The Constantine Covenant by Aiden Crisp

Author:Aiden Crisp
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2011-05-19T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

London, England

Admiral McDonough was not a moral man by any sense of the word. He believed in the United States of America because he believed in freedom. Not necessarily equality, but freedom. Everyone ought to be able to do what he wanted without some meddling government snooping into his affairs. Perhaps that was what had attracted him to the OSS—getting to do what he wanted without anyone telling him what to do, a hard thing to pull off in the Navy, though McDonough had managed it for nearly twenty years. In McDonough’s position as a naval admiral serving in the OSS, if there was any government snooping to be done, chances were he would get to do it.

But that was not the case this evening as McDonough sat on the bed in his London flat, his latest mistress snoozing beside him. He could hear the increase of activity on the street outside, far more vehicle traffic than this sleepy neighborhood was accustomed to, especially at this time of night. They were military vehicles—jeeps and trucks, by the sound of them—and there were lots of them. The window was open so they were quite loud. McDonough did not bother to go to the window but simply cast a glance at the bug device he had discovered behind the credenza more than a week ago. He had discovered the miniature microphone while sweeping his apartment for such devices, a practice those in his line of work generally made a habit of, if they didn’t want to get themselves or a whole lot of other people killed.

Brakes squealed on the street outside. The vehicles were stopping in front of the apartment building.

“God, what’s all that noise, Mac?” the woman in his bed asked groggily. She was young, at least by his standards.

“Nothing, love,” McDonough said, patting her soft hair with his old weathered hand. “Go back to sleep. I’ll call someone about it.”

Boots tramped in double time on the sidewalk below, approaching the main door to the building. A heavyhanded fist banged on the door, accompanied by the bellow of a sergeant.

“Military police! Open up! Open the door, now!”

McDonough had had a feeling it would be tonight. A few indicators earlier in the day had told him that things were moving, that his opponent in this grand game of chess had decided to move his queen. Being a spy was a game of chess. A game of waiting and gathering, of sending pawns to feel out the enemy, of holding back all impulses to attack until just the right moment. When you were finally ready, you struck in one quick and devastating blow that, if you were lucky, altered the outcome of the war and the course of history.

“I will break down this door if it does not open in thirty seconds!” the sergeant outside shouted, loud enough to wake Edward III in his grave.

McDonough could hear several of the other of the building’s tenants in the hallway outside, roused from their beds and probably wondering what the hell was going on.

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