"Robert McCammon - The Wolfs Hour" - читать интересную книгу автора (McCammon Robert R)

It was not a dog, Voigt realized.
It was a wolf.
“Mein Gott,” Voigt said, with a rush of air as if he’d been punched in his ulcerated stomach. The
muscular monster of a wolf was right on him, its mouth opening to show white fangs and scarlet gums. He
felt its hot breath on the back of his handcuffed wrist, and as he realized with a flare of horror what it was
about to do, his left hand went to the grip of his holstered Luger.
The wolf’s jaws snapped shut on Voigt’s wrist, and with a savage twist of its head it broke the bones.
A splintered nub tore through Voigt’s flesh, along with a spouting arc of scarlet that spattered the
command car’s side. Voigt screamed, unable to get the holster’s flap un-snapped and the Luger freed.
He tried to pull away but the wolf planted its claws in the ground and wouldn’t budge. The car’s driver
was frozen with shock, and Stummer was shouting for help from the other soldiers who’d just returned
from their patrol. Voigt’s burnished face had taken on a yellow cast. The wolf’s jaws were working; the
teeth starting to meet through the broken bones and bloody flesh. The green eyes stared defiantly at him.
Voigt screamed, “Help me! Help me!” and the wolf rewarded him with a shake of . its head that shivered
agony through every nerve of his body and all but severed the hand.
On the verge of fainting, Voigt tore the Luger out of his holster just as the driver cocked his own
Walther pistol and aimed at the wolf’s skull. Voigt pointed his gun into the thing’s blood-smeared muzzle.
But as the two fingers tightened on their triggers, the wolf suddenly hurled its body to one side, still
clenching Voigt’s wrist, and Voigt was thrown directly into the path of the Walther’s barrel. The driver’s
pistol went off with a strident crack! at the same time as the Luger fired into the ground. The Walther’s
bullet passed through Voigt’s back, punching a red-edged hole through his chest as it emerged. As Voigt
crumpled, the wolf ripped his hand away from the wrist. The handcuff slipped off and fell, still attached to
the satchel. With a quick snap of its head, the wolf flung the quivering hand out of its blood-smeared
jaws. It fell amid the starving dogs, and they pounced on the new piece of garbage.
The driver fired again, his face a rictus of terror and his gun hand shaking. A gout of earth kicked up
to the wolf’s left as it leaped aside. Three soldiers were running from another tent, all of them carrying
Schmeisser submachine guns. Stummer shrieked, “Kill it!” and Klinhurst came out of the headquarters
tent with his pistol in hand. But the black animal darted forward, over Voigt’s body. Its teeth found the
metal cuff, and locked around it. As the driver fired a third time the bullet went through the satchel and
whined off the ground. Klinhurst took aim—but before he could squeeze the trigger the wolf zigzagged its
body and raced off into the darkness to the east.
The driver fired the rest of his clip, but there was no howl of pain. More soldiers were coming from
their tents, and there were shouts of alarm all over the camp. Stummer ran to Voigt’s body, rolled him
over, and recoiled from all the gore. He swallowed thickly, his mind reeling at how fast it all had
happened. And then he realized the crux of the matter: the wolf had taken the satchel full of
reconnaissance maps, and was heading east.
East. Toward the British lines.
Those maps also showed the position of Rommel’s troops, and if the British got them…
“Mount up!” he screamed, coming to his feet as if an iron bar had been thrust up his spine. “Hurry, for
God’s sake! Hurry! We’ve got to stop that beast!” He raced past the command car to another vehicle
not far away: a yellow armored car with a heavy machine gun fixed to its windshield. The driver followed
him, and now other soldiers ran to their BMW motorcycles and sidecars, which also were armed with
machine guns. Stummer slid into the passenger seat, the driver started the engine and turned on the
headlights, the motorcycle engines muttered and roared and their lamps burned yellow, and Stummer
shouted, “Go!” to his driver through a throat that could already feel an executioner’s noose.
The armored car shot forward, throwing plumes of dust from its tires, and four motorcycles veered
around it, accelerated, and roared past.
A quarter mile ahead, the wolf was running. Its body was an engine designed for speed and distance.
Its eyes narrowed to slits and its jaws clamped firmly around the handcuff. The satchel bumped against
the ground in a steady rhythm, and the wolf’s breathing was a low, powerful rumbling. The racing figure