by John Glasby
“There doesn’t seem to be anyone about,” whispered the girl softly. “Now we must hurry. We have a long way to go before dawn.”
*
It was almost three o’clock in the morning when they ran into trouble. For almost four hours they had made their way south-west without incident, the girl finding her way unerringly across rough country, following some track known only to her. As they were climbing up a steep valley head, with the girl in the lead, she suddenly stopped, motioned Carradine down.
Gradually, every movement controlled, she slid back to where he crouched.
“What is it?” he asked in a faint whisper. “Somebody there?”
“A patrol,” she whispered back. “I’m not sure how many men there are but they’re coming this way.”
Cautiously, they moved back among the boulders, two shadows among other shadows. Now Carradine could hear the sound of the advancing patrol. They were making no secret of their presence so it seemed highly unlikely they were anticipating trouble.
There were only half a dozen of them, moving forward in a loose, strung-out bunch, rifles over their shoulders, faces invisible beneath the sloppy caps they wore. There was nothing organised or methodical about the way they moved and they talked loudly among themselves as they passed the huge boulders behind which Carradine and the girl crouched. They were still in sight, a slowly dwindling blur in the darkness, the sound of their boots ringing on the rocks when they came out of the hiding place and struck off over the spur of the hill. On the other side, they entered an area of rice fields, the first signs of cultivation they had encountered.
“We are only a few miles from Canton now,” whispered Ts’ai Luan. “We must be very careful now.”
Soon they entered a small cluster of trees. Making as little noise as possible, they moved through them. On the far side, Carradine paused to examine the moonlit ground which lay spread out before them. The paddy fields were now way off to his right. On their left, the ground was rougher, more broken. It looked difficult stuff to cross, but unhesitatingly, the girl pointed in that direction. Her voice broke in on his thoughts. “That way now. There are workers in the huts on the edge of the paddy fields, and sometimes they have dogs. We may be able to slip past the sleeping men in the huts but the dogs would be able to scent us within minutes and raise the alarm.”
Carradine nodded dubiously. He edged forward, then paused as the girl said tightly: “There’s someone coming behind us.”
“Are you sure?” Carradine listened intently, heard nothing but the faint sighing of the wind through the bending branches overhead.
“I’m sure,” she murmured. She moved away from him and in a pale shaft of moonlight which filtered through the leaves, he saw the glint of the knife in her hand. Instinctively, he closed his fingers about the butt of the Luger, easing it out.
Then he heard the stealthy movement in the undergrowth. Crouching down, he waited, hoping that the girl had learned how to take care of herself with that knife. He held the gun uncertainly in his hand, eyes narrowed down to mere slits as she watched for the first sign of movement. Slowly, the noise of the men in the brush increased. He could see no sign of the girl, did not dare call out to her. He swore softly under his breath. In a hand to hand combat such as this promised to be, a girl was an extra disadvantage, no matter how capable she might be. It meant he would have to keep an eye on her as well as on himself.
Then he saw the bushes part less than ten yards away and a second later, two men came out into the small clearing, looking about them alertly. He tensed as he saw that they were both dressed in some kind of uniform. They must have spotted them from a distance as they had crossed open country and moved stealthily behind to take them by surprise.
For what seemed an eternity, the men waited, heads cocked to one side, listening for some sound of them. When they had nothing, they conferred together for a moment in low voices, then split up, moving around both sides of the clearing. They were watchful and wary. Their heads turn from side to side as they advanced. Clearly they were taking no chances on being ambushed. The rifles were held tightly in their fists in an attitude of menace.
Crouched there, holding his breath until it hurt in his chest, Carradine wondered if this was more of Kellaway’s doing; if the other had sent a warning message to his Communist masters, telling them what had happened, that he had left alone, possibly suspecting something. It might explain too that patrol they had bumped into earlier.
The nearer of the two men was now less than three yards away, edging closer. He tensed. Would the other get close enough to him so that he might use the gun at an extremely close range? The sound of a gunshot, unless muffled in some way, would carry for miles in the night stillness. Carradine decided that he could not afford to take any chances on the other passing him without noticing him. As soon as the man was near enough he would shoot to kill and hope for the best. Whether he could distract the other man’s attention long enough for the girl to use the knife, he did not know.
Controlling his breathing, he got one leg under him. Five seconds passed, then ten. The man drew alongside. With a sudden convulsive surge of motion, Carradine hurled himself upright, thrust the barrel of the Luger hard against the man’s side, his other arm snaking around the neck. Pressing the weapon as far as he could into the rough tunic, he squeezed the trigger once. The recoil of the heavy pistol slammed hard against his ribs, almost breaking the bone. The man uttered a thin strangled bleat of sound that died virtually instantly, then slumped heavily against him, a great hole in his side. With an effort, Carradine retained his stranglehold around the dead man’s neck, holding him up, swinging him around so that he formed a human shield as the second soldier whirled sharply, levelling the rifle in his direction.
Before the other had a chance to pull the trigger, a slim shape rose up from the ground at his back. There was a faint gleam of moonlight on cold steel as the knife flashed downward into the soldier’s back just below the neck. For a moment, the other remained incredibly upright. Then he collapsed inertly forward and lay stretched out on the ground, the girl standing over him. Calmly, she withdrew the knife.
“He is dead,” she said softly.
Carradine forced a quick laugh. His throat felt suddenly dry. “My, but you’re a bloodthirsty little she-cat, aren’t you?”
“I don’t understand,” she said, coming close to him.
He shook himself. “Never mind. We’d better move on quickly. There may be others in the vicinity and when these two don’t come back, they’ll move in on us, maybe try to cut us off.”
Ts’ai Luan nodded in agreement. Together, they moved off through the dense scrub.
*
Seated in the same plush chair beneath the large photograph of Mao Tse Tung, Lung Chan surveyed the two men who stood before him at the side of the long table. The bland features did not reflect the deep flame of anger that stirred and moved inside him. Only the pudgy fingers, tight on the table’s edge, betrayed something of his thoughts as he said coldly: “It would appear that certain of my orders have not been carried out. My information is that, in spite of what I commanded, there were two further attempts on the life of the British agent yesterday. However, both of them failed, but that is not the point I wish to bring to your attention.”
One after the other, he examined the faces of the men standing before him. He knew that inwardly, in spite of their appearance of calm they were both extremely disturbed, possibly frightened men. Both were directly responsible for the way in which their agents inside the British colony operated. It had been their duty to ensure that his orders had been carried out to the letter the moment the previous day’s conference had broken up.
“Apparently the last attempt failed because this man—Carradine—was aided by someone unknown to us. This is a grave blow and must be rectified at once.”
“That will be done, General,” murmured Chin Wang. “There is sometimes difficulty in contacting—”
“Enough
!” roared the other. He hammered with his clenched fist on the table. “I want no further excuses. Already, this mission is completely out of hand. I received further disturbing information two hours ago. The Englishman, Kellaway, who has been working for us inside Hong Kong, reports that Carradine did not leave with our two men. When they returned to Kellaway’s house, Carradine was no longer there. The fact that he had taken the papers which had been prepared for him, indicates that he had decided to take some other route into China. We therefore have to face the possibility that someone is helping him. This makes our task a little more difficult than it would normally have been.”
“Perhaps,” Chin Wang spoke a trifle hesitantly, “if this is the case, it makes our task of finding him almost impossible. China is a very large country, and by now, he could have landed anywhere along the coast. No doubt he is suitably disguised.”
“Of course he will be disguised, you fool,” roared Lung Chan savagely. “Do you expect him to enter China as an Englishman?”
“Of course not, General,” mumbled the other apologetically. He lowered his glance from the other’s face.
Lung Chan tightened his thick lips momentarily. He now knew that his early instincts about this man had been fundamentally correct. The other was incompetent and a fool. He would soon have to be relieved of his post. When the time came for this, it would also be necessary to see that he did not live to speak of anything he had learned while he had been Head of the State Security Division. He had never really liked the other. It would give him the greatest personal pleasure to supervise his ultimate demise.
“The task is by no means impossible,” Lung Chan went on blandly a moment later. “He will come to China for one purpose only. To discover the whereabouts of Chao Lin. That will be his sole concern. We hold Chao Lin and very soon, like the fly of the Western proverb, this man Carradine will walk into our trap.”
“Then a trap has been prepared for him?” inquired Chin Wang politely.
“Naturally. That has all been taken care of. There is, however, the question of the Englishman, Kellaway. He is no longer of any value to us. He knows far too much and must be eliminated.” His eyes rested on Chin Wang’s face, noticed the faint crease of the brows above the eyes. “That will be your responsibility. As he may now be considered a threat to the security of the state.”
“I shall arrange it at once,” murmured the other. He felt he had got off lightly. Perhaps if he made certain that Kellaway died within the next few hours his previous mistake might be, if not forgotten, at least overlooked.
“That is all for the moment,” said Lung Chan decisively. “I shall, however, require you to remain in your respective offices should I need you urgently. This matter is of such importance that it is being watched carefully by others.” He did not mention any names, withholding them deliberately for dramatic effect, but one look at the faces of the two men told him that they knew exactly who he was talking about.
*
The van which drove up to the front of the apartment looked like many hundreds of other ones on the side streets of Hong Kong every day. The legend painted on the side said that it was from the telephone company. Kellaway experienced a faint sense of surprise as the two men got out, came towards the door. He let the curtain fall into place as the bell rang.
The tall man showed his card. He smiled pleasantly. “We have been asked to check every telephone in this district,” he said sibilantly. “Please do not alarm yourself, there is nothing wrong. This is merely a periodic test we have to make now that there are so many on the island.”
Kellaway gave the card back, nodded. “I suppose you had better come in then,” he said reluctantly. “I hope this won’t take too long, there are several important calls I have to make.”
“Fifteen minutes at the most,” said the other. “If you could just show us where it is.”
“Of course.” He led the way into the study, nodded towards the phone on his desk. “This is the only one I have.”
“Thank you. The check is quite straightforward, sir.”
The tall man lifted the phone from its plastic cradle, spun the dial several times, then nodded as if satisfied.
Kellaway walked over to the window, poured himself a stiff drink. This intrusion was the last thing he wanted just at this moment and it had been in his mind to refuse the men entry, using some excuse or other. Since Carradine had vanished the previous evening, just when everything seemed to have been going according to plan, he had felt shaken and disturbed. It had not been his fault at all, he told himself fiercely. Something must have happened while Carradine had been away checking over Chao Lin’s office in the morning, although the other had not mentioned anything about it. Indeed, during the whole of the afternoon, while they had been at the plastic surgeon’s, making the temporary alterations to his face, and later when his photograph had been taken downtown for the papers, he had acted quite normally. There had been nothing to give him cause to suspect that the other would not go through with the plan they had discussed together.
Yet the fact that he had gone, taking the papers with him, almost certainly meant that somehow, the other had become suspicious of him. Yet how in God’s name could that have happened? There was no one in Hong Kong apart from the handful of Red Dragon agents he knew, who could have told Carradine anything at all. He had made absolutely certain that no one else knew of the double role he had been playing for the past few years. So what could have happened?
Tossing the drink down, he tried to go over in his mind all the details since he had met Carradine at the airport. The bomb attack on the car has surely been sufficiently reliably carried out to be realistic and he had deliberately knocked himself out on the dashboard to make it absolutely convincing. He poured a second drink. So it all boiled down to the inescapable fact that the fault lay with the operatives of the Red Dragon themselves and not with him at all. He felt a little easier in his mind as this thought occurred to him, clinging to it as a drowning man to a straw; for there would certainly be questions asked in Canton now that they knew what had happened. Awkward questions if General Lung Chan did not believe his defence.
He ran a shaking hand over his forehead, stared down at the faint sheen of sweat on his flesh. He felt suddenly cold. Why the hell had he got himself mixed up in this business anyway? At first, it had been the sense of adventure, rather than the money—and then both. Once Chao Lin had been kidnapped however, the full precariousness of his own position had been borne home to him. More than once, he had considered asking London to relieve him of his duties here, to be transferred to some other part of the world, as far away from Hong Kong as was humanly possible. Two things had stopped him each time he had tried to send the wire.
Firstly, he knew that whatever the answer from London may be, he would have to remain there until someone else was sent out and the Hong Kong station re-established and the mystery of Chao Lin’s disappearance satisfactorily settled and secondly, possibly more important still, he knew with an unshakeable certainty, that no matter where he went, the arm of the Red Dragon, and its vengeance, could reach clear across the world and that at some time or other, retribution would catch up with him.
He glanced at his watch. It was almost eleven o’clock. Another twenty minutes and he would have to put through his routine call to his contact in the city. He felt the knowing touch of fear in his stomach sharpen into actual physical pain. Whatever happened, that call had to go through. The Red Dragon insisted on punctuality in this matter. He knew that if he was even a minute early or late with his call, there would be no answer at the other end, and very soon, someone would come out to see why he had failed to get in touch.
The two men were still busy with the phone and he stood idly by the window, staring down into the street. He wanted to relax, but his turbulent thoughts would not allow him to do so. Every dammed thing about this whole business seemed to be getting out of hand. Before he knew where he was, London would start getting suspicious and then t
here would be hell to pay. Trying to play off one side against the other was like walking a tightrope blindfolded.
The voice of the taller Chinese broke in on his troubled thoughts. “I’m sure you will find that the telephone operates quite satisfactorily now, sir.” They began packing their tools away in the small leather bag on the table.
“Thank you,” Kellaway said curtly. He followed them to the door, closed it behind them. He would have much preferred it if the authorities had given him some advanced warning of this visit by their workmen. The trouble was, he reflected, that these days, they did not seem to care about the private rights of the citizen. It was well known that the Chinese did not like the British, often went out of their way to make them realise this by making life as irksome as possible, while still appearing courteous and civil on the surface.
He checked with his watch again. Another five minutes before the call was due. From the window, he watched the telephone van drive away. The street was quiet again.
The next five minutes seemed interminable. If only he could get his mind into some kind of order, think straight again. Damn that fellow Carradine, he thought fiercely. He got nervously to his feet, poured another drink, stood with it in his hand, glancing at the watch on his left wrist every fifteen seconds, watching the red second-hand drag itself slowly around the circular face. If Carradine had somehow managed to get into China, there might be no stopping him. Still, he consoled himself, the Chinese Intelligence was far better than he had ever imagined before he had come out here to Hong Kong. That was where the British Secret Service made their big mistake, in underestimating the enemy. If they did not watch their step, it would eventually prove to be their undoing.