"Дон Пендлтон. California Hit ("Палач" #11) " - читать интересную книгу автора

Bolan left the van and the excess clothing at the south corner, and he
came in with the smoke, over the fence and onto the grounds - a gas-masked,
black-clad, striding apparition of doom with a single idea in mind.
It was another numbers game, and he would have to hit and git with no
unnecessary messing around, or else he would have the law breathing down his
withdrawal route.
He crossed the garden-patio and lobbed a fragmentation grenade into a
choked and gasping babble of confused voices near the corner of the
building; under the cover of that explosion he kicked the French doors open
and moved inside with the Auto Mag at the ready. He left the doors open and
the smoke came in with him, moving quickly ahead of him and spreading
rapidly in an ever-extending blanket of cover.
Thudding feet and an almost hysterical panting signalled the approach
of at least two defenders from the front reaches of the house. Someone
nearby gasped, "Jeez, get over there and see if those doors are open! The
fuckin' place is filling up with smoke!"
Another voice cried, "Bullshit, what was that explosion? I ain't going
out there until I know what..."
Then Bolan loomed up from within the swirling smoke, and the two gawked
at him in frozen immobility while the Auto Mag roared its throaty message of
massive destruction. The two gunners died on their feet while considerable
areas of their assaulted anatomy sought a place to settle from the
explosively expanding push of the big 240 bullets.
Bolan stepped over the bodies and went on toward the grand stairway, a
curving nineteenth century masterpiece of mahogany and marble.
Several someones up-above pumped a wild volley of shots along his path.
Again he gave voice to the impressive Auto Mag, in rapid fire, splintering
the vertical rungs of a railing up there and sending a fine cloud of
powdered plaster drifting along that upstairs hallway.
Someone up there groaned, "Gee-Zus Christ!" and the sound of scurrying
feet told Bolan that he had them on the run.
He was well along the stairs and feeding a new clip into the Auto Mag
when another guy came running in from the foyer.
The guy yelled, "Hey what?.." And then he saw the thing in black on the
stairway.
This one's reflexes were working better than the others Bolan had
encountered thus far, and a long-barreled .38 revolver was tracking up the
stairs and suddenly making a mess of the polished mahagony.
At that distance the guy should not have been missing, but Bolan made
allowances for an excited overeagerness, and he covered the guy's
embarrassment with 240 grains in the teeth. The gunner's whole head seemed
to cave in and fly away. Bolan continued his rush up the stairway.
Another revolver roared and a bullet buried itself into the wall behind
his head as he reached the top. He saw a door rapidly open and close at the
far end of the hall and - just beyond that - he spotted the window he was
looking for.
The lower edge of a brooding layer of cloud strata - the condition they
called fog in the bay city - was lying just above that window. Below it and
trapped, there was a densely churning atmosphere of chemical smoke - a