Free The Pigeon Project by Irving Wallace

of its belly. And an instant later, he saw something else. Tied to one of the pigeon’s legs was a small folded strip of paper, held loosely in place by a rubber band.
    Incredible. What kind of game was this? Or could this have been a carrier pigeon?
    His hand went out to the pigeon’s inert leg, pulled off the rubber band, and caught the piece of paper. He brought the paper with him back to the chair, carefully unfolded and opened it, and flattened the miniature strip on his table. There was something in a tiny handwriting. He squinted more closely at it, and realized to his surprise that it was not in Italian but in English. Slowly, he read the message:

    Am British scientist illegally imprisoned on San Lazzaro by Communists. Planning to send me to USSR in 2 days. Save me. Call Dr. Edwards Plaza Athénée Paris to tell world. Prof. Davis MacDonald. Aug. 18. Have discovered Ft. of Youth. Reds want it.

    Jordan blinked, blinked again, and not knowing what to make of this melodramatic plea, he reread the message.
    Written August 18. That was today, this very day.
    By someone on San Lazzaro—he knew San Lazzaro, had seen the island hundreds of times on the way to the Lido beach—by a Professor Davis MacDonald, a name that had no meaning to him, although faintly familiar.
    Who was this MacDonald? What was his so-called Fountain of Youth? What kind of Communists were trying to send him to Russia?
    It made no sense, unless you took it literally. That some Communists would kidnap a British professor here in Venice, and hold him a prisoner on San Lazzaro, because he had found the place that gave eternal youth: that sounded absolutely impossible, surely less real than some concocted Hollywood script.
    Then Jordan realized he had been taking the message literally, and that he was a fool. A thousand to one, a million to one, this was a practical joke conceived by some nut who had nothing better to do. It was a joke, a bit of fun, a hoax, and he felt embarrassed at having taken it seriously for even a minute.
    Irritated with himself, he lifted the slip of paper, stuck it into his jacket pocket to give Marisa a laugh, paid his bill, got up, and was starting to leave for his office in the building behind him when he remembered the poor dead bird. He stopped, picked up the pigeon in one hand, and carried it up the aisle of Quadri’s Gran’ Caffé to the bandstand. He sought and found his musician friend, Oreste Memo, hidden by a row of green planters that surrounded the ledge of the stand. Memo was busy polishing his violin.
    “Oreste,” Jordan called.
    The musician saw him, sprang to his feet, and came toward him inquiringly.
    “Oreste, I found a dead pigeon,” Jordan said. “What do I do with it?”
    “Give it to me. HI dispose of it.”
    Jordan handed the bird over. “Careful. It’s sticky around the belly. Someone shot it.”
    Memo took the pigeon. “That’s horrible. Who in the devil would do a thing like that?”
    “God knows,” said Jordan. “Thanks. Now I’m the one who is late for work.”
    He headed for the black gate that opened to the stone staircase leading to his upstairs offices, and one thought accompanied him.
    The pigeon carrying the desperate message—if it was all a joke, why would anyone on earth want to shoot the pigeon carrying it?
    All at once it didn’t seem funny.
    And maybe not a joke at all.
    * * *
    As he passed through the yellow-painted anteroom, in which four commessi , or doormen, in dark gray uniforms sat with several persons waiting for their appointments, Jordan was conscious once more of the exotic environment in which he had been toiling for almost two years. This 15th-century Renaissance building on the Piazza San Marco had, five centuries ago, housed the offices and private apartments of old Venice’s Procuratori, the nine men elected for life to assist the Doge in his administrative work. In 1831, the Assicurazioni Generali, the foremost insurance company in Italy, had bought