"Tim LaHaye & Jerry Jenkins - Left Behind Series 6 - Assassins" - читать интересную книгу автора (LaHaye Tim)

Buck rose.


Mac delicately lowered the skids onto the pavement at the east side of the hangar
that housed the Condor 216. The hangar door was open, the cavernous cargo hold of
the Condor also agape. David jumped out before the blades stopped whirring and
hurried to unhook the cable from the cargo. Out from the hangar sped a forklift that
quickly engaged the first load, smoothly tilted it back against the truck, then spun in
a circle and shot back into the hangar. By the time Mac joined David and they shut
the hangar door, the forklift operator had shut the Condor cargo hold and was
replacing the forklift in a corner.
“Corporal Christopher!” David shouted, and the corporal whirled to face him from a
hundred feet away. “Your office, now!”
“Doesn't look too pleased,” Mac said as they walked to the glassed-in office within
the hangar. “No salute, no response. Negative body language. Gonna be a
problem?”
“The corporal is my subordinate. I hold all the cards.”
“Just the same, David, you have to give respect to get respect. And we can trust no
one. You don't want one of your key people•”
“Trust me, Mac. It's under control.”
The name on the office door next to Mac's had just been repainted: “CCCCC.”
'“What is that?” Mac said.
“Corporal Christopher, Condor Cargo Chief.”
“Please!” Mac said.
David motioned Mac to follow him into the corporal's office, shut the door, and sat
behind the desk, pointing to a chair for Mac. The older man seemed to sit
reluctantly.
“What?” David said.
“This is how you treat a subordinate?”
David put his feet on the desk and nodded. “Especially a new one. Got to establish
who's boss.”
“I was taught that if you have to use the word boss with an employee, you've
already lost 'em.”
David shrugged. “Dark ages,” he said. “Desperate times, desperate measures ...”
Footsteps stopped outside the door, and the knob turned. David called out, “Surely
you'll knock before walking in on your boss and your pilot, won't you, Corporal?”
The door stopped, open an inch.
“Shut the door and knock, Corporal!” David hollered, his hands behind his head,
feet still on the desk.
The door shut, a little too loudly. Then a long pause. Finally, three deliberate and
loud raps on the door. Mac shook his head. “This guy even knocks sarcastically,” he
whispered. “But you deserve it.”
“Enter,” David said.
Mac's chair scraped as he bolted upright in the presence of a young woman in
fatigues. Under her cap showed short cropped black hair, cut almost like a man's,
but she was trim and comely with large dark eyes, perfect teeth, and flawless skin.
Mac whipped off his cap. “Ma'am.”
“Spare me, Captain,” she said, then turned her scowl on David. “I'm required to
knock to enter my own office?”
David had not moved. “Sit down, Mac,” he said.