The Solitary Man Read Online Free PDF

caption, but this is all shit, Tim. The bulk of the stuff is coming from across the border, and the heroin kingpins there aren't going to stop growing poppies just because you throw a few hundred dollars at them. The market's worth billions and they're not going to give it up to grow cabbages.'
    The two soldiers began to walk across the poppy field, away from the photographers. Janis shouted for the journalists to keep back. Middlehurst's recorder clicked off as it came to the end of his tape. He took it away from Carver's face and went over to join the photographers.
    Carver and Kay watched the pack jostle for position to get the best shot. A sheet of fire exploded from the barrel of one of the flamethrowers. The soldier raked the flame across the field and the poppy plants burst into flames. The motor drives went crazy, whirring like angry bees. The second flamethrower burst into life.
    'What's the drugs problem like back in Britain?' asked Carver.
    'It's getting pretty bad,' said Kay. 'It's like cable TV, fast food, and American humour: eventually we get everything you get.'
    Carver nodded. 'Yeah, well, I hope this time it's different,' he said. He took a packet of Marlboro from his shirt pocket and offered one to the journalist. Kay took one and Carver lit it for him.
    The two men stood in silence and watched the poppies crackle and burn under the onslaught of the flamethrowers. Kay exhaled deeply, blowing plumes of smoke through his nostrils. ' “The Walrus and the Carpenter,” ' he said.
    .'#
    'Huh?' said Carver, confused.
    'Cabbages and kings. That's where the phrase comes from. Lewis Carroll, I think. It's time to talk of many things, of something, something, something something, and cabbages and kings. It's a bit of nonsense.'
    Carver stared out across the burning field. 'Yeah,' he said. 'You're right. It is.'
    THE SMALL HELICOPTER BUZZED overhead, then hovered like a hawk preparing to sweep on its prey. The mourners standing around the grave tried to ignore the intrusion and to concentrate on the elderly priest and his words of comfort for a family stricken with grief. There were two dozen men and women and a scattering of children, all dressed in black, all with their heads bowed. Some distance away, parked on a ribbon of tarmac, was a line of black limousines, their engines running.
    One of the mourners, a tall, thin man in a cashmere overcoat, lifted his head and glared at the helicopter. 'Vultures,' John Mallen muttered under his breath. Under normal circumstances Mallen was good looking, handsome even, with a squarish face and blond hair that was greying only slightly over his temples, but there were deep lines etched around his eyes and either side of his mouth, and the whites of his eyes were bloodshot as if it had been some time since he'd had a good night's sleep.
    His wife, her blonde hair tucked under a wide-brimmed black hat and her face hidden by a veil, squeezed his arm gently and he grimaced.
    'Sorry,' he whispered. She smiled and slipped her hand into his.
    Between the parked limousines and the funeral party stood two men, broad shouldered, with impassive faces. They wore dark suits but despite the cold they had no overcoats or gloves. One of the men put his hand up to his ear and lightly fingered an earpiece. He nodded as he listened and looked up at the helicopter. A few seconds later the helicopter banked and flew away, a man with a THE SOLITARY MAN 23 television camera on his shoulder leaning out of its open doorway, his feet on the skids.
    The funeral service came to an end and the mourners began to drift over to the limousines. A pretty young brunette with tear-stained eyes walked hesitantly over to Mallen. She carried a small black handbag which she clutched to her stomach like a field dressing. He saw her coming and put his arm around his wife's shoulders, steering her away from the brunette and towards the limousine parked on the road that wound through the cemetery. The driver already had