"Twenty-three. But I can't move without orders. Won't you give me orders? The password, please."
Dugan told him what he could do with the password. "My name is Ivanov," said Dugan, "and I am a Military Atomic Technician, not a fool officer. Suit yourself. I'm spreading the warning." Dugan ran out of the tunnel, stamping his feet loudly. Once outside, he crept back in. He had seen that the outside sentry was not yet back with the motorcycle.
There was a sound of bellowing from within the tunnel. The inside sentry was waking up the prisoners. Dugan wondered who they might be. Polish intellectuals? Russian Communists who had violated the Party line? Italian or German prisoners of war? Or just miscellaneous surplus personnel enticed out of the labor camps by a false gamble for life and freedom?
The sentry came around the corner, walking backward, keeping his machine pistol trained on the prisoners who followed him. Most of them were in their underwear. A few had gotten their boots and pants on. Dugan could not tell, in the. dim light, who they were.
He had to take a chance, if he was going to create the diversion which would give him a real opportunity to escape.
"Ivanov, Special Technician," he called to the prisoners. "Atomsk is being flooded with poison radioactives. The technicians have taken over. Get up into the hills. Climb trees. But stay high. We'll rescue you later. Run for it!"
The open, unguarded tunnel mouth was enough for most of the men. The inside sentry took two seconds to understand the frightful meaning of "Ivanov's" words. At that he was one and a half seconds too late. Dugan chopped him down with a blocking blow to the side of the neck and then kicked him in the head to make sure he stayed asleep for a while.
At the tunnel mouth the last of the prisoners was scrambling out and up into the night when the outside sentry arrived with a motorcycle.
The motorcyclist stared.
Dugan grinned cheerfully. "A small sample of prisoners has been let loose to create the simulated conditions of an inside mutiny. Now take me to the nearest Red Army post outside Atomsk, so I can simulate conditions of an outside attack. Exciting, isn't it, comrade?"