"08 - Disaster (b)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hubbard L. Ron)

Suddenly a piece of line went around my wrists. They were snapped down. Coils of line went around my body and I was wrapped to the pilot seat and tied.
More footsteps. In the pilot viewports I could see the reflection of the ghost going back through the passageways, kicking open doors, ready to fire if anyone else was there.
Another voice. "So you were trying to get me killed, just like you did my partner, Terb."
RAHT!
I looked sideways. There he was in solid flesh, his mustache bristling out on either side below his nose. He was holding a gun on me!
"Traitor!" I rasped.
"Oh, no, Gris. You're the traitor. When you lured that beautiful woman to her death, you turned my stomach. And ordering me to murder a Royal officer! You must be crazy!"
"Then he’s not dead? He's not a ghost?"
Raht gave a nasty, squeaky laugh. "He's no ghost. He's a REAL officer, the kind you never could be. When he left for Italy, I followed him. I knew he was out of range of the bugs you had on him and I told him what had been going on. He showed me his orders. From the Grand Council, too.
"So I came back here ahead of him, gave the old blind woman a note that her niece read to her, and came on through and set this all up like we planned."
"You mean he actually trusted you out there with a rifle?"
"I didn't have any rifle. Those were just flash charges I set up. I called, he came out. I ignited one by the door. Then another one by a bush. Then he fired and I ignited a third, all by remote. I simply shut off the visio switch on the activator-receiver. And your viewer went blind. Then he threw down a piece of iron so you'd think his gun had fallen and he stamped his foot so it sounded like a body and I cut off the audio switch."
"You mean, you turncoat, that you also set up this battle?"
"No, no. He did that when he knew that you were deaf and blind. He put infrared illusions all around and body heat simulators, all remote. We controlled them from way over in the woods. We were nowhere near you! Oh, he's a real officer, he is—a joy to work with one for a change. Nothing like the trash you are. Terb has been avenged!"
I was still confused. "Why did those men leap up in the air with a shriek?"
"Oh, that was his secret weapon. It found and clawed each man in turn. A remote-controlled, radio-directed cat."
Heller's voice behind me: "Get up there, Mister Calico. Sit on his chest and if he moves or speaks, hit him."
The cat sprang up into the spaceship. It sailed onto my chest. It sat there glaring balefully at me.
I opened my mouth to speak.
The cat raked my face with savage claws.
"I think he knows," said Raht, "that you had a hand in killing his mistress. I'd watch out if I were you. That's a hit cat to end them all! It scares me to death!"
I looked down into its close-up baleful eyes.
It was sort of snarling down deep.
I did not dare move.

Chapter 4

Heller said, "Let's get this battlefield cleaned up, Agent Raht. Those shots might attract visitors."
He picked up the corpse of Stabb and dragged it out through the airlock. They worked outside and I could see them making a pile of bodies. I shuddered. I was certain they were going to kill me, too.
Heller came back in. He went into the crew quarters, as I could see in the reflecting port glass. He came out lugging a trash-disintegrator unit. He carried it over to the pile and small blue lights began to glow around the bodies as buttons and bits of metal momentarily resisted disintegration.
An intermittent flash of light appeared on the track to the road-house. It grew stronger. A car! The deputy sheriffs were coming in!
Oh, thank Gods, I would be saved! They would see the spaceship and come over, and I would yell at them that I was a Federal agent and order them to arrest Heller and Raht. I even had my Inkswitch I.D. with me. I wasn't going to be exterminated here after all! I'd even have Heller on a Code break.
The car lights bored straight at the spaceship. Then they veered off and pointed toward the front of the roadhouse.
The cops jumped out on either side of their car. Heller walked up to them.
Ralph said, "Having trouble here, whitey engineer?"
They weren't even looking at the spaceship. And then I realized with a sickening comprehension that it was that (bleeped) absorbo-coat—it hadn't even reflected their car lights back to them. To all intents and purposes, the tug was invisible!
Heller was closer to them now. George said, "We heard some shots and screams."
"Wildcat," said Heller.
"No (bleep)?" said Ralph.
"Must've come down from Canada," said George.
"We missed him clean," said Heller. "He ran down the creek bed, thataway." He was pointing.
The two deputies rushed off down the creek, drawing their guns. They went right off, leaving their car lights on! I groaned. Well, maybe when they came back they'd see something unusual and rescue me.
Heller was stuffing diamonds in the gunny sack on the porch. He tied the neck and threw it in the jeep.
He and Raht went into the house and shortly began to dolly out boxes from the deep mine shaft. They piled them outside the airlock.
Heller came in and spoke to the floorplates in the passageway. It was sort of eerie how the locks were tuned to his voice. "Hold hatch, open up," he said, and the floorplates flopped back with a clang.
He lowered himself down into the limited hold of the tug. In the reflecting glass, I saw him pop back almost instantly. "What's this?" he said. He was holding a sack he'd found. He opened it and peered at the contents. "Junk stones?" It was the flawed glitter I had bought in Switzerland to fool Captain Stabb. Heller took it to the airlock and tossed it to Raht.
He went back into the hold. He came up in a moment. "What the blazes?" He was carrying something heavy. He went to the airlock. "Of all things," he said to Raht. "There's about 750 pounds of gold ingots down there."
I felt like my skull had exploded. Stabb! He was the one who had stolen my first gold shipment. He'd hidden it in the tug hold, meaning probably, when he got a chance, to do away with me and steal the tug.
"Isn't that an awful lot of gold for this planet?" said Raht.
"It sure is," said Heller. "Worth about seven million dollars at current prices. We'll take it out of its boxes and you stack it on the floor of the jeep. Transfer it to my Porsche at the old lady's. She won't be able to see what it is."