"Brian Lumley - E-Branch 1 - Defilers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lumley Brian)

noticed them beside the one item that seemed to leap at him from the paper: the name in the
authorization column . . . Aristotle Milan! Malinari's pseudonym!
And as that hated name burned itself into his brain, Millie said: "It's the first time in two
years that Malinari has given himself away like this. Other times when he's used Manchester's
account, he's had Manchester himself authorize it. This time he had no choice because his
'partner' was dead."
Trask felt galvanized. In his excitement he had started to his feet. He stared at the printout,
glared at it, unwilling to take his eyes off the paper in case it should disappear. It was the
best lead yet. . . possibly as good as the one that had sent him out to Australia. But-
"The extra money," he said, frowning, "or maybe all of it, is obviously for his use while he gets
himself set up again. So why didn't he take more?"
"Maybe he doesn't think he needs more," she said. "Perhaps he didn't want to alarm the bank. I
can't say. But don't forget the extraps: our three years are up-you said so yourself-and things


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could be coming to a head. Maybe money won't be important in the world that Malinari and the
others are planning."
"But we trampled on at lea-t a third of those plans out in Australia!" Trask protested.
She nodded. "So now maybe they're going to speed things up a little. For as you also pointed out
during your pep talk, the Wamphyri know for sure now that we're after them . . ."
Feeling tired, Trask sat down again. His mind was finding it hard to take in everything that
Millie was telling him/ the picture wouldn't firm up until the

last piece was in place and he could scan the whole thing. And so.- "Okay, now you can tell me the
bad news," he said, angling his head to look up at her.
"Another one of those stumbling blocks I mentioned," Millie said.
"Like what?"
"Well, like I said-the charity is just a number: number nineteen of nineteen charities. There has
to be a separate file that details exactly who, what, and where this charity is, but Jimmy didn't
have the time he would need to hack into any more files. Let's face it, there could be thousands
of them!"
"He didn't have the time?" Trask was astonished. "What are we paying him for? He could make time!"
Millie was looking uncomfortable again. "No, you don't understand," she said. "The bank's computer
was programmed with a whole bag of countermea-sures. Jimmy worked wonders but he could override
them for only so long before getting locked out." She shrugged helplessly. "So that even if you'd
sanction it-"
"Which I would-which I do-almost anything!"
"-We can't get back in. Er, and that's not all."
"Their system has probably backtracked us down!" Trask got there first. "And there'll almost
certainly be an official protest. Which means tomorrow morning, bright and early, I'll have our
Minister Responsible bleating at me on the blower!"
"And I know that when you get bleated at, we can expect to get it in the neck, too," she said.
"Hence all of the shilly-shallying," Trask growled at her, "when you could have come straight to
the point and maybe saved us a little time."
"But I wanted you to see how clever I was," she said, "and appreciate me for it. Which might take
some of the sting out of it when you get around to shouting at me."
"Do I do too much of that?" Trask asked her, and shook his head, promising, "No shouting. Why, if