"Дон Пендлтон. Doomsday Disciples ("Палач" #49) " - читать интересную книгу автора

repair when the crew' wagon crashed and rolled. He was far beyond
communicating.
Bolan placed a mercy round between the pleading eyes and took himself
away from there, retracing his steps toward the Caddy. He forgot about the
dead and concentrated on the living; he had won a battle, but the war was
still ahead of him, waiting to be won or lost.
And the warrior knew it could still go either way.
He scratched the surface here, but nothing more. If he wasted any time
on the follow-up, he might lose the grim advantage of surprise.
Hell, Bolan knew he might have lost his edge already. He certainly had
exposed himself, given the enemy something to think about.
So much for a soft probe in the hellgrounds.
He found the woman waiting for him in the car, a weary, drawn
expression on her face. He knew the feeling, sure: he carried it along with
him forever, like a millstone tied around his neck.
It was the weariness of death and killing, sanity's rebellion at a
savage, insane world.
Bolan felt it, a stirring in the cellar of his soul, and he put the
thought away from him. No time for hesitation now, no time for weakness.
The Executioner had found his war again, and he was blitzing on.

3

Twelve hours earlier, the man called Phoenix sat in a briefing room at
Stony Man Farm, watching images of murder march across the wall. He
registered the carnage, filing it away as he listened to Hal Brognola's
terse running commentary.
An idyllic beach scene, ruined by a pair of grossly mutilated bodies.
They were female once, but it was tough to tell anymore.
"Santa Barbara," Hal said "Suspect in custody. The freak says he was
trying to 'liberate' the girls from earthly problems."
The beach disappeared and was replaced by a fast-food restaurant. Walls
and windows were pocked with bullet holes, the wallpaper streaked with
blood. There was a body lying in the aisle, another slumped across a table
on the far left.
"Terre Haute, Indiana. A teenage couple opened fire on the lunch-hour
crowd. Five dead, twelve wounded. They turned the guns on themselves when
police arrived."
The restaurant was supplanted by a hectic street scene. An ambulance
was parked on the sidewalk, surrounded by patrolmen and pedestrians. Bolan
spied a twisted pair of legs protruding from underneath the vehicle.
"This is Reno, Nevada," Hal said, glancing at a note card in his hand.
"A college freshman stole the ambulance and ran it down a crowded block of
sidewalk. Told police he was teaching the sinners a lesson."
The real-life horror show continued, numbing the senses with a grim
parade of massacre and madness. A schoolteacher crucified and left for dead
in Lakeland, Florida. Seven killed in an arson fire that razed a Phoenix,
Arizona, convalescent home. A bloody shoot-out with drug-enforcement
officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Bolan felt the familiar tightness in his gut as he watched the grisly