THE DEATH TRAP - by Leonard Stadd
Pinkerton thinks Tony and Doug are port of a pre-war plot to assassinate
Lincoln.
Tony and Doug whirl out of the Vortex of Time into a dimly-lit barn where
armed men, led by fanatic Jeremiah, are holding a meeting. Jeremiah means to
kill Lincoln as he travels through Baltimore on the way to his Inauguration.
Jeremiah’s fear is that Lincoln will make peace with the seceding states in
the South. His assassination will be blamed on Southern Secessionists, and the
North will then attack the South, abolishing slavery. With Tony and Doug being
accepted as part of the movement, the meeting is raided by Pinkerton and his
men, who’ve been tipped to the plot, Tony and Doug realize their
plight- they have to get out before they're taken for plotters. But amid a
hail of bullets they fail to make good their getaway, and Tony, knocked out by
a raider, is dragged off by Jeremiah and his brother Matthew, while Doug is
captured by Pinkerton men. Tony, taken to a house near the railroad track
finds when he comes to that Jeremiah is undeterred; he has a home-made time
bomb that he proposes to plant on Lincoln’s train as it is switched through
the city. Doug, at the some time, is being interrogated by Pinkerton at the
railway depot nearby, when Lincoln's train arrives and Lincoln himself comes
into remonstrate with Pinkerton over the elaborate precautions he's taking in
the Baltimore area. But Doug confirms there is a plot to kill him, and indeed
Jeremiah and Matthew have left Tony tied, with their small brother, David, in
the next room, and are on their way to plant the bomb. While Matthew makes a
diversion by pretending to be hunting rabbit, Jeremiah finds the place to
leavve the bomb is at the depot and, setting its ticking mechanism, plants it
there. Tony, meanwhile, frees himself and runs 1 o the station to give
warning. No one listens to his story, so he goes out and finds the bomb
himself. Unable to turn it off, he throws it a distance away - where it is
found by David, who has run after him. The Tunnel, meanwhile, is ready to make
a pickup of the bomb, but gets little David along with it, only to have Swain
unable to coax the frightened child out of the Tunnel, but they toss him a
tool to jam the timer just before the second that he must be returned to his
own time. Back near the depot, he drops the bomb and Jeremiah, clued to where
it is, runs to get it to make a second effort to kill Lincoln. But now Matthew
has begun to see his brother for the homicidal maniac that he is, and tries to
stop him but gets beaten. All this time, Doug and Tony have been trying to
make Pinkerton believe there was a plot, that they were not a part of, and
there is a bomb that is still a danger. Everything indicates that they, are
lying, but Tony persuades the secret service men to have a look at Jeremiah's
cabin. There they find everything-bomb components and evidence. Meanwhile,
Jeremiah has found the bomb and re-sets it. Matthew, however, faces him again,
saying he's going to take the bomb away from him, and he'll have to be shot to
be stopped. The fanatic can't quite do that, and the bomb is tossed away to
explode harmlessly in the air while Lincoln's train, with him on it, pulls
away from tne depot.
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