"Дон Пендлтон. The Violent Streets ("Палач" #41) " - читать интересную книгу автора

Phoenix project, she had been handling the overt aspects of Able Team's
ongoing private eye business.
Bolan had the highest respect and affection for her.
There had been some physical substance to that mutual affection once,
lifetimes ago and far away, on yet another hellground. Bolan cherished the
memory of that brief encounter and relegated it to the untouchable,
urreclaimable past.
But he loved the lady, sure, in his way. And always would.
So the trouble was Toni in St Paul. The kid sister.
"Take your time, Pol," Bolan had urged his distraught comrade-in-arms.
"What about Toni?"
At the other end, Blancanales drew a deep, ragged breath before
continuing.
"She's been beaten, Sarge. Beaten bad. And... and raped."
The last word came out as a strangled whisper, but it rang in Bolan's
ear like the thunderous blast of close-range gunfire. Something turned over
inside him.
He regained control swiftly. No observer would have seen it slip away
from him. But his hand was white-knuckled as he gripped the telephone
receiver.
"Is she going to be all right, Pol? Is she in the hospital?"
Blancanales hesitated. Then his voice was low and clipped. "She was,
but I got her out of there. I couldn't leave her in there, Mack."
Bolan sensed something underneath his old friend's words, a tension
beyond the fury of an outraged brother. "You'd better fill me in, Pol," he
said.
"Jesus, Mack, I don't know where to start. Toni was already in the
hospital when I got word about... about what happened. I went right over,
and Jesus..."
Bolan waited for his friend to regain his composure and continue. Pol's
voice came back at him almost as a whisper. Bolan could hear the guy choking
on his pain as he spoke.
"I couldn't believe it when I saw her, Sarge. I mean, it looked like
she'd been worked over by two or three guys, not just one..." He hesitated
again, then forged ahead. "Hell, I've seen worse. We both have, hundreds of
times. But it's different when it hits close to home. Very different."
And sure, the Executioner knew all about being hit close to home. Just
such a blow to the heart had inspired his original "hopeless war," and the
memories of martyred friends, the wounded and the dead, stretched out behind
him like milestones on a personal road to hell. Mack Bolan had made the
journey once, full circle, and he had returned to begin again.
Pol Blancanales was speaking to him, bringing Bolan back again to the
here and now.
"You should have seen her," he was saying, "all stretched out up there
in the ward, looking like death warmed over. I didn't recognize her at
first. My own kid sister, for God's sake. They had her hooked up to an I.V.,
and bandages all over - Christ, I thought she was dying."
"What did the medics tell you?"
"Lots of nothing. Abrasions and contusions, a mild concussion - you
know the routine, Sarge. She has hairline fractures on a couple of ribs, but