  Much of the rest of the world was inclined to regard the elevation of Superior, Ohio, as a Fortean phenomenon in the same category as flying saucers and sea monsters. The press had a field day. Most of the headlines were whimsical: Town Takes Off Superior Lives Up To Name A Rising Community The city council of Superior, Wisconsin, passed a resolution urging its Ohio namesake to come back down. The Superiors in Nebraska, Wyoming, Arizona and West Virginia, glad to have the publicity, added their voices to the plea. The Pennsylvania Railroad filed a suit demanding that the state of Ohio return forthwith one train and five miles of right-of-way. The price of bubble gum went up from one cent to three for a nickel. In Parliament a Labour member rose to ask the Home Secretary for assurances that all British cities were firmly fastened down. An Ohio waterworks put in a bid for the sixteen square miles of hole that Superior had left behind, explaining that it would make a fine reservoir. A company that leased out big advertising signs in Times Square offered Superior a quarter of a million dollars for exclusive rights to advertising space on its bottom, or Earthward, side. It sent the offer by air mail, leaving delivery up to the post office. In Washington, Senator Bobby Thebold ascertained that his red-haired secretary, Jen Jervis, had been aboard the train levitated with Superior and registered a series of complaints by telephone, starting with the Interstate Commerce Commission and the railroad brotherhoods. He asked the FBI to investigate the possibility of kidnaping and muttered about the likelihood of it all being a Communist plot. A little-known congressman from Ohio started a rumor that raising of Superior was an experiment connected with the United States earth satellite program. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration issued a quick denial. Two men talked earnestly in an efficient-looking room at the end of one of the more intricate mazes in the Pentagon Building. Neither wore a uniform but the younger man called the other sir, or chief, or general. "We've established definitely that Sergeant Cort was on that train, have we?" the general asked. "Yes, sir. No doubt about it." "And he has the item with him?" "He must have. The only keys are here and at the other end. He couldn't open the handcuff or the brief case." "The only known keys, that is." "Oh? How's that, General?" "The sergeant can open the brief case and use the item if we tell him how." "You think it's time to use it? I thought we were saving it." "That was before Superior defected. Now we can use it to more advantage than any theoretical use it might be put to in the foreseeable future." "We could evacuate Cort. Take him off in a helicopter or drop him a parachute and let him jump." "No. Having him there is a piece of luck. No one knows who he is. We'll assign him there for the duration and have him report regularly. Let's go to the message center." Senator Bobby Thebold was an imposing six feet two, a muscular 195, a youthful-looking 43. He wore his steel-gray hair cut short and his skin was tan the year round. He was a bachelor. He had been a fighter pilot in World War II and his conversation was peppered with Air Force slang, much of it out of date. Thebold was good newspaper copy and one segment of the press, admiring his fighting ways, had dubbed him Bobby the Bold. The Senator did not mind a bit. At the moment Senator Thebold was pacing the carpet in the ample working space he'd fought to acquire in the Senate Office Building. He was momentarily at a loss. His inquiries about Jen Jervis had elicited no satisfaction from the ICC, the FBI, or the CIA. He was in an alphabetical train of thought and went on to consider the CAA, the CAB and the CAP. He snapped his fingers at CAP. He had it. The Civil Air Patrol itself he considered a la-de-da outfit of gentleman flyers, skittering around in light planes, admittedly doing some good, but by and large nothing to excite a former P-38 pilot who'd won a chestful of ribbons for action in the Southwest Pacific. Ah, but the PP. There was an organization! Bobby Thebold had been one of the founders of the Private Pilots, a hard-flying outfit that zoomed into the wild blue yonder on week ends and holidays, engines aroar, propellers aglint, white silk scarves aflap. PP's members were wealthy industrialists, stunt flyers, sportsmen—the elite of the air. PP was a paramilitary organization with the rank of its officers patterned after the Royal Air Force. Thus Bobby Thebold, by virtue of his war record, his charter membership and his national eminence, was Wing Commander Thebold, DFC. Wing Commander Thebold swung into action. He barked into the intercom: "Miss Riley! Get the airport. Have them rev up Charger. Tell them I'll be there for oh-nine-fifty-eight take-off. Ten-hundred will do. And get my car." Charger was Bobby the Bold's war surplus P-38 Lightning, a sleek, twin-boomed two engine fighter plane restored to its gleaming, paintless aluminum. Actually it was an unarmed photo-reconnaissance version of the famous war horse of the Pacific, a fact the wing commander preferred to ignore. In compensation, he belted on a .45 whenever he climbed into the cockpit. Thebold got onto Operations in PP's midwestern headquarters in Chicago. He barked, long distance: "Jack Perley? Group Captain Perley, that is? Bobby, that's right. Wing Commander Thebold now. We've got a mission, Jack. Scramble Blue Squadron. What? Of course you can; this is an emergency. We'll rendezvous north of Columbus—I'll give you the exact grid in half an hour, when I'm airborne. Can do? Good-o! ETA? Eleven-twenty EST. Well, maybe that is optimistic, but I hate to see the day slipping by. Make it eleven-forty-five. What? Objective? Objective Superior! Got it? Okay—roger!" Wing Commander Bobby Thebold took his Lindbergh-style helmet and goggles from a desk drawer, caressing the limp leather fondly, and put them in a dispatch case. He gave a soft salute to the door behind which Jen Jervis customarily worked, more as his second-in-command than his secretary, and said half aloud: "Okay, Jen, we're coming to get you." He didn't know quite how, but Bobby the Bold and Charger would soon be on their way. Don Cort regretfully detached himself from Alis Garet. "What was that?" he said. "That was me—Alis the love-starved. You could be a bit more gallant. Even 'How was that?,' though corny, would have been preferable. "No—I mean I thought I heard a voice. Didn't you hear anything?" "To be perfectly frank—and I say it with some pique—I was totally absorbed. Obviously you weren't." "It was very nice." The countryside, from the edge to the golf course, was deserted. "Well, thanks. Thanks a bunch. Such enthusiasm is more than I can bear. I have to go now. There's an eleven o'clock class in magnetic flux that I'm simply dying to audit." She gave her shoulder-length blonde hair a toss and started back. Don hesitated, looked suspiciously at the brief case dangling from his wrist, shook his head, then followed her. The voice, wherever it came from, had not spoken again. "Don't be angry, Alis." He fell into step on her left and took her arm with his free hand. "It's just that everything is so crazy and nobody seems to be taking it seriously. A town doesn't just get up and take off, and yet nobody up here seems terribly concerned." Alis squeezed the hand that held her arm, mollified. "You've got lipstick on your whiskers." "Good. I'll never shave again." "Ah," she laughed, "gallantry at last. I'll tell you what let's do. We'll go see Ed Clark, the editor of the Sentry. Maybe he'll give you some intelligent conversation." The newspaper office was in a ramshackle one-story building on Lyric Avenue, a block off Broadway, Superior's main street. It was in an ordinary store front whose windows displayed various ancient stand-up cardboard posters calling attention to a church supper, a state fair, an auto race, and a movie starring H. B. Warner. A dust-covered banner urged the election as president of Alfred E. Smith. There was no one in the front of the shop. Alis led Don to the rear where a tall skinny man with straggly gray hair was setting type. "Good morning, Mr. Clark," she said. "What's that you're setting—an anti-Hoover handbill?" "Hello, Al. How are you this fine altitudinous day?" "Super. Or should it be supra? I want you to meet Don Cort. Don, Mr. Clark." The men shook hands and Clark looked curiously at Don's handcuff. "It's my theory he's an embezzler," Alis said, "and he's made this his getaway town." "As a matter of fact," Don said, "the Riggs National Bank will be worried if I don't get in touch with them soon. I guess you'd know, Mr. Clark—is there any communication at all out of town?" By prearrangement, a message from Don to Riggs would be forwarded to Military Intelligence. "I don't know of any, except for the Civek method—a bottle tossed over the edge. The telegraph and telephone lines are cut, of course. There is a radio station in town, WCAV, operated from the campus, but it's been silent ever since the great severance. At least nothing local has come over my old Atwater Kent." "Isn't anybody doing anything?" Don asked. "Sure," Clark said. "I'm getting out my paper—there was even an extra this morning—and doing job printing. The job is for a jeweler in Ladenburg. I don't know how I'll deliver it, but no one's told me to stop so I'm doing it. I guess everybody's carrying on pretty much as before." "That's what I mean. Business as usual. But how about the people who do business out of town? What's Western Union doing, for instance? And the trucking companies? And the factories? You have two factories, I understand, and pretty soon there's going to be a mighty big surplus of kitchen sinks and chewing gum." "You two go on settling our fate," Alis said. "I'd better get back to school. Look me up later, Don." She waved and went out. "Fine girl, that Alis," Clark said. "Got her old man's gumption without his nutty streak. To answer your question, the Western Union man here is catching up on his bookkeeping and accepting outgoing messages contingent on restoration of service. The sink factory made a shipment two days ago and won't have another ready till next week, so they're carrying on. They have enough raw material for a month. I was planning to visit the bubble gum people this afternoon to see how they're doing. Maybe you'd like to come." "Yes, I would. I still chew it once in a while, on the sly." Clark grinned. "I won't tell. Would you like to tidy up, Don? There's a washroom out back, with a razor and some mysterious running water. Now there's a phenomenon I'd like to get to the bottom of." "Thanks. I'll shave with it now and worry about its source later. Do you think Professor Garet and his magnology cult has anything to do with it?" "He'd like to think so, I'm sure." Clark shrugged. "We've been airborne less than twelve hours. I guess the answers will come in time. You go clean up and I'll get back to my job." Don felt better when he had shaved. It had been awkward because he hadn't been able to take off his coat or shirt, but he'd managed. He was drying his face when the voice came again. This time there was no doubt it came from the brief case chained to his handcuff. "Are you alone now?" it asked. Startled, Don said, "Yes." "Good. Speak closer to the brief case so we won't be overheard. This is Captain Simmons, Sergeant." "Yes, sir." "Take out your ID card. Separate the two pieces of plastic. There's a flat plastic key next to the card. Open the brief case lock with it." The voice was silent until Don, with the help of a razor blade, had done as he was directed. "All right, sir; that's done." "Open the brief case, take out the package, open the package and put the wrappings back in the brief case." Again the voice stopped. Don unwrapped something that looked like a flat cigarette case with two appendages, one a disk of perforated hard rubber the size of a half dollar, and the other a three-quarter-inch-wide ribbon of opaque plastic. "I've got it, sir." "Good. What you see is a highly advanced radio transmitter and receiver. You can imagine its value in the field. It's a pilot model you were bringing back from the contractor for tests here. But this seems as useful a way to test it as any other." "It's range is fantastic, Captain—if you're in Washington." "I am. Now. The key also unlocks the handcuff. Unlock it. Strip to the waist. Bend the plastic strip to fit over your shoulder—either one, as you choose. Arrange the perforated disk so it's at the base of your neck, under your shirt collar. The thing that looks like a cigarette case is the power pack." Don followed the instructions, rubbing his wrist in relief as the handcuff came off. The radio had been well designed and its components went into place as if they had been built to his measure. They tickled a little on his bare skin, that was all. The power pack was surprisingly light. "That's done, sir," Don said. The answer came softly. "So I hear. You almost blasted my ear off. From now on, when you speak to me, or whoever's at this end, a barely audible murmur will be sufficient. Try it." "Yes, Captain," Don whispered. "I'm trying it now." "Don't whisper. I can hear you all right, but so could people you wouldn't want overhearing at your end. A whisper carries farther than you think. Talk low." Don practiced while he put his shirt, tie and coat back on. "Good," Captain Simmons said. "Practice talking without moving your lips, for occasions when you might have to transmit to us in someone's view. Now put your handcuff back on and lock it." "Oh, damn," Don said under his breath. "I heard that." "Sorry, sir, but it is a nuisance." "I know, but you have to get rid of it logically. When you get a chance go to the local bank. It's the Superior State Bank on McEntee Street. Show them your credentials from Riggs National and ask them to keep your brief case in their vault. Get a receipt. Then, at your first opportunity, burn the plastic key and your ID card." "Yes, sir." "Keep up your masquerade as a bank messenger and try to find out, as if you were an ordinary curiosity-seeker, all you can about Cavalier Institute. You've made a good start with the Garet girl. Get to know her father, the professor." "Yes, sir." Don realized with embarrassment that his little romantic interlude with Alis must have been eavesdropped on. "Are there any particular times I'm to report?" "You will be reporting constantly. That's the beauty of this radio." "You mean I can't turn it off? I won't have any privacy? There'll always be somebody listening?" "Exactly. But you mustn't be inhibited. Your private life is still your own and no one will criticize. Your unofficial actions will simply be ignored." "Oh, great!" "You must rely on our discretion, Sergeant. I'm sure you'll get used to it. Enough of this for now. We mustn't excite Clark's suspicions. Go back to him now and carry on. You'll receive further instructions as they are necessary. And remember—don't be inhibited." "No, sir," Don said ruefully. He went back to the printshop, feeling like a goldfish bowl. |
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