, and labels are subject to change in every administration. Therefore, this writer pleads innocent, and should he have inadvertently stumbled on a correct nomenclature in the name of poetic license and fictional creation, he will fall back on that well-worn but useful cliche: Any resemblance to all persons living or dead is purely coincidental and is not intended or implied. The setting and action of this novel is in the immediate future and therein lies any value it may have. It is meant primarily as an entertainment; its secondary aim lies in its warning nature.
M.A.
THE CAST OF CHARACTERS
. . . according to their public image
ED NOON a private investigator
THE CHIEF Mr. President
CHARLES CORNELL a congressman
MARKHAM a U.S. Navy commander
THOMAS MIFLOW a cab driver
ROWLES a Federal agent
FELICIA CARR a newspaperwoman
RAYMOND OATLEY Mr. Vice-President
EMIL a waiter
MANUEL DE ROJAS a gunman
DETWHILER a Secret Service man
LEONARD KANIN a bagman
. . . and some of them are common clay.
CONTENTS
The Man with the Bag
What Time Does the Next Bomb Leave?
What's in a Dossier?
Nobody Ever Died from It
Capital Chaos
Guile Girl
Pump Guns over the White House
Killer's Highway
The Fatal Football
Potomac Fever
The Spy under Lincoln's Nose
Outsider on Mission Impossible
The War Lovers
Washington House Party
Advise and Kill
Love Me, Love My Life
The Man with the Bag
The day the Bagman disappeared, several less explosive things were happening in Washington, D.C.
While noisy starlings chattered like magpies along the ledges, high wires, and rooftops of downtown Capitol City, the President was soothing the ragged nerves of about three thousand representatives of the Students' League, screaming for the end of the war in Southeast Asia, in a huge auditorium somewhere along Independence Avenue. I never did find out how he made out with that bunch. I myself was safely tucked away on the third floor of the Senate, in a sealed chamber, giving so-called expert testimony in the matter of wiretapping, bugging devices, and other Big Brother methods of businessmen in these United States of America. Congressman Charles Cornell (D-Wisconsin) had impaneled me because of my reputation as a private investigator. Mr. Cornell, tall, gray, distinguished, the way an owl would be surrounded by crows, had put together a subcommittee with full presidential approval and was masterfully and gradually building up enough evidence and informative data to successfully steer a new bill through Congress. One that could be labeled: Invasion of Privacy: How Far Can The Man Who Hires Your Services Go?
I knew enough not to be a total loss as a reliable, expert witness. I could talk about two-way mirrors in employee washrooms, transistor bugging devices under desks, tapped telephone calls, and unduly close surveillance all around by the many firms hiring people for a job of work. In sad truth, some of the biggest outfits in the country were utilizing methods and systems of checking up on their workers that would put Orwell's 1984 fantasy to shame. Cornell knew I knew, and as the facts spilled from me during a three-hour tenure in the hot seat, facing a battery of microphones, subcommittee members, and armed soldiers flanking the big doors leading out of the room, I sang like a canary.
Cornell beamed happily throughout and I was happy, too. The liberal from Wisconsin was a fine guy. A Bill-of-Rights-Abe-Lincoln American, and I didn't mind climbing on his bandwagon at all. Hell, I'm not nuts about the Establishment, either. Especially the one that takes unfair advantage of Littlefellow.
But the subcommittee, Congressman Charles, and all the hoohah about Big Business was to rapidly shimmer, dissolve, and fade away in less time than it takes for a Speaker of the House to call the chamber to order.
The Weather Bureau had forecast rain that morning and as prophets hadn't even come to the plate. Hot, muggy sunlight bathed D.C. in a wet, clammy grip all morning. The cherry-blossom trees along the Potomac stood limply as overcast skies tried to blot out the sinful sun. But no rain came. The eighty-three-degree temperature was molten considering the time of year. Spring had hardly come in, and already the white monuments and the temples and institutions and the flags and the banners were sodden with heat. There was static electricity in the air.
Maybe it was an omen, maybe it was the Washington Weather Bureau simply screwing up, but on the day the Bagman vanished into thin air, not even the weather was on our side.
It was a lousy day to go looking for someone.
Even someone as important as the Bagman.
Someone that so very few Americans really know or knew anything about.
Me, included.
But my education began at 1:45 P.M., Eastern Daylight Saving Time, in Washington, D.C., on an April day that threatened rain but brought only heat, humidity, and trouble.
The Bagman disappeared at approximately 1:30, and hardly fifteen minutes had gone by before I knew that there was something in it for me. Something that required the services and time of one very special private investigator from Manhattan, New York. A man who doubled in brass for the President of the United States.
Talk about Big Business and invasion of privacy. There are times when the Government doesn't do too badly, either.
I say that because at 1:45, as I was going down the wide marble steps of the Senate Building, I was arrested by a lean, lanky man wearing a naval commander's uniform and braid and medals. Him and two other guys in civvies who wore the unmistakable alertness and inborn weariness of Secret Service men.
The Naval Commander was very nice about it, though worry had found a home in his two brown eyes.
"Are you Noon?" he asked tightly. My witness chores were over and in Congressman Cornell's record of the inquiry, but somehow I knew my troubles were just beginning. The two civilians who looked like the Secret Service were flanking me like bookends in case I was thinking of running. I nodded, unable to think of a quip.
"Markham here," he said crisply. "Naval aide to the President. I have instructions to bring you to the White House. On the double."
"Honored, sir." I managed a slight bow. "I've already had my lunch—"
"I think I can safely say food isn't on the menu. Will you come with us please?"
As if I had a choice.
The four of us trooped down the marble steps. There was a long Cadillac with low-number plates parked on the incline. Commander Markham gestured toward it. The Secret Service men went on ahead of us and climbed in, sharing the front s
eat. I got into the back with Markham. He was about forty years old, very tanned and very brown-eyed. The fruit salad and rank on his uniform were very impressive. I felt a trifle naked in my Italian silk suit with black shoes, blue tie, and freshly shaved face.
"Do I get a hint?" I asked Markham. "Not that I mind—"
He shook his head. "Mum's the word. Security. The President wants you. That's it."
I buttoned my lip. He liked that because he obviously had too many other things on his mind. The Secret Service man at the wheel gunned the motor smoothly and the Cadillac droned away from the curb. With fluid ease and barely a ripple of effort. Like pushing buttons. All of top-echelon Washington hits you that way. You get the feeling that things and objects and people move on a preordained plan. It always gives me an uneasy feeling because it almost lacks humanity. It's very cold and highly coordinated. Too much so sometimes.
The Senate Building receded behind us and the overcast skies played tag with us as we cruised toward Pennsylvania Avenue. The soggy air was no problem in the interior of the Cadillac. Air conditioning. Of course. As if sweating were against the law.
Commander Markham folded his arms and stared straight ahead as if he were trying to count the hairs on the back of the neck of the driver. I was going to smoke a cigarette but thought better of it. I burned some mental wood instead.
I wondered if Commander Markham, for all his status and medals, knew that I was the President's unofficial spy without portfolio. That I was a man with a red-white-and-blue phone in his New York office which was scrambled and geared to permit me to have confidential talks with the President. His President and mine. I wondered if he knew that for four long tumultuous years I had stuck my neck out, without portfolio, or rewards, monies, or prizes, to act as a secret agent in the employ of the United States. Could he know when only myself and the President knew that Ed Noon was that rarity among investigators—a private eye for the Chief of the country?
It was something to think about.
I hadn't seen the President in person since I had gotten the job in the long ago. Now he was requesting—no, ordering—me to show up at the White House.
The Man himself was blowing my cover, shattering it to smithereens. Something we had worked and labored to keep status quo for four frantic, frenetic years. Why? What had happened? Had I goofed someplace? Had he?
I didn't know.
How could I?
I didn't know anything about the Bagman yet. Nothing, that is, about what had happened that fatal afternoon at Convention Hall somewhere along Independence Avenue.
Believe me, July 4, 1776, had nothing on the Bagman.
He kicked the whole world over on its rear end when he vanished, and it was no cause for celebration. We all should have gone into mourning to tell the truth and shame the isolationists.
"Markham?"
"Yes, Mr. Noon?"
"Do you think it will rain?"
For a moment he looked like he was going to get angry. Then he smiled and chuckled softly. In that moment we became very great friends.
"No, Mr. Noon. I don't think it will."
"Thank you."
It took us only another twenty minutes to get over to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The White House. The Cadillac entered the wide, spacious driveway, cut around to the left of the famous building, and quietly lurched to a halt. The Secret Service men made no move to leave the car. The Commander stepped out briskly, held the door for me, and I joined him. The White House lawn gleamed greenly all around, despite the muggy, bad-weather day. I sniffed at the historic surroundings and marveled once again at how nothing ever visualized or imagined is ever matched by the real thing. The imagination is a far finer architect than any man who ever lived.
When I was a kid dreaming about playing right field in the long-since-torn-down Polo Grounds where the Giants played and won pennants, I thought of mighty little Mel Ott slapping tremendous home runs over the walls, and when I got to see the famous field at last it was a letdown to see what the eye could encompass in one look. The place looked small enough to throw a baseball out of. But of course, it wasn't. Five hundred feet is five hundred feet and not until you stood at home plate itself could you see the awesome expanse of greensward and just how much space a ballplayer could get lost in.
It was like that looking at the White House. I don't suppose even Commander Markham, who had seen it a thousand times, probably ever thought of it as less than a monument and a shrine.
The official residence of the President of the United States is right on Pennsylvania Avenue. Roughly eighteen acres of real estate, all green-lawned and landscaped and dominated by the white building in the center. The place had burned down once during the Revolution and the sandstone exterior had been repainted white and a famous name had been born. It's quite a building, though. If you don't let the fence bother you.
The rooms for public functions are on the first floor. On the second and third are the President's apartments. The very renowned East Room is where the formal receptions are given, where the Chief can pour a cocktail for a prime minister or compliment a queen on her gown. Or make a public showing of being cordial to a Russian diplomat. There is also a Red Room, Green Room, and a Blue Room—also for the public—and the State Dining Room was used for all the formal dinner bashes. There are 132 rooms altogether in the White House, according to the catalogues.
I had no idea which of the rooms or apartments I was going to see. I was in the dark and Commander Markham wasn't the sort to lend me any flashlights. Security, he had said. That damned word that covers a multitude of sins, mistakes, and crimes.
Something was cooking, all right.
Even as I followed the Commander to the front door where carefully arranged floral bushes and sprigs of things formed a lovely framework for the arched entranceway, the joint was jumping. A literal convoy of cars, motorcycles, and official-looking vehicles was racing down Pennsylvania Avenue, heading for the White House. Many of them were already turning into the white-lined driveway, filling the marked-off parking places. I couldn't see a thing really that made any sense, but even inanimate objects like vehicles convey a meaning of their own. These machines were all filled by people in a hurry. People bothered by something. Personages who had a stake, or at the very least, official business with the White House.
The commotion and activity upset Commander Markham. I saw his teeth for the first time, and his brown eyes snapped with annoyance. He paused, hand reaching for a doorknocker-type bell setup and cursed. Under his breath but I heard him all the same.
"Dammit, the panic's on. Damn all the Nervous Nellies in the pie. You'd think—" He stopped what he was saying, flung me a look that was more grimace than frown, and fanned an arm out to include the world. Beyond his lean uniformed figure, the tall obelisk of the Washington Monument poked as straight as a ruler, or an accusing finger, into the dim, damp, overcast skies. The sun had finally lost the battle. It was out of sight.
To hell with Security. And protocol. I always want to know what I'm getting into.
"What gives, Commander? The Russians bomb L.A. or something?"
"Inside," he growled. "And fast. You've got only twenty minutes with him before those wolves get to him. Make it fast, Noon. No time for the usual amenities. Understood?"
"I don't understand anything until I read the instructions that come with the carton. And then there's no guarantee. But I wish—"
"Shut up," he commanded tersely as the door swung inward to reveal another Secret Service type, squinting out into the haze of daylight. Damn these people. They all look alike. The man was a match for the two agents who had chauffeured us from the Senate.
Commander Markham propelled me into the famous hallway. I didn't have time to reflect on the red carpet, the pale chartreuse walls, the sturdy old Colonial flavoring of the decor. Markham barked something at the agent, and the man, still looking me over from head to foot, said in a flat voice, "Situation Room. He's in there now."
&nb
sp; "Roger. Come on, Mr. Noon." Whether he wanted to or not, the Commander had a good grip on my elbow and was piloting me with little politeness and less decorum beyond the entranceway toward an alcove which showed the unmistakable doors of a private elevator. There was another agent on duty there. This one nodded and stepped to one side. The elevator doors hissed open. There was a fine but peculiar hum of tenseness and unrelaxed vigilance in the air. The sort of atmosphere you find in banks. funeral parlors, and Fort Knox. I didn't like the feeling. It was grim, fatalistic, and unfriendly.
But I joined Commander Markham in the elevator. I wondered if anyone knew that I was carrying a .45 Colt automatic in my left shoulder harness holster. Or that I had enough plastic dynamite in the package of harmless-looking chewing gum in my right-side coat pocket to blow up the building. Markham and his bright boys hadn't even bothered to frisk me, and that bothered me a lot. A helluva lot. Was this the way the care and keeping of presidents was carried on at the home base?
Markham had a worried question for the agent on elevator duty before he pressed a button and the doors closed.
"Anything come in yet?"
"No," the agent muttered coldly, accompanying it with a wag of his head. "Not a murmur."
"Bad," Markham said. "Very bad."
The doors closed and we whirred upward. The whir was visualized rather than heard. I looked at Markham.
"It sure is," I agreed. "Do you know I'm carrying a .45 and some plastic dynamite? I could kill the President—"
His mind was on other things but he flashed me a bewildered glance. As if he was surprised to see that I had suddenly shown tendencies toward being a moron.
"You think I'm a fool?" he growled.
"No, but—"
"Everything you're carrying, Noon, is neutralized by what I'm carrying. First off, I know who you are. What you are. You were under surveillance every moment you were in that committee room. From the moment you left until the moment I picked you up. Your .45, should you try to take it out and fire it, would blow up in your own face. Ditto any other weapon. Plastic explosives, you said." He shook his head. "I've scrambled you, Noon. A device I have in my uniform. Something very new and very technical developed by Government Lab. So don't worry about it—" He adjusted his mohair tie, fanned both hands alongside his temples, flicking his crew-cut hair into shape. A nervous gesture.
The Doomsday Bag Page 1