The Night of the Odious Obligation

Los Angeles

"Let me get this straight," Jim West said, placing both hands palm down on the conference table. "You want us to rescue Dr. Miguelito Loveless?" He glanced over at his Secret Service partner, who was having the same incredulous reaction.

"They don't look drunk," Artemus Gordon murmured, "or appear to be under any form of mind control. Could be hypnosis, of course. I've checked the calendar and it's definitely not April 1st."

"You still have Torres' hypno-lamp?" Jim asked.

"Sure. We could give it a whirl."

"Gentlemen," Colonel Richmond frowned, "I don't like the situation any more than you do-"

"I doubt that," Jim muttered.

"-but we really don't have any choice. I realize he isn't your favorite person . . . ."

Jim was suddenly grateful that he and Arte hadn't been given anything to drink. Their spit-takes would've out-geysered Old Faithful.

". . . . and you've got very good justification for not wanting to rescue him."

"You must be referring to the way the little monster tries to destroy us every chance he gets," Arte helpfully supplied.

"And has nearly succeeded," Jim added.

"The fact remains," Secretary Bristow said, with a worried glance at both agents, "we need Dr. Loveless' help and he evidently needs yours. I was told that you two are the best there is at dealing with unorthodox situations like this."

Jim traced a circle on the tabletop with one finger, raised his eyebrows and gave the Secretary his best sardonic stare.

"Unorthodox situations being the new code-speak for walking into a trap set by Loveless himself," Jim drawled. "You must be-"

"No, Jim!" Colonel Richmond interrupted. "I know that's what this must look like to you, but believe me, I wouldn't be asking either of you if I thought that was the case!"

"Asking?" Arte raised his eyebrows too. "Not ordering?"

Richmond shook his head.

"I can't – I won't – do that, given your history with 'the little monster' as you put it." The Colonel lowered his head, barely daring to meet their eyes, and chuckled bitterly. "If I tried begging, would begging help? Because I will."

Richmond's hands were trembling now where they were steepled beneath his chin. Jim and Arte looked at each other and sat up a bit straighter.

"It's that serious then?" Arte asked.

"I've never been more serious in my life," Richmond nodded. "But I also know what I'm asking, and it isn't for my two best agents to commit suicide. I need you to undertake this mission willingly, with all your skills brought to bear. I need both of you – and that malevolent wizard – to get back here alive without any inconvenient 'accidents' along the way, hard as that may be."

"Dr. Loveless is our only hope," Secretary Bristow said.

"Of what?" Jim had a hard time imagining Loveless being the 'hope' of anyone other than megalomaniacal, despotic scientists who wanted to believe there was another scientist out there even nuttier than they were.

"Dr. Loveless is the world's foremost authority on Patchinson's Ague," Colonel Richmond said. "And we need a cure for Patchinson's."

"I assume you're about to tell us that's a disease that's spreading somewhere, though I've never heard of it." Jim had crossed his arms and there was still a sardonic edge to his voice, but Arte's brow furrowed.

"I've heard of it," he told Jim. "You probably haven't because it isn't all that common or widespread. But I take it we've had an outbreak?"

Colonel Richmond and Secretary Bristow both nodded, their own faces grave.

"I've never heard of a cure for it though," Arte continued. "You think Dr. Loveless has found one?"

"We don't know," Richmond admitted. "But he's the only one we can find for whom it is even a possibility. We know he was studying the disease from notes found in his original California hideout. We also know that some of those moldy bread cultures he had there produced some pretty amazing medicinal results and properties. Unfortunately an effect on the Ague wasn't one of them. If anyone could produce a cure quickly though . . . ."

"It's a homicidal little maniac who probably would never agree to do it out of the goodness of his tender, sentimental heart." Jim sighed. "Colonel, has it ever occurred to you that even if Arte and I can rescue Loveless, we may be the very last people on Earth he would ever do any favors for even if we did save his life?"

"I'm willing to beg," Richmond told them, "and I'm willing to grasp at straws too."

"This is grasping over quite a distance," Arte said, examining the map and papers they'd been given. "You're asking us to go into Mexico. Grant approved this?"

Colonel Richmond and Secretary Bristow glanced at one another nervously before Colonel Richmond replied.

"Strictly speaking, no. The Secretary of State has approved it."

"It isn't the Secretary of State's job," Jim pointed out, with more than a hint of displeasure.

"Under normal circumstances, no. These are not normal circumstances." Richmond's hands were shaking again and his voice had a hoarse quality. "The Patchinson's outbreak has occurred in San Francisco, where the President had a speaking engagement, as I'm sure you know."

Both Secret Service agents nodded. They'd been planning to meet up with Grant in a few days themselves.

"The President of the United States has the Ague."

Arte's face went as pale as Richmond's at this startling pronouncement. He and Grant had always been close. Jim was troubled also, but keeping his composure.

"It still isn't Secretary Fish's job," he said quietly. "What about the Vice President? What does he have to say about this?"

"Nothing," Richmond admitted. "We were informed by telegraph yesterday that Vice President Wilson has suffered a stroke. It's serious. And gentlemen, before you ask, yes, we did attempt to contact the Speaker of the House as well. He's gone on a hunting and fishing trip with some old friends and we still haven't been able to reach him." The Colonel shoved his chair back from the table, appearing every inch a broken man. "So now you know. The country is teetering on the brink of a Constitutional crisis and our only hope may be a brilliant, murderous madman who we believe is being held in a dungeon in Mexico." He looked up and this time dared to meet Jim and Arte's gaze with his own tired eyes. "Your decision please, gentlemen? We haven't got much time."

"I can't let down the President at a time like this," Arte answered quickly. "I'm in."

"I am too," Jim frowned, all too aware that he might be making the biggest – and last – mistake of his life.