"Harry Harrison - SSR 01 - The Stainless Steel Rat" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

as fourteen was being loaded into the armored truck, load number fifteen appeared in the store
entrance. The truck driver had been counting the way I had, he stepped down from the cab and moved
to the door in the rear in order to lock it when loading was finished.

We synchronized perfectly as we strolled by each other. At the moment he reached the rear door
I reached the cab. Quietly and smoothly I climbed up into it and slammed the door behind me. The
assistant had just enough time to open his mouth and pop his eyes when I placed an anesthetic bomb
on his lap; he slumped in an instant. I was, of course, wearing the correct filter plugs in my
nostrils. As I started the motor with my left hand, I threw a larger bomb through the connecting
window to the rear with my right. There were some reassuring thumps as the guards there droned
over the bags of change.
This entire process hadn't taken six seconds. The guards on the steps were just waking up to
the fact that something was wrong. I gave them a cheerful wave through the window and gunned the
armored truck away from the curb. One of them tried to run and throw himself through the open rear
door but he was a little too late. It all had happened so fast that not one of them had thought to
shoot, I had been sure there would be a few bullets. The sedentary life on these planets does slow
the reflexes.
The monocycle drivers caught on a lot faster, they were after me before the truck had gone a
hundred feet. I slowed down until they had caught up, then stamped on the accelerator, keeping
just enough speed so they couldn't pass me.
Their sirens were screaming of course and they had their guns working; it was just as I had
planned. We tore down the street like jet racers and the traffic melted away before us. They
didn't have time to think and realize, that they were making sure the road was clear for my
escape. The situation was very humorous and I'm afraid I chuckled out loud as I tooled the truck
around the tight corners.
Of course the alarm had been turned in and the roadblocks must have been forming up ahead -
but that half mile went by fast at the speed we were doing. It was a matter of seconds before I
saw the alley mouth ahead. I turned the truck into it, at the same time pressing the button on my
pocket short wave.


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Along the entire length of the alley my smoke bombs ignited. They were, of course, home made,
as was all my equipment, nevertheless they produced an adequately dense cloud in that narrow
alley. I pulled the truck a bit to the right until the fenders scraped the wall and only slightly
reduced my speed, this way I could steer by touch. The monocycle drivers of course couldn't do
this and had the choice of stopping or rushing headlong into the darkness. I hope they made the
right decision and none of them were hurt.
The same radio impulse that triggered the bombs was supposed to have opened the rear door of
the trailer truck up ahead and dropped the ramp. It had worked fine when I had tested it, I could
only hope now that it did the same in practice. I tried to estimate the distance I had gone in the
alley by timing my speed, but I was a little off. The front wheels of the truck hit the ramp with
a destructive crash and the armored truck bounced rather than rolled into the interior of the
larger van. I was jarred around a bit and had just enough sense left to jam on the brakes before I
plowed right through into the cab.
Smoke from the bombs made a black midnight of everything, that and my shaken-up brains almost
ruined the entire operation. Valuable seconds went by while I leaned against the truck wall trying
to get oriented. I don't know how long it took, when I finally did stumble back to the rear door I