"Archer, Geoffrey - Sam Packer 02 - The Lucifer Network" - читать интересную книгу автора (Archer Geoffrey)

The car window was open, the night air still warm but with a freshness
not there during the day. Sam Packer wanted a drink. Something large
and volatile. But he knew to restrain himself this evening. At the
table Jackman would order the house red, because that's what he always
drank here. Brain glue, he called the stuff that came in a deceptively
plain bottle from the Cape. A year ago Sam's headache had been
memorable. This time he would limit himself to a single glass. There
was a deal to be struck. A man to be got the better of. A man who was
unprincipled and full of guile.

In his late thirties, Sam Packer had a strong, square face with a
chiselled chin whose determination was concealed by a close-trimmed
beard. He disliked facial hair but had grown it two years ago out of a
need to change his appearance. He had thick, dark hair and eyes that
seemed distant, yet recorded all they saw. He was a man women tended
to take an interest in.

He watched a Range Rover pull up and four men get out. White men with
the look of engineers here for the copper mines, he guessed. With
wives who tinkered with oil paints and did voluntary work at the local
school. The group made its way in to the restaurant, bantering
gently.

He knew that decades ago whites fell in love with this sultry
continent, never wanting to leave it, but his own experience had been
recent and the parts of it he'd seen had smelled of death. It was a
place where he didn't want to be, particularly for a mission like
this.

Headlamps swept round the car park, as a vehicle turned in from the
Kitwe road. Packer slumped in the seat. Was this Jackman already,
doing the same as him, coming twenty minutes early to check the place
out? He felt crazily jumpy tonight. Too much was hanging on the
outcome of this meeting. The halogen beams bounced round the potholed
parking area and died close to him. He raised his eye-line above the
door sill, enough to see out. It wasn't Jackman climbing out of the
vehicle parked a few feet from his, but a young and beautiful Zambian
couple. As they walked with the grace of gazelles towards the lodge,
they entwined fondly. He felt a twinge of envy. He pushed open the
car door and stood up.

Tall and straight-backed, he wore freshly pressed tan slacks and a blue
cotton shirt. He stretched to shake out the stiffness from his
shoulders there'd been little sleep on last night's flight from London.
The air smelled of some alien vegetation. Dust dry. It'd be December
before the rains came, according to the hotel porter who'd carried his
bags earlier that day. As he closed the car door and locked it, he
listened to the rhythm of the tree crickets.