When Gareth came up silently behind her and slipped his arms about her
waist, she did not even turn her head, but lay back against him.
She did not want to argue and tease. As she herself had written, she
might soon be dead and the night was too beautiful to let it pass.
Neither of them spoke, but Vicky sighed and shuddered voluptuously as
she felt his hands, smooth and skilful, slide up under the light cotton
blouse. His touch, like the wind, was softly caressing.
Through their thin clothing she could feel the warmth and resilience of
his flesh pressed against her, feel his chest surge and subside to the
urgency of his breathing.
She turned slowly within the circle of his arms and lifted her face to
his as he stooped, meeting his body with a forward thrust of her hips.
The taste of his mouth and the musky male smell of his body hastened
her own arousal.
It took all her determination to tear her lips loose from his, and to
draw away from his embrace. She crossed quickly to where her blankets
lay and picked them up with hands that shook.
She spread them again between the dark supine forms of Jake and
Gregorius, and only when she rolled herself into their coarse folds and
lay upon her back trying to control her ragged breathing was she aware
that Jake Barton was awake.
His eyes were closed and his breathing was deep and even, but she knew
with complete certainty that he was awake.
eneral Emilio De Bono stood at the window of his office and looked
across the squalid roofs of the town of Asmara towards the great
brooding massif of the Ethiopian highlands. It looked like the
backbone of a dragon, he thought, and suppressed a shudder.
The General was seventy years of age, so he recalled vividly the last
Italian army that had ventured into that mountain fastness. The name
Adowa was a dark blot on the history of Italian arms, and after forty
years, that terrible bloody defeat of a modern European army was still
unavenged.
Now destiny had chosen him as the avenger and Emilio De Bono was not
certain that the role suited him. It would be much more to his liking
if wars could be fought without anybody getting hurt. The
General would go to great lengths to avoid inflicting pain or even
discomfort. Orders that might be distasteful. to the recipient were
avoided. Operations that might place anybody in jeopardy were frowned
upon severely by the commanding General and his officers had learned
not to suggest such extravagances.
The General was at heart a diplomat and a politician not a warrior. He
liked to see smiling faces, so he smiled a great deal himself. He
resembled a sprightly, wizened little goat, with the pointed white
beard that gave him the nickname of 'Little Beard'. And he addressed
his officers as
'Caro', and his men as 'Bambino'. He just wanted to be loved. So he
smiled and smiled.
However, the General was not smiling now. This morning he had received
from Rome another one of those importunate coded telegrams signed
