Predator's Picnic

Bernard Veale

Description

Marc Gregor had spent ten years in the Middle East and Afghanistan fighting for America. He was tired of living off a reserve officer's pay and anxious to get back to civilian life so he chose nice steady Switzerland and went there to look for a job. He found the job but it was not what he had planned and resigning turned out to be a rather permanent option. His inclination to cut and run was canceled by his first sight of Cherie, the Sergeant's daughter. After that he struggled to find out exactly what he and a bunch of the toughest mercenary soldiers he had ever seen were being trained for. Every man was out for himself and Marc uses his hard-won skills to keep ahead of the Colonel, the Sergeant and the predator pack. This was no picnic.

Sujets

• Adventure
• Adventure (Guyana)

Informations

• Publié par: Andrews UK
• Date de parution: 29 mai 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781782341970
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Title Page
PREDATOR’S PICNIC

By
Bernard Veale



Publisher Information
Predator’s Picnic
Published in 2012 by
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
The characters and situations in this book are entirely imaginary and bear no relation to any real person or actual happening.
Copyright © Bernard Veale
The right of Bernard Veale to be identified as author of this book has been asserted in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyrights Designs and Patents Act 1988.



CHAPTER 1
My name is Marc Clint Gregor. I was born in Texas in 1980. My mother was a Canadian of pure French blood and my father was an American who farmed tobacco until his death.
Tobacco farmers being better off than most in those early days before Surgeon-General’s reports began to be taken seriously, I had a very comfortable early life and an excellent education which left me a certified public accountant.
I had learnt French on my mother’s knee and I learnt English in Cambridge in England and I picked up a fair amount of Arabic from my studies. These are my accomplishments.
After my father’s death, my mother had passed away several years earlier; I sold the farm, since I had no interest or ability in farming and invested everything I had in a Management Consultancy company and the Stock Exchange. Those are my failings.
It was not as if my company had no potential but for the last ten years of my life I had spent the greatest part of my time serving as a reserve officer in the army in the Middle East and Afghanistan. The army was there to protect the country from the terrorists but no-one was there to protect my business from falling apart. A service oriented business needs personnel to keep supplying the services it offers. It became clear to me that I was earning a meager living on a reserve Captain’s pay and that my stock exchange investments had long since been consumed by political uncertainty and personal necessity. If you have ever tried to live on a soldier’s pay you will understand that I was almost flat broke after I had bought my air-ticket.
As a qualified accountant, I should have been earning a very satisfactory salary indeed. I am sure that I could have gone west and found employment in California but I was over-weary of the American political situation and longed to find a nice steady position in a stable country where I could recover my fortune or as much of it as the local cost-of¬-living would allow.
By studying the European situation, I discovered that stable countries were not all that easy to find and so I satisfied myself by writing to a Swiss Bank and asking for an interview. I did not receive a reply to my letter but I had taken a positive line and had informed them that I would be arriving in Zurich on the fifteenth of March from New York and would they be kind enough to see me on that day.
I hitch-hiked up to New York, gratefully accepting the hospitality of the kind people who offered me lifts and meals, thereby conserving my scant supply of money.
The flight to Zurich was comfortable enough particularly because a pert little stewardess seemed to believe that I needed extra help and attention and I was the last person to deny this. She even supplied me with double rations, which, being a canny sort of fellow, I consumed or stored against future contingencies.
I slept well on the flight, notwithstanding the narrowness of the seats, for I found the engine noise a lot more soothing than the grind of an army truck engine and I had slept often enough to that grating lullaby.
The Zurich day was cold and grey. My wardrobe was not equal to it so I hunched up my shoulders and strode off the aircraft carrying my one piece of luggage as a shield against the wind.
I had hardly cleared the perfunctory customs inspection when my eye was caught by a paging board that bore the letters “MC GREGOR”. This was a double surprise to me. Firstly, I was surprised to see my name flashed about a foreign airport and secondly I was surprised that the Zurich bank had thought so much of my application that they had sent someone to pick me up. I came to the conclusion that the Swiss were an extremely hospitable people and I congratulated myself on my insight in choosing such a congenial nation in which to reside.
I strode over to the man holding up the board and told him admiringly, “I’m Marc Gregor.”
“Pardon?” he replied with the French intonation. So I repeated myself in that language.
“Good. Follow me. You are two days late.” he told me in French.
I knew I wasn’t two days late but then what would a mere messenger know about it. He had probably misunderstood the instructions of his bosses.
He led me to a panel van in the parking lot and I was a little put out at his lack of interest in my luggage. He could not have known that I was carrying all I owned and he did not even volunteer to help me with that.
“Get in.” he told me shortly, gesturing to the rear of the vehicle.
I could see that I had no choice in the matter because the single seat up front was already packed with parcels so I clambered in revising my estimates of Swiss hospitality. Well, maybe they were short of vehicles, I was still grateful that they had taken the trouble to fetch me.
My ‘pageboy’ climbed in beside me and closed the doors and then I realized that there were four other men in the van with us.
“Here is the money promised to you. ’Page-boy’ said to all assembled and he doled out a packet to each of us.
I knew now that I was not being picked up by the bank and I was still holding my packet wondering what to do about it when one of my neighbors grunted.
“This money is in Swiss francs. We were promised a thousand dollars.”
“It is a thousand dollars in francs.” Page-boy returned.
“When I am told dollars, I expect my money in United States dollars.” the first one snapped back truculently.
Page-boy shrugged indifferently, I am sure that Command will change it for you if you want. Me, I would be happy to take francs. You can’t spend dollars where we’re going.”
I decided to hold my peace. I could always use a thousand dollars in francs. Once I knew what I had to do for it, I could decide whether I ought to go back to the Zurich bank and demand that they return my rightful job to me.
Everyone settled down as comfortably as the interior of the van would allow and I gathered it would be a long journey. I fished out a few rolls and some cheese from the store which my air-borne ‘mother’ had given me and I offered them around. “I’m Marc Gregor I told them as I handed out the food.
I learnt that I was accompanied by Dubois (alias ‘page-boy’), Maneiro, Shorsky, Braun and Koch. “You are one of the Legion eh Koch?” Dubois suggested after the first few bites.
“What is it to you?” Koch demanded, not aggressively, just closing the subject.
I studied my companions in the dim light and came to the conclusion that they were a tough bunch of characters. I knew that I was letting myself in for something dangerous and that meant, almost inevitably, illegal. People don’t hand out thousand dollar welcome-to-the-club cards in normal business transactions.
I gave the matter quite a lot of thought on that trip and I decided that I stood to gain a lot more by playing the matter along than by telling my newfound friends that I was not the man they thought I was. It was always possible that I had already exceeded the bounds of toleration as far as poking my nose into their business went. I had been bouncing along in that van for two hours before it finally dawned on me that the paging sign that Dubois had held up was meant to read McGregor. I had taken the M and C in front of the Gregor to be my initials. Even then, the mistake would have been more quickly corrected if my first name had not been Marc. Marc Gregor must sound close enough to McGregor to a Frenchman.
I pondered the matter a little longer and hoped that the fact that the unknown McGregor was two days late meant that he would not be coming at all. At least not until I had made my escape with as much illegal pay as I could get my hands on without having to do anything really obnoxious.
My mind was almost instantly put at rest by Dubois, who having polished off the bread and cheese snack, resumed his rough attempts at conversation. “You are lucky, McGregor. This was the last time we were going to the airport. If you had not arrived on today’s flight you would have missed out on this job. We would not have returned and you would have lost your fifty thousand dollars.”
I had an enormous struggle to prevent the amazement showing on my face and I suppose the dim interior of the van helped to hide my consternation. I was clearly heading for a highly dangerous time. Presuming that Dubois was also participating in the payout and that as we were being driven by another, who was either senior to or at least equal in status to Dubois, the pay check was going to exceed a quarter of a million dollars. I wondered how much the turnover would be.
The first thought that came into my mind after that, was that I was probably being drafted into the ranks of the ‘Sewer Rats’, those legendary thieves who had burrowed into bank¬ vaults through the sewers and made off with millions. I knew I would never be able to sustain my masquerade if that was so. They would hardly be prepared to take on unskilled labor and I would soon show up as that among a group of highly