The Doomsday Bag by Michael Avallone

Author:Michael Avallone [Avallone, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Story Merchant Books
Published: 2014-03-03T22:00:00+00:00

The Fatal Football

It was the thirty-pound black metal bag, of course. The Bagman's Doomsday Football. Lying in the gloom of the loft, as if someone had just set it down. Rowles pounced on it, almost with a whoop, and I stood back, because I supposed he knew what he was doing. It was better than even-money he had seen the thing more than once.

The whoop transformed into a despairing whimper of great disappointment. Then Rowles cursed again. A four-letter word he very probably hadn't used in years. I didn't have to ask him what all the fuss was about. He had turned and I could see the bag clearly now. It was dangling lightly in his right hand, and even in the poor light where no sunlight shined, I could see the lock mechanism had been rent asunder. There were deep scratches and grooves and marks of the jimmying and prying that had inevitably gotten the bag open. The intricate lock mechanism that the President had mentioned had yielded to brute force. What price Security and a lock combination known only to a few insiders?

Rowles set the bag down dumbly, turned away, and walked to the jagged opening where hay had been pitched in the long ago for storage in the loft. I stared down at the bag, then crouched to examine it. With Rowles gazing disconsolately from the opening, I studied the bag. It was as heavy and durably constructed as a bag could be, without being a safe, but even a cursory examination of the interior showed the utter emptiness of the thing. It had been picked clean. No nuclear codes or patterns or thick manila envelopes with important wax seals and signatures of Joint Chiefs were in evidence. Not even the crude hot line to Great Britain and France. I had no idea what that might look like but it didn't matter. The black bag was as empty as the promises of some politicians.

I hefted the bag. It was heavy, all right. A good load for anybody to carry, especially filled. I imagined that Leonard Kanin's six-foot-two 220-pound physique was really necessary.

"No mistake?" I asked softly of Rowles' back.

He shook his head without turning around.

"It's Kanin's all right. Check the upper right-hand corner. See the dent right near the top? Kanin dropped it once, running to catch a plane in Memphis. It's his. Stake my life on it. The big question is, why is it empty and what's it doing here?"

"And where's Leonard Kanin?" I amended. "Tell me, Rowles. Is this the only bag or are there two? Seems to me you people would have a backup bag with something this important."

That turned him around. He glared at me across the empty space of the ramshackle loft.

"Ask the S squad, Noon. Or Markham. That's their department. I work for the Bureau. Well, no use crying over spilled milk. Pick it up. We'll go downstairs and see about those sleeping beauties."

I'd heard about the bitter rivalry between Security

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