One by one, they confronted the prisoner, addressing him in Polish, Italian, Czech, and a number of other languages. But the prisoner merely shook his head to all questions and maintained a stubborn silence.
“If you ask me, the guy’s faking!” Bud declared in disgust.
“Could be,” Tom agreed in baffled anger. “For all we know, he may even be an American.”
“Maybe we ought to work him over a bit, and then see if he’ll talk!” growled one crewman who had suffered a nasty blow on the temple when he was felled by the sleeping gas.
“Nothing doing,” Tom said firmly. “The Brungarians may mistreat prisoners in their own country, but we won’t use their tactics.”
“What’ll we do with him?” Bud asked.
“Take him back to Shopton and hand him over to the police,” Tom decided.
“It’s about all we can do, I guess.”
Now that he had time to turn his attention to Sandy and Phyl, Tom realized that their date for
TOM’S PRISONER 47
the evening was ruined. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I suppose it’s too late for the party now.”
Sandy nodded. “Don’t worry, Tom. It wasn’t your fault.”
“Maybe we should apologize for bringing you such bad luck,” Phyl added sympathetically.
“Cut it out!” Tom grinned. “If you two hadn’t prodded me to come over here to pick up Bud, we might not even have captured this one prisoner.”
Snapping his fingers, Tom turned to Bud. “Look, pal. Why don’t you fly the girls back in a jet? Maybe you can get there before the party breaks up and make our apologies to Jerry.”
“What about you?” Bud asked uncertainly.