THE RED DOVE
Derek Lambert
Collins Crime Club
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by Hamish Hamilton Ltd 1982
Copyright © Derek Lambert 1982
Design and illustration by Micaela Alcaino © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018
Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com
Derek Lambert asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780008268428
Ebook Edition © JANUARY 2018 ISBN: 9780008268411
Version: 2017-12-20
RED ALERT!
Dove lurched violently to one side when it was seventy-five miles above the earth.
A beam weapon, Talin guessed, gripping the hand controller. Not a direct hit but it must have passed within a few feet of the fuselage.
Dove began to turn on her side, shuddering.
Talin fought the manual controls. Dove settled again, then suddenly dipped her nose.
Talin pulled, coaxed, shouted; but his arms were as heavy as lead as the earth pulled at them and his reactions were as slow as a drunk’s. Gradually Dove raised her beautiful, aristocratic nose. And it was then that Talin noticed that the red light beside the unconscious body of Sedov was glowing red. The bomb in the cargo bay must have been primed by shock waves from the beam.
Down plunged the Dove. With enough nuclear power inside her, Talin thought, to devastate a city. His brain froze. His head slumped forward …
For Frank and Marsha Taylor,
friends and advisers
The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror.
T. S. Eliot (1888–1965)
CONTENTS