The Sowti Squad

[ray...@trawlservicesltd.co.uk]

Oregon O'Connors recruitment to the CIA, first read extract www.thesowtisquad.com
‘Drugs, heroin. They must weigh about two
pounds I’d say, Cap’n.’ The sergeant’s gut rested on his
desk, the fat splaying and quivering as he leaned across,
playing hard-man with a cuffed Oregon for his boss’s
benefit. ‘You’re looking at twenty-five years penal here
son – drugs across a State line – that’s a lot of time to go
without pussy, particularly at your age when you probably
haven’t had much anyway.’
‘Lock’m up Sergeant Moses. We’ll do all the paperwork
tomorrow. I don’t want to miss the game on TV,’ the
Captain said.
‘Something’s not right here,’ Oregon thought, as
he paced his cell, looking occasionally at the square of
light from the window high on the wall. The ambush had
been good, the plant had been professional and evidencetaking
exemplary. Did patrol cars normally carry
cameras? These guys were sharing one brain between
them and wore riding boots because they could not tie
shoelaces. These thoughts went through his mind.
‘There’s a puppeteer here somewhere,’ he reasoned.
At midnight it would make sense.
***
Oregon was the only prisoner in the town’s new
jail that night, and lay on a rock-hard bed in his barred cell
which looked directly into the office. The street door was
27
THE SOWTI SQUAD
set into the office’s outer wall. A jelly-bellied night duty
trooper, stinking of fat-man’s sweat, brought him steak,
fries and ice-cream and even a beer from the local motel.
The trooper sat and ate his own supper, comprising two of
everything Oregon had, except beer – he had four of those
and was asleep by 10.30pm on a camp bed. There was
something musical about the trooper’s snoring which
lulled Oregon into a half-sleep; he did not hear the street
door open at midnight but sprang upright when he heard
the gentle voice.
‘Oregon, Oregon, wake-up you lazy Apache.’
Oregon looked at a face he had not seen since West
Point days. The cell door was opened, they passed the
snoring trooper and sixty seconds later Oregon sat
between two large men in the back of a Studebaker. The
car purred gently away from the jail and headed back
towards Interstate 5 and Portland.