The Defender

Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

Before the war, Glyditch had been a small, nondescript hamlet, a few rows of walk-ups and shops hugging the southern shore of the firth midway between Edinburgh and North Berwick. Unprepossessing as it had been, it had managed a lovely, serene stillness, a calming view of the water, and comfortable enough accommodations to meet the needs of some of Edinburgh's posh crowd looking for a bit of quiet and rest-up for the weekend. But what had been nondescript yet quaint before the war had now taken on the qualities of disuse. Glyditch wore the same wartime drabness that much of Britain had taken on as its uniform in those days. And certainly, the chill winds off the North Sea and the whipping winter rains did little to dispel the air of Glyditch being a forgotten, dying place, and the notion that Glyditch was a place to pass through, not stay.

Among the weather-beaten establishments overlooking the firth was a narrow five-story, the flats long abandoned by tenants who could no longer survive the faltering economy of Glyditch. In their place a small cadre of American officers and their support staff had installed a warren of cramped, paper-filled of ... read full excerpt from The Defender ebook