D-Notice Bill Walker (online e book reading txt) 📖

seated at the end drinking tall glasses of what looked like champagne. Brady grinned at them and they returned the smile with toothy ones of their own.

“There’s a couple of ripe ones, eh, Mikey.” Brady’s voice was thick with desire, and Thorley felt his stomach twist as his anxiety level rose a notch.

The girls were voluptuous in the classic sense: narrow waists book-ended by large breasts and derrieres. The word “Junoesque” came to mind. Both were darkly complected with raven hair and chocolate-brown eyes that smoldered with frank invitation.

“A feast for the eyes, as well as the soul,” Brady said, raising his glass to the girls. They took it as their cue and began threading their way through the crowd toward their table. Each wore a slinky cocktail dress that clung to them, undulating with their every move.

Thorley fumed.

“I told you I didn’t want this, Corwin. I’m married, for God’s sake!”

“Just relax,” he said, a sly grin on his face that made Thorley even angrier. “No one’s twisting your arm, here. Let’s enjoy their company. Nothing has to happen. Okay?”

Thorley felt as he’d been neatly boxed into a corner: Leave and be the party poop, the bloody stick-in-the-mud, or stay and risk—what, temptation?

He sighed, shaking his head at the absurdity of the situation. “All right, you win. I’ll be a good boy.”

Brady clapped him on the back and smiled. “That’s the way to play it!”

When the women drew closer, Thorley saw they were both very young, probably under twenty-five. Their smiles widened when they reached the table. Both men stood.

“Ladies, may I present Major Michael Thorley, and I’m Lieutenant Corwin Brady, both of His Majesty’s Long Range Desert Group. And we are honored to meet you.”

He made a mock bow and both girls looked at each other and laughed. The taller of the two girls spoke first. “Hello, British, my name is Aziza and this is my friend, Femi.” Aziza’s accent was thick, but understandable. Femi, however just smiled and giggled. Apparently, Aziza would have to do the talking for the both of them.

They sat down and Aziza moved her chair closer to Thorley, her spicy perfume hitting him like one of the L.R.D.G’s trucks. Subtlety was obviously not this girl’s strong suit.

“What are you girls drinking?” Brady asked, his smile widening as Femi stroked his arm.

“Champagne,” Aziza purred, her eyes drilling through Thorley.

Brady waived to the waiter and rattled off the order in rapid Arabic. The waiter nodded and scurried off, returning moments later with two more flutes and an iced magnum. Brady raised his glass. “A toast. To my good friend, Michael Thorley, who has very probably saved his country single-handed!”

Thorley was embarrassed; not only because of what Brady had just said, which was patently foolish, but because the man was already drunk and drawing unwarranted attention to the both of them.

And then there were the girls.

Femi continued to become overly familiar with Brady, who lapped it all up like a thirsty dog, while Aziza’s mere existence and close proximity was enough to upset Thorley’s equilibrium.

“Corwin, likes to joke,” he said, shooting his friend a disapproving glare.

Brady drained his glass of champagne and laughed, and Femi joined in, perhaps thinking that she should. “Ahh, Mikey’s a modest one, that’s for sure. Now take me, for instance.” He paused for dramatic effect, his eyes moving from one girl to the next. “I’ll tell you I’m the best and to hell with you if you disagree. Hah!”

The girls laughed and Thorley shook his head, taking a long gulp of the champagne. It was surprisingly good, and he quickly drained the glass, then refilled it. He let Brady dominate the conversation, as he usually did, and watched him regale the girls with a series of his infamous pub stories, alternating between both English and Arabic. He soon had the women hysterically laughing. Bored and not a little sad that his big moment in the desert was already behind him, Thorley kept refilling the glass with the bubbly wine. A quick glance at the label nearly brought him up short: Dom Perignon—1932.

Not a cheap wine, to say the least. It was then he decided to throw caution to the wind along with his money. After all, hadn’t he come close to death once this week already, and hadn’t he completed the mission his superiors set out for him, and successfully at that? He bloody well deserved to at least enjoy an evening out.

Twenty minutes later, he realized he was drunk, and when the band came back from its break and began playing a fast-paced Swing tune, he impulsively asked Aziza to dance. She practically dragged him out onto the floor and began a frantic jitterbug that would have been the envy of any teenager at the Hammersmith Palais. Reticent at first, Thorley let loose and began to mimic her moves, surprised that he was able to pick them up so quickly. And then the music changed, the tempo slowing. Aziza came to him, vital and brimming with her youth, and cleaved her curvaceous body to his. Unlike Lillian’s, her body meshed effortlessly with his, like a jigsaw puzzle made of flesh.

Lillian.

All at once, like a bad omen, she intruded, her face welling up in his mind, along with a flood of guilt. But instead of backing off, instead of coming to his senses and leaving the nightclub for the safety of Shepheard’s, he began to respond to Aziza’s none-too-subtle overtures. A part of his fogged mind knew it was wrong, knew it even as he succumbed to it. But the one image that kept him traveling down that inexorable road was that of the faceless man sitting in the back seat of that