The door opened. Noman entered, carrying a large basket of fruit.
Max leaped at him-and looped the rope tightly over the basket of fruit. Fruit rolled all over the floor.
“That’s dirty!” Noman cried, jumping back and pulling his gun.
But, as he jumped back, he stepped on a banana. His feet flew into the air. The gun slipped from his grasp and slid across the floor.
99 snatched up the gun and pointed it at him.
“Watch out!” Noman cried. “That gun is loaded!”
“Yes,” Max said, “and your ‘other passenger’, who is, in fact, Agent 99 of Control, will use it.”
“Have her put it down,” Noman begged. “A woman with a gun makes me nervous.”
“She will-in just one moment,” Max replied. “First, get to your feet.”
Noman scrambled up.
“Now, sit in that chair,” Max commanded.
Noman sat in the chair.
Max tied him tightly. “Now,” he said to 99, “hand me a handkerchief, please.”
99 handed him a handkerchief.
Max stuffed it in Noman’s mouth. “There you are, nicely bound and gagged,” he said. “Now-talk!”
“Mrrrrmph,” Noman replied.
“Max, he can’t talk with a gag in his mouth,” 99 pointed out.
“Oh… yes.” Max removed the gag. “Now-talk!” he said again.
“Well,” Noman began, “I was born in a log cabin in Greenwich Village. My father was a poor but honest silversmith and my mother was a Zen Buddhist monk. As a child-”
“That’s very interesting,” Max broke in. “But it isn’t what I want to hear.”
Noman looked at him quizzically. “What is it you want to hear?”
Max frowned thoughtfully. “Well, let’s see…”
“May I tell you a little more about my childhood while you think?” Noman said.
“Yes, that would be-”
“Max,” 99 said, “isn’t it something about a Dooms Day Plan?”
“Right,” Max replied. “Thank you, 99.”
“I just wish I knew what was going on,” 99 said.
“You’ll soon find out,” Max said. He turned back to Noman. “As a member of KAOS,” he said, “you are probably familiar with the KAOS code.”
“Know it well,” Noman replied. “In fact, I always get a gold star on code tests.”
“Good. Then it will be an easy matter for you to decipher the Dooms Day Plan.”
“I wouldn’t even have to decipher it,” Noman said. “I know what it says by heart.”
“All right. The next step, then, I think, would be for you to tell us what it says.”
Noman shook his head. “I’d lose all my gold stars,” he said. “That’s the penalty for snitching.”
“Apparently we’ll have to apply some pressure,” Max said.
“You’ll never get anything from me,” Noman replied. “Stick bamboo slivers under my fingernails, tweeze my eyebrows, tickle the bottoms of my feet-but I’ll never talk.”
“I have something a lit-tle more diabolical in mind,” Max said. He reached into his pocket and got out his ballpoint pen and handed it to Peaches. “This pen, when used as a pen, contains indelible ink,” he said.
“That’s the kind that can’t be erased,” Noman explained to her.
“I know!” she snapped.
Max next handed her his notebook. “Using indelible ink,” he said, “I want you to write in this notebook the phrase, ‘I will never ever again be a silly cryptographer.’ And I want you to write it one hundred times.”
Peaches shrugged. “All right-if it’ll help.”
“It won’t make me talk,” Noman said stoutly.
“We’ll see about that,” Max smirked.
“Max,” 99 said, “I don’t understand any of this, either.”
“Simple, 99,” Max replied. “As soon as Peaches has written ‘I will never ever again be a silly cryptographer’ one hundred times in indelible ink, I will try to erase it.”
“Do you have an eraser, Max?”
“No, but I do have a man with an India rubber face.”
“But indelible ink can’t be erased!” Noman protested. “Your so-called eraser will give out.”
“Exactly,” Max said.
“You mean-”
“Yes, Noman-I’m going to rub you out!”
“No!” Noman screeched. “I’ll talk!”
“I thought that would do it,” Max smiled. “Now-talk!”
“Well, I was born in a little log cabin in-”
“Not that! Decipher the code!” He bent closer to Noman. “What is the Dooms Day Plan?”
“It’s a menu,” Noman sobbed.
“That’s hard to believe,” Max replied. “Try again.”
“I tell you, it’s a menu.”
“You have one more chance,” Max said, “then Peaches begins writing.”
“Honest,” Noman insisted. “Scout’s honor. On my word as a gold star KAOS agent. It’s a menu.”
Max took the Plan from his pocket and looked at it:
Sad Al
Astor
Mays
Bronco Con
Map Change
Three Bs
Watch
“That’s a menu?” he said. “What’s it for-mixed grill?”
“You have to know the code,” Noman replied.
“I see. You use the Hoppman method, I assume.”
“No, that stuffs too complicated,” Noman replied. “We just scramble the letters.”
“Scramble the letters,” Max mused. He looked at the Dooms Day Plan again. This time, unscrambling the letters in his mind, he saw:
Salad
Roast
Yams
Corn on Cob
Champagne
Sherbet
Watch
He looked at Noman again. “That makes a tempting meal,” he said. “All except that last item. Is that watch with or without onion sauce?”
“The watch isn’t on the menu,” Noman replied. “The watch comes after.”
“After what?”
“Well, you see, this is a menu for a testimonial dinner. And, after the dinner is finished, we’ll give Arthur the watch. It’s a gold watch. In honor of his twenty-five years of faithful service.”
“Arthur?”
“Yes. Arthur has been with the organization for twenty-five years, and now he’s retiring. So, we’re having a special day for him, and throwing him a testimonial dinner, and giving him a gold watch.”
“I see. A special day.”
“Right.”
“And Arthur’s last name is-”
“Dooms,” Noman replied.
“Arthur Dooms. Yes, it’s all coming clear. And this,” he said, rattling the sheet of paper, “is the Dooms Day Plan.”
“Absolutely right.”
“It’s a bit of a letdown,” Max sighed.
“Sorry about that.”
“There’s one thing I still don’t understand,” Max said. “Why did you go to so much trouble to keep the Plan out of our hands?”
“Well, the code is so simple, we thought you’d break it,” Noman replied. “Any kindergarten child could break our code.”
Peaches hauled back a fist. “I’ll slug ’im!”
99 held her back.
“That’s no discredit to you,” Max said to her. “You’re not a kindergarten child.”
“Well… if you put it that way…” Peaches muttered, lowering her fist.
Max addressed Noman again. “Suppose we had broken the code,” he said. “It’s only a menu.”
“Yes, but we thought that if you saw the word ‘watch’ at the end of the Plan you’d know the menu was for a testimonial dinner.”
“What’s so wrong about that?” Max asked, puzzled.
“Think, Max,” Noman said. “What is KAOS’s image?”
“You’re the bad guys.”
“Right. And do bad guys throw testimonial dinners? Hardly. It would destroy our image. We’d be thought of as an organization of sentimentalists-a bunch of softies.”
“Now, I understand,” Max said.
“What do we do now, Max?” 99 asked.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Max smiled. “We have the means to destroy KAOS for once and all.”
“We do?”
“We’ll publicize this Dooms Day Plan,” Max said. “KAOS’s image will be destroyed, and-what’s an organization of bad guys without its image?”
“That’s marvelous, Max!” 99 said.
“Max! Think before you do that!” Noman pleaded. “Think of all the bad guys you’ll be putting out of work!”
“Sorry. But the guilty will just have to suffer with the innocent,” Max replied. “I’m going to take this Plan to the Chief. I’m sure he’ll agree with me that it should be publicized. I can see the headline now: ‘KAOS Unmasked! Bad Guys Revealed To Be a Bunch of Softies! ’ ”