"Destroyer 009 - Murder's Shield.pdb" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Remo)

"You'd know on national television or the New York Times if I were dead. I'm not a nobody police inspector."
"You wouldn't have the brass for police work, Frankie. You'd only live three minutes with your weepy West Side liberalism."
"Which brings up why I called you, Bill. You don't think I'd just want to say hello."
"No, not a big-shot faggy liberal congressman like you. What do you want, Frankie?"
"I want you to die for me, Bill."
"Okay, just so long as I don't have to listen to your political bullshit. What's up?"
"I think I'm going to be a target very soon. What say we meet at that special place?"
"When?"
"Tonight."
"Okay, I'll leave right away. And Fag-Ass, do me a favor."
"What?"
"Don't get yourself killed before then. They'll make you into another martyr. We got enough of those."
"Just try to read the map without moving your lips, Bill."
Frank Duffy delayed telling his wife he loved her and his son how proud he was of him and God that he was sorry. Inspector William McGurk was another two weeks at least. Guaranteed. Maybe even a natural death.
He drove into Maryland to escape the heavy liquor tax and bought ten quarts of Jack Daniels. Since he would not be stopping at any other stores, he also purchased some soda to go with it.
"A quart," said Congressman Duffy. "A quart of club soda."
The clerk looked at the row of Jack Daniels bottles and said, "You sure a quart's what you want?"
Duffy shook his head.
"You're right. Make it a pint. One of those little bottles."
"We don't have little bottles."
"Then, that's okay. Just what's here on the counter. Hell, make it an even dozen."
"Jack Daniels?"
"What do you think?"
Duffy drove to the airport and loaded the Jack Daniels onto his Cessna, making sure the bottles were flat and even, a central weight on the plane. Not that they would make that much difference, but why take chances? There were old pilots and bold pilots, but no old, bold pilots.
Duffy landed that night in a small private airstrip outside Seneca Falls, New York. A car was waiting. McGurk had driven from New York City. The cold night, the unloading of the plane, and the meeting with McGurk, reminded Duffy of the night in France when he had first met the best weapons man he would ever know. It had been early spring in France and although they knew an invasion would come soon from England, they did not know when or where because high risk people are never given information that the upstairs would not want to see in enemy hands.
It was a weapons drop in Brittany. McGurk and Duffy had been assigned to distribute and teach the use of said weapons in a manner consistent, and with a degree of skill commensurate with, the practical use of such weapons in the field of operations. That is what their secret orders had said.
"We gotta show the frogs how not to blow their feet off when they fire these things," said McGurk.
He was taller than Duffy and his face was surprisingly fleshy for a man so thin, a moon of a face with a button of a nose and rounded soft lips that made him appear about as incisive as a balloon.
Duffy yelled out in French that each man should carry one case and no more. There were three cases left and a young Maquis man tried to hoist one of the extras.
"Bury them," said Duffy in French. "There's no point in your dropping off because you're tired. I'd rather have one case and one man than no case and no man."
The young Maquis still attempted to carry two. McGurk slapped him in the face and pushed him toward the line that was wending its way to the night-shrouded forest near the field.
"You can't explain things to these people," said McGurk. "The only thing they understand is a slap in the face."
In two days, McGurk had taught the French Maquis some basic skills with their new weapons. His instructional method was a slap to get attention, then a demonstration, then another slap if the student failed. To test their proficiency, McGurk asked Duffy to stage a preliminary raid, before the Maquis received their first real combat order. Duffy chose a pass in which to trap a small Nazi convoy that regularly plied its way from a Wehrmacht army base to a major airfield.
The convoy was ambushed at noon. The battle was over in less than three minutes. The French drivers and the German guards came pouring out of the trucks with their hands raised in surrender.
McGurk got them in a line. Then he motioned to the worst marksman among the Maquis. "You. Go fifty yards up that hill. Kill someone."
The young Maquis scrambled up the hill and without catching his breath, fired off a shot. It caught a German guard in the shoulder. The other prisoners fell to the ground, covering their heads with their hands and bringing their knees up into their stomachs. It looked like a road littered with grown fetuses.
"Keep going," McGurk yelled up the hill. "You'll fire until you kill him."
The next shot went wild. The shot after that took out part of a stomach. The next shot after that was wild. The young Maquis was crying.
"I don't want to kill like this," he yelled.
"You kill him or I kill you," said McGurk and raised his carbine to his shoulder, pointing it up the hill. "And I'm no crummy frog marksman. I'll take out your eyes."
Crying, the young Maquis fired again, catching the downed German in the mouth. The head was nearly severed from the neck.
"All right, goosy fingers, you got him," McGurk yelled. He lowered his carbine and turned to another Maquis who had been firing rather poorly in practice. "You're next."
Duffy sidled up to McGurk and said in a hushed voice:
"Bill. Stop this now."
"No."
"Dammit, this is murder."
"That's very right, Frankie. Now button your lip, or I'll put you in the shooting line too."
The German guards were dispatched in short order and only the French drivers were left. McGurk waved another Maquis up the hill. He refused to go.
"I will not kill Frenchmen," he said.
"I don't see how you little shits could tell the difference if it wasn't for the uniforms," said McGurk.