Read Online The Rat Patrol 2: Desert Danger by David King - Free Book Online Page B

in place. It also had hinges at one side. He put his hands under the bar and it came freely from the brackets. He could find no string or handle but when he dug the point of his kris into the wood and pulled, the door swung easily inward. He closed it quickly and replaced the bar. There must, he thought, be some other way of opening the door without using a can opener but at the moment it satisfied him to know they had a rear exit if they had to use it.
    "Tully," he called softly.
    "Yeah, Sarge," Tully said so close beside him that Troy started.
    "You shouldn't do that," Troy said. "If my reflexes hadn't been tired, you might have had a knife in you belly."
    "I heard you slip it back in the sheath," Tully said and chuckled. "They got us where they want us only they don't know it."
    "Let's keep them ignorant," Troy said and put his back to the wall. Apparently only the rooms at the front of the house were being used and no light seeped into this walled area at the rear. With difficulty, he could make out only the dim squarish outline of the top of the building. On the ground he still felt as if he were swimming in pitch. He tested the ground at the side of the door with his toe.
    It was earth and he remembered the shrub he'd dropped upon. He returned to the door and discovered tile or some other type of smooth paving under his foot.
    "We're in some kind of garden or patio," he whispered. Thisshould be a paved walk straight to the house but we're likely to run into anything. We'll go on our hands and knees. Keep hold of my ankle."
    "I'll never wear dark glasses again," Tully muttered. "Wait until I get back into my costume."
    Reaching ahead to sweep the tiles on the ground and space before his face with one hand, Troy started moving ahead toward the old palace. The paved walk was not straight, he found out as he touched and went around the fat prickly trunk of a date palm, grasped a thorny shrub, splashed his hand in a pool of water, moved onto a surface paved with rough, broad ceramic pieces and bumped his head into a wall.
    He jerked his foot from Tully's grasp, rolled quickly to the side and when Tully had banged his head against the wall, grinned, reached for him and they both stood, side by side, arms outflung.
    "That's one I owe you, Sarge," Tully whispered. Even in a whisper, Troy thought he could detect a drawl.
    "That was for interrupting Colette and me," he said. "Let's try to the left."
    They began to move against the building, feeling carefully for the pavement beneath their feet. From the passageway came the returning sounds of angry voices and for a moment the night was vaulted again by the lanterns. Troy continued sidestepping until his hand found a comer and he turned into an open but interior hall. The floor was smooth now. There was no sound here at the back of the building but as he slid into another opening he detected cooking smells. These were not native smells. They were good, solid Germanic fragrances and Troy shook his head. So Dietrich had appropriated a palace and installed an orderly who was a cook. There were times when he could almost admire the unbending German officer.
    He halted Tully with pressure on his shoulder and they waited for sound of movement within the building. It was dead tomb quiet. He breathed to Tully, "I'm going to risk lighting my Zippo for as long as it takes to blow it out. You look to the left. I'll look to the right."
    The lighter flamed and in that flickering moment before he extinguished it, Troy saw a table in the middle of the room, a cooking area of brick immediately at his right and beyond that, the beaded entrance to another room. "Anything your way?" he asked Tully.
    "Jugs, clay pots, brass pans and some kind of cupboard," Tully said.
    "There's a table in the middle of the room," Troy said. "Along the side, there's a stove. We'll go by it and through a beaded archway into the next room."
    Troy felt his way through the arch and they stepped from the paved floor of the