"Kit Reed - Judas Bomb" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reed Kit)

because she's a girl."
"Bug you," Netta said.
"So it's gotta be one of us guys. We'll face off for it. Guy that's still
standing up at the end gets the job. I'll take on any one of you guys,
starting now. Anybody…"
"Forget it, Franko." A dark form stood up.
In the dimness, Little Easter started forward. "Nobody interrupts
Franko…"
Franko pulled him back.
"Except Johnny Fairhair." Fairhaired Johnny was big, bigger than
Netta Rampo, and he was sturdy as a rhino and muscled like a bull. He
had big, black eyes and the ugliest face in Christendom, and to his
shoulders fell hair as pale and silky as that of a child. "Forget it, Franko."
He headed for his 'cicle, parked in a corner of the rink. "I'll go."
Billy from Philly looked after him and said softly, "Just as well. He's
nearly twenty. He's almost through."
Without seeming to look at him, Johnny wheeled and threw his knife. It
stuck in the back of Billy from Philly's hand.
He set out for Washington without a weapon or a plan, travelling until
the brightness of the dawn warned him to take his 'cicle down. He set
down at a deserted landmark, the last Howard Johnson's on the Jersey
Turnpike, stepping carefully through the shattered glass front, looking
into every possible hiding place before he settled down to sleep. Day fell,
and the deserted building was silent, except for the occasional drone of a
'cicle overhead.
Outside, New Jersey stretched quiet and drab. In dull cities, squares
worked under the eyes of the Hypos who lounged on catwalks, quick with
knives and curses. The Hypos were only around when they felt like it, but
the squares kept at it because sure as they flagged there'd be a Hypo
around - because he felt like it. Squares and families of squares nested in
sordid little villages of identical clapboard houses, living as quietly as
possible, subdued by the terrifying brashness of youth.
Aroused by the sound of soft breathing, Fairhaired Johnny lurched to
his feet and closed his hands about a muscular throat. He shook himself
awake and took a look at the person who stood, unmoving, between his
hands.
"Oh, it's you." He tightened his grip a little.
"Lay off, Johnny. I come along to help." It was Netta Rampo. She raised
heavy forearms and broke his hold.
He started to hit her.
"Wait a minute, Johnny. You got a plan?"
He lowered his head and kicked at a piece of glass.
"Okay." She drove her hands into her pockets and looked at him, all
business. "I do. We cross the marker and grab a guy. Maybe I pretend I'm
a Judy and go up to this guy and distract him, and you jump him. We
make him tell us where the bomb is and we go on from there. Okay?"
He hesitated.
"It's more plan than you've got."
"Okay, Netta, you're on. But don't go getting yourself knocked off.
You've got three good years left. You're only seventeen."