Max Smart and the Ghastly Ghostly Affair (Get Smart, Book 9)
William Johnston
Language: English
Pages: 93
ISBN: 2:00097194
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Assigned to trail KAOS's top U.S. assassins to a secret seminar, Max and wife 99 board a train and start searching for the KAOS killer contingent. They are checking out passengers when lunch is announced. One by one all the passengers file into the dining car . . . and disappear! Rather than ignore the "drop-out" situation, Max and 99 report the curious incident to the conductor, who conducts them, at gunpoint, to the engineer—KAOS's fast-acting, antiseptic assassin, Arbuthnot. The train speeds to Arbuthnot's devilish destination—a ghost town with a small but determined population: one ectoplasmic prospector and his immortal mule. Max manages to win the western wraith to the side of good. But can Max and his supernatural sidekicks stop Arbuthnot? And will Max ever find his Coolidge-head penny phone in time to summon Chief and Control's counter-attacking counter forces. As usual, Max's blundering booboos and mindless maneuvers menace friend instead of foe!
Which all adds up to a ghastly ghost affair that's really out-of-this-world entertainment.
dark, 99. No, our best bet is to stay right here and try to do something about that rock slide in front of the entrance. Do you have a match?” “No, Max.” “Well, I guess I’ll have to use my lighter, then,” Max said. A moment later, a small flame appeared in the darkness. Max handed the lighter to 99. “Hold this,” he said. “I think I have some escape gadgets in my pockets. I picked up a handful the other day when I was in Research & Development. It’s a rare occasion when an escape gadget won’t
and wife who’s a Monday morning quarterback.” He dug into his pocket again. “Instead of casting the first stone, let’s light a little candle in the darkness and see what else we have,” he said. “Well . . . what have we here . . .” He held up a device that looked like a skeleton key. “I don’t believe it!” he said. “R & D must still be living in the Dark Ages. Imagine. In this day of laser beams and space travel and organ transplants, they still classify an old-time skeleton key as an escape
generation gap every chance I get—terminology-wise, that is—in case we have children of our own some day.” “Do you want children, Max?” “Of course, 99.” “Then I think we better continue holding hands every once in a while. That’s how it begins.” “No kidding!” Max said. “My mother always told me she got me at the grocery store.” “Max, have you ever seen any children on sale at the A & P?” “Of course not, 99. But I was born in the days of the corner grocery, when you could get personal
mine is, let-a alone-a yours.” “You’re very good on dialect, 99. But what I meant was, where are mines usually located?” “Oh. Underground, Max.” “Right. So, what was it we saw when we looked down that crack in the floor? We saw the mine tunnel. That explains why we couldn’t find the secret panel that led to the secret passageway that led to the wine cellar. No secret panel, no secret passageway, and no wine cellar. Only a mine tunnel. And that’s where the Coolidge-head penny is.” “Then we
hasn’t seen anything like that, then isn’t it logical that perhaps it’s in the one tunnel he hasn’t been in?” “Yes . . . that is logical, 99. After all, everybody knows that whatever you’re looking for you always find it in the last place you look. So, instead of searching all these other tunnels, and then searching the last tunnel last, let’s search the last tunnel now, and save all the others for later.” He faced the old prospector again. “Where is this tunnel you’ve never been in?” he asked.