Snakes in the Grass
Having your father blown up and getting the hat shot off your head can really change a man's feelings about his home town. As he and Amanda snuck through the less traveled and less observed sections of Chicago's outer rail yard, Tem wondered if he'd ever be able to feel like this city was familiar turf, friendly turf again. Trained for trouble as he was from an early age, he'd never really noticed the big town's seamier side because he'd never been looking for it. Chicago to him had been the magical place where Uncle Arte and Aunt Lily acted on stage sometimes, and if he behaved himself, as he almost always did, he'd be allowed to go see the performance along with his parents. Chicago was the miracle town that had rebuilt itself from near utter destruction to become the gleaming city of future progress with the most magnificent buildings in the world. It was the hub of activity and center of transportation and commerce for the entire country, the land of magnificent toy stores (which his father didn't seem to care for, for some reason), even more magnificent restaurants (reserved for very special occasions), a place of parades and spectacles, museums and seemingly endless amusements.
Now it was becoming something else, something more sinister. Secret Service agents typically weren't assigned to investigate their own home areas for very good reasons. He and Amanda had both seen things they wished they could forget in New York City and Boston, learned to be uneasy about the Big Easy, and only narrowly escaped a massive earthquake and fires in San Francisco. But Tem had remained cheerfully, willfully ignorant about changes that had been coming to the Chicago area and that were suddenly starting to seem as obvious as the nose on his face. The magnificent side was still there – the University of Chicago, the parks, the art, the architecture, the fancy shops and restaurants, but other things, less savory enterprises had started to creep in along with all that prosperity. An honest buck was never enough for some people, and if a world-wide arms smuggling conspiracy had found a home here, it had been with the help of many dishonest bucks.
Nothing was more frustrating for Tem than the fact that his father's shooter remained at large and that, even armed with a photograph, all the dogs of the law couldn't be set baying after that man. General bulletins and Wanted posters would only have put the man in the red hat to running and hiding, while alerting the rest of the criminals and conspirators as well. What's more, at present they had no tangible proof that the man with the red hat and the chin scar was Jim West's attacker – only the word of an elderly and eccentric curio shop owner whose testimony would be regarded as suspect even if she were prepared to give it, which she might not be. Inquiries for his whereabouts, therefore, had to remain subtle to the point of being almost non-existent, and that sinister figure was still one of the only leads they had.
But finding out about the no-questions-asked movement of large, heavy freight in and out of the city, that was quite another matter. Not all of the best things in life were free; silence could be very, very expensive. Chicago had one railyard executive, in particular, who seemed to be making a great deal more money than his salary alone, if his lifestyle was any indication. Tem and Amanda had not had too much difficulty during their discreet inquiries on picking up the rumors of which city inspectors were 'negotiable.' Amanda was, as usual, the better rumor-gatherer. It had been Tem's job, along with Hamilton's, to look up the official city listings and files for the names they'd heard, since women were welcome in just so many sections of the new Federal Building. Amanda had made clear that both of tonight's missions – and their risks – were going to be shared with her all the way. That's how it was with the most dangerous operations. It was a vow they'd both taken seriously.
In sickness and in health,
In peril and in safety . . . .
The first half of tonight's mission ideally shouldn't be all that perilous, except in the legal sense. Breaking and entering into someone's office at night wasn't, strictly speaking, sanctioned procedure by the Secret Service. But with national security at stake and no way of knowing how far the 'rot in the woodwork' that T.R. had warned them of went, the chance had to be taken. It wouldn't have been acceptable to either of them to drag Jimmy into this.
Mr. H. Fenton Gadoue was remarkably prosperous for a freight surveyor and man who didn't come from inherited wealth. He was also a creature of habit. He dined at least three nights a week at the Federation Hotel's prestigious Périple des Etoiles Restaurant with his wife Stella. On those nights, he left his office reliably at six in the evening and didn't return until the next morning. Tem and Amanda wouldn't have much time for what they intended to accomplish, but by quarter to nine at night, all the day people would have left the railyards, and the night staff wouldn't yet be in position or much on the alert. They wouldn't get a much better chance than this.
Gadoue must have anticipated trouble or placed a premium on his privacy. Not only was the door to his office sturdier than most – the lock was sturdier and more complex as well. It was no match for the Wests' lockpicks and acumen, however, and in under a minute they had made their way silently into the freight surveyor's office. The small room was gratifyingly neat and tidy, very respectable looking. That would make it easier to search with care. Given the choice, Tem preferred investigating a neatnik's quarters over a slob's any day, even if it meant they had to be that much more careful in making it look undisturbed when they left.
The ledger on Gadoue's desk also appeared neat, proper and normal as well. With the sun faded from the sky and the need to avoid turning on large lamps that would attract attention, Tem and Amanda each got out one of Artemus Gordon's final, genius inventions – a tiny battery-powered light which could be turned on or off at the flick of a switch. Cousins of these items – called 'flash' lights or electric torches by some folks – were beginning to be sold in stores, all of them bulky, unreliable, blinking and needing to 'rest' after short periods of use. Artemus Gordon's battery lights, by comparison, were much smaller, not nearly as heavy, and could work for extended periods without blinking at all – perfect for operations such as this. While Amanda searched the desk and its drawers for secret compartments, Tem flipped through the ledger, checked out the books and papers on top of the desk and kept alert for any sources of light from outside the room that would indicate the presence of a night watchman or another intruder.
"Aha!" Amanda whispered up to Tem as she found the anticipated secret panel in the desk. So many individuals – not just criminals – used the 'hidden recesses' feature these days, Tem wondered why anyone would think it a very effective or clever means of concealing anything. The sliding panels seldom had locks the way many drawers did, and this one was no exception. Amanda gently slid it aside to reveal – surprise, surprise! – another ledger. Aha, indeed.
Mr. H. Fenton Gadoue was just as impeccably tidy at keeping his under-the-desk accounts as the more legitimate ones in the ledger he left visible. Neat dated column upon neat dated column, listing company names, freight weights and fees collected, with the dates 'coincidentally' being the same in both ledgers. Gadoue was making some handsome extra sums to support his fine dining habits. Tem heard his wife utter a sharp, bitter hiss of a breath before he saw what her finger was pointing at in one of the columns – J.D.P. The same initials used by the company renting the wharf-side warehouse. So – definite involvement. And in another column, the enigmatic initials of the company they would be paying a call on tonight.
They wouldn't have time to examine the full ledger here before keeping their ten o'clock appointment, nor could they steal it and alert Gadoue that his game was up. Photographing the pages, even if they had had Jimmy's knowledge of camera apparatus, wasn't a good option either without using enough light to make others aware of their presence. But sometimes the old tried and true methods worked best. Gadoue's pen nib had bitten deep into the paper of each page. Amanda got out the thin tracing paper and soft, flat piece of graphite that she kept in her purse for just such occasions, inserted the tracing paper over some of the pages, and swiftly, but gently made rubbings of them, thus copying the writing. She folded these tracings back up, one at a time, being careful not to rub them against each other and put them back in her purse. Tem wished she could do this with every page, but there wasn't time and she didn't have enough paper or graphite. With the scheduled rendezvous hour fast approaching, she and Tem would have to be content to examine more closely what they had gotten later. For now, Amanda put the second ledger back in its place of concealment while Tem made sure everything else looked untouched, and the two of them slipped out of the freight surveyor's office to leave Gadoue, hopefully, none the wiser.
Making their way to the prearranged meeting point with Agent Elser wasn't any more difficult than the break-in job had been, but in many ways it made Tem more nervous. In the handful of days they'd worked with Elser's partner Agent Hamilton in Washington, and another handful of days here in Chicago, the bland, laconic Hamilton had impressed Tem with the depth of his knowledge and his professionalism. It was clear why Colonel Longworth relied on the man. Agent Elser, in contrast, seemed all too unsubtle, too visible – and not in a deliberate diversionary kind of a way. He'd certainly made himself recognizable and obvious to the inhabitants of the wharf district. Tem supposed there must be some reasons Elser had been paired with the canny Hamilton, but if Elser had any hidden talents, those were just about the only things hidden about him. Not the sort of individual Tem would have chosen for a dangerous surveillance mission, which was probably why Hamilton had gone in ahead of them.
Sure enough, Tem and Amanda had no trouble spotting Danny Elser at the arranged rendezvous point before Elser spotted them. Where Tem and Amanda had taken the trouble to don dark clothing, the better to blend in to darkness and the night-time shadows, Agent Elser appeared to be wearing much the same outfit he'd had on when he and Tem had examined the wharf warehouse ruins. Did the man have no sense of the need for disguise?
Tem was tempted to say something, at least at a whisper to the man, but bit back his comment. Agent Elser was clearly worried, and not about his clothing. As soon as they'd arrived and made their own presence known to him, Elser continued to scan the vicinity looking for someone else. There was no sign as yet of Agent Hamilton.
"It isn't like Lynn to be late," Elser whispered to them, referring to his partner by first name.
Tem could certainly believe that. Agent Hamilton was nothing if not a consummate professional. The fact that he hadn't arrived to meet them on time after being at the location well before all three of them that day was not good. Tem, Amanda and Elser waited at least fifteen minutes past ten o'clock in case Hamilton had simply been delayed by something, as Tem had told Jimmy could often be the case. But when ten-fifteen came and went with still no sign of the other agent, a decision had to be made.
"Something has to be wrong," Elser whispered anxiously. "Like it or not, I'm going in!" With a flick of his hand and the tiniest snikt! sound, Elser's own sleeve derringer popped into his hand as he contemplated the shadowy, shade-windowed warehouse looming before them.
"Not alone," Tem whispered back, as he and Amanda both nodded. Their glimpse into Mr. Gadoue's hidden ledger made it all the more likely that this facility was the very viper's nest they sought. Those were snakes Tem intended to deal with himself, and he wasn't going to leave a worthy agent like Hamilton in the lurch either, if Hamilton was still alive to find in that building. He left his own sleeve gun in its trusty sheath, getting out his favorite lockpick again instead as the three of them approached the target from a side alley. Tem and Amanda had taken pains to keep themselves as close to walls and as little visible as possible in case this warehouse boasted a rooftop gunman too. This close to the busier and more populated Chicago railyard, it would have been chancy to employ such an individual, especially so soon after the events at the now-demolished waterfront warehouse, but you never knew. The side door was locked, of course. Tem listened at it for any inside noises he might discern. There were none that he could hear. With a final nod to Amanda and Agent Elser, Tem made use of the lockpick as silently as possible and more by feel than by sight.
With an almost silent click, the door unlocked, and Tem turned the knob and opened the door just a crack. With any luck, the warehouse would not be keeping up any brisk activity at this time of night, and they'd be able to slip in unnoticed. But then again, with any luck, Agent Hamilton would have returned from his earlier surveillance of this place to meet them on schedule. For now, the interior of the building appeared dark and devoid of occupants or visible enterprise. With Tem and Elser in front and Amanda watching their backs, they crept in. Had they arrived too late? Had the sought-after enemy pulled up stakes and left town? That would have been the logical thing to do, and a pseudo-company would have had plenty of time in the weeks since the warehouse and hospital blasts to do it. Or was this building the home to a more innocuous business? In which case, what could have caused Agent Hamilton's non-appearance? The near total darkness made it difficult to see anything in front of them. If an ambush was lying in wait though, use of even the small battery lights would make the three of them easy targets.
Tem felt a familiar prickle as the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Along with his father's penchant for getting into trouble, he'd also inherited Jim West's instinct for knowing when it was arriving. As he took a step forward, he realized that something felt odd, not quite right, about the floor underneath his feet. A split second too late, he attempted to shove Elser and Amanda back as the surface they were standing on suddenly fell away beneath them and they dropped into a dark, dank, mucky and smelly pit about ten feet below. All three had been trained how to handle such falls – James West and Artemus Gordon had suffered enough such pitfalls that training for them had become part of the Secret Service's curriculum. But it still hurt and knocked the breath out of the agents for a few seconds when they landed. Tem, the fastest to recover, saw the trap doors they'd fallen through swing back up into place to form a ceiling over their heads, with one thin seam and the clicking of another lock mechanism.
Now he heard other noises from above as well – the sound of heavy, booted footsteps over their heads and the sound of deadbolts being drawn into place, closing the three agents in more securely. It had been a trap, all right, and they'd literally fallen for it.
"Lynn!" Agent Elser gasped as they realized even in this darkness that they weren't alone. They were in one of Chicago's many subterranean service tunnels – to which had been added a major modification: steel bars on either side of the tunnel, turning it into the cage they were prisoners of. By the eerie phosphorescent light of the tunnel walls, they could just make out the form, lying closest to one of the sets of bars, of Elser's missing partner. With the element of surprise already lost, Tem took out his battery light and held it up to illuminate the area.
"He's breathing," Elser said with relief, crouching down at Hamilton's side. Moving in for a closer look, Tem wasn't so sure Elser should be optimistic. Hamilton was still breathing, but from the look of it, there was as much blood as muck and mud on his shirt, the stain spreading out from a bullet hole near his collar bone. If they didn't manage to get the wounded agent out of here and to a hospital soon, his chances for survival wouldn't be good. Of course, if they didn't all get out of this place, and quickly, their own chances for survival didn't look too good either.
As if to underscore the dilemma, the booted footsteps came to a halt almost directly over Tem's head, and stomped on the floor above. Elser pointed his derringer upward, but for less than a second. The tiny gun wouldn't stand a chance of shooting through the solid metal plates above them, and the bullet might only ricochet and do one of them injury if he tried to shoot, and they all knew it. Their captor wasn't worried about the possibility. Evil laughter drifted down through the seam between the two trap door plates.
"Agent West," a deep voice called down following the laughter.
Tem and Amanda stared at one another. She was as much entitled to be called that as he was, though few ever addressed her that way. And he was the one who'd had his hat shot off, after all.
"Agent West," the voice called again. "You didn't really think we'd leave our side door unguarded a second time, did you?"
I was hoping you would, Tem thought. No point in answering such a question, though. The sure-fire way to get any enemy talking, as Tem's father had told him long ago, was to pretend you're ignoring him. That technique had worked with more than just the late Dr. Loveless. Act calm and cool even when you're the one being held at knifepoint, and the bad guys will interrogate themselves for you. Meanwhile, as he, Amanda and Elser remained silent, they also were looking around at the tunnel they were trapped in, considering the equipment they had brought with them and what their best options for escape were. Probably the tunnel, once they got through one of the sets of steel bars. It was impossible to tell, without municipal blueprints of the tunnels, which direction might yield a closer exit point. Hamilton would need to be carried, but shouldn't be moved any more than necessary until then, so Tem and Amanda, by silent hand signal, agreed to work on the set of steel bars farthest from him, while Elser tried to give his partner what aid he could, taking off his jacket and wrapping it around Hamilton for extra warmth.
"Agent West." Sure enough, the booted man above them couldn't resist the sound of his own voice. "You're going to die down there."
Not if I can help it.
And he could, with some help from the special chemical strips he and Amanda were both carrying as part of their 'full attire.' Tem's stetson, already somewhat worse for wear from the high caliber treatment a few days ago, had been knocked off again into the underground effluvia that lined the bottom of the service tunnel, but he didn't intend to put it back on his head as he reached for it – he wanted the outer band that lined the crown of the hat. He peeled this off, pulled away the thin outer felt coating, and began unfolding the lengthy ribbon concealed within, wrapping it around several of the steel bars on one half of the set they were working on, while Amanda did the same with the chemical ribbon that she'd kept concealed in her own ladies' hat band. They worked quickly. Once the ribbons were exposed to air, they still needed to be lit by match or other flame source and would lose their volatility if too many minutes passed without lighting.
"Hey, West!" a second, rattier-sounding voice shouted through the seam in their dungeon ceiling. "Wanna know how yer gonna die?"
"Not really," Tem muttered under his breath, "but I'm sure you're going to tell us." In spite of the remark, they definitely had his interest, as did the increased sound from up above. The second speaker was walking with a more shuffling gait than the first.
"Yer gonna burn, West!" the shuffler taunted. "Just like yer old man should'a burned!"
Tem sucked his breath in and glared up at the unseen speaker, but his hands didn't halt or slow in the slightest as they completed their task and Tem struck the match. The ribbons lit up, crackling and burning slowly with a brilliant light and a heat that forced Tem and Amanda to duck back. They watched the results of their handiwork from several feet away.
Take that for burning, Tem thought. His main concern now was that their taunters might wonder what they were up to down here, open up the trap door and choose a quicker expedient to get rid of them. Both sides were armed, but for the party up above it would be like shooting fish in a barrel, with one of the fish already unable to defend himself. The ribbons needed several minutes to do their work. Did they have several minutes? He'd have to bite at the line at least a little to keep their enemies talking instead of thinking.
"And how am I going to burn?" Tem shouted up at their captors. "You've got some sort of brilliant plan for that, I bet."
The agents might be the trapped fish, but it was the men above who took the bait.
"You'll appreciate the irony," the first, deeper-voiced speaker said. "It doesn't have to be brilliant. Now that we're done with this facility, we're going to dispose of it the same way your father disposed of the first one, but with less of our material inside. An oil lamp caused the first Great Chicago Fire. You and your colleagues can be the first witnesses to the second one! And my co-worker may be wrong. You should have enough air down there for some time. But when this building collapses, it is going to collapse very hard on the space you are in." The heavy, booted footfalls and the shuffling ones moved off of the trap doors, but not without their owners getting in a parting shot.
"If you are very lucky," the first speaker said, "they'll find your bodies, or what's left of them. Goodbye, agents."
"Say hi to Mrs. O'Leary's cow!" the shuffling second speaker cackled, then roared with laughter at his own joke.
Then the footsteps receded and the captive Secret Service agents heard other sounds from up above. No doubt the aforementioned oil lamp being used to catch whatever contents remained in the railyard-bordering warehouse on fire. Tem had to hand it to the enemy for thoroughness. Any clues the investigators might have hoped to find in that warehouse would be burned to cinders along with it.
"They really know how to make a person hot under the collar, don't they?" Amanda growled, looking up at the trap door briefly before turning her attention back to the burning metal bars of their 'cage.'
The strips were aglow with energy, so much so that the subterranean tunnel was fully lit up. But the question remained – could they do their work, and do it in time? Already Tem could see a line of fire-produced light showing through the trap door seam and feel the air at the top part of their prison getting hot. Soon smoke would be creeping down here too, and the pyrochemical strips they were using created enough of that.
Tem moved over to where Agent Hamilton lay in his partner's arms, ready to help Elser carry him out at the first opportunity. To Tem's amazement, the wounded agent, in spite of being barely breathing was struggling to open his eyes. Hamilton groaned once and then regained consciousness, attempting to sit up and failing. In spite of what must have been great pain, the agent still had that same imperturbable, laconic expression on his face.
"Easy, Lynn," Elser said. "We'll handle the fireworks show for you."
Will we? Tem saw to his dismay as the chemical strips began to burn out that the steel bars they should have melted remained standing in place. He and Amanda had to bring out their battery lights, which they'd turned off, to confront this unexpected circumstance.
What the he . . . ck do we do now?
He went over and tried to kick the steel bars loose. They began to give, but not quite enough. The strips had greatly weakened them, but it would still take more than a few kicks to help the trapped agents escape. They could now hear the crackles of flame and objects starting to fall up above. Their little prison was heating up fast. In the beams from the battery lights, tendrils of smoke had appeared.
"West . . . ." Hamilton called weakly.
Tem kneeled at the other agent's side once again, wondering how the man could stay so damn expressionless at a time like this.
"West . . . pocket . . . ." Hamilton rasped, moving his eyes to indicate there was something in his front vest pocket that he wanted Tem to see.
Gingerly, Tem reached into the pocket in question and pulled out a folded, bloodstained piece of paper. Hamilton, apparently satisfied by this, gave himself up to unconsciousness once more.
"What is it?" Elser asked. "Something to help us get out of here?"
"I doubt it," Tem said. "Looks like some kind of gibberish written on it, probably a code. Fascinating, maybe, but we'd better get out of this pit first – fast!" The chamber was becoming unbearable now. "I'm open to suggestions."
"I've got one," Amanda told them, holding out her black parasol. "But you aren't going to like it."
Tem nodded.
"You're right. But we'd better do it."
"Do what?" Elser asked with trepidation as he saw Amanda West pop open the black parasol and lay it on the ground, with its domed fabric and top spike directly touching the half-burned steel bars on the opposite side of the enclosure.
Tem stayed crouched, prepared for what was about to happen as his wife gave the parasol's handle a sharp twist to the right until they both heard the loud click it made, followed by the start of a ticking sound. Amanda leaped to the other side, crouched down herself, and Tem did his best to cover her and Agent Hamilton both while conveying to Elser that now would be a very good time to do the same.
"My Mom believed in the power of prayer, Dan," Tem said. "Now might be a very good time to do some praying!"
"Sure!" the other agent said. "Uh, what is it that we're praying for?"
"That this tunnel and the warehouse over our heads are extremely well built!"
The ticking sounds coming from the black parasol sped up, clicking faster and faster before, with a louder click, the sound stopped.
Then the explosion came.