The Pigeon Project (15 page)

He carried the tray to the door, deposited it in the hallway, and returned thoughtfully.

He looked down at MacDonald. “Professor, I have an assignment for you. It may take us several days before we can smuggle you out of here. You’ll have to stay in hiding. You’ll have time on your hands. I’d like you to put that time to good use. I’d like to make a suggestion.”

“Anything you say.”

“This formula of yours for longevity, C-98—do you have it on paper?”

“No. I thought that unwise.”

Jordan went to his desk, picked up his straight-stemmed pipe and pouch, filled the pipe and lighted it. He said finally, “I don’t think it’s unwise. Putting your formula on paper, I mean. True, there is a certain amount of risk involved. But considering your circumstances now, I think it is worth a gamble.”

“You want me to write it out?”

“I think that would be a good idea,” said Jordan. “Let me put it this way. We want to get you out of here. We are going to try. But what if we fail? What if the Communists catch you? If it is all in your head, they’ve got you and they’ve got the secret to themselves. But if whatever is in your head is also on paper, left with Alison or me, well, if they took you away, we’d be free to release your formula to the world. This would undercut the Russians. Everyone would have the formula. And once everyone had it, the Russians would have no reason to hold you prisoner any longer.”

MacDonald considered this. “It makes sense,” he conceded.

“It makes sense because of one more thing I have in mind. What if the next few days turn into a stalemate? They can’t catch you, and you can’t get out? Well, it occurs to me that if we can’t get you out physically, we might find the means of getting a piece of paper out. Once the paper was delivered to the Gerontology Congress, or to anyone, and announced, the secret would be public. Your formula would belong to the world, and you would be safe. What do you say?”

“You’re right. HI do it.”

“There’s paper in the desk drawer, and a pen. How long do you think it’ll take you?”

“To write out C-98? Umm, as I told you, it is complicated, even for another gerontologist. Oh, three, four, maybe five days of concentration.”

“I hope we have you out of here before then, but just in case. Will it take many pages?”

“I’ll need plenty of work sheets. But the actual formula, perhaps one or two pages.”

Jordan was pleased. “Good. The sooner you start, the better. As for you, Alison…” He glanced at his wristwatch. “I’ll order a motorboat to pick you up at the side canal entrance of the lobby in a half hour. You go to Marco Polo. Observe the patrol-boat activity along the way. At the airfield, have your motorboat wait for you, and scout the vicinity on foot for maybe half hour or an hour. See how heavy the security is, the number of guards. See if any planes are landing or taking off, passengers coming in or going. Just gather a whole report on that.”

“Will do.”

“Since Professor MacDonald can’t order room service while we’re both out, we’d better leave some food for him.” Jordan took out his wallet.“Maybe you can pick up a few things, Alison, keep them in the refrigerator. You just go out of the hotel, the first street to your right—it looks more like a dark alley—is filled with shops, several of them groceries.” He offered her some money, but she refused it. He tucked his wallet into his hip pocket. “All right, I’m off. Catch up with you later this afternoon.”

Leaving his room, he saw the valet and told him not to bother to do the suite, then inquired after the housekeeper. The valet pointed to the landing below the staircase. On the first-floor landing, Jordan confronted the buxom housekeeper and made his urgent request that no one enter his suite for the entire week. The housekeeper was aghast, she had never heard of such a thing, it was impossible, against the hotel regulations. Jordan persisted, explained in detail about the secret blueprints in his rooms, Dr. Edward’s bedroom, and at last the housekeeper was intimidated and agreed to give out the immediate order that no one was to enter the rooms this week under any circumstances.

Relieved, Jordan continued on to the grand marble staircase leading to the lobby, descended it, and found bedlam.

Standing before the reception desk in the Oriental Gothic lobby, he was surprised by the crush of hotel guests—tourists of every age, garb, and nationality. Angry knots of tourists were milling about, complaining of the madness of the city officials in confining them, not permitting them to leave Venice. The greatest concentration of rebellion was centered on the concierge’s counter. Carlo Fabris and his four assistants were beleaguered.

Fighting his way through the crowd to the head concierge, Jordan could hear snatches of the protest in English, German, French. “But we’re on a scheduled tour. In a week we’ll miss five cities!… I have to leave! I’m meeting my husband in Bern!… There’s a party for me in Rome tomorrow night!… We can’t stay! Our charter leaves Paris tomorrow!”

Jordan had reached the side of the counter. Fabris noticed him, backed away from five or six apopletic guests, and came to Jordan mopping his brow.

“It is Dante’s hell,” the concierge said.

“You can’t blame them,” said Jordan.

“I don’t, I don’t,” said Fabris, “but they should not blame us.”

“Mr. Fabris, I need a motorboat in about thirty minutes for Dr. Alison Edwards.”

“It is arranged.”

“To Marco Polo Airport and back.”

“You are sure? There is no one arriving or going today. There is nothing there.”

“She left behind a piece of luggage.”

“Fine, very well.”

Turning away, Jordan saw a dirigible of a woman squeeze out of the telephone booth, and he grabbed the door and jumped in before anyone else could take the phone.

He dialed his office and asked his secretary to connect him with Marisa Girardi.

“Marisa?”

“It’s you. I wondered what happened to you. Have you ever seen such a thing before? Everyone is angry—”

“I know. I’m at the Danieli. All hell has broken loose.”

“I don’t understand it. For a mere spy. They are overreacting.”

“Could be.”

“We have lost three of our feature stories. We had a writer coming from Munich tomorrow. One from New York and one from Paris the next day. No air traffic to Venice. No landings. All planes are being diverted to Milan.”

“Maybe they’ll lift the quarantine tomorrow,” said Jordan.

“Not unless they find the spy. We are not dealing with ordinary Venetians. They are easygoing. We are dealing with Venetian Communists. They are stubborn like mules. You are coming in today?”

“I can’t. I’m tied up. That’s why I called. You can take care of everything.”

“Sure, but—Tim, when do I see you again? You canceled our dinner last night. Can’t we see each other tonight?”

“I-I’m not sure. I have some friends from back home who are stuck here now. I should look after them tonight.”

“They may be stuck here a long time. Bruno heard the mayor say the quarantine could last for days.”

Jordan was instantly alert. Marisa’s twenty-two-year-old brother, Bruno, was the star photographer for Venice’s leading daily newspaper,
Il Gazzettino
. “What’s Bruno doing with the mayor?”

“He’s with the mayor and Colonel Cutrone day and night.
Il Gazzettino
assigned him full time to cover the spy manhunt.”

“Maybe what your brother heard the mayor say is right. My friends may be stuck here for a while. I suppose I really don’t have to meet them tonight.”

Her voice was eager. “Does that mean we can see each other?”

“I want to see you. Let’s make it dinner at Harry’s Bar, eight o’clock.”

“I’ll be there.”

“And by the way, you can invite Bruno to join us. Id like to hear his inside version of what’s going on.”

“That is nice of you, Tim, but I am sure he is too busy.”

“Well, tell him to at least join us for a short drink.”

“I’ll try.”

“I’ve got to go now,” he said.

“Don’t get yourself arrested,” she said cheerfully.

He gave the telephone a rueful look. “Who’d want me?” he said, and then he hung up.

He left the telephone booth, pushed and elbowed his way through the lobby, and emerged from the Danieli’s revolving door into the windy, overcast afternoon. He walked to the vaporetto station, removing a 1,000-lire note from his wallet, and went to the ticket vendor.

“Piazzale Roma, please.”

“Sorry, Signore, no service to Piazzale Roma today.”

In Jordan’s memory, this was unheard of. So the police were serious, efficient, organized after all.

Shrugging, he left the station and walked on around to the quay. The boat pilots and gondoliers were standing about, gossiping. Business was poor today. The nasty weather.

Jordan summoned the man lounging near the first free motor launch. He pointed to the launch. “Yours?”

“Si.”

“I want to go the railroad depot and the Piazzale Roma.”

“You waste your time. No one can leave.”

“I don’t want to leave. I just want to see. what’s going on.”

The man jerked a thumb toward his launch. “Get in.”

As they rode through the lagoon and swung into the Grand Canal, Jordan stepped out of the cabin and seated himself in the open rear of the launch. The craft rocked ahead in the choppy waters and Jordan held on to the rail, concentrating on the police activity in the canal itself and along both shores.

Traffic was almost always heavy at this time of the day, but what made the difference now was that at least half the water vehicles were patrol boats. Jordan could make out the white-and-battleship-gray craft with the word POLIZIA painted on the side that belonged to the Squadra Mobile of the local
questura
. Then there were the all-white patrol vessels with GUARDIA DI FINANZA painted on them, the swift craft that usually kept on the lookout for smugglers. Then there were the smooth mahogany launches belonging to the carabinieri. Every passing vessel was filled with armed police.

On his left, before the Basilica della Salute, the huge monument to the Virgin Mary, he saw a gathering of several dozen carabinieri in their khaki uniforms and boots, all wearing swords and carrying nine-millimeter Berettas. He examined the terrace of the Gritti Palace Hotel. Only one policeman, the rest diners. Jordan realized that they were going under the first of the three bridges that traversed the Grand Canal, the wooden Accademia Bridge, and to his right Jordan recognized the Casina delle Rose, where Gabriele D’Annunzio had made his home in 1915. At the huge 17th-century Palazzo Rezzonico, once owned by Robert Browning, once a residence for James McNeill Whistler, there were uniformed men in the open doorway. At the boat landing stage before Ca’ Mocengo, where Lord Byron had dwelt for three years, there were the questura, the local police, in blue uniforms and white holsters. On the quay next to Ca’ Corner-Martinengo, where James Fenimore Cooper had stayed in 1838, there were numerous and ominous plain-clothesmen carrying light machine guns and scrutinizing pedestrians.

As they rode on, Jordan continued to study the shore above the Grand Canal. What he saw was unsettling. One out of every two persons seemed to be armed and in uniform.

He sat back, bemused, felt the coolness of the Rialto Bridge overhead, observed the bustle at the Pescheria, Venice’s fish market for five centuries. On his right, the Palazzo Vendramin-Calergi, a Venetian Renaissance edifice, where Richard Wagner had lived and died, came into view. But Jordan was, in these minutes, not interested in past history, only in current history. He waited to see what was happening at two of Venice’s leading exit points.

The motorboat was slowing.

“
Stazione
!” the boat driver shouted back.

Jordan left his rear seat, crouched low, went through the cabin, and came up alongside his pilot.

“I’m not getting off here,” Jordan said. “Just keep going past it slowly.”

On the top of the stone steps of the Stazione Ferroviaria, Venice’s modern railroad depot, uniformed police were picketed two or three yards apart. Travelers were approaching these guards, appealing to them, gesticulating and begging, and being turned away.

“Okay, I’ve seen enough here,” said Jordan. “Take me to the Piazzale Roma.”

This was the large square where most persons, leaving Venice, took an automobile, taxi, bus to depart from the city across the causeway known as the Ponte della Libertà, which took them to Mestre and the mainland of Italy.

As the motor launch picked up speed once more, Jordan said to the pilot, “You can pull in when we get there. I’ll walk around for ten minutes.”

Jordan bent back into the cabin and sat purring on his pipe until they arrived at their destination.

On shore, Jordan could see that the situation at this end was hopeless. The police were everywhere in the area. They were planted in front of tie city-owned Garage Comunale and before the privately owned Garage San Marco, not permitting any automobiles to leave. Jordan hiked on and soon saw that the road leading to the causeway out of Venice was filled with police, and cars attempting to leave the city were being resolutely turned back.

Discouraged, Jordan returned to the embarkation point, got into his motor launch, telling the pilot, “Okay, I’ve seen enough. You can take me back to the Danieli.”

Less than an hour later, Jordan entered his hotel suite to find Professor MacDonald dozing on the sofa and Alison seated at the desk making notes.

“Hello,” Jordan said. “Did you make it to Marco Polo Airfield?”

“I wish I hadn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s depressing, Tim. All the way there, we kept passing police boats—clearly identified as police boats—and when we reached Marco Polo, I walked around pretending I didn’t know what was going on and saying I was expecting a friend from Paris. I was told there was an emergency, and all airlines had been notified, and no planes would be landing or taking off from Marco Polo. That was certainly evident. A few Alitalia planes grounded, no crews, and very little personnel in sight. But a lot of men there, all in uniforms and with side arms. I started to count the police. When I got to forty-two, I stopped. There must be a hundred or more.”