Lee Sung continued. "There is a great search being made for American
bandits of oriental descent masquerading as soldiers of the Peoples
Army who attacked the virus factory. You will be interested to know
that it was a large and heavily armed force of capitalist reactionaries
which was driven off with very heavy losses."
"Losses to whom?" Blackie asked with a grin.
"To the Americans of course. The virus factory was not damaged."
"At least that's the truth; we got the powerhouse," Pak laughed.
"The moment he made the announcement about American soldiers I left
the meeting quietly and went back to my store. Somebody was going to
wake up, perhaps soon. I told Pak and we decided to risk it as the
soldiers were still moving into the police barracks and getting set
up. We drove the mule cart quickly out the back end of the village and
got away without being challenged. In fact we didn't see anyone at all
until we met our own people."
"It looks like we've stirred up the whole country," I said. "They
certainly seem frightened."
"I'm not surprised," Anders broke in. "When I left the factory, besides
the virus cultures, my rucksack was full of bottles of vaccine against
the bleeding death and as much of the anti-serum as I could carry. I
expected we might need it. I destroyed all I could of what I had to
leave behind and the papers too. The Communists have very little left."
"A fine piece of work, Doctor," I said. "You saved our lives and
deprived the Reds of their protection, all at the same time." I turned
back to Lee Sung. "I wonder how they figured we were Americans. All our
papers were in order. There wasn't a thing to show we weren't native
guerrillas, admittedly in the service of an unfriendly power. Why not
think we were from South Korea?"
"Possibly some of the men we left in the factory lived long enough to
talk," Blackie said, "put I doubt it very much. Of course seeing the
white officers would give them grounds for suspicion."
"Suspicion, yes, but not fact," I said.
"The radio has been talking mysterious explosions and guerrilla warfare
in Siberia and parts of China recently," Lee Sung reported.
"That's it, by Golly!" Blackie burst out. "The raids on the nerve gas
centers must have started. It could be somebody has been captured and
brainwashed."
"Could be," I said, "and if so, we'd better get home. If the Reds can
suppress news of how successful the raids are, they may still bluff the
democracies, with threats of nerve gas and CBR warfare, into giving
them more food and a good settlement of the war, but if we get home
with our story then they'll realize they are licked and maybe quit."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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