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

what was buggin' him. This world I was gonna get dropped in was a Nazi world, a
world where the Jews had been wiped out and we was the new Jews. It was like I
was volunteerin' to be a Jew at Auschwitz. That didn't set none too well with
me, but none of them had Sam just outside holdin' a gun on G.O.D., Inc.
Not that I wasn't startin' to get nervous. I was. The closer the dates came, the
more doubts I had, the more second thoughts, and the scareder I got. I began to
really wonder if Sam was right all along. I wasn't no Cleopatra Jones, no Jane
Bond. Undercover was always the hardest and riskiest thing any investigator
could do, and this was undercover in a whole world that considered me no better
than a pet monkey and would treat me the same or worse.
Then we started through the simulation exercises. They had a room in the big
house rigged up kinda like they thought Vogel's Safe Room was-but they wasn't
sure- complete with secret passage, and they took me in there naked and in light
but limiting arm and leg chains to where a big guy about Vogel's size and weight
played the mark. The first three days of this, twenty times a day with analysis,
I never even come close to takin' him, and I got real discouraged. Still, every
time I blew it they took me aside, showed me a recordin' of the whole thing, and
explained what I done wrong, what tricks I fell for, what opportunities I
missed. I learned quick-this was my ass on the line, and I wanted to live to
spend that bread. By the fourth day of trainin', I took not only the fellow
playin' Vogel but two other guys even bigger and meaner about half the time. By
the time there was only two days left, I was takin' all comers in that room
three out of four times.
It wasn't good enough, but it had to do.
We also had all sorts of briefin's, goin' on and on and makin' us all memorize
everything till we talked it in our sleep. Timing, other things, and most
important the emergency procedures in case it went down wrong. I knew just what
was gonna happen when and if, and there were only a few things they didn't tell
me, 'cause if I didn't know then I couldn't be made to tell Vogel.
That night, we got dressed up in fancy-colored silks for the last real night
we'd have until it was over. The way I talked, the last thing I wanted was
guests and a dinner party, but this weren't no last meal. The ones comin' to
dinner were the folks with the five million bucks-the Security Committee.
"You got to do all the talkin'," I told Sam. "I couldn't open my mouth 'round
nobody now."
"Yeah, well, I'll try, but you're what they've come to see and neither Aldrath
nor I like it much."
"Huh?"
"Babe, these guys dreamed up this thing and passed the job of actually doing it
down to Aldrath, who passed it on to Bill and then to us, but until now it's
just an abstract thing to them. Beyond Bill, Aldrath, Jamispur, and a tight
circle of security personnel who have their brains laundered every morning to
make sure they're secure, nobody knows who is doing this, or when, or anything
else. Now all of a sudden the whole damned committee shows up and demands to
meet with us. They're all corporate class people- untouchable even by Aldrath
unless he catches them with a smoking gun in their hands standing over a freshly
dead body. They're all ambitious up-and-coming corporate types, sort of like
Congressmen. They're a potentially leaky bunch and you can do a lot in
forty-eight hours."
"But thurely the Thecurity Committee is checked out!" Trouble was, I was