"Destroyer 005 - Dr Quake.pdb" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Remo)

"That's right," butted in Sheriff Wade Wyatt. "They said they can do anything. Make any kind of earthquake they want. A little ripple like this. Or boom. The whole works." He waved with his hands, indicating a massive explosion.

"I just don't want to believe it," Feinstein said. "It looks like a barrage, like after a barrage," said Dourn Rucker, president of Rucker Manufacturing Company. "You know, the dust and everything. Like after a barrage."

"All right. There are good points. We should think about the positive points," said Sonny Boydenhousen, president of Boydenhousen Realty and president of the San Aquino Chamber of Commerce. He was, like Rucker, over six feet tall. Both had pleasant bland faces and bellies going slightly potward. When they wore identical clothes, some people mistook them for twins. Today, they wore gray suits with pink shirts.

"There may be good points," he insisted. "Look, they've showed us they can make an earthquake. But they say they can prevent them. Now if they can, that's great. It'll do wonders for real estate values here. Do you think they're reliable, Wade?"

"I don't know," said Sheriff Wyatt. "All I know's that they did what they said they was going to."

Wyatt was a red-faced balloon of a man with a neat Stetson and a diamond and ruby chip American flag pin in his collar. He wore a .44 with five notches in the grip. He had put the five notches in himself with his own hand, carving very carefully. He said they represented five men. What they represented was a cut finger.

"Eight thousand dollars a month is not a bad price. I say eight thousand dollars a month is reasonable," said Boydenhousen.

"Like after a barrage," said Rucker, still gazing at the dusty field. "Like after a barrage."

"Impossible," said Feinstein.

"Two thousand dollars too much for you?" asked Wyatt, a hint of contempt in his voice. He avoided Curpwell's angry glare. He did not want another lecture on anti-semitism.

"It's not the money. I'd give ten times that for education. I've given more than fifty times that to the hospital. But this is blackmail money. Extortion money. Do you believe that? Do you know what country this is, Wade?"

"Amurrica, Mr. Feinstein, in God blessed America." His chest rose when he said that and he hoisted up his gunbelt lest the sudden loss of belly let it slip to the ground. He had always had trouble with Feinstein, whose bleeding heart seemed always to bleed for the troublemakers, the riffraff, the loafers. Not for businessmen or sheriffs or the good people who made San Aquino one of the nicest little counties in the world.

They had been told they could keep it that way, too, if everyone kept his head and was reasonable.

After all, it was a very reasonable proposition. Sheriff Wyatt had been contacted by people over the telephone. They told him they could make earthquakes. As he related it, Sheriff Wyatt had told them to go to hell.

They told him there would be an earthquake the next day at noon. And there was. The smallest possible. Just a tremor. Then they called again. This time, they said, they would give San Aquino another little gift. This time, a number two on the Mercalli intensity scale which measures earthqiiakes. Birds and small animals would be affected by it and you could feel it in your feet if you stood in an open field. It would happen at 3:55 p.m.

They told Wyatt that they could also deliver the kind of earthquake that buried cities and made civilizations disappear. But they weren't unreasonable. They could also guarantee no earthquakes. And all it would cost was $8,000 a month-$2,000 each from the county's four leading citizens. All very reasonable.

It was just after 3:55 p.m. and they had proved they could do it. But some people were unreasonable.

"Blackmail," Feinstein said again. "You're right, Wade. This is America, and Americans don't pay blackmail."

"I understand how you feel, Harris," Curpwell interrupted. "So do Sonny and Dourn. And I think, if you simplified it a bit, so would the sheriff. But on the other hand, you could think of it not as blackmail, but as insurance. What do you think the people of San Francisco would have paid not to have had 1906?" He did not give Feinstein a chance to answer. "At any rate, think about it. And we'll all meet tonight in my office at 8 o'clock. Then we'll decide."

They drove back to town, mostly in silence, ignoring Wyatt's attempts at conversation as he drove the black limousine.

Feinstein was the last to arrive that night at the private office of Lester Curpwell. The faces all turned to him as he entered the rich panelled office and locked the door behind him.

He took an envelope from his back pocket, dropped it on the table. It contained $2,000 in fives, tens and twenties, none of them new.

"That's it," he said. "Two thousand. My one and only contribution to this extortion racket. We can buy a month. I'm going to Washington tonight to tell the government."

"Do you remember we were warned?," Rucker said. "If we talk, there'll be an earthquake. A giant one. Everyone in San Aquino may die."

"I don't think so," Feinstein said. "They'll have their eight thousand. And no one has to know that I've gone to Washington."