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MacLean, Alistair - Partisans
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PARTISANS
ALISTAIR MACLEAN, the son of a Scots Minister, was brought up in the Scottish Highlands. In 1941 at the age of eighteen, he joined the Royal Navy; two-and-a-half years spent aboard a cruiser was later to give him the background for HMS Ulysses, his first novel, the outstanding documentary novel on the war at sea. After the war, he gained an English Honours degree at Glasgow University, and became a school master.
Alistair MacLean is now recognized to be the outstanding writer of our time in his own genre. He has written over twenty world bestsellers. Many have been filmed - Force 10 from Navarone, The Guns of Navarone, Where Eagles Dare and Bear Island are among the most famous
Available in Fontana by the same author
The Guns of Navarone
HMS Ulysses
South by Java Head
Night Without End
The Last Frontier
The Dark Crusader
Fear is the Key
Ice Station Zebra
The Golden Rendezvous
The Satan Bug
When Eight Bells Toll
Where Eagles Dare
Force 10 from Navarone
Puppet on a Chain
Caravan to Vaccares
Bear Island
The Way to a Dusty Death
Breakheart Pass
Circus
The Golden Gate
Seawitch
Goodbye California
Athabasca
River of Death
ALISTAIR MACLEAN
Partisans
FONTANA/Collins
First published by William Collins Sons Co. Ltd, 1982 First issued in Fontana Paperbacks 1983 This impression March 1984
Copyright (c) Alistair MacLean 1982
Made and printed in Great Britain by William Collins Sons Co. Ltd, Glasgow
CONDITIONS OF SALE
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
TO AVDO AND INGE
ONE
The chill night wind off the Tiber was from the north and carried with it the smell of snow from the distant Apennines The sky was clear and full of stars and there was light enough to see the swirling of the dust-devils in the darkened streets and the paper, cardboard and assorted detritus that blew about every which way. The darkened, filthy streets were not the result of the electrical and sanitation departments of the Eternal City, as was their peacetime wont, staging one of their interminable strikes, for this was not peacetime, events in the Mediterranean theatre had reached a delicate stage where Rome no longer cared to advertise its whereabouts by switching on the street lights: the sanitation department, for the most part, was some way off to the south fighting a war it didn't particularly care about.
Petersen stopped outside a shop doorway, the nature of its business was impossible to tell for the windows were neatly masked in regulation blackout paper - and glanced up and down the Via Bergola. It appeared to be deserted as were most streets in the city at that time of night. He produced a hooded torch and a large bunch of peculiarly shaped keys and let himself in with a speed, ease and dexterity which spoke well for whoever had trained him in such matters. He took up position behind the opened door, removed the hood from the torch, pocketed the keys, replaced them with a silenced Mauser and waited.
He had to wait for almost two minutes, which, in the circumstances, can be a very long time, but Petersen didn't seem to mind. Two stealthy footsteps, then there appeared beyond the edge of the door the dimly seen silhouette of a man whose only identifiable features were a peaked cap and a hand clasping a gun in so purposeful a grip that even in the half-light the faint sheen of the knuckles could be seen.
The figure took two further stealthy steps into the shop then halted abruptly as the torch clicked on and the silencer of the Mauser rammed none too gently into the base of his neck.
'Drop that gun. Clasp your hands behind your neck, take three steps forward and don't turn round.'
The intruder did as told. Petersen closed the shop door, located the light switch and clicked it on. They appeared to be in what was, or should have been, a jeweller's shop, for the owner, a man with little faith in the occupying forces, his fellow-countrymen or both, had prudently and totally cleared all his display cabinets.
'Now you can turn round,' Petersen said.
The man turned. The set expression on the youthful face was tough and truculent, but he couldn't do much about his eyes or the apprehension reflected in them.
'I will shoot you,' Petersen said conversationally, 'if you are carrying another gun and don't tell me.'
'I have no other gun.'