Read Online Dogs of War by Frederick Forsyth - Free Book Online Page A

and murmured, "Come up for a minute, would you, Simon?"
Simon Endean was as deceptive as Martin Thorpe
but in a different way. He came from an impeccable background and, behind the veneer, had the morals of an East End thug. Going with the polish and the ruth lessness was a certain cleverness. He needed a James Manson to serve, just as James Manson, sooner or later on his way to the top or his struggle to stay there in big-time capitalism, needed the services of a Simon Endean.
Endean was the sort to be found by the score in the very smartest and smoothest of London's West End gambling clubs—beautifully spoken hatchet men who never leave a millionaire unbowed to or a showgirl unbruised. The difference was that Endean's intelligence had brought him to an executive position as aide to the chief of a very superior gambling club.
Unlike Thorpe, he had no ambitions to become a multimillionaire. He thought one million would do, and until then the shadow of Manson would suffice. It paid for the six-room pad, the Corvette, the girls.
He too came from the floor below and entered from the interior stairwell through the beech-paneled door across the office from the one Miss Cooke came and left by. "Sir James?"
"Simon, tomorrow I'm having lunch with a fellow called Gordon Chalmers. One of the back-room boys. The chief scientist and head of the laboratory out at Watford. He'll be here at twelve. Before then I want a rundown on him. The Personnel file, of course, but anything else you can find. The private man, what his home life is like, any failings; above all, if he has any pressing need for money over and above his salary. His politics, if any. Most of these scientific people are Left. Not all, though. You might have a chat with Errington in Personnel tonight before he leaves. Go through the file tonight and leave it for me to look at in the morning. Sharp tomorrow, start on his home environment. Phone me not later than eleven-forty-five. Got it? I know it's a short-notice job, but it could be important."
Endean took in the instructions without moving a
muscle, filing the lot. He knew the score; Sir James Manson often needed information, for he never faced any man, friend or foe, without a personal rundown on the man, including the private life. Several times he had beaten opponents into submission by being better prepared. Endean nodded and left, making his way straight to Personnel.
As the chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce slid away from the front of ManCon House, taking its occupant back to his third-floor apartment in Arlington House behind the Ritz, a long, hot bath, and a dinner sent up from the Caprice, Sir James Manson leaned back and lit his first cigar of the evening. The chauffeur handed him a late Evening Standard, and they were abreast of Charing Cross Station when a small paragraph in the "Stop Press" caught his eye. It was in among the racing results. He glanced back at it, then read it several times. He stared out at the swirling traffic and huddled pedestrians shuffling toward the station or plodding to the buses through the February drizzle, bound for their homes in Edenbridge and Sevenoaks after another exciting day in the City.
As he stared, a small germ of an idea began to form in his mind. Another man would have laughed and dismissed it out of hand. Sir James Manson was not another man. He was a twentieth-century pirate and proud of it. The nine-point-type headline above the obscure paragraph in the evening paper referred to an African republic. It was not Zangaro, but another one. He had hardly heard of the other one either. It had no known mineral wealth. The headline said:

NEW COUP D'ETAT IN AFRICAN STATE

4

Martin Thorpe was waiting in his chief's outer office when Sir James arrived at five past nine, and followed him straight in.
"What have you got?" demanded Sir James Manson, even while he was taking off his vicuסa topcoat and hanging it in the closet. Thorpe flicked open a notebook he had pulled from his