Bankfield looked doubtful. “What building?”
“Two Worlds Dining Room, at the end of Paradise Alley off the foot of Buchanan Street.”
Bankfield moved rapidly to the door, gave orders. “Use as many men as needed,” he concluded, “and sift every ounce of ash. Move!” He turned back, sighing. “Mustn’t neglect any possibilities,” he said, “but now we will go back to the probability that you lied. Why should you have taken off your ring in a restaurant?”
“To wash dishes.”
“Eh?”
“I was working for my meals, living there. I didn’t like putting it in the hot water so I kept it in my room.”
Bankfield pursed his lips. “You almost convince me. Your story holds together. And yet, let us both pray that you are deceiving me. If you are and can lead me to the ring, I would be very grateful. You could go back to Earth in style and comfort. I think I could even promise a moderate annuity; we have special funds for such purposes.”
“I’m not likely to collect it—unless they find the ring in the restaurant.”
“Dear me! In that case I don’t suppose either one of us will go back to Earth. No, sir, I think that in such a case I would find it better to stay right here—devoting my declining years to making your life miserable.”
He smiled. “I was joking—I’m sure we’ll find the ring, with your help. Now, Don, tell me what you did with it.” He put an arm around Don’s shoulders in a fatherly fashion.
Don tried to shrug the arm off, found that he could not. Bankfield went on, “We could settle it quickly if I had proper equipment at hand. Or I could do this—” The arm around Don’s shoulders dropped suddenly; Bankfield seized Don’s left little finger and bent it back sharply. Involuntarily Don grunted with pain.
“Sorry! I don’t like such methods. The operator, in an excess of zeal, frequently damages the client so that no truth of any sort is forthcoming. No, Don, I think we will wait a few minutes while I get word to the medical department—sodium pentothal seems to be indicated. It will make you more cooperative, don’t you think?” Bankfield stepped again to the door. “Orderly! Put this one on ice. And send in that Mathewson character.”
Don was conducted outside the guardhouse and into a pen, a fenced enclosure used to receive prisoners. It was some thirty feet wide and a hundred feet long; one of its longer sides was common with the fence that ran around the entire camp, the other shut it off from the free world. The only entrance to it lay through the guardhouse.
There were several dozen prisoners in the receiving pen, most of them civilian men, although Don saw a number of women and quite a few officers of the Middle Guard and of the Ground Forces—still in uniform but disarmed.
He at once checked the faces of the women; none was Isobel. He had not expected to find her, yet found himself vastly disappointed. His time was running out; he realized with panic that it was probably only minutes until he would be held down, drug injected into his veins—and be turned thereby into a babbling child with no will to resist their questioning. He had never been subjected to narco-interrogation but he knew quite well what the drug would do. Even deep-hypnotic suggestion could not protect against it in the hands of a skilled operator.
Somehow he felt sure that Bankfield was skilled.
He went to the far end of the pen, pointlessly, as a frightened animal will retreat to the back of a cage. He stood there, staring up at the top of the fence several feet above his head. The fence was tight and strong, proof against almost anything but a dragon, but one could get handholds in the mesh—it could be climbed. However, above the mesh were three single strands of wire; every ten feet or so on the lowest strand was a little red sign—a skull-and-crossbones and the words HIGH VOLTAGE.
Don glanced back over his shoulder. The everpresent fog, reinforced by smoke from the burning city, almost obscured the guardhouse. The breeze had shifted and the smoke was getting thicker; he felt reasonably sure that no one could see him but other prisoners.