The Dogs Of War

“Neither one thing nor the other,” the attendant had remarked as he had berthed his Moskvitch in the parking lot beneath the ministry building.

Golon had grunted agreement and taken the elevator to his eighth-floor office to begin the morning’s work. Devoid of a secretary, he had taken the pile of files brought for his attention from various parts of the building and started to go through them, an antacid tablet revolving slowly in his mouth.

The third file had been marked for his attention by the office of the Under Secretary, and the same clerkish hand had written on the cover sheet: “Assess and Instigate Necessary Action.” Golon perused it gloomily. He noted that the file had been started on the basis of an interdepartmental memorandum from Foreign Intelligence, that his ministry had, on reflection, given Ambassador Dobrovolsky certain instructions, and that, according to the latest cable from Dobrovolsky, they had been carried out. The request had been granted, the Ambassador reported, and he urged prompt action.

Golon snorted. Passed over for an ambassadorship, he held firmly to the view that men in diplomatic posts abroad were far too prone to believe their own parishes were of consummate importance.

“As if we have nothing else to bother about,” he grunted. Already his eye had caught the folder beneath the one he was reading. He knew it concerned the Republic of Guinea, where the constant stream of telegrams from the Soviet Ambassador reported the growth of Chinese influence in Conakry. Now that, he mused, was something of concern. Compared to this, he could not see the importance of whether there was, or was not, tin in commercial quantities in the hinterland of Zangaro. Besides, the Soviet Union had enough tin.

Nevertheless, action had been authorized from above, and, as a good civil servant, he took it. To a secretary borrowed from the typing pool, he dictated a letter to the director of the Sverdlovsk Institute of Mining, requiring him to select a small team of survey geologists and engineers to carry out an examination of a suspected tin deposit in West Africa, and to inform the Assistant Under Secretary in due course that the team and its equipment were ready to depart.

Privately he thought he would have to tackle the question of transportation to West Africa through the appropriate directorate, but pushed the thought to the back of his mind. The painful burning in his throat subsided, and he observed that the scribbling stenographer had rather pretty knees.

Cat Sha

After lunch he rang his friend the writer, who seemed surprised to hear from him. “I thought you’d left town.”

“Why should I?” asked Sha

“Well, little Julie has been looking for you. You must have made an impression. Carrie says she has not stopped talking. But she rang the Lowndes, and they said you had left, address unknown.”

Sha

“I suppose I could,” said the friend dubiously. “But honestly, I ought to ring him first and see if it’s okay.”

“Well, do that,” said Sha

The writer agreed to put through the call and ring him back with the telephone number and address of the man Sha

In the afternoon Sha

At five that afternoon Endean called him at the flat, and Sha

Martin Thorpe had his fifth tiring day, but at least his search was over. He had perused the documents of another seventeen companies in the City Road, and had drawn up a second short list, this time of five companies. At the top of the list was the company that had caught his eye the previous day. He finished his reading by midafternoon and, as Sir James Manson had not returned from Zurich, decided to take the rest of the day off. He could brief his chief in the morning and later begin his private inquiries into the set-up of his chosen company, a series of inquiries to determine why such a prize was still available. By the late afternoon he was back in Hampstead Garden Suburb, mowing the lawn.

10

The first of the mercenaries to arrive at London’s Heathrow Airport was Kurt Semmler, on the Lufthansa flight from Munich. He tried to reach Sha

Marc Vlaminck phoned to check in with Sha

Semmler was ten minutes after Vlaminck. He too received from Sha

Langarotti was the last, checking in just before six from the air terminal in Cromwell Road. He too hiked a taxi to take him to his hotel.

At seven Sha

When they greeted one another, it was the first indication any of them had had that the others had been invited. Their broad grins came partly from the pleasure of meeting friends, partly from the knowledge that Sha

Their first impression was strengthened when Sha

“The job I’ve been given,” he told them, “is a project that has to be organized from scratch. It has not been pla

The reaction was what he had confidently expected. The men exchanged glances of approval. Vlaminck gave a wide grin and scratched his chest; Semmler muttered, “Klasse,” and lit a fresh cigarette from the stub of the old one. Langarotti remained deadpan, his eyes on Sha