"Дон Пендлтон. The Iranian Hit ("Палач" #42) " - читать интересную книгу автора

You could feel the spiritual presence of the great men who had walked this
ground and done great things. The Washington Monument. The Lincoln Memorial.
The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, where Bolan had meditated on several
occasions long after the city around him slept. Yeah. To experience
Washington was to experience the essence of American pride and patriotism.
But there was another side of Washington that Bolan cared for not at all.
A beautiful city, sure. If you ignored the sprawling black ghetto that
surrounded the capital of this land of plenty. And that's exactly what most
people did. Washington is not so much people as a state of mind. The city's
only real industry is government, which employs nearly a half-million
civilian and military personnel: about forty percent of the area's work
force. And if it is a town of scenic parks and classical architecture and
monuments to a great past, then it is also a city of lies and deceit and too
many factions trying to buy too many pieces of democracy with a strictly
what's-in-it-for-me philosophy. A city where the tax dollar finances
wasteful bureaucratic nonsense, while the ghetto and the problems it
represents only grow larger, and the only things that go up are the taxes
and the bureaucrats' salaries.
Mack Bolan was not a cynic by any stretch of the imagination. Rather,
he was a realist. He knew that many good men and women worked hard, long
hours in the nation's capital to make this country a better place to live.
But they stood little chance of succeedding in any large sense. They were
outnumbered and outflanked by the bureaucrats and their red tape and the
many interests they fronted. Somehow the country functioned, the democratic
process worked, and sometimes decency and what was right did win out. But
not nearly often enough.
Bolan stayed as far away as possible from the fat-cat lawyer
legislators and what they were trying to do to a great nation. Col. Phoenix
was a man of direct action surviving in a complicated world. He did his part
away from sticky-fingered senators and silver-tongued diplomats. He cast his
vote in every election, and he hoped that enough people who felt the way he
did were doing likewise. In a democracy there is always hope. But he
generally stayed away from Washington proper unless his work called him
there.
It was calling now.
He sensed Carol Nazarour growing tense in the Corvette's bucket seat
beside him as he steered off Persimmon Tree, onto the road that fronted the
northern wall bordering General Nazarour's temporary home.
Nobody could have guessed what she had been through. Bolan realized
that this was a strong woman sitting next to him. As strong as she was
beautiful. Sure, he could see the strain she was under - the tightness
around the eyes and mouth. But she was keeping a stiff upper lip, too, and
he liked her for that.
There was no sign of the Datsun that the kidnappers had left behind. It
had probably been driven off by one of the backup team.
Bolan braked to the shoulder and killed his lights at the spot where he
had first seen the woman moving furtively along the wall only a scant twenty
minutes earlier. He turned in his seat to study her.
"How did you get out from in there?" he asked, nodding toward the
property. "It wasn't by the front gate. You looked like someone crashing out