"You're bluffing," I said. "What the hell are you giving me? A James Bond routine?"
"Negative," he said stiffly. The doors were sliding open, noiselessly now. "We have learned how to make mechanical and electrical devices misfire. Act backward, you might say. That's all you need to know. And here we are—the Chief."
He was guiding me again, pushing me forward. The elevator had opened on a wide, high-ceilinged room. There was a mahogany desk topped with glass, an armada of soft chairs, lounges, and filing cabinets. Not steel but solidly constructed and devised wooden furnishings to match the woodsy-outdoorsy nature of the room. I saw the flag of the United States on the polished paneled walls, riding tandem with the seal of office, and the rest of the room was cleverly arranged and coordinated to show a wealth of illuminated maps and globes and objects all to do with the running of the United States of America.
I also saw the President.
Rising from the red-draped universe of the big picture window which faced the west and showed a glittering, impressive panorama of the Treasury Building and the Senate Office Building rising out of the orderly greens of the impeccable terrain, he came forward, his hand outstretched. If you moved a little to the left of the big window, you could see the Capitol dome on the Hill, scintillating even in the poorest light or on the dullest day.
"Hello," he said, keeping everything out of his voice that must have been on his mind that gloomy day. "It's been a long, long time, hasn't it?"
"Too long," I agreed. His grip was like his voice on a telephone. Forceful, enthusiastic, mutually respectful and friendly.
Commander Markham drifted back to the elevators.
"Thanks, Abe," the Chief said. "Give us twenty minutes. Hold the rest of them off until then."
"Will do," Markham said in a tone of voice different from what he had used with me. A tone that spoke volumes for his feelings for the man who was his Commander in Chief. As well as mine. Scrambler device or not, if I had pulled my .45, this Markham would have gotten between me and the bullet without thinking twice.
Markham left, and for only a second the Chief stared at me as if trying to fill in all the details of the four long years that was the gap of time between our last meeting. The Situation Room, for all its color, charm, and comfort, made me uneasy. Its very name, code or whatever it was, gave me the willies. Something had happened, all right. Something very bad.
I didn't sit down. I waited until he waved me to a chair. I took the one across from the mahogany desk because he had dropped almost resignedly into a leather swivel chair behind it.
"You look trim," he said, smiling faintly. The deep blue eyes, almost sea blue, were appraising me keenly. "Still passing for thirty-five. Good. That indicates some kind of control over your own fate. Your age, your destiny. Lord, but we're in a mess now—"
"I don't want to guess what it might be, Chief."
He restrained a shudder, and the face that was about as famous as a face can be in the overcrowded twentieth century set into hard and tight lines. For a moment he looked every day of his fifty-two years before the usual suntanned, ruggedly handsome aspect of his face restored his familiar mask. The one that crowds saw, that many millions wanted to see on their TV sets and in person and along the social route toward the White House.
"Satchel's gone, Ed. And so is the football. It happened this afternoon, early this afternoon, when I was in Convention Hall addressing the Students' League. It's as if he vanished into thin air—"
"Satchel?" For a moment I didn't comprehend.
"My bagman," he said with almost a wistful quality to his voice. "That man with the bag. Do you understand? He's gone and that damned Doomsday Bag is gone with him. It's as cut-and-dried as that right now. Right now, I couldn't raise five cents for our chances in a sudden nuclear attack."
"Gone? But that's—"
"Impossible?" He shook his head, affirmatively though he was accentuating the negative. "No, it's not impossible. It's not science fiction or a wild, implausible movie scenario. He is gone and we have to find him before he stays away much longer. If news of this leaks out before we can—well, you know what the consequences could be."
I nodded, still incapable of assessing the magnitude of what he had told me. The Situation Room seemed gloomier than ever.
"What do you want me to do?"
"The only thing that makes any sense right now. Help us find him."
"Of course, I'll try but—"
"No buts," he said sternly, still shaking his head. "In about fifteen minutes I have to go downstairs and coordinate the greatest search in the history of this country. I'll need every agency, every branch of service, every arm of law enforcement and detection I can lay my hands on. Fortunately, you were in town when this happened. I'm not going to pass up any avenue of help. This is too important for just one man but one man might be of service where an organization with too many heads and arms and legs might stumble. He has to be found, Ed. The soonest the best. I'll tell you all I can tell you about Satchel—everything you need to know—and I'll give you carte blanche—a special Safe Conduct that will give you the run of D.C. It's imperative that you get on this immediately. Satchel must be found. The longer he's running around loose there isn't a peaceful breath for any of us. I think you know that. Now, what can I tell you about him that you'll have to know?"
So I asked him.
And he told me.
And in the telling lay an information gap as wide as the Missouri River; that very special lack of knowledge shared by most Americans when it comes to matters of the greatest importance. Like How Is Your Country Run? Who Takes Care of the Atom Bomb? and Who Exactly Is the Bagman?
Ignorance is not bliss when it comes to running a country.
Ignorance is the wide-open highway to Doomsday.
What Time Does the Next Bomb Leave?
Even as he talked, filling me in with all he could tell me about the Bagman and his disappearance, the President was reminding me about something I had read in the daily papers long ago. When Lyndon B. Johnson had stepped down from his Democratic leadership of the U.S.A., the tall Texan, while heaving a sigh of relief for the benefit of interviewing reporters and photographers, had remarked fervently, for publication, how marvelous it was going to be "not to be followed by that man with the bag!" It was only then that the American public had really gotten any inkling about the existence of a very special security agent who carried a satchel containing nuclear attack codes. The Bagman had been a strong factor in the Kennedy Administration. The four hours it had taken in Truman's time to set in motion any counteroffensive should aerial enemies fly toward Washington had been whittled down to a supercharged, technologically swift fifteen minutes. So the Bagman was as constant with any American president as his own shadow. Hence, the code names and titles of Satchel, The Bagman, The Man with the Bag. And Shadow. In the inner circles of Government, Secret Service, FBI, and the CIA, nobody ever called the Bagman by his Christian name or surname. And for the bag itself, euphemism was the first order of the day. It was known, variously, as the black bag, the Doomsday Bag, and the football.
Small wonder. If there ever was a political football, the Bagman's black bag would have to qualify. The fate of the world was centered in its contents. A pass or an interception of the contents meant the end.
I wondered about those, naturally.
The President favored me with another tight grin.
"You'll have to know what to look for. And you won't be able to miss it. Picture a thirty-pound metal black bag. There's an intricate combination lock. Inside the bag are various thick packets. Each of those packets bears the wax seals and signatures of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But one of the packets holds a set of cryptic numbers which would enable me to set up a sort of 'hot line' to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the President of France, give or take four minutes. There is also in one of the other envelopes a second set of numbers which, God help us, provides the coded pattern to launch a nucle
ar attack. Frightening, isn't it? All that power in one man's hands. Mine—or his. And all in one black metal bag."
There was nothing to say to that. I asked another question, my mind flying.
"And the rest of the envelopes?"
His smile was almost ugly.
"A quantity of pages, complete with text and illustrations. Cartoons, really. They look almost like comic books. Horror comics, if you will. They have been very carefully and diligently designed so that any of my three military aides can count the cost for me in human lives of what the results would be of any of the retaliation programs—Able, Baker, or Charlie—might be. Casualties—" He paused to toy with a golden ball-point pen on his desk. "It isn't something anybody likes to think about. Or talk about. So as you might expect, the Bagman, in spite of his very crucial position on the team, so to speak, isn't exactly a beloved human being. To tell the truth, he is rather shunned and avoided. As if he had leprosy."
"He wasn't shunned or avoided today."
"No, he wasn't."
There was a sudden silence between us. Unbroken, tranquil, and somehow deadly. There was no sound of turmoil and commotion from the floors below us. Somehow, I imagined this Situation Room was soundproofed. There was no other explanation for the lack of tumult that should have accompanied the arrival of a convoy of vehicles and people.
"Who is the Bagman, Chief?"
He stirred because my comment had started him off on a train of thought that must have included the widest, wildest, most funereal speculations. He reached for a thick manila folder, clipped with a shining brass fastener, and passed it across the desk with nearly a humble air of detachment.
"It's all in there. Don't read it now. There isn't time. All I can tell you is that his name is Leonard Kanin. He's been on Secret Service detail for ten years and was personally recommended for this job by the head of Army Intelligence. My old friend, Burgess Wales. We served in Korea together, as you may have read. I'd trust Kanin and Wales with my life, which is to say all there is to say about another man, I should think. No, Ed, there's no doubt in my mind that Leonard Kanin was somehow forcibly removed from Convention Hall this afternoon. While I was discussing our position in Southeast Asia for the benefit of about three thousand doves of the Students' League."
"No possibility of his defecting?"
"Out of the question."
"No chance of his wandering off sick or in a daze with a dizzy spell of some kind?"
"What if he had? One of the S men would have caught up with him before he got ten feet from the hall." He stared at me across the desk. The Executive manner was back, the one that was the delight of his own party and a nation of mostly satisfied fellow citizens. "Let me clue you in. Since the assassinations, everything has been doubled. No, trebled. I go to a hall to talk, to a tea function, to the bathroom—there's a Secret Service man right behind me. In the old days maybe fifty men were responsible for the personal safety of Chief Executives. Not so, now. Anyplace I go, there's at least a hundred agents on tap. Especially for a public speaking engagement in as large a place as Convention Hall."
I smiled ruefully. "And yet you tell me the Bagman's job is to be your shadow, hang around, be at your very elbow, just in case. If that's the way it is, how could he have vanished under all your noses? The same agents who were watching you were watching him—"
He nodded. He was almost sad again.
"Yes. I'll picture the scene for you. My speech ends. I sit down. There's a concerted charge by the officials and delegates and League heads. I rise to shake hands. The S men move in, forming a perimeter of protection around me. The Bagman is in sight. There's a lot of activity, people coming forward. With smiles and congratulations. Or comments. Even a complaint or two. Yes, even at a time like that. And then when all the hurly-burly's done, you look up and—no Bagman in sight."
"Didn't anybody see anything at all?"
"Nothing. It was as if he had vanished right before our eyes. One second he was there, the very next he wasn't. And right now we're in one mighty pickle if we don't locate him in a hurry."
I put the file folder on my lap. His eyes, still quick and alert for all his troubles, followed the movement.
"You'll take that with you. There's a line open for you at this address. You'll find it written on top of the first page in the file. You ask for Wallet. And introduce yourself as Money. Don't try any other form of contact. There's a dozen lines into this place and you'll never get through. Call anytime. But above all, call. I'll be someplace where I can always be reached and the line switched to me. Clear?"
"Clear. Tell me. Does Leonard Kanin know the combination to the lock on the black bag?"
"Of course. That's part of the job."
"Who else knows it?"
"I do."
"Anybody else at all?"
"Only a specially designated duty aide for each trip. The combination is changed for each special long trip."
"Who was duty aide today?"
His smile was wan. "Commander Markham. The man who brought you here. I can appreciate your investigative instincts, Ed, but don't pursue that line of attack any further. The bag is gone, so is Kanin. We need them both back. Until they are back, we're all sitting on a time bomb."
I knew what he meant. Kennedy's Bagman had been missing for hours the day of the assassination, and that had worried the hell out of everybody until they found him.
I took a good long beat and then hit him with what was supposed to be my Sunday punch. But it was every day of the week sort of stuff to him. I was beginning to get a fair idea of just how tough a job the Presidency can be.
"You must have an educated guess what this is all about, Chief. What have you been thinking and considering since Convention Hall?"
Now he did let the weariness and the despair take over his face and voice. The sort of feelings that a great human being must have to run the lives of multimillions of people. The kind of hopelessness that has to come with the job when so much depends on the turn of a card, a telephone call, or a diplomatic boo-boo. Or a single rifle bullet singing across the highway to end in a song of assassination and world upheaval.
"That's the trouble, Ed. What isn't there to think? Take your pick. Any one of a handful of hostile countries could have turned this trick. To justify or set in motion any one of a dozen schemes to discredit us. Or to attack us—that of course is the last, most farfetched notion, which I do not choose to think of. But think of all the other notions. In our wisdom and experience we know that Castro hijacks airliners—would he hijack a man with a black bag? And Red China, always wanting to steal a march, ever willing to keep the international balance precarious—what couldn't they do if somehow they have their hands on Leonard Kanin! If you could listen to Ramsey of Ohio who sees a Communist threat behind every school riot on a campus, what do you think he'll say if this ever leaks out? He'll be alerting all of Ohio to go out on the rooftops to become aircraft spotters looking for Red Star markings on anything that flies in. And not to mention that army of doves from all the states who will bury their heads in the sand again like the ostriches they are and scream out loud how this country has been betrayed by the incompetent party in power. Even Vice-President Oatley is beginning to see their side of things. The damned fool. Trying to woo the Left and the Right even while he walks down the middle aisle with me—" He broke off, in sudden irritation, as if he had conjured up ghosts he didn't want to think about. But he smiled for me again, as upset as he obviously was.
"Will you get moving on this? The file may help. Everything and every man I have is at your disposal. Your carte blanche is in that file, too. My signature and seal on a card. I don't want to destroy our private setup but no one will question you as to your status. Being Chief has certain advantages and I'd be a fool not to use them. So carry the card at all times. No telling when you may find use for it. Or need it. To all intents and purposes, you are a private investigator acting on behalf of your government, and that should be good enou
gh for anybody. Only Markham will have a glimmer, thanks to picking you up, but not even he will know for sure. Satisfactory?"
"It's your ball park. Your team, your equipment."
"Maybe so." His eyes bored in on me. Steely, purposeful. He was icy now. "Be that as it may. But you play your own game. You've been too successful at it in the past for me to tamper with your modus operandi at this late date."
"Thanks. I appreciate that."
"Thanks are all I have ever been able to give you. Not much of a reward when a man puts his life on the line."
"It's my country, too," I said flatly.
We had always instinctively understood each other, though we had been nothing but voices over a scrambled telephone. He stood up and extended his hand once more across the desk.
"Your expense account for this one is wide open. No matter how high the amount, there will be no questions."
"I'll try not to pad it out."
"Your twenty minutes are up," he sighed. "Wish we had longer. Wish we could have talked baseball. Or bowling. Or anything else. How did you make out with Charley and that subcommittee?"
"Like crazy. He'll be pushing a bill in your face before long for your signature."
"After he gets the Senate to approve first." He laughed. His handclasp said all the things he couldn't put into words. "Do your best, Ed. Find Kanin. Charley could be a big help to you. Knowing D.C. as he does."
I never could have called Senator Charles Cornell Charley, but the President could. He could call anybody anything. Just like he could call in a private investigator to help find out what had happened to a man who carried around an important black bag for a living.
The Doomsday Bag Page 2