His last two days in Tokyo were spent in getting his equipment shipshape. Part of the equipment was in a matchbox in his pocket. Part was sewed into his Chinese cord-soled shoes.
One day's flying had brought him to Tsingtao. He had waited in the plane till it was dark and then, with his face bandaged, he had climbed into a light reconnaissance plane which, despite its Nationalist Chinese markings, had an American pilot. They had located Mukden, had flown northeast for another forty minutes. There Dugan had bailed out.
The rest of that night was spent in burying the parachute. It was hard to bury anything in China: the country was too full of people. Dugan packed the parachute, which was Japanese, into a nest of rocks at the bottom of a muddy ditch. Then he waited for dawn.
With daylight he checked his concealment.
It was all right, so he headed off down the road. His plan was simple. He intended to wander around the countryside, posing as an Asiatic from the Russian Red Army — a stupid private who had straggled behind and had been living unobserved in Nationalist Chinese territory for a year and a half. He could not claim to have stayed in the Communist zone because there were too many local events and personalities of which he was ignorant. If pressed, he would confess to living with a Japanese girl and to doing gardening, black-marketing, and drug-peddling. From the Soviet viewpoint, these offenses were sufficiently non-political to leave him fairly safe.
Then, he hoped, the Chinese Communists would turn him over to the Russian Communists. And the Russians would do what he wanted them to do. They would deport him to the Soviet Union. Once in Russia, with a new set of papers, he could head off for Atomsk. It might take a week. Or he might have to wait a year or two. How was he to tell?
Meanwhile, there was this new character to get used to. There were not many Uighurs left in the world, and almost certainly none in this part of Manchuria and adjacent Siberia. He would have to change roles to keep ahead of interrogation, but if he was simple and stupid and greedy enough, he might pass muster. He had decided to use his own middle name in its Russian version, and to present himself as Josif Nikodimovich Andreanov. If they asked him why a Uighur should have a Russian name, he could always give them some unpronounceables to worry over, and explain that he loved Russia so much that he took a Russian name.
Meanwhile, there were two jobs. First and urgently, he had to stay alive. Second and remotely, he had to get to Atomsk.
He let himself sag into the witless good nature of Josif Nikodimovich. Panting, he asked the Communist leader:
"Comrade boss, what is your name?"