mounted men with
them. Cavalry is outdated, nowadays, but in rocky mountain country they
can have uses where tanks can't go. But here tanks and cavalry looked
grim. Coburn squirmed back and beckoned to the girl. She joined him.
They peered through the brushwood together.

The light tanks were scurrying along the single village street. Horsemen
raced here and there. A pig squealed. There was a shot. The tanks
emerged from the other side. They went crawling swiftly toward the
south. But they did not turn aside where the villagers had. They headed
along the way Coburn had driven to Ardea.

[Illustration]

Infantrymen appeared, marching into the village. An advance party,
rifles ready. This was strict discipline and standard military practise.
Horsemen rode to tell them that all was quiet. They turned and spurred
away after the tanks.

The girl said in a strained voice. "This is war starting! Invasion!"

Coburn said coldly, "No. No planes. This isn't war. It's a training
exercise, Iron-Curtain style. This outfit will strike twenty--maybe
thirty miles south. There's a town there--Kilkis. They'll take it and
loot it. By the time Athens finds out what's happened, they'll be ready
to fall back. They'll do a little fighting. They'll carry off the
people. And they'll deny everything. The West doesn't want war. Greece
couldn't fight by herself. And America wouldn't believe that such things
could happen. But they do. It's what's called cold war. Ever hear of
that?"

The main column of soldiers far below poured up to the village and went
down the straggly street in a tide of dark figures. The village was very
small. The soldiers came out of the other end of the village. They
poured on after the tanks, rippling over irregularities in the way.
They seemed innumerable.

"Three or four thousand men," said Coburn coldly. "This is a big raid.
But it's not war. Not yet."

It was not the time for full-scale war. Bulgaria and the other countries
in its satellite status were under orders to put a strain upon the
outside world. They were building up border incidents and turmoil for
the benefit of their masters. Turkey was on a war footing, after a
number of incidents like this. Indo-China was at war. Korea was an old
story. Now Greece. It always takes more men to guard against criminal
actions than to commit them. When this raid was over Greece would have
to maintain a full-size army in its northern mountains to guard against
its r