"Destroyer 052 - Fool's Gold.pdb" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Remo)

"Thank you, Pasha ibn Hassan," said the gardener.
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"But I only see seven blossoms."
"Yes," said the gardener. His eyes could not stay away from the gun.
"You bent down ten times."
"Did I, great Pasha?"
"Where are the other three blossoms?" Walid asked.
"They were not fit to grace your home. I have them in my pocket."
"And what do you do with those blossoms you keep in your pocket?"
"Those," the gardener said with a laugh, "those are not nearly good enough for your house. Not nearly. I give them to my daughter."
"You give my roses to your daughter. I have been like a compassionate father to you, and you take my roses in return?"
"But you would not use them, O Pasha."
"That is not for you to decide. When one takes a gift instead of waiting for it to be given, that then is stealing."
"Oh no, great one."
"Still I am compassionate and generous. I am your friend and a man of honor. You may run. I will not shoot you close-up for your thievery. Run."
The gardener fell to his knees, crying "Please."
"Run or I will shoot you here and you will see the end to my compassion."
The gardener stood up, trembling.
"Run," said Walid ibn Hassan and, true to his word, he did not fire until the man was fifty yards away. At that point, he sent a slug into the flailing left hand and got the first finger. At sixty yards he got the second finger and at seventy he had to take
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the hand. By a hundred yards, the hand was a stump on the wrist, breathing blood.
Hassan had the Mauser at his cheek and working well. She was a good gun. She took a piece out of the right shoulder, and at 180 yards when the distance was becoming too great for perfect accuracy, she put a perfect slug into the left knee.
It dropped the man. Hassan worked his beauty, quickly, before the man could die of blood loss. He took off the feet, changing clip after clip to keep shooting.
The gardener twitched and jerked each time Hassan's beauty sent a lead kiss across the grounds to their target. She tortured the man beautifully, even taking off his manhood, and when she was asked, she sent the gardener to eternity with a shot through the eye.
Walid ibn Hassan kissed his beauty on her grip and very tenderly put her into a velvet case. She was ready.
The gardener would be buried among the roses where his body could, in death, nourish the roots as he had in life.
Hassan had cured his weapon in blood.
He was ready. That afternoon he was on an airplane bound first to Mexico City and then to the nation of Hamidia. To get his beauty through all the airport checks, he had her disassembled into several sections; but finally, after the flight from Mexico by a small airplane to the People's Democratic Republic of Hamidia, he was at the gates of the People's Liberation Palace with his beauty, as he had been instructed to be.
Nine other men waited with their rifles.
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"Hello, Mahatma," he said to the Indian. "Blessings upon you, Wu," he said to the Burmese.
"Walid, my brother," said the Ghanaian, dark as pitch with a killing eye that Walid knew was as accurate as a beam stretched to the dark side of the universe.
"What is it this time, Walid?" Wu asked.
"I do not know. Mahatma always knows."
Mahatma shrugged and readjusted his turban. "I do not know. But we always do well with Lord Wissex."
On this, everyone agreed.
They waited for half an hour in the hot Hamidian sun with the odors of Liberation City wafting to them from unfinished sewers. They did not mind this, mainly because their own countries were run remarkably like Hamidia. It was a requirement of the Third World that one's grandiose ambitions for a new world order were in inverse proportion to how well your government treated human waste. Thus sewers were delayed while delegates built the new infrastructures of world governments. This was best done, however, away from Third World countries because their streets stank. It was no accident that the Third World countries never moved the United Nations away from New York City.
Finally Lord Wissex emerged from the People's Palace.
"Are we all here?" he called out.
There were ten yeses amid wishes for his long health, the fecundity of his wife concerning male children, and various assorted gods wishing him all manner of eternal life and wealth.
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"Thank you all," said Lord Wissex. "The House of Wissex has always relied on its loyal allies and friends in its hour of need. We are assured by your faithful service of your good wishes and we see fine fortune ahead for all in these endeavors upon which we now embark."
There was general applause.
"We have been called upon to defend the natural rights of the independent nation of Hamidia-which we will do," said Wissex. "And do forthrightly."
"Hear, hear," came voices from the ten gunmen.
"Tally ho," said Lord Wissex. "Follow me." All ten snipers marched into the courtyard and then into the palace, where Generalissimo Moombasa sat brooding with his general staff.
"Rifles," he said to Wissex in disgust. "I got thousands of rifles."
Walid ibn Hassan heard his precious loved one called a "rifle." He said nothing; nor did the others. He had been in situations like this before and Lord Wissex had explained:
"In situations like this, talk not with your tongue but with your weapon. And I will decide when that talks."
But Hassan did not need Lord Wissex to explain this. His father had told him this. And his grandfather had told his father and his grandfather had been told by his great-grandfather.