Read Online The Secret War by Dennis Wheatley, Tony Morris - Free Book Online

of captured Abyssinians.’
    â€œâ€˜Britain has put an embargo on the sale of camels in her African territories; in consequence Italian soldiers are suffering the torture of thirst, because not enough camels can now be purchased to ensure regular water transport.’
    â€œâ€˜Britain is turning innocent Italian business men out of Malta and Egypt on false charges of espionage, so that British merchants can secure their trade.’
    â€œAnd so on, and so on. Meanwhile, in the British papers it appears:
    â€œâ€˜Italy’s real objective in this war is not the barren mountains of Abyssinia, but to turn the British out of fruitful Egypt. Abyssinia is only the first step.’
    â€œâ€˜An Italian was arrested in the dockyard at Malta with a bomb in his pocket when attempting to get on board a British warship.’
    â€œâ€˜An automobile bearing a G.B. touring plate was overturned in Milan and its English occupants chased by an angry mob.’
    â€œâ€˜The Italians are a lot of cowards; remember how they ran away at Caporetto!’
    â€œAnd so on, and so on.”
    Lovelace nodded. “Yes, I thought digging up that last business was absolutely uncalled for; a gratuitous insult to a friendly power. But I suppose their Press said the same about our troops having been nearly chivvied out of South Africa by a lot of farmers in the first year of the Boer War.”
    â€œExactly.” Barrotet leant forward earnestly. “Now these things are pinpricks only, but constantly irritating pinpricks, goading each of these naturally friendly people to distrust, fear, and hate each other. No ordinary journalist in either country is so stupid, or wantonly malicious, as to wish to influence his people to a degree of bitterness where they might force their leaders into war. Ninety percent of these paragraphs were inspired.”
    Christopher’s black, unruly hair was damp about the temples, and he listened with eager, fascinated attention as the Frenchman went on softly:
    â€œThe
Millers of God
traced those paragraphs to their source. In the Bureau, from which they emanated, a certain man was receiving secret payment on a very high scale to distort facts and utilise every possible episode to aggravate bad feeling between Italy and Britain. The
Millers of God
decided to ‘eliminate’ that man. He is now dead.”
    A little shudder shook Valerie’s shoulders. On her record-making flights she had had to face the fact that, if anything went wrong, she might be forced down over land or ocean and, when her frozen fingers could no longer cling to the slowly sinking plane, drown; or crash to earth where she would be consumed in a blinding sheet of flame. Yet there was something infinitely more horrible in the Frenchman’s quiet statement that this man had been “eliminated.” It conjured up thoughts of darkness and stealth; the unsuspecting victim taken unawares; his stark terror when he found himself cornered and cowed before the pistol barrel, knowing there was no escape.
    â€œThat’s right! That’s right!” Christopher whispered, and Valerie turned to look at him. His dark eyes shone with a sombre fire, two pools of blackness in the matt pallor of his handsome face. He was trembling slightly and seemed almost carried out of himself by his fanatical zeal for this secret war that was to end all wars. For the hundredth time since she had left her home on Long Island, she told herself: “It is a Crusade … a Crusade … and he needs my help. I mustn’t let him down.”
    Her glance shifted to Lovelace. The older man was quietly puffing at his pipe. His was a stronger face, tanned to a permanent brown by years of travel in hot countries, and lined a little at the corners of the mouth and eyes. His lids were lowered and he appeared quite impassive. She would have given a lot to know what thoughts were passing behind that unrevealing mask. He had