"Clancy, Tom - Op-Center 05 - Ballance of Power" - читать интересную книгу автора (Clancy Tom)

to let the attacker claim a second victim.
She was going to get through this, even if it were one
second at a time.
BALANCE OF POWER 21
The sergeant smiled back warmly and walked with her
slowly toward the open gate.
As Aideen was being led away the palace doctor
rushed by. A few moments later she heard an
ambulance. The young woman half turned as the
ambulance stopped right where the getaway car had been.
As the medical technicians hurriedly unloaded
a gurney, Aideen saw the doctor rise from beside
Martha's body. He'd only been there a moment.
He said something to a guard then ran over to the
mailman. He began opening the buttons of the
man's uniform then yelled for the paramedics
to come over. As he did, the guard lay his jacket
over Martha's head.
Aideen looked ahead. That was it, then. It took just
a few seconds, and everything Martha Mackall had
known, planned, felt, and hoped was gone. Nothing
would ever bring that back.
The young woman continued to hold back tears as she was
led into a small office along the palace's
ornate main corridor. The room was
wood-paneled and comfortable and she lowered herself into a
leather couch beside the door. She felt achy where her
knees and elbows had hit the pavement and she was still in
an acute state of disbelief. But a countershock
reflex was going to work, replenishing the physical
resources that had shut down in the attack. And she
knew that Darrell and General Rodgers and
Director Paul Hood and the rest of the
Op-Center team were behind her. She might be by herself
at the moment, but she was not alone.
"You may use that telephone," the sergeant said,
22 OP-CENTER
pointing to an antique rotary phone on a glass
end table. "Dial zero for an outside line."
"Thank you."
"I will have a guard posted at the door so you
will be safe and undisturbed. Then I will go and see
about your guide."
Aideen thanked him again. He left and shut the
door behind him. The room was quiet save for the
hissing of a radiator in the back and the muted sounds
of traffic. Of life going on.
Taking another deep breath, Aideen removed a
hotel notepad from her backpack and looked down
at the telephone number printed on the bottom.