In the Hour Before Midnight Read Online Free PDF Page A

his environment, subject to no vices, no obsessive needs.
    He sat there now, a slight frown still in place, staring moodily into space, and I watched him closely. Sean Burke, the finest, most complete man-at-arms I had ever known. The eternal soldier, an Achilles without a heel on the surface, and yet there were depths there. As I have said, he seldom smiled for some dark happening had touched him in the past, lived with him still. His spiritual home was still the army, the real army, I was certain of that. By all the rules he should have had a staggeringly successful career in it.
    During his brief moment of fame in the Congo,the newspapers had unearthed his past in detail. Born in Eire son of an Anglo-Irish Protestant minister who had fought passionately for the Republic in his day. Burke had joined the Irish Guards at seventeen during the Second World War and had soon transferred to the Parachute Regiment. He’d earned a quick M.C. as a young lieutenant at Arnhem and as a captain in Malaya during the emergency, a D.S.O. and promotion to major. Why then had he resigned? There was no official explanation that made any kind of sense. Burke himself had said at the time that the army had simply got too tame. And yet there had been a story in one paper, cautiously told and full of innuendo, that hinted at another explanation. The possibility of a court-martial had he not resigned that would have sent him from the army utterly disgraced and I remembered again our first meeting at the “Lights of Lisbon.” What was it Lola had said of him? Half a man. Big in everything except what counts . It was possible. All things were possible in this worst of all possible worlds.
    But that was not true, that my real self simply couldn’t accept on a morning like this. It was a beautiful world, this world outside the Hole, a place of warmth and air and light, sweet sounds, sun and colour to dazzle the mind.
    He stood up and leaned on the balustrade, looking out over the sea. “Quite a place, isn’t it?”
    I nodded. “Who owns it?”
    â€œA man called Hoffer—Karl Hoffer.”
    â€œAnd who might he be when he’s at home?”
    â€œAn Austrian financier.”
    â€œCan’t say I’ve heard of him.”
    â€œYou wouldn’t. He isn’t too keen on newspaper publicity.”
    â€œIs he rich?”
    â€œA millionaire and that’s by my standards, not your Yankee one. As a matter of fact that was his gold you were running the night the Gypos jumped you.”
    Which was an interesting piece of information. Millionaire financiers who indulged in a little gold smuggling on the side were about as rare within my experience as the greater blue-tailed goose. Herr Hoffer sounded like a man of infinite possibilities.
    â€œWhere is he now?”
    â€œPalermo,” Burke said and there was a kind of eagerness in his voice as if, by asking, I’d made things easier for him.
    Which explained Piet’s remark about the girls in Sicily .
    â€œWhen you got me into the plane I asked youwhere we were going,” I said. “You told me Crete first-stop. Presumably Sicily is the second?”
    â€œA hundred thousand dollars split four ways plus expenses, Stacey.” He sat down again and leaned across the table, fingers interlocking so tightly when he clasped his hands the knuckles showed white. “How does that sound to you.”
    â€œFor a contract?” I said. “A contract in Sicily?”
    He nodded. “A week’s work at the most and easily earned with you along.”
    The whole thing was beginning to fall neatly into place. “By me, you mean Stacey the Sicilian, I presume?”
    â€œSure, I do.” Whenever he got excited the Irish side of him floated to the top like cream on milk. “With your Sicilian background we can’t go wrong. Without you, I honestly think we wouldn’t stand a chance.”
    â€œThat’s very