"Дон Пендлтон. Caribbean Kill ("Палач" #10) " - читать интересную книгу автора

been agitating for a closer police scrutiny of the deaths of his parents and
teenage sister, whom the soldier had come home to bury. The official police
blotter covering that earlier tragedy revealed an open and shut case of
suicide-homicide, with the soldier's father as the culprit of the piece. The
soldier had strongly protested this finding, insisting that underworld
figures were at least indirectly responsible for his family's death.
Following a hunch, the Pittsfield police detective sent a query to the
military police in Saigon. The reply, reproduced below, fully confirmed the
detective's suspicions and laid to rest any ideas concerning a "gang war" in
Pittsfield.
"Sgt. Mack Bolan - age 30 - height 74 inches-weight 205 pounds, hair
brown, eyes blue. Currently on emergency furlough, ARC verified, from Corps
I area, destination your city. Subject known locally and respected
throughout enemy strongholds as The Executioner. Penetration Team
specialist, sniper. Holds sharpshooter rating, various personal weapons.
Twice awarded Silver Star and holds many lesser decorations. Also decorated
by South Vietnamese government for quote conspicuous valor unquote and quote
humanitarian actions unquote. Career man, good conduct, second tour Vietnam.
Officially credited ninety-seven kills, execution missions behind enemy
lines. Personally described by CO as quote formidable psychological warfare
weapon unquote. Request full details any alleged civil infractions your
city."
An army psychologist had these further words concerning Sgt. Bolan's
specialty: "A good sniper has to be a man who can kill methodically,
unemotionally, and personally. Personally because it's an entirely different
ball game when you can see even the color of your victim's eyes through the
magnification of a sniper-scope, when you can see the look of surprise and
fear when he realizes he's been shot. Most any good soldier can be a
successful sniper once - it's the second or third time around, when the
memories of personal killing are etched into the conscience, that the
'soldiers' are separated from the 'executioners.' Killing in this manner is
closely akin to murder in the conscience of many men. Of course, we do not
want mad dogs in this program, either. What we want, quite simply, is a man
who can distinguish between murder and duty, and who can realize that a duty
killing is not an act of murder. A man who is also cool and calm when he
himself is in jeopardy completes the picture of our sniper ideal."
Sergeant Bolan was that kind of man. That he maintained proper balance
through two years and more of this bloody career is suggested by the other
side of the Bolan ledger. Base Camp and Green Beret medics in Bolan's
theatres of operation had quietly dubbed him "Sergeant Mercy" - an
interesting contrast to the Executioner tag. It was said that the sarge
seldom returned from a mission in enemy territory without an entourage of
refugees who had become victims of enemy terrorist activities - usually the
very old, the very young, the sick, the maimed.
It was this total portrait of Mack Bolan which so intrigued Lt. Alan
Weatherbee of the Pittsfield homicide bureau and - though he had nothing to
base a case upon - the detective knew that The Executioner had descended
upon his town and that he was stalking another kind of enemy through the
underworld paths of Pittsfield. Weatherbee was shedding no tears over the
dead hoodlums - he would not have invested a nickel in a wreath for the mass