"Дон Пендлтон. Renegade Agent ("Палач" #47) " - читать интересную книгу автора

DonCo. Like at World Fi Cor, tortured hellground of one of Gadgets's and
companions most withering super fast hits, there would be little data kept
on paper here.
Hard intel would exist as a matrix of electromagnetic configurations on
a storage disk in the mainframe of the firm's computer.
To turn any of that into a video display, or a paper-copy printout, a
guy needed access to a terminal. For a start. Also needed: user code words,
file numbers, likely a number of other cross-references and number-groups.
Only then would the logic machineeabare its microchip soul to scrutiny.
If Gadgets Schwartz could get into Frederick Charon's office, into his
computerized crucible there, if he could tap in to the DonCo president's
personal terminal, if Charon's personal access data could somehow be
divined, then Stony Man Farm would be in the equivalent position
electronically of having a direct line to the man's innermost secrets. Just
like that.
Those are the secrets of a man actively involved in selling out his
country to the Hounds of Hell.
The drawers below the secretary's computer terminal were filled with
pens, paper clips, stationery, a dictaphone, couple of unlabelled tapes,
tools of a secretary's trade. The wastebasket beside the desk held a
lipstick-stained butt from a mentholated filter cigarette, nothing else. It
was the white leather-edged desk blotter that yielded pay-dirt. With the
exception of a few weekend dates, nearly every box in the blotter's calendar
insert held some sort of notation. At first glance they were hardly
revelatory of DonCo's darkest corporate secret, "Semi-mon. rpts due" was
penned in on the 15th; "Row pension-plan analysis" was scheduled for the
27th; a Middlesex County Commissioner had paid a courtesy call on the third;
the purchasing agent for a major retail chain would be in to see about
computers on the 30th.
Just what one would expect on the calendar of an efficient executive
secretary along with a careful note of the boss's absences. On the Saturday
a week earlier, Bolan read, "FC dep." Two days from the present, "FC ret."
That was the outline. Within the pages of the leather-bound appointment
diary, Bolan found chapter and verse.
On the previous Saturday, Charon had had reservations on Swissair,
leaving Boston's Logan International Airport at four in the afternoon,
arriving at Cointrin Airport in Geneva at 8:20 the next morning, local time.
Beneath that was a memo: "European appointments by private arrangement, next
eight days through Monday. No contact except per emer. procedure. Query
FRANCOFILE, stand. acc. cod every." Bolan paged quickly through the next
week. There was no further indication of Charon's activities or whereabouts
until the page for the next Monday, little more than twenty-four hours from
now. At 9:40 Monday morning, Charon was scheduled to depart Cointrin for
Heathrow Airport via British Airways, arriving 10:10 London time.
Exactly one hour and twenty minutes later, Charon was supposed to hop a
TWA flight back home to Logan.
On the same page of the appointment book, Bolan's penlight beam picked
out the reminder, "Brunch with Sir Philip at airport, 10:25, vip lounge."
For a guy headed from Switzerland to Massachusetts, London was a hell of a
sidetrip for the sake of quick meal.