"Chalker, Jack L - G.O.D. Inc 3 - The Maze in the Mirror" - читать интересную книгу автора (Chalker Jack L)

hunting in the area and he'd bagged one; the sight of that beautiful animal,
dead by his doing, lying there, thrashing and then dying, still haunted him. He
hadn't picked up a gun since.
No, the fun wasn't in squaring off against these guys, it was out-thinking them
and out-maneuvering them. It was a mental game, deductive chess, and if you
could assemble the puzzle and get the whole picture then any clod could make the
collar.
And that was the other guilt pang he had. God help him, if it wasn't for Dash
he'd be having the time of his life right now. He'd grown bored and somewhat
stale at the pedestrian things he'd been doing the past several years; this,
now, this was his element. But it was a lot easier, and a lot more fun, when the
victims were not people you knew and loved, but could be just pieces in the
game.
"It is good that war is so terrible lest we become too fond of it." Robert E.
Lee had said that. Perhaps, he thought, this is what he meant. I'm being
punished now for becoming far too fond of this game.
At about six in the morning he'd dropped into a light and disturbing sleep in
his office chair even as information continued to come in on his printers, fax,
and other data collectors. The ringing of the phone startled him again to
wakefulness, but it was a groggy sort and he wasn't at all clearheaded. Even so,
he had the foresight to activate the small system under the phone that would
automatically record and tell him the number from which the call was being
placed. It was a neat service they were now selling to the phone companies
themselves for resale as a point-of-call service to customers.
He picked up the phone. "Sam Horowitz," he said sleepily.
"Ah, Senor Horowitz, you sound like we thought you would," came a heavily
accented soft male voice.
He shook himself awake and ignored the headache. "Go ahead. I've been expecting
your call."
"I assume you have the whole set of lines monitored, and perhaps the Company is
as well, but it will do you no good," the voice told him. There was a sudden
click and the quality of the line shifted a bit, became a little bit noisier.
"Our technology has to be better man your technology or we would have been
discovered, even caught, long ago." There was another click, and the
transmission was suddenly both louder and quieter. Sam reached over and hit a
timer at the next click, then stopped at the click after that. Four seconds.
"You have something of great value to me that is of no value to you except as a
way to get to me," he said, hoping that made sense. "I want the boy back,
unharmed, and in one piece. I assume you didn't take him just to torture me, so
you want something."
"Si-yes, you are most perceptive. The boy is fine. At first he was very scared,
but now he is, you might say, less frightened than pissed off, and quite a
tiger, but he is being treated well, fed well, and looked after."
"What do you want?"
"That is a matter not to be discussed over telephones when one does not know who
is listening, no? This is merely a reassurance call for now. I assure you we do
not wish to keep the boy, but his health and his future are in your hands. Keep
the Company off. We will make no second offers, no adjustments in our demands,
no back up and start overs. If anything goes wrong, no matter whose fault-even
if it is nobody's fault-the boy will be killed and we will vanish like the wind.