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

condition called personnel cover in the war zones - and Bolan meant to
invite it in.
He sent a single shot crashing into the windowglass. It shattered. The
Executioner held his position commanding the stairway and patiently waited
for the friendly atmosphere to come inside.
An agitated voice down below was announcing to other cautious
presences, "He's upstairs I guess, yeah, with a fuckin' cannon or something,
I don't know what. Lookit Joey there, just lookit 'im."
"Well where's Mr. Rivoli?" asked another quivering voice.
"I think he's upstairs covering Don DeMarco," the other one obligingly
revealed.
The Executioner smiled grimly behind his mask, and a two hundred pound
package of sudden death merged with the atmosphere of doom and moved
unhurriedly into the choking no-man's-land of that upper hallway.
It would have been much simpler, sure, if he'd just taken the guy while
he was down there at the gate. But simplicity was not the name of the game.
The idea was to show Big Daddy DeMarco how vulnerable, how utterly
defenseless, how hollow he really was.
And once the idea had sunk in that he had no one else to lean against,
then maybe. . .
Yeah, Bolan was betting his very blood on it. Don DeMarco would want to
lean with Mr. King.
And the Executioner would be content with nothing less.
It was not his idea of fun to terrorize a tired old man of seventy-two.
But Roman DeMarco, of course, was not any ordinary old man. With an iron
hand he still commanded an empire built of terror and intimidation, savagery
and murder - and he could yet turn out to be a formidable foe.
But Bolan would shake this whole damn town apart, if that was what it
took.
And he meant to pin a marksman's medal to Mr. King's forehead, whoever
and wherever he was. He meant to pin it there with a 240 grain Auto Mag
express.
But first... he had to rattle the house on Russian Hill.
He had to bag himself a tiger, and at the very foot of the throne. He
knew precisely where to look.

* * *

Sgt. Bill Phillips of the Brushfire Squad was speaking calmly into the
radio hookup with his Command Central. "Mark it Hotel Eight on the grid and
consider it a positive. It's the DeMarco place on Russian Hill, and if it's
not a full assault, then it's at least a probe of some type. He's got them
covered up with smoke and - belay that, it's no probe, round one of the
artillery war just started. Let's make it a ringer-dinger. Better get some
firefighting units up here also."
The voice of the Captain snapped back in a clear staccato. "We're
deploying on the grid. Give this character plenty of room, Bill, don't crowd
him. Now that's an order."
"Yessir." Phillips sighed and hung up the mike, then he smiled faintly
at his white partner. "What he means is, don't blow it," he said quietly.