THE TALE OF THE LAZY DOG
Charles Pol Espionage Thrillers
Book Two
Alan Williams
For my wife
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE: THE MAN ON THE ROOF
PART 1: ‘IN A COUNTRY THAT NEVER WAS’
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
PART 3: THE DROP
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
PART 4: THE SERGEANT’S TALE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
PART 5: THE NIGHT OF SISERA
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
PART 6: THE FAT MAN
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
PART 7: DATE AT THE ‘CERCLE’
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
PART 8: BAT INTO HELL
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
PART 9: FLUSH-OUT
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
PART 10: HAPPY LANDING
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
ALSO BY ALAN WILLIAMS
PROLOGUE: THE MAN ON THE ROOF
Sgt Don Wace came on duty at 1900 hours, just as the rain started. Over the few yards between his canvas-hooded jeep and the shelter of the hut door he was already splashed to the skin. He stood loosening the strap under his jaw and tipped the black and white M.P.’s helmet forward, wiping his hand over his straw-coloured crewcut and around his sticky neck to the Adam’s apple that jumped in his throat like a yoyo every time he swallowed.
After a moment he unslung his M16 carbine, snapping it on to semi-automatic, then settled the helmet back above his eyes and stood surveying the scene of his night’s vigil. Rows of breezeblock huts, skeleton shapes of watchtowers, rain bouncing off the mud-baked tracks and turning to steam in the hot stagnant air, thick with fumes of burnt kerosene and the long scream of jets that was like hundreds of feet of tearing paper.
With the rain came darkness, as though the lights were being turned gradually down in a giant auditorium, and soon it was only by leaning out and peering through the vertical spears of water that Wace could make out the shapes of his two colleagues, each only fifteen feet from him at the corners of the hut. Wace himself guarded the doors — two broad double sheets of grey steel with the white stencilled words: U.S. GOVT PROPERTY — KEEP OUT.
Wace was in a bad mood. He and his two colleagues were usually detailed to guard duty at the central air-traffic complex or the main gates, where there were canteens, PX facilities, plenty of action: streams of local girls on bicycles who had to be stopped and checked, sometimes even searched, as they left in time for curfew. There were even a few round-eyes with sallow skins and skirts half way up their thighs, who worked for the Military Assistance Command and knew all the M.P.’s by name.
But this hut here was out in the boondocks. And like the others all around, it was locked and lifeless, with no windows. Wace’s geography of the airfield was muddled, even after several months of duty here. There were no stars to go by; but taking his bearings from the brownish glow to the south where the city lay, and the red-hot streak of after-burners across the sky to his left, where the fighter planes were taking off every few minutes from the military airstrips, he reckoned he was somewhere near the heart of the vast supply and ordnance depot to the east of the main traffic complex. And to his right, beyond the watchtowers and high-tension wire, he could just make out, against the arc-lights above the minefield, the rows of high-tailed, heavy-bellied transport planes — C 123s and Hercules, and the lighter twin-engined Caribou that can lift five tons of dead weight and land in just over three times its own length.
Wace cursed again, wondering what the hell he was doing by this lone hut. If they were going to knock out anything, they’d go for the planes — as they always did, putting in mortars and rockets first, then sending in waves of human mine-detectors, screaming like monkeys and hurling satchel-bombs as the M.P.’s gunned them down at the wire. So what was so goddam important about this hut that he and his colleagues had to stand here wet and bored for four black hours without even the chance of a coffee?
The rain was letting up and far out beyond the perimeter the flares began to drop, bursting in a neon glare that drifted slowly to earth, like phosphorescent shapes sinking through water. He watched them go out, when suddenly to his right a pair of headlamps swung into view, approaching fast down the waterlogged track. He straightened up with his carbine in both hands, holding it slightly upwards from his waist, its fluted muzzle tracking a line just in front of the lights, ready to jerk back and rake the vehicle from end to end — thirty rounds in one second, on fully automatic.
It was a long black Fleetwood sedan with smoked windows so he could not see who was inside. He watched tensely as it bounced to a standstill in a whoosh of mud and an officer in combat fatigues leapt out, reaching him in two strides, his words coming in a breathless rush: ‘Sergeant Wace, detail from ATCO Three?’ Wace stood to rigid attention and saluted. ‘How many you got here, sergeant?’
‘Three men, sir.’
‘Only three? Christ!’ The man rubbed his hand over a sweaty dark-skinned face: ‘This the official detail from headquarters — just three men?’
‘That’s all they gave me, sir.’
‘What orders?’
‘Stand guard till twenty-two-thirty hours, sir.’
The officer paused, working his jaw muscles as though trying to dislodge something from his teeth. ‘O.K.,’ he said suddenly, ‘you do just that till we come to move this stuff out to Number Four
