Then he went down the steps boldly, to the tunnel entrance. He was right in supposing that a concrete sidewalk, heavily covered with pine needles, ran along the hillside so as to provide a well-drained exterior walk between tunnel entrances. If the installation were bombproof, it probably had interior walks as well.
Dugan stepped off the walk on the far side. The walk ran in a little gully which probably connected with a bigger valley. The guardhouse was now behind him and to his left; the entrances to his right; nothing but forested slope to his immediate and forward right. He shivered at the thought of what the Russians were most likely to have installed on that innocent-seeming slope — spring guns, electric eyes, steel traps, high-voltage wire.
Squatting and teetering on the balls of his feet, like a Japanese, Dugan peered into the nearest tunnel. He shifted a few inches to the left to get a better view.
Suddenly he smiled, all to himself in the darkness. He stood up and began stripping off his clothes. People came in and out of doors inside the corridor. One person moved rapidly and quietly along the external walk, breathing a tune through his teeth, with the effect of muffled whistling, so loudly that Dugan could catch the melody. Dugan froze so completely as to dissolve into the night, and then went back to his undressing.
He rolled his clothes into a neat little bundle. When at the Japanese spy school, he had been taught to carry the pliofilm-wrapped cyanide wafer inside his cheek so that a single crunch of the molars would produce immediate suicide. It was characteristic of him that he left the wafer in his shirt pocket.
He shivered in the bitter cold and then walked into the nearest tunnel, stark naked.
A Russian opened one of the side doors, glanced at Dugan, nodded apologetically, and preceded him to the shower room.
Dugan followed, put his clothes near a wash basin, and began to take a hot shower. It felt good.
More Russians came in. None of them paid him special notice — yet.