"Jeffrey Lord - Blade 28 - Wizard of Rentoro" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lord Jeffery)

was the lucky man after all.
Blade took a taxi from the station to his flat, undressed, ate breakfast in his dressing gown, and slept
until noon. Then he took a shower, shaved, and pulled on the first clothes that came to hand.
There was no point in dressing up for a trip to Dimension X. He always began the trips wearing
nothing but a coat of foul-smelling black grease and a loincloth, and ended them wearing nothing at all.
All the clothes he was pulling on now had to do was keep him from getting wet, cold, or arrested for
indecent exposure until he got to the Tower.
The taxi crept throughLondon 's traffic and deposited Blade at the Tower. The grim-faced Special
Branch men who guarded the entrance to the underground complex checked Blade's identification and
passed him through. The elevator plunged two hundred feet down in a few seconds, and the long echoing
corridor led him to the computer section.
J met him at the far end of the corridor. When they were at the door leading to the main computer,
out of earshot of the technicians and programmers, the older man turned to Blade. "The Prime Minister
wasn't very happy about your report on the American trip," he said.
"I didn't write it to make the old—the man happy," said Blade shortly. Actually, there was no point in
being harsh. The Prime Minister was another man doing his best and enduring a great deal of trouble.
Without his efforts in providing money and discouraging inquisitive members of Parliament, Project
Dimension X would long since have fallen apart.
"No, but he did have hopes that the Americans might be able to contribute more. I'm afraid he has
the usual notion that in the American intelligence services money grows on trees and they can give it away
by the barrel to any likely project."
Blade laughed and shook his head. He'd gone off to theUnited States with some of those same
notions himself. He'd spent a working vacation, taking desert-survival and underwater-demolitions
refresher training, looking over a few possible candidates for Project Dimension X, and generally keeping
up his contacts in the American intelligence services. Parts of the month had been pleasant enough, but in
the end he'd been disappointed.
"The CIA's too busy putting its own house in order to be very receptive to new and expensive
projects," he said. "The money's there; but it would be like pulling teeth to get them to spend it on a
British request.
"Even if they were willing to spend it, their internal security's below standard these days. By the time
they'd come through with the money, somebody would have leaked everything to the press. Then Project
Dimension X would be on national television, the front page of the Washington Past, and God knows
where else."
J winced at the idea. After a moment he asked, "What about approaches to some of the other
American agencies, the military ones, for example? They aren't under such close examination by the
press."
Blade recognized J's tone. The older man was not seeking information on a matter of which he was
ignorant. What he wanted was Blade's point of view, on a matter where the facts were already known. J
had been in intelligence work for the better part of half a century, and knew as well as any man alive how
much more there was to it than simple facts. A great many of J's friends and allies were alive because
he'd gone beyond the facts. Almost as many enemies were dead.
"No, they aren't," said Blade. "But that won't help us. The CIA is just as jealous of its status as ever,
in spite of all its troubles. If we approached—oh, the Defense Intelligence Agency, for example—without
giving the CIA at least the chance to turn us down, there'd be the devil to pay! We could kiss good-bye
any hope of American cooperation for about the next five years. We don't want to have to wait that long,
I think."
"No," said J. "We don't. But we are going to have to give the Americans a miss for a while. That puts
us back to square one as far as finding new people are concerned. Our own agencies and services have
already been gone over with a fine-toothed comb. I'm damned if I can see any point in trying them again,
and I can't see the Prime Minister supporting it, either." He sighed, and for a brief moment he looked