"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 049 - The Mental Wizard" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

All seemed to be running, and keeping only slightly different time. They were not alike, and they were
styles of different years, as well as having been manufactured in different countries.

Amber O’Neel took his eyes off the watches and stared at what the young woman’s arm was pointing. It
was a man, the pilot of the plane, and the only other occupant.
The flier seemed to be senseless. There was a heavy copper ring—not gold, O’Neel made sure—around
each ankle, and from the rings dangled a short length of chain. It looked as if the chain had once
connected his legs, but he had managed to cut it so that he could run. He wore only a long leather skirt.

He looked like something out of a coffin, this pilot. There was almost seven feet of him, and in his day he
had been very much a man, but now his bones might weigh a hundred pounds, the rest of him not nearly
so much.

The pilot lay on his side. Amber O’Neel scowled. Obviously, the strange girl with the metallic hair
wanted him helped.

O’Neel brought up his two guns. Help him? Sure! Help him keep his mouth shut!

But the gaunt pilot had not been senseless. He had been faking, as was evident when he spoke in a
perfectly calm voice.

"If you’ve ever seen anybody shot with .45s , you’ll think again before you lift them things any higher," he
said.

Simultaneously, he rolled a trifle. A big army automatic showed. It looked rusty, but there is nothing to
guarantee a rusty gun won’t go off. O’Neel stood very still.

O’Neel had shot men in his time, and knew what happened. They didn’t always die when they were
supposed to do. There was a time in Rio when a man with three bullets as nearly in his heart as O’Neel
had been able to put them had gotten up and chased O’Neel a block. This flier might pull the automatic
trigger even after a bullet hit his brain.

Amber O’Neel put his hands up.

"Drop the guns!" ordered the wasted flier.

O’Neel dropped them, and said nothing.

"Head inland and run!" grated the aviator. "We’re going the other way, and it’ll be tough if you follow
us!"



THE flier paused. He seemed to have something else on his mind, and it did not sit pleasantly. His mouth
became a grim line, and he shoved his head forward.

"I hope you go as far inland as I did!" he gritted. "And I hope you find what I found, and what a lot of
others have found!"

O’Neel was wishing he had shot it out with the flier. He didn’t like the way the fellow’s gun hand shook.