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

of silver at his temples and a deceptively mild set to his facial features.
The Lieutenant looked up with an expectant grimace as the new arrivals
joined the clutch at DOA. "Don't you ever sleep, Barney?" he greeted the
Captain.
"When I can," Gibson growled. He elbowed his way forward and helped
himself to the coffee as Warnicke and Phillips exchanged grim smiles, then
the Harbor boss demanded, "Okay, give me the score."
Warnicke stared thoughtfully into his cup and quietly replied, "Joe
Fasco, Johnny Liano, Pete Trazini - all very dead, plus seven minor..."
The Captain interrupted the report with, "I had a talk with Fasco just
last week. Told him I couldn't tolerate much more of this. Told him to clean
his joint up or I'd close him down."
The two junior officers exbanged glances and Warnicke said, "Well it's
clean now."
"Best way to beat the mob is just leave 'em alone, I guess," Gibson
went on. "I been saying that for years. Leave 'em alone, they're their own
worst enemies."
A medic grinned and commented, "I was just reading something along that
line. A study of violent deaths by mobsters shows that most of them die at
the hands of their own kind."
"Not any more," Lt. Warnicke said. He produced a folded cloth from his
breast pocket, opened it, and placed it on the table.
Gibson leaned forward to glare at a metallic object which had been
wrapped in the cloth. "What's that?" he asked.
"That," Warnicke told him, "is a military marksman's medal."
"Aw shit," the Captain said.
"One of the dead hoods is Greasy Waters. We pried that medal out of his
fist."
It was an involuntary exclamation from Bill Phillips. "Mack Bolan!"
"You telling me that goddam guy is in our town now?" Gibson said
angrily.
"'It would appear so," Warnicke replied with a sigh.
Sgt. Phillips spun about and went rapidly out of there, making fast
tracks to his cruiser.
So Mack Bolan had come to town! And, all of a sudden, the pieces had
come together in the Brushfire cop's head.
The Brushfire Squad was a special police detail which had been
established for quick reaction against organized violence in this age of
growing political anarchy - it was, in a sense, a combat team which was
fully prepared to take up the defense of any threatened civic institution -
or so they hoped. So far their activities had been confined mostly to a
defense of their own police stations, but they had also investigated bomb
threats, arson cases, campus violence and a variety of other radical threats
against the city.
And if Mack Bolan's presence in town did not constitute a bonafide...
Phillips reached his cruiser and swung inside for a report to his
operations center. "This is Bravo Three," he announced into the special
radio net. "Possible Brushfire Alert, repeat, possible alert. I'm coming in
for conference."
He returned the microphone to its bracket and put the car in motion,