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

neighborhood would be sealed off - by police and fire equipment - and the
Executioner would be contained within a painfully small hunting preserve,
with irate Mafiosi turning every rock in a search for their most hated
enemy.
Yeah. So what the hell. It was what a guy could expect when he opened
with a wild card.
But it was the China doll who'd made the difference. Except for her, he
would have been free and clear before anyone had realized exactly what
happened.
Bolan was poised there, at the edge of hell, his senses flaring out
through the night in an intuitive search for the best road back.
And then she was there again, moving out of the darkness precisely as
she had done before, except that this time she seemed to be targeting
directly on the man in black and she was showing him a tiny automatic which
somehow managed to look large and menacing in that petite hand.
He allowed her to gaze into the bore of the greasegun for a second
before he told her, "You're not the enemy."
"Worse than that," she replied in a voice that almost smiled. "I could
be a friend."
He shrugged and said, "You've got about a second to decide which."
"That's your decision," she told him. "Will you follow me?"
Bolan hesitated for only an instant - to sample the atmospheric
developments about him - and it was all there, all the elements that could
spell entrapment, defeat, and the end of a highly important war.
It had been a good opener, sure. But only if the war remained open.
"Why not?" he said, in response to the girl's question. "Let's go."
She spun about and glided gracefully back through the synthetic
gardens, keeping to the shadows and moving surely along an arcing path
toward the far side.
Bolan kept her in sight, his weapon at the ready, and his instincts in
quivering alertness.
Whatever and whomever the China doll was, she was at least an unknown
factor, a variable. It was more than Bolan could say for anything else
awaiting him in that mist-shrouded night.
Sure, he'd follow her. To his grave, maybe.
But, then, all of Bolan's roads led inevitably to that same point,
anyway. Maybe this one would be a bit longer, a bit more scenic, than any of
the others presently available.
A guy had to follow his stars.
And somehow, for openers, this one seemed right. A China doll leading
him out of a synthetic Chinese hell.
But into where?
Bolan scowled, hugged his weapon, and followed his guide into the
unknown.
At least one thing was certain. He had drawn blood at San Francisco,
and soon it would be flowing in buckets - his own very probably included.
For good or for bad, another Executioner war was underway.

2
War Zone