The Smuggled Atom Bomb

Stanton stared at Duff a moment and then spoke, “I’ve been waiting for you to come around ever since we cleared the Coast Guard.” He paused. “Your — visit — wasn’t precisely expected. But we took no chances. You were seen coming over my wall.” He turned to Eleanor. “I think you both know why you’re here, in a general way. My yacht is heading for an island in the Bahamas. A small one, uninhabited and far from any others. We won’t be spotted there, even from the air, because that island”—he smiled chillily—“has been arranged so that my yacht’s hidden when she’s in. It has been a transshipment point for cargo from — another country. Cargo brought here by me. Your interrogation won’t begin till we reach that island, a while before daylight. I’m glad we have Miss Yates along. We’d intended to question her. But it will be more effective to use her as a means to get the truth out of you, Bogan.”

Duff could feel his muscles freeze. “What truth?” he painfully signaled.

Stanton leaned over him for a moment, bracing himself on the far partition for support as the yacht rocked heavily. His face was passive. He might have been talking about the weather, which was warm, clear and breezy. “Through the unfortunate fact that you got onto Ellings’ part in our work, Bogan, my value to my cause has suffered.” He was silent as, apparently, he thought of his cause. He shrugged. “Ellings believed for some time that he had you — and the FBI — fooled by the device he’d had prepared for just such a meddlesome discovery as you made. But when we found his stratagem hadn’t been entirely effective, we had Ellings destroy himself. And went on with our — assignment.”

The ship heaved and he balanced again. “You and Miss Yates will also be destroyed.

But it is necessary for us to learn, before your deaths, precisely how much information about my activities the FBI has. This will be painful — as painful as certain trained men on board can make it — for you both. We cannot judge whether our work is accomplished and will stand up or whether it must be done over by others, until we have made certain that neither one of you — and you especially, Bogan — has held anything back. Anything. That means the last hours will be — rugged — for you both.”

He went out. Minutes later three men carried Duff to another stateroom. Its light was extinguished. Sweat-soaked, Duff lay in the darkness, trying to get his mind to work at all.

Here and there in American cities the bombs had certainly been planted and were waiting for an unknown zero hour. The FBI, the Army, all intelligent services, surely knew that now. But not at what sites, in what cities.

After torturing and killing Eleanor and him, Stanton would be able to decide whether to flee the country or to go back to his palatial home, his business affairs, his social prominence and his underground activity. What he had to know was whether the FBI had connected him in any way with Ellings or with the gigantic man — evidently Stanton’s own disguise — or with the sinister boxes.

Duff clamped his teeth on his gag. He writhed in the ropes that rawly confined him.

He thought that the torture had already begun, not with the physical pain of lying there, but with the knowledge of what was to happen to the girl. For the rest of his life he was to dream occasionally about that long night of agony.

Toward morning the ship entered calm water, slowed, reversed and touched a dock.

Men came for him, blindfolded him and heaved him onto a stretcher. He felt the open air on his face. His bearers walked on planks and then on sand for a little way, and finally down half a dozen steps. A door slammed. He was dumped out on a cement floor. Soon the door opened again and the men moved in once more. He heard Eleanor murmur as she was tipped onto the concrete, and he heard the heavy door shut again. He tried to communicate with her as he had before, and was frightened because he got no response. She had probably fainted.

Nearby, in an adjoining room or cell, he heard steps, grunts, thumpings, as men moved objects about. A sick stretch of time went by and then the door came open, clanged shut. Hands ripped his blindfold away. He saw plain chairs, bare tables, two kerosene lamps, four men including Stanton, Eleanor’s form on the floor and four bare walls. An underground storage room on the island, probably camouflaged above, Duff thought. “

Start with the girl,” Stanton said to his men. “She’s out,” he added, after shaking her.

“Or pretending.” He gave her a terrific slap — a slap that knotted Duffs nerves. “Out,” he said.

“Open up the case. Get the ammonia.”

One of the men fiddled in a case that Duff could not see. He smelled ammonia.

Eleanor muttered.

Someone took the gag from Duffs mouth. He worked his jaws and tried to lick his lips with a dry, numb tongue.

Stanton came to him, stood over him, suddenly kicked him. “All right. Start talking.