Evil for Evil by James R. Benn Read Free Book Online Page B

waiting.”

    IT WAS A big room, and cold. Cold like any concrete-and-cinderblock building in a damp, wet climate, the chill climbing through the soles of your feet while your teeth were performing an echoing chatter. I was tired and grimy, still wearing the same lightweight uniform I’d put on in Jerusalem, and I didn’t like being rousted like some criminal and pulled in for questioning. Grady O’Brick’s warning played in my mind. Was a guy who had lost his fingernails somewhere along the line worth taking advice from?
    Patterson pointed me to the far end of the room, where a small stove gave off a glow. Two officers who stared at me didn’t. The guy on the right had to be Captain Hiram Heck. He was hogging the warmth and wore a jeep coat, a warm, wool-lined waterproof garment that was in high demand for cold nights at the front but always seemed to be in short supply until you saw rear-area officers looking important and warm in them. Heck was tall, rail thin but not weak, muscle and bone, not much else. His beak nose traced an arc from his eyebrows to his upper lip. He stood with his hands behind his back, rocking on his heels, his feet encased in highly polished, dark brown paratrooper boots. Behind him stood a lieutenant, a less elegantly dressed straightleg. Burnham, I thought, the MP Platoon leader. Two desks were arranged on either side of the stove, close to the heat. A filing cabinet and a pinup of Veronica Lake completed the furnishings.
    “Lieutenant William Boyle reporting, sir,” I said as soon as I was close enough to smell his aftershave. I saluted crisply, a proper junior officer. It made Heck respond to me, and I could see it threw him off. He liked that pose of his. He knew his height worked for him, so I got close to show I took no notice.
    Heck reluctantly unclasped his hands and tossed off a salute. “At ease, Boyle,” he said in a voice that sounded like a rasp on metal. “You look like a bum. What the hell are you dressed for?”
    “My apologies, sir. I just traveled from the Mediterranean and haven’t drawn supplies yet. I know I look disgraceful, especially to a paratrooper.”
    Burnham’s eyes were ready to pop out. He shook his head in a friendly warning, but I decided it would be more fun not to mind how I went.
    “What on God’s green earth are you talking about, Boyle?”
    “You, sir. You must be a paratrooper. Those are jump boots, right? And your trousers are bloused. That’s the sign of a paratrooper. At the front, no one except the real McCoy would ever dress like that. Where’d you get your wings, Captain Heck?”
    “You get this straight, you pipsqueak,” he said, a bony finger prodding my chest. “You shut up about paratroopers and answer my questions, or so help me I’ll throw you in the stockade so damn fast your ass will land in there while your shoes are still on the floor. You read me?”
    Now I could smell his breath as well as his aftershave.
    “Yes, sir. I’m glad to answer any questions. First, though, allow me to extend the thanks of General Eisenhower and the British chief of staff for the assistance you will render me while I am here.”
    “Eisenhower is in North Africa,” Heck snarled. “This is Northern Ireland. I’m the law here.”
    “As far as drunken GIs and traffic jams go, you are. But, as you say, this is Northern Ireland, British territory. Which is why my orders are also from the British chief of staff.” Figuring that Uncle Ike’s true location was a military secret, I refrained from informing Heck that Palestine was not part of Africa. Or that my orders, signed by Major Cosgrove as a representative of General Alan Brooke, chief of the Imperial General Staff, were really from MI-5, and probably worthless if anyone ever checked. I’d been in Ireland about an hour and already I was indulging in evasions and keeping secrets.
    “GIs and traffic jams! Jesus Christ, Boyle, who do you think you’re talking to? I’m the provost marshal,