"Дон Пендлтон. The Libya Connection ("Палач" #48) " - читать интересную книгу автора

those dead men aboard it. The hulk began to sink as Bolan watched.
Grimaldi held the Hughes in a low hover, directly over Bolan's head,
with the rope ladder dangling within easy reach. Bolan gripped the ladder
and began pulling himself upward from a sea made suddenly choppy by the
rotors. Grimaldi eased them away from there with a gentle increase of power.
The waters of Exuma Cay pulled away below him. The sea was a dark
turquoise blue, tabletop smooth again in the rising sun as if nothing had
happened.
Bolan preferred it that way.
He tugged himself up to the last rung of the rope ladder and hoisted
himself into the bubble-front chopper.
"More pestilence of fire, Colonel Phoenix!" beamed Stony Man's premier
flyer. "You nearly blasted me away from you forever."
"Should have ducked like I did," smiled Bolan. "You knew I was going to
thunder it."
"That I did," said Grimaldi, subtly maneuvering the controls as if the
whirlybird was a part of him. He glanced at Bolan through silvered glasses.
"You got wet. Anything else?"
"Yes and no," muttered Bolan. "The yes turned out to be a no, so to
hell with him." He pushed his damp hair back from his brow, unzipped the top
of his blacksuit. "To hell with anyone who comes between me and Eve. To hell
with them."
"Got you," nodded Grimaldi, well aware of the grim message in Mack's
soft-spoken words. "Just point me where you want me to go."

3

It was late afternoon.
Heavy draperies shuttered out the cool winter sunshine from the Stony
Man War Room. The only illumination was reflected off a screen that
dominated one wall.
Bolan had returned to Stony Man from the Bahamas a short twenty-five
minutes earlier. The lightweight Hughes, equipped with auxiliary fuel tanks
for distance, had sped them over reefs of sand and coral, then over the lush
tropical forests of scattered islands, at speeds of over 150 knots to a
government airfield outside Miami, Florida.
At this moment, Jack Grimaldi was ensuring that the F-14 Tomcat jet,
which had flown them to Washington from Miami, was readied for further short
notice.
Three people, besides Bolan, were present at the briefing.
Aaron Kurtzman. Hal Brognola. April Rose.
The screen was filled with the image of a male face. The visage was
highlighted by hard eyes and a scar down the left cheek.
Kurtzman's well-modulated voice supplied the data.
"Raoul Santos. Lenny Jericho's people found him doing life for a double
knife murder in Kingston involving the rasta drug trade. A contract job. The
wife and child of a government investigator were tortured before he cut
their throats. That was the only time he was ever caught. There's plenty
more, if you want to hear it. They call him "The Butcher.""
"How long has he been with Jericho?" Bolan cut in.