Twelve Hours To Destiny Read Free Page B

whose rigid military training showed in his erect bearing. Carradine had the impression that at times the other would have willingly exchanged the endless grind of paperwork and responsibility for the kind of life which he himself led.
    “Take a pew,” said the Chief, nodding towards a chair. “I’m assigning Carradine to the Hong Kong case. A funny affair to say the best of it.”
    “I agree.” Benton glanced sideways at Carradine. “There’s something really big going on in that part of the world and it’s essential that we find out what it is. Chao Lin put us on to the fact that the Chinese were preparing to explode their first nuclear weapon. He’s one of our shrewdest men, not the kind likely to have flights of fancy as some of our men are.”
    “You’ve no idea at all what it might be?” Carradine addressed the question to both of them. “A hydrogen bomb, perhaps?”
    “It could be,” agreed Benton, lips pursed into a tight line. “Although somehow I doubt it. The construction of such a weapon would be a logical outcome of the experiments we know they’re carrying out. No, I’m positive this is something of a different nature.”
    “In the last message but one, he mentioned that there were hints the Chinese were working on a secret weapon.” The Chief’s voice was tightly controlled. “Whatever it is that is going on in the enemy camp, we must have information on it as soon as possible. I understand that you underwent an intensive course in Chinese two years ago. How did it turn out?”
    “It isn’t a language you pick up very readily,” Carradine said, a trifle defensively. “Not like Russian.”
    “I realise that you are perfectly fluent in Russian,” said the Chief testily. “I’m interested at the moment in whether you can speak and understand sufficient Chinese to enable you to pass as one.”
    “No.” Carradine shook his head decisively. “I doubt if there are more than a handful of Westerners who do.”
    “That is the answer I expected.” The other showed no sign of surprise. “It’s therefore quite obvious you will need a cover when you go there and unfortunately that is not going to be easy.” He stared sombrely at Carradine. His face was grim.
    “Look,” Carradine begged. “I’m completely lost at the moment. If I’m merely to discover what has happened to Chao Lin and try to unearth the information he had stumbled on, I shall presumably be operating inside Hong Kong and surely I can—”
    “You’re wrong,” interrupted the other harshly. “That isn’t what you’re to do at all. Hong Kong will merely be your jumping-off point. All of the evidence points to Chao Lin having been kidnapped and taken by junk, or submarine, to China. That will be your ultimate objective. To find where Chao Lin is being held, get him back, together with this vital information he has, and also carry out any further actions you may think fit.”
    So that was it! That was the reason he had been recalled so abruptly from his holiday in the south of France.
    Before he could say anything further, Benton chimed in with: “You may be wondering how we can be so sure that Chao Lin is now inside Communist China. The brief answer is that on the same evening as Chao Lin was scheduled to contact us as usual, one of our torpedo boats, patrolling the waters off Hong Kong harbour was attacked and sunk by a Chinese junk.”
    “By a junk?”
    “Exactly. Not the sort of thing one would expect to happen. But there was one survivor from the torpedo boat. He was picked up two hours later, clinging to a piece of driftwood, more dead than alive. We had him flown back to England as soon as he was well enough to be moved. You interrogated him, Chief of Staff. You can tell Carradine his story better than I.”
    Benton sat forward on the edge of his chair. “There isn’t much to tell,” he began. “Apparently this junk was sighted heading away from the harbour just after dark, acting in a highly