Dr. Kiel was shouting; his voice was coming up the hall from Dr. Dolan’s lab. She crept down the hall and peeked inside. Agent Burroughs, the bozo from the FBI, was there with Dr. Kiel and Dr. Dolan.
“What did you do with her?” Dr. Dolan said. “Give her a ticket back to Russia along with your mouse?”
Abigail’s heart thudded painfully.
“The Bureau just wants to talk to her,” said Agent Burroughs. “Where did she go?”
“Ask Dolan,” Dr. Kiel said. “He’s the one who sees Reds under the bed. He probably stabbed her with a pipette and threw her into the Kansas River.”
Agent Burroughs said, “If you’re hiding a communist, Dr. Kiel, you could be in serious trouble.”
“What is this, Joe McCarthy all over again?” Dr. Kiel said. “Guilt by association? Elena Mirova fled Czechoslovakia because her husband was imprisoned. As long as she was in Bratislava, they could torture him with the threat that they could hurt his wife. She was hiding here to protect her husband. Your jackbooted feet have now put her life in danger as well as his.”
“There was no Elena Mirova in Czechoslovakia,” Burroughs said. “There are no Czech scientists named Mirov or Mirova.”
“What? You know the names and locations of everyone in Czechoslovakia, Burroughs?” Dr. Kiel snapped. “How did you get that from the comfort of your armchair in Washington?”
“The head of our Eastern Europe bureau looked into it,” Burroughs said. “The Bratislava institute is missing one of their scientists, a biological warfare expert named Magdalena Spirova; she disappeared six weeks ago. Do you know anything about her?”
“I’m not like you, Burroughs, keeping track of everyone behind the Iron Curtain,” Dr. Kiel said. “I’m just a simple Kansas researcher, trying to find a cure for Q Fever. If you’d go back to the rat hole you crawled out of, I could get back to work.”
“Your dishwasher is gone, whatever her name is, and one of your infected mice is gone,” Burroughs said. “I’m betting Mirova-Spirova is taking your germ back to Uncle Ivan and the next thing we know, every soldier we have below the DMZ will be infected with Q Fever.”
Abigail’s bookbag slipped out of her hand and landed on the floor with an earth-ending noise. The men looked over at her.
Dr. Kiel said, “What’s up, Abigail? You think you can be David to all us angry Sauls? Play a little Bach and calm us down?”
Abigail didn’t know what he was talking about, just saw that he wasn’t angry with her for standing there. “I’m sorry, Dr. Kiel, I was worried about the mouse.”
“Abigail is the youngest member of my team,” Dr. Kiel told Burroughs. “She looks after our healthy animals.”
The FBI man rounded on Abigail, firing questions at her: Had she noticed Elena hanging around the contamination room? How hard was it to get into the room? How often did Abigail feed the mice? When did she notice one of the mice was missing?
“Leave her alone,” Dr. Kiel said. “Abigail, take your violin down and play for the mice. We have a lab full of fascists today who could infect you with something worse than Q Fever, namely innuendo and smear tactics.”
“You signed a loyalty oath, Dr. Kiel,” Agent Burroughs said. “Calling me names makes me wonder whether you really are a loyal American.”
Dr. Kiel looked so murderous that Abigail fled down to the animal room with her violin and her bookbag. She felt guilty about taking Miss Bianca, she felt guilty about not rescuing the other mice, she was worried about Miss Bianca alone at home not getting all the pills she needed. She was so miserable that she sat on the floor of the animal room and cried.
Crying wore her out. Her head was aching and she didn’t think she had the energy to get to her feet. The floor was cool against her hot head and the smells of the animals and the disinfectants were so familiar that they calmed her down.
A noise at the contamination room door woke her. A strange man, wearing a brown suit that didn’t fit him very well, was trying to undo the lock. He must be a reporter trying to sneak into the lab. Abigail sat up. Her head was still aching, but she needed to find Bob.
The man heard her when she got to her feet. He spun around, looking scared, then, when he saw that it was a child, he smiled in a way that frightened Abigail.
“So, Dr. Kiel has little girls working with his animals. Does he give you a key to this room?”
Abigail edged toward the door. “I only feed the healthy mice. You have to see Bob Pharris for the sick mice.”
As soon as she’d spoken, Abigail wished she hadn’t; what if this man wrote it up in his newspaper and Bob got in trouble?
“There aren’t any foreigners working with the animals? Foreign women?”
Even though Abigail was scared that Elena was a spy, she didn’t feel right about saying so, especially after hearing Dr. Kiel talking about witch hunts.
“We only have foreign witches in the lab,” she said. “They concoct magic potions to make Dr. Kiel fall in love with them.”
The man frowned in an angry way, but he decided to laugh instead, showing a gold tooth in the front of his mouth. “You’re a little girl with a big imagination, aren’t you? Who is this foreign witch?”
Abigail hated being called a little girl. “I don’t know. She flew in on her broomstick and didn’t tell us her name.”
“You’re too old for such childish games,” the man said, bending over her. “What is her name, and what does she do with the animals?”
“Mamelouk. Her name is Mamelouk.”
The man grabbed her arm. “You know that isn’t her name.”
Bob came into the animal room just then. “Abby—Dr. Kiel said he’d sent you—what the hell are you doing here? I thought I told you this morning that you can’t come into the lab without Dr. Kiel’s say-so and I know damned well he didn’t say so. Get out before I call the cops.”
Bob looked almost as fierce as Dr. Kiel. The man in the brown suit let go of Abigail’s arm.
He stopped in the doorway and said, “I’m only looking for the foreign woman who’s been working here. Magdalena, isn’t it?”
Abigail started to say, “No, it’s—” but Bob frowned at her and she was quiet.
“I thought you knew, little girl. What is it?”
“Mamelouk,” Abigail said. “I told you that before.”
“So now you know, Buster. Off you go.”
Bob walked to the elevator with Abigail and called the car. He stood with a foot in the door until the man got on the elevator. They watched the numbers go down to “1” to make sure he’d ridden all the way to the ground.
“Maybe I should go down and throw him out of the building,” Bob said. “He was here when I opened for the day. Elena took one look at him and disappeared, so I don’t know if he’s someone who’s been harassing her at home, or if she’s allergic to reporters.”
He looked down at Abigail. “You feeling okay, short stuff? You’re looking kind of white—all the drama getting to you, huh? Maybe Dr. Kiel will let your mom take you home. She didn’t even break for lunch today.”
When they got to the office, Bob went in to tell Dr. Kiel about the man in the animal room, but Rhonda took one look at Abigail and hung up the phone mid-sentence.
“Darling, you’re burning up,” she announced, feeling Abigail’s forehead. “I hope you haven’t caught Q Fever.”
She went into Dr. Kiel’s office. He came out to look at Abigail, felt her forehead as Rhonda had, and agreed. “You need her doctor to see her, but I can give you some tetracycline to take home with you.”
Rhonda shook her head. “Thank you, Dr. Kiel, but I’d better let the pediatrician prescribe for her.”
Mother collected the bookbag and violin where Abigail had dropped them on the floor of the animal room. “I never should have let you work with the animals. I worried all along that i
t wasn’t safe.”
In the night, Abigail’s fever rose. She was shivering, her joints ached. She knew she had Q Fever, but if she told Mother, Mother wouldn’t let her stay with Miss Bianca.
Mother put cold washcloths on her head. While she was out of the room, Abigail crawled under the bed and got the mouse. Miss Bianca needed more of her pills, but Abigail was too sick to feed her. She put Miss Bianca in her pajama pocket and hoped she wouldn’t make the mouse sick again.
Mother came and went, Abigail’s fever rose, the doorbell rang.
Abigail heard her mother’s voice, faintly, as if her mother were at the end of the street, not the end of the hall. “What are you doing here? I thought it would be the doctor! Abigail is very sick.”
An even fainter voice answered. “I sorry, Rhonda. Men is watching flat, I not know how I do.”
She was a terrible spy; she couldn’t speak English well enough to fool anyone. Abigail lay still, although her head ached so badly she wanted to cry. She couldn’t sleep or weep; Mother might need her to call the cops.
“You can’t stay here!” Mother was saying. “Dr. Kiel—the FBI—”
“Also KGB,” Elena said. “They wanting me. They find me now with news story.”
“The KGB?”
“Russian secret police. I see man in morning, know he is KGB, wanting me, finding me from news.”
“But why do the KGB want you?”
Elena smiled sadly. “I am—oh, what is word? Person against own country.”
“Traitor,” Rhonda said. “You are a traitor? But—Dr. Kiel said you had to hide from the communists.”
“Yes, is true, I hiding. They take my husband, they put him in prison, they torture, but for what? For what he write in books. He write for freedom, for liberty, for those words he is enemy of state. Me, I am scientist, name Magdalena Spirova. I make same disease that Dr. Kiel make. Almost same, small ways different. Russians want my Rickettsia prowazekii for germ wars, I make, no problem. Until they put husband in prison.”
Rhonda took Elena out of the doorway into the front room. Abigail couldn’t hear them. She was freezing now, her teeth chattering, but she slid out of bed and went into the hall, where she could hear Elena.
Elena was saying that when she learned the authorities were torturing her husband, she pretended not to care. She waited until she could take a trip to Yugoslavia. She injected herself with the Rickettsia she was working on right before she left Bratislava to go to Sarajevo. In Sarajevo, Elena ran away from the secret police who were watching her and hitchhiked to Vienna. From Vienna, she flew to Canada. In Toronto, she called Dr. Kiel, whom she had met when he came to Bratislava in 1966. He drove up to Toronto and hid her in the backseat of his car to smuggle her to Kansas. He gave her tetracycline tablets, but she didn’t take them until she had extracted her infected blood to give to Dr. Kiel. That was the magic potion Abigail had seen in the animal room; that was why her arm was all bruised—it’s not easy to take a blood sample from your own veins.
“Now, Dr. Kiel have Rickettsia prowazekii, he maybe find vaccine, so biological war not useful.”
The words faded in and out. Miss Bianca had a bad Russian germ, now Abigail had it, maybe she would die for thinking Elena-Magdalena was a communist spy.
The front door opened again. Abigail saw the brown suit. “Look out,” she tried to say, but her teeth were chattering too hard. No words would come out.
The brown legs came down the hall. “Yes, little girl. You are exactly who I want.”
He put an arm around her and dragged her to her feet. Mother had heard the door; she ran into the hall and screamed when she saw the brown suit with Abigail. She rushed toward him but he waved an arm at her and she stopped: he was holding a gun.
He shouted some words in a language that Abigail didn’t understand, but Elena-Magdalena came into the hall.
“I am telling Dr. Spirova that I will shoot you and shoot the little girl unless she comes with me now,” the man said to Rhonda. His voice was calm, as if he was reading a book out loud.
“Yes, you putting little girl down.” Elena’s voice sounded as though her mouth were full of chalk. “I go with you. I see, here is end of story.”
Elena walked slowly toward him. The man grinned and tightened his grip on Abigail. It took Rhonda and Elena a moment to realize he was going to keep Abigail, perhaps use her as a hostage to get safe passage out of Kansas. Rhonda darted forward but Elena shoved her to the ground and seized the man’s arm.
He fired the gun and Elena fell, bleeding, but he had to ease his chokehold on Abigail.
“Miss Bianca, save us!” Abigail screamed.
She dropped the mouse down the man’s shirtfront. Miss Bianca skittered inside in terror. The man began flailing his arms, slapping at his chest, then his armpits, as the mouse frantically tried to escape. He howled in pain: Miss Bianca had bitten him. He managed to reach inside his shirt for the mouse, but by then, Rhonda had snatched the gun from him. She ran to the front door and started shouting for help.
Abigail, her face burning with fever, fought to get the mouse out of his hand. Finally, in despair, she bit his hand. He punched her head, but she was able to catch Miss Bianca as she fell from his open fist.
The police came. They took away the KGB man. An ambulance came and took Elena to the hospital. The doctor came; Abigail had a high fever, she shouldn’t be out of bed, she shouldn’t be keeping mice in dirty boxes under her bed, he told Rhonda sternly, but Abigail became hysterical when he tried to take Miss Bianca away, so he merely lectured Rhonda on her poor parenting decisions. He gave Abigail a shot and said she needed to stay in bed, drink lots of juice, and stay away from dirty animals.
The next morning, Dr. Kiel arrived with a large bouquet of flowers for Abigail. Rhonda made Abigail confess everything to Dr. Kiel, how she had stolen Miss Bianca, how she had stolen tetracycline out of his office. She was afraid he would be furious, but the vein in his forehead didn’t move. Instead, he smiled, his brown eyes soft and even rather loving.
“You cured the mouse with quarters of tetracycline tablets dipped in peanut butter, hmm?” He asked to see the pieces Abigail had cut up. “I think we’re going to have to promote you from feeding animals to being a full-fledged member of the research team.”
* * *
—
A few months later, Dr. Dolan left Kansas to teach in Oklahoma. Later still, Bob did get his PhD. He was a good and kind teacher, even if he never had much success as a researcher. Magdalena recovered from her bullet wound and was given a job at the National Institutes of Health in Washington, where she worked until the fall of the Iron Curtain meant her husband could be released from prison.
Miss Bianca stayed with Abigail, living to the ripe old age of three. Although Rhonda continued to work for Dr. Kiel, she wouldn’t let Abigail back in the animal lab. Even so, Abigail grew up to be a doctor working for Physicians for Social Responsibility, trying to put an end to torture. As for the five lumpy Kiel children, one of them grew up to write about a Chicago private eye named V. I. Warshawski.
BETRAYED
RONALD G. SERCOMBE
A SHORT STORY WRITER known for his mystery and adventure tales, Ronald George Sercombe (1893–1965) produced short fiction for both pulp magazines and what became known as the “slicks” because of the high-quality, shiny paper used.
Sercombe wrote stories for Argosy and Liberty (the popular series featuring Bessie Arbruster; in one story, the charming young lady goes fishing and catches a German submarine) and more than two dozen stories for The Saturday Evening Post, one of the most popular and high-paying magazines of the twentieth century.
Sercombe also provided the story for “Four Hours in White,” an episode of the highly regarded television series Climax!. Directed by Buzz Kulik, it was a one-hour program that aired on CBS on February 6, 1958. The well-rec
eived drama is set in a hospital where a surgeon and a hospital administrator engage in a battle pitting two powerful figures against each other in a situation involving ethics, risk-taking, humaneness, cowardice, and bravado.
Identical twins have been in a serious accident in which one is largely unscathed while the other is almost certainly doomed unless one brother agrees to a kidney transplant for the other—a relatively new and still-dangerous procedure in 1958—which would also put his life at risk. The surgeon wants to proceed while the administrator prefers the safer, more conservative approach of doing nothing.
It is understandable that this program was made in what is often termed the Golden Age of television because it is well written, well directed, and featured such stars as Dan Duryea (as the principled surgeon), Ann Rutherford, and Steve McQueen (who played both twins).
“Betrayed” was originally published in the April 1964 issue of Argosy.
BETRAYED
RONALD G. SERCOMBE
THE CONSTELLATION, weary and a little wobbly after a thirteen-hundred-mile flight from New York with only a brief respite at Miami for fuel, fairly brushed the begonia-bowered peak of Blue Mountain, pushing through misty spirals nearly a mile and a half above the barren flatlands of Jamaica. Then it began a bumpy, ear-congesting descent to Palisadoes Airport. “There it is,” Arthur Anders said, nudging the right elbow of his slumbering wife, Linda. “There’s Jamaica—land of glistening ferns and eternal sunshine. Yonder lies Kingston.” She opened her eyes briefly. They were a too-bright blue, set in a disingenuous face topped by a disheveled mop of tinted red hair. She yawned. “I couldn’t care less,” she said. “I wanted Rio. I still want Rio.” Arthur Anders sighed. “How many times must I explain? Rio would have meant identification papers, passports, reams of red tape. Probably a clattering teletype message or a phone call to Central Intelligence.” He spoke softly. The softness was appropriate because his eyes were soft brown, his face a soft tan and even his hair a softening gray. Few would suspect he possessed Q-clearance for atomic security. But this was quite in keeping with the policy of Central Intelligence—to select apparent nonentities for top security jobs.
The Big Book of Espionage Page 132