The Desert Raider

By Zach Neal

Owen Foster is with the Special Air Service. He’s been missing for about five weeks and Mariyah Khoudry is trying to find out what happened to him. They’re legally married and she might be pregnant. Sergeant Major Bullen, stuck with the duty, will do his best to locate the lad, whether dead or alive. A short story of romance and adventure.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zach Neal
• Release date: Jan 14, 2015
• ISBN: 9781927957608

Zach Neal

Zach Neal has been writing ever since he can remember. A forestry management professional, he prefers the outdoors to the office. He lives in the Halton Hills overlooking the Greater Toronto Area. He studied at the University of Toronto. Zach’s a single father of two healthy and energetic children. Zach’s boys, Aaron and Jason, mean everything to him.

Book preview

The Desert Raider

Zach Neal

Copyright 2014 Zach Neal and Long Cool One Books

Design: J. Thornton

ISBN 978-1-927957-60-8

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The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person living or deceased, or to any places or events, is purely coincidental. Names, places, settings, characters and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. The author’s moral rights to the proceeds of this work have been asserted.

Table of Contents

Act One

Act Two

Act Three

About Zach Neal

The Desert Raider

Zach Neal

Act One

Corporal White tapped carefully at his door. A lean, ascetic figure, hairline receding at twenty-six, he gave his habitual, dry little cough as if to underline this fact.

Bullen was a military policeman, one small cog in a larger machine that provided security to Headquarters staff and premises. This duty largely consisted of making up duty rosters, shift scheduling, and all routine matters of an administrative nature involving the regular army guards.

There were a few spooks around too, more than enough in his opinion, but they reported to someone else.

The Sergeant Major was known to be the crusty type, before and after he’d had his morning tea.

It was coming up on nine-thirty.

A stolid bull-dog type, Sergeant Major Bullen was just inserting a fresh sheet into the machine. Thick about the neck and shoulders, he gave an impression of size belied by his actual five-foot eight stature.

There were some quick and fancy typists in the building but their spelling was atrocious in some cases and good grammar wasn’t enough to save it. A letter from General Harold Alexander, General Overall Commanding, to the Head of Military Intelligence, Near East must observe certain forms—not least of which was readability. It was one of those formal letters produced by certain junior officers and Alexander himself might never see it. That was hardly the point.

Bullen was a very tired man, on days like this.

He was getting damned tired of showing the young fools how it was done. Never a man to be rushed, especially not by corporals, he typed in the first line, the general’s name on the left and the date as far over to the right as he could get. He hit the return lever and looked up.

Yes?

There’s a lady here to see you, Sergeant Major.

Bullen stared open-mouthed.

A lady? In his worldly experience this could only mean one thing—an actual lady and there weren’t too many of those around.

There might be one or two, he supposed, but what were they doing way out here? There were VIPs in from time to time.

What, Vera Lynn’s popped in to see me? His eyebrows rose and his half-glasses seemed to slide a little further down his nose.

White almost laughed aloud, but this was a kind of game and to laugh was to lose.

Stifling any overt reaction at the picture presented, with Bullen being a bit of a rock-like figure and all, certainly the thought of him with anyone