On Her Majesty's Behalf Read Online Free PDF

an inch away from the man’s lips, Burke finally heard what the other man had been trying to say.
    â€œI have a message from the King.”
    Startled, Burke pulled back far enough to look the other man in the eye. The Tommy nodded at him, as if to assure him that what he’d just said was true, and then the last of his strength deserted him and he slipped away into unconsciousness.

 
    Chapter Five

    Calais Harbor
    France
    A N HOUR LATER Burke stood in the bow of the trawler as it made its way into the harbor at Calais and did his best to ignore the anxious looks that he was getting from the crews of the other boats as they passed by. He knew it wasn’t his presence that was making the other men nervous, but rather the shredder wrapped in chains and thrashing about while hanging off the transom at the back of the boat. As shouts passed from boat to boat like the flames of a wildfire amid the dry tinder of an Arizona forest, Burke began to realize that he might have a problem on his hands.
    After the Tommy had lapsed into unconsciousness, Burke had ordered Cohen and Montagna to make the man as comfortable as possible while he stepped into the wheelhouse to have a few words with the captain. His anger at being left behind as shredder bait must have come through loud and clear, for Burke found the man to be far less boisterous and demanding than he’d been on the journey out earlier that morning. A few quick questions revealed that there wasn’t a convenient room or even an empty storage tank in which to lock away their prized captive, so Burke decided to hang the shredder upside down off the transom at the back of the boat for the journey across the Channel to the mainland. He figured it was the safest option available; if they needed to cut it loose for any reason, it would sink to the bottom of the Channel under the weight of its chains and that would be that.
    What he hadn’t counted on was how inflammatory the sight of the shredder might be to those stationed in Calais.
    Word spread quickly, and a crowd of soldiers and dockworkers had gathered on the wharf by the time the captain began his docking approach. Burke eyed the crowd for a moment, not liking the looks of them, and then turned to his two subordinates waiting on the deck behind him.
    â€œI don’t care who they are; no one gets close to that shredder without my express permission, understood?”
    The two men nodded.
    â€œGood. Let’s hope they aren’t that eager to cause trouble for us, but just in case, if I raise my left hand, I want you both to put a bullet into the dock in front of where I’m standing.”
    â€œSir?” Cohen asked.
    â€œYou heard me, Private. If I give the signal, fire at the dock a few feet in front of the crowd. Can you do that?”
    â€œSir, yes sir!”
    â€œAll right then.” Burke gave them a long look, decided they’d stand up if and when the time came, and then turned back to face the crowd.
    With a shock he saw that they had nearly doubled in number in just those few short moments and his stomach did a slow roll at the sight.
    Where the hell was Graves?
    Burke looked out over the heads of the crowd, but he didn’t see any sign of the professor or the truck he was supposed to be arriving in. Without that truck, and the specially prepared cage it carried, he was going to have to find some other way to transport the shredder back to Graves’s lab at MID headquarters. That, of course, would take time, and time was something they didn’t seem to have a lot of at the moment. The longer the shredder was in view, the more agitated this crowd would get, he knew.
    All it would take was one overzealous idiot . . .
    He pushed the thought out of mind and put on his game face, determined not to let all their hard work up to this point go for nothing. As the captain brought the boat up against the dock, Burke drew his sidearm and jumped out of the boat to