"John DeChancie - Castle 03 - Castle Kidnapped" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dechancie John)

Thirty-eight — Central Bureaucracy — Ministry of Pain

Thirty-nine — Chamberlain’s Quarters

Forty — Westmoreland County, PA.

Forty-one — Sheila’s World


One


On the Approach Path to Greater Pittsburgh International
Airport
Gene Ferraro heard the groan of servomechanisms, looked out the window of the Lockheed 1011, and
saw the plane’s flaps slide down and lock into place. The sound of whooshing air got louder and the
engines revved up and whined, providing more thrust to compensate for increased drag.

Below, the ground was still shrouded in haze, but occasional features began to appear: here a sprawling
shopping complex, there the winding ribbon of a freeway. Gene turned from the window, sat back, and
sighed. The stewardess came by, whisked away his empty coffee cup, and hurried off on her rounds.
Gene pushed up on the serving tray in front of him and locked it back into place. Presently the “No
Smoking” and “Fasten Seat Belts” lights came on. The first directive didn’t apply, but Gene obeyed the
second.

He looked out the window again. Everything suddenly whited out as the plane plunged through low
cloud, but shortly things cleared again and the ground reappeared, now a little closer.

file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/John%20DeChancie%20-%20Castle%2003%20-%20Castle%20Kidnapped.html (4 of 210)23-12-2006 0:25:22
 Castle Kidnapped John DeChancie - 0-7592-6265-9en-usen-usCopyright © 1989 by John DeChancie{7A7127F2-6985-




Everything seemed fine. He was glad to be back home, even though he had enjoyed his stay in southern
California. Los Angeles was … well, a different world, all sun and surf and blond leggy women. Glitzy
as hell, daubed in Technicolor shades. Everywhere palm trees and tangled freeways and pastel stucco
houses with orange Spanish tile roofs. Also smog, and lots of crazy people. And automobiles, lots and
lots of those. Who had said that California had the most of everything and the best of nothing? It was
true, Gene thought, but there is something to be said for sheer quantity. He had liked the place, but had
had enough after two weeks. He’d bade goodbye to Linda Barclay and took the first nonstop flight out.
Linda wanted to spend more time with her mother before going back to Perilous.

And after dutifully visiting with his own folks, that’s exactly where he was going: Castle Perilous.

It no longer seemed like a dream to him — the castle, that is. He had long come to accept Castle Perilous
as reality. It was either that or the most elaborate and convincing shared hallucination in medical history.
But Gene could no longer regard the latter case as anything but the remotest improbability. The castle
was real; it was an actual, physical place, made of cold hard stone. He had bumped his head against it on
occasion. It had hurt.