The Looking Glass War [antikvár]

ForewordNone of the characters, clubs, institutions or intelligence organizations I have described here or elsewhere exists, or has existed to my knowledge in real life. I wish to make that very clear.My thanks are due to the Radio Society of Great Britain and to Mr. R. E. MoUand, to the editors and staff of Aviation Week and Space Technology, and to Mr. Ronald Coles, all of whom provided me with valuable technical advice; and to Miss Elizabeth ToUinton for her secretarial help.I must thank above all my wife for her untiring cooperation.JOHN LE CAKREAgios Nikolaos, Crete May, 19641.Snow coveeed the airfield.It had come from the north, in the mist, driven by the night wind, smelling of the sea. There it would stay aÖ winter, threadbare on the gray earth, an icy, sharp dust; not thawing and freezing, ljut static like a year without seasons. The changing mist, like the smoke of war, would hang over it, swallow up now a hangar, now tiie radar hut, now the machines; release them piece by piece, drained of color, black carrion on a white desert.It was a scene of no depth, no recession and no shadows. The land was one with the sky; figures and buildings locked in the cold like bodies in an ice floe.Beyond the airfield there was nothing; no house, no hál, no road; not even a fence, a tree; only the sky pressing on the dunes, the running fog that lifted on the muddy Baltic shore. Somewhere inland were the mountams.A group of children in school caps had gathered at the long observation window, chattering in German. Some wore sld clothes. Taylor gazed dully past them, holding a glass in his gloved hand. A boy turned around and stared at him, blushed and whispered to the other children. They fell silent.He looked at his watch, making a wide arc with his arm, partly to free the sleeve of his overcoat and partly because it was his style; a military man, he