Dugan momentarily had the nightmarish feeling that the American captain had recognized him through the disguise of the Chinese coolie clothes, the deeper disguise of his natural complexion, and the final covering of Asiatic manners which he had assumed. The flyer was probably one of the several Americans whom the Chinese Communists had reported as dead, but whom they kept for possible use as hostages at a later date. Before Dugan could think of some way of speaking to the captain, the man turned and went back into the building.
As soon as he had gone, Dugan began to wonder if the whole thing were an illusion. This was the last place for an American to be. Americans were Fascists and oppressors, so far as these local people were concerned. The only thing to do was to ask Wu, his captor.
"I beg to ask you," he started, using the respectful form of the second-person singular, nin with the sound ah added to it to give formal courtesy to the inquiry, "was that not an American captain whom you saluted?"
Wu's face clouded over with ostentatious secrecy. But even under the exaggerated pretense of mysteriousness, he looked truly frightened.
"Not your business, Comrade An. Nor mine. Come along."
"But he looked so strange…" Dugan whined his protest, trying to wheedle information in a loutish way; but the statement was true.
Dugan, himself a human chameleon, had developed a talent for sensing the assumed roles of other people. There was something inhuman, something far worse than un-American in that blank white face of the captain who had waved to them and had gone back into the building. The man had a broad, low, heavy-browed forehead. His full lips had smiled at them with a hint of controlled contempt. There was something measured in the way that he had moved. His pace was not American. Nor, said Dugan to himself, was it Russian. It was the stance and movement of a man under drugs, of a sick man who has just learned to walk again. It was an adult walk — measured, arrogant, firm — but it was blank. Walking was as individual a process as handwriting, once you got to recognize the different kinds of walking that there were. No two human beings ever walked in quite the same way. The walk of a Japanese woman, for example, was as different from the stride of an American girl as water-brushed ideographs were from finishing-school penmanship. But that alleged captain now… he did not walk the walk of an American, or of a Russian. Certainly not of a German. It was not the walk of a cripple, or of an eccentrically nervous individual.
As he followed Wu into the building, Dugan shivered at the thought of the "American." That was a very bad kind of human being to have around: it was a person without proper origin; and perhaps it would have to be destroyed as an obstacle. To the Chinese peasant-soldiers lounging around the police building, there was nothing unusual about the self-styled captain, but to Dugan that masked walk, that blind firm gait, was as bold as a flag of treason.
But whoever the "American" might be, Dugan felt confident that he could cope with him. A spy who knew no better than to conceal his old identity, without assuming a new one all the way down to his bones, was not too much of a threat.
Wu and he stopped at an office door.
The room was hung with cloth banners, lettered in red and white. They called for democracy all over the world and asked the common people, who loved peace, to stand fast against American Fascism. A long table had been set up. Many people stood around the table, all of them gabbling at the same time. Only one man sat — a haggard but cheerful young Chinese with a tremendous long mop of uncut hair. When he saw Dugan, he looked up, pushed the hair away from his face, and said to Wu: "What person is this you bring in?"
Dugan answered first. "My name, Comrade Mayor, is An, and I am a sort of deserter from the Red Army of the Soviet Union."
"You speak Chinese?"
"A little," said Dugan.
The chairman looked up at Wu. "Take him to the Sergeant."
Wu grunted.
The other people sneaked looks at Dugan without staring directly at him. There was something to this Sergeant business which they understood and feared.
Wu took Dugan's arm, led him out of the room, down the corridor. The corridor was unswept and un-aired. At the end there was a little door. Wu pushed Dugan through that, said, "Down there," and stopped.
Dugan looked down a flight of spiral steel stairs. The Japanese had built well. The lower part of the staircase was pitch black. Dugan thought that "Take him to the Sergeant…" might be code for "Take him to the cellar and shoot him in the back of the head…" and was a little restless at the prospect.
Whining again, but in a panicky tone this time, he complained, "How can I go down these steps? It is too much not-bright, comrade."
Wu tapped his pistol butt. "Go on down. You'll find out."
Chattering his protests, Dugan went down into the dark. The steps wound around and around. When he was out of hearing of Wu, he moved more swiftly. Wu could not fire through that maze of steel. Whatever these people had down here, it was not a shooting-persons room, such as the Chinese Communists were reported to operate elsewhere in China.
A new smell reached out and touched his nostrils. Dugan stopped. It was an odor which had no place in this kind of building. It reminded him of industry, of power — power, that was it! The ozone of electrical machinery. The smell of a ship's wireless room. More confidently he hurried on down the steps. Two more turns, and he saw a doorway outlined in razor-sharp thin beams of light, top and bottom, where the door did not quite fit; and this light was blue-tinted.
Boldly he rapped on the door. It opened.
The pale quiet bland face of the "American" greeted him. Behind the American there was a maze of communications machinery, most of it Japanese. A fan sucked air out of the room into a ventilating shaft. There was another person behind the captain, but Dugan could not see him clearly.
"Proceed inward," said the American in a toneless Chinese voice.
Dugan obeyed, babbling in Russian, "Yefreitor Josif Nikodimovich Andreanov, Comrade General, seeking Red Army officers to whom to report—"
The other man rose — a giant of a Russian — and said, in easy Russian, "I am Starchii Sarzhant Byelov, comrade. What clothes are you wearing?"
"Stolen American clothes, comrade. I have escaped from the Fascist Americans in Mukden." As he spoke, Dugan sized up the big old Russian. Technical sergeant? Too bad. Perhaps he shouldn't have introduced himself as a private first class. The sarzhant would expect a yefreitor to know too damned many things about the Red Army. But Dugan-Andreanov had assumed the character of a souse and a liar. He could, quite consistently, demote himself at the first convenient opportunity.
Byelov held out a hamlike hand in greeting. So far, neither he nor the "American" had spoken to each other since Dugan had entered the room. "Sit down there," said Byelov, indicating a comfortable chair near the receiving unit.
Byelov reached across the table, picked up a characteristic Russian vodka bottle and a thin-walled Chinese drinking glass.
All this time the "American" stood quiet, with an air of inexplicable menace expressed by the blank forced non-national nature of his posture. Dugan leered cheerfully at him and at Byelov, drank down the glassful of vodka; he could feel the horsepower racing down his esophagus and landing with high compression in his stomach.
Again the "American" and the Red Army sergeant exchanged glances.
The captain spoke, in clear but colorless English: "Do you speak English, man?"
Dugan-Andreanov chattered, "Sure. Sure. Sure. Speak English. Sannagitch. Hi-sport. Same to you. Goombye." He changed back to Chinese. "That is excellent English, isn't it, Comrade American?"
"What else do you know?" asked the American, in colorless Chinese.
"You mean the speaking of English?"
"That, indeed."
"That is all I know, but I can talk some Japanese, too. Learned them both in Mukden. Would you like to hear some Japanese? Moshi-moshi? Benjo-wa doku desuka? Good Japanese, too. But my Chinese is best."
The strange captain leaned over and took Dugan's wrist. He did not grope for the pulse, but found it immediately and ground his fingertips tight against it. From the side of the room the Russian technical sergeant watched the scene patiently. He frowned when he saw what the alleged captain was doing.
The stranger leaned over and looked Dugan-Andreanov directly in the eye. Speaking in English, in a clear friendly tone of voice, he said, "You are a spy sent by the American forces. I have been warned of your coming. You are going to be killed immediately. By myself. Stand up."
Two can play at that game, thought Dugan. He exerted his will to keep his pulse even and looked mutely and expectantly into the stranger's face.
The captain went on, "Do you have anything to say before you die?"
"Hello. Goombye. Sure, Sport, sure. Speak English. Speak English." Then Dugan grinned at the man and waved his glass with his free hand.
The captain dropped Dugan's wrist and turned to Byelov. Still speaking the same careful English which he had used on Dugan, he said:
"The swine does not speak English. Do you think that he is really from our country?"
"How could I tell?" asked Byelov in accented but passable English. "I not see him very long. Just now."
"What are you going to do with him?"
"He is a—" Byelov scratched his head, trying to think of the right word. "He is man who runs away from Red Army. I send him back."
The cold bland captain looked over at Dugan without anger, without fear, and said, "You must kill him."
"Kill him?" said Byelov. "Make him dead?"
"Yes," the captain nodded.
"Why?" said Byelov. "If he is good Russian man, he can live. Get punishments for bad soldier, but live. If he is not good Russian man, special governments find out and then shoot him for spy. You too busy to working with him. I just work this machinery. Don't know things like that."
Without glancing at Dugan, the captain said, "I think I'll shoot him now." Then he swung around and stared sharply at Dugan.
Dugan grinned at him and said in Chinese, "You are a filthy Fascist turtle egg and I ought to kill you."
The blank face burst momentarily into expression, showing fury. Then the fury was gone and the captain asked calmly, "For what reason do you insult me?"
"You are an American. A bad man," said Dugan in Chinese. Switching back to Russian, he said to Byelov:
"Sarzhant, why do you keep American Fascists in such a nice Communist headquarters? In Mukden I got very tired of the Americans and the Kuomintang and all the time I hear English talk everywhere, with nobody talking Russian. Now I come here and you talk English, too."
"Sorry, comrade," said Byelov. "This is a good anti-Fascist American. This is Kapitan Stearns."
"Glad to meet you, comrade," said Stearns in Chinese. "What is your name?"
"Don't you speak Russian?" said Dugan sullenly in Russian.
"Not enough," smiled Stearns, staying within the safe limits of Chinese.
"My name," said Dugan, "is Andreanov. I am an upper-category private in the Soviet Red Army. I have lived in Mukden with the Americans and the Kuomintang all around me. When Mukden got clear, I started home. Now I come here and I see more Americans. You talk in English. I think that you talk about me. You should have a drink instead." Dugan poured himself another strong slug of the vodka. Though he was doing it on an empty stomach, he was sure enough of the Andreanov role for the assumed character to stand up under mild drunkenness.
Stearns said to Byelov in English, "Wait till tomorrow." And he drank with Dugan. The armistice had been called.
Dugan sighed with relief. He had been fearing that he would have to kill them both, a policy which would have let him in for a lot of trouble from the local boys upstairs; and he had been unable to think up any way of dusting off "Stearns" alone without getting Byelov thoroughly hostile. For a moment or two he had considered having a drunken brawl with Stearns, in which the imitation American would get accidentally killed; but Comrade Sarzhant Byelov looked too alert and too judicious for any shallow deception to be worked on him. Dugan let the pressure pass. He jollied them into giving him food. By a combination of stupidity, good humor, and persistence he got them to take him into their quarters. Stearns was reluctant; Byelov did not care.
The next morning, Dugan awoke with an idea. He needed Byelov as a friend. But he had to get Stearns out of the way. Overnight he had figured Stearns out as a smooth cosmopolitan Soviet agent who was waiting for the double mission of winning the confidence of visiting American military groups whenever necessary, and of interrogating downed or wounded American air personnel. The flyers could then be murdered — without their going back to HQ with inexplicable reports of finding an Air Force captain in Communist territory. But Dugan did not worry about the rights and wrongs of the mission. He had been ordered to go to Atomsk, and the authority which ordered him was lawful. That was all that he needed to ask.
For the fulfillment of his plan, he needed an influx of strange Chinese Communist troops — soldiers who would be politically unobjectionable, but who would not know the local personalities. He followed Wu around with admiration and friendliness, somewhat to Wu's annoyance. Wu gave him no news until the afternoon. Another detachment was expected the following week.
By the following week, Dugan and the Sarzhant were calling one another Ossya — short for Josif — and Pyotr. Dugan had taken over many little chores around the message center. The two of them sent weather reports, and transmitted long messages in the Latin alphabet which arrived through Chinese Communist couriers; they were presumably reports or requests coming in from the field, where Russian agents worked with the Chinese Communists. Once or twice Dugan was alone and quiet long enough to break the code, but he found nothing concerning Atomsk or fissionable materials, so he bothered no further; he had no couriers, and could not get the local political information back to Tokyo even if he did figure it out.
Stearns preened himself around town. He talked fair Chinese and gave out horrifying stories of brutality and oppression in America. He let it be known that he was a supporter of the "peace elements" in the United States and that when the American revolution against capitalism broke out, he would be more than glad to go home. For hours on end, the sloppy Red Army man Andreanov would watch the trim American, Stearns; Dugan was reasonably sure that the other spy had not penetrated his own disguise.
And in all those days, Dugan never did make up his mind about "Stearns"' real origin; he was a spy, devoted but mediocre; he was a Communist; he was not an American. Only this much was certain.
When the fresh Communist troops arrived, the streets were full of shooting. The soldiers celebrated by getting drunk and firing off their rifles. The Communist Chinese behaved fairly well, but Koreans and Mongols among them were high-spirited.
In the second evening of their arrival, Dugan changed roles slightly — allowing himself a better command of Chinese than he had showed till then. He told of the horrors of Mukden under "American" occupation. The local people had been taught that Chiang K'ai-shek and the American President were almost identical fiends; they were in no position to doubt him.
At the psychological moment, Dugan led a raging, half-drunk lynching party against the police station. When the Chinese-Korean-Mongol mob caught the "American Fascist," the nameless spy who had been known as Stearns, the victim screamed out loud in Russian; but he was soon dead and silent.
Sarzhant Byelov came out and stopped the rioters; they turned ugly against him, too; but Wu and the other leaders pacified them. In the investigation which the Communist bosses conducted, they found that Andreanov was one of the ringleaders, but not necessarily the ringleader; and when they looked for him, they found him right out front, drunk in the gutter.
Dugan woke the next morning to find that he had been made Byelov's prisoner. Relations between the two of them were less cordial for a while but soon got back to normal. Dugan was not in a hurry. He had cleared an obstacle out of his way; he had obliterated a counter-spy; he had made Russians and Chinese a little more suspicious of each other; he was now sure to be deported.
And he was.
At the end of his third week at the local Chinese Communist headquarters, a Russian truck pulled up in front of the station. A new Russian sarzhant and a new "American flyer," this time dressed as a second lieutenant, got out; they did not speak to him or to Byelov. An officer in civilian clothes made all arrangements and put Dugan and Byelov in the truck. The old Studebaker roared through its broken and unrepaired muffler, and off they went toward the frontier.
Dugan was now a Soviet citizen and a Soviet prisoner. They were dragging him in the direction of Atomsk by main force. Captain "Stearns" was unmistakably buried, as anonymous in death as he had been in life. What more could Dugan ask?
He asked for it: cigarettes and vodka. He got no vodka but they gave him cigarettes and hot tea. The truck rolled on and when night came, with the truck stopping in a Chinese courtyard, he and Byelov slept in the back together, making up crude beds with filthy Chinese quilts.
"We'll be home soon, Pyotr Pyotrovich," said Dugan.
"That's good and right, Ossya," said the sarzhant.