"Brian Lumley - Psychomech 01 - Psychomech" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lumley Brian)

‘Who—?’ Schroeder gasped, banging into the opposite wall of the corridor.
One of the youths whipped out a gun. The SMG in the Corporal’s hands made a harsh ch-ching sound as Garrison
slammed back the cocking piece, and in the next moment the weapon seemed to burst into a lethal life of its own. It
bellowed a staccato message of death that blew the two youths away from the door of 506 and sent them spinning
along a white wall which turned red where they touched it.

Then they fell, sprawling in the corridor and dying along with the SMG’s booming echoes.
Garrison, down on one knee, had fired upward at them. Those rounds which had gone astray had spent themselves
harmlessly in the ceiling. Cleared as .if by magic, the corridor was almost empty now; only two elderly ladies remained,
clutching at each other as they stumbled along the bloodied wall.
Then Garrison and Schroeder were inside 506, their eyes taking in the scene at a glance.
A toddler in a playsuit was crying, arms reaching, staggering like a mechanical toy across the floor of the room. A
woman, young and beautiful, lay on the bed. She was gagged and bound, her eyes wide and pleading. An older
woman lay stretched out on the floor, obstructing the toddler’s progress. Her bun of dark hair was red with blood, as
was the carpet where she lay. A parcel in the shape of a six-inch cube of brown paper sat on the dresser, emitting acrid
smoke which curled upward in a deadly spiral. The paper of the upper side was turning crisp and black. A tiny flame
appeared, reaching upward through the curling paper.
‘Bomb!’ yelled the Corporal. He grabbed the woman off the bed like a rag doll and tossed her into Schroeder’s arms,
knocking the industrialist back out into the corridor. Then he stepped over the unconscious or dead woman on the
floor and snatched up the screaming child-
‘Mein Kind! Mein Sohn!’ Schroeder was back in the doorway, having dumped his wife in the corridor. He took a
step inside the room.
‘Out!’ Garrison yelled. ‘For Christ’s sake, out!’ He hurled the child across the room into his father’s arms, made to
dive for the door and tripped on the prone body of the nanny. Flying headlong across the room, he passed between
the bomb and the doorway. And even willing himself through the air, as he stretched himself out desperately towards
the corridor, his eyes were on the burning parcel.
For this one had his number on it and he knew it. He knew - somehow knew - that it was going to explode.
Which, at that precise moment, it did.

Chapter Two

When Schroeder regained consciousness he was in a hospital bed, held together and kept alive by an amazing array
of pipes and tubes, wires and stitches, instruments and mechanisms. Koenig was at his bedside. The man was seated,
gauze-masked, his head bowed. Tears fell on to his hands which were crossed in his lap. Tears were not characteristic
of Willy Koenig.
‘Willy,’ said Schroeder, his voice a whisper. ‘Where am I?’ He spoke in German.
Koenig looked up, his mouth opening, a light flickering into life behind the bloodshot orbs of his eyes. ‘Colonel!
Colonel, I—’
‘Wo bin ich?’ Schroeder insisted.
‘Still in Ireland,’ said Koenig. ‘You could not be moved. It has been eight days, almost nine. But now - now you will
recover!’
‘Yes, I will, but—’
‘Yes, Herr Colonel?’
Schroeder tried to smile but managed only a grimace. ‘Willy, we’re alone. Call me Thomas. In fact, from now on you
must always call me Thomas.’
The other nodded his blond head.
‘Willy,’ said Schroederagain, ‘I will recover, yes. But you should know what I know. That bomb finished me. A year,
two if I’m lucky. I feel it.’
 Koenig fell to his knees beside the bed. He grasped his Colonel’s hand, kneaded it. Schroeder’s grip was
surprisingly strong. It tightened in a sudden spasm of memory.