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

lead and never gave it a moment's thought?

The Service had been baffled by what Jackman was threatening. Why
would a man who'd been the only real beneficiary of that deal to arm
the coup plotters try to blow the lid off it? Why had he told a
prominent British newspaper editor of MI6's complicity in the botched
coup? And why that editor, Frank Hampson, a man whose links to the
Intelligence Service had been common knowledge for years, a choice of
mouthpiece that had led to the story being quickly blocked. Bad luck
on Jackman's part, or deliberate? Telling a brown-noser because he
wanted his intentions known by SIS? But what did he want, this man
enriched by decades of illicit dealings?

Packer finished his beer. The chilled amber liquid had been pleasant,
though watery. He rejected the barman's offer of another. He wanted
the clearest of heads this evening.

The file on Jackman was thin a few A4 sheets sketching suspected
involvement in international intrigues and criminality, but little hard
proof. The sort of bundle a graduate trainee would compile during
induction at Vauxhall Cross. For more than twenty years Jackman had
worked the rich vein of Africa's corruption, first gold and precious
stones, then tapping the richer lode of arms. The Angolan war had
bought him homes in Zambia, South Africa and Spain. Congo and the ANC
had helped him accrue property back in England under nominee names.
There'd been money laundering and sanctions busting. Wisps of
evidence. Not enough to convict, but possibly enough to frighten. It
was Sam's only card, but hardly an ace.

The skin crawled on the back of his neck, telling him he was being
watched. He turned his head slowly but couldn't see from where. A few
minutes later the maitre d' appeared in the bar.

"Mr. Jackman asks if you will kindly join him in the restaurant,
sir."

"Does he? Right."

Sam stood up without hurrying. He stepped past the Chinese screen,
pausing in the entrance lobby to glance through the glass into the car
park. A drab green Land Rover stood ostentatiously beneath one of the
floodlights, its occupants dressed in army fatigues. Fear rippled
through him, but he rebuked himself for it. This was friendly
territory he was on, not some madhouse like Iraq.

Harry Jackman didn't rise from the table as Sam approached, instead he
eyed him with an almost playful look. His bald head was red from the
African sun. His eyebrows were smudges on a fleshy face, angled
upwards into the middle of his brow, giving him the deceptive look of a
clown. He wore a short-sleeved cotton shirt with a thin stripe. Small