"Archer?" Llona spoke hesitatingly. "Is that you, Archer?"
"Leave me alone, you Commie bitch!" The words came out muffled by the pillow in which his face was cur-ied.
Llona couldn't be sure if it was the voice of her Archer or not. It had been so long. She touched his shoulder, and the muscle there tensed under the material of the strait-jacket. "Won't you please turn over?" she asked. "So I can see your face."
"What drugs are you shooting today?" he sneered. "Mind-crackers, or truth serums? Whatever it is, I'm damned if I'll turn over. So you can just jab me in the rear and get it over with."
"You don't understand. You're confused. I'm your friend. More than a friend."
"Aha! The seduction technique. I figured it would only be a matter of time before they got around to that. I'll bet you're an all-American blonde stacked like the proverbial all-weather outhouse."
"Well, I am a blonde," Llona admitted. "And I guess I do have a good figure."
"Only at the last minute you turn into a Mongol torturer. If I turn over, I'lLsee a blonde, and then the switch. That's the agenda for breaking me down tonight, isn't it? Well, I'm not cooperating."
"I tell you I'm not your enemy!" Llona insisted.
"Yeah? Then prove it. Untie this Chinese puzzle I'm laced up in."
"I don't think I should do that. You're sick. You're bound for your own protection. So that you won't harm yourself."
"Okay, then. If you won't untie me, I won't turn over. Why should I cooperate with you if you won't cooperate with me?"
"Let me get a look at your face first, and maybe then I'll untie you," Llona hedged.
"Oh, no! That's what you pulled in Korea! Make a deal, break a deal-that's the Commie way. We Americans may be naive, but we're learning. You've got to put up before we fall for those tricks any more."
"I'm not a Communist," Llona protested.
"Then prove it. Set me free."
"I can't do that."
"Some friend," Ogilvie said cannily. "This is torture the way I'm trussed up here." He appealed to her sympathy.
"You certainly do look uncomfortable," Llona granted. "Maybe if you turned over…"
"I am uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable." Ogilvie tried a new tack. "If you won't help me out of this gismo, maybe you'll just loosen the ties a little," he pleaded.
"Well, I guess that won't do any harm…" She loosened the laces at the back of the strait jacket. "There! Now will you turn over?"
"It's still too tight. And the laces are cutting into me." Ogilvie was holding his breath and expanding his muscles so that there appeared to be more stress on his body than there actually was.
Llona further eased the tension on the strap-lacings of the straitjacket. "Now will you turn over?" she requested again.
Ogilvie turned over all right. He relaxed his muscles, took another deep breath, and then, with a burst of energy, tore free from his bonds. All this in the one motion as he turned over and hit Llona solidly on the jaw with his fist. She went crashing to the floor and lay there unconscious. She still hadn't seen Ogilvie's face.
Ogilvie counted it a lucky break when he found that the door to his cell hadn't been locked behind the interrogator. He slid it open cautiously and peered up and down the hall. No Commie bully-boys in sight. Good. He darted toward the barred gate at the end of the hall. No sentry there, either. Peculiar. But good. Good. The gate was locked. Bad! He heard voices coming from a side corridor leading into the main hall. They drew closer. Bad. Dangerous. They were talking in English. How come? No time to wonder about that. He had to hide. The linen closet. Good. Door slightly ajar. Good. Ogilvie slipped inside and shut the door behind him.
Pitch-black. Sounds of breathing. Heavy breathing. Frightened breathing, or fat man's wheeze, or a combination of both. Sinister fat man? A gaspy quality as if the breather were trying to keep the sound quieter, but only succeeding in magnifying it. What to do?
Sammy Spayed was confused and frightened. The glimpse of white jacket he'd seen had convinced him that the man who'd entered the closet must be an attendant or a doctor. But why was the man just standing there in the dark?
The wheezing was louder now. A fat belly brushed against Ogilvie's haunches. His mind tripped all over itself trying to judge the situation. If the fat man was a Viet Cong, then why was he hiding? A deserter, maybe? Or maybe a commando, or a spy from the South? Or-and suddenly this seemed most likely to Ogilvie-another escaped American prisoner like himself! He decided to take a chance that his last guess was right. But he also decided to take precautions just in case it wasn't.
Ogilvie turned around and put his hands firmly around the fat neck. The slightenst hint of an outcry and he'd strangle the other man. "You an American?" he whispered.
"Y-Yes," Sammy gulped, trembling.
"How do I know you're telling the truth?" The hands tightened menacingly around the neck.
"Uhh… I could show you my driver's license," Sammy offered.
"No good. Couldn't see it in here, anyway."
"Oh. Well, umm, I think I have a match." Sammy started to fumble in his pockets.
"Keep your hands on top of your head!" Ogilvie snarled. "You try any more tricks like that and I'll tear your throat out! "
"S-Sorry," Sammy gasped.
"What are you doing in here, anyway?" Ogilvie demanded.
"Hiding," Sammy replied truthfully.
"From the Red guerrillas?"
"From the authorities," Sammy told him diplomatically.
"Me too." Ogilvie felt weak. "They been pumping drugs into me," he confided. "You too?"
"Just a little something for my hay fever."
"Hay fever? You been brainwashed?" Ogilvie asked suspiciously.
"No! No!" Sammy protested hastily as the hands around his neck tightened again.
"You sure? How do you feel about Police Review Boards?"
"I'm a detective. I'm against them."
"Co-existence?"
"Drop the bomb!" Sammy said desperately.
"Earl Warren?"
"Impeach him!"
"Okay." Ogilvie removed his hands. "I guess you're a hundred percent American all right. Now, Buddy, you got any ideas how we can get out of these Commie bastards' clutches?"
"No," Sammy admitted.
"Well, we can't stay here forever." Ogilvie inched the door open. "There's a guard at the end of the corridor near the gate," he hissed to Sammy. "Follow me and be very quiet. I'll clobber him, and you grab his keys."
"Gee, I don't know. I'm not very athletic," Sammy admitted.
"Duck soup." Ogilvie was already leading the way down the hall.
"I'm a little overweight and I have a touch of asthma and my feet are flat and' my teeth bother me a lot." Sammy delivered the litany as he followed in Ogilvie's wake.
"Shh!" Ogilvie crept up behind the attendant and felled him with one neat karate blow to the back of the neck. "You got the keys?" he asked Sammy.
"This kind of excitement isn't good for my blood pressure, either," Sammy told him.
"Jeez! How'd you ever get in the service, anyway?" Without waiting for an answer, Ogilvie knelt down and rifled the attendant's pockets himself. He came up with a ring of keys, tried a couple on the lock in the heavy metal door, and finally was successful.
The door swung open. Ogilvie led the way to the staircase, Sammy trailing dubiously in his wake. They'd just reached the landing of the floor below when the shout sounded from behind them. "Hey, you two! Stop!"
"Quick! Split!" Ogilvie shoved Sammy through the door into the hallway. He gave him a second shove that propelled him in one direction and then began running in the other direction himself. Still confused, Sammy plunged through the nearest doorway. A moment later, as a second shout sounded behind him, Ogilvie also sought a hiding place behind one of the doors off the hallway.
It was just as the shout sounded a third time, in the now empty hallway, that Llona regained consciousness in the cell on the floor above. She staggered to her feet, still a bit dazed, and shook her head. She was still trying to get oriented when Hannah burst into the room.