"Eric Frank Russel - WASP" - читать интересную книгу автора (Russell Eric Frank)

"There's no money in it, not a cent," informed Wolf. "If
lucky, there is life."

"And if out of luck?"

"Death."
"You're damnably frank about it," Mowry commented.

"In this job I have to be." Wolf stared at him again, long
and penetratingly. `You'll do. Yes, I'm sure you'll do."

"Do for what?"

"I'll tell you in a moment." Opening a drawer, he extracted
some papers, passed them across. "These will enable you
better to understand the position. Read them through - they
lead up to what follows."

Mowry glanced at them. They were typescript copies of
press reports. Settling back in his chair he perused them slowly
and with care.

The first told of a prankster in Roumania. This fellow had
done nothing more than stand in the road gazing fascinatedly
at the sky, occasionally uttering ejaculations and loud phrases
such as, `Blue flames!' Curious people had joined him and
gaped likewise. The group became a crowd, the crowd became
a mob, and the bigger the mob the faster it grew.

Soon the audience blocked the street, overflowed into
side-streets. Police tried to break it up, making matters worse.
Some fool summoned the fire squads. Hysterics on the fringes
swore they could see or had seen something weird above the
clouds. Reporters and cameramen rushed to the scene.
Rumours raced around. The government sent up the air force
for a closer look. Panic spread over an area of two hundred
square miles from which the original cause had judiciously
disappeared.

"Amusing if nothing else," remarked Mowry.

"Read on."

The second report concerned a daring escape from jail of
two notorious killers. They had stolen a car, made six hundred
miles before recapture. Their term of freedom had lasted
exactly fourteen hours.

The third detailed an automobile accident. Three killed,.
one seriously injured, the car a complete wreck, the sole