The Pigeon Project

by Irving Wallace

  “Forgive me, Doctor, but you make no sense to me. By extending human life, prolonging it in good health, I will be saving life.”

  “Will you, though?” said Dr. Scarpa viciously. “A half century ago, there were two billion people on earth. Today, there are over four billion. In another thirty or forty years, there will be eight billion people on earth. Already, with our short lifespans, without your damn prolongation-of-life formula, we have this natural growth overstraining our resources that supply food, that supply energy, that supply shelter. What keeps us going, even poorly, is that the four billion people now on earth, or most of them, will be dead in seventy or so years. But what if they did not die? What if they stayed on until their 150 years were up while new billions were added to them instead of replacing them? It would be, as one of your own gerontologists, Dr. Alexander Leaf of Harvard, said, ‘terribly destructive socially and economically.’ Take one simple factor—food. We can’t feed four billion people today. If we extend their lives, and add four, eight, sixteen billion more, how are we going to feed them? Three to ten billion will starve—do you hear me?—wither and die for lack of food. There will be murders, riots, wars, and additional millions will die in the fight for food. Can you imagine wars for food and nothing else?”

  “There will be food,” said MacDonald calmly. “There will be synthetic food.”

  “Where is it now?” Dr. Scarpa demanded. “You are ready to prolong life now. Where is the food for that life today? You are going to condemn to death billions of people now and in the years to come. I won’t even speak of the other consequences of your savage formula—the unemployment and subsequent misery it will create, the pollution and waste it will add to the world. The only leveler that exists today, that makes the world work, is death in our current lifespan. If you postpone death, you send half of all humanity to certain execution. And I, for one, won’t have it. I entreat you to bury your formula—never, never release it to the world.”

  “That would be impossible,” said MacDonald. “Scientific progress cannot be inhibited by fanticism. Each new scientific discovery tends to create its own problems. Newer scientific discoveries are made to solve them. Meanwhile, humanity will enjoy the golden dream it has entertained all its life—the Fountain of Youth for one and all in reality.”

  Dr. Scarpa sat silent, staring at MacDonald with hatred. “You are blind,” he said, “blind and egotistical and stupid. I don’t want to see you anymore, let alone talk to you. It would please me if you would go back to your room. Yes, please do so. Let me speak to Tim Jordan alone.”

  Professor MacDonald stood up, offended, glanced at Jordan, then limped swiftly out of the office.

  Once he was gone, Jordan rose heavily, went to the pull-up chair, and drew it closer to the desk.

  “Giovanni,” he said, “you were too harsh with him.”

  “Not harsh enough.”

  “He is a genius. Whatever you say about his discovery, it is perhaps the greatest ever made in history. I do believe he is right. Science will find means to compensate for any harm his C-98 may bring.”

  “You are living in a fool’s heaven,” said Dr. Scarpa flatly. “I promised to give refuge to an innocent man wanted by the police. I did not promise to harbor a true criminal. Tim, I am sorry, but I cannot keep such a man under my roof.”

  Jordan was alarmed. “Giovanni, be reasonable. I have no place to take him. Only a few days—”

  “No, in good conscience, I cannot protect him further.”

  “But if you send him out of here and we have no place to turn, the Communists are sure to capture him. They’ll have him and his formula to themselves.”

  “All the better. Let them have him and his formula. It will mean the destruction of Communist Russia in a decade or two. Overpopulation—starvation—will destroy their system. Now, that would truly be a benefit to mankind. Yes, let them capture him. Let them have have him and his time bomb.”

  Jordan felt helpless. “You won’t reconsider? You are ready to turn him out, leave him to the mercy of the police?”

  “Immediately.”

  “I guess it’s no use arguing with you.”

  “No use whatsoever.”

  Jordan came to his feet. “Then one small favor only, for our old friendship. Let him stay this one night, until I can figure out what to do with him.”

  For several moments, Dr. Scarpa did not speak. At last, he looked up. “Go now. Come back for him at nine tomorrow morning. Don’t worry. I won’t do to him what he would do to others. I won’t let him starve. I’ll see that the condemned has his last supper.”

  VI

  It was almost ten o’clock in the morning, a hot, humid Venice morning, and Jordan had had MacDonald in tow ever since leaving Dr. Scarpa’s office a full half hour ago.

  Now, in a side street off the teeming Mercerie, a few blocks behind the Piazza San Marco, Jordan scouted the terrain ahead. It was as dangerous as no-man’s-land. At short intervals, khaki-clad, armed local police, in pairs, passed in patrol, searching the faces of shopping pedestrians.

  “It’s a risk,” Jordan muttered. “But I don’t know what else to do.”

  Even if he made his destination, Jordan was aware, there were hazards involved. All last night, dreading the morning, he had reviewed in his mind friends and acquaintances he might trust to provide a hiding place until Bruno came through—if he came through—and he had been unable to think of a single safe haven. By the time he had picked up MacDonald, he had settled on a place of last resort. His plan was to take MacDonald to his office in the Venice Must Live Committee suite and try to secrete him there. He did not like his choice, but he could conjure up no other. The uncertainties were numerous. Suppose his secretary, Gloria, recognized MacDonald? Suppose Marisa recognized him? Suppose visitors, or other personnel in the building, came across him?

  But at the moment, Jordan realized, the problem was not how unsafe his destination might be, but how much more dangerous the means of reaching it.

  He watched the passersby coming and going on the Mercerie, then decided to venture into that main street by himself to see if the coast was clear of police.

  “Just wait here a moment,” he told MacDonald. “Let me see if we can make our move now.”

  He walked to the edge of the Mercerie and peered to his left toward the Piazza San Marco. No uniforms in sight. He swung to his right and looked off. At once, he saw a familiar face and figure approaching from perhaps forty or fifty feet away.

  She was a tall, flat young woman holding a black umbrella aloft and waving to a cluster, a human bee-swarm, of nondescript middle-aged people frantically trying to stay close to her.

  This was Felice Huber, with a sensitive, elongated, Virginia Woolf countenance, a scholarly thirtyish woman of Swiss origin who was a tour guide for the Venice travel agency CIT. In a pre-Marisa period, Jordan had gone to bed with her several times, no copulation, strictly oral both ways, which was fine. They had remained friends, enjoying an occasional lunch and discussions about Magritte and other wonderful art crazies.

  Jordan started toward her. “Felice!” he called out.

  She saw him instantly, and her usual somber, sometimes unhappy, face broke into a smile. They met. She stopped, the bee-swarm stopping behind her, and he pecked a kiss at her cheek.

  “You’re looking wonderful,” he said. “How’ve you been?”

  “Unwonderful, same reasons,” she replied. “And busy, as you can see. Today, for this English flock—Liverpool and Manchester—it is Program A.” Mockingly, she recited the tour advertising brochure. “Program A. Morning on foot. Short historical and artistic introduction of the city. Walk on Venice’s main artery. Description of St. Mark’s Square, political center of the Venetian Republic. Visit of the Golden Basilica and Ducal Palace, residence of the Doges and the most important seat of government in the Serenissima. Bridge of Sighs and prisons. Five thousand lire per person, including guide-lecturer, entrance fees, and tips. How does that so
und to you?”

  “So glowing that I’d like to invite myself to come along.”

  “You? You’re kidding. You invented Venice.”

  “Actually, it’s for a friend around the corner. His first visit. I’ve been trying to show him the city. But I’d rather have him hear it all from you.” He reached for his wallet. “I’ll pay you the 10,000 lire—”

  “Cut it out, Tim. Get your friend and hop on. This one’s on the house.” She half-turned, hoisting her umbrella again and calling out, “All right, friends, stay together and follow me. We’re approaching St. Mark’s Square.”

  Relieved, Jordan backed off and hastened to get Professor MacDonald. He felt better. The perilous journey to the Piazza San Marco would now be safer—safety in numbers—the professor might be less identifiable caught up in a mass of pedestrian tourists.

  He had MacDonald by the elbow. “A friend of mine is conducting a tour into the Piazza area. We’re joining it. Make it easier to get to my office.” He edged MacDonald to the main thoroughfare just as Felice Huber began to pass in front of them with her two dozen English visitors. “Okay, let’s go,” said Jordan as he pushed MacDonald into the group between a dumpy middle-aged woman wearing a floppy felt hat and a camera-laden, asthmatic elderly couple. Quickly, Jordan fell in step beside the limping MacDonald.

  For the next five minutes, the pair pressed forward with Felice Huber’s tour. Twice police came toward them, and passed them, without searching the group—in fact, ignoring it—and Jordan was pleased at his stratagem. At once, they came out of the confined darkness of the Mercerie, and the bright glare of the Piazza San Marco burst upon them.

  Jordan stretched to look down the arcade toward his office entrance, prepared to break off from Felice’s tour party and take MacDonald to their destination. But then Jordan saw that this would be impossible. In the arcade, not far from his office entrance, three uniformed members of the questura, or local police, were chatting with two officers of the carabinieri. To attempt to get past them would be suicidal.

  As they proceeded into the Piazza, Jordan leaned closer to MacDonald, mouth almost to his ear, and said, “We were supposed to peel off here, but there are police at my entrance. We’ll just continue with the tour, and when it heads back across the Piazza we can try again.”

  MacDonald was disturbed. “What if the police are still there?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t know,” said Jordan helplessly. “We’ll see. But chances are they’ll have moved on by then.”

  Felice Huber’s umbrella was in the air again as she halted before the Basilica of San Marco and rallied her tour members around her. When she had assembled them, she directed their attention to the sweep of the populated Piazza and, in a singsong voice, began to recount its origins and the highlights of its history. It was all too familiar to Jordan, and he did not listen as he drifted to the rim of the circle. He searched beyond Quadri’s café, found it difficult from this distance to make out figures in the arcade near his office entrance. Then he thought he saw a flash of khaki and felt sure the police were still congregated there.

  The circle of tour members was disintegrating, moving after Felice’s umbrella toward the Basilica doorway. Jordan caught up with them, wormed his way into the middle of the group until he was beside MacDonald.

  Inside, in the semidarkness of the church, erratically illuminated by reflections of gold treasures, flickering candles, lamplight, elbowing against other gawking tourists, Jordan felt more secure. With MacDonald and the others, he followed Felice to the front, where she stopped before the high altar and beckoned her charges to get as close as possible to her.

  “This church, the Golden Basilica,” she was saying, “is dedicated to St. Mark, or San Marco, the early Christian evangelist. At one time in his life, while in this area, he had a dream. In his dream an angel came to him and told him a magnificent city would rise on this site and in this city he would be venerated as a holy man. It all came to pass as he had dreamed. Later, when St. Mark died a martyr in Alexandria, Egypt, his body was stolen by two Venetian merchants. Hiding his corpse in a shipment of pork and herbs, they transported him to Venice. There was no basilica at that time. St. Mark’s body was placed in a bronze coffin and kept in a chapel of the Doges’ Palace. Presently, this basilica—then made of wood—was built in his honor, and his body was moved here. In the year 976, the entire basilica was destroyed by a fire. Afterward, St. Mark’s body could not be found. Anyway, in the next hundred years a new basilica was built on the ruins of the old—this very building—and it was consecrated in the year 1094. At that time, the faithful of Venice gathered to pray for the recovery of St. Mark’s body. During Mass, it is told, a marble slab broke open, revealing an ancient arm and finally St. Mark’s body. He was reburied in a secret corner of this building, in order to keep him safe from vandals, and only two persons, the Doge and a canon, knew where he rested. When the Doge and canon died, St. Mark’s body was lost once more. Well, seven centuries passed with no knowledge of where St. Mark lay. Finally, in 1811, while the basilica was being repaired, workmen came across his body—and he was reburied one last time beneath the high altar you see behind me. Now please follow me up the steps for a closer look.”

  Fifteen minutes later, they had finished inspecting the curiosities of the basilica and were trooping out into the sunlight.

  Felice’s umbrella directed them toward the lagoon. “Stay together,” she called out, “and follow me.”

  Going past the stark-white Doges’ Palace, Felice led the company to two giant columns in the middle of a small square overlooking the lapping waters of the lagoon.

  “This is called the Piazzetta,” she announced. “It is notable for the view and these famous ancient columns.” She pointed to one reddish-gray granite column. “This is the column of St. Mark, topped by the bronze winged Lion of St. Mark sculptured by some Persian artists of long ago. The other is the column known in Venice as Todaro, or St. Theodore, and what you see on top is a representation of St. Theodore piercing a dragon. Originally, these were two of three columns shipped to Venice, but one came loose and sank into the lagoon while being unloaded and it disappeared forever. These two had to wait in the Piazzetta for several decades before an architect could be found who would raise them. The architect who set them up in 1172 was Nicolò Barattieri. As one reward for the task, he was allowed to run a gambling stand situated between the two columns, and he made a fortune from it. Now, the other memorable thing about the Piazzetta, as I told you, is the view. Come, follow me.

  Felice guided her party to the water’s edge and aimed her umbrella at a small island out in the lagoon. “San Giorgio, once called the Island of Cypresses,” she announced. For Jordan, as always, San Giorgio was unbelievably beautiful. It had the quality of a perfect red-and-white cardboard cutout planted in the water. “The Venetian Republic gave the island to a wealthy man named Morosini,” Felice went on. “In the year 982, he sponsored the building of a Benedictine monastery on San Giorgio. It was a leading European cultural center until 1223, when it was brought down by an earthquake. Two hundred years later, Doge Pietro Ziani had it rebuilt. Today, the island is notable mainly for its church, the largest ever constructed by Palladio, and the two Tintorettos it contains.”

  Jordan’s interest had waned, and absently, he began to look at the others in the group. At once, his eyes rested on a short, portly Englishman in his middle sixties who was staring hard at MacDonald. Jordan wondered about the fat Englishman’s interest in the professor, and then Jordan worried.

  Momentarily, he was distracted by Felice’s rising voice. “Off to the right of San Giorgio, to our south, you can see a longer, larger island. It is known as the Giudecca, probably named after Jewish immigrants who came to Venice in 1373 and were segregated on that island. The main feature of the Giudecca, besides its flower gardens and boatyards, is its Church of the Redeemer, built by Palladio in 1577 as a memorial of thanks for the end of the plague the year before.
This plague had killed 50,000 Venetians, among them the aged painter Titian. The Giudecca was at one time a most fashionable resort for Venetian aristocrats. Only a few of their descendants live there today. The noblest private residence that has survived, and is still in use, is the Palazzo De Marchi. Lord Byron, during his stay in Venice between 1816 and 1819, was a guest there when he was having an affair with a draper’s wife, Margherita Cogni, before he moved on to the Mocenigo Palace on the Grand Canal. The Palazzo De Marchi was inherited by the Contessa Elvira De Marchi, who lives there still “

  Something caught and focused large in Jordan’s head.

  Elvira.

  Contessa Elvira De Marchi. A social acquaintance of his from his earlier days in Venice. She was gracious, she was generous, and she was sympathetic. And devoted enough to call him Timothy. He had never presumed to ask her for a favor, but if he asked her for one now, he could not imagine her refusing.

  Yes, of course, Palazzo De Marchi was the best hideout of all for Professor MacDonald until Bruno could arrange for his flight to freedom.

  Then Jordan remembered the threat nearby, the portly Englishman who had been staring at MacDonald. He sought the Englishman again, and to his surprise the Englishman was not there. Jordan’s gaze shifted, and he saw the Englishman squeezing through the group, approaching MacDonald. Roughly, Jordan separated the tourists behind him and made for MacDonald.

  The Englishman was scrutinizing MacDonald as he spoke to him. “Pardon me, sir. Forgive my staring, but your face seems terribly familiar to me. Have we met somewhere before?”

  MacDonald recoiled slightly. “No, I’m afraid not.”

  “Then perhaps I’ve seen your picture somewhere. I’m a physician from Liverpool. Are you also a physician, by chance—perhaps a renowned one?”

  “No. Sorry, no,” said MacDonald.

  Jordan had the professor by the arm. “Pardon me, sir,” Jordan said to the Englishman. “My friend and I have to go.”