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The inquiry agent thought it over. He recalled that this client’s previous assignment had concerned a man who turned out to be Sir James Manson’s aide. He also knew he could find out what Mr. Brown wanted to know within an hour.
The two men agreed on the fee, a modest one, and Sha
Sha
“Hi,” he said gruffly, “it’s me, Cat Sha
“Oh, hello, Cat,” came the surprised reply. “Where have you been?”
“Around,” said Sha
“Not at all. Did he offer you a job?”
Sha
“Why not?” said the writer.
“Tell me,” said Sha
“Yeah. The same one. Why?”
“She’s a model, isn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“Look,” said Sha
The writer thought it over. “Sure. I’ll call Carrie and ask her. Where are you now?”
“In a call box. I’ll call you back in half an hour.”
Sha
Sha
She was quite short, a little over five feet, and to give the impression of more height she wore high heels and carried herself well. She said she was nineteen, and she had a pert, round face that could be i
She was evidently spoiled and too accustomed to getting things her own way—probably, Sha
Although Sha
As they left the restaurant and climbed back into the cool night air of the streets, the writer mentioned that he and his girlfriend were taking the car back to his flat. He hailed a taxi for Sha
As the mercenary climbed in, the writer gave him a slow wink. “I think you’re on,” he whispered. Sha
Outside her Mayfair flat Julie suggested he might like to come in for coffee, so he paid off the taxi and accompanied her up to the evidently expensive apartment. Only when they were seated on the settee drinking the appalling coffee Julie had prepared did she refer to the way he earned his living.
He was leaning back in the corner of the settee; she was perched on the edge of the seat, turned toward him.
“Have you killed people?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“In battle?”
“Sometimes. Mostly.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know. I never counted.”
She savored the information and swallowed several times. “I’ve never known a man who had killed people.”
“You don’t know that,” countered Sha
“Have you got any scars from wounds?”
It was another of the usual questions. In fact Sha
“Show me,” she said.
“No.”
“Go on, show me. Prove it.” She stood up.
He gri
“I haven’t got any,” Julie said indignantly.
“Prove it,” said Sha
“See,” she said softly, “not a mark anywhere.”
She was right. Her small nubile teenager’s body was an unblemished milky white from the floor to the mane of dark hair that hung round her shoulders and almost touched the waist-chain.
Sha
She giggled. “That’s what they all think, especially Daddy,” she said. “Now it’s your turn.”
Sir James Manson sat at the same hour in the library of his country mansion not far from the village of Notgrove in the rolling Gloucestershire countryside, Sha
He flicked the cover open and set on one side the maps and sketches. Then he started on the narrative. It read:
Preamble. The following plan has been prepared on the basis of the report on the republic of Zangaro prepared by Mr. Walter Harris, my own visit to Zangaro and my own report on that visit, and the briefing given by Mr. Harris on what it is desired to achieve. It ca
Object of the Exercise. To prepare, launch, and carry out an attack on the presidential palace at Clarence, capital of Zangaro, to storm and capture that palace, and to liquidate the President and his personal guards living inside. Also, to take possession of the bulk of the weapons and armory of the republic, its national treasury and broadcasting radio station, also inside the palace. Lastly, to create such conditions that any armed survivors of the guard unit or the army are scattered outside the town and in no position to mount a viable counterattack.