Shaw cut in, “But you have heard of Commander Foster?”
“No.”
“I rather think you have, you know.” Shaw’s hand came away from his jacket; he pointed the revolver at Ling’s heart. The man didn’t move, his expression didn’t alter. Shaw said, “You’ll come back with me to naval headquarters, Ling, and when you’re there I believe you’ll talk fast enough. If you don’t, there’s ways of making you. You see, Ling, we know a lot about you already.”
He was watching Ling very closely, and he fancied he could see a sudden flicker in the man’s eye, a change of expression at last in the parchment-like features. But Ling said quite calmly and unemotionally, “You may take me to your naval base. I have nothing to say, no knowledge of what you are speaking of — therefore you will be disappointed.”
“We’ll see about that.” Shaw jerked the gun. “Come on now — get moving.”
It was while he’d been walking back along that dark passage with Ling ahead of him and his gun concealed but ready, that he’d just caught the rushing sound behind him, like slippered feet on linoleum. He’d half turned but he hadn’t been quick enough. Something had come down hard across the back of his skull. There was a blinding flash in his eyes, and he went down, stone cold on the passage floor.
It wasn’t so very long before he recovered consciousness. At least, he had the impression that he had probably done so because he could feel the intense pain which racked his head, a hammering which was splitting it cruelly in half. Lights still flickered in front of his eyes, and that was odd, for the place in which he was shut up was totally dark. It was the most complete darkness he had ever been in. And it was jolting up and down, throwing him from side to side sickeningly. There seemed to be very little air.
And it was bitterly, freezingly, wickedly cold.
Cold that racked and tortured him, shook his limbs, inhibited thought, cold that seemed to tear and rip at his throat every time he took a breath, cold that searched into his lungs and cut them like a knife. His teeth were chattering together, his legs and arms were shaking as though they would never stop again in this life. Each time the compartment gave one of its lurches he was thrown across a floor which was as slippery and slithery as ice, was thrown crashing into solid objects which felt cold and dead to the touch, so frozen that they were as hard as iron, iron which tore his skin.
Very, very dimly and faintly, street noises penetrated — muffled car hooters, bells, the sound of vehicles on the move. There was a feeling as of wheels beneath him too. Then the thing that he was in jerked suddenly, and he was thrown forward, cracking his skull on cold hardness. Groping with his hands, he felt the sheen of ice. Then he was jerked violently backwards again.
After that he understood.
He was in a moving vehicle, a vehicle carrying freight. A refrigerated vehicle, most likely a meat van. Those hard, frozen objects — they would be carcasses, sides of beef and mutton, and the van was the sort that did the long-distance hauls, taking the carcasses down to the cold-storage rooms of the liners, stocking up down at Pyrmont and Woolloomooloo…
Shaw felt stifled, claustrophobic.
He staggered to his feet, propped himself against the carcasses and beat with bunches fists against the panel behind the cab. His hand smacked into a lever and he gave a cry of pain. He grasped the lever, tried to pull on it, for it must be a hatch lever and if only he could operate it, it would lead to warmth and the friendly summer, and men’s voices, and life itself. But of course it was locked… if they meant to leave him for long in this death-chamber, this moving mortuary, it would be the end. And if the end came for him, it could come for half the world as well.
Again and again he beat uselessly on the panel. His fists became torn, lacerated on the jags of ice and frozen snow. It was cold of such intensity that he didn’t feel a thing and the running blood soon slowed to a treacly mass… all he could feel now was the freezing agony, the blood-clotting agony of forty below zero which leads to drowsy acceptance and then to death. It was only the movements of his body, the movements which might soon become too much for him, that kept him alive at all.
It seemed an age but it was in fact very soon after that the van slowed and then took a right-hand turn very sharply. Shaw was thrown off his feet again, fell and slithered on the hard-packed ice. Then the van stopped, and lights came up in the tomb-like interior. Almost at once, the small hatch from the cab opened; it was little more than an inspection hatch really. No warm air came in, none could pass the cold-barrier which sealed off the outside atmosphere. Steam rose across the opening. Now any movement was becoming an effort to Shaw. Any movement beyond that dreadful trembling which he couldn’t stop.
A revolver jabbed through the hatch.
A voice — Karstad’s voice — said, “Out you come, Commander Shaw.”
He answered through the chatter of his teeth. “I can’t. You’ll have to help me.”
There was a muttered exclamation, then Karstad turned away. Shaw heard him say: “Hold the gun.” A moment later Karstad’s heavy body edged up to the opening and he reached through, laid hold of Shaw. Karstad dragged him easily across the ice towards the hatch and heaved him through, and soon the agent was sitting limply in the cab, trembling, but feeling warmth gradually sinking into his bones.
He saw that they were in a covered, untidy yard flanked by a raised concrete platform which looked like the loading bay of a warehouse. Karstad had his gun in his hand again now, and he kept it levelled at Shaw’s stomach all the time as he stood just outside the cab. He spoke over his shoulder to the driver, a big-boned Chinese in overalls.
He said curtly, “Go inside and prepare the cellar.”
The man went off and Karstad turned to Shaw. He said, “So you are back with us once again, my dear Shaw. This time, it is for good. Certain people are due to arrive here shortly, and they have some questions to ask you.” He yawned, lay back against the open door. “Take my advice— answer them!”
Shaw’s limbs were still trembling. Unsteadily he said, “You won’t get anything out of me, Karstad.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure. In any case, you can’t stop our plans now, so you might just as well drop into line.”
Shaw licked his lips, thinking fast. Somehow, as soon as he was fit to follow up, he had to get Karstad to drop his guard a little. A few moments later he made a gesture of resignation, said: “There’s one thing certain. I can’t tell you anything till I’m warm.” He knew, indeed, that he was looking the very picture of misery, that he hardly needed to put on an act. Karstad scowled, seemed uncertain, swore briefly and then looked hard at Shaw. He couldn’t help seeing he was in a bad way and he said grudgingly,
“There’s a flask of coffee under the seat, just where you’re sitting. Get it. And be careful how you do it.”
Shaw reached down, fished out the flask. He unscrewed the top, felt the steam coming up to his face. Shakily he poured the coffee, hot and sweet and strong, took it gratefully. The cab itself was warm — almost hot after that cold chamber; as the coffee went down a glow came back to him and he was able to relax, to control the shake in his limbs. He sat there as his strength returned, cradling the flask in his hands, soaking up the remains of the heat as it steamed into his face, the pain in his head receding too.
After a time Karstad asked, “You are feeling better?”
Shaw nodded. “A little.”
“Remember what I said.”
“I’ll remember.” Shaw’s body had sagged; he tried to give the impression that that nightmare ride had finally broken him, that his will had cracked at last, that he was anxious only to be warm again, to be left in peace, to surrender to the inevitable. A little later his lips trembled, he raised a nicely-shaking hand to the lump at the back of his head. He said, “I suppose I haven’t got much option… but if I do talk, I’ll want a guarantee that — some friends of mine— won’t get hurt in what you plan to do.”