"Destroyer 012 - Slave Safari.pdb" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Remo)

"Right. We don't have coffee. Want some cold duck?"

"Alcohol this early?"

"No alcohol. Leftover duck from last night's dinner."

"Sounds awful," Smith said.

"Tastes worse."

Remo eyed Smith and the small bulge in his left jacket pocket that looked like an overstuffed envelope. He wondered how many people played small unknowing roles in collecting what went into that envelope... a secretary who made an extra income by adding a file in a magazine office that said Remo Mueller was a writer who could be counted on for Africa stories... a banker who a month before had quietly opened a bank acc ount and a line of credit for a man he had never seen, but whose name was Remo Mueller and who came highly recommended by friends. CURE was in that envelope, hundreds of people doing little jobs and not knowing the overall picture.

"I see you're interested in the envelope. Your tickets to Busati and your passports are in here along with an article under your byline. You should read it. You wrote it."

"I read it," said Remo.

"It hasn't been published yet."

"Some clown who works for Lippincott showed it to me. They offered to hire me."

"Excellent. Beyond my fondest hopes. Perfect. We had planned to get you into Busati as a journalist, let the blame fall on the magazine. But working for Lippincott is even better. For the first time, Remo, I see operations proceeding even better than planned, which is unusual for you."

"I won't be working for Lippincott," Remo said. "I sort of explained to him that I couldn't."

"You met Laurence Butler Lippincott?" asked Smith, with a tinge of reverence in his voice that Remo resented.

"Yeah. I met Lippincott. I threw a few of his employees at him."

"You what?"

"I told him I didn't want to work for him."

"But he'd make an excellent cover. We need someone to take the heat if you get messy in Busati."

Remo shrugged.

"You haven't even been committed yet," Smith groused, "and you've already created your first foul-up."

"So, don't commit me," said Remo and left the sun-porch for the refrigerator where he grabbed the carcass of a cold duck and a bowl of cold rice and, against previous warnings by Chiun, ate even though his mind was not at peace. Smith had followed him into the kitchen.

Remo tore off a greasy drumstick and began to chew the mouthful into liquid. The problem, Smith explained, was not just that James Forsythe Lippincott was missing in the Africa bush. Those things happened. CURE wouldn't bother to get involved for that, not even for a Lippincott. No, a dangerous pattern was emerging. Very dangerous.

Remo took a little ball of rice between his fingertips and placed it into his mouth. How he would love a hamburger, he thought.

"A pattern that could undermine the American people's faith in the ability of its government to protect them," Smith said.

Perhaps if he mixed the rice and duck together in his mouth, thought Remo, it might taste better.

"The basis of any government is the protection it gives its citizens," Smith said.