"Энди Макнаб. Немедленная операция (engl) " - читать интересную книгу автора

September 1996
The windows and doors of the building were boarded up and bristled with
barbed wire, but that wasn't going to keep us out.
An old sheet of corrugated iron naled over the frame of a small door on
the side was loose. jamming a length of wood into the gap, I heaved with all
my weight. The nails gave. Several pairs of hands gripped the corner of the
sheet and pulled. The metal folded on itself sufficiently to create a hole
that we could crawl through.
Murky light spilled down from a run of six or seven skylights in the
flat roof thirty feet above our heads. In the gloom I could see lumps of
metal here and there on the bare concrete floor, but apart from that the
place seemed empty. There was a dank smell of mold and rotten wood and
plaster. It was totally, eerily silent; had we made the slightest noise it
would have echoed around the vast space.
Probably nobody on the outside would hear it and raise the alarm, but I
didn't want to take the chance. I looked at the others and nodded in the
direction of the stair-well at the far end. As I took a pace forward, my
foot connected with a tin can. It went skidding across the floor and
clattered into a lump of metal.
From over my shoulder came a whispered curse.
I could see that the stairwell would take us up to the offices on the
half floor, then up again to a hatch that was open to the sky.
Once we were on the roof, that was when the fun and games would start.
It felt colder thirty feet up than it had at ground level.
I exhaled hard and watched my breath form into a cloud. I started to
shiver. I walked to the edge of the flat roof and looked down at the tops of
the lampposts and their pools of light. The street was deserted. There was
no one around to see us.
Or to hear the crash of breaking glass.
I spun around and looked at the three figures standing near one of the
skylights. There should have been four.
A split second later there was a muffled thud from deep inside the
building.
"John!" somebody called in a loud, anxious whisper.
"John!"
I knew even before I looked through the jagged hole that he would be
dead. We all did. We exchanged glances, then ran back toward the roof hatch
.
John was lying very still; no sound came from his body. He was facedown
on the concrete, a dark pool oozing from the area of his mouth. It looked
shiny in the twilight.
"Let's get out of here," somebody said, and as one we scarpered for the
door. I just wanted to get home and get my head under the covers, thinking
that then nobody would ever find out-as you do, when you're just eight years
old.
The next afternoon there were police swarming all around the flats. We
got in league to make sure we had the same story because basically we
thought we were murderers.
I'd never felt so scared. It was the first time I'd ever seen anybody