"Destroyer 034 - Chained Reaction.pdb" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Remo)

"Breakfast."
"Danish snack," he said, seeing the years of pastry in the woman's face and assuming it meant 10 A.M.
"Not now?" she whined.
"Got to check the gas," he said. He would be out way before 10 A.M. He would be out of the whole thing in ten minutes and out of this career in thirty.
He gave her a wink. She winked back and her eyelashes stuck together and she had to dislodge them manually.
Remo moved through the suite's entertaining room with his normal silence. He hadn't thought about moving like this for more than ten years. The silence came from the breathing rhythms and the body in unity with its nervous system and its own internal rhythms. All things had rhythms, most too subtle to be perceived by those untrained and not even suspected by those who clogged their systems with meat fats and took bare little jerky breaths, hardly ever washing the full lung with oxygen as they should.
Remo only noticed he was moving correctly when the woman gasped, "My god. You move like a ghost. You don't make sounds."
"It's your ears," lied Remo and he was out the window, onto the ledge, and then pressed against the brick, salty with the Miami Beach sea air, and somewhat worn by cars' exhaust fumes. The wear was not much but the brick edges became crumbly and one had to be extra careful not to rely on them. Instead he had to bring the wall
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into himself and press upward. A full ledge could be used for a leap, but there was no ledge beneath his feet now, and the wall had to be worked meticulously.
"How are you doing that? What are you standing on?" It was the woman. Her head out the window. She was eye-level with his feet.
"It's a trick. See you later, sweetheart."
"How do you do that?"
"Mind control," Remo said. "I've got tremendous mental discipline."
"Can I do that?"
"Sure. Later."
"It looks so easy. Like you're doing nothing. You're just moving up the wall," said the woman, her voice rising in amazement as she turned her head to follow the progress of the attractive young man.
There it was. She was sure of it. The feet were touching nothing. They were pressed into the wall itself and it was like he was creating a suction force with his body. But where was the suction?
She imagined herself between that man and the wall and this so aroused her that she momentarily thought of flinging herself out the window and making him catch her. But what if he wouldn't catch her? She looked down. It was a long way down and the surf looked so small below, like pieces of Christmas tree tinsel floating in a huge wide blue-green bathtub. And right near the beach, those two heart-shaped green swimming pools for those who preferred chlorine to salt.
She pulled in her head.
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Remo moved up to the twenty-third floor, caught a ledge with his right hand, and yanked, so that when he went up and by with only a little tap from his foot, he was hanging onto the ledge of the twenty-fourth floor. With a slight swaying, he got his body into a pendulum motion, released at the top of the arc, and was one window over, so he went window flip to window flip until he reached the largest window at the corner, wedged it open, and surprise, surprise, here was the master bedroom.
Hastings Vining had assumed the outside was safest because he could get more layers of protection between himself and the doors below. They always took an outside room and, as befitted the station of whatever kind of lord they might happen to be, the largest room. So Remo was in the room and he awakened the man by squeezing his cheeks.
"Hold on," said Remo, holding the face in his right hand, while he searched his black chino slacks for the note. He had written down what he was supposed to ask.
"Just a minute, we've got it right here," said Remo. He felt that swelling strain of the man's jaw just before it cracked-bone did that before it broke-and he eased the grip but not enough to let the face out of it.
"I've got it. I've got it," said Remo. He recognized his own handwriting.
"All right. One fattened duck, curry powder, brown rice, half a pound . . . oops. Sorry. Shopping. Just a minute. I really do have it. I took it down this morning. Hold on. Here it is." Remo cleared his throat. "All righty, who are your gov-
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ernment contacts on the Russian grain deal ? How much did you pay them ? When did you pay them and what are your current plans with the grain futures? Yeah. That's right," said Remo and he allowed the jaw to move. But the lips started to cry out for help and Remo had to grab the jaw again. He also sent an excruciating pain through the left ear with the forefingers of his left hand as he held the paper in his mouth. It was wet but he managed again.
This time he got answers. He got names. He got amounts. He got numbers of bank accounts in which the money was deposited. He got everything.
"One more thing," asked Remo.
Hastings Vining nodded in absolute terror. He had been sleeping and then suddenly there was someone tearing his face off. And he couldn't call his guards. He couldn't do anything but say whatever the man wanted to stop the pain.
So Hastings Vining, one of the leading commodities brokers in the world, babbled out everything the man wanted and held back nothing. When he said he wanted one more thing, Vining nodded. He had given the most incriminating evidence against himself he possibly could. Nothing else could harm him more.
"A pencil," said Remo. "I want a pencil. And could you repeat everything slowly?"
"I don't have a pencil," said Vining. "I don't. I honestly don't. I swear I don't."
"Have a pen?"
"No. I have a dictating machine."
"I don't trust machines," said Remo.
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"I have a pen outside. In the vestibule. But Big Jack's there. He's my bodyguard. He's out there."
"That's all right," said Remo. He should have brought a pencil. This always happened. When you needed a pencil you never had one, yet when you didn't need one they were rolling around everywhere.
"You don't mind my bodyguard bringing a pen?"
"Not at all," said Remo. "But it better write."
Trembling, Vining rose from the bed and took hesitant barefoot steps across the deep white carpet of the master bedroom of his penthouse fortress. He opened a large double door a crack and put his face outside where the intruder could not see. Big Jack was dozing.
"Jack," said Vining and Big Jack opened his eyes, startled.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Vining," apologized Big Jack for sleeping on the job.
"Jack, I want a pen," said Vining and tried to move his eyes in such a way as to indicate there was someone else in the room with him.
Big Jack looked puzzled. He squinted his gross face and rubbed an eyebrow. He offered a pen he had been doodling with on a magazine. He liked to draw pictures of breasts. Big Jack would hide them when people came round, but he lined his magazines with ballpoint drawings of breasts. He had once told a friend there were thirty-seven different kinds of nipples. That was the other thing Big Jack knew. The first was breaking heads. He had done that for a loan shark in Jersey City until Mr. Vining had given him this respectable job and now he only broke heads in self
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defense if anyone tried to get physical with Mr. Vining. This had not happened for two years.