The Dogs of War

Shannon had picked the place only because it was in easy reach of Dubrovnik to the east and in line with Madrid to the west. It was the first time he had ever been to Rome, and he wondered what the ecstatic guidebooks were talking about. There were at least seven separate strikes in progress, one of them being among the garbage workers, and the city stank in the sun from the uncleared fruit and other rubbish on the pavements and down every back alley.

He eased himself into a seat beside the man from London and savored the cool of the inner room after the heat and frustration of the taxi in which he had been stuck for the past hour.

Endean eyed him. “You’ve been out of touch a long time,” he said coldly. “My associates were beginning to think you had run out. That was unwise.”

“There was no point in my making contact until I had something to say. That ship doesn’t exactly fly across the water. It takes time to get her from Toulon to Yugoslavia, and during that time there was nothing to report,” said Shannon. “By the way, did you bring the charts?”

“Of course.” Endean pointed to the bulging attaché case beside his chair. On receiving Shannon’s letter from Hamburg, he had spent several days visiting three of the top maritime-chart companies on Leadenhall Street, London, and in separate lots had acquired inshore charts for the entire African coast from Casablanca to Cape Town. “Why the hell do you need so many?” he asked in annoyance. “One or two would suffice.”

“Security,” said Shannon briefly. “If you or I were searched at customs, or if the ship were boarded and searched in port, one single chart showing the area of the ship’s destination would be a giveaway. As it is, no one, including the captain and crew, can discover which section of the coast really interests me. Until the last moment, when I have to tell them. Then it’s too late. Do you have the slides as well?”

“Yes, of course.”

Another of Endean’s jobs had been to make up slides of all the photographs Shannon had brought back from Zangaro, along with others of the maps and sketches of Clarence and the rest of Zangaro’s coastline.

Shannon himself had already sent a slide projector, bought duty-free at London airport, onto the Toscana in Toulon.

He gave Endean a complete progress report from the moment he had left London, mentioning the stay in Brussels, the loading of the Schmeissers and other equipment onto the Toscana in Toulon, the talks with Schlinker and Baker in Hamburg, and the Yugoslav shipment a few days earlier in Ploc?e.

Endean listened in silence, making a few notes for the report he would later have to give to Sir James Manson. “Where’s the Toscana now?” he asked at length.

“She should be south and slightly west of Sardinia, en route for Valencia.”

Shannon went on to tell him what was planned in three days’ time: the loading of the 400,000 rounds of 9mm. ammunition for the machine pistols in Valencia, and then departure for the target. He made no mention of the fact that one of his men was already in Africa.

“Now there’s something I need to know from you,” he told Endean. “What happens after the attack? What happens at dawn? We can’t hold on for very long before some kind of new regime takes over, establishes itself in the palace, and broadcasts news of the coup and the new government.”

“That’s all been thought of,” said Endean smoothly. “In fact, the new government is the whole point of the exercise.”

From his briefcase he withdrew three sheets of paper covered with close typing. “These are your instructions, starting the moment you have possession of the palace and the army and guards have been destroyed or scattered. Read, memorize, and destroy these sheets before we part company, here in Rome. You have to carry it all in your head.”

Shannon ran his eyes quickly over the first page. There were few surprises for him. He had already suspected the man Manson was boosting into the presidency had to be Colonel Bobi, and although the new president was referred to simply as X, he did not doubt Bobi was the man in question. The rest of the plan was simple from his point of view.

He glanced up at Endean. “Where will you be?” he asked.

“A hundred miles north of you,” said Endean.

Shannon knew Endean meant he would be waiting in the capital of the republic next door to Zangaro on its northern side, the one with a road route straight along the coast to the border and thence to Clarence.

“Are you sure you’ll pick up my message?” he asked.

“I shall have a portable radio set of considerable range and power. The Braun, the best they make. It will pick up anything within that range, provided it’s broadcast on the right channel and frequency. A ship’s radio should be powerful enough to send in clear over at least twice that distance.”

Shannon nodded and read on. When he had finished, he put the sheets on the table. “Sounds all right,” he said. “But let’s get one thing clear. I’ll broadcast on that frequency at those hours from the Toscana, and she’ll be hove to somewhere off the coast, probably at five or six miles. But if you don’t hear me, if there’s too much static, I can’t be responsible for that. It’s up to you to hear me.”

“It’s up to you to broadcast,” said Endean. “The frequency is one that has been tested before by practical use. From the Toscana’s radio it must be picked up by my radio set at a hundred miles. Not the first time, perhaps, but if you repeat for thirty minutes, I have to hear it.”

“All right,” said Shannon. “One last thing. The news of what has happened in Clarence should not have reached the Zangaran border post. That means it’ll be manned by Vindu. It’s your business to get past them. After the border, and particularly nearer Clarence, there may be scattered Vindu on the roads, running for the bush but still dangerous. Supposing you don’t get through?”

“We’ll get through,” said Endean. “We’ll have help.”

Shannon supposed, rightly, that this would be provided by the small operation in mining that he knew Manson had going for him in that republic. For a senior company executive it could provide a truck or jeep and maybe a couple of repeater hunting rifles. For the first time he supposed Endean might have some guts to back up his nastiness.

Shannon memorized the code words and the radio frequency he needed and burned the sheets with Endean in the men’s room. They parted an hour later. There was nothing else to say.

Five floors above th

e streets of Madrid, Colonel Antonio Almela, head of the exporting office of the Spanish Army Ministry (Foreign Arms Sales), sat at his desk and perused the file of papers in front of him. He was a gray-haired, grizzled man, a simple man whose loyalties were uncomplicated and uncompromising. His fidelity was to Spain, his beloved Spain, and for him all that was right and proper, all that was truly Spanish, was embodied in one man, the short and aged generalissimo who sat in El Pardo. Antonio Almela was a Falangist to his bootheels.