Twelve Hours To Destiny

by John Glasby

  “Would you fasten your seatbelt, sir.”

  Carradine grinned, nodded. Deftly, he clicked the belt shut around his waist, leaned back. The plane lurched momentarily as they hit an air pocket, the note of the engines changed abruptly for a second. The grin stayed on his lips as he watched the girl swaying along the aisle towards the pilot’s cabin, but inwardly, his stomach was in a turmoil. There were only two things he disliked about their travel. Taking off and getting down again. The bit in the middle seldom troubled him, he could somehow managed to forget that he was suspended several thousand feet above solid ground in a steel shell and withdraw his mind into a small, private world. The clouds thinned and he was able to see the chequered fields and lacing roads and then, somewhere ahead, the wide criss-cross of the runways of London airport, with the toy-like control tower a little to one side.

  He let his breath go from between his teeth, wished that the red NO SMOKING sign was not showing above the interconnecting door. The Viscount put its sleek nose down towards the distant runway. The shrill whine of the engines deepened. There was a rush of air past the wings and fuselage. Then they were skimming over the countryside. He glimpsed roads and houses just beneath him, then the concrete lane of the runway almost on the same level as the window. A bump as the under carriage wheels touched, a pause and then a further jar. The plane wobbled slightly, then steadied as they touched down.

  As he waited for Customs clearance, Carradine tried to figure out why his vacation in Southern France should have been so abruptly ended, why his presence was needed so urgently here in London. God knows his idyllic spells were few and far between. It just wasn’t fair for them to be interrupted in this way.

  “All right, Mr. Carradine. You’re clear to go through.” The customs officer nodded across at him, scribbled some unintelligible marking chalk on his two cases and slid them along the counter. He said something to his companion in a low undertone as Carradine picked them up and walked away. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw their curious gaze fixed on him. Shrugging, he left the building, noticed at once the tall man who came in his direction. There was a car parked at the kerb having the non-descript look he always associated with any of the cars used by Military Intelligence.

  “I’m to take you direct to Headquarters, sir.” The other took his cases and thrust them into the spacious boot.

  Carradine settled himself into the seat, grateful for the space which allowed him to stretch his legs out to the full.

  When they were moving smoothly into the stream of traffic, the driver said politely: “Not the best of weather to have to come back to, sir.”

  Carradine gave a brief nod. The beating rain which slashed at the windscreens defied the moving fingers of the wipers to do their damnedest to clear it away. The warm, mellow sun of the South of France seemed an eternity away at that moment. “I’ve known better,” he answered morosely.

  *

  There was no sound in the large room on the fifth floor of the tall building, although the rain and wind still beat down against the glass of the shuttered windows. Carradine met the gaze of the man seated at the desk, noticed the stillness of the face, the coldness in the eyes.

  Something was worrying the Old Man immensely, he decided. It was seldom he had seen him as preoccupied as this. The other said in a deceptively soft tone: “Sorry to have to recall you in this abrupt way.” He sat back, resting his hands flat on top of the desk. His tone belied the feeling behind his statement. “You ready to go back to work right away?”

  “Why yes, sir.” Carradine nodded. What was coming now, he wondered tensely? More trouble in some obscure corner of the world? Or a humdrum desk job here in the heart of London where nothing ever happened to break the monotony?

  “Good.” The other’s tone became abruptly business-like. He pulled the solitary folder towards him, flipped back the stiff cover. Carradine saw that it had been marked with a single red star, indicating that the contents were top-secret. The Chief tapped the folder significantly with his forefinger.

  “I’m expecting the Chief of Staff here in five minutes, but before he arrives, I want to put you in the picture as far as this affair is concerned. Our top agent in Hong Kong is a man by the name of Chao Lin. Ostensibly, he heads an export-import business dealing in fabrics. Contact is made with him every Friday night at nineteen hours Hong Kong time. A week ago he failed to acknowledge our call sign and all attempts to raise him have failed.”

  “There could be an innocent explanation of this,” Carradine suggested.

  “I doubt it.” The Chief shook his head emphatically. “There was no indication from his last message that anything was wrong.”

  “What kind of man was he, sir?”

  “Extremely conscientious. He was the man who passed on that information about activities around Sinkiang which put us on to their atomic tests. It seems he had discovered something else, something pretty big. He was looking into it and was supposed to send on anything he found as soon as possible.”

  “So naturally you suspect that the Communists got on to him first?”

  “In a single word—yes. In this job, you get the smell of a thing in your nostrils. This smells bad. As of now, we’re opening a file on Chao Lin. You are assigned to this case. I want you to—” He broke off as a buzzer sounded on his desk and the red light over the door went on. “That will be the Chief of Staff.”

  The other came in a moment later, gave Carradine a brief, friendly nod. Carradine had worked with him on several occasions in the past, knew the tall, grey-haired man intimately. Apart from the Chief himself, Benton possibly knew more about the running of Headquarters than anyone else. He was an extremely able man whose rigid military training showed in his erect bearing. Carradine had the impression that at times the other would have willingly exchanged the endless grind of paperwork and responsibility for the kind of life which he himself led.

  “Take a pew,” said the Chief, nodding towards a chair. “I’m assigning Carradine to the Hong Kong case. A funny affair to say the best of it.”

  “I agree.” Benton glanced sideways at Carradine. “There’s something really big going on in that part of the world and it’s essential that we find out what it is. Chao Lin put us on to the fact that the Chinese were preparing to explode their first nuclear weapon. He’s one of our shrewdest men, not the kind likely to have flights of fancy as some of our men are.”

  “You’ve no idea at all what it might be?” Carradine addressed the question to both of them. “A hydrogen bomb, perhaps?”

  “It could be,” agreed Benton, lips pursed into a tight line. “Although somehow I doubt it. The construction of such a weapon would be a logical outcome of the experiments we know they’re carrying out. No, I’m positive this is something of a different nature.”

  “In the last message but one, he mentioned that there were hints the Chinese were working on a secret weapon.” The Chief’s voice was tightly controlled. “Whatever it is that is going on in the enemy camp, we must have information on it as soon as possible. I understand that you underwent an intensive course in Chinese two years ago. How did it turn out?”

  “It isn’t a language you pick up very readily,” Carradine said, a trifle defensively. “Not like Russian.”

  “I realise that you are perfectly fluent in Russian,” said the Chief testily. “I’m interested at the moment in whether you can speak and understand sufficient Chinese to enable you to pass as one.”

  “No.” Carradine shook his head decisively. “I doubt if there are more than a handful of Westerners who do.”

  “That is the answer I expected.” The other showed no sign of surprise. “It’s therefore quite obvious you will need a cover when you go there and unfortunately that is not going to be easy.” He stared sombrely at Carradine. His face was grim.

  “Look,” Carradine begged. “I’m completely lost at the moment. If I’m merely to discover what has happened to Chao Lin and try to unearth the information he had stumbl
ed on, I shall presumably be operating inside Hong Kong and surely I can—”

  “You’re wrong,” interrupted the other harshly. “That isn’t what you’re to do at all. Hong Kong will merely be your jumping-off point. All of the evidence points to Chao Lin having been kidnapped and taken by junk, or submarine, to China. That will be your ultimate objective. To find where Chao Lin is being held, get him back, together with this vital information he has, and also carry out any further actions you may think fit.”

  So that was it! That was the reason he had been recalled so abruptly from his holiday in the south of France.

  Before he could say anything further, Benton chimed in with: “You may be wondering how we can be so sure that Chao Lin is now inside Communist China. The brief answer is that on the same evening as Chao Lin was scheduled to contact us as usual, one of our torpedo boats, patrolling the waters off Hong Kong harbour was attacked and sunk by a Chinese junk.”

  “By a junk?”

  “Exactly. Not the sort of thing one would expect to happen. But there was one survivor from the torpedo boat. He was picked up two hours later, clinging to a piece of driftwood, more dead than alive. We had him flown back to England as soon as he was well enough to be moved. You interrogated him, Chief of Staff. You can tell Carradine his story better than I.”

  Benton sat forward on the edge of his chair. “There isn’t much to tell,” he began. “Apparently this junk was sighted heading away from the harbour just after dark, acting in a highly suspicious manner. Naturally, it was thought they were dope smugglers. There’s been plenty of that going on in the past few years. Just a routine search, they thought. What they hadn’t bargained for was a concealed heavy-calibre gun in the bow of the junk. It took only three shells to sink the torpedo boat within minutes. They never had a chance to fight back.”

  “Good Lord.” Carradine tried to keep the surprise out of his voice. “So they really mean business.”

  “That is an understatement. Somehow, they must have tumbled to Chao Lin. The fact that all of this must have been planned in advance with the precision of a military mission gives us an indication of how seriously they took him as a threat to their security. Evidently they had to get him out of Hong Kong without anyone knowing. Thousands of men vanish without trace from Hong Kong and no one bothers about it. As far as the authorities there are concerned, one man is just another of those faceless thousands. We shall, of course, let them continue to think that way.”

  Carradine sat back in his chair and regarded the other thoughtfully. “I assume that this man, Chao Lin, was working alone?”

  “No.” The Chief shook his head. “He had a Number Two working with him. Man by the name of Kellaway. Wing-Commander in the Fighter Command before he came over to us. A good man in every respect.”

  “And where is he now?”

  “Still in Hong Kong. We considered it best not to pull him out yet. That decision may be forced on us soon, unless you manage to turn up something definite.”

  “When you say he’s a good man, I presume that means he can be trusted?”

  The Chief shot him an enigmatic glance. “We did take into account that possibility,” he murmured, as though reading Carradine’s mind. “It’s quite evident that there has been a leak somewhere and naturally Kellaway was the first choice as suspect. Nothing is against him according to his confidential record. Something of a ladies’ man, but nothing else which would explain him going over to the enemy camp.”

  Carradine shrugged. “I might get in contact with him when I arrive? If he can be trusted it would give me a start.”

  “Very well. But keep your eyes and ears open. Give him the file, Chief of Staff. I want you to go through it and commit it all to memory. By rights, you would need some weeks of training and preparation. Unfortunately, the affairs of the world won’t allow that. I want you out there as soon as possible. All of the arrangements to get you to Hong Kong will be made here but once there, it will be entirely up to you how you proceed. Naturally, you won’t be able to go into China as an Englishman. The detailed execution of the mission will be in your hands.” He paused, then: “By the way, which Chinese dialect did you study during the course?”

  “Cantonese,” Carradine replied.

  “Good.” The other’s eyes gleamed. “This is evidently going to be the most difficult assignment you have been given so far. How you’ll pass as a Chinese Communist, I don’t know. The only consolation you have is that if you fail, no one will be able to help you.” Dryly, he added: “Perhaps that fact alone will put you on your mettle to succeed.”

  “Yes, sir.” Carradine knew not to ask any further questions. He had been given all the information available. Picking up the dossier which Benton slid towards him, he walked over to the door. The two men seated at the desk were talking together in low voices. They did not look up as Carradine went out and closed the door quietly behind him.

  The chief said softly: “What do you consider his chances are, Chief of Staff?”

  “I’m a little worried about this man Kellaway. If he is reliable, then Carradine may get through without too much difficulty. But if he is the link with the Communists, then he’s headed into big trouble.”

  “He’s been with us for almost fifteen years now. In all that time there hasn’t been a breath of suspicion concerning him. Chao Lin seemed convinced he was reliable. On the other hand, do we have any other alternative but to trust him? He’s the only man we have in that part of the world who can give any help to Carradine.”

  “Yet someone must have given information to the Chinese,” pointed out the other shrewdly. “They’re not mind-readers any more than we are and the way they carried out Chao Lin’s kidnapping is sure proof that they knew every little detail about him. If the operator is correct and the radio link with Chao Lin was open, then they must have struck just at the moment that he was preparing to come on to the air. How could they have known that unless they had been given every last bit of information about him from someone he trusted implicitly?”

  It was a question to which there could be no answer.

  CHAPTER 2

  DAWN LIKE THUNDER

  Once again, Carradine was nearing the end of a journey. The plane which had carried him from London Airport on a rainy, misty day, now droned self-consciously high above the clouds somewhere en route from Bangkok to Hong Kong. The brief stay at Bangkok had been sufficient to chase away the wet dreariness of England and had given him a taste of the tropics. Now, glancing out of the window at the deep blueness of the sea below him, he attempted to think of the mission which lay ahead and already the tense tingle of anticipatory excitement was beginning to curl up inside him, like an icy finger running up and down the inside of his stomach and chest. On the rack immediately above his head was the tiny case which had been specially made up for him by the Special Branch of intelligence. By now, he was used to their efforts to make certain that he had the latest weapons in his armoury; not that he often used them, preferring the heavy Luger pistol which reposed in a shoulder holster.

  The plane which he had boarded at Bangkok for this last leg of his journey was perhaps the oldest that BOAC still had flying anywhere in the world. On this particular trip it was flying with only half a dozen oddly assorted passengers on board. Leaning back, Carradine studied them from beneath lowered lids. A couple of wealthy Chinese, a tall, good-looking black African man, and two Europeans apart from himself.

  The previous day, he had finished with the folder on the Chao Lin case and handed it back to Benton. There had been relatively little in it that he hadn’t learned during the brief interview when he had been assigned to this case and the paucity of information was one of the main causes of his uneasiness. He disliked going into anything of this nature knowing so little about what to expect or how he was to go about his mission. Sitting forward in his seat, he sifted the smallest details of Chao Lin’s disappearance through his mind, trying to find the key to the mystery which was drawing nearer to
him at more than three hundred miles every hour.

  The plane banked slightly, changing course, now heading north-eastward. Here, the day was almost ended. There was a pale sickle of a moon showing through the window, but the sun was still above the horizon somewhere behind them, although down below, the smooth waters were half in shadow. He remembered that up here, above the rose-tinted clouds, they would remain in sunlight longer than anyone on the ground.

  There was only another fifty minutes before they were scheduled to arrive at the airport on the mainland across from Hong Kong island. He began putting his thoughts in order, dragging them back to the present. He had already decided that he would need to get in touch with Kellaway as soon as possible unless arrangements had already been made for the other to meet him.

  The stewardess brought him a whisky and he sat back enjoying the drink because it took his mind temporarily off his trouble. By the time he had finished it, they were already slanting downward through the clear late-evening air towards Hong Kong Airport some four miles from Kowloon.

  The lights of Hong Kong Island showed clearly across the mile-wide channel which lay between Victoria and the mainland, spangling the area around the waterfront and sneaking up the side of Victoria Peak. Then there was no time to watch the scene outside with such interest for a slight jar indicated that the undercarriage was down and locked in position and the air began to shrill as the brakes extended from the trailing edges of the wings and they began the long glide over the sea towards the distant runway.

  Minutes later, the plane wheeled to a stop before the modern buildings of Hong Kong Airport, rivalling any that Carradine had ever seen. He climbed slowly down the ladder which had been wheeled into position and together with the handful of passengers made his way towards the Customs shed. Most of the men were Chinese, he noticed, keen-eyed men who examined everything with a perfunctory attention to detail. The small case which had been made up specially for him passed muster as he had expected. The licence he had for the Luger was scanned thoughtfully, then handed back to him. He had expected awkward questions to be asked concerning the gun. Even here, in this part of the world, bringing in the heavy pistols was frowned upon by the authorities, but there were no questions to be answered, nothing but a polite scrutiny before he was passed through. He had time to notice that at least two of his fellow passengers were receiving far less favoured treatment, time to ponder briefly on it, before he was out of the building, looking about him in the clear, calm night.