"Chalker, Jack L - G.o.d. Inc. 2 - The Shadow Dancers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Chalker Jack L)

it's Pennsylvania -central Pennsylvania. The nearest weak point he could make
for that would be accessible to him would be hundreds of miles away at either a
point near Asheville, North Carolina, or even further away up in Newfoundland.
Des Moines is too small, and too well covered inside. You're right, though. He'd
try and get out overland to one of those points somehow if he knew the station
was taken, but he won't know. We egged on and supported an overambitious major-I
think his name was Ryland-to move against Vogel, and we studied the drill. If
they're attacked and Vogel isn't in the Safe Room, he goes there immediately. If
he's in there, he stays there, and gets sent a blinking light alarm. Then he can
plug in a phone that connects through a direct wire to security in the basement
and get the details and decide on a course of action from almost complete
safety."
"Neat," I said. "This Ryland-I guess he didn't make it."
"His people got a pretty fair way, but they eventually were killed or captured.
Vogel had the captured ones hung up alive on hooks suspended from the outer wall
and left there until they died. He left the bodies to rot as an object lesson.
Ryland tried to get away in a helicopter and they shot it down with a
surface-to-air missile."
"Nice guy you got there," I said sourly. "No wonder he went bad."
"Uh uh. It is a wonder he went bad, and part of the puzzle. It takes an ugly,
brutish, but smart man to survive and hold on to power in that kind of society.
He was carefully picked because our Vogel was so much like their Vogel, all the
way through, only our Vogel was stuck as a low-level administrator. Thing is,
he's exactly right for that kind of role in that kind of world and he has
everything he ever dreamed of. If he finally was tired of the price in lack of
privacy and whatever that the position demanded, he could always have asked to
be replaced as stationmaster and retired to a world that still fit him. Now,
he's forbidden to ever be a member of the Reich Council or Fuhrer-in spite of
his German name and lineage he was born in Pittsburgh, and you have to be a
native-born European German to get those kind of posts, or even get into the
position where you might get them. He might well become Leader of the Western
Reich someday, though, if he plays it right and survives, so he has a lot to
lose by crossing us. What could he gain?"
"The only way you can pay that kinda dude is with power. Real big power," I
pointed out. "What's he care 'bout bein' no new Hitler when he knows how many
worlds there are?"
Markham nodded. "And that means that this whole business is real big, about as
big as can be. They're careful, really patient, limiting their experiments,
getting it right even if it takes years."
I thought a moment. "If they could hook whole worlds on this shit, you'd have
the ultimate power trip."
"You would, but I doubt if that's their intention. We have-what? Four, maybe
closing in on five billion people just here alone, right? That's four billion
doses a day, every day, forever. The distribution and supply alone would drive
you bananas. Somehow, though, it's an attack against the Company, probably near
its heart to go through all this. Think of men like Vogel, all of them, in total
control of the technology, the knowledge, and the Labyrinth itself. I don't know
what or how, but I feel at in my bones. Something very dangerous is going on
here and Vogel's the only key. We think we finally figured one way to nab him."
I looked over at Sam and he looked back at me, and I guess we both thought at