"Steve Perry - The Man Who Never Missed" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Steven)

darkness by the time the last glimmer faded from the lamps.

Khadaji opened his eyes as the light against them dimmed; he adjusted the
spookeyes to compensate for the darkness. Green-on-green images came into
ghostly focus. An eye-smiting glare poured from the window of the
Sub-Befalhavare's office and he looked away from it, concentrating on the
soldiers. With full-intensification, spookeyes would amplify available light
millions of times; the glow of a flickstick butt would seem a bonfire at close
range.

He had been in the shadows with only a little cover. That would effectively be
gone, now that the light was only from the stars and the ambient city glow. He
had to move quickly. And the timing had to be right. They all had to see him
at the same time.

"Hey!" Khadaji yelled.

They were superb, the members of this quad. They spun as one, bringing their
weapons up.

Khadaji marked their positions in that instant; he also triggered the photon
flare and tossed it toward them. He turned his head and squeezed his eyes shut
tightly; even so, the light from the flare reflected from the walls beat upon
his eyes through the lids. There was no time to think about what it did to the
eyes of the quad. Khadaji ran at a right angle to his left, as fast as he
could sprint.

The quad was blind, but they were firing. A man's voice began yelling orders
over the sound of the . 177s and their explosive bullets: "Toomie, take the
left, Janie, center front! Jason, to the right!"

Khadaji circled before Jason managed to get his carbine out to cover his
assigned field of fire and raised both spets-dods. He fired twice, caught
Jason and the quad leader with the first two rounds, then fired both his
handguns again. He got Janie, but missed Toomie, who was still covering his
quadrant with short bursts of the Parker, his back to Khadaji. Before the man
could realize his team wasn't shooting, Khadaji snapped off a final round into
Toomie's neck. He went down, the Parker silenced.

No time. Khadaji sprinted for the door, tugging the spookeyes from his face as
he ran. He didn't slow, only twisted so that he hit the pressed plastic with
his left shoulder. The cheap material tore away from its sliding frame in a
shower of gray shards and Khadaji dived for the floor as he went through.

The double boom of a smoothbore pistol filled the air and the charge of brass
shot sleeted against the wall and through the open doorway. Khadaji rolled up
and fired toward the woman standing behind her desk. The dart hit her square
on the chest, but she managed to trigger another twin shot of the smoothbore
as she went backwards. The gun was pointed at the ceiling and blew a
binocular-shaped pattern in the white hardfoam.