Twelve Hours To Destiny

by John Glasby

  Tai Fan held the wheel easily in his massive hands, guiding the truck through with the dexterity of long experience. Less than twenty yards further on, a dark cleft showed in the rock face to their right. With a bleat of protesting rubber, the other jammed his foot hard on the brakes. There was a terrifying moment when it seemed that the ungainly truck would spin completely out of control and join the others which had gone over the lip of the precipice. Then the wheels gripped, they came to a bone-jarring halt. Pushing the gear lever into reverse, he backed into the cleft. Stones and pieces of rock grated beneath the truck. In the same second, the other switched off the lights.

  For a moment, Carradine could see nothing in the pitch blackness which clamped tightly about them now that the lights had been extinguished. Just what did the other intend to do? Hope that their pursuers would pass them by without noticing they were there? Even if they did, it would only be a temporary respite. Those men would not be fooled for long, would soon realise what had happened and come back looking for them.

  Revving up the engine, Tai Fan drove on to the road, edging the truck towards the looming shadow of the bridge, guiding the vehicle more by feel than sight.

  Now Carradine could just see the probing headlights of the oncoming car. Judging from the size, it appeared to be some kind of Army vehicle. Obviously the Red Dragon would not take chances, would have guessed that some organisation had been necessary to rescue Chao Lin and would have sent sufficient means to deal with them. Now less than fifty yards from the side of the bridge, but at the moment, because of the hump on the road, only the upthrusting beams of the headlights were visible, spearing up into the dark, star-strewn heavens.

  A split second before it happened, Carradine realised what Tai Fan was waiting for. He felt a sudden leap of his heart. God, why hadn’t he realised it before. Of course!

  The other’s hand reached out, flicked the switch of the powerful lights. The brilliant, eye-searing beams leapt out, over the top of the bridge. The other driver had no chance at all. No one could possibly have looked into those twin beams from that distance and not be totally blinded. For perhaps ten seconds, the Army vehicle continued on its original course, heading over the bridge. Vaguely, Carradine had a glimpse of a strained face, peering through the windscreen, of a hand going up across the eyes in an effort to shut out the blinding glare. Then the Army driver swerved instinctively. He must have stamped on the brake at the same moment, for the wheel seemed to suddenly lock. But the other was seconds too late. Screeching wildly, the small truck careened towards a low parapet of the bridge, struck the corner of the wall with a rending crash and a tearing of metal. One front wheel tilted upward under the shattering impact. The truck teetered on the edge of the ravine as though reluctant to begin the downward plunge to total destruction. Then the nose tipped as the stone parapet gave way. Slowly, like some old movie in slow motion, the truck slid over the edge of the precipice with a grinding of metal on stone.

  The first resounding crash came a couple of seconds after it had disappeared; then another, more distant. Carradine could see nothing of it as it hurtled downward to the bottom, but it was not difficult to see it in his mind’s eye, twisting and turning over and over as it fell, striking against the rocky outcrops. As he thrust open the door and climbed out into the cold night air, there came the sound of the final crash far down on the rocks, then a sudden spark, a flash and a boiling gout of flame and smoke which lifted high from the bed of the gorge. No one could possibly have survived that fall, he thought, his breath hissing through his teeth. There was a soft movement at his back. The girl had climbed from the rear of the truck, come towards him, holding on to his arm as he peered down. Her face bore no trace of expression and her dark eyes were inscrutable.

  “At least it must have been quick,” Carradine said harshly. “That driver never had a chance once those lights blinded him.”

  “Put it out of your mind, Steve,” she said quietly. “They would have done exactly the same to us if the positions had been reversed and not given it a further thought.”

  Slowly, Carradine made his way back to the truck. Behind the wheel, Tai Fan was smiling broadly, evidently pleased with his handiwork. Carradine gave a quick nod as the other held up his right hand.

  “You did all bright, Tai Fan,” he said grimly. “I’m more than ever glad that you’re not on the other side.”

  “Tai Fan fought with the Nationalist Army against the Japanese,” Ts’ai Luan told him. “He hates anything the Communist regime stands for.”

  “I can understand that.”

  “No doubt you are wondering where we are going, why we came this way,” the girl said. “There is a place in the hills where we can hide in safety. You will want to talk with my uncle as soon as possible. In Canton, it would have been dangerous. That is why we chose to come up here. Those fools will never find us.” There was a note of contempt in her soft voice.

  “How is Chao Lin?” he asked. They stood by the side of the narrow road while Tai Fan edged the truck in reverse to the narrow opening in the rock, turning the vehicle. Now that the danger was past for the time being, they could afford to take their time.

  “He has been tortured, but he never talked.” For the first time, a note of pride entered her voice and she drew herself up as she looked at him. “He will need medical attention as soon as we can get it for him. But by dawn he will be able to talk to you. He is sleeping now, completely exhausted.”

  “Good. It is quite obvious from what has already happened, that whatever information he has locked away inside here—” he tapped his forehead significantly, “—it is of the utmost importance.”

  One of the men called to them from the back of the truck. There was no time for more talk. It was possible that those men who had just gone to their deaths over the side of the ravine had not been alone; that there may be others following some distance behind. If this was indeed the case, then that petrol fire at the bottom of the valley, could be a direct give away. As a beacon, it would be visible for miles in almost every direction.

  They went back to the truck. Carradine helped the girl on board, then walked around to the front, slid into the seat beside Tai Fan. Two minutes later, they were driving quickly towards the ridged summit of the hills with the three-quarter moon just reaching its zenith and beginning its long slide down towards the western horizon.

  CHAPTER 7

  THE DESPERATE HOURS

  For part of the night, in spite of the bouncing, swaying motion of the truck, Carradine managed to sleep. When he woke, his body stiff and sore, there was grey dawn around them and they were high in the hills, with gaunt bare rock on every side. Tai Fan still sat as imperturbable as ever behind the wheel, looking as fresh as when they had started out. Did that man ever need to sleep? Carradine recalled the way in which he had held that ladder of men beneath the window at the rear of the Red Dragon Headquarters and knew that Tai Fan was a little more than an ordinary man.

  Straightening up, he stifled a yawn. In the pale grey light, he saw that the road had narrowed now, was little more than a track through the rocks. At some time during the early hours of the morning, they must have swung around the summit of the hill and cut back on themselves for they appeared to be heading north-east again in the direction of the rosy flush which marked the dawn.

  Stretching his legs as far as he could in an effort to ease the cramp which lanced through his muscles, he sat up in his hard seat. Tai Fan momentarily turned his head, then lifted the fingers of his left hand before pointing through the windscreen along the twisting road ahead. What did that mean? Five more minutes—or five hours? He forced a grim nod. He was not sure that he could stand another five hours of this.

  Spinning the wheel, Tai Fan sent the truck hurtling toward seeming destruction over the edge of the track, straightened it up with an almost contemptuous flick of a huge wrist. A few moments later, they topped a low rise and against the grey and red brightness of the swiftly-approaching dawn, Carrad
ine saw that less than half a mile ahead of them the ground levelled out into some kind of plateau. Backing it up there was a sweep of rock and set into it, some kind of cave although in the deep shadow thrown by the dawn, it was difficult to make out details. Tai Fan touched his arm, jerked a thumb towards the plateau and smiled happily. Five minutes it had been!

  Tai Fan drove the truck straight into the mouth of the cave. There was a wide overhang which would prevent them from being spotted from the air, if the Chinese considered that Chao Lin was sufficiently important a person to use planes to search for him. The sun came up, literally bounding from below the horizon, flooding the hills with light. In the clear, sparkling air, it was possible to see for miles over the vast panorama which lay spread out beneath them. Now that they were there, it seemed a reasonably attractive place, Carradine thought. Plenty of shelter for the cave went far back into the hillside and he had noticed that there were narrow passages running off to the rear. There were, too, he had seen, large wooden boxes and crates which he guessed contained stores and food. Enough to feed an army, he reckoned. Not only that, but it would be possible for a handful of men to hold off an army here. The track petered out at the mouth of the cave and there was the only one approach—the way they had come. Even from the air it would be virtually impregnable.

  “This was one of the last strongholds of the Nationalist forces when they fought the Communists,” said Ts’ai Luan. “As a fortress, it is ideal.”

  “And how long have you known of it?”

  She shrugged. “For many years now. The Communists suspect that there is a place in the hills, but they have never found it. Even if they did, they would find it extremely difficult to capture.” Her eyes sparkled and there was a look of extreme vitality on her face which he had found so attractive and fascinating. Once more, he regretted that they should have been forced to meet under such strained circumstances.

  Inside the wide opening, he could see the rest of the men hard at work. The girl was watching his face with a look of concern and tenderness. She smiled up at him, took his arm in hers. What was going on behind those dark eyes, he wondered? Now they were veiled a little as though in thought.

  “Before you speak to my uncle, there is something I have to show you,” she said softly. “It won’t take long.”

  “All right.” He allowed her to lead him across the rock-strewn plateau, to a spot about fifty yards from the cave entrance. Now they were out of sight of the others; it was almost as though they were the only two people still alive in the world.

  “Here,” said the girl. Her voice was suddenly solemn and there was a change to the quality of her movements as she bent and held back a straggling a bush which somehow succeeded in draining some little nutrition from the thin soil.

  Carradine glanced over her shoulder. There was the glint of metal among the rocks with a couple of cotton-covered wires leading off into the boulders in the direction of the cave. “What is it?” he asked, curious.

  “The top of a landmine,” said Ts’ai Luan, her voice flat. “This is one of twelve sited in and around the cave. They are all linked to a central point. If the enemy should find us, then our last act will be to detonate them. They will find nothing, those who are still alive. I understand that the mines are powerful enough to destroy everything.”

  Carradine straightened abruptly. “I see.” God, he thought how inane a couple of words could be!

  “It has to be this way,” she went on calmly. “We all know far too much. It is better that we should die in a split second than they should take us alive, back to that place in Canton. We all know what that would mean.”

  Carradine felt suddenly tight and cold. There did not seem to be anything he could say. Ts’ai Luan stood quite still for a moment and then reached out her hands, took a tight hold on his lapels, tugged hard at them. With an effort, he forced his mind away from the thoughts that raced through it. Leaning forward, he placed his arms around the slender waist, pulled her almost roughly to him and kissed her hard upon the lips. She did not resist, but clung to him tightly, as though afraid to let him go.

  “My God, Ts’ai Luan,” he said thickly. “This is one hell of a way to meet each other. We might just as well meet in the middle of a full-scale shooting war.”

  “Hush, Steve,” she said. She placed a finger softly on his lips. “I knew there could be very little between us when we first met. But time means nothing. A day comes and a day goes. Tomorrow will become today, and then there will be more tomorrows, but none of us know how many there will be for each of us. Soon, if you are successful, you will go away and leave me. I know that. But it does not trouble me. So why let it trouble you? We have a little time together.”

  She kissed him again. Now there was a fierceness, a passion in her which matched his own feelings. Almost brusquely, he pushed her away from him. For a moment there was a look in her eyes of some small animal being punished for something it did not understand. Then she smiled up at him. “I understand, Steve. There is work to be done. You must question my uncle.”

  He nodded wordlessly, forced his mind away from her. As they made their way slowly towards the cave, he tried not to think of those twelve cylinders of metal sited strategically around them, with the detonator wires all leading to the one spot. Hell, what a situation to be in, he thought fiercely. A place of comparative safety and yet with sleeping death lying all about them.

  Chao Lin was lying on a pile of blankets in the far corner of the cave, away from the track, when he entered. As he squatted beside the other, he saw the long, fresh scars on the man’s lined features and the bandages around the fingers resting in front of him. Chao Lin followed the direction of his eyes, said in a low voice: “Our friends can be extremely persuasive at times, especially when they are anxious to learn something.”

  “The bamboo treatment?” asked Carradine softly.

  Chao Lin nodded, lifted his hands weakly and stared at them, at fingers which was swollen, not merely by the bandages taped around them. Carradine felt a little shudder go through him at the thought of what this man must have suffered before they had succeeded in getting him away. Most likely a refinement of the Japanese torture treatment, thrusting long thorns and splinters of bamboo beneath the nails to make their victims talk. There would have been other things too about which he knew little.

  “I’m sorry,” he said simply.

  “But why be sorry? We all know the risks we are taking when we work for freedom and liberation. I am not the first to have to suffer, nor will I be the last. It is not good that this should be so,” he added philosophically. “But we must all accept life as we find it and try to change it for the better in any way we can. Only out of suffering does true victory come.”

  “Confucius?” asked Carradine, forcing a tight smile.

  The other shook his head slowly. “The unworthy Chao Lin,” he answered. Then his tone sobered, his voice gained strength. “But there is much to talk about and little time. You know, of course, about Kellaway, my Number Two in Hong Kong?”

  “I know that he has a secret transmitter in his room, that he is probably in touch with Red Dragon agents inside Hong Kong, perhaps here in China.”

  Chao Lin inclined his head slightly. “That is so. I began to suspect him a little time ago. There were two cases to my knowledge when the enemy knew things which only he and I knew. And there have been too many little incidents which, taken together, would be stretching coincidence too far. There had to be a traitor somewhere and it was only logical to suspect him. But I had no proof. I knew that if anything happened to me, that if London did send someone out to check, they would automatically trust Kellaway and he’d be in deadly danger.”

  “So you warned Ts’ai Luan about him, warned her to be on the lookout for me.”

  “Yes.” The other lifted his head slowly, looked up at the girl standing nearby. “She has proved extremely useful in the past, being able to get in and out of China with little difficulty and without arousing
suspicion.” There was a faint gleam in the tired, old eyes. “There are still many people in China who wish to see the end of this present regime. As yet, they are not strong enough. But there will soon come a time when they will have their opportunity.”

  “But what of this secret information you have?” prompted Carradine.

  The other’s face changed. “That is a different matter, my friend. I tried to get the news through to London, but as you know, I was unfortunately prevented from doing so.”

  “But I’m here now. With luck, I may be able to get it back if it’s sufficiently important.”

  “It is of the gravest importance. But it is now too late to send word to London. Before they could do anything about it, the test would have been carried out.”