World War II Thriller Collection Read Online Free PDF

security leaks by means other than letters. He and his men had several hundred agents in Cairo and Alexandria; in most clubs and bars there was a waiter who was on his payroll, he had an informant among the domestic staffs of the more important Arab politicians, King Farouk’s valet worked for Vandam, and so did Cairo’s wealthiest thief. He was interested in who was talking too much, and who was listening; and among the listeners, Arab nationalists were his main target. However, it seemed possible that the mystery man from Assyut might be a different kind of threat.
    Vandam’s wartime career had so far been distinguished by one spectacular success and one great failure. The failure took place in Turkey. Rashid Ali had escaped there from Iraq. The Germans wanted to get him out and use him for propaganda; the British wanted him kept out of the limelight; and the Turks, jealous of their neutrality, wanted to offend nobody. Vandam’s job had been to make sure Ali stayed in Istanbul, but Ali had switched clothes with a German agent and slipped out of the country under Vandam’s nose. A few days later he was making propaganda speeches to the Middle East on Nazi radio. Vandam had somewhat redeemed himself in Cairo. London had told him they had reason to believe there was a major security leak there, and after three months of painstaking investigation Vandam had discovered that a senior American diplomat was reporting to Washington in an insecure code. The code had been changed, the leak had been stopped up and Vandam had been promoted to major.
    Had he been a civilian, or even a peacetime soldier, he would have been proud of his triumph and reconciled to his defeat, and he would have said: “You win some, you lose some.” But in war an officer’s mistakes killed people. In the aftermath of the Rashid Ali affair an agent had been murdered, a woman, and Vandam was not able to forgive himself for that.
    He knocked on Lieutenant Colonel Bogge’s door and walked in. Reggie Bogge was a short, square man in his fifties, with an immaculate uniform and brilliantined black hair. He had a nervous, throat-clearing cough which he used when he did not know quite what to say, which was often. He sat behind a huge curved desk—bigger than the DMI’s—going through his in tray. Always willing to talk rather than work, he motioned Vandam to a chair. He picked up a bright-red cricket ball and began to toss it from hand to hand. “You played a good game yesterday,” he said.
    â€œYou didn’t do badly yourself,” Vandam said. It was true: Bogge had been the only decent bowler on the Intelligence team, and his slow googlies had taken four wickets for forty-two runs. “But are we winning the war?”
    â€œMore bloody bad news, I’m afraid.” The morning briefing had not yet taken place, but Bogge always heard the news by word of mouth beforehand. “We expected Rommel to attack the Gazala Line head on. Should have known better—fellow never fights fair and square. He went around our southern flank, took the Seventh Armored’s headquarters, and captured General Messervy.” .
    It was a depressingly familiar story, and Vandam suddenly felt weary. “What a shambles,” he said.
    â€œFortunately he failed to get through to the coast, so the divisions on the Gazala Line didn’t get isolated. Still . . .”
    â€œStill, when are we going to stop him?”
    â€œHe won’t get much farther.” It was an idiotic remark: Bogge simply did not want to get involved in criticism of generals. “What have you got there?”
    Vandam gave him the incident report. “I propose to follow this one through myself.”
    Bogge read the paper and looked up, his face blank. “I don’t see the point.”
    â€œIt looks like a blown cover.”
    â€œUh?”
    â€œThere’s no motive for the murder, so we have to speculate,”