The Pigeon Project

by Irving Wallace

  After identifying Marisa Girardi merely as his assistant at work, and her brother, Bruno, as the leading photographer for Il Gazzettino, he recounted what he could remember of his entire conversation with Bruno in Harry’s Bar.

  When he had finished, MacDonald said, “Then you think there is hope?”

  “Bruno would not promise anything. But he was interested. Very. And he is close to this captain in the carabinieri, who heads a company of guards on the causeway to Mestre. Bruno made it clear this captain needs money badly. I’m sure Bruno will find a means of approaching him. I’m not sure what his answer will be.”

  Alison sipped her cognac. “When will you know?”

  “I can’t say. Bruno is aware of the urgency. I told him my separatist courier had to be in Paris in less than a week.”

  MacDonald was still worried. “What if the police captain refuses to cooperate?”

  “I’ll be thinking of an alternative plan, making inquiries. I’m confident something else will turn up. But I’m betting on Bruno. I feel he’ll get his friend to come along.”

  “In a few days,” said MacDonald.

  “Yes. Our situation isn’t too bad. You’re safe here, Professor. No one knows where you are. So we just have to sit back and wait for the moment we can smuggle you out of the city. Now, what do you say to another drink?”

  * * *

  Tim Jordan lay on his side, in a fetal position, in the bed. He could hear the windswept rain beating against the wooden bedroom shutters. It was coming down in torrents. Every once in a while it was counterpointed by a crackle of lightning. Beside him, in the bed, another sound, the professor erratically snoring. Then another insistent sound. On his bedside table, his travel clock, ticking away. At last glimpse, the clock had read two-sixteen in the morning.

  His eyes were shut, the lids heavy from cognac and fatigue.

  He tried to erase the thoughts floating through his mind and to sink into what he hoped would be dreamless sleep.

  But yet another sound intruded.

  With difficulty he opened his eyes, listened, raised his head. It was his bedside telephone, two feet from him, ringing.

  His hand darted out, captured the receiver, brought it to the rim of his blanket.

  He tried to keep his voice down. “Hello?”

  “Tim? Marisa. Did I wake you?”

  “No. Is anything the matter?”

  Her tone was one of concern. “You asked me, before leaving tonight, to find out from Bruno in the morning if the police were going to investigate the hotels in Venice.”

  “Yes?”

  “Bruno just came home. He was having something to eat in the kitchen and that woke me. So I got up to talk to him, and I remembered what you wanted to find out. I asked him if he knew about the hotels. He knew. I thought I should call you immediately.”

  “What did he say, Marisa?”

  “It is not good for your friend. The police have already started surprise raids on every hotel in Venice. They are scheduled to move in on your hotel, the Danieli, and all the hotels in your area at seven o’clock tomorrow morning.”

  “Tomorrow morning?”

  “I mean this morning, Tim. Five—five hours from now.”

  Jordan lay back on the pillow, deeply disturbed. “Bruno is sure of this?”

  “No question. Colonel Cutrone gave the assignment to his officers a little while ago. Bruno overheard the officers discussing it. Seven o’clock this morning. They will fence in the Danieli. Let no one out. Interrogate everyone inside. Search everything. You had better do something quickly for your friend.”

  “I’d better. Thanks, Marisa.”

  He hung up, threw off his half of the blanket, and jumped out of bed. Taking off his pajamas, he could hear the rain outside the window ever louder. He tried to think as he hastily dressed. Buttoning his shirt, he went around the bed, turned up the lamp on MacDonald’s side, and then shook the professor, who finally opened his eyes.

  “Are you awake yet?”

  “I guess so…”

  “Listen. I just got a call from a friend. She tipped me off that the police are raiding the Danieli—this hotel—in a few hours, to question every guest. If they find you here, you’re cooked. I’ve got to get you out of here in the next two hours.”

  MacDonald was sitting up, shivering. “But where? Where can I go?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll think of something. You get dressed. Pack all your effects. Leave nothing behind. I’ll give you a canvas bag. And, Professor—shave off your moustache. Every little bit helps. Now hurry.”

  He left his bedroom, crossed the sitting room, opened the door to Alison’s bedroom, and entered. He turned on the light next to her bed. Her lovely face was deep in the pillow, only a bare shoulder exposed above the blanket.

  He touched her shoulder, and at once she was awake. She tried to focus on him, did, and sat right up, holding her blanket to her throat.

  “What is it, Tim? Is something the matter?”

  Without wasting words, he told her what was going on.

  She was agitated. “What can you do?”

  “I’m going to try to find some place to take him. I can’t risk another hotel. It’ll have to be a private place. It’ll be safe to move across the city. It’s raining heavily outside, and at this hour the streets are practically empty. He’ll have my raincoat. He can partially cover his face. You can stay on here.”

  “No, I’d prefer to come along, if someone will take me too.”

  “If you insist. Okay, put on your clothes. And check out both bedrooms and the sitting room to see that no evidence of MacDonald is left behind.”

  He went out of her room and stood in the middle of the sitting room trying to clear his head and fasten on someone he could trust who would help him.

  He needed a hiding place, a sanctuary.

  Sanctuary.

  Churches always provided sanctuary.

  Church. Priest. Friend.

  His old friend Don Pietro Vianello, whom he had seen only yesterday noon on the Mercerie.

  Jordan started for the telephone.

  IV

  It was ten minutes after seven o’clock in the morning, and Tim Jordan, fully dressed, sipping his breakfast tea, sat in the sitting room of his Hotel Danieli suite waiting for the police.

  Once again, restlessly, he got up and walked to his open window to see whether they had arrived yet. Outside, the lagoon was calm. The rain had stopped. Soon the sun would break through. It would be a hot and muggy morning. Before him, the usual sights. There was the six-foot-wide pier, two motorboats moored on one side, two gondolas on the other, with a sign over it reading, SERVIZIO MOTOSCAFI/TAXT. Nearby was the vaporetto landing station with its glass ticket booth and its own sign above, reading, LINEE 1 5 8. Then there was the one-funnel, two-deck steamer, the Altino, one of the vessels that made the twelve-minute commuter’s run to the city of Lido every twenty minutes. In the street between the Danieli and the lagoon, an elderly man had set up a brown umbrella beside the three-lamp street post and was now stacking prints on an easel in preparation for the day’s tourist traffic.

  So far Jordan had not seen what he had expected to see. He stepped out onto his small balcony, gripped the iron railing, and peered directly below.

  There they were, all right. A group of a dozen or more carabinieri in their khaki uniforms, white straps, side arms, black boots, cordoning off the hotel entrance. For the time, no one could enter or leave the hotel without examination and interrogation. Jordan imagined that the teams of searchers had covered the ground floor by now, had worked their way up to the first floor, and would soon reach his suite on the second floor.

  He sat down once more before his breakfast tray, finished the last of his tea, and stared at the entrance door. He was quite alone in the suite, thank God, and ready for the hunters.

  The experience of last night had been unnerving, and the aftereffects still had him on edge. The telephone call to the priest, to Don Pietr
o Vianello, had been difficult to make at that awful hour. And indeed, he had awakened Don Pietro. He had been blunt with the clergyman. He had said that he was trying to protect a friend who was being sought by the police. He had said that he needed sanctuary, for a brief period, for his fugitive friend. He had added, fervently, that his friend was innocent, that he would swear by him, and that he required a hiding place just long enough to be vindicated. Jordan had promised Don Pietro he would give him all the details at a more reasonable hour.

  Don Pietro had only spoken twice after that.

  “You swear by him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Bring him.”

  They had watched from their window for the approach of a vaporetto, finally seen one approaching from a distance, and they had hurried downstairs. Before descending into the empty lobby, Jordan had inspected MacDonald (who appeared younger without a moustache), made certain the raincoat collar shielded his face. With Alison carrying a duffel bag of MacDonald’s old clothes and papers, they had gone past the night concierge, who had hardly looked up from his magazine, and emerged from the hotel into the slashing rain. They had run to the station platform, caught the vaporetto headed for the Rialto station. Looking around the almost-empty water bus, Jordan had been afraid that they might be conspicuous. The few passengers coming and going had paid no attention. At the boat’s destination, they had left it and gone on foot in the downpour the rest of the way, over the Rialto Bridge to the Santa Croce quarter.

  Don Pietro, bald head and cherubic face shining, had been watching for them from the lighted doorway of the canonica, or rectory. They had come out of the rain into the hallway, all three soaked to the bone. Jordan had hastily introduced MacDonald, then Alison, asking if the priest had room for Alison also.

  “No problem,” the priest had said. “My flat is upstairs. There are two spare rooms. I will fetch you some dry nightclothes.” He addressed MacDonald. “My nightgown will come to just below your knees only.” He addressed Alison. “I will get you a nightgown from my mother’s wardrobe.”

  “I must go back to the hotel,” Jordan had said. “I have some business there early in the morning. After that I will return here for lunch—if I am invited.”

  “You are invited.”

  “And, Don Pietro, I will then offer you an explanation.”

  “I hope so,” Don Pietro had said.

  Now, sitting, waiting in his hotel suite for the searchers, Jordan lit his pipe to calm his nerves and thanked his lucky stars that it had gone smoothly in the early-morning hours. They had crossed a great part of the city undetected. They had received a hospitable reception from their generous host. MacDonald had safe sanctuary, hopefully until Bruno shortly delivered the escape route.

  So now there were only the investigating police to contend with. And as far as they knew, he was merely a longtime resident of the Hotel Danieli, a familiar and crazy American who chose to live and work in this sinking city, so far from his own golden America.

  He must simply remain calm and pretend ignorance of what the authorities were after.

  It seemed an eternity, this waiting, and then, as he looked at his wristwatch, which showed seven-twenty, the expected knocking came on his entrance door. Knocking, followed by the buzz of his doorbell.

  He hastened to the door and admitted the three of them.

  They were carabinieri, all right, in full regalia, one of them an officer.

  The officer said in precise English, “I am Captain Dorigo. I have a search warrant.” He displayed an Italian document. “We are searching every room of the hotel.”

  “For what?” asked Jordan.

  “There is an American spy named MacGregor—”

  “I have read about him.”

  “Then you understand.” He removed a five-by-seven-inch photograph of MacDonald from his jacket pocket and held it up before Jordan. “Here he is. Do you know him? Have you see him?”

  Jordan shook his head. “No.”

  “You have your passport?”

  Jordan had it ready. He pulled it out of his trouser pocket. Captain Dorigo took it, flipped the pages. “Timothy Jordan,” he read. “American. Engineer.” He handed back the passport. “Why are you in Venice?”

  “I work here. I have a job. I have been here almost two years.”

  “As an engineer?”

  “No. I’m public relations director for the Venice Must Live Committee.”

  “Ah.” The captain’s countenance was less harsh now. “I think I have seen you about.” He studied Jordan. “You are all dressed, I see. Most guests we have found in their nightclothes.”

  “I was going to work early. I couldn’t get out of the hotel.”

  Captain Dorigo surveyed the sitting room. “You have another room?”

  “Actually, two.” Jordan pointed to the two bedrooms.

  Captain Dorigo wandered to the center of the room. “Why two?”

  “To spread out my work. I use the second bedroom as an office. Also, for my girl friend when she stays for the weekend. You will find some of her things in the closet.”

  The carabinieri officer signaled his two men. “Aldo, you search that bedroom,” he ordered, gesturing toward Alison’s, “and, Filippo, you take his bedroom. I’ll look around this parlor room.”

  As Aldo and Filippo disappeared into the bedrooms, Jordan kept a watchful eye on the captain, who was moving around the room, poking at a pile of magazines, opening and shaking some books, going toward the refrigerator.

  Jordan pivoted, to take in the rest of the room. Alison had combed through it last night, and he himself had done so this morning, to make certain there were no telltale clues to MacDonald’s presence. Jordan decided it was foolproof. He relaxed and walked to his desk, to see how it would look to the search team.

  On one side of his desk was a pile of writing paper, all blank. Then five sharpened pencils in a Venetian pencil holder. Then a pile of publicity releases on the accomplishments of the Venice Must Live Committee. Then—something unexpected caught the corner of his eye.

  The silver-metal wastebasket at the nearest leg of the desk. There was something in it. He racked his brain. He had put nothing into the wastebasket. It was something MacDonald or Alison had dropped into it.

  He edged closer to the wastebasket. What lay at the bottom of the basket were shreds of paper, large shreds—a sheet that had been torn in half and then in quarters. The ball-point-pen writing on it was barely legible. Jordan squinted, trying to read what was on one shred of paper. He made out a portion of a word, a name, “cDonald,” and beneath” it some numerals, with square roots.

  He felt panic. The blood rushed to his head. He made an effort to hide his agitation. Plainly, MacDonald, trying to put his formula for C-98 on paper yesterday, had torn up one sheet and discarded it. And the too-familiar wastebasket with this giveaway inside it had been overlooked by all of them.

  Frantically, Jordan glanced up to see what Captain Dorigo was doing. The captain’s back was to him as he leaned into the bedroom to say something to his subordinate in Italian.

  It was risk time again, the whole ball game at stake.

  As quickly as possible, Jordan bent down, reached into the wastebasket, scooped up the shreds of paper, lost one, retrieved it, brought the handful up, and shoved the pieces deep into a trouser pocket. His hand was still in his pocket when Captain Dorigo turned around and came to the desk.

  Jordan nimbly stepped away, to make a place for the officer. The captain stood over the desk, thumbed through the blank sheets of paper, pulled the pencils out of their holder and turned the holder upside down, lingered over the press releases, reading the top one, shuffling through the entire pile.

  Now he was yanking out the desk drawers, rummaging through them.

  Aldo was back from Alison’s bedroom. Captain Dorigo’s questioning look held on him. Aldo shrugged. Seconds later, Filippo emerged from Jordan’s bedroom. He spoke only one word in Italian. “Niente” he said. />
  The captain confronted Jordan. “We are through with your quarters,” he said crisply. “We are sorry to have inconvenienced you. I wish you luck with the Venice Must Live Committee. Good morning.”

  As they left the suite, Jordan called after them, “I wish you luck with your spy.”

  The door closed.

  Jordan exhaled and listened for his heartbeat to return to normal.

  Then he realized there were perspiration patches on his shirt, and he went into the bedroom to change and to flush the shreds of MacDonald’s notes down the toilet.

  * * *

  Jordan had walked all the way, a long walk, from the Hotel Danieli, stopping briefly at his office on the Piazza San Marco, continuing to the Church of San Vincenzo in the Santa Croce quarter, going by foot because he wanted the time alone to organize his thoughts and examine options for MacDonald’s escape.

  He reached the campo, or square, with its several trees—rare in this part of Venice—a few minutes before noon. The modest mustard-colored Church of San Vincenzo, with its painted cross over the door and its Romanesque bell tower, had been built in the 12th century. Don Pietro Vianello, after serving six years as a vicario, or assistant, at Mestre, had been promoted to full priest of this church and had served here almost fifteen years. Extending from the church was the tile-roofed two-story rectory, and Don Pietro lived upstairs. Jordan strode across the square to the rectory door and went inside the entry hall, almost bumping into Don Pietro, who was shuffling through the interior door from the church, leading Professor MacDonald and Alison on a guided tour. “And here in the canonica, as we call the rectory,” he was saying, “is an area we use as a patronato, meaning a place we use for youth activities and even as a village hall.” He became aware of Jordan. “Buon giorno, Tim. I was afraid you had dissolved in the rain.”

  “I survived the rain,” said Jordan. He greeted MacDonald and Alison with a nod, adding, “I had a harder time with the police this morning.”

  “The police?” echoed Don Pietro. “Don’t worry, they weren’t after me particularly,” said Jordan. “They were searching through the entire Danieli, all the hotels in that area, trying to turn up their fugitive spy.”