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

CHAPTER THREE
Colonel Wendell Bleech got his orders at 4:35 A.M. from the chief himself. They came in the form of a question.
Could he, at this time, pull off one of the initial missions? It was important, because within a short period, the chief wanted to show a fully trained product.
"Can do, sir," said Bleech. He hoisted his pumpkin body up in the bed and made a note of the time the call came in.
"Colonel, it is imperative that you not fail. If you are not ready yet, I'd rather wait."
"We are ready now, sir. Ahead of time." There was a long pause. Bleech waited with the pencil poised over the pad. He heard the even step of his personal guard outside his barracks door. His room was bare as a cell, with only a hard bed, one window, and a trunk for his clothes. Other than the toaster and the refrigerator to keep his English muffins at forty-three-degree temperature and the white enameled bread box holding twenty-two different kinds of jam, the room was without amenities. It was more stark even than his troopers' quarters.
If Bleech needed justification for his harsh dis-
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cipline, and in his own mind he did not, this room would have sufficed. But he had all the justification he needed in his mission itself. Every time he looked at the two lone pictures in his room beneath the stars and bars of the Confederacy, the old South defeated in the first Civil War, he knew he would do anything for his mission. It was not just another set of orders to him; it was a life's calling. It had led him from the regular army to this special unit, from which there was no recall.
"Colonel, it would be bad if we could not move now, but it would be even worse if we moved and failed."
"We will not fail."
"Can you move tomorrow?"
"Yes," said Bleech.
"Against a city that can be closed off from every exit?"
"Norfolk, Virginia?" guessed Bleech.
"Yes. With the naval base there and lots and lots of hidden protection."
"We can do it."
"Enthusiasm has its limits, Colonel."
"Sir, my enthusiasm ends where my reality begins. I would take this unit anywhere. They're mine and they're good and they aren't messed up with a lot of mollycoddling regular army regulations'. This is a fighting unit, sir."
"Go," said the chief in the deep soft voice that the very rich often have because they never have to raise their voices to get anything.
"When do we get the list of ... er, subjects?" asked Bleech.
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"You have it in your Norfolk files. We would like fifteen out of twenty."
"Yes sir. You'll have them within two days."
"I don't want welts on them. No scars either. Welts and scars offend people."
"Not a mark," Bleech promised. "Prime, sir."
Colonel Bleech did not go back to bed but dressed in combat fatigues. He would return to bed in two days. He couldn't sleep now anyhow.
He walked across the main camp compound under the dark misty sky of predawn morning. He smelled the moist heavy breezes of the nearby swamp and heard his solitary footsteps on the parade ground gravel, like crunching drums from an approaching one-man army.
He headed for the intelligence security branch that was leakproof because it was unique. There was no piece of paper in it that could be stolen, that could be given to the FBI or CIA or Congress or anyone who could expose the special unit and what Colonel Bleech now considered his sacred mission.
He had always hated paperwork anyhow. And now he would examine maps and reports and lists without ever touching one piece of paper.
At the north side of the compound, two guards with submachine guns stood over a flat level square of khaki-painted steel.
He nodded to the flat metal square beneath their feet, and thought that if one planted flowers in a cold frame above that door, it could become completely invisible.
The two guards had asbestos gloves clipped to their belts in case Colonel Bleech wanted to enter
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during- the day. The metal shield got awfully hot under the summer sun of South Carolina.
It was comparatively cool now and the two men bent over and put their bare hands under the metal slab. With a grunting effort, they hoisted it, revealing a white concrete stairwell.
Bleech's riding boots made sharp clicking sounds as he descended.
"All right, put it back now," he said, impatiently holding a key at a lock. It would not enter the lock slot unless the heavy metal slab above was shut. The meager moonlight disappeared and the stairwell became dark as a grave as Colonel Bleech pressed his key into the lock, and the door opened and a soft light, increasing gradually, filled the room ahead.
In the center of the room was a console with a screen, one chair, and a set of buttons. This room was simply access to the accumulated intelligence of the cause. When he had seen the room for the first time, when he was initiated into the cause, when the chief himself showed him this room, he knew it was possible to achieve the grand mission.
For here was America at the push of a button, and he pushed Norfolk, Virginia, and he saw the map of the city connected by tunnel and bridge to mainland sections and what security was on each and what the city police did and the state police did and who, as of two days ago, was generally doing what to make the city operate.
He pressed keys for an update and new data flashed onto the console screen. He pressed keys to get the names, locations, and pictures of the twenty. He asked for an update on their where-
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abouts, no later than noon. He pressed in emergency. The beauty of a system like this, he thought, was that people at the other end of the computer did not have to have any knowledge of who or what they were gathering information for.
Thousands could be working for the cause, and not one would have to know it. Which was why Colonel Bleech believed that it would be possible to achieve the grand mission.
Here he was, looking at the innards of a city, and he was going to go in and neatly take what he wanted, then leave. There was no law or force that could stop him.
Bleech worked out three plans for the raid. It was not like he was inventing them at the moment. He had worked on them for months. He ran them through the computer for an evaluation. And it wasn't that one or at best two would work. They would all work; it was a question of which would work best.
He liked the answers the computer gave back. The assignment was easy, a piece of cake.
The only real problem was the twenty targets. By their nature, they had no exact pattern. Sometimes this pool hall or that bar when the welfare checks arrived, sometimes just an abandoned building. Some would probably be in the hands of the police.
Colonel Bleech refined his plans from the isolated intelligence room as he gave orders to the computer. He was thirsty and hungry and tired and his stomach groaned when he signaled the guards upstairs to open the heavy metal lid.
When they did a light went on in the computer