by John Glasby
“Carradine?” said a quiet voice at his elbow.
He turned sharply, then relaxed. “You could only be Kellaway,” he said off-handedly. “Only you would know I was due to arrive.”
“Right first time, old man.” The other grinned. Carradine felt a little irritated by the man’s manner, but fought the feeling down. He knew the type instantly. Public school. Service with the RAF in which he would soon rise to a position of authority and then, probably finding peacetime service too dull, too routine, he had come to Intelligence hoping for a life of adventure and instead, had found himself posted out here where, in spite of the exotic surroundings, life was far from exciting and one day was very much like the rest. Such a humdrum life, for a man searching for high adventure, could be a reason for going over to the enemy camp and playing a double game.
“I wasn’t sure whether anyone would be here to meet me or not.”
The other nodded noncommittally. “The Chief thought it best that I should be here to pick you up. Since we lost Chao Lin, we can’t afford to take any chances.”
While he had been speaking, the other had taken Carradine’s cases, except for the small one which Carradine insisted politely on carrying himself, and lead the way towards a car which waited for them just outside the terminal buildings.
Sliding into the seat, Carradine glanced obliquely at the other as Kellaway crushed into the driver’s seat after depositing the cases in the back. Had there been something a little out of place in the other’s tone, as if the man were being continually on the defensive, he wondered? Perhaps he was being a little hard on the other. After all, the entire Intelligence station here in Hong Kong had been disrupted, put out of action by the enemy.
Kellaway twisted the ignition key. The engine roared into life. Then they were shooting away from the kerb and cutting along the road towards Kowloon.
“How did it happen?” Carradine sat back, still watchful.
“You mean about Chao Lin? I only wish to God I knew. I wasn’t there at the time. He was a very careful man. Said we were not to be seen together unless it was absolutely necessary. We used to meet three times a week on the outskirts of Victoria, usually down near the docks. I’d give him all of the information I’d managed to pick up and he would put me in the picture as far as his side of the business was concerned.”
“Wasn’t that an odd way of doing business? As his Number Two, surely you knew virtually everything he was doing?”
“That’s how I thought it was supposed to be,” said the other harshly. “But he said that there were too many people watching Europeans and working for the Hong Kong station was different from any other. He may have been right. After all there are more than three and a half million Chinese in Hong Kong and only a few thousand Europeans. They run the place in spite of what people might think in London.”
“Then you’ve no idea at all what happened that night?”
“Only that whoever did it, made a dammed good job of destroying the station. The entire place was gutted. All of the records had been destroyed, together with the transmitter.” The other paused, then went on: “You know about the torpedo boat?”
“Yes, they told me about that in London.”
“There was no sign of a body in the ruins, so it seems more than likely they smuggled him out of the colony and into China. They’d never have gone to the trouble of attacking a British torpedo boat unless there was a very good reason for it.”
Carradine grunted something in reply, turned his head to glance through the rear window. The headlights of a solitary car showed some distance behind them. Although Kellaway was driving slowly, the other vehicle showed no sign of catching up with them. Sharply, he said: “That car behind us. It’s been there for some minutes now, just keeping pace with us.”
Kellaway glanced in the mirror, his face tight. “Could be some of the other passengers who were on the plane with you. This is the only road into Kowloon.”
“Maybe. But I’ve got the feeling whoever is in it may be interested in us, or more precisely in me.”
“You want me to try to lose them?” Kellaway asked.
Carradine smiled to himself at the note of eagerness in the other’s tone. Apart from what had happened to Chao Lin, this was perhaps the only bit of excitement which had come along to brighten the other’s life out here. He shook his head. “No. Wait until you come to some convenient spot where you can pull off the road, then put out the headlights and we’ll take a closer look at them. Are there any sharp bends in this road?”
The other pursed his lips momentarily, then nodded. “One up ahead, about a quarter of a mile. There’s also a short cul-de-sac leading off it to the right.”
“Good. Then get in there.”
Jerking his head around, he kept an eye on the twin spotlights behind them as Kellaway eased his foot down slightly on the accelerator to widen the distance between them. They drove over the brow of a hill with the lights of Kowloon stretched out before them. Then, almost before Carradine was aware of it, the other spun hard on the wheel and they roared into a narrow, dark entrance, with a tangle of brush at the far end, blocking any further movement.
Snapping off the headlights, Kellaway switched off the ignition. Tension built up swiftly in the warm, dark silence. Then there came the muted purr of the car which had been following them. Jerking the Luger from his shoulder holster, Carradine opened the door and stood up, crouched down behind the car. Kellaway remained seated behind the wheel, his body hunched slightly forward. There was a tense expression on his face, the lips twisted into a faint grimace.
Headlights showed along the road at the mouth of the alley. They grew brighter as the sound of the car increased. It was moving slowly, almost as if the driver suspected what they had done. Then it glided past. He caught a brief glimpse of the man in the driver’s seat, leaning forward as though peering intently through the windscreen. There were at least two men in the back, dark anonymous shadows from which no detail emerged.
Two of his fellow passengers as Kellaway thought? Or was his presence here in Hong Kong known to the enemy? The sound of the car engine faded a little. With an effort, he forced himself to relax. Then, abruptly, the sound came again, growing louder. The car was coming back! He opened his mouth to yell a warning to Kellaway. Before a single sound could be uttered, the car was there, jerking to a halt opposite the cul-de-sac, the harsh squeal of rubber against the road surface sounding painfully in his ears. Pulling his head down, he jerked up the gun, every nerve in his body screaming that there was danger here. The beam of a powerful flashlight lanced from the rear of the car, touched the boot of Kellaway’s car, then slid on, probing the shadows. Someone said something in a high, sing-song voice.
Carradine had a momentary glimpse of some dark object which flew through the air towards him, bounced off the wing of the car and hit the hard-packed dirt a few feet from where he crouched. Instinctively, he hurled himself forward, shoulder halfway under the protruding bonnet as the night erupted in a cavernous roar of smoke and flame. Ears ringing from the thunderous explosion, his body jarred and shaken by the blast, he held his arms over his head as bits of debris began to fall all about him. There was a tinkle of shattered glass, the licking of red-tongued flame at the edge of his vision.
For a moment, he lay half-conscious, struggling to focus all of his senses. Then, choking and coughing, he hoisted himself to his feet. In the distance, above the roaring in his ears, he heard the unmistakable sound of a car engine being revved up, saw through tear-blurred vision the other car jolting forward as the driver gunned it for all his worth down the hill towards Kowloon.
Their car was a shambles. Flames were beginning to lick around the boot and the rear door had been blown completely off its hinges and lay buckled and twisted some feet away from the wreck. Staggering forward, he hauled desperately at the front door. Kellaway lay slumped back in his seat, his face a pale white blur in the dimness. Any minute now that fire would reach the petrol tank and
once that went up there wouldn’t be a chance in hell of getting Kellaway out of the blazing wreck.
Savagely, his head swimming, he struggled with the warped door, cursing futilely as the sharp metal tore at his fingers until blood trickled warmly down his wrists. Glass lay over the front seat and over Kellaway’s back and shoulders but he did not seem to be badly injured. The blast must have knocked him forward so that he had struck his head on the dashboard. Carradine groaned aloud as he heaved with all of the strength left in his pulverised body. Any second now and even if the naked flames did not reach the highly sensitive fuel, the heat alone would be sufficient to ignite it. If he was to save himself, he would have to get away from the burning car and leave Kellaway to his fate.
With one final desperate heave, he contracted the muscles of his arms and shoulders and dragged back on the door handle with all of his weight. With a high-pitched screech of tortured, rending metal, the door gave, opened so abruptly that he fell back on to the dirt with the mass of metal on top of his bruised chest. Without pausing to think coherently, he sucked a gust of air into his lungs, sprang to his feet, caught Kellaway around the waist and dragged him out of the driver’s seat in a single, convulsive movement.
Catching the other beneath the arms, he hauled him madly over the uneven ground, felt the yielding mass of a thorn bush at his back, kept moving in spite of the inch-long thorns which lacerated his battered flesh even more. Ten yards—fifteen. Then he felt the strength leave his body, falling forward, he dropped on top of the unconscious man, pulling his head down. Five seconds later, the petrol tank erupted with a belching of flame and smoke. Carradine felt the blast of heat on his face, recoiled instinctively. Sweat boiled out of his body, trickled down into his eyes. Slowly, agonisingly, he pulled Kellaway’s inert weight further into the brush. The burning car would make an excellent beacon and he knew it would not be long before someone came out from Kowloon to see what was wrong. He swore softly under his breath. The last thing he wanted right now was publicity of any kind.
Kellaway groaned, stirred weakly, then opened his eyes, staring up at Carradine for a moment uncomprehendingly. Then he put a hand feebly to his head.
“Just lie still for a minute,” Carradine said sharply. “Once you feel that you can walk, we’d better get the hell out of here. That blaze will be seen for miles.”
“What was it? A bomb?” muttered the other, clenching his teeth as a spasm of pain lanced through him.
“Something like that.” Carradine nodded grimly. “The enemy is evidently playing for keeps. Though how the hell they knew I was here...”
“They have men watching the port and airport.” With an effort, the other pushed himself up on to his hands. “They have their ways of knowing who comes into Hong Kong.”
“Then the sooner we get out of here, the better.” Bending, he helped Kellaway to his feet. “This is a damnably bad start. Now that they know I’m here it will make things a hundred times more difficult and dangerous.
“You’ll have to lie low once we get to Victoria,” gasped the other as he forced himself to keep pace with Carradine. The thorn bush was tearing at their arms and legs now with every stumbling step they took, but they were past caring. Their bodies were numbed from shock and pain and behind them they left drops of blood on the black earth.
Half an hour later, they entered the outskirts of Kowloon. Down by the docks, the last ferry to Hong Kong Island lay at the quayside, a smooth, sleek, modern bustle. Already, the decks were becoming crowded, mainly with Chinese. They both looked highly conspicuous, but there was nothing else for it but to mingle with the thronging crowd and hope that the enemy, whoever they were, had taken it for granted that the bomb had done its work and their charred, unrecognisable bodies now lay in the smouldering wreckage of the burnt-out car.
The journey across the channel to Victoria was a nightmarish one. Carradine stood by the rail, feeling the cool, salty air touch his stretched body like a balm. He sucked in great gasping lungfulls of air and tried to divorce his mind from his body, to ignore the pain. He was conscious of the packed crowd all around him, hemming him in. He was thankful that, so far, none of the enemy had put in any appearance. In this crowd it would have been utterly impossible to move an inch and he and Kellaway would have been sitting targets. But the journey passed without incident. Scarcely anyone gave them a second glance.
For the time being, he was entirely in Kellaway’s hands. He knew nothing of this country. Here, there could be danger every minute, every inch of the way and he would not recognise it before it was too late. Kellaway on the other hand had lived out here long enough to be familiar with the scene and he had readily fallen in with the other’s plan to get him into Victoria and under cover for the next two or three days until he found his feet and had been able to formulate a plan to get into China. Whatever happened, it was of the utmost importance that he should make his move as soon as possible; before the tenuous trail which might lead him eventually to Chao Lin grew too cold to follow.
*
Standing under the shower, Carradine hesitated for a moment, gazing down at the dark purple bruises and the long, red weals on his naked body, then he reached out for the valve and turned the water on, gasped as the needle jets struck his body, stinging every muscle and limb. He could just hear Kellaway rummaging around in the other room, pulling open drawers and closing them again.
Carefully, he soaped himself down, washing off the grime and congealed blood. When he had finished and was rubbing himself dry with the large, rough towel, he felt a little better. Pain still suffused his body, but the sharp, blistering agony had now subsided to a dull ache and he was able to think more clearly. He recalled a little of the long walk from the quayside to Kellaway’s residence, remembering only that he had protested weakly that, once the enemy suspected that he might still be alive, this would be the first place they would think of looking for him. But the other had evidently overruled his objections and now as he slipped into pyjamas, feeling the soft, cool touch of silk against his skin, he was strangely glad that he had given in. He had needed that shower to shock some of the feeling back into him.
“You ready?” Kellaway called.
“Yes.” He came out of the shower. The other poured a stiff drink, handed it to him. “Better get this down you. You look as though you need it.”
“Thanks.” Carradine tossed the raw whisky down in a single gulp, twisted his lips as the liquor started a fire on its way down into his stomach.
“What now?” asked the other, lowering himself gingerly into a chair. “If the enemy do know you are here—and why, they won’t wait to have another try at you once they realise you’re still alive.”
Carradine nodded. “We’ve got a busy day ahead of us tomorrow. If possible I’d like to take a look at Chao Lin’s office, just in case there is some clue that was missed. Then the sooner I get across to the mainland and over the frontier, the better. My guess is that the trail will stop dead this side of the Chinese border.”
“The chances are a million-to-one against you picking it up on the other side.”
“I know,” muttered Carradine morosely. “You don’t have to rub in how difficult it’s going to be… Now, first of all, I shall need papers. Some identity.”
“I think I can get something for you. Anything else? Remember that once you’re inside China, you’ll be completely on your own. You can trust no one.”
“You don’t have to tell me that,” muttered the other grimly. “I’ve been in one or two Communist countries in Eastern Europe, but that was child’s play compared with this. I’d sooner take my chances inside the Kremlin than in there.” That little affair on the road into Kowloon had told him just how high the dice were stacked against him. God, but the Chinese Intelligence must be far more efficient than they had ever realised back in London. If he did succeed in getting back, he should be able to put the Chief wise on a few points. Up until now, they had considered the Chinese Communists as a rather b
ackward lot where military intelligence was concerned. At that very moment, he had a far different picture of how they operated.
He refilled his glass, sipped his drink more slowly this time, savouring each mouthful. Gradually, the whisky made him feel sleepy, a deep lethargy seeping over him in waves so that he could scarcely keep his eyes open.
“You must be all in,” said Kellaway apologetically. He rose to his feet. “Forgive me. I’m afraid I’m not being much of a host tonight. Too many things have been happening. I’ll show you to your room.”
*
The Headquarters of the Chinese Counter-Intelligence Organisation was housed in a large modern building on the outskirts of Canton, an ugly erection of six stories standing head and shoulders above all of the neighbouring buildings as though certain of its own importance. The two lower floors housed the typists and cypher clerks, the third floor contained the communication centre while on the fourth, behind locked rooms were the Records Section. At the far end of the Records Section, a narrow stairway led up to the floor above. Here, behind doors guarded by men armed with submachine-guns, were the conference rooms in which the devious operations were planned and set in motion. The top floor, reached by an express lift operating directly from the ground floor, housed the secret headquarters of General Lung Chan, head of the Counter-Intelligence Service.
On that particular morning, there were five men seated in the large room on the topmost floor. In the red plush chair beneath the large portrait of Mao Tse Tung, sat General Lung Chan. In spite of the gross hugeness of his body, the yellow khaki tunic hung loosely on him with no hint of neatness. His cap rested on the polished table in front of him, beside the small pile of dossiers, the topmost one of which was open at the front page.
