Free The Rat Patrol 2: Desert Danger by David King

kitchen onto a soft rug. From another arch at the far side of the room, light from a hall showed the shadowy outlines of a low table surrounded by lumps on the floor. Pillows! Troy thought, why Dietrich sits on a pillow to eat his homemade meals. The Kraut was living like a sultan. He quickly crossed the room over the richly carpeted floor to the arched entrance and found himself looking into a richly ornamented gold and blue hall that ran from the front entrance to balustraded steps at the back. The entrance was open; the iron gates to close it off were swung back against the walls. There was no guard at the entrance and the building, at least on the first floor, had an empty feeling. He jerked his head in Tully's direction and ran quickly and softly on his toes down the lamplighted hall to the tiled stairway. Back to wall and kris in hand, he mounted to the second floor. Tully followed a minute later.
    A heavy wooden door opened to the large room at the front of the building just beyond the head of the stairs and a hall extended to the rear of the building. Lamps were burning in the large room but it was empty. A lamp hung from a barrel ceiling about halfway down the hallway and under it a guard was sitting on the floor in a recessed doorway. His knees were drawn up and his head was slumped on his chest. His mouth was partly open and his chin was slack. He was breathing heavily. The guard's rifle had fallen to the floor and lay slantwise, almost beyond reach, in the hall.
    Troy grinned; they had found the CO's cell. He pulled out his kris, motioned Tully on with his head and crept toward the sleeping guard. He reached with one hand to bottle the sound and directed the rippled edge of the kris at the man's throat. Tully waited beside him to drag away the body. At the moment he was ready to slash the knife across the guard's throat, the sound of pounding feet thumped in the hallway downstairs.
    Jerking away from the guard who slept on undisturbed, Troy darted to the back of the hall with Tully at his side. He sought swiftly for a door to a room in which to hide, ran on past several when he glimpsed a door in the sidewall at the very rear. With luck, it would lead to the roof. At the least, it would offer a closet in which to hide. Troy pushed the door and turned the handle in the same motion and he and Tully found a steep stairway. He closed the door quietly and felt his way in the thick blackness ahead of Tully to a door at the top. He opened it and stepped onto the flat, paved roof of the building.
    The back of the palace was lost in the night but enough light from Dietrich's office crept up the wall to silhouette the parapet at the front and a rectangular mass at the far side that must be a water tank. Troy and Tully ran across the roof to the far comer, cautiously edged up in the far comer and peered into the street. The Jerries had found Colette and the officer who had watched Troy and Tully in the tavern was supporting her. One guard stood with them. As Troy and Tully watched, Dietrich came from the building with a second guard who led Colette over to the tavern and left her at the entrance. The second guard trotted off in the dark, zigzagging alley, heading toward the opening in the wall. Dietrich and the other officer turned into the headquarters building, followed almost immediately by the guard who had escorted the wobbly Colette to her doorstep.
    "Dietrich is sending for reinforcements," Troy said, stepping back from the parapet.
    "Whyn't he use radio?" Tully asked. "Or field telephone?"
    "He doesn't know who's out there or how many." Troy laughed softly. "He knows he's got a couple of us running loose and it's bugging him. How many are inside? Who's out there monitoring his radio or clipped onto his wire?"
    "It's going to be a rough night on the Ay-rabs," Tully smirked. "He'll strip them all."
    "All right," Troy snapped. "Now's our chance while we have just the two guards, Dietrich and the other officer to deal